the women of my tribe

I realized something today.

That the women I'm closest to, the women who will cancel their shift at work just to spend the day comforting me, the women who always make time for me, who embrace and accept all of me, have all had something painfully tragic happen to them. 

I don't mean simply heartache, everyone has some pain they carry with them, some wound from hurt feelings past. 

No, I mean tragic, epic, lifetime original movie fucked up shit kind of pain. 

The shit most people just read about let alone have to survive. 

The sisters I rely on are survivors. 

Warriors.  

They empathize and understand and carry such extensive compassion because they know, they fucking get it, the fear, the anxiety, the ptsd, the wanting nothing more than to just lie in bed for hours. 

Days. 

The numbness and the indifference, the confusion, and the disbelief. 

And none of them. 

Not one soul has made me feel wretched for the awful night I survived. 

You got out, she kept telling me. You're out.

And I am so grateful. 

Overwhelmingly thankful to have so many kindred souls in my life who understand this kind of pain and fear. 

Who've survived and know I have a strength, a reserve I don't even understand because they got through and I will too and one day you'll be able to help someone, Reese. Because of this. Because of what you went through.

Just as they have done for me. 

And as I was laying in bed, laying and feeling nothing, feeling empty as the details of that night played repeatedly in my mind I thought of her. 

For the first time in a long time I thought of the girl who just had to focus on herself right now.

I thought about how this was probably one of the most fucked up things that's ever happened to me and she doesn't even know. 

She has no fucking clue what I'm going through because she doesn't want to know. 

And there really is, sadly, a division amongst girlfriends.

"Friends."

The acquaintances we may still make time every few months to see, the girls who rarely text you back and only ever like your Instagram posts of your cat and of trees. 

The girls who don't understand your pain because they would never make such poor decisions, or get mixed up in such atrocities, so they blink a lot when you talk, and they stop responding when you tell them the sad things that happen. 

And I resent them.

The frenemies who were there for me when I was Susie fucking Sunshine but who don't seem to have the time when I'm hurting and shit is painful. 

But in some ways, in some humbling and accepting ways, it only makes me that much more appreciative, choking on gratitude for the gracious few who will stand in the fire with me.

I truly don't know what I would do without them. 

And if I've learned anything through all of this, it's that there really is a dividing line between the people who know you.

Those who respond. 

And those who never pick up their phone. 

Hello Ireland

Do you feel better?

Hmm? I had sheepishly replied.

Do you feel better now that you've talked?

I remember being surprised, even after all those years we spent together, that Kai understood my need for communication.

I'd had a misunderstanding with some guy, (Ireland, was it?) and had been upset until he'd called.

I don't know how people just let things go or forget about them without ever being able to talk them out.

I did feel better after hearing from him. 

But up to that point I was a miserable little monkey. 

I wasn't going to communicate. 

Or rather, I was going to communicate silence. 

Silence is an incredibly powerful form of communication and I can respect it. 

The problem is it's not my style. 

It's not me. 

I. Have. To communicate. 

For my own balance and well being. 

And I realized at the end of this week that all silence was doing for me was allowing me to hold onto the hope that he would one day reach out and somehow right the wrong that would forever haunt me. 

So I halted my silence. 

But because I know me, I know which actions are necessary, I felt relief after I'd sent the text. 

It wasn't long. 

It was important to me it be brief. 

Succinct yet clear. 

I have this propensity for using an excessive amount of words and I knew he knew that and it would be much more powerful if it was as few words as possible. 

And I knew he wouldn't respond. 

There was nothing really appropriate to say.

And I fell asleep that night accepting the gruesome end, the drawn out rejection I continuously allowed myself to endure. 

And then. 

Then because I don't always know, I so often know nothing at all, because the few syllables I composed must have struck a chord in the depths of his heartstrings, or maybe simply because he woke up and I was on his mind.

My phone rang. 

My eyes opened and I knew it was him and I just let the phone ring and I listened to the ringtone play like it was some lovely bird outside my window wiling me to rise out of bed. 

And then, there it was. 

A voicemail. 

The voicemail I'd hoped for, longed for, some tactile proof that I did, in fact, hold some value to him, some meaning beyond the disdain I'd left the last time he looked at me. 

