i have not been motivated to write. at all.
there's actually stuff to write about. and i've been putting off.
i did get an email from that boy. and that was the start of the trip, so it comes first in coverage.
after i'd officially given up on hearing from him again. i was having the craziest day on friday. all the last minute prep before leaving town. i had made a list of about twenty things i had to do before working a store until close. another ten hour day.
i was in line, at the bank, and almost fell over when i saw his name in my inbox.
gigantic email. explaining that he's been going through some heavy stuff, and that he doesn't think it's fair to see anyone while he sorts things out.
it threw me off completely. it was a relief, in a way. i didn't do anything wrong. but still a bummer. and i was in front of a teller, fighting a meltdown, with tears filling my eyes. i made it to the front door of the bank, put my sunglasses on, and cried on the way to the car. once i got into the car, i lost it. ugly crying, reading the end of the email.
and all of the thoughts i'd been dealing with to that point switched gears into new and uncharted territory. and i thought it was funny that i had really given up on hearing from him. and was nervous to have a sixteen hour drive ahead of me, with new food for thought. but i was grateful to hear from him, at great length, explaining himself to me.
i was doing really well to that point. crossing everything off of my work checklist. i was on schedule. and the email threw me off completely, lost in thought and crying back to the city from delaware, after about a ten minute break of crying in the parking lot of the bank/beer store/cigarette store.
and lost in thought through blurry vision, i missed my exit for suck store, not even realizing it until i got to the city.
it meant more work, more driving, more racing around later in the day. aubree rode with me after her last day at her internship, to suck store, and back to work again, while i showed the newest guy how to close the store.
driving home after that, she said that we should leave that night. that i would be awake, that she would be awake, and that instead of trying to get something like a three hour nap before leaving at one, we could just pack and leave.
the thought made my stomach turn. sixteen hours of driving? getting in after being awake for 30 hours straight? could i even make it?
i told her that i wasn't saying no, but wasn't saying yes either. that we'd pack the car and see where we were. she hadn't packed a single thing, but she was completely packed within an hour. it blew my mind. her whole life in phila, packed in an hour? it took me longer to pack, and i just had clothes for two weeks.
she was done by 8. the car was loaded by 9. and we decided to go. we got showers, said goodbye to mike, and got into the car. i drove three legs, from 945 until about 4 am.
things got a little hairy at around 3. i was definitely getting tired, aubree was trying to nap to drive the next leg. my back was killing me from being in the same position for so long, so i was hunched up over the steering wheel, thinking too hard, and feeling too much, and being sleepsick. so when she woke up, and saw me driving like that, it freaked her out a little bit. she slammed a red bull and took over.
and i wrote for a bit, and had my cry. i'd been doing so well – i was actually proud of myself for holding it together for almost eight hours of driving and thinking.
once i didn't have to focus and drive anymore, i guess i just released it.
it's really over. and i let myself finish that sentence, in my brain, with a 'for now'. but the bottom line is that it's really over. and i'm glad that i already knew it, because it took a lot of the sting out of it.
i wrote him back across five state lines, in few minute increments. thought i lost the entire email at one point and got upset about that. but once i was home, and online again, i found that it had saved my draft.
once we got to the florida state line, we were both absolutely whipped. twelve hours of driving and a sunrise under our belts. awake over 24 hours at that point. it was wicked. but what's funny is that, before about 2 am, we were making fantastic time, but it felt like a lot of driving. and after 11 am, it seemed like it had gone by so quickly that we couldn't believe we were almost there.
we'd lied to mom and dad. we'd said we left at 145 in the morning, after sleeping, as planned. thinking we'd pull off a great surprise. we pulled into the driveway an hour ahead of schedule, and five hours before they were expecting us. we were bouncing and squealing excited to be home. screaming the last few songs at the top of our lungs on the way into our section of the city.
but the surprise was on us. mom was happy to see us, of course. and we got her to call dad into the house from mowing the yard, to surprise him. and he was happy to see us, too.
but we'd interrupted their cleaning and house prep for our arrival. and we hadn't anticipated it. so it was this strangely stressful surprise for them, i guess. they wouldn't let us help them. and from arriving, we were hyped up and from the driving we were cracked out, so we arrived exhausted and nauseous, but awake. and they kept telling us to sleep, but we couldn't.
