dura lex, sed lex

the law is hard, but it's the law.

this is an old legal maxim, hence the latin. (we lawyer types just love us this dead language. there's even a special term just for this sort of thing. we lawyer types also really, really love ourselves and our little world.) this one is a favorite of my favorite (HEH) supreme court justice, one antonin scalia. he uses it to justify all manner of awful things, citing it to shirk his responsibility to defend the constitution and put off his role onto an often-unresponsive congress. it's a rigid, draconian version of the role of law in life. it's essentially the legal world's version of jeez, that sucks. hate it for ya. it comes up a lot more than you'd think, too.

now, i'm all for the rule of law. it's what makes us who we are as a country, and a leader of the world at that. i just don't see life, the law, or much of anything in that strict of terms. i think our founding fathers were smart enough to build our nation and its framework in such a way that if something new comes up, we've got the flexibility to deal with it. so i have a certain amount of trouble embracing this idea as a valid construction, whether applied to the law or to other parts of existence.

i wish other people agreed with this. the longer i live, the more i run across people who have bought into the rigidity, the calcification of dura lex, sed lex. even if someone's worldview is flexible and open in most ways, it sneaks up in rather stunning, and often disappointing, places. i've had some pretty excruciating conversations with people i love in which they betray startling levels of rock-hard disdain for anything other than my way or the highway, and there's NO room for debate here. the issues to which these people apply their rigidity - up to and including reproductive choices, for the love of god -  shocks me, and sometimes it breaks my heart. i try so hard to be open, to be accepting. as an inveterate pessimist (apparently - stay tuned for that meditation later), that's not always easy. but my job demands it. my outlook on life demands it. other people don't see things that way.

the "law" in people's lives varies wildly. emotion and reason often clash in spectacular fashion, and decisions made aren't always what you'd expect from the outside looking in. i refuse to make that kind of snap judgment on someone else's life based on things that i would do in mine. that's the basis of my worldview and my professional philosophy: it's why i'm pro-choice, a liberal, a feminist and an avowed enemy of strict constructionism. i believe that a lot of things in this world can't be strictly judged. i wish i could make other people understand the value of that.

patience is a virtue

i've always been told that being patient is something i should think about doing from time to time. and yet, somehow, it's never been my strong suit. i am the most impatient person who has ever lived on this earth. i hate waiting. i want what i want, when i want it. veruca salt, eat your heart out, baby girl; it is i who wants the world, who wants the whole world. i want bows in my hair, and i don't want to share. well, that might be a slight exaggeration. but the fact of the matter is that it is a distinct annoyance in my life that i can't have things ordered as i prefer them. cases in point: the man is still not home, and i still don't know what i'm doing after may 22 of this year. i have no control over anything anymore. i am not a woman who enjoys feeling powerless, and i detest this rootless feeling that's starting to creep in around the edges of my life these days.

i had a job interview yesterday! sweet! that's amazing... until i found out that 42 people applied for the position, which is new-kid attorney at what will be a six-person firm. they're interviewing 14, of which 3 will be called back for a fit interview. uh, yeah. i nailed that interview, i KNOW i did, but i am starting to get the sense that none of it matters. there are plenty of good lawyers in this world. it's just not our market. i will probably not get that job. this is the numbers game i will be forced to play from this point forward, too. this, of course, means that i can do everything 110% perfectly... and it probably won't matter. it will all come down to what some partner wants that day. totally up to chance. and there's no way to control it.

the man will be home sunday afternoon. thank. GOD. i absolutely love how good he is at what he does, and i'm glad he's happy. but i am starting to get the feeling that this is the first of many, many times i'll have to face the notion of him trucking happily off to some other semi-developed (at best) foreign land to work with do-gooders. he'll love it... and two things will be true: i will hate it, and there will be nothing i can do to change it. i have no say in any of this. not that i would, necessarily, invoke a say if i had one. that's the point of adulthood, right? i'm always on about self-determination, so i'd be just the worst sort of hypocrite if i didn't grant that to him. but if i ran things? this would never, ever happen again. i would never have to deal with this kind of uncertainty again. but there's nothing i can do to control this. he's chasing his dream. i'm left to deal with the aftermath.

