relationships

And the other shoe drops….. #18

The weird thing about my stories is that they have a reoccurring theme, I suppose most people’s do.  Mine I think maybe grinding  to a fine point so sharp that you almost can’t even feel the pain.  It is so close to unbearable.  I wonder if it’s my therapy of sorts,  I suppose writing is for most people.

I have started similar entries in the same way, reviewing my list of loss, be it people, relationships, pride, happiness, love,  a sense of myself, friendships,  self-reflection.   Heartbreaking.  Other losses have included the weight of the world on my shoulders,  people who haven’t loved the real me, responsibility, hurt, disappointment, selfish people,  hurtful people,  being under appreciated and minimized.  Heart mending. So I guess it balances out, I suppose it always does.   In my effortless quest to gain balance by controlling nothing I again find myself hurdled over an arch that for a short time I doubted I would clear.  On December 2 , 2013 the day before my deceased brothers birthday, my mother passed away.  December seems to be a fuck of a month for me, well my family and as you know they always seem to find themselves into my life.  December 2009 6 months after my dad passed away I was the last vote to remove my brother from life support and finally let him drift away.  My brother’s birthday is at the beginning of the month  my mother’s birthday is in the middle of the month and now like 12th month bookends my mother and brother’s death sandwich these 31 days.     In the typical lay out of my tragic events I tend balance the heartbreak and heart mend because of course with an enormous loss I also grow and cultivate a new relationship.  Enter M.  He first contacted me on October 19 on OKCUPID  late I was tired and wet, cold after the last Fire game of the season when a message came through that although short and simple made me laugh and smile.  I read the profile and knew within the first paragraph I would return the email despite never responding to people who lived far away.  The head turner ? his statement that he didn’t shy away from difficult conversations.

I played my favorite game of a  version of twenty questions.  He was game and he was good at it, very good as good as I am.  He was funny, and random, quirky, insightful, romantic, original, old school with and open mind, a quick wit and engaging.   We spoke till almost 2 in the morning before saying goodnight. A day later he wrote me again and the conversation led to us exchanging numbers and the next night texting which eventually led to a first phone call.

Right now at this very second,  I realize, I don’t even remember our first conversation.  That’s so weird but when I ask myself why, I realize this, I realize I never had a “first conversation” with this guy.  We have always spoke as if we have known each other, no awkward silences, no weird uncomfortable pauses, exchanges or realizations, never wishing I could hurry and get off the phone.   I can’t remember our first conversation because we never had one,  from the beginning it was Kismet.

Everyone once in a while you meet someone and you instantly connect like literally lock into each other like to pieces that snap together and, well, it feels easy.  I wonder how this ends up being my karmic path but it is and here I am.  To say I wasn’t close to my mother is an understatement but there was still a pang of tightness to my chest,  a great sense of loss and true sadness.  I’m sad we weren’t close and were not able to mend our relationship but I feel like I had already partly lost her and mourned that loss on and off for many years.  The role of mother that was never quite fulfilled by her but yet she still carried that title that position in my life.  The truth is I will only ever have one mother and she is completely gone now no longer a name or word or person I was reluctantly tethered to through my adulthood.   With that said I was forced to look around at my siblings, my sisters who all in some fashion and who all at different points in my life and theirs were mothers to me. Very different, very unique, teaching me things and in their own ways offering me support.  At times being the only true mother I had emotionally.  I had hoped this would draw us together but as is typical in my family it is pulling us apart, hurtful things brewing, selfishness, greed and mistrust.  My two oldest sisters cleaning out my mother’s house without myself and my other sister was probably the last dividing factor between us.

So here I am, during the 12th month sandwiched between the inter relation of heart ache and heart mend, which I suppose many people experience during this time of year for a variety of reasons, I wonder if their reasons repeat as mine have or is there yet a lesson I haven’t grasped or allowed myself to be submerged in.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

8/15/12 The long and winding road #16

This indeed has been along road I have traveled. When I first starting writing this blog I was getting over two majoy deaths in my family and a major break up and the death of my dog.  Lately I have been wondering what is next in life but rather than worry about my future I will now just really discuss and write about my present.  That will basically involve funny or not so funny stories about my friends some new some old, soccer games, work and last but not least my dating life which has consisted of an almost date with a vampire but I just couldn’t go through with it and a date with an unexpected “lifestyles” expert….yes it’s what you think.  Before I move on to a very different flavor of stories I want to thank a few people who I love and who have been or who are a big part of my life and were there when I needed support the most.

Mary C, Kellie L, Nizzi, Gabriela V, my vet, my ex at times, my second ex after “the” ex, a yoga teacher, my boxing coach, Clarke, Smitty, Dawn C, Unz, Psher, Lucy, TBear, Becks even through her own battles, any book written by Susan Jeffers. You all are my blessings in life thank you.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

4/1/12 Breathing is not optional/15

Chest pain….breathe……pain in my lungs…..hard to breathe…..nauseous… gasp….ouch….ugh…….gasp…..

I’m fighting the feeling of wanting to puke, my chest hurts, I’m holding something in, it wants to explode it wants to release,  it’s literally building up in my throat, I can’t breathe, the words are hardly coming out……

Yes, Yes, I’ll call the lawyer tonight and leave my information tonight and follow up on Monday. The conversation fades in and out of my ear my sister is saying things but I’m not hearing it all,  just ….Lawyer, call, money, just us sisters, not mom…….