we'd been home for an hour, and sat down at the kitchen table. looking at each other and communicating without words, making noises and cracking inside jokes. talking hood and laughing. it made me feel strangely self-conscious. because now aubree and i are so close and attached, i think that it probably freaks them the fuck out. they have to know what is going to happen next.
i actually felt guilty. i felt bad for giggling with her, and for having developed something like a secret language between us.
and things at home are very different. i knew that seeing the grandparents would be hard. and it has been. we went to see grandma a few hours after we got here, sleepless and unwell.
she's in the same nursing home other grandpa was in, where i spent so much time my visit last summer. i don't like that place. it's a jesus nursing home. there are creepy religious paintings everywhere. and a lot of sick old people. and sick people who are too young to be in a nursing home. it depresses the shit out of me. it's one step above a hospital.
when we walked in, my grandmother, who was not a religious person a few years ago, starting crying and praising jesus and the lord that we made it over and over and crying happy tears, and it made me really uncomfortable. she had surgery on her broken ankle, which is why she's there – for rehab and physical therapy. and she found out today (day three of vacation) that she can stay for two more months if she has to. so it looks like my time with her this trip will all be spent in that awful place. it sucks.
she's been doped up on oxycontin for years, but now it's mixed with percoset and something for her nerves, so she's not awake too much. and slurs when she is. it's not cool at all. and now she has no pressure to get better and get the fuck out of that place. and today, my grandfather's brother died after battling alzheimers for something like seven years.
so i think i get to go to a funeral on friday.
we finally slept that night. i've had weird dreams both nights i've been home, which is nothing new to me. but aubree's fan isn't working, and i spent the night sweating and tossing in a different bed. i guess i'm used to the (dis)comforts of my home.
but still, i slept twelve hours, which was much needed, and i woke up feeling mostly normal. visited grandma again. we had a pizza party for her, to bring some sense of happiness and normalcy to her in that home. and left from there to visit my dad's parents.
i was dreading it. rightfully so. grandpa of course had no idea who i was, but somehow remembered aubree. which surprised even her. and he slept most of the time that we were there. but when the two of them had our leftover pizza at their kitchen table, after watching dad help him into the kitchen, it got difficult.
he was somewhere else, mentally. and he said something about not wanting to be around anymore, because he is living a miserable existence. even though he can't tell you why he's so miserable. he knows that his mind is gone when he has tiny moments of clarity. and he's honest about not knowing who you are when you ask him.
i had to leave the kitchen, because i felt a cry building.
my grandfather, who favored me growing up, and made popcorn for us every night we stayed with my grandparents, is completely helpless, and is dying a shitty death. he thinks on a daily basis that he is in a ditch, either held in a cage, or just disabled and helpless. and that he just lays in a ditch waiting to be helped for hours a day. but he never even left his la-z-boy chair.
i can't imagine. i don't want to.
so i left the room, and held it together. but before that happened, grandma pulled a typical stunt.
i call her mean grandma for good reason.
we were sitting at the table, after a few loaded questions about my haircut when we arrived. and she said,
'now you'll never get a date with that haircut.'
what is so funny about it is that it's her same haircut. she's had it forever. i look a lot like her, which fucks with me on a daily basis.
so the fact that she said that to me? typical. and not cool.
my parents thought he'd think i was her when i walked in, remembering his wife before she was old, and thinking he was back in the 50s and 60s, which is where his mind is parked most days.
aubree and dad went to other grandparents' house to mow the lawn for them. mom and i rode home in my car. and i almost made it, driving back to the house, before i started crying. it caught her off guard. i didn't say anything, it was only quiet tears.
but we pulled into the neighborhood, and she asked me if i was crying. and asked why. and i told her that this happens almost every day, and that i'm crying because i'm sad. and didn't say more than that before we got back to the house.
this trip is just DIFFERENT. there is tension and strain and stress at home. mostly financial, between mom and dad. when dad is stressed, he takes it out on everyone else. he is once again the dad that i grew up with, and it's a royal fucking bummer. he was so cool for so many years, it was awesome seeing a dad that i never knew who was fun to be around. but now he's pissed and miserable, and is making it his job to make everyone else pissed and miserable.
i don't know how i will feel in two weeks when i'm back to work. i'm not supposed to be thinking about that right now, but i am.
this is a long trip for someone with nothing to talk about.
maybe tomorrow i'll actually get some sun. it blows my mind a little that i have yet to really be poolside relaxing. i'm losing days to nothingness already. but i've been pretty distracted.
