well, i did it. i MADE myself do it.
turns out that this morning was the time to erase every text he sent since the beginning. and it turns out that tonight was the time to erase every email he sent since the beginning. and the lists. and the spreadsheet.
empty trash. delete forever.
it is like it never even happened.
it did. but it could all be false memories now. there is no proof that it was anything other than imagination.
it is time to move on.
and if i didn't do all of that purging, it would be just like the journals. sifting back, to remind myself of what i once had. what i lost. what i cannot let go of. what i feel like i can't overcome. to beat myself and torture myself with the 'where did i go wrong?' and the 'what did i say?' and the 'this is where i leapt, and this is where i hit the ground's.
it's over, because i made it so.
it turns out that being ignored twice was the last straw. i will NEVER understand how taking two seconds to respond 'no' or 'i can't' or 'i don't want to see you' or 'leave me alone' is too much to ask. but it just is with him.
part of me thinks that now, since i've done this, something crazy will happen. but every other strand inside of me tells me that i did the right thing, because nothing was going to change otherwise.
i outgrew waiting. and what i felt means more to me than what he didn't ultimately feel for me. so i'm cutting my losses. correction: i'm TRYING to.
it won't take away the things that i committed to memory. the things i wish i could forget. the things that will take years to forget, at worst, or a few more weeks at best, until the next distraction comes along.
i wrote brownies twice, and think i worded things well, so i'm pasting below the stuff that i don't feel like writing twice...
i am in a pretty dark place, and if i can figure out how to let go of the heartbreak, i will feel better. if i take control over my job and do what i need to do, i will feel better. but i have been popping ativan once daily for a while now, and am beginning to wonder if i need to be medicated (antidepressants), because i do not feel okay.
i guess i had a mental boyfriend, and am now experiencing a mental breakup. i think he's totally over me, and i am too chickenshit to put him on the spot and just ask. everything he does (well, doesn't do) is pointing that direction, and i'm having an impossible time trying not to think about him and all the things he said and wrote to me, that made me feel like this was something real that would last. everything that made me believe that it was safe to take a chance.
it's the biggest bummer. last night, falling asleep, i just kept thinking, 'i need to be alone'.
i can't handle the way i've been feeling lately. it has really sunk me lower than low. i don't know if it's just because it's the first heartbreak after the first time i made myself vulnerable, or if it is unrelated, or if it's just typical shit that i haven't felt in so long that it feels like a really big deal because it's foreign.
here's to hoping for some clarity on thursday at the shrink.
i just want to be happy again, and need to make myself that way.
those things from him that i got rid of were convincing me that it's all just a big misunderstanding, and that we will get back to being that way someday. it was giving me hope that i shouldn't have right now, not toward him.
so i got rid of all of it. and then emptied the trash, so there was no going back.
i feel like i say the same things over and over again. it's because i just cannot figure it out. and i shouldn't complain about it until i have answers, you know? this is all because i won't talk to him about it. because the couple times i have, i didn't get anything out of it, and felt like i was making him uncomfortable, even though he acted like everything was fine, and talked about everything EXCEPT what i was saying. i know he listened and understood what i was saying to him, because he was apologizing profusely, but he offered nothing to me in return, except 'i really like you, tea.'
which somehow made me tolerate another three weeks of being ignored, despite knowing better and feeling like i deserve more than this.
whatever. i don't want anyone to have that kind of influence over me. i should be grateful that i had that tearful happiness for a short time. a little taste. to know that it does exist. that i can be happy in that way, fulfilled.
but more than anything, it just makes me super sad to have glimpsed it and lost it so quickly. it felt like what forever would be like. turns out it's what like five weeks feels like, if that.
what a tool. i wish he was an asshole. then it would be easy to be angry and never look back. but his biggest fault is that he is a flake, or as nina says, that he doesn't follow through.
and after ALLLLLLL that communication in the beginning, then there was no more. but instead, he's a super sweet guy, who just doesn't get it. or maybe he gets it, but doesn't get me. or he gets me, and i just don't get him. it doesn't really matter at all.
it all seemed so perfect from so far away. a perfect fucking match.
but not up close. and not now.
oh, well...
i don't yet know what will happen if/when he decides to call me or ask me to do something. but i am done with being the one asking, and really can't fathom him doing anything of the like.
and i feel (again - maybe for real this time?) that the next time will be the time i can say something to him, because i kinda don't expect to see him or talk to him again, so it's not like every other time i chickened out, when i felt like i'd either scare him off or make him like me less by talking about things that would be unpleasant. that i'd risk losing the next time i could be spending with him.
i feel like i have nothing to lose now, only closure to gain.
and i guess that is what signals some kind of an end, right? the closure? i'm thinking that the answer is yes.
there was other stuff i wrote to her, but that's the gist of it.
hopefully i can put all of this behind me in two weeks when i go home.
i'll get excited about going home once i get work sorted. that's the biggest stress this week.
i fear all that time spent in the pool, where all i have to do is think.
i hate the discomfort. i've been in it for a while now. the one where no song is the right song to hear. no show is the right show to watch. everything feels wrong, including silence. it's making me absolutely sick. at least once a day, i feel like i need to throw up. luckily i hate throwing up enough to talk my stomach out of it. today it happened when i got into my car to leave work. i blame it on anxiety.
all i can do is try to drink and smoke and sleep through it. and i know that is wrong. but it is what is getting me by.
one day i won't feel sick when i pass that exit. one day i won't feel sick when i hear most of the songs i've had on repeat since may. one day i won't think about everything we talked about. one day i won't randomly burst into the sad variety of tears at a single thought that runs through my brain. one day i won't feel the loss anymore.
but that day is not today. maybe tomorrow. maybe a week or a month or a year from now. it feels, from the bottom, like it will be forever. but i know that isn't true. it was only a fucking month! and if it's about half lives, then this should be over by now, because it's been three months from the start, and only the first was good and worth the pain i'm feeling now. and how shitty that, in hindsight, i don't think it was even worth it.
some point between half life and a year ought to suffice. at least i have two weeks of shit, two weeks of home, and two more weeks of shit before everything goes back to normal at work, which coincides with the weather cooling, and everything outside quieting down, while everything at work goes back to being hectic craziness that i enjoy best.
i worked an 11 and a half hour day yesterday. and i was so close to finishing the day out, when the dj decided that the best song to play at that exact moment in time was wreckless eric's 'whole wide world'. i burst into tears, excused myself from the store, and had a cry. i was on my bike ten minutes later, riding home with aubree.
the whole time thinking, 'get bent, tax man.'
time. time will fix this.
that, and time AWAY.
this will be yet another trip where i vow to move home, thinking it will all be so much easier from there. like mom can somehow fix everything that i can't seem to fix on my own. that having aubree and my family and brownies and nina right there to lean on will make tolerating the heat totally worth it.
sell the house, take the money and run. start over.
i fear that as well. because i know i can't do it. but it always feels so easy at home. and all i want is something EASY.
my house got tagged while nina was here. i saw it for the first time yesterday, bringing in the garbage cans.
i hate my goddamn neighborhood.
and when i get like this? i just. want. OUT.
nina. july 11-16. july 17th.
nina was here.
i just dropped her off. and i guess it makes sense that i sat in the car, that moment of heat and stillness, with the windows up and the car turned off in the summer afternoon sun, finishing off 'wide eyes' by the local natives. getting physically uncomfortable.
went inside a silent empty house, straight up the front stairs to my room, where i turned and slid the bar lock that keeps my 1898 bedroom door closed, because the crystal handle doesn't catch the latch. turned my fan on high, cranked the wall unit, and got under the covers, grabbing blacktop for the first time in a solid week, aside from the occasional bank account balance check and weather report.
i was laying there, in my silent empty house completely alone for the first time in maybe ten days, with only the hum of the air conditioner in the background.
silence.
unsettling.
my brain has been going in a million directions for the length of my vacation. and for the days before that. it's constant noise, thoughts so loud i literally hear them in my head like i'm listening to a mix of songs in headphones.
maybe a tenth of the time i have a song stuck there, where i hear it playing while i do mindless things like taking a shower or doing the laundry.
i always find a way to fill the silence. even if no one else can hear it.
and occasionally when no one else can read the 160 characters bouncing off of towers through the sky from one place to another.