oh, and there's the place where professional and personal angst meet: what the hell am i going to do if i have to leave this area for a job? what would i do if the only way to make a living doing what i love only exacerbates the separation between us? what then? ugh. there's so much going on right now that i completely detest. all i can do is wait through it, walk through it and live through it. i can control none of it, and i can't accelerate the waiting time. all i can do is try my damnedest to be patient. it's a virtue, i'm told. well, i don't know much about either virtue or patience. but apparently, the world has decided that it's high time i learn.

all right, universe. you're on. let's do this.

cocktail

[i write this with not a small dose of restraint today. if i'm not careful, i'll spray excess words all over the internet, things written in the heat of passion that aren't what i mean to say. so with that caveat in mind, let's proceed.]

he's in country now, i assume. funny how having him so far away, behind the wall of developing-world technology that may as well erase him from existence while he's gone, brings up nothing but all the things that annoy, that chafe, that tighten my chest about us. i hate this. i hate that he's there. i hate all the preparation that had to go into it - vaccinations, prescriptions, neurotoxic insect repellents, ad infinitum, ad astram, ad nauseam. i hate that he chose a career that will undoubtedly lead to this sort of situation time and time again. but i hate this feeling, this vacuum into which neurotoxins of my own have flooded, one thousand times worse.

i grow petulant in his absence. i think of problems, conflicts, bad habits and supposed slights. i gain a desire to maim, to wound, to slash. someday, you will ache like i ache. when wounded, and i am more wounded than i care to contemplate, i bite. i am the girl with the thorn in her side, festering, stabbing, throbbing and blocking out all of my logic with a miasma of insanely-pitched agony. if i don't watch this cocktail of emotions, i'll cause problems. and it's not even like i can tell him about it. like i said, for the next few days, he's essentially a figment of my tortured, twisted imagination. even if i could talk to him, i am reasonably certain that what i would say would violate the i need you to not freak out directive.

so i have dealt with my angered, injured nerves the best way i know how: i have vacated the premises for several days of swirling, louche distraction. i'm doing what all good degenerates do. i will solve my problems by getting righteously, indignantly, starkly drunk, tearing up the bars of my louisiana homeland with the band of sisters i built in law school, while i shredded an old life that didn't fit in preparation for this one. (be careful what you wish for?) i will drink the memory into oblivion, soothing this monster of a feeling through temporary chemically-induced analgesia. i will do what i do best.

i will ignore it.

we'll see how long i can sustain this, replacing a figurative cocktail with a literal cocktail, distracting and deluding myself into pretending i'm fine. i will not freak out. i will be the very model of a modern major depressive, at least one who can cope. and he will be proud of me when he comes back from his parallel universe. my apparent bravery in the face of a situation i could not control will give him faith in me. (unless he deigns to read this blog, i guess; if he does, the cover will totally be blown.) and that, my friends, will be my victory.

here's hoping i make it that long.

the misanthropy bowl

by now, the whole OMG, the computer beat the smart humans at jeopardy! thing has been beaten into the ground. everyone's got a theory or an opinion. i think the computer's amazing, don't get me wrong. but i noticed a very distinct set of responses to this that triggered a hmm moment with me.

the tech boys (and probably girls - i just didn't see any) out there were all REALLY, REALLY eager to see that computer just WAX the people. i mean, there was a level of frenzy i read and observed out in the tech world to see the humans get beaten down like rented mules. lord knows that the tech boys in my personal life were all about some computer overlord. they were dying for watson to turn around and start in with the ezekiel 25:17 scene from pulp fiction: and you will KNOW! my name is THE LORD! when i LAY my vengeance upon you. [hail of gunfire] well, in watson's case, it'd probably be lasers or something like that, but the point still stands.

and heaven forfend that the reaction you have didn't rise to that level of eagerness. the man and i spent easily 25 minutes going around and around in circles last night because the facet of the experience that i chose to mention was the onslaught of IBM branding that permeated the entire 90 minutes of television. my position was that the company saturated all three shows with corporate branding. his position was that noticing anything other than the majesty of the technology diminished that majesty. well, i'm sorry; i can offer no statement as to that majesty besides, holy hell, that's cool. i don't live the technological life, a life that is as cloistered as they come. i know more about computers than most, but i am a dilettante, and i always will be. the boys tease me about there being a "moat" around their tech-world. it's a joke, but they're more right than they think. i'm a lawyer. i notice details. and the detail i passed comment on was the branding aspect. that triggered a reaction that was so forceful in its vehemence that it left me defensive and confused.