and because i feel like everyone is watching me, i have cut my drinking back a bit. and with the exception of that first night, i haven't had to pop an ativan either. maybe i'm trying to let myself feel everything. i don't really know. but it's different.
i'm okay with the fact that i thought this summer would top last summer. and i'm okay with the fact that life doesn't work that way. what it means is that i don't think home is the magical answer. what it means is that falling and feeling so much before summer even arrived set me up for feeling this way now that it's been taken away from me.
what would i be if things were actually easy for me? what would i do if things were all good? how would i act if i had something too good to be true?
i'll consider myself lucky in some way, that it isn't so.
because when i drive back, days from now, it won't be with a yearning to return here the way it was the last two times.
it's like the spell wore off. in every possible way. i'm really wondering how i'm going to make it here for two weeks.
things will just be normal. level. no highs. and maybe without the highs, the lows won't feel so low. i'm back to that feeling of nothing. where i'm partly convinced that i don't really feel anything at all.
and part of that is because i came here thinking aubree would be staying.
but that first day we were here, she already said she didn't know how she could live here. that after a month, she'll probably be clawing the walls to get the fuck out of here. i don't want to ask, or talk about it really, because i don't want to pressure her inadvertently.
but i think she'll be back in phila in the fall. i think that, somehow, life became normal there for her. the pace, the activity, the independence, the lifestyle. the distance from parents who judge her, all day every day.
so i don't have the feeling i had that first day, when mom almost immediately said something about how i'm going to deal when she's not there. and i burst into tears while aubree told mom, 'there are a couple things we won't be talking about while she's here, mom.'
it hasn't come up again. and i'm refusing to think about it. and i think i'm only able to because i feel like i don't really have to. and the way that usually works, in my brain, is that i'll acclimate to being back alone, and be okay. and so if she does or doesn't come back up, it won't be as world altering as it felt like it was going to be when we left to drive here. or when i unpacked everything of hers from the car.
i just feel... nothing. and i'm going to embrace that for as long as it lasts.
purge. july 24th (technically).
i've done well not to write. it's helped keep my mind off of things, if only slightly.
this week was a bumpy one. i had two days at work that started off horribly, but ended well, working with kim and aubree one day, and aubree the other.
it's just crazy. the quinn-free workplace is better, i know it is. having to do her job isn't easy, i knew it wouldn't be. and if i could walk around without frowning, my life would be better.
the transition has been interesting. there's a great disconnect between me and the other employees at that store, but now that only two of the five are left, it doesn't matter much. and one of those two is allegedly on her way out.
i worked 51 hours this week. it was not okay.
the weather was also not okay.
it was a full twenty degrees hotter here this week than it was in florida, which is unfathomable. i biked in it. i walked in it. i worked in it. i drove in it. and my wall unit has been running for at least four days nonstop, with the inability to cool my bedroom below 84 degrees. the rest of the house? SAUNA. cold showers every time. sweating while getting ready. just miserable.
and dealing with work being so hot and broken ice machines in the sweltering heat was a problem i did not want to deal with. not at all.
i've got my work cut out for me. sounds like the perfect time to take a vacation, doesn't it?
because that's what i'm doing. one week after my last vacation.
one week from today, i'll be at my parents' house.
it is so unreal. i can't even imagine it right now.
i know it's happening, it has to. but i feel neither ready for it, or deserving of it, or that the timing is right.
my visit with the shrink the other day was all inclusive.
i talked first about work. because it was easy. it's how i roll when i'm seeing the shrink. easy shit first, tougher stuff second, worst for last.
this was the most i've ever cried in her office. which blows my mind a little bit. and she said she absolutely picks up on my depressed affect.
when i got into going home, the tears started. talking about not being ready to go. talking about the grandparents and moving my sister back. talking about all that idle time.
i am not ready for my sister to leave. admitting to the shrink that the past couple months would have been spent in bed if it wasn't for her dragging me out was a hard thing to say and i had to take my time because i couldn't talk through my tears.
saying that this will be yet another trip where i go home and feel great and don't want to leave and think that moving home is the answer and that i'm going to come back sad made me lose it, too. because i told her, because i know, that it's not the answer. but it always FEELS like it is. when i'm there. when i'm leaving there. it always feels so wrong to come back here. because i always will opt for the easy way. the quick fix. even though i know it's wrong.
it's why i bought lottery tickets on wednesday and friday this week.
and when i got to the stuff about greg? holy waterworks. i knew that going into it. and when i started telling her what i was going to talk about next, it started. and i told her about erasing everything. and i told her that i want closure, that i want to know what happened.