it's been interesting to walk around on a daily basis not using my face to express how i'm feeling inside. but they eyes. they never lie.
this week with nina was fantastic. amazing. incredible.
it was physically demanding. exhausting. delicious.
i feel happy. sad. tired. alone. quiet. stoned. pickled. sunned. depleted. relaxed.
i remember trying to recapture days following the last trip. spending time with someone means that you don't have time to write about your adventures with them. until days later, when the vacation is like a series of snapshots in my mind's eye. little snippets (of the... folk singer at 18) of places you went, food you ate, things you saw, the way you got there, the beer you drank, and floors you danced on. the beds you slept in.
nina is an incredible capturer. she takes a lot of pictures, unlike me, and has a fantastic memory, also unlike me. i always realize after the fact that there were a hundred pictures i should have taken, in an effort to remember it all months from now when we don't feel like this anymore.
my snapshots are already all mixed up. i can't remember which thing happened on which day, so this recap might not be entirely accurate. i'm doing my best.
that first day we walked. a lot. we took the bus to the science center, walked that. then we walked into the city, from one end to the other, up further away from the deserted streets below the city to the busy tourist-filled streets of the city proper. we learned science. we ate. we drank a beer. we shopped. we walked beyond the opposite end of the city to dinner with all the out of towners. and then took the train home.
the kicker of the day was finding a swank lunch spot, after walking up a block to smoke at nina's suggestion, and running into joey with a pretty girl and his dog.
i thought it was funny that the first person i ran into the city that day was one of four people who lives in this city that i have fucked, three if you exclude my ex husband. one point five million people live here. what are the chances? i thought it was ironic that she had a face and frame to attach to a name, five hours after hopping into my car at the airport.
after that happened, i became increasingly aware of people we were passing on the street.
dinner that night was loud, rowdy fun, until the check came. in an effort to move on and let it go, let's just say that i was sober when i left. we played scrabble on my bed before going to sleep.
the second day we walked even more. we walked up to south street, on a thrifting expedition.
we went to the magic gardens. in the eight years i've lived here, i've passed it fifty. the mood has never been right. every time i think of harriet the spy, and i have always wanted to go. but i'd never gone.
we decided to go. and spent an hour, safely, taking tons of pictures of everything inside. it WAS magical. it was a great way to wake up at ten in the morning. the sunlight caught in the glass, colored light reflected out onto glass tiles, to bounce infinitely in the narrow passageways that made up the space.
the juxtaposition of the gardens and trees against the city buildings in the background blew my mind. we were both so glad that we went.
we had lunch. we had a beer.
she picked the table that i sat at, on my first date with matthew.
we walked. we saw touristy shit.
nina had a beautiful moment in the park along the way, with her feet bare in the pennsylvania grass. tiny associations in her brain.
we walked and saw more touristy shit. the liberty bell in the drive-by three minute fashion. the outside of the mint.
we went to the cafe that serves the peets coffee i love so intensely. we were both feeling tired and in need of fuel, and sat in the air conditioning to talk and drink iced coffees before going back out into the oven that was center city.
and she looked at me, sitting at the cafe table, and said, 'you know it isn't you, right?'
and i shook my head, chin wobbling.
and i fucking started crying. big, warm, embarrassing tears. while miley cyrus played on the tv in the background. it was ridiculous.
thinking, 'no. i DON'T know that it isn't me...' and tried to put it out of my head to enjoy the next segment of my day.
we were passing all the places that create a billion tiny associations in my brain. good ones. bad ones. happy ones. sad ones. places i wish i could teleport back to, to the first time i was in them, creating the associations, just to relive them.
our second beer was in a bar in old city. some bar made to look old, where the lights kept going out. i chose the victory summer love, because it's a recent favorite, and because, subconsciously, it gives me hope.
we walked outside the bar and i caught sight of the bar across the street.
the bar from that first night, when i knew things were amazing, but hadn't yet kissed him. driving there, when i let chills run through me when he held my hand for the first time and we smiled at each other, slightly drunk on wheat beers, in the back seat of my car.
for a minute, it became hard to concentrate on conversation, but i snapped out of it, turning the knob on the associations down to a low hum in the back of my mind.
our dinner was in the italian restaurant ever and i found, which has the best fresh garlic pizza i have ever tasted. the real deal. and the second most incredible bruschetta i've ever had. the food was incredible. we had a great time, resting bags of thrift store finds on the booth seat. dazed and hungry, chatting the way two best friends do in a restaurant on a summer afternoon.
on the way there, i pointed out where i had seen ever that day when i sped past him and his girlfriend on my bike. she already knew, an accurate mental picture from her last visit here.
it was another amazing day of walking more than i can ever remember walking, probably most closely matched by days of walking in theme parks with nina in our college years.
the third day was the incredible bike ride.
it was about a twenty mile ride, along the river, from my old neighborhood up past the museums, past the grandstands where we watch the regattas. past the neighborhood where i set my first novel. up to the brewery for lunch and a beer. the photo booth.
biked back to the house to change and get ready for our 'spa day'.
things got a little crazy after that. trying to get seven people to one place in a hatchback. trying to carry on conversations down a row of seats six wide. it didn't work, really, and even though all of us had fun and enjoyed ourselves, it wasn't quite the mixing i had imagined, and it left me sad that there wouldn't be any more on this visit.
from there we clown car'd it over to no gringos for a fantastic dinner. for every day since that dinner, nina reminded me of how mind-blowing it was. i'm glad to have shared it with her. it was awesome.
and outside, smoking after eating with nina and kit, they got another cry out of me. tag teaming me, the way you want your best friends to. in a funny, loving way. the way that makes you laugh cry. cracking a joke at a critical moment. smashing my face between their boobs to make me laugh. which was better than last summer, when the best way to snap me out of it was to simultaneously punch me in the boobs.
stupid boy heartbreak hangups. and their mammary implications.
day four was the first of two 'flop days'. but on this flop day, we had to ease into the flop by first biking across the city and north, to a small pocket of yuppy shops and gastropubs. we shopped for a while, and landed in a bar i'd never even noticed before. and as luck would have it, there was a scrabble board.
so for the first time on our mutual vacation, we had two beers in one place. and split a huge basket of fries that i couldn't even help finish. anyone who knows me knows that i never let a fry go to waste... it was obscene. and WONDERFUL.
and we played scrabble. and for my daily cry that day, it came while playing devil's advocate. trying to focus on little lettered and numbered tiles. trying to strategize how to beat the one who always beats me in real life scrabble. it came when i said, 'i am glad it's happening now. because if i was six months in, i really can't imagine how i'd be doing...' imagining myself six months from now, fetal position in my bed, paralyzed and unmotivated to find the feeling again, to move.
vacation was like having a really long weekend. lately, my weekends have become this dreaded thing. open free time to worry and obsess and cry and overthink. before nina arrived, i was terrified of the time off. as wonderful as vacation should be (and IS), i was afraid to not have additional distractions. daily rituals. the norm. slightly less alert, due to a slight caffeine decrease.
luckily, i was able to be relatively un-mopey. nina was the best distraction. funny, too... she was exactly like a personal trainer. literally and emotionally.
breaking the cycle of bedridden weekends wasn't easy for me. but nina was the reason to not lay around, and she pushed me further than i intended to go. and at the end of each day, i felt better for doing all those things. exhausted, but better. getting all that exercise, not wasting my time - maximizing it.
we rode bikes, came home after hitting trader joes and a salvation army and a cigarette store, and went back into the rooftop pool. it was also fantastic. wonderful. perfect.
and yesterday, day five, we went onto the roof when we woke up, for some early morning coffee-laced sunlight. again, amazing. instead of flop day, we decided on shop day. we'd learned of a thrift store in new jersey that was to be so totally amazing that i got over my innate hatred of new jersey and fear of driving there, and we headed over the bridge.
this trip didn't disappoint. first, in the getting lost sense. though nina luckily spotted the store when we passed it, unable to get to it from the road we were on. one right side lefthand u-turn later, we were there.
opening the door to the store sent us both immediately back to thrift store vacation we took in miami, which happened to be the same weekend ever proposed to me.
if it hadn't been so well organized, we would have been overwhelmed. but we shopped it like champs. like professionals.
