counting

today i counted my expenses, my earnings, my this and that. divorce paper financials. it's really just a business transaction now. you owe me this for all these years. but the real gains, the real losses don't show up on these sheets. don't have anything to do with raises and bonuses and credit card bills. but it's harder to explain these other things.

it's harder to put into lists and dollars the wisdom that comes with confusing what feels safe for what is healthy.

and i am not afraid anymore. not of falling in love, not of being destroyed, not of being with someone who can see the real me.

and just maybe things like fate and soulmates aren't just storybook sweets.

alone

i am alone in my office. i teach a financial fitness class every saturday this month to a group of women who make getting up on a saturday morning seem like a good idea. these women make me want to push through. sometimes it's not what you did or what you have its the people who surround you. i love these classes.

...

last night was not good. i made dinner, i set the table nice. i somehow believed that we would be the couple to defy all divorce story odds. we would stay friends. we would believe in eachother. we would be kind to ourselves, our pasts and eachother.

that was not the case.

we fought. he dissapointed me. i found myself mad when he said things that sounded like he was doing the right thing for himself finally (why can you do that now if you wouldn't do it the five years we were together and i begged you to) and mad when he said things that sounded like he was still making the same tired lethargic decisions (what will it take for you to hit rock bottom and just deal with your things). it's like no matter what he did i felt let down.

and also responsible. like i don't know if he can do it without me. and somehow that made me feel sad. like i was abandoning my own child. and i can't keep doing this for him. i can't keep righting his wrongs. i can't FIX THIS or FIX HIM or make him care or engage or change. but it made me feel bad/sad/helpless/.

so he left and i sat on a chair and i cried. and i didn't listen to anything. and i didn't say one word to anyone. because there is really nothing to say. just that it didn't work, i can't save him, and we definately can't be friends.

life advice from a 31 year old divorcee

don't marry the tin man.

we

sometimes i forget and i still make statements with the "we". sometimes i still buy mayo even though i never even eat that stuff. sometimes i wonder if he is working late.

...

it's like learning how to love all over again. it's like watching the sun circling you. it's like ordering pudding and getting creme brulee.

lost

there are things i had. things i lost. a bread machine. a pretty ring. a hand to open every single door for me. he never stopped. he never forgot me. he always made promises that he couldn't keep.

i have always believed. i have always held on.

but now, and lately. i am not sure what to hold on to.

you'd think that doing the papers would just be a formality. the next step on the to-do list. but i haven't slept well in two nights. i made lists of reasons in my head of why i should post-pone this evening. i started to cry listening to npr. the truth is that i am not convinced that i will ever find someone i can rely on like this ever again. oh i will have head spinning love. i will have adventures. i will have boys at my door, marriage proposals, all these stupid fantasys that i will only pretend i can believe in still. i will laugh away nights over enchiladas and chimachangas at the local spot. but i don't know if i will ever find someone to rely on like this again.

and then i think. fuck em all. at least i have me. and then i think. fuck them all. it's always been. and it will always be.

some will win, some will lose, some were born to sing the blues.

life is messy. you say too much you hold back too long you can't get the time right. no matter how sure you feel someone will always think you are wrong. and it's the ups and downs. and it's the dusty skies. and it's the fire smolder, the sticky hands, the work meetings that start with thai food and end with you talking about pigeons with chicken feet in kazakhstan. it's all very.

i wouldn't ask you to listen. i won't plead my case. i don't even know if i care to see you again.

so i will write my promises on a bathroom wall. pledge my love and hope the right eyes read it. or i'll guns 'n roses your ass til i get it right.

because i have never felt so close. and i am ready to land from the fall.

Confession

I feel like I have to start my conversations with "I have a confession". This shameful little secret. This nasty little game.

My friends are the easy part. The ones who see inside me say all the things. It's the others I worry about. The fauxs, the relics, the family. Oh god the family. Those ones who don't see me, who only see the things they think I should have been.

And it should be enough to say: I want to be happy.
I am figuring out how I can.
And I can't believe that I am the first one to change the game before the end. It can't be that this is all I am.

I don't feel brave, I don't feel wise, it's just this weight. Lifting. (The truth will set you free) or let them speak, let them stare, let them wonder how it came to be. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to be honest. And that is all I am trying to do. To live an honest life. To hold an honest love. To find a moment that I won't have to push through. I have nothing but this feeling inside. This voice. This pulse that I am finally listening to.