And it made me feel calm. 

Somehow more accepting. 

It changed nothing.

But it lessened the sharp sting of his wound. 

I left the house to run errands and suddenly gasped when I saw what time it was. 

Nearly one in the afternoon and I'd completely forgotten to take my medication. 

Panicked, I reached in my bag for it and then realized. 

I didn't feel out of balance. 

I was taking it hours later than normal but it didn't feel like my system was thrown out of wack.

I was finally stabilized with the dosage. 

Perhaps even a little with myself. 

I spent the day planning and preparing for Ireland. 

One week to the day and I will set out for a city I so desperately longed to see two years ago. 

To visit a man I once felt uneasy about until he called and woke me one morning. 

And I didn't know if I'd even see him there, if we'd sip an old fashioned the way we had those summer nights so very long ago. 

But it could happen. 

And even the thought of another man, when my heart was still in such disarray over one, felt good.

The idea of the future felt divine. 

Because these past months have been some of the hardest, darkest storms I've endured. 

And I was very much ready for a rainbow. 

And perhaps, even a very tiny pot of gold as well.

some fairytale

I'm not mad.

At you.

I'm not angry at your cruelty. 

I am heartbroken. 

And disappointed. 

And still overwhelmingly in shock and disbelief. 

I thought some night this week your voice would fill my phone with the soft timbre that once resonated when you talked to me.

I thought you'd express remorse and regret and overtures of wanting to right the wrongs so violently forced upon me. 

But my inbox was never full.

Just one sentence. 

One brief, disjointed fragment. 

I've listened to over and over as though the truth existed between those syllables. 

But it doesn't. 

Because nothing exists between us anymore. 

I suppose perhaps it never did. 

But oh my heart, my love, my consuming, determined love was pure. 

It is

Most sincere. 

My heart alone sustained this wretched ongoing horror story I believed to be a fairytale. 

And I can't decide which part is the worst. 

It's all such a jumbled blur in my mind now, like one painfully long run on sentence 

Something out of that book you think I'm too unintelligent to ever read. 

I never realized how little you actually think of me until that night. 

You know I'm trying to destroy this from the inside out, right?

And I let you. 

I sat there and I let you I took it like some frightened little girl who just wanted to be held 

And you did, sweet bliss, you finally reached out and wrapped your arms around me for one brief moment I again believed 

Trusted

Until you pulled away and said no, I can't make you happy so we shouldn't be physical 

And I said please

Jesus fucking Christ I said please

Like some pathetic wretched desperate creature that I was 

And you coldly replied no

And I recoiled in still greater horror

Because that was all I had

All I'd ever been to you

Some body some lusty fantasy dirtying your sheets when the women you loved didn't answer your call

And I laid there, tormented, unable to move

And then you reached into your desk

You knew I would see, would fear it would all disappear before my frightened eyes

You wanted my fear

My consuming, immobilizing horror, the force of the pain leaping out of my chest in a motion to stop you

And then that look

Oh god, that disgusted disdain for my face that darted from your eyes to my flesh will never ever leave my mind

I want you to leave

And I didn't go

I wish I had

I wish I'd run

As fast and as far as my frightened legs would take me

But that would mean everything that was happening was real 

And it couldn't be real

It was so awful it couldn't be actually happening

And I knew if I just stood in the fire long enough you'd come back and reach for my hand again and make that delighted sigh after we kissed 

But you just reached for your phone and told me to push this button

That button at the bottom there

And I did like you knew I would because I listen to you

And when I'd obeyed you said

There now you're deleted

And I didn't know how much more I could take I wondered when we'd wake up from this bad dream

And I asked why you'd done that

I didn't 

You did

I wouldn't have been able to do it

And I couldn't breathe

And you told me to just go to sleep

But to be gone in the morning 

And you whispered she was trash, she was pure garbage, a terrible person

And I'd choose her over you again

And I was nothing

I was hollowed out 

Void of everything

And I layed there

Wishing I had the key to escape 

To get out of this house of horrors

But I just sat up

I looked out the window

The curtain blowing in the wind

The green book propping the window open

And I held my breath

And hoped

I hoped when you opened your eyes you'd remember

Remember all I am 

All I thought existed between us

And when you'd ended your violent sleep, your limbs flinging you out of the hell that was your dreams, you looked at me, vacant, lifeless

Why are you still here?