about twenty minutes in, i got a text. i was so shocked by it that it honestly didn't register right away. an inquiry to how my vacation was going, and a note about how his week was going.
it threw me off my game for a minute, and brought more confused thoughts to my brain. but i swam through them, and stared at amazing finds for hours after.
and one heaping shopping cart full of clothes later, we were starting to max out, and decided to try everything on before finishing the rest of the aisles to thin things out. and realized that there was no dressing room.
what fucking amazingly huge awesome thrift store has an all sales final policy, and NO GODDAMN FITTING ROOMS??? so we did what any champions would do. nina decided we'd just make a dressing room. surely it had been done before.
we nabbed a sheet from bedding and draped it in a corner of the store between two racks, and tried things on in tandem as quickly as possible. and about four dresses in, we were busted. and they told us we couldn't do that, and to take it down.
so, being 30-something rebels, not our former 20-something rebel selves, we tried on one more dress instead of the rest of the clothes. and took the sheet down, trying to figure out where to hide and try on clothes inside the store.
and she saved the day a second time, in the little girls' section. between two round clothing racks, we draped the sheet, and took turns blocking the middle changing area with our selves and our heaping cart. renegade thrifters. guerrilla thrifters.
we did it. we tried on every single thing, and hung each other's rejects back up, and made piles of keepers to total later. we spent almost four hours in there.
by that point, we were starving and tired, and drove home to eat a cheesesteak. got slightly fatter, and grabbed beers and went to the rooftop pool for a second round.
again. lazy. amazing. warm. cool. breezy wonder. so great.
we changed and played a game of scrabble with aubree, made some food, got ready, and piled into the car to go dancing.
it had been a while. after an hour spent trying to figure out what i'd feel comfortable and cute wearing, i made it out the door. getting ready felt like work. nothing felt right. it was all the inner dialogue, playing itself out in how i presented myself to the world at night.
once i was there, i was fine. i'd beaconed out invitations for group drinks, unanswered. so i expected nothing. but i'd be lying if i said that i wasn't wishing for something back.
and we daaaaaaanced. and it was fantastic. not like the other ill fated nights when we found ourselves in clubs with music that wasn't right and an age group that made us feel even more grandmotherly. everything was great. even the sufficient buzz i achieved off of three beers.
and we closed the place down at 2, and went for late night dinner at the turkish place mike frequents.
smoked hookah, ate falafel and chicken and lamb (i tried it. and i LIKED it.), followed by a stupid amount of baklava. a very sugar crashed ride home later, i was the most tired i'd been at any point in the vacation, as i should have been at 430 in the morning, and passed out quickly.
slept in, woke up, nina packed up. we went to brunch at favorite bar, which was rough for me. i woke up panicked. nervous. anxious. sad. stressed. part work, part boy, mostly nina's departure. and sam was a little weird, as per the brunch usual. and i just felt really socially awkward and super uncomfortable. we had coffee and ate brunch. i nibbled off of hers, really. my stomach was jacked. i thought it would be another day of not being able to eat. but i nibbled.
* * *
and made the frozen indian food dinners i'd picked up at trader joe's and had dinner at i guess 8 last night.
and had a mini dexter marathon with aubree, because funkhauser had returned to homeostasis.
i'm still thinking about how i feel about homeostasis.
two more weeks of homeostasis. then i go home. and as happy as i am to go home, i'm dreading it.
when i go back, aubree gets left behind. it's been a rough morning today, thinking about everything i haven't had time to think about. but thinking about the fact that aubree only has one more weekend in the house is breaking my heart.
she made the last couple months tolerable. she takes a look at me in my broken condition, cracks a joke, makes me laugh, and either leaves the room i'm in or doesn't.
this house is going to feel dead without her breathing life into it. i can't think about it.
when i go back, my time will be split between pool days, beer afternoons, and ailing grandparents. it's going to be kinda fucked up. the combination of aubree and grandparents makes me not even want to go. i need to work on getting excited, making plans for the time that i am there, and try not to worry about the rest.
the fact that i just had a week off, have two back at work, and then two more off seems retarded. but that is the way the summer operates. this is when i have the time and ability to get up and walk away from work and not watch everything fall apart.
my dreams last night were strange. i can remember the one about ever. i think from writing about it last night, it worked its way in. him and his girlfriend, passing me on their way into my living space somehow, carrying a box of tampons, pregnancy tests, and things in a hospital 'patient's belongings' bag. it was like i caught them coming home from a trip to a clinic. the girl was ugly. ever looked like shit. i woke up from that dream feeling really strange. there were others, because my sleep was interrupted. i lost them, though.
i got up and got dressed today. made some coffee, enough for only one cup, because i made coffee only for me.
and when i felt like having a beer, i grabbed the apple instead. there is a fine line between not enough and just right, and an even finer line between just right and too much. today, somehow, i got it just right.
and now i'll kill a few hours watching soccer with aubree even though i could care less about soccer. i'll probably have a beer or three. and some snacks.
vacation is over.
in about seven hours, i'm going to have to lay down and try to sleep, because i've got two 445 mornings, tomorrow and tuesday, and a 545 on wednesday. right back to it, just like nothing happened.
my brain is flooded with all the thinking.
this week will be my best effort to try to stay afloat.
i just dropped her off. and i guess it makes sense that i sat in the car, that moment of heat and stillness, with the windows up and the car turned off in the summer afternoon sun, finishing off 'wide eyes' by the local natives. getting physically uncomfortable.
went inside a silent empty house, straight up the front stairs to my room, where i turned and slid the bar lock that keeps my 1898 bedroom door closed, because the crystal handle doesn't catch the latch. turned my fan on high, cranked the wall unit, and got under the covers, grabbing blacktop for the first time in a solid week, aside from the occasional bank account balance check and weather report.
i was laying there, in my silent empty house completely alone for the first time in maybe ten days, with only the hum of the air conditioner in the background.
silence.
unsettling.
my brain has been going in a million directions for the length of my vacation. and for the days before that. it's constant noise, thoughts so loud i literally hear them in my head like i'm listening to a mix of songs in headphones.
maybe a tenth of the time i have a song stuck there, where i hear it playing while i do mindless things like taking a shower or doing the laundry.
i always find a way to fill the silence. even if no one else can hear it.
and occasionally when no one else can read the 160 characters bouncing off of towers through the sky from one place to another.
it's been interesting to walk around on a daily basis not using my face to express how i'm feeling inside. but they eyes. they never lie.
this week with nina was fantastic. amazing. incredible.
it was physically demanding. exhausting. delicious.
i feel happy. sad. tired. alone. quiet. stoned. pickled. sunned. depleted. relaxed.
i remember trying to recapture days following the last trip. spending time with someone means that you don't have time to write about your adventures with them. until days later, when the vacation is like a series of snapshots in my mind's eye. little snippets (of the... folk singer at 18) of places you went, food you ate, things you saw, the way you got there, the beer you drank, and floors you danced on. the beds you slept in.
nina is an incredible capturer. she takes a lot of pictures, unlike me, and has a fantastic memory, also unlike me. i always realize after the fact that there were a hundred pictures i should have taken, in an effort to remember it all months from now when we don't feel like this anymore.
my snapshots are already all mixed up. i can't remember which thing happened on which day, so this recap might not be entirely accurate. i'm doing my best.
that first day we walked. a lot. we took the bus to the science center, walked that. then we walked into the city, from one end to the other, up further away from the deserted streets below the city to the busy tourist-filled streets of the city proper. we learned science. we ate. we drank a beer. we shopped. we walked beyond the opposite end of the city to dinner with all the out of towners. and then took the train home.
the kicker of the day was finding a swank lunch spot, after walking up a block to smoke at nina's suggestion, and running into joey with a pretty girl and his dog.
i thought it was funny that the first person i ran into the city that day was one of four people who lives in this city that i have fucked, three if you exclude my ex husband. one point five million people live here. what are the chances? i thought it was ironic that she had a face and frame to attach to a name, five hours after hopping into my car at the airport.
after that happened, i became increasingly aware of people we were passing on the street.
dinner that night was loud, rowdy fun, until the check came. in an effort to move on and let it go, let's just say that i was sober when i left. we played scrabble on my bed before going to sleep.
the second day we walked even more. we walked up to south street, on a thrifting expedition.