My sister Lucy called me and I missed the call, for some reason I just felt a weird sick response, my sister calls sometimes but this time the missed call made me feel weird made me feel like something was happening.  I took a deep breath and peed siting on the toilet I was thinking that it might be my mother, that this might be the, THE CALL that is the one that ends the existence of my parents on this earth.  I’ve been through it before when my niece had to tell me my dad died.  I picked up the phone and dialed my sister Lucy….waiting waiting waiting CALL FAILED, shit this damn service if I had to call and ambulance to save my life TMOBILE would see to it that I would die before receiving help.  I dial again CALL FAILED, I turn off my phone and turn it on again, dial and wait as I stretch my arm up hoping that will help. I hear a ringing.

Hello?

Hi it’s me what’s up?

I called you earlier and left a message

Yeah I know what’s going on?

How are you?

I’m good what did you need?

Betty called me and she wants your address and phone number, I don’t know if you are talking to her….her voice fades

Yeah I am talking to her why does she want to my address

I don’t know

ok.

I can call her and give her that information or you can….. she interrupts,   I would just just prefer if you call her

(I am assuming she has mail that needs to be forwarded to me) What does she need it for?

You should just call her and talk to her

This is now beginning to sound ominous. We talk about possible Easter plans and she invites a boyfriend that I am no longer dating I say no but I appreciate that she has extended the offer to him. He would probably come if I asked him to he is like that.  We wrap up the conversation with a promise to touch base on times for Easter.

Dial my sister Betty it rings and my brother-in-law picks up I say hi and ask for my sister. She gets on the phone and we exchange pleasantries and then I say Lucy said you needed my address what’s up? She begins to explain.

We got lawyer and he is working on claiming Tony’s 401k  for us, if we don’t claim it the state will keep it and it will be lost.  This doesn’t include the nieces or mom just us. Just us girls, just the sisters.  It’s been over a year so the creditors can’t touch it but if we don’t act now the state will get it.  So we have to claim it and he needs each one of ours information.

Ok I say and repeat the information back making sure I understood everything. I say for us? for the sisters right? she says yes and says again not for mom in a way that tells me she doesn’t want her to know. She says  “I don’t know if you are talking to her..” I interrupt “No, I’m not” she says “good I don’t want her getting involved”. I say everyone’s names out loud again to confirm I ask if she has spoken to my sisters. She says yes.

She gives me the run down and the information of the person I need to call and I have a sick feeling creeping up I can’t get off the phone fast enough.  The second I do it all comes pouring through.  I begin sobbing, I feel like I’m going to be sick all over the kitchen, my head pounds, my chest tightens, I sob and wail harder and harder and harder.  I walk to a chair in the front room and with my elbows on my knees I cover my face and cry into the mask of my hands. Tears and snot drip from my face, I feel like I can’t breath, my chest feels tight, my ear hurts, I feel dizzy, I’m loud, I cover my eyes with the backs of my hands and gasp for a breath, it’s hard to breath, my chest hurts, I get up to walk toward the bathroom my hands on the walls keeping me balanced and upright as I walk, entering the bathroom I lean over the sink and cry harder and louder I slide to the floor and struggle to catch my breath between sobs.  I feel like throwing up I feel like I’m having a heart attack, I feel like the day I finally let the grief out and allowed myself to mourn the death of my brother.  This time the difference is that I physically feel ill, I feel like I can’t breathe, I feel like my chest is tight, I feel like I need to throw up and I can’t stop crying, loud and hard.  My hands and arms twist around covering my eyes, face head and chest at times.  I can’t make it stop. I can’t make myself stop and I don’t know why this is all coming crashing back in this way. I feel so dizzy I think I might have to go to the hospital, I struggle to breath and think I maybe hyperventilating.  Several minutes go by like this and I can’t regain control or calm myself. 15 minutes feels like 15 hours.

Why? this reaction? I’m not even exactly sure. My niece had a meltdown when she inherited money that my brother had left her she felt guilty, bad or undeserving that she should have this because the reason she was getting it was his death.  I don’t think I understood it when she told me, I knew it made her sad but I didn’t understand the depth of that. It’s hard for me to feel good about this at all on any level, it’s hard for me to think about this, it makes me feel like I’m right back at square on with the progress I’ve made in moving forward after his death.  I never suspected that all those wounds would be ripped open like this again from such and event.

The last 2 days more of his songs have came on and I skipped through them rather than listen through them I always believe he is around me and trying to communicate with me but I rushed those songs through and didn’t listen and today he was finally heard.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

I’m What Willis Was Talkin ‘Bout/12

So I find myself writing after much time off.   Some significant changes and some small changes have occured since  my last post some other things have, I guess in some small ways remained the same.   That should give me comfort but not always.  Since last posting the following has happened.

1. I moved out from living with my ex who I lived with for exactly one year after our breakup.  The fighting was becoming too much.  I was disliking who I was becoming and hating her for who she was.

2. The last week under the same roof when we finally began talking, at times even laughing and trying to be civil and remember we were friends I pulled out of my garage and smashed my car into hers.  I swear it was an accident.  I sat on the wet pavement in the driveway and cried for 15 minutes. 

3. I grew a closer friendship with my other ex  “F” the first guy I dated after K.   He is still in my life and an important part of it , we have been a good support for each other and great fun. He is my confidant and at times my advisor,  we tell each other everything I mean everything.  We should probably have more filters but we don’t.  As I type I’m awaiting to hear how his date went tonight, I’m a bit embarassed to admit I  feel some jealously.

