stranglehold

this is supposed to be the season of my liberation. i'm finally supposed to be free. i'm getting the last of my education, i'm in a brand-new relationship, and i'm on my way forward into my new life. but today, after some back-of-the-envelope math, i realized once and for all that my old life is just not going to let me go that easily.

translation: kids, your humble blog proprietor is 110% BROKE.

i've survived on a small amount of money before. hell, that's how i got through undergrad; i scraped by, barely eating anything, and it was fine. but this time, i've had eight years of adult life, which means eight years of adult debt to rack up. my rent and utilities will be covered, as will my phone bill. y'know, the important stuff. but when i was with my ex, we lived like, well, like idiot twenty-somethings, and now i am left holding the bag. i'm sure it shocks none of you that all of this stuff was in my name. boy, is that coming back to haunt me.

this is utterly terrifying. i literally have no idea what to do about this. i'm going to have to have a tough talk with my ex about giving me more money this year. that much is true. he's going to push back. i know it. it's going to be EXCRUCIATING. but more immediately, i'm going to have to figure out a way to get by. i have a very small amount of property to sell. i'm still waiting for my deposit check back from my old landlord (and i'm about to get REALLY ornery over it, too). but that's not going to help that much. i'm looking for work right now, which i think is a really scary proposition given how hard this program is, but i don't think i have a choice right now.

it'll be OK in the long run. i'll get through this one way or another. but that doesn't make this moment any less terrifying. the noose is around my neck. it's going to take some quick thinking to get it off. and in the meantime, the stranglehold gets a little bit tighter every second.

go get it

it's october already. holy hell. i have an exam in 11 days. (gaaaaah.) there's much to do in the next few weeks, and not all of it is academic. i mean, there will come a day when this professional student gig comes to an end and i begin to justify the mortgage i've taken out on my brain. so today i polished up the ol' resume, wrote some cover letters, jumped through some hoops and started applying to jobs.

i don't know if y'all are followers of current events, but you may have noticed we're in a teeny bit of an economic tailspin of totally biblical proportions. i have managed to time my graduation from all three of my post-high-school degree programs to coincide with just awful financial conditions. hell, i graduated from undergrad as part of the first post-9/11 class. 2010 was the year the legal industry as we knew it imploded, and while things seem more stable now, they've stabilized at a pretty bad level. used to be, and not that long ago at that, a law degree was a sure-bet ticket to a stable and comfortable life. there are too many of us out there with JDs now, and there are way, way too few jobs. it's pretty scary, especially when i think about the debt i've taken on to get my education.

damn it all, i went to law school because i like studying law. i liked being a summer law clerk, too. i like what i've observed of the practice. i truly believe in the goodness lawyers can do in this culture. (not a fan of lawyer jokes - just putting that out there.) i'm just getting a little nervous that the combination of a bad economy and a glut of people chasing paychecks will keep me from doing what i always wanted to do.

so here i go into the breach. i'm papering the universe with my resume: government gigs, judicial clerkships, etc., etc., etc. in 15 days, i'll know whether i passed the virginia bar exam. (unless someone calls the office to ask about results. sigh.) what i want is simple: i want my LL.M. i want to practice law. i want to earn a good living doing good work. and i will do EVERYTHING in my power to get it. i say this a lot, but i am on the verge of having every part of my life lined up and going well. it's time to go to work to make sure that stays true.

let's go get it.

universal truth

a few months back, i got some news that triggered this rant. (me? ranting? i know, right? shocking.) the prognosis was bad, and it made me scared, angry and frustrated. but every story has an ending, and this time, the forces of good are winning out. the affable-but-worthless fiance became the affable-and-trying husband. and somehow, some way, my kid cousin and her baby girl beat the odds today. the birth went down, and everyone's okay so far.

i've been vaguely terrified about what would happen ever since i found out about this. i mean, the rationalist, the logical thinker, looks at something like this and thinks, yeah, i have a bad, bad feeling about all of this. there's no way this will end well. and yet, here we are. i'm so incredibly relieved that the kids pulled it out. there's still a long row to hoe, and i'm still holding my breath (not to mention that now the kid's going to have to be raised - another story entirely), but the big threat passed over. whew.