we went to the magic gardens. in the eight years i've lived here, i've passed it fifty. the mood has never been right. every time i think of harriet the spy, and i have always wanted to go. but i'd never gone.
we decided to go. and spent an hour, safely, taking tons of pictures of everything inside. it WAS magical. it was a great way to wake up at ten in the morning. the sunlight caught in the glass, colored light reflected out onto glass tiles, to bounce infinitely in the narrow passageways that made up the space.
the juxtaposition of the gardens and trees against the city buildings in the background blew my mind. we were both so glad that we went.
we had lunch. we had a beer.
she picked the table that i sat at, on my first date with matthew.
we walked. we saw touristy shit.
nina had a beautiful moment in the park along the way, with her feet bare in the pennsylvania grass. tiny associations in her brain.
we walked and saw more touristy shit. the liberty bell in the drive-by three minute fashion. the outside of the mint.
we went to the cafe that serves the peets coffee i love so intensely. we were both feeling tired and in need of fuel, and sat in the air conditioning to talk and drink iced coffees before going back out into the oven that was center city.
and she looked at me, sitting at the cafe table, and said, 'you know it isn't you, right?'
and i shook my head, chin wobbling.
and i fucking started crying. big, warm, embarrassing tears. while miley cyrus played on the tv in the background. it was ridiculous.
thinking, 'no. i DON'T know that it isn't me...' and tried to put it out of my head to enjoy the next segment of my day.
we were passing all the places that create a billion tiny associations in my brain. good ones. bad ones. happy ones. sad ones. places i wish i could teleport back to, to the first time i was in them, creating the associations, just to relive them.
our second beer was in a bar in old city. some bar made to look old, where the lights kept going out. i chose the victory summer love, because it's a recent favorite, and because, subconsciously, it gives me hope.
we walked outside the bar and i caught sight of the bar across the street.
the bar from that first night, when i knew things were amazing, but hadn't yet kissed him. driving there, when i let chills run through me when he held my hand for the first time and we smiled at each other, slightly drunk on wheat beers, in the back seat of my car.
for a minute, it became hard to concentrate on conversation, but i snapped out of it, turning the knob on the associations down to a low hum in the back of my mind.
our dinner was in the italian restaurant ever and i found, which has the best fresh garlic pizza i have ever tasted. the real deal. and the second most incredible bruschetta i've ever had. the food was incredible. we had a great time, resting bags of thrift store finds on the booth seat. dazed and hungry, chatting the way two best friends do in a restaurant on a summer afternoon.
on the way there, i pointed out where i had seen ever that day when i sped past him and his girlfriend on my bike. she already knew, an accurate mental picture from her last visit here.
it was another amazing day of walking more than i can ever remember walking, probably most closely matched by days of walking in theme parks with nina in our college years.
the third day was the incredible bike ride.
it was about a twenty mile ride, along the river, from my old neighborhood up past the museums, past the grandstands where we watch the regattas. past the neighborhood where i set my first novel. up to the brewery for lunch and a beer. the photo booth.
biked back to the house to change and get ready for our 'spa day'.
things got a little crazy after that. trying to get seven people to one place in a hatchback. trying to carry on conversations down a row of seats six wide. it didn't work, really, and even though all of us had fun and enjoyed ourselves, it wasn't quite the mixing i had imagined, and it left me sad that there wouldn't be any more on this visit.
from there we clown car'd it over to no gringos for a fantastic dinner. for every day since that dinner, nina reminded me of how mind-blowing it was. i'm glad to have shared it with her. it was awesome.
and outside, smoking after eating with nina and kit, they got another cry out of me. tag teaming me, the way you want your best friends to. in a funny, loving way. the way that makes you laugh cry. cracking a joke at a critical moment. smashing my face between their boobs to make me laugh. which was better than last summer, when the best way to snap me out of it was to simultaneously punch me in the boobs.
stupid boy heartbreak hangups. and their mammary implications.
day four was the first of two 'flop days'. but on this flop day, we had to ease into the flop by first biking across the city and north, to a small pocket of yuppy shops and gastropubs. we shopped for a while, and landed in a bar i'd never even noticed before. and as luck would have it, there was a scrabble board.
so for the first time on our mutual vacation, we had two beers in one place. and split a huge basket of fries that i couldn't even help finish. anyone who knows me knows that i never let a fry go to waste... it was obscene. and WONDERFUL.
and we played scrabble. and for my daily cry that day, it came while playing devil's advocate. trying to focus on little lettered and numbered tiles. trying to strategize how to beat the one who always beats me in real life scrabble. it came when i said, 'i am glad it's happening now. because if i was six months in, i really can't imagine how i'd be doing...' imagining myself six months from now, fetal position in my bed, paralyzed and unmotivated to find the feeling again, to move.
vacation was like having a really long weekend. lately, my weekends have become this dreaded thing. open free time to worry and obsess and cry and overthink. before nina arrived, i was terrified of the time off. as wonderful as vacation should be (and IS), i was afraid to not have additional distractions. daily rituals. the norm. slightly less alert, due to a slight caffeine decrease.
luckily, i was able to be relatively un-mopey. nina was the best distraction. funny, too... she was exactly like a personal trainer. literally and emotionally.
breaking the cycle of bedridden weekends wasn't easy for me. but nina was the reason to not lay around, and she pushed me further than i intended to go. and at the end of each day, i felt better for doing all those things. exhausted, but better. getting all that exercise, not wasting my time - maximizing it.
we rode bikes, came home after hitting trader joes and a salvation army and a cigarette store, and went back into the rooftop pool. it was also fantastic. wonderful. perfect.
and yesterday, day five, we went onto the roof when we woke up, for some early morning coffee-laced sunlight. again, amazing. instead of flop day, we decided on shop day. we'd learned of a thrift store in new jersey that was to be so totally amazing that i got over my innate hatred of new jersey and fear of driving there, and we headed over the bridge.
this trip didn't disappoint. first, in the getting lost sense. though nina luckily spotted the store when we passed it, unable to get to it from the road we were on. one right side lefthand u-turn later, we were there.
opening the door to the store sent us both immediately back to thrift store vacation we took in miami, which happened to be the same weekend ever proposed to me.
if it hadn't been so well organized, we would have been overwhelmed. but we shopped it like champs. like professionals.
about twenty minutes in, i got a text. i was so shocked by it that it honestly didn't register right away. an inquiry to how my vacation was going, and a note about how his week was going.
it threw me off my game for a minute, and brought more confused thoughts to my brain. but i swam through them, and stared at amazing finds for hours after.
and one heaping shopping cart full of clothes later, we were starting to max out, and decided to try everything on before finishing the rest of the aisles to thin things out. and realized that there was no dressing room.
what fucking amazingly huge awesome thrift store has an all sales final policy, and NO GODDAMN FITTING ROOMS??? so we did what any champions would do. nina decided we'd just make a dressing room. surely it had been done before.
we nabbed a sheet from bedding and draped it in a corner of the store between two racks, and tried things on in tandem as quickly as possible. and about four dresses in, we were busted. and they told us we couldn't do that, and to take it down.
so, being 30-something rebels, not our former 20-something rebel selves, we tried on one more dress instead of the rest of the clothes. and took the sheet down, trying to figure out where to hide and try on clothes inside the store.
and she saved the day a second time, in the little girls' section. between two round clothing racks, we draped the sheet, and took turns blocking the middle changing area with our selves and our heaping cart. renegade thrifters. guerrilla thrifters.
we did it. we tried on every single thing, and hung each other's rejects back up, and made piles of keepers to total later. we spent almost four hours in there.
by that point, we were starving and tired, and drove home to eat a cheesesteak. got slightly fatter, and grabbed beers and went to the rooftop pool for a second round.
again. lazy. amazing. warm. cool. breezy wonder. so great.
we changed and played a game of scrabble with aubree, made some food, got ready, and piled into the car to go dancing.
it had been a while. after an hour spent trying to figure out what i'd feel comfortable and cute wearing, i made it out the door. getting ready felt like work. nothing felt right. it was all the inner dialogue, playing itself out in how i presented myself to the world at night.
once i was there, i was fine. i'd beaconed out invitations for group drinks, unanswered. so i expected nothing. but i'd be lying if i said that i wasn't wishing for something back.
and we daaaaaaanced. and it was fantastic. not like the other ill fated nights when we found ourselves in clubs with music that wasn't right and an age group that made us feel even more grandmotherly. everything was great. even the sufficient buzz i achieved off of three beers.
and we closed the place down at 2, and went for late night dinner at the turkish place mike frequents.
smoked hookah, ate falafel and chicken and lamb (i tried it. and i LIKED it.), followed by a stupid amount of baklava. a very sugar crashed ride home later, i was the most tired i'd been at any point in the vacation, as i should have been at 430 in the morning, and passed out quickly.
slept in, woke up, nina packed up. we went to brunch at favorite bar, which was rough for me. i woke up panicked. nervous. anxious. sad. stressed. part work, part boy, mostly nina's departure. and sam was a little weird, as per the brunch usual. and i just felt really socially awkward and super uncomfortable. we had coffee and ate brunch. i nibbled off of hers, really. my stomach was jacked. i thought it would be another day of not being able to eat. but i nibbled.