And my skin crawled

It slipped off my body and creeped out of the room sliding out the crack in the window, the crack I'd imagined opening to escape into the night

And the door was finally unlocked and I walked into the sun, shaking

And I called her

And she came 

And when I saw her the tears choked me

The fear vomited out of me

You look like someone who was tortured all night 

And that was the night 

The moment the story collapsed 

And she lived 

She lived ever after 

Never again looking into the eyes of the monster she still loved 

Balanced

I think one of the biggest changes I've experienced this past month is how hyper aware I now am of everything I'm feeling. 

In the past if I woke up in a bad mood I didn't think much of it. 

I wasn't wondering what my triggers were or what may be the root of my grump. 

I just brushed it aside like, Oh, I'm just grumpy today and tried to distract the grump with sugar or an orgasm or a new dress from Nordstrom rack. 

If I was sad I embraced my sadness, if I was mad I wrote like a mother fucker, if I was feeling particularly needy I'd call my Mom and ask if I could come over. 

Now. 

Now if I'm off balance at all I am acutely aware and immediately try to pinpoint what I did differently to try and understand why I'm feeling off.

There is a science to happiness I never understood before. 

I've always been a slave to my ever changing emotions and reacting to all of them and everyone and often unaware of what I may even do because my feelings are erratic so my actions will be erratic and all the men I ever love have one thing in common: they think I'm crazy. 

But I'm not crazy, I was never crazy. 

I was unbalanced. 

And I ran after and impulsively acted out to try and find some semblance of balance. 

But I don't have a desire to be quite as compulsively reactive anymore. 

I kind of just want to feel content as I am, as things are, or as things aren't. 

I feel like my aspirations are on a much smaller scale. 

I simply want to feel happy. 

Last week I did feel happy. 

Good things happened and unloving texts happened but I was able to stay balanced through all of it. 

Maybe happy is an oversimplification of what I want. 

Maybe it's truly balance. 

But last night, and possibly because I had felt so great all week, I decided to have my first cocktail in weeks. 

Partly as an experiment. 

Partly because we were at The box social and they make the best old fashioneds in town and I kind of missed drinking. 

Which I feel strange about, but that's another topic. 

I ordered one and I sipped slowly, alternating with water in between sips of rye.

Immediately it tasted different. 

It tasted strong. 

The box social makes a strong cocktail, partly why it's the best, but it never used to taste strong to me. 

From my first sip it already felt different.

It took me a long time to finish, which was also strange, because there have been many nights I'd sipped cocktail after cocktail at this bar, as though it were merely lemonade on a summers day. 

When we finally left and got to the next place I felt strange. 

I didn't feel buzzed or drunk or giddy the way I've always felt from drinking whiskey. 

There was a heaviness in my mind, a dark fog hovered over everything.

And for the first time in what's felt like a long time, I felt depressed. 

The idea that one strong alcoholic beverage could have such an affect on me when I'm day 16 on an antidepressant seems a little extreme and yet I am hyper in tune with my body and I'd had no alcohol in two weeks and this was the worst I'd felt in two weeks. 

I don't think a depressed person should be drinking a depressant.

At least I shouldn't. 

And that's strange for me. 

My girlfriend says my body should get more adjusted to my medication over time and eventually I should be able to enjoy an old fashioned the way I once did without it affecting me in such a negative way and that's probably true. 

But I think the part that's difficult for me is that something I've always done, something I've always enjoyed, that's felt like a part of who I am, my style, my social enjoyment, is no longer a part of who I am. 

And that feels so overwhelmingly strange. 

I spent most of today feeling extremely out of balance. 

And because I sort of took for granted how much better I've been feeling I wasn't really sure what to do to feel better. 

So I didn't do much of anything. 

I met a friend for brunch and I took a nap and I made dinner and now I'm reading. 

But it all felt pretty lackluster and I feel defeated that I spent another day feeling mostly depressed. 

But life isn't consistent. 

And however much I try to find a science to my balance there will be things outside of my control that affect my ability to live in a state of happy and that's okay. 

