I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign.

Everyone in my house is in bed. I'm sitting in the dark listening to "Synchronicity" by the Police. Whenever I hear any of these songs, I am instantly transported to 1984 and that old red house at 407 S. Chestnut Street, listening to Jim blast this album with that velvet picture of the devil on the toilet hanging on the wall.

At any given moment, some part of me is always in that house.

My family on Earth is so good to me.

[From a letter to a friend nearly a year ago--reflections on relocation.]

I don't know where to begin.

For the past couple weeks, in particular, I keep looking around thinking, "What the fuck has happened to my life?"  The first two days back in WV I cried constantly.  My mother settled into a chair with a tall glass of wine (with ice) and a bunch of cats on her lap to watch some nameless legal show and ignored me.  It was like being 14 all over again.

I feel homesick, although for what or where I really can't say.  Most likely I just feel homesick for one of my grandparents' front porches in the early 80s, when I had seen or experienced very little of the world and when all I needed was an extra five minutes to play outside before dinner or to finally distract my grandpa from his baseball game so he would talk to me instead ("Papaw, have you ever had a mustache?  How old were you?  How long did you have it?  Would you ever have one again?").  Obviously, I can't go back there.

And that leaves me here.

My friend came to see me.  Judith.  She lived in an identical apartment above me when I lived at 3333 W. Grace Street in Richmond, VA.  23221.  I met her shortly after I moved in.  One weekend morning I was unpacking and cleaning and whatnot, and waiting for my landlord to come and unclog my kitchen sink so I could move on with my day.  Suddenly my upstairs neighbor drained the dishwater in HER sink and my kitchen began flooding.  I threw on my flowery bathrobe and ran upstairs to plead with her to please, PLEASE plug her sink!  Just for now.  Her large dog (a boxer mix named Jojo to whom I would later sing, "Jojo left his home in Tuscon, Arizona for some California grass...") came charging and barking to the door.  After some delay, she cautiously peered out through her cracked front door.  She seemed nice but a bit reserved and more than a little startled by my dramatic, breathless appearance at her front door on a Saturday morning.

When she wanted to visit me upon my unceremonious return to the area, I warned her that I was staying at my father's and he lived a little off the beaten bath.  She said adamantly, "I will find you."  And she did, thank god.  Spending a couple days with her and watching her play with my daughter made me feel normal--like my old self for awhile.

This morning at 6am I stood at my father's kitchen sink eating a half sandwich with last night's slow roasted pork and surveying the landscape, and it felt good.

I can't say much for the events that have taken place in between Judith's visit and that sandwich.

I had a job interview on Friday.  At [a local mental health facility] in Clarksburg, WV.  It is located just feet away from the old hospital in which I was born, and it was a completely baffling experience.  The two women who interviewed me were as sweet as could be and incredibly informal.  Mary Sue and Peggy.  They stared at my resume and then up at me and said, "What brings you here from San Francisco?"

Oh, ladies.  If only I could succinctly answer that question.

The were puzzled as to why I had a PhD in psychology but no license to practice therapy.  At one point, one of them asked the other, "Did you see on her resume that...." The other one cut her off:  "I read it," she said.  "I read every bit of it."

They seemed to want to try to fit me in SOMEwhere in the organization and promised to talk to their HR to see what they could offer me.  "Honey, you might not even want the job after you see the salary," Mary Sue warned.  Possibly as much as $40,000/year less than I made at my last position.

Oh, Mary Sue, I want it.

I heard them talking about me before I was even down the hall.  "She's so nice!" was the main thing I heard.

I am nice.

My mother was dogging San Francisco as a place to raise a child.  "I hear frogs outside every night!" she bragged, as if that fact alone were enough to sufficiently make her point.

"Yes, but I could count every person of color in my high school on one hand and I can still remember all their names!" I countered.  "Because there were so few of them."

"We have the Mexicans and the Orientals here now," she offered.

Yes, it's true.  And if they're not picking our produce, they've opened a restaurant.  My friend Shannon tells me there is a popular Chinese restaurant here that keeps a large bowl of Doritos on the food buffet.  And they're very popular.  And everyone still finds it hilarious to joke that the chicken is actually cat.

To be continued.  Sorry.  I didn't even bother to edit this for typos as I usually try to do.  Stream-of-consciousness.  My household is starting to wake up.  Send.

