work

love takes work. it takes forgiveness. the honesty to say, it's both of our fault. i was there too. i should have. i could have. if only i had done it different maybe you would not have... and you can't go back. and you can apologize but you can't take those things away. you can only move forward. you can only know what you know. and if you are in love there is no question. there is no where else to go.

it turns out its only thursday and i spent the morning celebrating friday.

and i just need you to hold me.

(count the hours. remove the seeds.)

around the way girl

who says you can't escape. who says a change of space won't help you breath. who says dreams don't come true.

i am closing the gap. i am embracing my romantic notions. i am filling in oceans with postcards and plane rides. i am handing back my tether, i am handing over my what-ifs. i am learning to more than survive. i believe in this.

i am leaving for paris & travels in spain in two and a half weeks. it's close enough finally to feel real. to picture the hotel beds, to taste the food, to feel the air. i can't wait to just be away. to just breath. to walk streets that don't even know me. to drink, to eat, to dance. to sleep through the night. to wake up rested. to laugh. ohmygod. you wouldn't believe how we laugh. you wouldn't believe how light i feel when we do. you wouldn't believe how it makes me feel/reel/revel. and it will be just enough. just right. just.

and this time i am running towards something. i am not running away. i am not holding vigil. i am not waiting for the shoe to drop. and all i want is to journey. all i want is this journey. all i want is this chance. this hope. this feeling i have like no matter what happens, no matter who stays, i am going to be okay. it is all okay. and there is nothing to be afraid of. nothing i want to get away from. nothing to run away from. anymore.

waiting

i had a dream i was on some tarmac and i was waiting for him to get home and i was watching the faces go by, arms catching outstretched arms, people reaching, people holding. and he didn't come. and i was looking down the line. watching the furthest body, searching every outline. i started to cry walking across that dusty field, never looking away, knowing what i knew. he was somewhere, he would come, it's just that sometimes the waiting feels like it's breaking you right in two.

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.

the saddest song

keep throwing punches. keep ducking low. keep remembering the things you said that i never meant to hear. that i never meant to know.

i need you so much closer

because it's hard with you so far away. because the days are long and it's not as fun to cook for one. because you said things that i believed and then the days turned to weeks and the oceans turned into worlds and you are a world away. and this month is getting me down. the yearly doctors appointments reminding me that i will never be like everyone else. the echocardiograms, the field vision tests, the secret patient world i am so good at slipping into. i don't like the way it feels to be me, there. i don't like the way it feels when the doctors tell me i am one of their youngest patients. i don't like the way it feels when they say i am lucky or unlucky or they sigh or touch my hand or make statements like 'wow you have certainly been through alot of this for someone your age'. i mean i don't know what i expect them to say. i meant hell it is quite a story. but i don't like the way it feels. i don't like the way i feel today. i don't like crying in a hospital bathroom alone after a series of arrythmias prompted further tests and the probe in my ribs doesn't feel good and the doctor moving my boob around to get a better "window" to my heart doesn't feel good and you are far away and that doesn't feel good and i am tired and i don't need an ultra sound machine or an ekg to tell me that my heart hurts today.

keep your love locked down

i am sitting at my desk at work staring at my gatorade, staring at my smart water, staring at the computer screen, the to-do list, the newsletter notes, the blinking red light on my phone, staring, staring, staring. but my belly still hurts like HURTS and kanye west keeps telling me to keep my love locked down my love locked down and i want to dance and i want to scream and i am discontent and temperamental and over sensitive and under nourished and i'm not loving you the way i wanted to...

...

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.

liz phair, morning light, and dreams that you hope don't come true

it's true they were more like nightmares. more than nightmares. things that could come true. things he might say about me. i woke up screaming in a paper cup. because there is nothing to say. really. because no one can save me from this day. really.

because liz phair was talking about me when she sang those words, fuck and run.

because i put on my new balances, i stretched my quads and i am perched at the starting line and i am ready to go.

Algorithms

If only there were algorithms for life. Some sort of guarantee. Some way of knowing how you will get there. Not that I would use them. Not that I believe in those kinds of anything. Not that I listen anyway.

Autumn is here. My nose is cold but I like wearing the sweaters. I like the staccato to the days.

These past months I have talked endlessly to my friends about love. The how-do-you-know. The can-you-be-happy. God knows I have not always had the kindest lovers. I have passed years with hands that only wanted to hurt me. Josh was the safety net after all of the turmoil. And I needed that net. And I loved that net. And it felt good to be held. To not have to give anything back. But I need more than a place to lay my head. I need more than a hand that locks the door behind me. After California I swore off any love that could ever fufill me... because I knew, then, how it feels when that love leaves. And I didn't think I could lose even one more thing.

But I need to survive. I need to more than survive. I want someone so completely for me they can tell me to stop, to start quicker, to quiet down. I want someone who can see me. Who I can tell anything too. Someone who will still be there for me. I am tired of living with one body and secreting my life in letters and text messages trying to find the words that i need.

Because all those years before that is what I did.

To not feel alone.

Some people, some "friends", some strangers act as though I am not trying. Like I should make it work. Like some vow made during broken times is worth living a life of loneliness. Quiet. Despair.