I need to let myself be okay with the times I'm not okay. 

But right now it feels like a failure. 

And it's strange. 

Because there are certain things I know my brain understands that my emotions just won't agree to. 

They have a will of their own. 

And I know with time I'll understand this newer version of myself a little better. 

Understand why sometimes it may even be necessary to feel so very unbalanced. 

Thick as Thieves

How's Rachel? She asked me. 

I started laughing. 

We'd been standing in line all of ten minutes together and it's like she knew. 

She broke up with me, I said. 

What? Oh no, what happened? And she wrapped her arms around me in a long hug. 

Timing is a splendid thing. 

I hadn't seen this girl in years, several years, possibly six years?

And after one hour together I felt as close to her as I had the summer we spent making collages and crushing on boys we'd acted with in A Midsummer Night's Dream (the only time I ever missed a cue in any show, my whole acting career--talking on the bleachers with Egeus, when I should have been talking with the other fairies onstage).

She talked about how our friendship formed in such a pure way because we were just kids. 

And I never thought about that before but there really is something sacred when your friendship forms out of this childhood bond. 

Sort of like the bond of two girls becoming friends in choir freshman year of college. 

But the friends we make in school don't last, or so the adults would always tell us. 

But then timing, Timing, that clever minx, decides to bring people back into our lives the moment we didn't even know we needed them. 

Eight and a half hours later we were sitting in my car, seemingly totally fine and then I started sobbing. 

I love you, Reese, I'm not gonna abandon you.

That's exactly what this all felt like. 

Abandonment. 

Last summer Rachel's sister was talking with my mother and she told her Rachel and Teresa are very devoted to each other. 

And we were.

For fifteen years. 

And I have no idea why just one year later that devotion had disappeared. 

I don't know what happened, I told her.

She was probably just looking for an excuse to end things.

And it's heartbreaking that a friendship of such length could be silenced with one text. 

And then neither of them ever reached out to each other again. 

Because they realized, to both of their surprise, that they simply had nothing more to say.

They had both changed. 

They weren't the young, hopeful twenty something's they'd been when they went shopping after class and their dad took them both out for ice cream. 

They had heartaches and wounds and instead of growing closer through their pain they stopped understanding each other. 

And that's why on this night, on the night of this reunion, I was so overcome with appreciation to talk with somebody who just got me.

She knew my heart and supported my choices and she hadn't seen me in years. 

And how curious, isn't it, that someone who hadn't left my side in years didn't hear me and someone I assumed must have forgotten me remembered me vividly being one of the few people she could count on all those years ago?

It was beautiful. 

Having her come back into my life a month after losing someone who'd been such an important part of my world felt like the heavens literally parted and set a wrapped package into my hands: Here. Have the love of another who adores and looks up to you, the support of someone whose been through the uncertainties you're enduring, someone who needs you too.

And I don't even miss her, Rachel, I don't. 

I don't know her anymore. 

And I hadn't for a long time. 

Because she wouldn't let me. 

And she didn't like who I had become. 

And she doesn't miss me either. 

Timing will do that too. 

Close your heart and your mind to someone you never imagined you could live without. 

But you can. 

You can live without them. 

And you feel guilty. 

Guilty because it's so much easier than you thought. 

But when you surround yourself with people who want to be around you, it is easy to forget the ones who tried to disregard your significance in a text. 

Some things aren't worth fighting about. 

Because it's actually a relief to just accept. 

Accept people's limitations, their withholding, their pretense that usually has nothing to do with you. 

I have encountered more loving, passionate, incredible soul sisters this year than I ever have and it was the same year the woman I thought was my real sister, cut me out. 

Timing knows exactly what she's doing. 

And we don't need each other anymore. 

And it's not okay. 

I can't believe when I told her I needed her she said she needed to focus on herself.

Or that when I wrote I love you her last words to me were Love to you.

It's not okay.

But wonderful, lovely, life changing connections have happened while she didn't want to hug me. 

And that. 

Is what I will never forget, what I will always remember about our wonderful season of friendship, as she so abruptly and disconnectedly described us.

Dicks & Pills & Stuff

I'm taking anti depressants. 

I've never taken them before and at first I felt really fucking weird about it. 