Be careful what you wish for.

On Monday, Ivan and I were having a bad day.  We've faced some pretty serious financial setbacks lately, and the stress of them added to having a new baby is really...hard.

I have been considering whether I should leave San Francisco and return to the east coast.  The toughest thing about it is that Sophia and I would be returning alone.  Ivan would not be joining us.  But other than him, there really is very little left for me here.  Most of my friends are gone.  I have been feeling terribly alone and lonely and isolated for quite some time.  And the cost of living that I managed to keep up with before is killing me.

When I look at how my life has changed in the last 3 1/2 years for the worse, it all leads back to Sept. 18, 2008 for me.  I still can't believe how one man could take so much from me in one night:  my power, my self-confidence and self-worth.  I just can't find them again.  And finding them again while struggling for basic survival at the moment is proving nearly impossible.

I read a Postsecret postcard awhile back that made me weep in sharp recognition:

Anyway, back to the bad day on Monday.  I was anxious and distraught and afraid.  I sat outside on the front steps while Ivan was inside with his sister and Sophia napped in the bedroom.  I closed my eyes and wished for something to happen to provide me with clarity.  I was trying to figure out how I could leave the person I love--and my baby's father--in order to try to make a new life somewhere else.  And to make it even worse, I would not be leaving from a place of strength.  I would be leaving because I am fucking broken.

In my irrationality, I imagined that a natural disaster like an earthquake would absolutely fucking shake things up--help me put them in perspective.  Despite feeling a little superstitious, I wished for it to happen.  I closed my eyes and wished it intensely.  I felt desperate for anything that might help me make this gut-wrenching decision.

Ten minutes later I was inside changing the baby and arguing with Ivan again when the oven caught on fire in the kitchen.  Ivan and Natasha tried to put it out, but it only got worse.  I heard Natasha say from the kitchen, "Get out.  Get out now!" and I grabbed my baby and we were the first ones out the door.  The smoke filled up the house so fast that we couldn't even get a baby blanket.  Natasha was on the phone with 911 while smoke billowed out of our windows.  Approaching sirens screamed while I curled myself around Sophia to keep her warm and covered her ears from the noise.

I felt guilty for the wish I'd made.

I sat on a nearby stoop while a crowd of neighbors and other passersby gathered and stared.  Three fire trucks blocked the intersection and the firemen rushed in.  I felt miserable and afraid as I held onto Sophia and crooned softly to her.  In my mind I was asking myself:  "Is this it? Is it time to go?"  I saw Ivan looking at me and knew that he knew what I was thinking.

We are now safe and back in our house.  There was minimal damage, but the damage we did have has only added to our financial burden.  I'm not sure that the fire provided the clarity I wished for, but it did sink me a little further.

I feel weak.  And terrified.  And terribly alone.  Where is the girl who arrived here in 2005 with such courage and hope and a 'fuck-it-I'll-make-it-work-somehow' attitude?  I need her now.

Alone again or...

Yeah, said it's all right
I won't forget
All the times I've waited patiently for you
And you'll do just what you choose to do
And I will be alone again tonight my dear

Yeah, I heard a funny thing
Somebody said to me
You know that I could be in love with almost everyone
I think that people are
The greatest fun
And I will be alone again tonight my dear

* * *

The lost cause of words walks away with my nerves
'Cause I'm gay as a choir boy for you

* * *

You are so hot.
I would like to steal your digits
And I am so hung up on it
I would like to move away from it.

* * *

Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop
Talking to me

* * *

I want a bit part in your life.
A walk-on would be fine.
I just want a bit part in your life
(A bit part in your life)

I want a bit part in  your life
Rehearsing all the time
I just want a bit part in your life
(A bit part in your life)

Little more than a cameo
Nothing traumatic when I go

* * *

(You know who you are.)

With credits to Love, Two Gallants, Modest Mouse, Foster the People, and the Lemonheads, respectively.

What it's like

In September of 2008, I was raped on a date. I never told anyone. I mean I never told ANYONE. Not a doctor, or a therapist, or a best friend. No one. I was so embarrassed and ashamed this had happened to me, and I felt so stupid that I had not kept myself safe. I felt like all that money for all those fucking degrees ought to have been good for something, and here I couldn't even take care of myself. Normally so forthcoming and expansive, I kept my mouth shut. I didn't want to be told what to do or who to talk to. I didn't want to be asked any questions. I didn't want to explain. I just wanted to forget. Up until that point I felt like I'd been a fairly healthy woman with a fairly healthy sex life, and I was convinced I could maintain that through sheer will.