i was with the man when i found out about my cousin going to the hospital. he held me, he rubbed my back, and he said, "you have to trust me; it's going to be okay." i said to him, because i knew he would understand this statement, "it's times like these when it's hard to be an atheist." i don't mean it's difficult to retain my lack of belief in the face of things like this. it's literally challenging to be faced with something this potentially tragic and to know that there's nothing you can do except hope for the best. my family, of course, will point to this all as a clear example of the intercession of a higher power. and i even succumbed to the temptation of seeking comfort in the non-existent by asking my religious friends to pray for her. i felt like i had to do SOMETHING, being a thousand miles away with no ability to do anything anyway.

but even that request made me feel like a sellout. i mean, why would prayers from others matter? it's all steps in a dance that's performed to music i just can't hear. it's comforting, i guess, to think that prayer, faith, etc. has any effect on what happens in this world. and it's a "comfort" i will never be able to experience. that's why it's hard to face things like this: there's no comfort found in it, just the cold realization that there's nothing you can do but hope for the best and prepare for the worst. all the beautiful words and heartfelt sentiment in the world can't change that. that's the universal truth.

shameless self-promotion, the sequel

today, i have a guest post over at the hindsight letters, a fabulous blog that you should all be reading. the concept alone is amazing: grown you writes back to teenage you, reflecting on a key decision that had a deep impact on your life.

as for mine... well. let's just say that things have changed since i composed this one. let me know what you think...

comfort food

oh, what a weekend for a louisiana-centric sports fan like myself. ooh, the stress that my alma mater and my beloved saints gave me. the only happy, and i use the term loosely, sports fan in my life today is the man, whose giants won the division. ugh. drama and more drama.

i salved my jangled nerves as i sometimes do. no, not with wine, though that's a good guess. i chose to make things better by pulling together one of my all-time favorite emotional tonics - red beans and rice. oh, man, there's nothing finer to ease my mind. back down south, you can get the beans in cans; all you have to do is make rice and nuke the beans. hell, if you're a hopeless slack-ass, you can even use instant rice (though i find that stuff a sin). here in the heathen mid-atlantic, though, it's an all-day affair. four hours of cooking and prep time, once it's all said and done.

sundays are for cooking large meals at the man's house, sharing my bounty with his friends and generally flexing my domestic goddess muscles. i get a huge charge out of it; they gush, i get proud. but this time, there was a level of emotional balm to the act of chopping, boiling and serving. when i'm stressed, as i usually am, i find release in things like cooking, cross-stitch, and really out-of-character traditional "womanly arts." there's a level of traditionalism to this relationship that i never saw coming. doors are held. drinks are purchased. i cook meals; he takes out trash. it's surprising, and what's even more surprising is how comforting i find this dynamic.

living in this new reality is comfort food for my tortured soul. whatever the source of the torture, this new relationship soothes me. there's love, companionship... there's everything i never knew i needed. i get to be exactly what and who i am, no questions. if i want to be suzie homemaker, i can. if i want to yell at les miles for ANOTHER STUPID CLOCK MANAGEMENT DEBACLE, i can. there's room. and there's no greater comfort than that.

still of the night

heavens preserve us, folks: the man has a cold.

this is not going to be one of those "OMG, men are SOOOO pathetic when they're sick, hee hee!" rants. the man is a stoic, pretty much all the time (except when we're alone). he bears his various crosses with a quiet resolve that i envy on basically an hourly basis. but even that stoicism can be a pain, especially when I show up all dressed to kill to go out, take one look at him, and realize, well, this was totally not necessary. sigh.

the upshot of this situation is that i got to fall into bed with him early and rest up. so that's what we did. we both needed the rest, so i drifted off early (for us, anyway) all wrapped up with my nyquil-dosed man. but a funny thing happened at one point. i woke up for a moment after a particularly odd dream (i mean, what girl doesn't dream of spending extended periods of time with rex ryan?), stirring in the darkness. he tightened his arms around me and kissed me on the shoulder. mmm. soothing. i settled back down, and just before i fully fell back to sleep, i felt his breath against me, whispering one small sentence in my ear.