she warned me that, just because i ask him how he feels or tell him how i feel, to know that it doesn't mean i'll get an answer from him. that i need to be okay with not getting an answer. that i shouldn't expect him to tell me what happened. and that i need to be okay with moving forward without ever knowing.
and i get why she said it, because she is absolutely right. but at the same time, i thought it was interesting that she pointed it out to me.
and what's ironic is that, this morning, i decided that i don't have anything to lose. and i took the four or so sentences i wrote to him at 2 am last night when i couldn't sleep for thinking, and with a nudge from nina, sent it to him.
the most important line said something about taking five minutes to tell me what happened so i can learn from this.
and sixteen hours later? fucking NOTHING.
good thing we talked about it. because i was mentally prepared for this reaction, specifically. and yeah, it's still early in the responding window to think that it's not going to happen. but fuck all. FIVE GODDAMN MINUTES? i am worth five fucking minutes.
the hardest i cried while i was there was when i stopped talking for a second, and she said, 'look, tea. this is a huge loss for you.'
having someone acknowledge it was a big deal.
i guess that, to me, from the outside especially, it seems like anyone would think, 'it was so short lived. it isn't a big deal. what is her problem? she is crazy.'
but to have her acknowledge the loss? and say enough about why it's such a big deal? it meant a lot to me.
i told her about my looping thoughts. how i did my best to not talk to nina about it much when she was here. how i didn't write for that week. and how frustrating it is to feel this way in every lull, because it is the old me. that i don't want anyone to have such an impact on my happiness. that i want to be happy because i'm happy. not because someone else makes me happy.
it is how i was that i fight against becoming again. it is me reverting back to nature. my natural state of being. and that i know that it isn't good for me. that it leads to me beating myself up about stupid shit that i can't control or can't change. how i can't stop thinking about it. replaying everything. and not being able to figure it out.
and she said, 'you just have to make yourself stop when you start.'
i was really hoping for some magical answer. 'here... do ____ when you start thinking, and it will immediately stop'. not really like the worry book, but mostly like the worry book.
i admitted that i got off track with that, and that the worrying had come back. but that it really helped when i was doing it for a couple weeks.
seeing her is never a fun way to start a day. it's not how i want to wake up, and honestly, i dread going there most of the time. i don't want to cry. i don't want to do the work. and i don't want to talk about all of the stupid shit i think and feel on a daily basis.
but that day, once i got to work a few hours later, i felt lighter.
we talked about medication. i told her that i want to first ride out the nuvaring wave. make sure that hormones have left my body, but i don't know how long that will take. and then i told her that this depression seems completely situational. and that i don't want to take a pill because i'm dealing with specific problems right now.
and she agreed. and said that i am tough, because i made it through everything divorce related without it, so it seems like i wouldn't decide that i need it now. or that i don't need it now.
but that, at the same time, losing my sister as my biggest support here, there might need to be a cushion that keeps the lows from being so low that i don't want to get out of bed.
again, with the 'keeping an eye on it' thing. i'm fine with that. i'm more open to the idea now than i've ever been before. but it's only because i feel super weak. like i can't do it on my own, even though i was JUST doing it on my own four months ago.
everything happening the way it did has completely changed how i think of myself as a person. i feel weak. worn out. downtrodden. sad. lonely. alone. and the worst is yet to come.
i just wish i could go back (time travel theme much? can i say it again, with more feeling?) to march. before i met the boy who has fucked me up royally. before i needed my baby sister to pick me up and brush me off several times daily. back to the time when i was kicking my house's ass, fixing shit faster than anything. handling work. having fun. fucking boys i didn't care about. feeling good about myself. feeling strong. feeling good about my decisions. feeling like my life was on the right track.
feeling like i didn't want or need some boy in my bed next to me more than occasionally. feeling like i was solid on my own. feeling like i wouldn't want anyone around that much anyway. feeling like i needed a lot of space and time. being comfortable with who i have become. feeling like i don't want monogamy or a boyfriend or to be married in this lifetime again. feeling really good about myself. and not feeling all the feelings that sappy love songs dredge up, or all the breakup songs for that matter.
not having a problem focusing on work. not having a problem with eating a shit ton of shitty food that makes me feel gross. not drinking three beers a day, at a minimum.
i just want to go back and unfeel all of these feelings. to be the super fun, super happy, super carefree version of me.