By the end of the same month, I had started to completely fall apart.

Anxiety seemed to ooze from my pores. I couldn't relax. I had recently started my first job and bought a car and suddenly I felt like I was losing control of everything. I couldn't sleep. I would be awake for three days straight. Not just awake, really, but AWAKE! I needed to talk, I needed to write, I needed to make things. Things to say were erupting out of me and I was unable to control them. I made greeting cards and little boxes. I started writing. I wrote all over my walls, in fact, and pounded out long missives on my computer in ALL CAPS because I WAS RUNNING OUT OF SPACE INSIDE TO PUT ALL OF THIS SHIT.

The lack of sleep made me wild-eyed and crazed, and the long commute to work (not to mention actual work) because impossible. The panic attacks started in earnest around this time, and they made me feel desperate and doomed and frantic. I had them everywhere--in my office, in my car, alone in my bed, in the shower. No place was safe.

I can remember driving home from work, my fingers clutching the steering wheel for dear life. I rocked back and forth furiously chanting:

"I'm sorry," she said, "I have nothing left to give."
"I'm sorry," she said, "I have nothing left to give."
"I'm sorry," she said, "I have nothing left to give."

One day on the drive home I felt so terrified to go home and be alone that I phoned ahead to Nannette and pleaded for her to let me come over as soon as I was back in the city. She told me I was welcome to come, and I fiercely held onto that as I drove. But by the time I got back to San Francisco, I was frantic again and couldn't bear to be around anyone. To her confusion, I told her I couldn't come.

Some nights she let me sleep on her couch because I didn't want to be alone.

I became obsessed with the Golden Gate Bridge. I needed to look at that bridge! I needed to see it, to drive on it, to read about it, and watch videos of people jumping off of it. I needed to know just how deep it was in the bay underneath. It felt important to know just how far down there was to go. I read, "San Francisco Bay is relatively shallow but reaches depths of 100 feet in some places." I had dreams about it. I dreamed of what it felt like when my feet left the side, and I dreamed of what I saw on the way down. I dreamed of the sound my back made when it broke upon hitting the water, and I dreamed of the light disappearing above me. I decided that the exact point at which I would jump off would be 98 feet deep, and I needed to keep that number in my head constantly. I wrote the number 98. I cut the corners out of books that showed page 98. I made a box I called "98 feet deep."

The awful part about it was that I didn't WANT to jump off. I didn't want to! It terrified and horrified me to think about it. But I was obsessed with it. My brain wouldn't leave it alone.

The days without sleep were punctuated by complete crashes. Depression and sobbing and apathy, days I called off work because I just could not function. After Nannette pleaded with me to see someone, I sent my doctor an email. All I could think to say was, "I'm going down fast." On my 32nd birthday, she had me come in for an appointment.

My doctor is wonderful, and she urged me to apply for disability and to see a psychiatrist as well as a therapist. I was getting in deeper and deeper shit at work, but I insisted to her that I could still work--didn't need the time off. I regret deeply that I didn't take her advice, but I was determined to hold on to the balls I was trying to juggle by the skin of my teeth.

Eventually, I got fired. I lost a lot of friends when they didn't understand what was going on or the decisions I made. I made a mess of relationships. I lost my baby.

These days I struggle with leaving the house, with seeing people. It feels like the only place I can be remotely safe is in my apartment, because the outside world is much too scary and unpredictable. The last time I tried to have brunch with a friend, I had to force myself to go. I threatened and begged and cajoled myself to go, and when I got home, my beloved bird was dead. A voice inside of me whispered, "I knew this would happen." It is a lonely existence.

I am taking medication now--slowly--and I have told exactly four people what happened to me. It honestly didn't occur to me until a couple months ago how all these things might be tied together. I'm sure I've told portions of my story in this venue before as I recounted my struggles with mental illness, but it has never been told in this complete fashion. I feel somewhat horrified as I type these words that now it will be OUT THERE and PEOPLE WILL KNOW and I CAN'T TAKE IT BACK.

But I needed to tell my story.

Scream

I wrote this message to a friend, and now I have adapted it for here, too. I orignally composed it as a private message because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by posting it here. Fuck it. I am so fucking mad.