Because I'm like. 

A happy person. 

Like, I've always been Susie fucking Sunshine my whole life. 

Happy people get depressed too, Reese.

But I just kept waking up expecting to feel better. 

And I didn't. 

But there's a reason people take medication. 

Because I feel better now. 

Yesterday I took my pill hours later than I normally do and when I woke up I felt the storm clouds fall back over my mind again. 

It was eerie and intense because I'd already gotten used to feeling like myself again for the past week. 

I'd quickly forgotten what it felt like to feel like her, the version of me that felt nothing and cared about nothing and saw the world in shades of grey. 

It was also the first morning all week I craved coffee. 

Oh yeah. 

I stopped drinking coffee. 

I stopped drinking coffee and alcohol. 

Alcohol??

I know, ALCOHOL. 

I broke up with whiskey.

And it is a little strange but I'm okay with it. 

I can't drink it, I got drunk two nights in a row when I was first starting my meds and I had crazy anxiety. 

I didn't even know what was wrong with me but when I was describing what happened to my friend she said, You were having an anxiety attack, Reese.

Oh, I was having an anxiety attack. 

I've never had one before so I didn't know what one felt like. 

I decided the next day not to drink, as an experiment, and sure enough no alcohol, no anxiety. 

I've spent the entirety of this week going out and ordering soda water with bitters. And a lime. In a short glass. 

I'm that girl now. 

But I feel better so I don't even fucking care. 

Also. 

I'm saving so much money!!

Holy shit. 

You wanna put yourself on a budget cut liquor from your tab. 

I can't believe how cheap my restaurant bills have been. 

Also. 

I can't drink coffee. 

Monday I had my normal morning cup of coffee minutes after popping my happy pill and twenty minutes later I started to have the same hyped up anxiety I'd felt part of last week. 

The next day, no coffee, no alcohol.

No side effects. 

Last night, as another experiment, I ordered a decaf mocha to see if it made me react weird. 

And it didn't. 

Though I did have a slight headache later.

So I probably won't drink decaf often.

So now I drink club soda and decaf coffee.  

It's not me, at least the me I always used to be, but I'm happy.

I used to scoff at people who ordered decaf, like, what's the point, asshole?

And now I wonder how many of them had conditions where they couldn't drink caffeine but enjoyed the taste?

I guess I'm kind of the asshole. 

It's strange. 

It's strange to feel like myself but differently. 

I crave vegetables now. 

Vegetables. 

I still craved pizza on Friday too, which was sort of a relief because if I'm gonna be that bitch who drinks soda water and decaf coffee please don't tell me I'm gonna order my salad dressing on the side I might kill myself. 

This is all new. 

It's new and it's different and I'm finding that a lot of people are on anti depressants or have been on them but I never knew because people don't talk about it because it has this stigma like, Oh. You take anti depressants. 

*Long awkward silence.*

Except a lot of times it really is just needing to balance out the chemicals in your brain which is basically what we're all doing all day every day with coffee and cigarettes and junk food and masturbation. 

But it's strange. 

It's strange to feel like I need a drug to feel like myself but you know what I do and that's okay. 

Because sometimes life kicks you in the balls too many times and you're older and you can't bounce back as quick as you once did and sometimes you need help to get through the times your best friend dumped you the same week the love of your life did. 

But I feel better. 

And that's the important part. 

And I wish people talked about anti depressants with the same openness we all talk about blowjobs because then maybe I wouldn't have been so freaked out to put a tiny dose of serotonin in my body cuz if I can handle a dick in my mouth I can surely handle an anti depressant in my body.

I mean am I right?

Storytime

I think most of the time when people date there is this sense of entitlement, not intentionally so, but simply because we have expectations. 

Expectations of what the other person should say or do or how much time they should devote to us. 

People constantly compare their current lover to their past and have their list of what they will put up with and what they won't. 

People play games and they don't want to appear too eager or too interested, too available or too needy. 

And I guess I'm really lucky because my love died. 

He died, he wanted nothing more to do with me, blocked and banished me.

And then miraculously, one unexpected night, one particularly sad and lonesome night, he rose from the dead. 

I speak figuratively, no one actually died. 