"glad you're here."

the stoic reveals his heart in the subtlest of ways, when the risk is low and the reward is high. not that the man is cold; quite the contrary. he's physically demonstrative, supportive and loyal. but he's just not a talker. well, until now. at a vulnerable moment, when all he wanted was a little comfort, he got it. and he thanked me for it the best way he could: with a three-word summation of the love between us, whispered gently in the still of the night. i couldn't ask for anything more.

the difficult kind

the weather has finally broken. the air's been pregnant with moisture for days, just waiting to burst forth and drench us all. thankfully, this all occurred after i got home with my groceries and my 50-pound school bag. but more importantly, my mood has broken along with the storm outside. the leaden feeling in my chest, the numbness that enveloped me, has been replaced with something lighter, more encouraging. about damn time, too.

there's a tinge of reborn confidence in this new emotional state. i'm starting to internalize the good parts of the changes in my life, and not in a fleeting "thank god it's over!" kind of way. yeah, this process, now that it's real, is harrowing and painful. things will be said that hurt me more than i could imagine, but that's the only bullet he has left. but i know i'm already better for standing up and cutting the cord. i've owned up to my mistake. i've offered my mea culpa, too. that's all i can do. now the growth, the working on me, begins in earnest.

no one ever said this would be easy. i'm finding out just how hard it is, actually. loving and losing in such a spectacularly devastating fashion has made me someone different than i was before. but it's bringing out the good in me, in a way that's far more authentic than clinging to a glittering charade. it's just a shame that i can't share the change with him. if he could only see what love has made of me, but i'll no longer be in his life. what he'll remember of me, well, it almost makes me cry. but that's how it happens, i guess. that's the fallout, and that's his loss. the lessons of this will be well appreciated in those who stick around.

and you won't see the good in me. but, babe, i've changed.

heavy cloud, no rain

i haven't seen the sun since this weekend. whenever i've been out among the living, it's been heavily gray and dismal outside. that's been nice for the temperature; for those of us who walk everywhere we go, it's a welcome change from hot and humid. however, it's also an accurate reflection of my mood, and the cloud gets heavier as the days go by.

part of my come-to-jesus moment with the man sunday night involved the fact that i don't like to entangle the past with the present. i would much rather concentrate on moving forward. it's irritating to me that i'm as upset as i am over all of this, and it's infuriating that i can't keep a lid on it in his company. he doesn't deserve to have to pick up the pieces from someone else's destruction. but he insisted that i allow myself to feel whatever it is i'm feeling, whether or not he's there.

so i'm feeling it. and it's pretty damned rotten. as happy as i can be in the moment, and there's a lot to be happy about, my general head state is full of anger, sadness and fear. compound that with a double-barreled dose of just horrific circumstances in the lives of people i know, and that's a recipe for not wanting to leave my bed. but i do. i go out into the world and pretend like i'm 100% okay, laughing and joking with my friends. then the night ends, i come in and i close the door. that's when i drop the pretense, open the floodgates and just let it all come out.

relatively speaking, anyway. for the last two years, i've spent so much time acting like nothing was wrong that i think i've forgotten how to express emotion in any real way. i said in the moment that all i wanted to do was develop the ability not to give a damn. i did, but i think i've overachieved. when i admit to myself how upset i am, all i can do is conjure up this generically dull ache. it kills my focus, magnifies any physical pain and knocks me flat on my back. i am unable to do anything more than stare at the computer screen or the TV, taking in whatever is in front of me with no analysis or thought of any kind. i feel, but i can't process.

this kills me. it makes me want to do something - ANYTHING - to work out the pain. i thought i was past this sort of reaction. like every thinking person, i've had my bouts with depression, with serious mental issues. i feel myself creeping towards that place again. over my dead body will i let that happen again. so i'll put on my helmet in the morning, go back out there and show the world how strong i am. and i'll do my damnedest to find a good way to process this. it won't beat me. i won't let it.

clouds eventually blow away.