it seems like the man's reaction was the very mild end of a continuum of the tech-boy response that has led me to dub the whole operation "the misanthropy bowl." it's the clearest and most accessible example of technology's supposed supremacy to humanity that we've seen short of science fiction. and though the machine that constituted watson was dismantled shortly after the shows were taped, the way it works could potentially change the way we look at the world. i think this is awesome, and it'll make people's lives easier. some people, i think, look at this and see a way to subordinate people to the clean, logical mastery that technology brings. well, no thank you. i am often frustrated with people, to say the least. we can be stupid, bigoted, beastly, fatuous, illogical, messy, and all that. but that doesn't mean that i don't think we're also, as a rule, funny, warm, brilliant, open and capable of amazing things. y'know, like inventing technologies like watson. without people, there IS no technology. some among us would do well to remember that.

serenity

god, grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

this, my friends, is the serenity prayer. i know, right - me, quoting prayers? it's like in to kill a mockingbird, when the foot-washing baptists run away from miss maudie, thinking that the devil was surely quoting scripture for his own purposes. but i learned it when my mom was heavy into AA, and frankly, i kinda like it. i picked this little jewel up when i was six years old, and in the intervening two-and-a-half decades, it's come through for me as a centering piece time and time again.

so you can bet that it's been running through my brain like the sound of horse hooves for the last 20 hours or so. see, the man is a genius consultant. he works with people who do amazing things with nonprofits and non-governmental organizations. his clients do their stuff all over the world, and generally where there's great need. being that we're in the metro DC area, our nation's capital and all, his client base is pretty much all centered here, though, so that's no biggie. until now, anyway. the newest entry on his client slate is really gung-ho for his skills. how could you not be - he's freaking brilliant at what he does. and there's the rub. he's so brilliant that they want him to go into the field and help them with their operations in country.

in africa. and a particularly dodgy corner thereof.

oh, color me thrilled about this. it was announced to me last night that this is happening in a mere nine days. i have bad news, and i need you to not freak out. um, hon, here's a hint: if you introduce the idea with this prologue, you're almost guaranteed to trigger preemptive freaking out. but really, i took it well. i just didn't say anything. he held my hand. are you okay? well, i kind of have to be, don't i? this is the kind of professional opportunity that can put a businessman like him on the map. it's prestigious as hell. i am, beyond the vague fear, so unbelievably proud of him that i can't stand it. but yeah, i'm going to worry. you're freaking out, aren't you? i didn't say anything. but yes, love, i am worried.

so this is the big test. this is the ultimate strain on the serenity prayer as a mantra, a balm, a way to soothe myself. i know rationally that nothing bad is going to happen, that he's going to wow them with his skills and really set his practice in motion more than ever. but for that nine-day stretch of time that he's away from me, flying literally halfway around the world? i'm going to worry.

accept the things i cannot change. this is the modest task that is my charge. and folks, i'm going to need all the help that i can get...

talk to me

your humble author, as you have clearly seen, can be a giant ball of anxiety at times. i am given to worry on a fairly regular basis. sometimes, most times even, i am able to seek solace with the fond embrace of my love. but what to do when the source of the anxiety is something that involves him?

i tried to have a conversation with him tonight, wishing to clear up something that had been weighing on my mind of late. but his style is... to call him stoic insults stoics. taciturn. the strong, SILENT type. so my worries and queries were met with crickets. now, don't get me wrong; he wasn't unresponsive. but a simple soothing just was - and is - not gonna get it done tonight. i wanted answers, discourse. his opinion mattered, and he would. not. give. it. just frustrating as hell.

so that's why i'm writing this instead of lying in his arms right now. i love him dearly. but right now, a pat on the head just ain't gonna get it done. someday, that might make sense to him. but until it does, he's going to have to see that silence is not always golden in my world.

in the car

you can't go on thinking nothing's wrong
who's gonna drive you home tonight?
 - "drive," the cars

some days, the weight of the world gets to be too much. lord knows there was a ton of that this weekend. my beloved saints? yeah, we're not going to talk about that. it's cold. i think my body hates me, based on how many varied aches, pains and ailments it's throwing at me. and that's not even getting into the unimaginable sorrow and rage of the attempted assassination of a congresswoman.