I spent a night in love with New York. The dancing, the filth, the friends. The safety of the faces that know everything about who I was and nothing of where I have been.

But who says there aren't second chances. Third. Eighth.

Who put the quota on how many times you can change your mind or what fuck up is okay and what fuck up is too big to live through. Who told you that doing the best thing for you is anything but The.Best.Thing.

At night I close my eyes and it's the same soft light that it's always been. And I know now how my love should have always been.

depeche mode, the smiths, and a wednesday is not hump day here.

i have left lives behind before. i have been a million people. i have hated a million days.

but i wish i didn't have to do this day.

it's just that i am used to his shoes in the closet. it's just that i am used to drinking the coffee he has left on the counter for me. it's just that i am not used to sleeping in a house alone anymore. it's just that thunder scares me.

it's just that.

i can take it

it's not that i can't take the punches.

but really, i am tired of listening to you.

home

i woke up pissed. i hardly slept last night because i was so sick to my stomach i wanted to shoot myself in the face. now this is just an expression. but really if you could do one thing for me, one thing, i wouldn't even ask you to save my leg. fuck. i would just ask you to fix my belly. and these things go.

yeah i woke up pissed. just because. just because.

my respite it over. i am tired. there are belongings to be divided. i will miss the things i am giving up for real happiness. things like having someone who will do it for it no matter what. or someone to kick when you are down.

'cause i want to kick something. i want to hit something. i want to fuck it up and leave it broken.

or i already did. or i don't care what you think about me.

or how about some days, some mornings, some times i am sick of my body and the ways it reminds me of that day. or how about some mornings i want you to fix me and when you don't i hate you too. or how about some days i just don't care how i sound to you.

i can't hide

i remember the first time we looked at rings. i had a broken heart (literally - it was a virus that effed up my sinus node and walking to the bathroom made my heart pound so hard my head would flutter. i passed time in mass general, rhode island hospital, newton-wellesley. i had ekg's and iv's and blow up leg cuffs to keep me from getting blood clots. i used a bed pan and watched my heart rate on a monitor shoot up to 200 just laying in bed then go all the way down to 30. in the end they told me there was nothing they could do. in the end they said they didn't know why it was happening and that they didn't know that it would ever stop now that it was mine. they mentioned pace makers and life spans and potasium levels patted my back and said they were sorry. i left rhode island hospital with a prescription for weekly blood tests, three bottles of pills and orders to lay flat on my back if my heart rate went over 150. i carried a stop watch to calculate my pulse. i became afraid to even take a shower if i was home alone). i had my questions. i had my doubts. there were so many parts of me that weren't fufilled. but hell. it was nice to have something that i could say for sure. because that month, those years, in the moments when i layed flat on my back on the floor waiting for my breath to come, my pulse to slow, i wasn't sure i had anything.

punches

i have a good swing but a bad land. i never protect my knuckles right. i don't know the right way to stand. i won't drink raw eggs but i feel very rocky these nights lifting weights and listening to my ipod in the angriest/most-triumphant way.

i mean he's right. i mean i am a bitch. i mean i do get angry every time i walk into the living room and hear the tv and see the lethargy and the dirty dishes and the dirty towels and the dirty past and the ways he doesn't even care if any of this/us/it succeeds.

so i quarentine myself to the back corner of the house. spend hours in my bedroom reading, drawing maps of where i have been, look for a light. i answer calls, i write letters, i close my eyes and visualize white light and pink sheilds and let my head feel heavy on the floor. i exercise, i fantasize, i hypothesize. its all very 2003 post-accident for me. waiting for the fog to lift. waiting for the horn to sound. the one that starts things.

because really i am not a bitch. really i am not rocky. really i am ready for the me i will be when i can finally put to rest all of this.

divorce

sometimes things don't work the ways they were supposed to. or maybe they do. but not the ways we planned. sometimes it takes years to listen to that voice that is inside you. i like to write it this way. to make it universal. to make it yours too. because it feels worse to say i am 31 years old and i realized too late the mistake i had made. so i am 31 and i am getting a divorce and i have not even been married a full calendar year and i know what you are thinking so you don't need to say it and i know what you are imagining so you don't need to draw it but the truth is i want to get out before the scars form. i want to fix it before we break each other so badly it takes years to recover the things we had been. i want you to know i know how this sounds. i want you to know i know how this sounds. i want you to know i know how this sounds.