But it felt like he did. 

It felt like this permanent end. 

And then my phone rang. 

My phone rang and he asked if I was okay and I said no and I asked if he was okay and he said no. 

And with that one word I felt somehow less alone. 

Don't misunderstand, we're not dating. 

I've accepted we never will.

But that's not the point. 

A Facebook relationship status is not the fucking point.

The point is he reached out and I saw him. 

He reached out and he was happy to see me, he wanted to see me. 

After everything.

He was happy to see me and we danced in the kitchen and he downloaded Empire Records because I wanted to watch it and he read to me from his favorite book and he didn't hate me. 

He doesn't hate me. 

I really truly thought he did. 

I thought I would never see him, never hear from him, never look into those dark, intense eyes again. 

Never ever respect my boundaries for once ever.

But I did.

No one believed I would and I did. 

I told myself I meant nothing to him and I fell asleep and he called.

He called and I'm happy. 

I don't know when I'll hear from him again but I don't need to because he's alive and I'm alive and I know how important I am to him now and you don't actually have to see or hear from someone all the time to know they are always thinking of you, do you?

I'm lucky because I now know who his favorite modern author is and that he can eat an omelette in three and a half minutes and that if you mix lime juice with coffee flavored rum it tastes like lime coffee and it's awful but it was fun to watch him make it because I never thought I'd watch him make a cocktail again.

I'm lucky because I watched his favorite cartoon from when he was a kid and he told me he thinks of me as his friend and he kissed me on the nose and he showed me where the fuck to put my arm when I'm the big spoon because it's been so many years since I've really snuggled with anyone I genuinely had to ask for guidance.

I'm lucky because he called me later just to say I took really good care of him and he's thankful and our last moment together was blissful. 

Blissful. 

Because of me. 

His last memory of me is blissful.

Can you imagine anything so wonderful?

And maybe I should, maybe I should want monumental things and have expectations because I deserve the moon and I should expect him to lasso it down for me, (and I know he hasn't seen 'It's a Wonderful Life' so he has no fucking clue what I'm talking about) but you see I'm lucky. 

I'm lucky because I don't need anything more and I'm not hoping for anything more because I lost everything and it was like he had disappeared and I had nothing.

And it broke me. 

And now, now I have all these moments. 

All these unexpected moments I never imagined might still exist, moments where he thinks I drink like a bird and accidentally says I love you, which we both ignored, moments where he says no one has breasts like me and I've an ass he could never forget, and later kisses me so tenderly on the forehead, moments he shares he'd like to take me hiking to Angel's rest because it's his favorite view of the gorge and would I want to go sometime?

And fuck, I don't even need to go.

He wants me there.

Do you understand?

Do you understand how much it fucking means that he wants me there?

He broke my fucking heart, shattered into a million numb pieces, numb to the point I had to go to the doctor for help because my mind just stopped. 

Indifferent. Lifeless.

The happy fled my heart. 

I lost my trust, my trust in myself. 

Because I'd been so wrong, so wretchedly, monumentally wrong how could I possibly believe anything I felt?

But then he called. 

And I'm lucky because I don't need anything more from him, I've already held it lovingly in my open hands, these moments where tears welled up in my eyes until I had to run into the other room to where he was just to throw my arms around his waist and hug him and he asked me How is it? as though the quality of breakfast even fucking mattered and I looked at him with water brimming in my eyes because he'd wanted to surprise me with breakfast in bed while I was sleeping and eating that first bite tasted like so much love and I smiled up at him and said It's perfect and it's enough. 

It's all so overwhelmingly, intensely enough.

Have you ever known anyone, ever loved anyone so entirely, that after one interaction felt your heart joyfully cry, this is enough?

It's so overwhelmingly full, full of moments that are now yours forever and it's so much greater than you ever thought he would show you.  

And in that moment you knew you could trust your heart once again. 

Because you do matter. 

You actually mean the world to him.

My heart has healed, there are cracks but it is now covered over with patches, patches that sing to and snuggle the wounds that will always be a part of me. 

A part of my story. 

Our story.

A story that rose from its own death on the eve I had given up entirely.

And no one will truly understand, he doesn't even understand, but I do, I know, I understand and I'm happy. 