* * * * *

I hate today. I was indescribably pissed off when I woke up and the sun was shining. I made the mistake of getting on Facebook and now I feel loathing for everyone. They're all going on with their lives and commenting on each other's cute fucking kids and saying inane shit like, "Is it Friday yet!?" You fuckers. My baby is dead. Fuck you and your fucking Fridays for the rest of your lives.

I realized this morning that I don't think I can go back to the clinic I was going to. They took good care of me, but I don't think I can sit in the waiting room with all the pregnant bellies. I don't think I can face all the women who were so kind to me and who congratulated me. I'll find another place to go for the remainder of the medical care I need.

Someone said to me, "This is a blessing in disguise," and I wanted to fire-bomb the world.

Someone else suggested that maybe next time I shouldn't tell people about my pregnancy so early, because now I have to clean up the mess of telling everyone. Fuck all the people who walk around keeping everything in hushed tones. I need to talk about shit and I would do it the same way again.

I don't know where to put all this. Where the fuck do I put this?

Someone wrote to me in kindness to share suggestions of how I should memorialize my baby, and part of it included taking pictures of all the things I bought for the baby and putting them in a book. Well, I didn't have anything for the baby. I had only bought myself things: prenatal vitamins and fresh fruits and vegetables and milk and maternity clothes and a nursing bra and passes to a community pool so I could exercise and a new bathing suit to go with it. Should I take a picture of these things?

Before I was pregnant I looked at Ivan's body with desire. When I was pregnant, I looked at it with wonder because of this life we were creating together. Last night when he stretched out across the bed I looked at it with fear. We can do terrible damage together.

I want to wrap all women that this has happened to in my arms and take away their hurt and keep them safe.

I want to scream when people say cutesy things about their miscarriages, like, "Today is my baby's two year angelversary." Maybe coating it in god and sugar and angels helps them, but it only makes me furious. My baby is dead. And I was revulsed when I had to pull her out of a blood-filled toilet still warm from my body and drop her in a jar. I will hear the sickening thud she made for the rest of my life.

I just don't know what to do with this.

We used to be three and not two.

I lost my baby at 3am yesterday morning, Saturday, March 19.

I had her in my bathroom. The pain was horrific and the scene was grisly. Most of the time I made Ivan wait on the other side of the door. I didn't want him standing in my blood or seeing and hearing the things that I was seeing and hearing. When I called his name he was through the door in a flash, folding me in his arms. The rest of the time he stayed outside, taking my instructions for what I needed and whom to call.

I want and need to tell my story of what happened in this apartment between 1 and 4am yesterday, but I don't know the right person or venue. I can't bear the thought of my friends who are mamas or mamas-to-be to read these awful things.

I can tell that she is gone. There is a terrible void where she used to be.

I feel such strange things toward my body. On one hand, it has been through so much in the last couple of days and I want to be gentle with it. But on the other, I feel betrayed by and angry with it. How could it fail to keep my baby safe?

I want to scream to the world that she existed. That she grew and fluttered in my body. That she was so important to us and already loved very much. That I thought of her nearly every moment, waking and asleep, and wanted to be a better person for her.

I have some irrational thoughts. Heroin addicts can shoot up while pregnant and still manage to have healthy babies. People can be unknowingly pregnant for as long as I was and longer and still manage to have healthy babies. Dogs can go off by themselves and burrow under porches and have healthy babies. But I--while taking the best care of myself that I could--managed to fuck it up.

I have some hateful thoughts, too. I wonder if the people who weren't happy for me before will be happy now that there is no baby.

I can sit and stare for hours at a time. I feel guilty if I smile at anything; my child is in a jar of alcohol in the bedroom. The grief and the anger come in tidal waves, and I am drowning. There just aren't enough tears in the world right now.

On the squelching of panic

I think I have always been under the impression that once you find a partner, you don't feel lonely any more. I should know already from experience that this is not true--that it's my own problem--but somehow I still seem to operate under this illusion. And it surprises me every time I encounter it.

I still don't know how to negotiate the boundaries of writing so much of my personal life in a blog that suddenly includes another person whose privacy has to be considered. And rather than deal with that or find a way through it, I have just not been writing, in general. And I miss it.

Horoscope

"Your life will soon lose all direction, which, considering how it has been going, should come as a vast relief."