how could this tiny fucking thing make me feel worse than i remember feeling in the days since i left ever? it's ABSURD. i'm willing to say, without really remembering now, that this is worse than the end when i was still with him. which was the worst. i'm getting a little more sleep than that. i'm smoking a little less than that. all that talking and going through it with him was the worst.
how can a failed first flight of a baby bird relationship hitting the ground and dying (without explanation) feel worse than a ten year relationship/seven year marriage dying from years of neglect and starvation?
it doesn't make any sense.
on the bright side, as just perfectly executed above, my memory is SHIT. and because i did delete, i won't remember most of this in a while. and all i have is this paper journal that i'll probably put in a bin, despite only having a third of it filled, just in an effort to start over, to look back at some day. not much of the details are even in there.
well, i guess i have this blog, too. but i really did a good job of keeping a lot of things out of it in an effort to not put alice in an awkward position. i did a good job until i started to struggle. really, more specifically, until i started to get angry and hurt.
i hate that i keep thinking that i was right, back in may. that when i said, 'i don't deserve this, this isn't what i have coming to me, karma-wise' that i was predicting this. i hate when my fears and anxieties and doubts are affirmed.
for a minute, i let everyone else tell me that i did deserve it. for all of those years of putting up with ever's bullshit. that meeting someone so wonderful was my karma.
and now i'm back to thinking that ever was in love with me and i broke his heart when i bailed on him, and that this is just a tiny fragment of the heartache he went through, what i'm going through now.
i get it, karma. it's cool. consider my ass sufficiently kicked. to undo a year's worth of hard work and stress and determination in a few short weeks is a gigantic setback.
but just like before, i'll do it again. with the assistance of many distractions.
it's almost three. i'm not even sleepy.
i did something so fucking horrible today that i can't even think about it or i'll lose my mind.
in cleaning off music files from kit's laptop and putting them onto my new one, i inadvertently cleaned off whatever files itunes uses to make playlists. i double checked all of the music files as i moved them, making sure i wasn't erasing anything, and making sure everything was moved as i went. it was a triple check system.
but when i opened itunes an hour ago, to fall asleep to my favorite mix, everything was gone. itunes was like, 'hey. buy music. you have nothing in here.'
i hadn't emptied the trash, so i was able to pull a file out of it regarding my library. but the music files didn't come with it.
so now i have a list on the lefthand side of itunes that tells me the names of all of my mixes. but every single list is empty. and itunes thinks it's hilarious to tell me to add a song to my playlist. on every single one.
all of it is gone.
ALL OF IT IS GONE.
tomorrow i'll start the amazing process of rebuilding every playlist on my new laptop the right way, by making folders. i needed to do it anyway. i just hope my ipod doesn't crash out on me in the meantime, because it is the only place where the playlists exist.
the laptop. man.
my sister, in the singlemost beautiful gesture ever, surprised me today in a huge way.
we spent last night, late, shopping for laptops online. i was looking for something under $400. trying to see the most i could get for the money. and spent some time justifying buying it before i go home, where i'll be in dire need of a way to write.
and we found this deal that was super sweet. $350 for a 300 gig. i had pretty much decided to get it in delaware, maybe even on the way to florida on our drive. i was trying to do mental math, how much money i'll need for the two week vacation. how i'll swing it. if i can afford it, all of that.
and this morning, i was cleaning the kitchen. and aubree went shopping for the party we threw for kim's birthday tonight. and i didn't realize how long she was gone, because i was up to my eyeballs in cleaning preparation. and she came home, we unpacked everything. got the kitchen finished, got showered, and went to get kim.
and we get back to the house, and she tells me to help her out by grabbing the stuff that was in the trunk.
and i was confused, but dumb as usual. and opened the trunk. and there was the laptop, in its box.
and i am nearly sure i tilted my head sideways, confused as hell. and it slowly started to filter down. and i looked at her, and said, 'what did you do?'
and she laughed. and smiled. and i said, 'aubree? what the FUCK did you do?'
and i started crying, of course. because that is what i do at any new stimuli in recent days.
and she hugged me and said it was the least she could do for letting her stay here all summer, and taking care of her, not making her pay rent.
my parents didn't even buy it for me. my BABY SISTER did. with her first paycheck, that she waited all summer for.
because that is just how fucking awesome she is. she said something about fixing my problems one at a time, the ones she CAN fix. and i jokingly handed her my phone and said, 'here. fix this one next,' referring to that boy.