4. My good friend and strongest bad ass woman I know was diagnosed with breast cancer. Within a week of that diagnosis she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Cancer which had spread to her lungs, spine, liver, both breasts and ribs.  As I write this she is in chemo and radiation.   She just shaved her hair completely off 2 days ago-she is the most beautiful person I have ever seen.  So vulnerable and strong at the same time I want to hug her and worship her simultaneously.

5. I have joined just about every dating site there is to join eharm, match, POF, yadda yadda in hopes of moving forward finding my Mr Oh so perfect for me. I have gotten various requests asking if I was DTF -Down To Fuck or nut cases with little to say and less of a brain to know when not to speak at all.

6. I have been forced to reorganize my finances now that I am living alone again. Easier said than done sometimes.

7. I have seen and met with girlfriends in different stages of their lives-a newly expectant mother, an engaged bride to be, a newly rejuvenated 40 something opening up for the first time in her life to love and letting her walls down, an intelligent woman on the cusp of a life altering moment of deciding when enough is enough with her currently married boyfriend.  I love them all I am grateful for their friendship. They force me to reflect on my life.

Since 2009 December has sucked for me, one year the death of my brother, the next the break up of my relationship, and now moving from a place I had lived for the past 8 years. I spent my holiday battling my family my mother mostly and then escaped to “F’s”  house where I finally felt relaxed.

As always I excel at work, really do well, overachieve, outperform, get the job done and make it happen.  However I have recently begun to feel like this is not translating to my personal life.  Well it never has this isnt new.  I entertain fantasies of running away to France, sitting at cafes smoking and awaiting a man that allows me to play the role of a mistress in his life.  A role that leaves us fulfilled temporarily while we are together but allows me the detachment I seem to always need and live in.  

I feel lost, I feel underwelmed and it has hit me so sudden.  The routines of daily life are boring me, I feel stagnant, I feel repetative.  I feel like other people are on fast forward or at least play but for a while I have been hitting the rewind button.  I read books, I try meditation, I “think positive thoughts” but as I sit here I feel like nothing is changing. 

I’m restarting therapy tomorrow and the thought of discussing my friend who has Cancer leaves me unsettled. I am not looking forward to revisiting the idea of loss.  I have barely started putting myself back together from the past 2 years and when I think of her I begin to unravel again.  Everything else becomes an augmented verision of loss even when its no where near a death. I  just can’t keep losing, I need stability, I need a guarantee, I need consistency.  This is so unfathomable to a person who never remained still, who ran from conformity, who wanted nothing to do with commitment and kids.   I have happiness, guilt, love, care, aggravation, disappointment, fun, carefree, heavy and guarded.  What do I want? wants and needs, just when I’m absolutely sure it changes or I realize indeed what I thought I needed or wanted was neither. 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

12/3/11 WHAT THE FUCK DO MEN WANT?/10

Seriously ?  Dating men is really no easier than woman I don’t know what I thought I remembered.  I take some responsibility and have to remember to think sometimes rather than react or respond from gut which I like and feel comfortable doing. I have to “breathe” pause and evaluate the situation and ask more questions ask the brave questions to get the answers which leave no room for assumptions and if I don’t I have no one to blame but myself for it. So in part I’m not entirely mad at him I’m irritated with myself as well because I know better and I am capable of more. It’s been a precarious few weeks since our break up transitioning to friends was interesting, I mean since K, you would think I would be an expert but going from lovers to BFF is a strange path.

In actuality I had been denying something, denying that my feelings wouldn’t get in the way. It’s different to break up with someone you still like romantically but you know they can’t deliver on what you need and want so you cut your losses and figure ok we can at least be friends cause I like you and you like me and you make me laugh.  The problem is the expectations change and you (I) remain sensitive to the your (our) interactions until those feelings dissipate, you meet someone new or they piss you off. My remedy is well,  I got pissed off, that was my ready set go to spring into friendship.

Throughout our time well at the beginning there was no doubt in my mind he was looking for something more along the lines of a relationship, it was a short time but he was hard core, with what he said, how he felt , the flirting the planning, I mean he wanted to spend Thanksgiving  night pampering ourselves at a hotel in the city-that’s a “we have been dating for a while” activity to me. He asked about religion, if I wanted kids and made a list of all the things he liked about me including the “I believe she would be a kind and caring step parent”. Now come on I couldn’t have to read into this, who fabricates this kind of stuff. Someone wanting to laid or someone having strong feelings for someone? Or both?

I took it hook line and sinker thinking “wow amazing a man who doesn’t play games, a man who lays it all out there, a man I do not need mind reading skills to date. Enter Thanksgiving night by now I had felt him pulling away the small simple things of the everyday set your watch like clockwork never late never forgets “good morning sweetie, honey, baby, blah blah text” the “miss yous” the “hey gorgeous”  and  more direct “your hot” “ I want you” “ best kisser ever” texts. Oh yes ladies these were given multiple times on a daily basis and there was no reason for me to think they were fake and I don’t know that I think that now but when it suddenly chills out you have to wonder.

I have read from some “relationship expert” this is what men do, they back off they pull back, for various reasons and that this is natural and the response that woman have to is to be more available and bend over backwards to maintain the “what once was”-and that’s exactly what I did, therefore according to the experts becoming less appealing because I was no longer mysterious.