On better

Somewhere along the way I lost the need to be better--to improve, to try, to embark on new personal projects. I can't seem to find that desire. I'm not sure how to get it back.

"There is no Naomi in view..."

"And my emptiness is swollen shut
Always a wretch I have become
So empty
And please, please don't leave me here."

Some of you have been asking where I've been and it warms the cockles of my cold, cold heart to know that I have been missed.

To tell you the truth, I'm doing well. I'm in a period of transition.

I love my new job. I really do. It's not like it's anything spectacular, but it's the normalcy of it that makes me happy. I don't dread getting up in the morning. I don't shake and cringe when my boss calls or stops by. No panic attacks. No tears.

I have been meeting a lot of new people and shedding cracks of light on parts of myself that have been hiding.

I have been taking stock. There are things I'm unhappy with and want to change, and I'm figuring out how to go about that.

I want to purge it all. I want all the weight of the things I've been carrying off of my shoulders.

A perfect example: In the closet of my office I have a bag of stuffed animals that I have been collecting since I was 16 years old. They're animals given to me by Chris or ones that we acquired together. I've loved them dearly for so many reasons--because they represented young love and hope and innocence to name a few. I haven't been able to look at them, but I haven't been able to get rid of them either.

The past is weighing me down.

When Nannette gently suggested it might be time to get rid of them, I welled up immediately. I think it's time for them to go.

I'm looking around all the signs of light and hope in my bedroom--a room which I've adorned with the things I love: lanterns, paper cranes, collage, words--and trying to pull out inspiration and the forms in which it comes.

I have two definitions written on my wall. One is for the word "desiderium": a yearning, specifically for a thing one once had, but has no more. The other is for the word "balter": to dance clumsily.

I'm ready for less desiderium and more balter.

Not so long ago, I mourned to a friend that the people who have loved me most and best are gone, and I don't know how to be. If I continue to lament this and to live in the past, then it will always be this way.

Part of the reason I stayed away from blogging, also, is because some of my thoughts on the things I need to let go of have the capacity to hurt other people--the last thing I want to do. As much as I love having readers, sometimes it's also a curse to have them. I've chosen to keep my thoughts private.

"She comes and goes most afternoons
One billion lovers wave and lover her now
They could love her now
And so could I..."

Progress

I used to take pride in oceans as if they were mine for pockets of coats/shirts. We wanted a kitchen with checkerboard floors when we were small enough not to know better. Now: I distance myself from visual depression. I only care about feeling overwhelmed. The sea means nothing more than boredom. I prefer gas stations. I prefer the freeway bridge. Butterflies left a long time ago. Now I just flap my wings. I only like linoleum. Progress. Using time up. You took me to the barbeque place with the bad lighting. I preferred it
to dining by the water.

- Molly Prentiss

Do you like fire? Are you free Saturday night?

So last night, my friend Roberta and I were talking before going to bed and were making plans to do something this weekend. She likes dance clubs (I hate them); I like bars (not really her deal). So I was throwing out ideas for activities on which we might be able to agree:

Bowling!
Roller skating!
Ice skating!
Bonfire!

At the mention of "bonfire," she said, "Oooh!" From the time I first learned of people having bonfires at Ocean Beach I have wanted to do this. We're each inviting friends. She's taking care of s'mores supplies, and I'm working on the fire bit. (A little bit daunting!)

I don't actually care who shows up--nothing sounds nicer than a fire on the beach under the stars.

It will also help occupy my restless, wandering brain that is my curse these days.

Once there was a girl

This has been a long time coming. I just didn't have the courage to tell the story before.

*********************

Once there was a girl who didn’t think she was worth very much.

She was a shy, introspective, and melancholy girl by nature, and probably destined to have self-esteem problems even without the things that happened to her. She had a very young, single mom. Her mom was lost and lonely and didn’t think she was worth very much, either. So she did things to make herself feel worth something—all the things that made her feel worth something involved men and drugs. The girl’s mom loved her very much, but when she was on drugs she didn’t care what her daughter witnessed. Even when it involved men. And more drugs.

When our girl was five, her mom got married. This is when the girl’s problems began in earnest.

Her shiny new stepfather tarnished very quickly. (If you ever want a nice case study of brainwashing and pure, unadulterated physical and psychological torture, you should study this man. He still remains the cruelest human being the girl has ever personally known.)