* * *
and made the frozen indian food dinners i'd picked up at trader joe's and had dinner at i guess 8 last night.
and had a mini dexter marathon with aubree, because funkhauser had returned to homeostasis.
i'm still thinking about how i feel about homeostasis.
two more weeks of homeostasis. then i go home. and as happy as i am to go home, i'm dreading it.
when i go back, aubree gets left behind. it's been a rough morning today, thinking about everything i haven't had time to think about. but thinking about the fact that aubree only has one more weekend in the house is breaking my heart.
she made the last couple months tolerable. she takes a look at me in my broken condition, cracks a joke, makes me laugh, and either leaves the room i'm in or doesn't.
this house is going to feel dead without her breathing life into it. i can't think about it.
when i go back, my time will be split between pool days, beer afternoons, and ailing grandparents. it's going to be kinda fucked up. the combination of aubree and grandparents makes me not even want to go. i need to work on getting excited, making plans for the time that i am there, and try not to worry about the rest.
the fact that i just had a week off, have two back at work, and then two more off seems retarded. but that is the way the summer operates. this is when i have the time and ability to get up and walk away from work and not watch everything fall apart.
my dreams last night were strange. i can remember the one about ever. i think from writing about it last night, it worked its way in. him and his girlfriend, passing me on their way into my living space somehow, carrying a box of tampons, pregnancy tests, and things in a hospital 'patient's belongings' bag. it was like i caught them coming home from a trip to a clinic. the girl was ugly. ever looked like shit. i woke up from that dream feeling really strange. there were others, because my sleep was interrupted. i lost them, though.
i got up and got dressed today. made some coffee, enough for only one cup, because i made coffee only for me.
and when i felt like having a beer, i grabbed the apple instead. there is a fine line between not enough and just right, and an even finer line between just right and too much. today, somehow, i got it just right.
and now i'll kill a few hours watching soccer with aubree even though i could care less about soccer. i'll probably have a beer or three. and some snacks.
vacation is over.
in about seven hours, i'm going to have to lay down and try to sleep, because i've got two 445 mornings, tomorrow and tuesday, and a 545 on wednesday. right back to it, just like nothing happened.
my brain is flooded with all the thinking.
this week will be my best effort to try to stay afloat.
a dozen eggs. july 6th.
so there should be a roommate update post.
i showed the house to another person yesterday, a friend of a friend of a friend. and he was cool enough. he wouldn't be a bad choice. and realtor texted me that she knows someone else. and i just remembered that there is another email i got, that i need to respond to, from one of my customers at suck store. a friend of her daughter's, who is artsy and creative, that she thinks would get along well in the house.
and i grew a pair yesterday, and texted shaun about when he's coming to get his stuff, because he never bothered to respond to my text on sunday. i had prompted him to come by before garbage day, to get all of his trash out, along with everything else.
after the texting war where he mis-spouted pennsylvania renter's rights and eviction law at me, and the ten text response i sent back that shut him the fuck up, he had sent nothing. so last night, at around 6, i asked what time he would be by for garbage night. and because he's retarded, he said he didn't know how to take that.
so i asked when he's getting his stuff out, and asked if he expected me to take all of his trash out.
he was pissed, i know, but so was i. and said he'd be by after work. he showed up around 10 and was still there at 11.
but all of his trash went out. and i didn't have to touch it. if he hadn't been such a douche, and had put it in the kitchen, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble. but he didn't. so suck it, shaun. and clean up after yourself.
i am wiped out today. i really didn't want to get up this morning. i was awake last night anyway, but having to be awake to lock the door behind shaun and in case he needed to say something to me meant that i went to sleep a couple hours later than i had intended to.
the texting war with shaun the other day was epic. there was so much i wanted to say to him, because he really struck a nerve with me, but in an effort to keep the drama out of it, and hopefully get at least a little money from him, i didn't say anything i wanted to.
he was basically saying that our oral month to month lease was breached when i didn't give him fifteen days' notice before evicting him, that in pennsylvania, sheriff's sales happen all the time, and that he is allowed to deduct the money i'd make from selling the contents of his room. and that i had better not play hardball with him, because i'm not going to get what i want.
that i called him a liar and insulted him. that he's gone through enough and doesn't need my egotism. what the shit? and that if i go through something like this, he hopes i'm treated with more compassion and humanity.
MENACE. is he on crack?
i was so pissed at the whole thing, i had to slow myself down with aubree and work on a response together with her.
and explain the law he was misquoting, saying eviction starts on the 5th day of non-payment, and that i didn't want to drag him through that legal process. that the reason i waited so long was because he kept telling me he was getting money, and that i didn't want to kick him out. that i didn't 'evict' him (i was super careful to never use that word), and that i didn't call him a liar. but did say i can't believe him, and quoted back all the lies he told me about where and when i'd get money. and said if any of it was true, i'd have my money and he'd still be living there. saying that i'm treating him inhumanely is off point (which is a very nice way to put it - not at ALL what i wanted to say to him). and that if i ever go through what he's going through, that i hope a total stranger lets me stay in their house without paying a penny for a whole month.
what a fucking ASSHOLE.
that shut him up. and when i let him in last night, i said hi and said, 'so you're going to have everything out by thursday.'
i didn't really say it like a question. more like i was telling him. and he said yes, and that he'll call a charity to come pick up the furniture.
finally.
fucking a.
thursday night? party for him being out of my life.
i can't believe that i will never get that money. it's so unfair to be shorted $770. and to think about what i would do with that money makes me feel sick. maybe he'll surprise me. who knows? i am overusing the phrase (and have been for what seems like forever), but... i'm not holding my breath.
and yesterday, sometime around noon, i realized that i had just seen quinn for the last time. which is AMAZING. because i'm at suck store the rest of this week, and on vacation next week, i will not see her at work again.
how can i be so lucky?
once i realized that yesterday, my entire outlook changed. i was happy. i felt free. and yeah, she can still attempt to wreck some shit, but if she doesn't? the best thing to happen to this point in my summer: never having to see that horse again.
yesterday, i was done with work at 1. i had to drive all the way home from north phila in dead stopped traffic. once i got home, i did a little more work. and at around 3, i went up on my roof. and i stretched out in the kiddie pool. and flipped myself over dutifully, even coating my skin in a new layer of brown. it was amazing. i was mostly relaxed, except for all the thinking about that guy. i was happy to be up there. and i was there for over an hour before i grabbed a beer. had one, came in maybe two hours after i started. it was fantastic. i couldn't believe it was a weekday.
and then i went inside, and prepped dinner.
mom and dad surprised me with a grill on the 4th of july. aubree and i were going shopping for a few things, and they'd instructed her to use their credit card to pay for a grill. i didn't figure it out until we were almost to the store. she was talking to dad, and she gave me this look, and i realized what they were doing.
i'm not going to lie. i'm so excited about it. i almost had myself convinced that it would be worth it to just buy the thing. it's a big weber, and it has been on sale for a week now, for $90. i didn't want to spend my nina-vacation money on it. but really have been wanting a grill for a solid month now, and wanting to grill everything i eat for about a week.
so we got the thing, brought it home, and set it up on the 4th. but we had leftovers for lunch that day, and it ended up being late, and we were still full, so we didn't even use it on the 4th, which was the plan.