and when i took the laptop box up to my room, and started pulling it out and unwrapping it, i was so overwhelmed i started crying all over again. and went back downstairs to hug her and thank her again.
it feels good to start fresh. i spent the entire evening tonight, while we all drank and talked and while pam played with aubree's hair at the slumber party, moving everything off of kit's laptop and my old external hard drive onto the new one. and then spent a lot of time going through all those old files and deleting shit i never want to see again, or that i never will need again.
i'm getting really good at deleting these days.
if only it was so easy to delete feelings. empty emotional recycle bins and trash cans.
purging.
cleaning house.
figuratively, literally. this is what i do. when my head is fucked up, i clean. if i don't clean a room, i clean myself. doing dishes, taking a shower.
things are getting pretty clean around here.
i'll close this out by putting this out there:
i really hope that with all this cleaning and deleting and purging, that my mind follows suit. that i can let go of the things that are holding me back.
that i can do all the things i did before that made me strong and independent.
this week was a bumpy one. i had two days at work that started off horribly, but ended well, working with kim and aubree one day, and aubree the other.
it's just crazy. the quinn-free workplace is better, i know it is. having to do her job isn't easy, i knew it wouldn't be. and if i could walk around without frowning, my life would be better.
the transition has been interesting. there's a great disconnect between me and the other employees at that store, but now that only two of the five are left, it doesn't matter much. and one of those two is allegedly on her way out.
i worked 51 hours this week. it was not okay.
the weather was also not okay.
it was a full twenty degrees hotter here this week than it was in florida, which is unfathomable. i biked in it. i walked in it. i worked in it. i drove in it. and my wall unit has been running for at least four days nonstop, with the inability to cool my bedroom below 84 degrees. the rest of the house? SAUNA. cold showers every time. sweating while getting ready. just miserable.
and dealing with work being so hot and broken ice machines in the sweltering heat was a problem i did not want to deal with. not at all.
i've got my work cut out for me. sounds like the perfect time to take a vacation, doesn't it?
because that's what i'm doing. one week after my last vacation.
one week from today, i'll be at my parents' house.
it is so unreal. i can't even imagine it right now.
i know it's happening, it has to. but i feel neither ready for it, or deserving of it, or that the timing is right.
my visit with the shrink the other day was all inclusive.
i talked first about work. because it was easy. it's how i roll when i'm seeing the shrink. easy shit first, tougher stuff second, worst for last.
this was the most i've ever cried in her office. which blows my mind a little bit. and she said she absolutely picks up on my depressed affect.
when i got into going home, the tears started. talking about not being ready to go. talking about the grandparents and moving my sister back. talking about all that idle time.
i am not ready for my sister to leave. admitting to the shrink that the past couple months would have been spent in bed if it wasn't for her dragging me out was a hard thing to say and i had to take my time because i couldn't talk through my tears.
saying that this will be yet another trip where i go home and feel great and don't want to leave and think that moving home is the answer and that i'm going to come back sad made me lose it, too. because i told her, because i know, that it's not the answer. but it always FEELS like it is. when i'm there. when i'm leaving there. it always feels so wrong to come back here. because i always will opt for the easy way. the quick fix. even though i know it's wrong.
it's why i bought lottery tickets on wednesday and friday this week.
and when i got to the stuff about greg? holy waterworks. i knew that going into it. and when i started telling her what i was going to talk about next, it started. and i told her about erasing everything. and i told her that i want closure, that i want to know what happened.
she warned me that, just because i ask him how he feels or tell him how i feel, to know that it doesn't mean i'll get an answer from him. that i need to be okay with not getting an answer. that i shouldn't expect him to tell me what happened. and that i need to be okay with moving forward without ever knowing.
and i get why she said it, because she is absolutely right. but at the same time, i thought it was interesting that she pointed it out to me.
and what's ironic is that, this morning, i decided that i don't have anything to lose. and i took the four or so sentences i wrote to him at 2 am last night when i couldn't sleep for thinking, and with a nudge from nina, sent it to him.
the most important line said something about taking five minutes to tell me what happened so i can learn from this.
and sixteen hours later? fucking NOTHING.
good thing we talked about it. because i was mentally prepared for this reaction, specifically. and yeah, it's still early in the responding window to think that it's not going to happen. but fuck all. FIVE GODDAMN MINUTES? i am worth five fucking minutes.