I had this discussion with another smart beautiful successful woman, “Gabriela why do I do this?, why do we do this? Why do we then check our phones? Jesus I have a life and pretty great one so why is time stopping for a text?”  The only conclusion I can draw is because we all want to be loved and appreciated, that’s a pretty good reason to act a fool but unfortunately some relationships do not recover from such mistakes.  So even though I asked “is everything ok?, are you mad at me?” that did not trigger him to reveal more about what he was thinking and feeling. According to the expert this is the “hallmark error” woman make.

It wasn’t until after Thanksgiving night when I felt some distance between us in actual real time rather than over text that I got brave and asked more specific questions.  The next day I asked him to be honest and confronted him about his feelings changing and he responded, well kinda.  “I guess I’m a little, well a lot guarded these days and I have a hard time getting into and staying in a serious relationship. It sucks I know, you are a wonderful person but we might be on different timetables as afar as relationships go”.

Different time table?  Now this could be interpreted in a number of ways:

1)I’m in the process of trying to end a 12 year marriage and fighting for custody so my priorities lady are somewhere else  aka  I like you but bad timing

2) I liked you a lot and now that we slept together I still like you but I’m not chasing you as I was before and frankly that’s what I like

3) I’m really only available for something light and easy a kinda FWB situation because I can’t even imagine getting into something serious right now

4) It’s time for me to sow my wild outs and spread my seed I’m free for the first time in 12 years well almost free and I need to explore that.

5) Thanks we are done but you’re awesome, high five babes

What I chose to interpret it as was “I can’t give you what you want because I’m not ready and I’m not in any position to get serious with anyone” with a dash of “I want something light, easy and unattached” this allowed him to still look favorable in my eyes and not at fault of anything and probably stroked my ego too.

So with that interpretation in mind I broke up with him. I first told him all the wonderful things about him that I adored and liked and then I offered my friendship. He said nice things back and accepted my friendship. Easy peasy right? Eh not so much, we talked about hanging out as friends and did once the day after I broke up with him where he proceeded to get faced and I became the babysitter (this shoulda been my first second or third warning) but noooo I gave more I drove him home, I took care of him, I cooked him breakfast, I told him I worried about him and he passed out on the toilet for about an hour. He did finally come out when I said I was leaving and hugged me and thanked me and then tried to kiss me but I didn’t kiss him back. I hugged him and left.

I have no idea, most woman would have run for the hills and considered him too damaged to like or love or date. I liked that he put all of his baggage up front, the divorce , the custody, the lawyers, the depression he has struggled with and goes to therapy for weekly, the medication he takes to control the depression, the ex, the back and forth between the homes. All of that, I accepted him where he was at, for who he was, a lesson learned from my last relationship but doing that does not a bond create.

We had an interesting conversation about what he wanted or more so he kept asking me WHAT I THOUGHT he wanted and I just always said I had no idea and that I had been wrong on all accounts so I threw the question back at him which he never answered he only told me what his therapist thought:  that he was unable of accepting outside validation and was trying to replace the whole his mom had left with him. Seems cliché doesn’t it? I mean we can only blame our parents for our problems for so long before we take over and do something about it. I’m not trying to judge him only reflecting on my path with my mother.  He was slippery when I tried to pin him down on if he thought his therapist was right or what it was that he was looking for. As I have communicated more and more with him I notice he hides, he never answers those questions or acknowledges those comments that he feels uncomfortable addressing. I thought I was good using humor to deflect vulnerability he is an expert and he becomes a hard of hearing, visually impaired mute. I know another read flag that he doesn’t get serious (he admits) and maybe isn’t emotionally ready for some things.

I guess that is how he feels, I don’t know, I just know that he ignores those questions/texts but comments on the text right before it and right after it, conveniently.  I have put him on the hot seat before and go back and grill grill grill reasking the question till he answers but I neither have the time, patience or energy to do so. I did it for a year and a half with K when I dated her.

I had romantic feelings for him probably up until last night when this conversation took place and I thought “what are you doing? Why are you holding on to feelings for this guy”

Last night we were texting and he was complaining about Match.com as we do and I said “don’t worry you’ll find your friend with benefits tomorrow”  “I don’t want a FWB why do you say that? “  “cause it seems liked that from many of our conversations, interactions and comments in fact it was the reason I thought we should stop seeing each other because that’s what I thought you wanted”.  My assumptions were obviously wrong but then he made no attempt to clarify or communicate what indeed he was looking for. For some reason this made me mad, he has been pushing me to give a younger guy a chance and encouraging a FWB situation for me and I was letting that influence me and perhaps convince me to accept something less that what I wanted. Ultimately it is my choice and I can hardly blame him nor can I say he manipulated me but I let myself get caught up in that and adjusted for a guy-stupid.  I’m learning I’ve gone from one end of the spectrum to another. Never compromising or giving in to someone else’s needs to being overly accommodating.  So as with everything in life it is a readjustment and a learning process and this morning I woke up with a whole other attitude and I was really feeling myself today –got dressed up and walked with a spring in my step today with a I’m funny and darnit people like me attitude. Bottom line is I have much to learn and a lot of room to grow but I accept myself where I am at. The fact is with all that I have been through the past 2 years I’m more open that I have ever been and putting myself and my heart out there I realize well at times it just won’t work out as I hoped, I’ve only learned that I control far less than I thought in the past and my commitment is only to follow my karmic destiny or hero’s journey or whatever the new age phrase of the day it.  I’m in.