instead, we used it last night. i got all the trash out for garbage day. i picked up the house a little, nothing crazy. and then wrapped ears of corn in foil, and sliced up onions for a foil pouch of buttery goodness. and seasoned up the burgers and put a couple hot dogs on the plate for good measure.
it was quite the feast. and when we'd eaten all of that, i'd also set up s'mores. so once we'd crammed down the dinner, we had dessert. it was amazing.
i don't really know what else to write about. i had a lot of time in paper journal yesterday, thinking about what to say and do when i find myself sitting across from a certain someone. talking myself down, yet again.
it got to me last night. the last time i saw him, i think the reason it is imprinted as so rough in my brain is because he was physically distant. all i can do is dissect everything. and reassemble it in my head, and stare at it, trying to figure out what is missing, what's in the wrong place, why there are extra parts that don't fit, and missing pieces that the keep the whole thing from working.
all the metaphors - there are so many - are practically explaining themselves. the fishing one is the best so far, and i didn't even think of it.
one that keeps coming up, when i talk to nina about the situation, is the one about eggs and baskets.
and i've given it a lot of thought, and i think i know what happened.
i am so fluent in putting eggs in the wrong basket. particularly, ALL of the eggs in the wrong basket. i have done it my entire life, because i've always loved and learned wholeheartedly (and consequently - brokenheartedly).
and because i'm so aware of it, i'm actually very careful with my dozen eggs now. much more careful than i was before. i've spent the better part of the last year protecting these eggs, and not giving a single one away.
but when i met him, i was only a little skeptical. and felt it out, and i think i can say that i put a quarter of my eggs in that basket, within a week of talking to him. caution to the wind style.
and fuck me... when i met him? i think i handed over like half a dozen more. maybe more.
maybe all but one.
maybe eleven. fitting.
it wasn't all my fault. it's like he was telling me how safe the basket was, how it was lined to prevent breakage. how he really liked having the eggs in the basket.
but now, it's like i just watched him trip and fall. dropping the basket and nearly all of my eggs. breaking almost every last one of them.
and looking down in my hand? i've got like ONE left. and the basket now is all covered in yolk, not exactly speaking to the safety of the basket.
and it's going to start to stink soon.
i think that, after the coffee thing, i felt like my dozen was permanently half. i didn't feel like i had so many eggs to give away.
and finding someone again, who is so much better suited for me than he ever was? it was like being handed a replacement dozen to do with as i see fit.
and now, not even two months later? i realize that i have pretty much wasted the gift of replacement eggs that i was given.
and i didn't even realize it, until all were broken except for this last one.
i've got one good egg. and at least now i can see the basket for what it is. i'm holding onto this one. it's all i've got left. and i cannot give it away.
that was horribly cheesy.
sorry about that. i just keep thinking about how the shit all my eggs got into that basket so quickly, and how fragile a thing it is. and i can't help but wonder if i tripped him, or if he just stumbled on his own.
i can't tell yet if i'm kidding myself, or if i actually mean it. but i keep thinking that i'm not settling for him. that i'm not compromising, like kit is afraid i am. i keep thinking that i'm just trying to be patient and ease into this. i keep thinking that i'm just creating a little space with him, so maybe it doesn't hurt as bad.
i wrote before about the height i feel like i'm falling from.
but i think that this is the more important aspect: the difference between gaining faith in something i'd previously lost faith in, and now losing faith in it again, after believing momentarily? that might be the hardest part still.
what does it say about me that my faith is so easily shaken?
what does it say that i am so easily persuaded to have faith in something blindly? or glimpsing-ly is maybe the better word. after no time, either! i mean, i guess that's why, when it does ultimately work, it's okay that it's an instantaneous feeling.
and i want to believe that i have been skeptical enough to not just throw myself at the first thing that looks like something, to see if i stick to it. i want to use that little pile of boys i dated and fucked as some kind of a litmus test. like, 'see? i don't just fall for anyone. this is DIFFERENT.'
but is it? it doesn't feel like it, that's for sure.
shrink will have a field day with me, when nina leaves and i go back for my next visit.
i've become quite awesome at beating myself up. and have perfected the art of second guessing every thought i have.
i remember a time when i used to wish to be hypnotized to be in love with my husband.
you know what i wish for now? to just stop thinking. not in general. it would be a very specific hypnosis. completely boy-centered. just eliminate everything that makes me a headcase when it comes to relationships. either feel and enjoy, or don't. actually, no. just physically enjoy. nothing about feelings, please. all that thinking? overthinking? questioning? doubting?
fuck. that. noise.
i'm over it. i'm sick of reading what i write. i'm sick of writing it.
it's tired. if i was able to think clearly right now? i'd probably stop writing altogether for a while. wait to see what happens next, see what there is to say in a few weeks. because in the meantime, it feels like recycling.
i'm over it. same story in paper journal, too. same old shit. just a different date at the top of the page. and i think the number of written and unsent emails and letters is now approaching seven. which doesn't even include the one i'm tempted to write, right now...
i showed the house to another person yesterday, a friend of a friend of a friend. and he was cool enough. he wouldn't be a bad choice. and realtor texted me that she knows someone else. and i just remembered that there is another email i got, that i need to respond to, from one of my customers at suck store. a friend of her daughter's, who is artsy and creative, that she thinks would get along well in the house.
and i grew a pair yesterday, and texted shaun about when he's coming to get his stuff, because he never bothered to respond to my text on sunday. i had prompted him to come by before garbage day, to get all of his trash out, along with everything else.
after the texting war where he mis-spouted pennsylvania renter's rights and eviction law at me, and the ten text response i sent back that shut him the fuck up, he had sent nothing. so last night, at around 6, i asked what time he would be by for garbage night. and because he's retarded, he said he didn't know how to take that.
so i asked when he's getting his stuff out, and asked if he expected me to take all of his trash out.
he was pissed, i know, but so was i. and said he'd be by after work. he showed up around 10 and was still there at 11.
but all of his trash went out. and i didn't have to touch it. if he hadn't been such a douche, and had put it in the kitchen, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble. but he didn't. so suck it, shaun. and clean up after yourself.
i am wiped out today. i really didn't want to get up this morning. i was awake last night anyway, but having to be awake to lock the door behind shaun and in case he needed to say something to me meant that i went to sleep a couple hours later than i had intended to.
the texting war with shaun the other day was epic. there was so much i wanted to say to him, because he really struck a nerve with me, but in an effort to keep the drama out of it, and hopefully get at least a little money from him, i didn't say anything i wanted to.
he was basically saying that our oral month to month lease was breached when i didn't give him fifteen days' notice before evicting him, that in pennsylvania, sheriff's sales happen all the time, and that he is allowed to deduct the money i'd make from selling the contents of his room. and that i had better not play hardball with him, because i'm not going to get what i want.
that i called him a liar and insulted him. that he's gone through enough and doesn't need my egotism. what the shit? and that if i go through something like this, he hopes i'm treated with more compassion and humanity.
MENACE. is he on crack?
i was so pissed at the whole thing, i had to slow myself down with aubree and work on a response together with her.
and explain the law he was misquoting, saying eviction starts on the 5th day of non-payment, and that i didn't want to drag him through that legal process. that the reason i waited so long was because he kept telling me he was getting money, and that i didn't want to kick him out. that i didn't 'evict' him (i was super careful to never use that word), and that i didn't call him a liar. but did say i can't believe him, and quoted back all the lies he told me about where and when i'd get money. and said if any of it was true, i'd have my money and he'd still be living there. saying that i'm treating him inhumanely is off point (which is a very nice way to put it - not at ALL what i wanted to say to him). and that if i ever go through what he's going through, that i hope a total stranger lets me stay in their house without paying a penny for a whole month.
what a fucking ASSHOLE.
that shut him up. and when i let him in last night, i said hi and said, 'so you're going to have everything out by thursday.'
i didn't really say it like a question. more like i was telling him. and he said yes, and that he'll call a charity to come pick up the furniture.
finally.
fucking a.
thursday night? party for him being out of my life.
i can't believe that i will never get that money. it's so unfair to be shorted $770. and to think about what i would do with that money makes me feel sick. maybe he'll surprise me. who knows? i am overusing the phrase (and have been for what seems like forever), but... i'm not holding my breath.
