The 38 Geary...Unlimited

Last night was stupendously alcoholic, as my nights often are. From arriving to late to work, getting abadoned at an indie lesbian bar, and then stuck in downtown SF with no money and no way of getting home at 3 am. I ended up speaking to a very heart-broken homeless man until the 38 Geary showed up at 3:30 and I begged the driver to let me board.

I called him during all of this. He didn’t answer, which was good. My therapist called this victimizing myself. He called this morning and we actually had a civil conversation. I was not trying to be anything but myself. I didn’t try to be wonderful or funny super-girlfriend. Ironically, this resulted in me being all of these things. The during was fine, as was the immediate after. It’s this 12 hours later I’m battling. There are two people inside of me now. the one who picks apart and analyzes to the point of nausea, and the rational one who accepts the varied phases of her mending heart and that they will lead to her recovery from all this. 

Scott-free

Not in a family way. In an empty-womb way, gladly accepted. The conclusion to this scare has also led to the his conclusion. Better. He has the most obsessive effect on me. I’ll take this lonely feeling, and so will my womb. It’s better than the false security developed from having a handsome boyfriend. 

Smoking Made Me Shorter

Could there be a reason, however justifiable, to stunt one’s own growth? Is masochism too simple an excuse? Could it really just be that an individual prefers to dwell in the stagnant mires of the present moment?

It’s too easy to judge. Perhaps I am just not ready to develop, to continue, to let go of the past. This focus on all the yesterdays obviates prospects for a full and lively future…which couldn’t affect me less. I’m a past-dweller, and I’m comfortable with that.  

When You're Expecting

I might be pregnant. The whole thing suspends me in shock…that I may be opening my legs to…a machine that cleans you out.

If this is the case, it means the return of him in my life. I debated not telling him. I fear that all of the strength I’ve gained will flitter. A semblance of hope has grown inside me…but maybe that’s the baby.

No, this hope centers on the idea of another. Somewhere out there, with whom to laugh and have sex with, in a more phenomenal way…probably because we’ll be sober more than 10% of the time during intercourse. We spent more than half our nights together drunk. Alcohol rushed, escalated, heightened everything; from our first kiss, to our first fuck, to our break-up. I may be in a family way from one such encounter. A drunken encounter with my ex-boyfriend could have been the night I got pregnant with the fetus I will inevitably abort. What the fuck happened to my life?

Ebenezer

Christmas? Bah Humbug. I don’t care that it’s cliché. Why do I feel the incessant need to ‘expose’ a cliché? Anytime anyone ever uses one, it needs to be pointed out as if part of some spy novel and one found the dirty secret the butler had been hiding.

Well, Christmas was lack-luster. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I should pinpoint it so as to avoid expecting it for next year… Perhaps my melancholia is attributed to the fact that I didn’t watch the Peanuts Christmas Special. More on New Year’s and the Y2K-Millennium craze later—but one thing is for sure: I’m not buying bars of fucking gold or  building a Panic Room. 

Hide and Seek

I have so much hope for the man whose only hope was getting rid of me. I can’t keep him around anymore. He chose this. What we are now, and I…I pause for the first time, my fervently wicked hand doesn’t know what to dictate next…and that’s the problem. It’s directly reflexive of my mind. I just need to stop making him the focus. Where do I go in all this?  

His Hangover

I don’t want to catalogue all of the emotions that I have endured this month, but it was a lot. One of the most difficult months of my life. I went through every stage of mourning:  denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Denial: the night we split up I went to bed with a ridiculous smile thinking of how fortunate things had turned out and concluding that it was all for the best, as the freedom of single life may offer time to apply to grad school. And I woke up that next morning with my whole face covered in tears.

Anger: for cheating on me, not believing in me or us, not taking a chance, and of course in perfect Scott fashion, putting himself first.

Bargaining: prayer at China Beach, out the apartment window, in the car at the Golden Gate, anywhere. Everywhere. The streets of San Francisco are saturated with my prayers. I'll do anything to get him back, dear God. 

Depression: going strong, all winter long.

Acceptance: this is recent, so I don't trust it. I hope that every time it creeps in and goes away a bit of it remains. Like a hangover. He is a hangover: the terrible present remnant of a past joy. 

Not Perfection

Hopefully this will make sense one day. We are through. He is my ex, and I his. I entered this relationship with no expectations and exited feeling that I had lost out on being his wife and somebody’s mother. But I also left loving a wonderful man. And he loved me too. And he does not love easily. He claims to not be ‘fit to be anybody’s boyfriend right now’. I told him that he just let the best woman of his life go and he claimed that I was probably right.

He needs to be alone right now. And honestly, that sounds lovely. Being without him is degrees more pleasant than being with him. I really mean this. That’s nice to know. 

If is successfully make it through the next 22 minutes I would have survived one day in three weeks without crying. My progress is slow, but I suppose that’s the nature of progress. 

Update:  I didn’t make it the 22 minutes.

Your love life's DOA

The bubble bath went wrong last night; I lost the initial solace it was meant to deliver and instead tried to drown myself. I’d be free, at least. But it’s too erratic, and I’d ultimately be running away from my problems. I must remember that everything won’t always be easy. This is what people mean when they say that relationships are work. Here’s what I need to remember to maintain healthy perspective:

1.     He cannot be the source of my happiness. If he is, I will end up in the bathtub again

2.     I am not a priority in his life and he shouldn’t be one in mine

3.     I have a million more important things to do than think about him

4.     Let it happen, don’t control

So there’s the bullshit wish list. Time will tell all. Thanks for the idea, Monica. 

Pole Position

This is written by the hand of a woman who has gained far greater clarity than she’d ever hoped. I realize that it wasn’t me he broke up with—but the version of me I chose to present to him every day. He never knew me because I was a totally different person around him, and one that she happened to dislike.

All of my relationships go sour when I switch over like this. It’s when I starting expecting, which leads to getting let down which leads to playing silent sulky games out of disappointment. I hate this version of myself, but I can’t get her to go the fuck away. I call this the hurricane. It swoops me up and I get dizzy and enthralled in its cyclone of shit. Instead of communicating in a healthy and normal way, which I am capable of doing, I resort to pouting and bitchiness. So, I become super Persian. No, that’s not fair. It’s more truthful and fair to say that I become my mother.

I need this behavior to stop. The Taoist mentality is vital here. Don’t analyze, just exercise patience. Things always end up working out the way that they’re supposed to. Eh, fuck fatalism. Just BE ME. But who the hell is that? I can only say that the game is over. Prepare to disqualify. 

The Break-up Blues

A broken heart cannot function. The main organ to survival has been pulverized and made its host immobile. So is me. I anxiously await days when smile and curiosity are genuine, when I stray from the self-absorbed obsessive organism of myself and bask in something else. Something more human. More humane. I stopped listening to people’s words weeks ago. I can’t even hear them.

Hope is the only sustenance for an otherwise hollow and emaciated heart. With this it scrambles for its other pieces albeit solely, and fixes itself back. I end with this hope for hope.