The girl and her mom were stuck. They were broke. They were powerless against him. Other people knew he was not a nice man. No one ever knew the things they went through. He was very creative and sly.

The girl wanted to ask for help, but she didn’t know the right words. She didn’t know how to say:

“My stepfather makes me feed myself cat shit while he watches and laughs.”

Or what about, “He grabs me by the hair and beats my head against the wall if I don’t pick everything up off the floor. And even when I pick everything up off the floor, he pretends it’s still there laying in front of me and beats my head against the wall because I say I don’t see anything there. So I pretend to see what he sees, and gather up imaginary pieces of what he sees in my arms while looking at him, hoping I have pleased him.”

How was she to explain that he made it a game to see how hard of a hit she could take without falling down? She was only a little girl, and it was impossible to withstand the full force of a grown man. So she was destined to be knocked down. And to get back up. Over and over again.

When you are little, it’s not easy to tell people your stepfather held a gun to your head while the police surrounded the house and your mother screamed. He wanted to be sure she wouldn’t leave, you see. Sometimes he even hurt their pets in front of them. (This was especially hard for the girl. She loved all creatures. Except locusts. Their sounds and shells terrorized her.)

The girl and her mother were required to recite specific sentences regularly in order to ensure their powerlessness: “I am a bitch. I am a whore. I am ugly. I am stupid. I am fat. No one loves me. No one will help me. I am a bitch. I am a whore….” When the girl started off saying these things, she knew in her heart that they weren’t true and that she was just saying them to appease him. But after saying them regularly, over and over, these words started floating through her head even when she was not being forced to say them.

The girl did the only things she could think of to cope. In kindergarten, she went to school with bruises under her clothes and locked herself in the bathroom and screamed hysterically when it was time to go home. She escaped to her grandparents’ houses whenever she could. She played outside from morning to night with the neighborhood kids as often as she could. When the neighborhood kids weren’t around, she found places to hide and explore with imaginary friends created for that very occasion. She took long rides on her bicycle and ate green apples from other people's yards. She gave names and personalities to everything around her—the trees, the flowers, the animals, the broom—to make her feel surrounded by familiar faces and friends.

Unfortunately, her stepfather was not the only one who made the girl think she wasn’t worth very much. There was more than one man, in her family and otherwise, who were more than willing to let her know she was only good for one thing.

One of them was an uncle who had his own cross to bear. He did things that no little girl should ever have to experience. She was five. She wore Care-Bear pajamas. While it happened, sometimes she would stare at a picture of the devil whose iridescent paint gleamed at her in the moonlight; other times she stared out the window and directly at the moon itself. The girl felt so dirty and was so ashamed that she wanted to curl up and die.

But she did not.

She got really good at picking up the pieces of love and acceptance she could find and curling herself around them like a cat.

Years later, when the girl and her mom (and now two brand new baby brothers) finally got away from the stepfather by going into hiding for awhile, the girl’s mother fell apart. And rightfully so. But then the girl’s one constant ally through those times, her mother, felt more than ever like she wasn’t worth very much. And she tried to make the girl and her brothers feel as bad as she felt because she didn’t have anything else left to give them.

…Fast forward…

Our girl is 15. Her physical situation is much more stable now, but she is confused, hurting, and lonely inside. She is mortally self-conscious and shy and terrified of every move she makes—what if she makes someone mad? She gets better at hiding these things and at doing the things a normal girl should. She is positive, however, that if anyone really knew all of the things that made her up they would be horrified and disgusted and not want to be around her. They would discover for themselves what she’d always felt inside—that she wasn’t worth very much.

At that young age the girl fell in love with a shy, introspective, and melancholy boy. He didn’t have the deep, dark secrets that she had, but he listened to her secrets and didn’t make her feel ashamed. This boy gave her the courage to try for things she never thought she could do. She left home when she was 16 and set about trying to make those things happen.

She actually did some cool things.

She went to college and she was very, very serious. Others around her had the liberty to fuck around, but the girl knew she had one shot and she had to make it happen. She didn’t fuck around at all—not even one little bit.

She started to explore the world. Every chance she got to do so, she took it.

She didn’t know what she wanted to do when she got out of school, so she went to school some more. She wanted to know things and to feel she had some power and control over her life. She used to laugh when she thought of herself with any kind of high-falutin' graduate degree. It seemed terrifying and unattainable and ridiculous to her. So she decided to shoot for it. She eventually pulled it off.