so what did i do? i got in the car and went for a drive. ostensibly, it was to run errands; the man needed a key made, but had a call today, so i volunteered to do it. (i am not doing ANYTHING until a week for tomorrow. i. am. BORED.) but once that was done, i wasn't ready to go back and sit in a chair while everyone else lived their lives. so i wound my way around the metro DC area, fighting traffic, blasting music and getting my thoughts in order. it was so restorative that even the light swearing i had to do while negotiating probably my least favorite intersection in the area didn't stress me out.

maybe other people aren't like this, but i am. there is nothing that settles my soul more than being alone in the car with my thoughts for a little while. it may not cure my ills, but controlling a slick rolling ton of american-made steel sure does salve me for awhile. it's the little things, eh?

headache

my head hurts. it's hurt all day long. not really enough to warrant drugs or anything; just that dull, vague pain that accompanies a series of mild-to-moderate annoyances.

i am over school. i don't want to do it anymore. i have three exams and a paper, all of which have to be done before the 16th. i can barely, barely force myself to study for them, even though i'm spending ungodly amounts of debt-money to get this stupid degree. it's physically painful to drag myself through this preparation.

and the physical pain triggers emotional dragginess. that in turn leads me to take tiny slights as full-on assaults, non-cues as giant signs of my immense worthlessness, and all sorts of other foolish things. i don't know why this happens, but it does. it makes me, to be totally honest with you, really terrible company. so i try to mitigate this by not speaking, by sitting silently wherever i happen to be. but then i feel like a giant burden on everyone i'm around, bringing the room down with my negativity.

now, none of this is real. but i still end up hurting as if it was. how goofy is this? it's just exhaustion, frustration and disappointment, to be honest with you. it really is. but knowing what it is doesn't seem to help me, y'know, DO SOMETHING about it. so here i sit, tightness in my chest, burden in my heart, feeling like i'm in the way again.

what a headache.

clinging

it's dark. it's really, really dark. i try so hard to be positive, to muddle through the pain, the anger, the annoyance and the stress with all the resolve i can muster. but by god, this hurts. i am starting to feel the old rebellious streak rise up in me, the one who says, y'know, why the hell SHOULD life be this hard? what the hell is the point of trying to maintain, be on an even keel? this world does nothing but throw curveballs at you. and that, my friends, is a place i'd just as soon never see again.

see, i have a double-barreled challenge to overcome here: 1) my mother's serious mental health issues, many of which are supposedly genetic; 2) a history of... allowing the darkness to control me, so to speak. i have done so well over the past decade or so at keeping my head above water, managing my emotions. but with stressor upon stressor upon heartbreak upon fear piling up, my carefully-arranged psyche is starting to crack, starting to show signs of wear.

i know what i need to do. i know what i should do. but by god, i can't be the only person on the face of the earth who is seriously, intensely incensed by the fact that life has to be so much work. really. why the hell does this have to be such a struggle all the time? why is it that i have to fight so incredibly hard just to get through the day without succumbing to the forces that are trying to destroy me? i look around at most of the people in my life, who i know don't have perfect lives, but at least seem to have okay enough lives, and i am seethingly jealous. it makes me so angry. i have to try so goddamned hard just to get out of bed in the morning these days. it's so much fucking work. my emotional life is so much in tatters that it's cutting me to shreds. compounding this is the fact that i know people with real, life-threatening challenges who are so much more successful at staying... sane, i guess. the guilt of that compounds all of this even more.

so that's where i stand. it's a damn cold night, and i'm here, alone in my room, doing everything i can to keep my demons at bay and my angels close by. i will make it through this. i know. but sometimes, i get so goddamned tired. the test is whether i drop my hand from the wheel and let things go, or whether i somehow scare up enough resolve to keep it going.

callouts

well. that happened. turns out i'm not the only person who was aggrieved in my life last night. i mean, that does stand to reason; it's no secret that i'm a challenge to love from time to time. but it seems that there was a lot i was doing that was bothering him. it's the first time in my life when i've ever been told by someone that "anything i say will make things worse, so i'm not saying anything."

whoa. that's not what i was expecting to hear at all. but talk about a wake-up call. so we had it out. i mean, i know i'm on edge. i know i've been tough to be around. but the implication that i can't be spoken to because of my potential reaction to it? oh, no. that's not going to work. so we talked it out. it was good, in its way, to argue for once. at least i was finally, after pulling it out of him, clued into the fact that he wasn't happy with me. things were resolved.