the hardest i cried while i was there was when i stopped talking for a second, and she said, 'look, tea. this is a huge loss for you.'
having someone acknowledge it was a big deal.
i guess that, to me, from the outside especially, it seems like anyone would think, 'it was so short lived. it isn't a big deal. what is her problem? she is crazy.'
but to have her acknowledge the loss? and say enough about why it's such a big deal? it meant a lot to me.
i told her about my looping thoughts. how i did my best to not talk to nina about it much when she was here. how i didn't write for that week. and how frustrating it is to feel this way in every lull, because it is the old me. that i don't want anyone to have such an impact on my happiness. that i want to be happy because i'm happy. not because someone else makes me happy.
it is how i was that i fight against becoming again. it is me reverting back to nature. my natural state of being. and that i know that it isn't good for me. that it leads to me beating myself up about stupid shit that i can't control or can't change. how i can't stop thinking about it. replaying everything. and not being able to figure it out.
and she said, 'you just have to make yourself stop when you start.'
i was really hoping for some magical answer. 'here... do ____ when you start thinking, and it will immediately stop'. not really like the worry book, but mostly like the worry book.
i admitted that i got off track with that, and that the worrying had come back. but that it really helped when i was doing it for a couple weeks.
seeing her is never a fun way to start a day. it's not how i want to wake up, and honestly, i dread going there most of the time. i don't want to cry. i don't want to do the work. and i don't want to talk about all of the stupid shit i think and feel on a daily basis.
but that day, once i got to work a few hours later, i felt lighter.
we talked about medication. i told her that i want to first ride out the nuvaring wave. make sure that hormones have left my body, but i don't know how long that will take. and then i told her that this depression seems completely situational. and that i don't want to take a pill because i'm dealing with specific problems right now.
and she agreed. and said that i am tough, because i made it through everything divorce related without it, so it seems like i wouldn't decide that i need it now. or that i don't need it now.
but that, at the same time, losing my sister as my biggest support here, there might need to be a cushion that keeps the lows from being so low that i don't want to get out of bed.
again, with the 'keeping an eye on it' thing. i'm fine with that. i'm more open to the idea now than i've ever been before. but it's only because i feel super weak. like i can't do it on my own, even though i was JUST doing it on my own four months ago.
everything happening the way it did has completely changed how i think of myself as a person. i feel weak. worn out. downtrodden. sad. lonely. alone. and the worst is yet to come.
i just wish i could go back (time travel theme much? can i say it again, with more feeling?) to march. before i met the boy who has fucked me up royally. before i needed my baby sister to pick me up and brush me off several times daily. back to the time when i was kicking my house's ass, fixing shit faster than anything. handling work. having fun. fucking boys i didn't care about. feeling good about myself. feeling strong. feeling good about my decisions. feeling like my life was on the right track.
feeling like i didn't want or need some boy in my bed next to me more than occasionally. feeling like i was solid on my own. feeling like i wouldn't want anyone around that much anyway. feeling like i needed a lot of space and time. being comfortable with who i have become. feeling like i don't want monogamy or a boyfriend or to be married in this lifetime again. feeling really good about myself. and not feeling all the feelings that sappy love songs dredge up, or all the breakup songs for that matter.
not having a problem focusing on work. not having a problem with eating a shit ton of shitty food that makes me feel gross. not drinking three beers a day, at a minimum.
i just want to go back and unfeel all of these feelings. to be the super fun, super happy, super carefree version of me.
how could this tiny fucking thing make me feel worse than i remember feeling in the days since i left ever? it's ABSURD. i'm willing to say, without really remembering now, that this is worse than the end when i was still with him. which was the worst. i'm getting a little more sleep than that. i'm smoking a little less than that. all that talking and going through it with him was the worst.
how can a failed first flight of a baby bird relationship hitting the ground and dying (without explanation) feel worse than a ten year relationship/seven year marriage dying from years of neglect and starvation?
it doesn't make any sense.
on the bright side, as just perfectly executed above, my memory is SHIT. and because i did delete, i won't remember most of this in a while. and all i have is this paper journal that i'll probably put in a bin, despite only having a third of it filled, just in an effort to start over, to look back at some day. not much of the details are even in there.
well, i guess i have this blog, too. but i really did a good job of keeping a lot of things out of it in an effort to not put alice in an awkward position. i did a good job until i started to struggle. really, more specifically, until i started to get angry and hurt.