I'm so happy. 

I feel like myself again and I'm happy. 

I'm happy and he was a part of it. 

He was a part of my joy returning, the color exploding, grinning at blue skies and starry nights all over again. 

Staying up nights and then mornings, simply to talk, to share secrets, to hear his voice read me another story, the story he recommends but says no one ever reads. 

But I will, I will read it, alone in my room I'll read it, I'll think of the timbre of his voice when I read it, and one day, perhaps one day I'll even tell him about it. 

Perhaps one day he'll understand, understand this love, this surprising, enduring, unconditional love and why it continues to breathe life into both of us, in spite of us, because of us. 

Because it just simply is.

The Day Color Returned to My Life

What was the best part of your day? He asked me.

Everything, I said. All of it.

Really? Wow, tell me all about it.

When I walked into the bar I saw her immediately.

Her face lit up when she saw me and she got off her barstool to hug me. 

She wore a black 50's dress and we had matching red lips.

When she said hello it was with a cute Austrailian accent. 

She was so adorable it was intoxicating. 

I was actually a little nervous on my way here, I admitted.

Me too! I wasn't sure what I should wear.

We beamed at each other. 

It was love at first sight. 

We spent the next five hours in a lovely debaucherous haze.

We asked a couple boys for cigarettes and they offered to go buy us some but after they left we already forgot why we were standing there and promptly decided to move on to some place else. 

We took photos in a photo booth though neither of us knew what happened to the photo strip which had disappeared by the next morning.

Perhaps the kind boys who fetched us the smokes found it as a keepsake.

She was fiery and passionate and we had so much in common it was almost eerie. 

So the next morning, awoken by our whiskey-lord help us- we decided a Bloody Mary was a requirement at brunch and didn't even leave for the beach until late afternoon. 

But neither of us cared. 

And I loved that. 

On the coast we swapped war stories. 

For hours. 

I felt I could say anything to her.

It's strange, isn't it?

How sometimes a stranger can understand you better than someone whose known you for years. 

We stayed so long at the beach we saw the sun set. 

I don't know that I've ever seen a sunset at the coast. 

It was pure magic. 

We both stared and stared and then looked at each other and suddenly declared, I love you! and threw our arms around each other. 

She gently rubbed at her eyes. 

Are you crying? I asked. 

Sometimes I get a little weepy. 

She felt everything as intensely as I did. 

And that made me feel less alone. 

I played her a CD I love by Elizaveta and we spent most of our drive home in silence.

Those long, comfortable silences you can only enjoy with a handful of people in your world. 

We didn't end up having dinner until 11pm.

When we looked at the menu we decided we'd share appetizers. 

She said the ahi poke looked good and the bacon wrapped dates and I said I was thinking the same thing. 

We were in sync. 

After only two days together.

I dropped her off and as I drove home I started crying.

But this time, for the first time in a long time, I was crying because I was happy. 

I'd told her I started posting my photos in black and white because that's how I was feeling. 

Black and white. 

The color had vanished from my mind. 

And this day, on this late night approaching morning, there was a hint of color.

A faded wash across my grey mind. 

And I was so grateful. 

I was so happy.

I was happy. 

So very happy. 

And then my phone rang. 

And the happy grew and grew...

are you okay?

It was the first day in seventeen months I decided to believe I meant nothing to him.

I'm not really sure why.

I guess I'd decided believing in my heart didn't seem to make sense anymore. 

All it had brought me was pain. 

And I felt so numb I wanted to feel anything else. 

So I decided to feel worthless. 

To him.

I actually woke up and while I was still laying in bed said aloud he used me i mean nothing to him he used me i mean nothing to him.

I didn't feel defeated or even sad anymore. 

I didn't feel anything. 

Accepting?

Is apathy the same as acceptance?

I made it through the whole day being carried by this new mantra and I closed my eyes and went to sleep. 

And my phone rang.

There are some moments that are really inconsequential in terms of the story of your life. 

But however seemingly insignificant they can also be the moments that stay with you long after the person has gone. 

And those memories are the few that make me glad I loved and lost. 

I was kind of nervous.

No, that doesn't seem the word. 

Timid? Trepidatious?

Wildly uncertain of what the hell I was doing there. 