i've had better weeks than this one. i've had better months than this one, so far. but i apparently needed to be called out for the way i was acting. (so did he.) better to know than not, i suppose. facing the bad and the good is part of having an adult relationship. and i'd much rather have a real, true relationship than a shallow, fake "happy" situation. so i'll take my medicine. just as long as he takes his too, that is.

watershed

at long last, the dam broke.

i've been so together, so possessed of myself. i can handle anything. i laid in the man's bed, showered and ready to go to sleep, but something was wrong. he came in, watched some bad television, then turned out the lights and wrapped his arms around me. it felt so right, and yet the heaviness overtook me. the man noticed, and he slowly teased it out of me.

we talked for a long time about the things that weighed on me. well, i talked; he listened, he comforted. and finally, as i emptied the footlockers i carry around with me, the tears came. i cried, in front of him, for only the second time in our long history together. "i am so sick of losing people," i said to him. he kissed me, held me, soothed me. "i know."

and he does know. that's the secret. he knows so much about me, what i need, what i want, what i'm like (whether i'm owning up to it or not). he embraces it. he's so good to me and so good for me. and when i cry, it's not a problem or a disaster. it's just another wave to ride. he just handles it, the way he handles everything. and though you'd think it would be natural to be so comfortable with a man who's known me for half my life, it took me seeing him in this light to open up and let the walls down. it was a moment in our relationship that changed things. again.

a new beginning, consecrated in tears, a kiss, and a whispered, "i know."

impatience

i don't wait well. it's a weakness of mine; if something important is coming up, i am on freaking tenterhooks until it happens. case in point: i am currently waiting for my student loan disbursement. five business days is INTERMINABLE when you have a ton of things to buy. i'm antsy as hell waiting for the direct deposit to show up.

but this impatience pales in comparison with the waiting game i have to play now. i wonder if this is how people in jail feel as their sentences wind down. i am so. damn. close. to having absolutely everything i have ever wanted in this life. there's just the matter of having to snip those last few threads of entanglement before i can get totally free. i have no choice in the matter, either; there's just no way to advance the timetable.

all i can do is think about how little time is really left. i've waited this long. i can wait a little longer.

death of a thousand cuts

the summer is slowly winding down. i'm finishing my time in the sublet, making plans for the next year of my life, getting ready to start the final year of my formal education and the first chapter of my new story as a woman on her own. this time has flown by so quickly that it's really hard to internalize. my new life and my old life are about to run smack into each other. the time is short; a matter of days until the balancing act that fall 2010 will become begins in earnest. the illusions i've built, the freedom i've grown into so well: these things will have to be tempered by the fact that, well, he'll be back here. the convenient excuse of a thousand miles is as gone as yesterday come this weekend.

we've started the process of working these issues out. i'm not sure reality has set in on his side. i don't really have the heart to be that blunt over the phone. these things are best suited face-to-face. it's been over two months since i last saw him. there will be a whole lot of forced cheer in the beginning, as we have fun with his friends, put on the happy face and pretend like there's nothing wrong. 'course, i didn't count on him being so terrible at compartmentalizing his feelings; our deep, dark secrets have been paraded around his circle of loved ones like painted-up tarts at times. i don't know how i feel about this, just that i'm not happy about it.

words have been exchanged, hurts have been confessed. the bloom has fallen off the rose. my anger, his anger, my disappointment, his bewilderment are now the currency of our communications. when we're not forced to get into these issues, i can discuss things with him like we're old friends. but as soon as he persists in delving into our problems, the ice block in my heart swallows up my emotions and turns me into a shadow of myself. i just don't want to deal with this anymore. i want to slash this gordian knot in half, unraveling all of this once and for all.

but we're not that lucky. he doesn't know that he'd be luckier if i could make that happen, if i could just slice through all of this, sever it all and leave the ends raw and bleeding onto the floor. but i do. i know what i've done. i know what i'm capable of doing. i know how badly i can wound. i don't like it, but it's true. if there was any way at all to just make this all go away, it would save him from a fate worse than the languishing death of a thousand tiny cuts. this is our reality, and this is our future. it's going to hurt far worse than anything you could ever imagine.

it's the right way to do it, to be smart, gradual, logical. but it'll be the death of me.