and yesterday, sometime around noon, i realized that i had just seen quinn for the last time. which is AMAZING. because i'm at suck store the rest of this week, and on vacation next week, i will not see her at work again.
how can i be so lucky?
once i realized that yesterday, my entire outlook changed. i was happy. i felt free. and yeah, she can still attempt to wreck some shit, but if she doesn't? the best thing to happen to this point in my summer: never having to see that horse again.
yesterday, i was done with work at 1. i had to drive all the way home from north phila in dead stopped traffic. once i got home, i did a little more work. and at around 3, i went up on my roof. and i stretched out in the kiddie pool. and flipped myself over dutifully, even coating my skin in a new layer of brown. it was amazing. i was mostly relaxed, except for all the thinking about that guy. i was happy to be up there. and i was there for over an hour before i grabbed a beer. had one, came in maybe two hours after i started. it was fantastic. i couldn't believe it was a weekday.
and then i went inside, and prepped dinner.
mom and dad surprised me with a grill on the 4th of july. aubree and i were going shopping for a few things, and they'd instructed her to use their credit card to pay for a grill. i didn't figure it out until we were almost to the store. she was talking to dad, and she gave me this look, and i realized what they were doing.
i'm not going to lie. i'm so excited about it. i almost had myself convinced that it would be worth it to just buy the thing. it's a big weber, and it has been on sale for a week now, for $90. i didn't want to spend my nina-vacation money on it. but really have been wanting a grill for a solid month now, and wanting to grill everything i eat for about a week.
so we got the thing, brought it home, and set it up on the 4th. but we had leftovers for lunch that day, and it ended up being late, and we were still full, so we didn't even use it on the 4th, which was the plan.
instead, we used it last night. i got all the trash out for garbage day. i picked up the house a little, nothing crazy. and then wrapped ears of corn in foil, and sliced up onions for a foil pouch of buttery goodness. and seasoned up the burgers and put a couple hot dogs on the plate for good measure.
it was quite the feast. and when we'd eaten all of that, i'd also set up s'mores. so once we'd crammed down the dinner, we had dessert. it was amazing.
i don't really know what else to write about. i had a lot of time in paper journal yesterday, thinking about what to say and do when i find myself sitting across from a certain someone. talking myself down, yet again.
it got to me last night. the last time i saw him, i think the reason it is imprinted as so rough in my brain is because he was physically distant. all i can do is dissect everything. and reassemble it in my head, and stare at it, trying to figure out what is missing, what's in the wrong place, why there are extra parts that don't fit, and missing pieces that the keep the whole thing from working.
all the metaphors - there are so many - are practically explaining themselves. the fishing one is the best so far, and i didn't even think of it.
one that keeps coming up, when i talk to nina about the situation, is the one about eggs and baskets.
and i've given it a lot of thought, and i think i know what happened.
i am so fluent in putting eggs in the wrong basket. particularly, ALL of the eggs in the wrong basket. i have done it my entire life, because i've always loved and learned wholeheartedly (and consequently - brokenheartedly).
and because i'm so aware of it, i'm actually very careful with my dozen eggs now. much more careful than i was before. i've spent the better part of the last year protecting these eggs, and not giving a single one away.
but when i met him, i was only a little skeptical. and felt it out, and i think i can say that i put a quarter of my eggs in that basket, within a week of talking to him. caution to the wind style.
and fuck me... when i met him? i think i handed over like half a dozen more. maybe more.
maybe all but one.
maybe eleven. fitting.
it wasn't all my fault. it's like he was telling me how safe the basket was, how it was lined to prevent breakage. how he really liked having the eggs in the basket.
but now, it's like i just watched him trip and fall. dropping the basket and nearly all of my eggs. breaking almost every last one of them.
and looking down in my hand? i've got like ONE left. and the basket now is all covered in yolk, not exactly speaking to the safety of the basket.
and it's going to start to stink soon.
i think that, after the coffee thing, i felt like my dozen was permanently half. i didn't feel like i had so many eggs to give away.
and finding someone again, who is so much better suited for me than he ever was? it was like being handed a replacement dozen to do with as i see fit.
and now, not even two months later? i realize that i have pretty much wasted the gift of replacement eggs that i was given.
and i didn't even realize it, until all were broken except for this last one.
i've got one good egg. and at least now i can see the basket for what it is. i'm holding onto this one. it's all i've got left. and i cannot give it away.
that was horribly cheesy.
sorry about that. i just keep thinking about how the shit all my eggs got into that basket so quickly, and how fragile a thing it is. and i can't help but wonder if i tripped him, or if he just stumbled on his own.
i can't tell yet if i'm kidding myself, or if i actually mean it. but i keep thinking that i'm not settling for him. that i'm not compromising, like kit is afraid i am. i keep thinking that i'm just trying to be patient and ease into this. i keep thinking that i'm just creating a little space with him, so maybe it doesn't hurt as bad.
i wrote before about the height i feel like i'm falling from.
but i think that this is the more important aspect: the difference between gaining faith in something i'd previously lost faith in, and now losing faith in it again, after believing momentarily? that might be the hardest part still.
what does it say about me that my faith is so easily shaken?
what does it say that i am so easily persuaded to have faith in something blindly? or glimpsing-ly is maybe the better word. after no time, either! i mean, i guess that's why, when it does ultimately work, it's okay that it's an instantaneous feeling.
and i want to believe that i have been skeptical enough to not just throw myself at the first thing that looks like something, to see if i stick to it. i want to use that little pile of boys i dated and fucked as some kind of a litmus test. like, 'see? i don't just fall for anyone. this is DIFFERENT.'
but is it? it doesn't feel like it, that's for sure.
shrink will have a field day with me, when nina leaves and i go back for my next visit.
i've become quite awesome at beating myself up. and have perfected the art of second guessing every thought i have.
i remember a time when i used to wish to be hypnotized to be in love with my husband.
you know what i wish for now? to just stop thinking. not in general. it would be a very specific hypnosis. completely boy-centered. just eliminate everything that makes me a headcase when it comes to relationships. either feel and enjoy, or don't. actually, no. just physically enjoy. nothing about feelings, please. all that thinking? overthinking? questioning? doubting?
fuck. that. noise.
i'm over it. i'm sick of reading what i write. i'm sick of writing it.
it's tired. if i was able to think clearly right now? i'd probably stop writing altogether for a while. wait to see what happens next, see what there is to say in a few weeks. because in the meantime, it feels like recycling.
i'm over it. same story in paper journal, too. same old shit. just a different date at the top of the page. and i think the number of written and unsent emails and letters is now approaching seven. which doesn't even include the one i'm tempted to write, right now...
independence day 2011. july 4th.
within an hour of posting yesterday, i was in the kiddie pool on the roof. nina texted me, and i responded with a line about realizing that greg isn't boyfriend material right now.
it's a funny thing to realize at this point in the game. i mean, with joey, i knew the second i walked into his apartment. and with matthew, i knew that he'd be a good boyfriend, just not for me.
but it's a little unfair to think that he was for that first month, and to only realize now that he's not. it's not about loyalties. or compatibility. it's not about monogamy. it's about making time for me. he is just not going to do it. and for me to have a boyfriend? that is a necessity.
i'm choosing to believe that, if he was going to make time for someone, that it would be me. but he's not going to make time for anyone in a relationship sense. and that is the difference - this isn't going to be a relationship. it's just dating. it's a major bummer to realize that matthew made more time for me than greg is, and i'm so much more into greg.
what's okay about it is realizing that i don't need to be with anyone else instead, or be looking for someone else instead, though i'll be honest: i've been staring down the link to dating site on my toolbar. part of me wants the fun and excitement in my life.
i'm afraid of meeting someone else now. because this heartache is bad enough. and the fun is flirting with the line of not being worth it.
i think this is about a long term investment. or most likely, just longer term than this summer. i'm not ready to give up on him, even though i see a lot more heartbreak in my future. i'm really not happy about not being a priority, much less a top five priority with him. but i've accepted that this is how it's going to be for a while, if i decide to stay in this thing with him that lacks a title.
i don't know how i will handle the inequity. i don't know if i can. but i think i have enough information now to know that i'm not going to get top dollar right now, for my investment, and that i don't need to spend days and nights crying over the time i've lost to this point, much less the time i'm going to continue to lose, because i can't shake it off.