Apathy is a bizarre feeling because it made me slightly fearless in a sense because I didn't really care what happened or what I might feel because really I couldn't possibly feel worse and maybe I might even feel a little better. 

Maybe I might feel something. 

And that was kind of thrilling. 

I sat there like a teenager uncertain of what to do with my hands or what to talk about. 

And suddenly I saw something crawling on the blanket right across my foot. 

I held my breath and tried not to panic. 

Ohmygod, it's a spider. There's a giant spider I'm so afraid of them.

And I violently squirmed across the room in my mind while my body just remained motionless in fear. 

He reached out his hand carefully the way a nature guide might gingerly hold an insect in front of the camera. 

The spider crawled onto his hand, trusting, and I imagined he was going to release it into the wild the way some good soul might do. 

Suddenly he brought down his free hand and SMACK! killed the spider that was in his hand. 

Startled, I laughed. 

I totally thought you were going to set it free or something. 

No, I don't have time to go release it into nature. You were scared. I didn't want you to be scared. 

I smiled. You saved me. 

I'm like your knight in shining armor? He smiled back. 

And I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. 

And I didn't feel nervous anymore. 

I felt rather like myself again. 

There are moments that are probably unimportant in terms of writing your memoirs. 

Moments that fade and moments that don't last more than a breath, moments you dream about for years without fully understanding why. 

And the future is unclear. 

My own emotions, a fog. 

But for a moment, in spite of my numbness and my apathy and my indifference, I felt, once again, sublimely happy. 

Happy to finally have understanding and hold the truth in my shaking hands, not for long. 

But long enough to remember my heart knows what I do not.

And when I'm feeling stronger, I'll be able to continue to listen to it, the frightening calls of my wild unpredictable heart, the love that does and must exist in spite of our failures, our choices, our inactions.

In spite of being such fools.

Pincurls

I set my hair. 

Before I went to bed last night I set my hair in pin curls like I always used to do. 

So at least my hair looks normal. 

I couldn't bring myself to do my makeup though, which made me feel a little like a failure. 

But I figure if I can set my hair each night this week that's something. 

That's one small part of who I am. 

Who I want to be. 

That's something. 

I feel like a crazy person. 

I drove home from the beach, again feeling defeated. 

Because anytime I've gone to the coast, no matter what was going on in my life, no matter what dumb boy had broken my heart, no matter what I was anxious or sad about, it only took a couple hours of time Oceanside for my spirit to feel centered and I'd drive home feeling like myself again. 

But that didn't happen Sunday. 

I wasn't miserable. 

It was still the beach. 

But I didn't leave feeling centered. 

I felt the same. 

Except possibly a little more sad because now I feel like I failed again. 

This experience is very strange. 

Mother said she knew something was really wrong with me when I went over because she said I always want to talk when I come over but I just collapsed and watched tv. 

She said I never do that. 

But I didn't want to talk. 

And when your mother notices you're not yourself then you know you're not really crazy because mothers know the real you and the real me went on a vacation without telling me and the parts she left behind are confused and disoriented. 

I feel like I'm doing a good job getting up and going to work but I've had two different managers in the past week ask if I'm alright. 

Not like, hey buddy, how's it going. 

Like, genuinely, slightly whispered, you doing okay.

And you know what?

I said no.

Both times I was asked I was honest and said, no, not really, I'm not okay.

And it felt really good to just tell the fucking truth.

I'm fine. 

I'm here. 

I'm breathing. 

I'm functioning. 

But that's all I really have right now. 

A few people have told me they'd never know anything was wrong if they just went off my social media. 

And I thought, aren't people peculiar. 

Just because someone's heart has been broken doesn't mean they can't still think a butterfly is beautiful and post a photo of one. 

Trying to find beauty and joy when all I feel like doing is laying in bed with my cat for the rest of my life feels like the best thing to do. 

Of course nobody noticed that the photo I posted of me smiling is captioned with song lyrics from a song about losing everything. 

But that's okay. 

I don't think most people understand me. 

The only thing that really helps is creating. 

I'm not quite sure what else to do. 

But I do know making things makes my heart hurt a little less. 

So there's that. 

I have curly hair and I have that.