one is the loneliest number

i claim to be tough. in a lot of ways, i am. i've been through a lot and i'm still standing. but if you scratch me deeply enough, you'll get to my core, and you don't have to go as deeply as i wish you did to find it. long story short, i am not as strong as i think i am, or even as strong as i purport to be. this is never more obvious than on friday evenings.

as it gets dark out and the weekend begins, i start to get really edgy if i don't have somewhere to be, somewhere to go. i haven't quite let go of that mentality that weekend nights are for youthful socializing, and if you're not out doing something, you're missing out. now that it's just me, and i don't have someone at the house who's always there to talk to or go out with, this feeling's gotten 100 times worse. i know i just need to soldier through it, bite the bullet, snuggle up with some netflix streaming stuff and realize that life doesn't end because you spent a night in. but that doesn't change this feeling of, "oh, my god, i am alone. there's no one here to talk to and i am alone. ALONE." the walls close in.

i have friends. good ones. i know this. but friday night alone makes me feel like the most unloved person on the planet. it's totally irrational, but that's the way it is. maybe that's why i backslide, looking for companionship in all the wrong places. it'll get better soon, i know it will; i'll grow used to my new lifestyle. i haven't spent a weekend alone in a long, long, long, LONG time. time will make this better.

right?

behind blue eyes

"but my dreams, they aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be... my love is vengeance; it's never free."

i am, outwardly, a friendly, warm and genial person. if you win my loyalty, i will fight and die for you. i will often subsume my needs if i think your needs are greater. i love those whom i love fiercely, protectively, passionately. i give, give, give, give, give. all. the. time. if you've earned my trust and look into my blue eyes, you'll see true-blue dedication and a willingness to do whatever it takes to make you happy.

but lately, that fierceness, that loyalty, comes with a certain edge. there are some places in my life where, suddenly, i don't feel like giving as much as i used to. that's the main reason i'm on my own right now. but it's also starting to seep into my other recreations. we've talked a bit more this summer than i know he would care to about things between us. i mean, it's not like they've been really substantive conversations; that's not how he rolls. but i've managed to squeeze some things out.

we make strange pillow talk when we're together. sometimes, when we're regaining our composure, we talk about nothing in particular. other times, we manage to get into these weird emotional places where it's probably not a good idea to go when you're lying naked in someone's arms. but that's where we went the other night, regardless of the intelligence of it. he was flush with the ego boost of producing multiple orgasms out of me, and he was crowing about what he knows about me physically, what he can do with me. so i pushed him, asking, "all right, big man; what do you know about me emotionally?" stupid question; i pushed too far. i finally heard precisely how i come off when i think i'm being passionate: "when you care about someone, you'll do almost anything to ingratiate yourself to that person."

ingratiate. what a word. conjures up servitude, subjugation, and generally lowering yourself to elevate someone else. how hard. how blunt. here i thought i was being a good friend. apparently, i just look pathetic. i felt something clench when that word came out of his mouth. i let it go at the time (in fact, i responded to this by going down on him), but the more i think about it, the angrier it makes me. to be told once that my loyalty is one of the things that's most valued about me, and then to be told that the very same loyalty makes me look like a charity case? i'm undone.

i think i need a new strategy. i think, as part of the reinvention process, i need to take a good, hard look at the way i love. i can't see myself giving up loyalty; it's something i value in others, so i see no need to totally dispatch that quality in myself. but what i am going to do, at least with him, is change the way that loyalty is expressed. there's going to be a sharpness to the way i love him. there's not going to be any more ingratiation. that girl is dead, as far as i'm concerned. what there will be is a new reality.

my sex is submission. but my love is vengeance. and it will never be free again.

kudzu

as it happens, old habits die hard. my old life came shrieking into my new life with a vengeance tonight; i've spent all day dealing with problems 1,100 miles away from my double-sided little haven in the mid-atlantic. on the one hand, i love solving, doing, thinking and applying. but on the other hand, this is the same damn thing that got me in this mess in the first place: handling all the business.

when you have relationships that last a long time, they just have this way of twining themselves around every fiber of your being. it's really like kudzu, which any good southern kid will tell you has a way of covering everything in its path with no discretion or mercy. the vines just grow and grow, and it's basically impossible to do anything about it. so this is my challenge. i need a machete or something, just to slash and burn and regain myself. i mean, with all the clarity i've gained in this short little time i've been alone, to suffer a setback now would be...