Update 12/31/11

We have actually transitioned to friends spent time together hanging out even on Xmas night and exchanging gifts. We talk the next morning he sits and drinks coffee I challenge his caveman ideas about relationships and woman and we talk about everything and anything. We laugh, we questions, we challenge, we ponder, we share about why we are the way we are, we reveal a little bit about ourselves as friends do when they trust each other and are building a friendship. He confide my fears although he already knows most of them and vice versa. We talk about our dates we bitch about our families. We support each other and remind each other that it’s ok to be him and ok to me and we are in our respective places /stages in life for a reason and we learn each and every day. I get mad at him sometimes and he apologizes, I get on my soapbox and he tells me I’m nuts but it works.  At first when I saw how much he drank I worried and thought I met him to be in his life as a friend but I needed a friend like him just as much. I am grateful we are here and while I figure out what life holds for me from here on out I have someone who can really relate.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

11.24.11 Men vs Woman/7

 Happy Fucking Thanksgiving. Yes the day we hack apart a carcass and serve it up to loved ones….yum. Having turned vegetarian my day consists of sides (ultimately better) and snacking although I have made a tofurky or some sort of other vegetarian roast to compete with the headless bird on the table.

Meat vs substitute. Was that what I was doing that year and half dating K? Just substituting a woman for a role I normally had with a man? Hard to say if I did, I had no idea on any conscious level but from an outsider yes it looks like a quick list of “you were never gay” you just played on our side of the playground awhile. With some lesbians this could get your ass kicked.  God forbid if you even think you might be bisexual then everyone thinks your greedy and just hogging up all the sides for youself cause you can’t decide if you want turkey or not.

I had an eye opening introduction to the gay community . I thought I was so down with it all, you know surrouding myself with lovely handsome, fun, caddy, well dressed gay men as friends. Lesbos are totally different, in fact I didn’t realize that often gay guys and hardcore non fem lezzies tend to not mix. Who knew. I had these discussions with a new friend Meg she lived most of her life as hetero thinking something was wrong with her, that she wasn’t a sexual person or might just go through life feeling “eh” about the current guy she was dating no matter how great they were. Then suddenly she started connecting the dots and found herself.  She is indeed a sexual being when touched by the right sex. GO MEG!  We had great discussions us both having lived a predomindately hetro life and now finding our gay (hers was a true discovery), we talked about how such a marginalized group then turns around and discriminates against their own kind, the labels, the catagories, the judgements.

I look back and no I don’t think I was ever really gay but people needed to catagorize me, they needed to be able to understand it in terms they were familiar with. I was less concerned of being identified as gay, I didn’t feel compelled to jump out of a closet of oppression, it just wasn’t my life, wasn’t my experience as a young adult. For this too I was judged-to really BE gay you must have had to go through that horrible torturous time of discovering your identity as an adolecent and I clearly did not. So yeah I went along with being called gay or a lesbian or whatever because I think it made other people feel comfortable including my partner. I just knew that I at that time in my life, I kissed a girl, and I liked it, simple as that I had no past to figure out, no “a ha” moment, no pain and identity issues from my childhood and no feeling of rejection because I prefered the same gender.  To real gays sometimes not having these experiences is not fair but everyone has their own path.

So fast forward to current time 11.24.11 I have been seeing/dating/fucking/whatevering a guy for the last month. He is funny, weird in a good way, unfiltered to say the least, and in some ways a beautiful mess himself. After our first date we decided to pretty much throw all our cards on the table. He is currently separated going through his second divorce fighting for custody of his two young daughters which they adopted. He has a son in his early twenties from his first marriage when he was very young. At times under the recommendation of his lawyer sleeps in his old house because it might force his ex to resolve matters more quickly if she has to deal with his presence in her space. He has an apartment down the street from his house where his ex lives and his kids go back and forth, he has a bedroom for his oldest son who stays there sometimes and then sometimes at his girlfriends. He’s a caretaker and a half, I like that, I admire that, I respect that.

So fine I think I’ll see your two exs, three kids, two divorces, and raise you with losing my dad, dog and brother all in the same year, putting my dog down because she badly bit the person I was dating resulting in hospitalization, and the person I was dating is the person I currently still live with….YES it’s true I live with my ex, oh and by the way SHE’S A GIRL. Let me know if you have any questions.

More or less that was the text I sent and then I waited holding my breath. The reaction was unexpected he was cool with it, asking great questions, trying to get a feel for what the full picture was.  Holy shit! I thought. After working through some of my details he followed up by telling me one more thing, one thing he says he doesn’t share until the 3rd date but what the hell we are pulling everything out of the closet so he figures let it rip. He tells me he suffers from full blown depression and gets treatment regularly and takes medication for it.

Damn he wins…..I snap back to reality and start firing questions. It is formally diagnosed? Do you ever go off your meds? What’s it like?

He answers everything I ask honestly and openly. I don’t know that this news scared me but I recall for a moment what it was like when K was going through her depression and it was hard, challenging and at times heartbreaking for me for many reasons but I don’t feel compelled to run away or jump ship or slowly stop texting away into obscurity until I officially delete his number.

From the get go I knew he was in therapy he talks about it openly and I thought well shit, good for you, everyone needs therapy been there done that several times it’s the fool who runs from his problems rather than tackles them head on (that was my ex) and not only do I think that’s great, well fuck, it turns me on.  Not the therapy part but the part that he is brave enough to do the work, do the digging and face the music so to speak.