false dichotomy

i'm home, in bed, showered and ready to get some rest after a long and protracted weekend. and what a weekend it was, too. so many events, so many ups and downs. i thought i was done being two-faced; i had one more shot at the double life, though, and boy, was it one for the ages.

don't mistake me; it's trying as anything to put that old, tired costume on one last time. it was a long and arduous weekend, filled to the brim with emotional land mines. my heart was scarred, my perceptions were changed. the wounds i sustained hurt so deeply that they took my breath away. but the business of friday and saturday made it, strangely, easier to hide the cuts and bruises on my heart and soul. i was able to float through the role, following the playbook when no one else did (damn it, i said trips gun RIGHT; you're all going LEFT). i drank my wine and let the stress float to the back of my mind. i said my goodbyes, gathered my things and got in the cab.

as i slammed the door behind me and we sped back to the suburbs, i flipped the switch, threw off the mask, and stepped into the warm embrace of the life i choose, the life i love. and just like that, it was all made okay again. i took off the costume and became myself again. as saturday became sunday, the man took over, soothing me, loving me, making me remember why i've done what i've done.

with his arms around me, feeling the stillness of his breath against my neck as he slept, i finally succumbed to the pain of the weekend. the cuts bled, the bruises throbbed, and the tears flowed. i may seem made of stone, but even stone can break. sunday dawned cold and gray, the perfect mirror of my mood. i had to do a little more acting, but for once, i couldn't draw my audience into the illusion. he brought me to his room sunday night, looked me in the eye, and demanded my honesty. he got it, too. and again, he delivered nothing more than absolutely the proper reaction. he stilled the swirling confusion and hurt, replacing it with measured sanity and calm affirmation.

i no longer lead a double life. the break isn't clean; far from it. but the stark, unrelenting split of circumstance in this weekend proved what a false dichotomy my supposedly bisected life was, even in the days before i pulled the trigger. sure, there were two sets of events. but what i've seen in the last 96 hours is that the choice was never really a choice. there was only one path. and from this day forward, i will only have to walk that road.

it feels inviting. i can't wait to see where it goes.

god of love, hear our prayer

standing still for this is such an exquisite form of torture. how is it possible to feel pride, happiness, contempt and shame for a situation all at once? i will never understand how a few platitudes, heavily scripted in the name of spectacle and braggadocio, can stir such deep emotional currents. but here we are. the atheist, the whore, the charlatan, standing here in perfect character as a good upstanding woman of faith and charity. "god of love, hear our prayer." warm words of christian fellowship. touching.

i know how to wear the costume, the mask. i hit my marks perfectly, learn every line and recite them with a smile. i make this look good, too. but that's the fun of it, even though it kills me. i love knowing what no one else knows - while you stand here offering your blessing, showering godly praise on the happy family fabric woven before you, i am the agent of chaos. i stand in the midst of the fabric, slowly pulling threads at my whim and caprice. i am so far above all of this, and you'll never know.

that is, until the charade finally collapses, once and for all. my life is so beyond your traditional conceptions of reality. i want nothing more than to stand in the rubble and laugh at your woeful underestimation of my ruthless efficiency.

god of chaos, hear my prayer.

small world

i live in a major city. there are millions of people in the national capital area. i can walk the streets here, pass hundreds of people while winding my way through the metro system, and never see anyone familiar. it's an interesting feeling; a lot of times, it lets me be totally alone with my thoughts, anonymous and cloistered while in the midst of teeming life. it's, honestly, one of my favorite things about living here at this phase of my life.

but sometimes, way more than you'd ever expect, this is the smallest town ever. tonight, i discovered that a professor of mine grew up in my home state, and his niece and nephew are friends with a girl who was in the mock-congress program in which i met the man. the professor was familiar with all of my K-12 schools, knew people i knew. this sort of thing isn't supposed to happen in a place like this, and yet, it does. this isn't the first time, either; a woman in my program grew up with the woman who married my high-school boyfriend. that's crazy.