no. we're not even going to contemplate that possibility. one day at a time. i am not going to let the past bowl me over and swallow me whole, digging up vulnerabilities and hurting me. not even close. i didn't come this far to let these dusty vines define my life. it's a new day, and that's all there is to it.

blocked

it was supposed to be an easy night. a short morning in class, a gorgeous sunny day, some good study progress, then a quick trip out for food and a movie with a friend. nice. simple. but no, we don't do simple anymore in this life, apparently. i was all settled in my seat, ready to go, and bang: the phone buzzed. damn push notifications, i thought; i KNOW the lakers won, you don't have to tell me five times from three different apps. but no, this time it was a phone call. at 12:34 AM. from a blocked number. for the third time in 48 hours.

so consider me unnerved. i mean, it's not like i'm completely alone right now, with drama all around me and a ton of stress to sap my vigilance. oh wait - that's EXACTLY what it's like. there are weird things at work in my life, stressful, paranoia-inducing surprises at every freaking turn. and the best part? i've opened the door to all of this. damn it all. this had better just be an extraordinary inappropriate telemarketer. if not... well, i don't know what to do. but let this be public record: three calls, blocked number. june 15, 5:32 PM; june 17, 10:26 PM; june 18, 12:34 AM. all times eastern. let's hope it's nothing. it is nothing.

right?

appomattox

sometimes, in the cold light of morning, you wake up and realize that you've lost. the troops are scattered, the fort is burning, and the cause is gone forever. this is one of those days. i got out of bed with a dull, thudding headache and the weight of the world on my chest. the headache made sense; that's what happens when you drink too much. but the weight? that eluded me for a minute... until i turned around and saw him lying there asleep.

and just like that, there it was. it hit me like a ten-ton truck that there was something so fake about this that it hurt to even see him there. it's not even his fault. he never lied to me, not once. he told me a long time ago what we were doing, and moreover what we weren't doing. i asked him once, "why am i not dateable?" i couldn't stand the ambiguity anymore; i needed him to tell me what was happening. there are obvious logistical reasons, but he's decided that it's just not worth the "risk" to take a chance on me as more than... i don't even know anymore.

and i still spent the entire weekend wanting his company, just to be near him, to the point where i invited him in last night just to sleep next to me. i just wanted him there. then i woke up and saw what i had done. no. unacceptable. i felt so freaking DESPERATE. it's not that he doesn't like me. it's not that we aren't good friends. it's that i keep trying to make something when there's clearly never going to be anything. and the simple reality of that finally sunk in, after all this time. i need to put some space between us for awhile, i think, to make the lesson sink in, but the fact remains that it's finally dawned on me that this is one more thing that i've lost lately. i don't know how much more i can take of this, but if i want to keep someone important to me around, this is a necessary loss.

i get it. finally. i surrender.

one step up

[soundtrack]

"we're the same sad story, that's a fact; one step up and two steps back..."
i know by now that you know. you have the sense that there's something wrong. your voice is hard when we talk. there's distance. you don't call me. the last time i saw you, there was a definite space between us, one that even i felt. frankly, i was surprised at how that space still, somehow, managed to hurt me. just a little, but it definitely hurt, a dull ache deep in my soul, under all the anger, the frustration and the exasperation. sometimes things blow up when they end, loud, ugly confrontations that tear and rip and wake the neighbors. i kinda thought that's how it would go down with us, given how passionate and irrational our relationship has always been. but maybe i miscalculated. maybe this thing will just die quietly, no fanfare, no screaming. just... thud.

"i'm sitting here in this bar tonight, but all i'm thinking is i'm the same old story, same old act..."
i've always thought of myself as special, different, even better than most people. i'm an only child with above-average intelligence, decent looks and a good work ethic, so that gives me a pretty damn good ego. but the older i get, the more i realize that i am not anywhere near as unique as i used to think i was. i am, at my heart, pretty freaking run of the mill. the way i chose to conduct myself at the end of this has been pretty ignominious, to be sure, but it's also been cliched. i pushed you away. i sought refuge in other recreations. i took up drinking, ran the streets with my friends, and basically behaved like an adolescent for most of this. some mature, rational person i am, eh? instead of metaphorically manning up, facing the music and owning it, i just... yeah.