and i don't know if i can wait to cash in my stock. i know i need to wait the market out. and see what happens next, before realizing that i'm at the bottom and need to sell before i lose more ground. which could very well be where i'm headed.
i think that, out of the conversation, what i held onto the most was the next to last thing he said, 'i like you a lot, tea.'
and right after he hung up with me, instead of sending the email that i told him meant a lot to me, to get from him, he sent a link to an r.e.m. live performance of 'nightswimming', because i told him i want nightswimming right now. and michael stipe happens to be wearing a tee shirt in the video that says emotionally unavailable. i wonder if he noticed.
i also held onto the part where we were talking about golfing, when i said i really want to go because i've never been, and he said that we'd do that, because he loves golf and thinks we should go together. that he's into the fact that i'm into it.
and the part where he had me read the lottery numbers for him, while he checked his twenty tickets, and said, 'if i win, we'll join a country club. i can golf, and you can play tennis, or whatever you're into.'
it's those lines that get me.
i try to forget the part where i know he's around today, and that if he wanted to spend time with me, he'd ask. i said more than once, 'if you are back, and you have some time, let me know.'
that's the thing. let's have lunch. invite me over for ONE BEER. i don't need an overnight. i don't need an all day affair. i just want to see his face. and makeout. goddammit.
thinking he was perfect for me is a terrible height to fall from. realizing that he's not is a hard pill to swallow. and thinking that he could be, further down the line, when his time isn't so limited that he won't allocate some to me, is where i am now.
i wonder if the feelings will die out before i expect them to. i have a big head start, because of all the anger and sadness i've been channeling over him the past month. it will make it easier to cut him loose, if that is what i end up deciding to do.
independence day? i don't know about that. i feel like it's codependence day.
aubree had to remind me where i was and what i was doing last year.
a year ago today, she told mom about her girlfriend. a year ago today, i cried my eyes out when they had a breakup discussion in front of me, because of the way my mother treated her girl.
a year ago today, kit was in florida with me, and we went to my cousin's house to have a day of fun and sun and awesome pooltime and jetskis and beer and grilled awesomeness, before she flew back to phila.
it seems like an eternity ago.
last summer was so incredible. there were definitely some coffee-tinged dark spots, but a month ago, i thought this summer would top that one, because i'd fallen so hard for greg, and things seemed like they would never be bad.
and if i don't change my attitude soon, i'm going to blow the chance of that being a possibility.
i want things to turn around. i NEED things to turn around. and the only way that can happen is if i decide to make my own good time (thanks, nina) and get over not getting what i want.
this month will be a good one, i know. with things at work changing, and a week of vacation in a week, and two weeks of vacation once the month is over, it will be awesome. it's about to get better, i know.
i can't wait to have nina here, and today, i really kinda can't wait to go home in a month. i wish i was there now, hanging out in mom's kitchen, and being by the pool with family. celebrating independence without feeling independent.
but i am not. i am here. and it's time to act like it.
it makes me laugh at myself a little when i give myself these pep talks. because i can fake it long enough to talk to myself like that. but when it comes down to it? i'll be bummed out again in a few minutes.
the trick is to make the stretches of minutes where i'm tough get longer, slowly.
aubree and i are heading out on bikes to see what the city of independence has in store for us today. free things. a million people in the streets. it will be a good distraction for both of us.
i'm back to being all about distractions... so i don't have time to think about the stuff that is consuming my feeble little brain.
it's a funny thing to realize at this point in the game. i mean, with joey, i knew the second i walked into his apartment. and with matthew, i knew that he'd be a good boyfriend, just not for me.
but it's a little unfair to think that he was for that first month, and to only realize now that he's not. it's not about loyalties. or compatibility. it's not about monogamy. it's about making time for me. he is just not going to do it. and for me to have a boyfriend? that is a necessity.
i'm choosing to believe that, if he was going to make time for someone, that it would be me. but he's not going to make time for anyone in a relationship sense. and that is the difference - this isn't going to be a relationship. it's just dating. it's a major bummer to realize that matthew made more time for me than greg is, and i'm so much more into greg.
what's okay about it is realizing that i don't need to be with anyone else instead, or be looking for someone else instead, though i'll be honest: i've been staring down the link to dating site on my toolbar. part of me wants the fun and excitement in my life.
i'm afraid of meeting someone else now. because this heartache is bad enough. and the fun is flirting with the line of not being worth it.
i think this is about a long term investment. or most likely, just longer term than this summer. i'm not ready to give up on him, even though i see a lot more heartbreak in my future. i'm really not happy about not being a priority, much less a top five priority with him. but i've accepted that this is how it's going to be for a while, if i decide to stay in this thing with him that lacks a title.
i don't know how i will handle the inequity. i don't know if i can. but i think i have enough information now to know that i'm not going to get top dollar right now, for my investment, and that i don't need to spend days and nights crying over the time i've lost to this point, much less the time i'm going to continue to lose, because i can't shake it off.
and i don't know if i can wait to cash in my stock. i know i need to wait the market out. and see what happens next, before realizing that i'm at the bottom and need to sell before i lose more ground. which could very well be where i'm headed.
i think that, out of the conversation, what i held onto the most was the next to last thing he said, 'i like you a lot, tea.'
and right after he hung up with me, instead of sending the email that i told him meant a lot to me, to get from him, he sent a link to an r.e.m. live performance of 'nightswimming', because i told him i want nightswimming right now. and michael stipe happens to be wearing a tee shirt in the video that says emotionally unavailable. i wonder if he noticed.
i also held onto the part where we were talking about golfing, when i said i really want to go because i've never been, and he said that we'd do that, because he loves golf and thinks we should go together. that he's into the fact that i'm into it.
and the part where he had me read the lottery numbers for him, while he checked his twenty tickets, and said, 'if i win, we'll join a country club. i can golf, and you can play tennis, or whatever you're into.'
it's those lines that get me.
i try to forget the part where i know he's around today, and that if he wanted to spend time with me, he'd ask. i said more than once, 'if you are back, and you have some time, let me know.'
that's the thing. let's have lunch. invite me over for ONE BEER. i don't need an overnight. i don't need an all day affair. i just want to see his face. and makeout. goddammit.
thinking he was perfect for me is a terrible height to fall from. realizing that he's not is a hard pill to swallow. and thinking that he could be, further down the line, when his time isn't so limited that he won't allocate some to me, is where i am now.
i wonder if the feelings will die out before i expect them to. i have a big head start, because of all the anger and sadness i've been channeling over him the past month. it will make it easier to cut him loose, if that is what i end up deciding to do.
independence day? i don't know about that. i feel like it's codependence day.
aubree had to remind me where i was and what i was doing last year.
a year ago today, she told mom about her girlfriend. a year ago today, i cried my eyes out when they had a breakup discussion in front of me, because of the way my mother treated her girl.
a year ago today, kit was in florida with me, and we went to my cousin's house to have a day of fun and sun and awesome pooltime and jetskis and beer and grilled awesomeness, before she flew back to phila.
it seems like an eternity ago.
last summer was so incredible. there were definitely some coffee-tinged dark spots, but a month ago, i thought this summer would top that one, because i'd fallen so hard for greg, and things seemed like they would never be bad.
and if i don't change my attitude soon, i'm going to blow the chance of that being a possibility.
i want things to turn around. i NEED things to turn around. and the only way that can happen is if i decide to make my own good time (thanks, nina) and get over not getting what i want.
this month will be a good one, i know. with things at work changing, and a week of vacation in a week, and two weeks of vacation once the month is over, it will be awesome. it's about to get better, i know.
i can't wait to have nina here, and today, i really kinda can't wait to go home in a month. i wish i was there now, hanging out in mom's kitchen, and being by the pool with family. celebrating independence without feeling independent.
but i am not. i am here. and it's time to act like it.
it makes me laugh at myself a little when i give myself these pep talks. because i can fake it long enough to talk to myself like that. but when it comes down to it? i'll be bummed out again in a few minutes.
the trick is to make the stretches of minutes where i'm tough get longer, slowly.
aubree and i are heading out on bikes to see what the city of independence has in store for us today. free things. a million people in the streets. it will be a good distraction for both of us.
i'm back to being all about distractions... so i don't have time to think about the stuff that is consuming my feeble little brain.
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