Now what was the chance a person on his second divorce, fighting for custody, dealing with depression, in therapy, who sometimes lives back at his house to pressure his ex to negotiate would meet and ex lesbian still living with her ex (happily), after suffering from intense grief from losing her Dad and her brother and never dealt with it till a year later when she was dumped by her ex shortly after the anniversary of her brothers death and Xmas?

Come On!!! you can’t make this shit up. So I think we both figured fuck it let’s go with it and here I am negotiating my way back in the hetro world recalling why I struggled with dating in the first place. HA!

I over analyze, I over think and for as verbal and confrontational as I am there are just some feelings that you have to pry out of me, he sees this, he saw it almost instantly and told me I had trust issues. Yep he is right I certainly do, he linked them to my mom, yep they certainly are, he linked my strength, lack of need for approval and outspokeness to Dad, yep yep yep.

Whoa I thought it took K a year and a half to realize or see these things in me or herself and then the thought of actually talking about it out loud fucked her up royally.  I’m not trying to diminish her path, she has a quiet strength but dating a bull in a china shop like me pushed her over the edge.

So here I sit thinking what, why, how, when, where about this new guy. Will we be in each others lives long term, short term, as friends, lovers, in a relationship, semi relationship, weird undefined something. Ups and down, misunderstandings, miscommunication, stress from all the shit he is dealing with and going through will impact us and what we do or do not become.  I don’t think, no let me correct myself I’ve never sat in a position like this before with so much unknown before me and so much I cannot control.  THIS IS TOTALLY NOT ME! the only time I’ve experienced it was in travel when I was brave enough to throw all caution to the wind.

I would have never been in a situation like this 5 years ago everything that has happened in my life has brought me where I am at right now which is exactly where I need to be with the person I am supposed to be there with. Funny how life bring you that without fail-K came into my life when I needed someone most and much of what I learned in our failures prepares me for my next journey.

What do I want? sides? turkey? a substitute? a past, a present? a future? Guess time will tell but I’m enjoying him and the experiences we are having and to a small degree, a very small degree some of the uncertainty of it all.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

11/24/11 5 months of healing plus 5 months of living again/6

Who would have thought I would be here finally moving forward in life and………..these were the words I typed 5 months ago and I now return to complete the setences almost 5 months later. The original date that those first words were typed were May 24 2011 today is November 24 2011. I have been having trouble sleeping, I know why, I’m afraid of next month.  Next Sat is my brother’s birthday I will visit his grave and the anniversary date of his death will come and pass again. Last December while my relationship was ending the flood gates open and I finally let our the grief of losing my brother. I can’t sleep, I can’t sleep, I feel anxious, anxious about how I will feel and what it will be like to go through December actually feeling something rather than numbing myself and ignoring grief that was pushing its way to the surface.  I find myself in a very different place finally after many fights, yelling matches, tears and frustating conversations K and I find ourselves over each other to the point where we have moved on, become friends, remained roommates and begun dating. Fucking nuts I know.

I couldn’t imagine this day would come but I fantasized about it, our therapist used to tell us about a woman she dated that she then remained roommates and friends with afterward.  We wanted that, perhaps naively but we wanted that. Well maybe I wanted that, K wanted it also but her motivation came from fear of being alone and dealing with depression that’s why she stayed. Perhaps early on I also had my own ulterior motives, I thought we would get back together.

It’s weird but I have never tended to follow a straight line figuratively and literally in this case for mapping out my life.  If I am honest, really honest with myself, I was always still interested in men while with Kari but I also really did love her, her person.  I wasn’t attracted to her because she was a woman it was because of who she was.  So my natural attraction to men was still there, I just wasn’t in love with one. I still flirted, I still communicated with old acquaintances and boyfriends and was dangerously close to crossing a line than I should have been, since I was in a commited relationship.  That should have been a sign, but at that time I was in the habit of ignoring signs and prone to getting lost for those  2 years of my life.

Funny that we should both arrive to a place where we are dating other people. Funny that I am in a place where I am dating men and realizing that is indeed my preference.  They are vastly different, night and day but yet relationships are relationships and those hold similarities. Lesbians jump all in ready or not here I come, your my soulmate, get the UHAUL, let’s adopt more babies then Brad and Angelina. Guys are so not like that, there is a fine dance that over time gets perfected. Does he like me? Is he into me? Will this go anywhere? Will we get serious? Is he the one?  With lesbians they are always the one. I met a few woman after K and I broke up and I was trying to figure out, everything in my life. These woman were nuts, that sounds bad but really they were needy, clingly, too much information, 16 emails a day (not reciprocal ones) just open your email and SLAM 16 emails in a row from a lonely nurse looking to find love. Another intelligent woman a professor at a big university going on and on and on and motherfucking on about how her ex and her best friend cheated on her and she was left to pick up the pieces. I don’t want to diminish the pain or struggles of these people but Jesus aint no way I was stepping up to the plate for a whole lotta drama.  That’s what was out there.  I took a deep breath and quietly retreated to safe daydreams of meeting someone nice, funny, cute with baggage they can compartmentalize at least until after the first few dates for gods sake.

It’s Thanksgiving morning, I saw my best friends last night and laughed and felt loved and part of something good, I woke up today missing my brother so much that I don’t know exactly how to get through the day. I feel like when you lose someone you really love people expect you to be sad and you expect to be sad but I never expected to be sad forever. It’s been 2 years since he passed and I just started acknowledging the grief just last year but it feels like something that will always make me feel so deeply distraught and heartbroken for the rest of my life.