The boy was there through it all--even when she tried to test him by pushing him away. (She was still very afraid, you see, of everything and everyone.) She warned the boy, “If you ever lay a hand on me, I will set you on fire.” She was pretty sure he wouldn’t hurt her, but she also knew a thing or two about self-preservation.

When the girl was 24, she started to honestly look around at her life for the first time. She started to look deep inside herself, too. She started to realize that she needed more—that what she had was not enough. She even started to admit to herself that the boy was not enough. This was terrifying to her. He had loved her and given her strength and courage when she needed it most.

She realized she had been in survival mode for a very long time.

Upon these realizations, she felt lost and lonely inside. She knew what her instincts told her but she hadn’t yet really learned to trust them. She was uncertain of who she was, what she needed, and how to go about finding out either of those things. (It was a tough time.)

Once again, she didn’t know the right words. She was now an adult and had a much wider vocabulary at her disposal, but she didn’t know how to tell the boy, “Thank you for loving me even when I couldn’t love myself. Now I need to move beyond these fences we’ve built; they are pinning me in and I am dying inside. You loved me as a child, and now, should I be lucky enough to love and be loved back again, it needs to be as the woman I am.”

When she was 28, the girl did another thing she never imagined she could do and that was very terrifying to her. She left everything and everyone she loved behind and moved far, far away to try to make a completely different kind of life for herself. It was very painful. It actually took her a couple of years to make it all come together, but she made it happen. At the last minute, the boy decided he wanted to come, too. The girl thought it wasn’t the right thing, but she felt like it was worth one last try. (She was still afraid, you see.)

It was a disaster from the start. The girl knew that living with anyone would never be easy, but this move proved to her once and for all that she loved him, but her relationship with him was not enough. She was honest with him from a very early point that it wasn’t working for her. He kept trying. It broke her heart, but it wasn’t enough. The girl finally told the boy she was moving out, that it might take some time to put the pieces in place, but that it was going to happen and he needed to make plans for himself. It was terrible, of course, and still continues to be very, very difficult. Her friends, both near and far, have helped her find the courage to move forward.

It took a very long time and seemed like a simple lesson to learn, but she finally started to realize that she is worth something. She also realized that she deserves something more. (The girl’s mother has not yet put these pieces together for herself. The girl has no idea how to help her.)

There are days, of course, when the doubts creep in and when “moving forward” seems to be at a glacial pace, but there it is.

This was that girl, a long time ago:



And this was the first postcard secret she sent out in the world to try to be set free:



(She still has work to do, but she has been fighting for years now with everything she has. She will make it.)

THE END

You in?

I find myself in a strange position tonight: I have no one to go out with. Everyone is part of a fucking couple, and it's getting on my nerves. Plus, I feel lonely. I'd kill for a beer and a good conversation right now.

I decided to be proactive.

Back in 2005--when I first moved here--I found most of my friends (and all manner of other possibilities) via Craigslist. I decided to try it again. I spent some time this evening looking in the "activity partners" and "groups" sections in which I looked the first time. I didn't really find anything I was looking for, so I posted an ad of my own. It was short and sweet:

Try new restaurants and bars with me (San Francisco)

Some of my friends have recently moved away, and I'm looking for some new and interesting peeps of all stripes to try out bars, restaurants, and anything else we may see fit to get into.

Good: wit, sarcasm, curiosity, macaroni and cheese appreciation

Bad: closed-mindedness, dogma, bad breath, spitting on sidewalks

You in?

I've gotten one response so far, and I'm totally excited. We're waiting to see if we get a couple more before we make any plans. In the meantime, I'm putting together a wish list of places I want to try.

Tallies

Christmas festivities included:

- As previously reported, champagne, sleeping pills (and, hence, sleep)

- Counting the number of times I kissed beaks today (like, 10)

- Vietnamese spring rolls (4)

- Shaving my legs as my gift to myself (took 2 razors! Fuck.)