"it's the same thing night on night, who's wrong, baby, who's right. another fight and i slam the door on another battle in our dirty little war..."
we don't fight much. when we do, it's epic. i can be so goddamned vicious when i want to. i cut. i aim low. when i am wounded, i want everyone else around me to feel the pain i do. but that's no way to run a railroad. that's probably the biggest sign that we're doomed: i won't even invest enough of my heart in you anymore to scald you. when i think of you, it hurts my heart, like pushing on a bruise that just won't heal. but there's just no energy to hurt back. none. i just want it to stop. i want the door closed behind me. and i think that's what's going to end up happening, one way or another.

"when i look at myself i don't see the man i wanted to be..."
i fought so hard for this over the years. i changed so much, sacrificed so hard, rearranged the universe in the image i thought would work for us. and look where it got me: sitting here alone tonight, torn of soul and weary of spirit, with my heart pulled in so many different directions i can't stand it. and most of all, i just want to forget i ever met you. i want every single damned reminder of everything we were pushed away, never to be discussed again. i want you locked away. and when i admit that to myself, i feel sleazy, cheap, and most disturbing, like a total failure. i thought i could will this relationship through anything. clearly, i cannot. and my god, that's the worst failure of them all.

"somewhere along the line i stepped off track, one step up and two steps back."

lucky you

[your soundtrack]

"and every time you're driving home, way outside your safety zone, wherever you will ever be, you're never getting rid of me."
scars are funny things. most of the time, once the wound has healed and faded down to nothing but a pale shadow of itself, you don't even notice that there's anything left. but every so often, in passing, you notice that the skin that used to be so taut, so smooth, is now thick and irregular. the lines twist over your body, letting you know in no uncertain terms that you. are. changed. you'll never be the whole person you were before; those days are gone forever. it doesn't matter how long ago it happened, but when you notice that scar, you're instantly confronted with the trauma of whatever mauled you. even if the sting of the memory is infinitesimally brief, the sting still jolts you. not all scars are created equal, but all remind you of something you'd just as soon never dwell on again.

"you own me. there's nothing you can do; you own me."
the injured is forever tied to the injurer when the injury leaves a scar. no matter what you do, there's always a connection. when the scar is on the soul, the heart, or the mind, the tethers pull you together even harder. the shared experience of giving and receiving psychic pain creates an iron-clad union between the aggrieved and the menacing. even if you carry on the rest of your days without acknowledging it, there will be one day, when you least expect it, when the sorrow whipsaws through you, leaving you breathless, if only for a second.

"you could've made a safer bet, but what you break is what you get."
breaking someone's heart is never a simple task. there are repercussions far beyond the actual confrontation. maybe you pay for the act in the moment, or maybe you pay later. there's guilt, pain, shame, anger, and the inevitable feeling that you will never, ever be free of that person again, no matter how goddamn much you try. everyone you love, even in passing, gets bonded onto your heart in one way or another. breaking that bond isn't as simple as slicing something off and walking away. pieces rip. the honeybee's stinger is left in the victim's wound. the venom hits its target. the honeybee is torn in half. that's what breaking a heart is. you're left with a piece missing, and no matter how great the relief you may feel, there's the gaping maw left by the part of you that's no longer there.

"you wake up in the bed you make; i think you made a big mistake."
the silent - or not-so-silent - accusation of the lover scorned. it howls at you, nips at your heels at all times. you were right to end it. you are right to be gone. but that doesn't stop the doubts, the hurt, the memory of the wounded eyes staring at you in disbelief. shared love equals shared pain. breaking up is hard to do? heh. don't insult my intelligence. breaking up is murder. plain and simple. once you pull the shrapnel out of your body, shake off the shock of the explosion and collect the scattered debris of your life, you still carry the scars. it doesn't matter who pulls the pin. no one walks away a winner. that's why we stay in bad situations, we linger on with the weight of dead love settling harder onto our chests. the dull pain we know is far better than the unspeakable agony we can see around the corner. when you finally say "enough," when you move past the apathy and act, your reward is the endless connection to your failed past. there are no winners here. there can't be. all there can be is the slamming of a door, the tearing of a fabric, and the slow, throbbing trek towards... well, towards whatever lies ahead. you're changed, now and forever. take the change and move on.

"there's nothing you can do. you own me. you own me. lucky you."