I will have a nice distraction tonight a guy I’m dating, we will hang out, laugh, flirt, watch a movie and I will cook us dinner.  It will be good but Dec 3 is around the corner and the anxiety of feeling that tremendous sense of loss and sadness make me feel overwhelmed, insecure and out of control of my emotions, which we all know doesn’t work well for me….or the people around me.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

12/31/10 I’m gay, let’s go for Thai/3

Coming out was different for me, I’m 42 have a good sense of myself and am confident in who I am. I did not have to face the struggles that young people face when coming out I did not have the fears, insecurity or self doubt. I’m old enough to live my own life and say “fuck you” if you don’t like it get on board or get the hell off.So at 41 I fell in love and started to date a girl. She was and is amazing, breath taking intelligent, beautiful in a gentle non assuming way and wise wise wise. She is quiet, soft, delicious, loving and drinkable. She is and will forever be the love of my life, this is the person I have waited for forever and the person I have hurt the most because my whole life I had to fight and defend myself to survive in my household. It was crush or be crushed any sign on weakness and you were dead in the water. God bless my sister a sensitive type, someone who wears her emotions on her sleeve someone who was an easy target for my mother. When my mother was verbally assaulting her and she saw the crack begin to widen and my sisters eyes fill with tears because she was told she was stupid, worthless and whore or whatever her word of the day was…it was like a predator smelling the scent of their prey. Immediately she would attack my sister and tease her for crying, being weak, stupid and unable to control her emotions. She would tell her she was crazy and needed help because she was nothing more than a big cry baby and that this would be her downfall for the rest of her life and make her unsuccessful in anything she attempted.I watched, observed and quickly learned not to cry, no weakness was shown or I would be in the scope and she would finish me off. No way, my emotion of escape was anger to the 100th degree, stand and fight, be louder, be stronger, push back, say something equally mean or meaner, not go down without a fight, fight, fight, fight. It was how I survived suicide attempts by the age of 12. I knew better than to try again because I was punished severly by my mother when she was aware of the second time. “What are you crazy? now I have to treat you like a fucking baby? watch your every god damn move and babysit you like a kindergardener? Jesus Christ what the hell is matter with you? !SLAP! Why are you making so much work for me? !SLAP!”After finally letting me out of the bathroom I heard her walk casually through the front room and spew with a sigh of exasperation “Your sister tried to kill herself tonight, what to you think of that?” My brother sat on the couch blankly staring ahead at the TV saying nothing. She then arrived to the kitchen and said the same comment to my Dad who said “Oh my god.” That was it. If it wasn’t for my sister L I would have never even seen a doctor about it. She understood that pain, she knew how deep it went and she was the only one to try to take some action.

I anticipated the day I would finally start telling my friends, “I’m in love with a girl.” M and K were the first, then my nieces, then E and D. The funny part is that I did it at the same Thai restaurant each time I was begining to think the waitress would walk up and just say “she gay, I take yur orda?” Each group of friends and loved ones was supportive, happy and could see the pureness of my bliss. It was unmistakenly there I literally was walking on air. M was curious and had lots of questions. L had some of the same questions but was also so excited by the potential of two people she loved and respected so much coming together. As time went on I shared it with more and more of my friends/coworkers.  My bosses know, my immediate friends and people I am close to know, K is a big part of my life.

There were so many amazingly loving, beautiful, deeply connecting moments we shared. There were also struggles that we endured that until recently we didn’t even know or understand that came from both of our childhoods. Now so much later after being in couples counseling for the last couple months we are trying to figure out if there is an “us” left to save. With the knowledge we both gained there is great potential, she discovered her dysfuntions and I jumped into mine head first and tore them open, getting past the anger and justification and arriving to the most painful part of my heart and psyche. So painful that in some moments I felt again that I might not be able to go on and survive the pain of reliving those moments. I’ve never known that there was so much I didn’t deal with, I thought I was past it, but as therapy began I remembered more and more about my childhood, telling K what used to be and what head games I was constantly dodging and trying to be one step ahead of. With each memory I was able to immediately link it back to our relationship. Like why I always needed to be right and why I would debate till end and stand my ground that her sweatshirt wasn’t red but burnt orange.

In the end it doesn’t matter but I was operating as I had as a child and giving in and giving up and being wrong or mistaken had earth shattering repercussions for me. I was no longer needing to defend and stand my ground, K wasn’t against me, she wasn’t going to hurt me, she wasn’t trying to defeat me but I couldn’t break my patterns and in the end it may have cost me the one person who ever really loved me and that I loved so.

We are so different but in some ways that is the beauty of it she provides me with what I will never fully understand or come to on my own. Her perspective, her heart, her smarts continously bring me to better places, she elevates me on every level even when she challenges me to move beyond my limitations. I love her deeply and the thought of us not succeeding and not staying together is beyond heart breaking and terrifying for me. Right now she needs space and time both of which can be a challenge for me because in my household the “silent treatment” meant a week of attacks, snide comments, your wet clothes being yanked out of the dryer and thrown in the driveway, hearing everyone called to the dinner table and invited to eat except you, the silent treatment was hell week. But K isn’t my mother and her quiet time, where she needs to think, regroup, recharge and pull her thoughts together isn’t about punishing me or sending me a message that I’m not loved although I let it trick my head because it triggered the insecurities of my childhood. She’s taking time so that she can be considerate and think about what she needs, what must her next step be. She is literally thoughtful in her process and if I think of it that way I can cherish the idea that she needs that time away from me. I can cherish and respect that she loves and thinks so deeply that rather than be impulsive and reactive she stops and uses her heart and her head together. I told you she is amazing

0 CommentsLeave a comment

12/31/10 He’s died…./1

May 1 2009 I’m leaving work to go home for lunch to let the dogs out. I’m in a good place, I have just “come out”, late but have fallen in love with an amazing woman K. We didn’t see it coming but here we are about 4 weeks into our relationship. I check my phone because we are in that stage, you know where you text a million times a day but don’t say much more than how much you adore each other. I pull out my phone to receive my latest love note and I see a text from my niece says “call home asap”. I get a sinking feeling I pull over, as I dial I talk myself through what might be on the other end of the line.