i guess, in a way, there's something warm and comfortable in these small moments. it reminds me that there's connection in this world. and really, i'm going to (god willing and the creek don't rise) be a real-life lawyer in a little less than a month; if there's a profession on this earth that depends more on making connections, short of high-pressure sales, i don't know of it. but at the same time, it's just ever so slightly, well, creepy. how am i supposed to be autonomous when these threads to the past keep popping up everywhere? maybe it's nothing. maybe i'm just paranoid. maybe i'm not treating these little coincidences as the fun things to laugh over that i should.

but if my world is really that small, how the hell can i grow?

gunner

i'm a veteran at this whole law-school thing. hell, i have a law degree and everything. you'd think that one more year of this would be painless and smooth. i mean, i'm in my element; i am studying my favorite subject matter, the one to which i am dedicating my professional life. i am at a world-class school, and i have every opportunity to be everything i want to be. but something's been just a little... off about this whole experience. we're four weeks in, and inside my program, i feel totally at ease and comfortable. tonight, it finally hit me exactly what the problem is in my new home.

it's that it's not really a "home." everyone's perfectly nice in the general population; no one's been outwardly cruel or horrible to me. but these kids are not interested in being a community. this is one of those schools where every person there, especially in the non-LL.M. crowd, is 100% out for himself or herself, and frankly, you're kind of in their way. this is such a misguided approach to law school, to the practice, and to life in general. good lord. i mean, it's not surprising, i guess. it's a whole school full of hardcore overachievers, people who have reached for the best all their lives. why stop now? it's gotten them everything they've ever wanted.

except it doesn't have to be that way. look, i'm a recovering overachiever myself. and i've spent a lot of time lamenting the time in my life when i settled. but there's a definite - and vitally important - difference between striving healthily for the best you can get and what these kids are doing. devoting yourself to the cold, ruthless pursuit of the next brass ring on your list, damn the torpedoes, is by far not the only way to get what you want. take it from me; above average effort nets you almost as much as bare-knuckles overwork, and it makes you a LOT happier.

so i look around at the overcompetitive, hyper-"friendly" gunner kids at my school with a combination of confusion and pity. it makes me sad for them, but it makes me feel that much better about my strategy for life. i may not be the valedictorian of my class. but i'll give this program my best. that means my best in academics, in culture, and in the bare recognition that i'm not the only person on the planet, in the city, in the school or in the hall. we all earned our way here. why not be friends?

sweatshirt

it's starting to get a little cold around the edges here in our nation's capital. a couple of nights this weekend saw the temperature sneaking below 50 degrees. i am a cold-blooded little blogger, apparently, because i FREEZE in weather like this. the man noticed this, and as i shivered next to him, he got up, went to his closet, and brought me back a big gray sweatshirt. i slipped it on and curled up in his arms, dozing off as he kissed my temple and stroked my hair.

this was a peaceful night. there weren't very many of those this weekend. i feel myself, as this process evolves, slowly starting to grow uneasy. scratch that; i'm scared out of my damn mind. hey, kid, you're all alone, and there's no stability left in your life, the voice in the back of my head tells me. get ready for a long haul. the man has known me since we were snotty little punk teenagers together. he knows that these sorts of swings will happen from time to time. but this feeling is a gut shot. i spent a lot of time being vaguely terrified, even as he did his best to show me how wrong the voice is.

so he held me. he talked me down. and it was an interesting kind of talking down, one that gave me pause. i'm accustomed to being showered with emotion, a constant source of... well, maybe not platitudes, but statements of unconditional positivity. the man doesn't traffic in that sort of display. i twisted his arm for some kind of verbal reassurance to silence the chattering critic in my head. instead, he calmly and rationally told me... the truth. it wasn't the blithe pablum of instant gratification i thought i wanted. but weirdly enough, it was perfect.

two things dawned on me at that moment. first, this relationship is built on something more than just a wildly careening net of emotion. the man expects me to stand on my own. he'll help me, he'll soothe me, but he won't carry me. we both have to be adults here. i said, almost to myself, "i miss being the center of someone's universe." he kissed me and said, "no. you don't. you're going to be what you want to be, and that's what matters. if i treated you like that, you'd get tired of it, just like you did before." aha. the light goes on.