- Traveling between three grocery stores at 12:15am trying to do my grocery shopping. Number of grocery stores closed = 3

- Drinking at a local dive in order to be around people (number of drinks = 4)

- Observing folks playing frisbee in the street in my neighborhood (3)

- Tallying the types of candy my mom sent me in my stocking (7)

- Watching popes being knocked down by crazy women (1)

- Playing scrabble online with Facebook friends (4)

- Attempting to make a purchase at local pharmacies that had been robbed (1)

- Noting a live Christmas tree that was already thrown out on the sidewalk (1)

- Singing "Crimson and Clover" while driving myself around town looking at Christmas lights (number of times sung approximately = 6 1/2)

- Counting the number of times spent feeling sorry for myself for being alone at Christmas (842)

The bright forever

There was a time when I loved Raymond Wright. Nothing that happened can change that fact. I'm not even sure I'd trade it if I could. Don't ask me. Just know there are days when you thank your lucky stars, when the world doesn't seem quite so old and used up. I lay in bed those mornings and listened to the martins singing. Sing, sing, sing--just like Mama said, all over God's heaven. Now these last summers--my last summers--when I hear them, I think back to those mornings, Ray in bed beside me, and my heart balls up so tight I can't tell what's love and what's misery. It's all the same, always will be. That's what I'd tell those girlie-girls now if I could somehow travel back to that afternoon at Brookstone Manor--that lazy afternoon when one of them said, "God," not like a prayer but like there wasn't a thing left to surprise her. I'd tell her there's always something around the corner, no matter how old you get, no matter how much you're sure you've got a handle on things. Sooner or later you live long enough--I hope that girlie-girl got the chance--and the love and the heartache get all mixed up, and that's what you've got....

That's the way it was, always will be. Nothing we can do to make it different. It's a story now, and stories have endings even when you don't know--fools like me--that you're already in the middle of one, and you're already making choices....Choices that will bring you to places you never thought you'd be, places in your heart you'll mourn the rest of your life.

Lee Martin, The Bright Forever

Didn't I see you crying?

"Such sweetness was not meant for me.""

"You never started with me. (You never finished with me.)"

[Go here and listen to "Sabina." My friend Jim wrote it.]

On protocol

I have resisted writing this particular blog. As much as I love having readers, sometimes I start to censor myself in order to protect one of them or—more often—to protect myself.

I started this blog as a place to express my thoughts and explore my creative urges and if I can’t do that, what is the use? I tend to think and write in metaphor and symbol and much of my blog reflects this, but sometimes I just need to come out and say what I mean. This is a constant struggle in my personal life. I am trying to get better. So here goes.

I feel like I am terrible at this dating thing.

I’ve gone out with 70+ guys in the last year or so (I KNOW! BELIEVE ME, I KNOW!). Some of them read this blog (Hi folks!). But by the end of all that I was so…tired. I met some very nice people (and some BATSHIT CRAZY ones—a couple of those written about in other blog entries). Mostly the dates consisted of a pleasant enough dinner and small talk and getting-to-know-you kind of stuff. Sometimes I was incredibly bored and discreetly glancing at the clock, wondering how soon I could be home and in bed (ALONE). Almost always I could tell that this would be the first and only time I would ever see this person.

Well, I finally met someone I like.

Here’s the tricky part, see? There’s the risk of saying the wrong thing. There’s the risk of giving too much away. There’s the risk of allowing myself to be vulnerable. Just by writing this I know very well that I could be hastening a fragile beginning’s demise.

I can’t help it. I never was very good at keeping my mouth shut for long.

I don’t know how to do this and I’m not sure how to figure it out. I’ve made a very real effort not to stress or overanalyze and—for the most part—I’ve done well. But sometimes the real me breaks through even though I thought I had her muzzled and blindfolded and tied up in a basement somewhere. I start to worry that I don’t know how often to call, so I just don’t call at all. I worry that I don’t know how often to see each other, so I just don’t bring it up at all. Why is it so hard to say, “I like you. I like talking to you. I like spending time with you”? Everyone’s an adult here. I don’t think anyone’s consciously playing games. It’s just that the fear of rejection is a very powerful one.

Of course, everyone has advice to offer. Some are in the camp of, “Men like the chase. Don’t make it too easy.” Others are in the, “Just say it. Say it all! If he likes you he can handle it” camp. (Oh, but they don’t know how much I always seem to have to say!)

Meanwhile I tread water; I try to distract myself; I spend time with friends; I tend virtual farms on Facebook; I write and dance around my feelings; I bide my time. I wonder.

There.

I may very well have said the wrong thing. I may very well have given too much away. I am, in fact, vulnerable. I don’t know any other way to be.