“Aunt Lisa?,
“Yeah, what’s going on? what happened?
“Grandpa died.”

There it was, the words we all know one day we will have to face as our parents get older we know one day, one day it will happen and we try to anticipate our reactions but they never match the real thing.

“What happened, why, what happened?” my niece isn’t sure he appears to have just passed in his sleep. He woke up early showered and was waiting for both of my nieces to come by to go to breakfast with them. Sat down in the chair shut his eyes and passed away.

My dad is the best grandfather in the world, he was a pretty good dad to me but the job of grandfather was made for him, I was fortunate to see him in action as he loved, played with and spoiled my nieces. That day I realized the sadness that if I were to have children they would never know that love and joy of feeling like the most important person in the world and being so purely adored by their grandfather. I never really thought I would have kids but suddenly I became sad feeling like these imaginary not had and not even wanted kids wouldn’t know my father.

I was confused and literally disoriented, kinda starting to cry but more whimpering with a hearbeat that felt like it would pound through my chest.

Breathe, breathe, breathe, turn the car around drive back to school tell them your not coming back because your father just died. Turn around and drive back, go.

I pull back into the parking lot, there’s Kelly, she lost her dad, she knows what this is, she knows how this feels, she is walking out of school towards me she sees a look on my face and knows something is wrong, she asks.

She proceeds to hug me with all she is, she hugs me so authentically, so hard, so caringly that for a moment the world is on pause and I feel like the pain in my heart transfers to her. “I’m sorry, what can I do? I’m so sorry”. “I need to just go in and let our boss know.” I need to tell my student teacher who is sitting in my office and has just started working with me.

I walk into a fog, everything is muffled, I go to the office but my boss isn’t there I see the next person in line, M the school psychologist she’s my friend. She hugs me, she’ll let them know, go be with my family. I walk in my office and I tell C my student teacher she hugs me I tell her to report to M if she needs anything. I leave.

I sent K a text and she calls me I tell her what has happened and she asks me if she needs to work I tell her no I’m on my way to the funeral home and will call her.

I’ve never lost anyone before so I’m completely treading water and have no idea what I need. In fact for 6-8 months I do not grieve, I do not cry, I do not acknowledge the pain. Until in a therapists office, I engage in an exercise that has me imagining my father is sitting across from me and I tell him/the empty chair what I never got to say before he left.

Dad I want to thank you for teaching me an amazing work ethic. I get my sense of responsibility and integrity in relation to work from you. You modeled such an amazing example that I noticed at a young age and was always aware that you provided for your family. I want to thank you for my sense of humor, I love that you always cracked a joke, you were smart, witty and funny. I miss you, I’m sorry we weren’t closer near the end of your life, I’m sorry I didn’t make time to always see you and that I let the relationship with my mother interfere with me maintaining a  relationship with you. I hope your happy, safe and in a better place. I love you. I miss you. I’m sorry.

I arrive at the funeral home my two sisters and their husbands are there F is taking the lead and asking questions and helping to make the arrangements. My sister N sits near my mother crying. My brother is not there, he’s too sick, been sick for the past 15 years plus he has let the diabetes win and lives a hollow unfulfilling life in my mothers house who cares for him around the clock. My nieces hug and kiss me and I make the same rounds with my three sisters though we are not close. None of us are really close as sibilings the only one I had a close relationship with was with my brother but my sister L and I try sometimes.

We are moved to a table and the person at the funeral guides us delicately throught he routine, prayer cards, flowers, ribbons, coffins, obituary, death certificate and on and on. I hardly speak, N my sister does much of the talking and then translating into Spanish to my mother. Decisions are made, books are passed between us and everyone nods and agrees to things we will never remember we agreed to. My niece P looks at me and says “what they hell are you wearing?” I look down at my long sleeve aqua blue shirt with a red and grey striped sweater pulled over it, my eyes follow down my legs to my cuffed jeans which expose two different socks, one striped one argyle and then all the way down to my feet, two different shoes. She then points to the four multicolored bubbly shaped barrettes in my hair.

“It was mismatched day at school today, I forgot I was dressed like this.”  Everyone laughs. Even the funeral director admits to thinking I was a little weird.

The arrangements get made and we start to leave, my sister asks if I want to see my father, no, no I don’t no. They are unable to show him to me because there are the remains of someone else there. The remains…..the remains, it sounds so removed from the person I called my father.  I want to leave, I want to get out of here, I want to go, I have to go. I go home and recount the events to K she hugs me and comforts me and takes the next few days off of work to be with me. 4 weeks in and here is where we are the first of many traumas we will be dealt in our first year together and the first of what damages me for the next two years.

0 CommentsLeave a comment