but the other thing i realized is that the words the man says are secondary. the way he comforts me, the way he loves me, isn't with a string of sayings, cliches, etc. he tells me everything he needs to say with his gestures, his kiss, and most importantly, his presence. there's more love in that gray sweatshirt than there could ever be in a lifetime's worth of empty words. anyone can talk. he acts. and he silently wraps me in his love. i never knew that's what i needed, but i never, ever want to be without it.

fascination street

"oh, it's opening time down on fascination street, so let's cut the conversation and get out for a bit..."
leave it to the bad influence in me to drag you out tonight. you're so much more content to stay in the house and drink beer, but now that you're with me, you may be forced to take me out every once in awhile. i mean, you should be pretty damn proud to be seen with a woman like me. i cut quite an exceptional figure when i want to, and tonight i've really done it up right.

"because i feel it all fading and paling, and i'm begging to drag you down with me to kick the last nail in."
i've lived a hard life the last couple of years. i've drank too much, gambled too hard, and you've been complicit in all of it. i'm better now; a lot more stable, a lot more sanguine. but there are still these dark rivers of mood in me that need to be worked out in the worst kinds of ways. so you're still on the hook. take me out tonight. take me anywhere, i don't care, i don't care, i don't care.

"yeah, i like you in that, like i like you to scream, but if you open your mouth then i can't be responsible for quite what goes in or to care what comes out..."
sometimes the mood so strikes, and i turn into someone else when it happens. this is one of those nights. i like to watch you watch me work, watch me pin you to the spot with my eyes. you're going to be mine tonight, and while you knew that before you came here, you don't know what dark secrets i'm going to unleash on you. you'll bleed for me before this night is done, figuratively if not literally. i like you this way: on your toes, cautious, unsure. you're usually the one with all the confidence, all the control. but you're going to see how the other half lives once i get enough champagne in me. you've been the boss long enough. i hurt tonight; because i do, you're going to hurt as well.

"and let's move to the beat like we know that it's over..."
it's not really your fault. you've done the best you could to reassure me. but you know what? sometimes the darkness is stronger than the force of your will. and that's why i've got you out here tonight. you'll endure this, because i'm worth it to you. you're actually dancing with me, following the lead i give you. that's the way it works tonight. and you'll eat it up like sugar candy, because i told you to. that's the twist i want, and it's what you'll give me. this may as well be the last night on earth for the way i feel. i will get what i want. and that's you, on your knees for me.

someday, you will ache like i ache. and that day is now. feel it. feel it all. that's the only way you'll know what you've gotten yourself into.

you've gotta have friends

no fiction today, kids: this is 100% real.

it's been a long, hard couple years for me on the emotional front. even as i finished law school and all my professional ambitions came true, my relationship, the one steadfast truth i had throughout my very trying early 20s, became something that, let's face it, didn't work anymore. i was rocked to my core when i realized that. i was in denial. i said things and did things that were completely at odds with my emotions, whatever they happened to be at any given time.

long about january of this year, i decided that writing in my journal and talking to my shrink wasn't cutting the mustard anymore. i needed a more public forum to work through the psychic upheaval. i didn't want to spill the details all over the internet in uncensored form, so i settled on the format you know and love today. largely true, partially fiction. composite characters, wildly extrapolated situations, etc.

and lo and behold, i built it and y'all came. that was a really exciting thing for me: holy hell, people read my work and like it. and as i wrote, things in 100% real life became clearer. through the process of interacting with y'all, telling my story, i came to realize what had to be done. finally, after all my hemming and hawing, i pulled the trigger this week. i am moving forward with my life, trying to catch my emotions up with my professional progress and, y'know, get happy.

so i have to thank everyone here. my little band of readers and friends from far and wide has sustained me through this dark season. in all honesty, even those of y'all who are only known to me through aliases and avatars have been indispensable as i've sorted all of this out. i will always remember the kindness you've shown me as i've blown my life apart and started to rebuild it. you've all played a role in the process. so as i move forward, i plan on keeping y'all updated, spinning my little yarns and dissecting my heart and soul through the art and science of badly-capitalized internet-based essays. i hope y'all stick around. you're all pretty important to me.