i hate that i keep thinking that i was right, back in may. that when i said, 'i don't deserve this, this isn't what i have coming to me, karma-wise' that i was predicting this. i hate when my fears and anxieties and doubts are affirmed.
for a minute, i let everyone else tell me that i did deserve it. for all of those years of putting up with ever's bullshit. that meeting someone so wonderful was my karma.
and now i'm back to thinking that ever was in love with me and i broke his heart when i bailed on him, and that this is just a tiny fragment of the heartache he went through, what i'm going through now.
i get it, karma. it's cool. consider my ass sufficiently kicked. to undo a year's worth of hard work and stress and determination in a few short weeks is a gigantic setback.
but just like before, i'll do it again. with the assistance of many distractions.
it's almost three. i'm not even sleepy.
i did something so fucking horrible today that i can't even think about it or i'll lose my mind.
in cleaning off music files from kit's laptop and putting them onto my new one, i inadvertently cleaned off whatever files itunes uses to make playlists. i double checked all of the music files as i moved them, making sure i wasn't erasing anything, and making sure everything was moved as i went. it was a triple check system.
but when i opened itunes an hour ago, to fall asleep to my favorite mix, everything was gone. itunes was like, 'hey. buy music. you have nothing in here.'
i hadn't emptied the trash, so i was able to pull a file out of it regarding my library. but the music files didn't come with it.
so now i have a list on the lefthand side of itunes that tells me the names of all of my mixes. but every single list is empty. and itunes thinks it's hilarious to tell me to add a song to my playlist. on every single one.
all of it is gone.
ALL OF IT IS GONE.
tomorrow i'll start the amazing process of rebuilding every playlist on my new laptop the right way, by making folders. i needed to do it anyway. i just hope my ipod doesn't crash out on me in the meantime, because it is the only place where the playlists exist.
the laptop. man.
my sister, in the singlemost beautiful gesture ever, surprised me today in a huge way.
we spent last night, late, shopping for laptops online. i was looking for something under $400. trying to see the most i could get for the money. and spent some time justifying buying it before i go home, where i'll be in dire need of a way to write.
and we found this deal that was super sweet. $350 for a 300 gig. i had pretty much decided to get it in delaware, maybe even on the way to florida on our drive. i was trying to do mental math, how much money i'll need for the two week vacation. how i'll swing it. if i can afford it, all of that.
and this morning, i was cleaning the kitchen. and aubree went shopping for the party we threw for kim's birthday tonight. and i didn't realize how long she was gone, because i was up to my eyeballs in cleaning preparation. and she came home, we unpacked everything. got the kitchen finished, got showered, and went to get kim.
and we get back to the house, and she tells me to help her out by grabbing the stuff that was in the trunk.
and i was confused, but dumb as usual. and opened the trunk. and there was the laptop, in its box.
and i am nearly sure i tilted my head sideways, confused as hell. and it slowly started to filter down. and i looked at her, and said, 'what did you do?'
and she laughed. and smiled. and i said, 'aubree? what the FUCK did you do?'
and i started crying, of course. because that is what i do at any new stimuli in recent days.
and she hugged me and said it was the least she could do for letting her stay here all summer, and taking care of her, not making her pay rent.
my parents didn't even buy it for me. my BABY SISTER did. with her first paycheck, that she waited all summer for.
because that is just how fucking awesome she is. she said something about fixing my problems one at a time, the ones she CAN fix. and i jokingly handed her my phone and said, 'here. fix this one next,' referring to that boy.
and when i took the laptop box up to my room, and started pulling it out and unwrapping it, i was so overwhelmed i started crying all over again. and went back downstairs to hug her and thank her again.
it feels good to start fresh. i spent the entire evening tonight, while we all drank and talked and while pam played with aubree's hair at the slumber party, moving everything off of kit's laptop and my old external hard drive onto the new one. and then spent a lot of time going through all those old files and deleting shit i never want to see again, or that i never will need again.
i'm getting really good at deleting these days.
if only it was so easy to delete feelings. empty emotional recycle bins and trash cans.
purging.
cleaning house.
figuratively, literally. this is what i do. when my head is fucked up, i clean. if i don't clean a room, i clean myself. doing dishes, taking a shower.
things are getting pretty clean around here.
i'll close this out by putting this out there:
i really hope that with all this cleaning and deleting and purging, that my mind follows suit. that i can let go of the things that are holding me back.
that i can do all the things i did before that made me strong and independent.
delete forever. july 19th and 20th.
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.
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.
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