And it's not that I won't put in the time. I am not afraid of the commitment or the ways that love changes. But I married someone because they made me feel safe. Because he took me to the hospital and physical therapy and on wheelchair outings to the mall. Because he didn't seem to care about the medications and the crutches and the tired way I passed my days. We have been through it and I love him for that but I am not in love. I am not fufilled. I am not getting the wifely things that I would need to be happy today, tomorrow or five years from now. And I won't drag out the good-bye to say I tried hardest. And I won't spend my life resenting someone because they aren't the person I want them to be. And I won't make it work just to prove that I can.

Because I am not afraid and I would rather be destroyed than never feel happy.

And the streets of Kazakhstan and the streets of Central Square, they are full of faces who every day are making hard things work. Days spent running circles around circles praying to an unfair God for some break, some chance, something to take them away.

And I don't have to do that. And this is something I can change. And if everyone just made it work because they could there would be no revolutions. There would be no civil rights and there would be no walks on Washington.

You don't have to go along just because it's what the rest of them do.

And I will never walk that road just to be more like you.

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.

oh kazakhstan you, you got what i need...

It was everything I needed that trip to be.

metal tables.

of course i knew it was going to change me. i mean when you almost die it's all people talk about. not that i knew the rules. not that i could find one other person who was impaled 8 inches in the ass by a wine glass who could enlighten me as to what i had in store. but mygod it's all people talked about "these things change you". and hell change was hard to get around. i walked out my parents door on my own two feet wearing new black pants, a black ballet top, heals. i woke up 15 hours later on a metal table full of someone else's blood. i understood that things had changed and fast. what i didn't know was in how many ways.

i mean some of it was obvious. i had to come home from the hospital in an ambulance because i couldn't sit up. i was so weak i had to use crutches to get the twenty steps to the bathroom. and it took time. damn i wasn't dancing those days. i had a drain coming out of the top of my thigh. the constant feeling of warm thick blood on my legs. i had to lay flat on my back. and it hurt. ohmygod like grating on your very will to live pain. like i can't breath pain. like don't effin talk to me pain. and the drugs. so many drugs. i couldn't go up stairs. i couldn't bath myself. i could barely walk from the bedroom to the living room.

so this is how i drifted into the background of my very own life. this is how i stopped playing a center role. this is when i became a witness to a life i was too afraid to want to live. and so i passed a new england winter in a yellow room in the back of my parents house (i couldn't actually stay in my own room because it was on the second floor and we already discussed my problem with stairs). i read books that my friends named to me in lists, i wrote letters begging for a reprieve, someone else's moment to erase me, i listened to chopin on my discman and pretended i could fly out of my body and leave it all behind.

i did physical therapy exercises that involved things like lifting my leg while i laid in bed. when i was a little stronger i went to the mall in a wheelchair just to get out. went for long drives just for some light. stood as close to the ocean as i could just to smell someone else's air. and i threw up nearly everything i ate. i had nightmares. i hugged a heating pad. i opened care packages of lip glosses, poetry books, socks with grippy feet, pajamas, prayer dolls, flowers everywhere. i was astounded by the love around me but i didn't know what each day was for. the change was so complete i didn't believe in anything anymore.

people would say things. sweet, kind comforting things. things like "you are here for a reason". "you are so strong." "you look so much better than last week." and all i wanted to do was to throw something at them like a shoe. and all i wanted was something to scream too. and i wanted to know what the reason was for all of this. and what i wanted to know was why i had to be strong when they got to be weak and happy. and if you asked me then i would have told you that all i saw in front of me was nothing and all i had to lose was nothing and i got up each day and i did this breathing shit that i had to do because what else was i supposed to do.

these things change you.

eclipse

maybe you didn't know.

i spent a day in tenth grade staring directly at an eclipse of the sun because i wanted to see it more than i wanted to not go blind.

chi-town

i love this city, this chicago. the deep dish pizzas, the 2 dollar drafts, the pretty parks, the jazz, lake michigan. i passed a night with an old college friend and we had so much fun we were mistaken for a couple. it's nice to have those kinds of laughs with that kind of person who gets who you are and where you have been. someone who speaks the language of ethnography and diane arbus and who knows who you mean when you refer to a girl named "manatee".

i have spent even more of my trip alone though. because i want to. because i remembered how much i need solitude sometimes. my second night here i found an indian restaurant in a new part of town. the spread was impressive. delicious. beautiful. i realized that at that moment not one person knew where i was and something about that made me feel lighter than i have felt in years. and i like to eat out alone. to people watch and to not share and to not care what anyone else is saying. and i like drinking coffee again. going to the gym each night (12 miles is pretty good for someone who was once not sure if she would ever walk without a cane again).

and i remembered things about myself again. like that my fear of athlete's foot is stronger than my love for steam rooms. and that i am not afraid of city streets and i'm not afraid of sleeping alone and i am not afraid to tell the truth and sometimes you have to learn to love even the worst you.

i leave for kazakhstan in less than a month. i leave for kazakhstan in 27 days. i leave for kazakhstan in 4 weekends and three days. and sometimes i can hardly breath to think about it. i haven't taken a chance, i haven't reached for a star, i haven't believed in these things in so so long. and i could use an adventure. and i could use a dream. and i want to be brave and i am becoming these things.

i am becoming the person i have always meant to be.

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.