thanks, y'all. couldn't have done it without you.

my apology

[your soundtrack]

"it’s not the way that i intended this; i didn’t realize how much i would miss, but with every parting of our company i hate to think what it has done to me..."

you're never far from my mind, you know, no matter how good i am at keeping you at bay. (you weren't wrong about the arm's-length treatment; it's a very good coping mechanism.) i do not have a single regret about this course of action. it's the best thing for both of us, it's what i want, and it's what i need. but that doesn't mean that it's not sad, way sadder than i ever imagined, to see this day finally arrive. not that you'd know how i feel today if you look at me. i'm really skilled at moving forward when i have to, and this is one of those times. but there's a small frayed place in my soul, torn a little more each time, that belongs to you and will forever.
 

"when cruelty comes with blind indifference, my humanity becomes the best defense. but when you consider the alternative, i really didn't have that much to give..." 

that's the crux of all this where you and i are concerned, i think. i didn't try to be cruel or indifferent to your needs in pursuing mine; i am trying desperately to maintain things as well as i can, but in being true to my humanity, i've inadvertently destroyed yours. sigh. at the end of the day, as it turns out, you were better at being a part of this relationship than i was. i gave you as much as i had to give you. looks like it wasn't what even i thought it would be. i failed at the modest task which was my charge, and that was simply being enough of a selfless person to make room for your flaws. 

"a tragic victim of my circumstance; never give the devil a second chance. if you do, you know that you can never win - probably best to forget and begin again..."

so here we are. we lost. fitting that all of this comes to an end this week, so many years after we pledged ourselves to each other in the sorrow and confusion of the falling of the towers. we clung to each other in the wake of the madness, when everything permanent was stripped down to its skeletal remains and the harsh reality of the loss we faced collided with our adolescent immortality. funny how that's not really a great way to build a future, isn't it. i dedicated myself to you with passion, intensity and a total lack of thought. that's the real reason we lost. there's nothing to be gained from clinging to scraps. time to box up the memories, the laughs, the ups, the downs and put them in the back of the closet, to be looked through on the occasional rainy day with something approaching warm nostalgia. the bitter will slowly leach out of the sweet. at least, that's my hope. 

consider this a statement of, not conciliation, but sorrow. i didn't want this to be the way things ended. hell, up until recently, i didn't think there would be an end. but here we are. we've reached the conclusion. and for everything i've done, and god knows i've done a lot, i'm sorry. i let you down. there's no way to recover from it, either. all i can do is give you this.

"can’t you see that I am sorry? this has to be my apology, my apology, my apology."

melt your heart

they say alcohol is truth serum, the only real kind that exists. i know it's true in my case; when i have a bit to drink, i tend to 'fess up to whatever's going on in my head. sometimes this is good. other times, this is obnoxious. but most of the time, it's somewhere in between: that weird gray area between necessary and comfortable.

we had a nice, long talk last night. i don't know where it came from. i think it was the crazy acceleration of my life-change timetable, but something had me feeling kinda sped-up and unsure, like the ground underneath me was sliding around under my feet. i want to be so careful with him; he's such a vital piece of my life, and i don't ever want to be without him. he's so wired into my soul that it makes me... well, the feeling is equal parts bliss and terror, i think. i am so incredibly at peace when he wraps his arms around me and kisses me. i want to hold onto this feeling forever.

so i did what the wine told me to: i spilled my guts. and once again, i had it shown to me in no uncertain terms that honesty is the very best policy when you're dealing with something this important. he can settle my soul and melt my heart with a single sentence. he deals in an economy of words; unlike me, when things are important, he will not make grand, sweeping declarations. this not only gives his words more power, it gives me confidence when he does say something to me. he shows me what he feels, and that's what matters. the rest? window dressing.

the truth is in his kiss, his touch, and even his cautious nature. we tread lightly, but we move forward together. that's what matters.

modern love

i have always thought of myself as a modern woman, a total feminist, liberated in every sense of the word. i'm a career woman (or at least i will be when i get out of school), a sports fan, the whole nine. but it's weird; every so often, i get the urge to get just a tiny bit traditional. y'know, cooking, cleaning, etc. so today, as i sat on the couch with my man and his friends, i watched football, drank, and held my own in all manner of discussions on lebron james, eli manning, and whether the redskins were pathetic or just outclassed.

but i also, without any help from the boys, fixed an entire dinner for them. i brought beer to them, laid out their plates, the whole nine yards. i do this from time to time; i get a weird charge out of being a well-rounded woman (brains and domesticity all in one package!). but it's strange how this guy brings out this instinct in me. when i was in my old relationship, i HATED to cook. dear god, it was such a chore. and it's not like my workload was that much different then than it is now. quite the contrary. but with a new man, a new group of people in my life, and a new outlook on things, i find myself so much more willing to do things like this.

there's a lot of argument in this world about what it means to be a feminist, a liberated woman, etc., etc., etc. i've never been too interested in laying down a definition of appropriate "feminist bona fides." i've always felt like the whole point of being pro-woman is embracing the just infinite menu of choices in this world available to men and allowing that same menu of choice to be available to women at the same time. so i guess it's that same openness that allows me to get into good-natured yelling matches with my man's friends about sports, then turn around and serve them dinner with no issues.

this is modern love. this is modern life. a woman can, and should, stand her ground in her choices, no matter what they are. own who you are in front of the people you love. it's the best way to be true to yourself, and it's the most feminist stand you can take. bake a cake. shoot a gun. cheer like hell for your favorite football team (WHODAT!). just be who you are. if he's a real man, he won't be scared of anything you do. he'll love you all the more for being open, free and honest.

and if he's a keeper, he'll do the dishes. mine did. :)

the paradox of choice

my home is the mid-atlantic. my heart is in new orleans. my family is spread throughout the american southeast. my friends are too.

my friends, i have no idea what i want to happen in the next year.

well, that's not entirely accurate. i know the high-level stuff. i know who i want to be with. i know the kind of job i want to have. i even, after lo these many years, have settled on a hair color that i love. (i know, right? important considerations.) but now that my future is wide open, i have nothing but a slate of permutations of this construction. so many possibilities.

choice is something americans love. it's practically our civic religion (well, besides football). go to a grocery store and notice how you'll have 47 different kinds of strawberry jelly from which to select. but when it comes to this, i am kind of at a loss. i've had a very specific path to follow for my entire adult life. now that i'm the captain of my soul, and it's just me making the choice, and i'm the only person whose interests and cares matter? well, damn. what do i do now?

these things will work themselves out. it's nowhere near a crisis. in fact, it's an embarrassment of riches, brought to me by, not to brag or anything, my intellectual achievements and my ability to rise above emotional strife and take charge of my life. so while this is somewhat intimidating, it's also insanely liberating.

in the immortal words of lady gaga, i'm a free bitch, baby. if this sort of confusion is the downside to that, well, i say bring it on. i'll take that over what i've been stuck in any day of the week.

the hard part...?

i should've been asleep an hour ago; i'm going to be hating life when that cab shows up in less than six hours. but here i sit, feeling drained, yet strangely serene. the hard work of tearing down the last twelve years has begun in earnest. y'know, all the stuff i've spent the life of this blog (and the eighteen months before that, to be honest) preparing myself to do. you'd think i'd be a wreck at this point.

nope. to be frank, there's a feeling much like how an overstuffed sandbag must feel when it finally springs a slow leak. the pressure is gently easing. the negativity is draining out of every pore. honestly, this is easier than i thought it would be. but then, how many times has this pendulum swung?

"oh, this is going to be simple."
"wait, no; it's going to be hell."
"oh, hold on - there's hope yet."
"there will be no hope, just blackness."

it's quite a bit bipolar, isn't it? but that seems to be the nature of the beast. and weirdly, it's ok. actually making the request was nowhere near as hard as i thought it would be. i mean, we'll see what happens with the aftermath. but in this moment, i can rest a little bit easy. and really, though there's a lot of work ahead of me, that's all i need.