August 2018

He had just braided his fingers into my hair and said he was happy I didn’t have extensions.

I smiled, “What kind of girls are you fucking honey?” He didn’t answer.

“You have never seen me shiny or strippery.”

“Nah, I like you like this.”

“I just got out of the water, I look like a sea witch.”

“Nah, this is you. Beautiful.”

Every once in a long while I am handed a sincere compliment with no agenda. I hold onto them like diamonds.
I’m the first to admit I am insecure. He sugar coated it and called me humble, but we will get back to that in a minute.

“She’s just margarine. Fake, plain, toxic in large doses, only so much eyeshadow and Snapchat a girl can take really. And I know he was engaged. So that’s that then.”

We both chuckled and he took me upstairs. I kept waiting for the guilt to kick in but it didn’t. He came out of the shower and laid down next to me. Kept telling me how strong my hands are as I kneaded this muscle or that one.

It didn’t start out that way, I don’t usually double dip with ex’s friends, and I haven’t slept with someone one of my girlfriends liked since I was in my 20’s. Except Moonface but I saw him first. PIC wanted him and instead of taking one for the team, I took one for me. She got over it.

And I took one again for me, this man, with his honey coated tongue and fingers made of molten steel pulling me apart and putting me back together. Saying all the sweet things first with his mouth, then his hands, then all in.

Right before he remarked that he loved we could just lay together mostly naked, and there was no pressure for sex.

“About that” I said. “I was waiting on you.”

He grinned a Cheshire cat grin and

Flip

Switch.

I do love that flip.

Switch. From tender to intense. From gentle to bestial.  From reverent to wanting.

I was not disappointed.

“Do you trust me?”

In that moment I realized I did.

FUUUUUUUUCK, there is nothing sexier than a tanned, buff, naked man standing beside the bed while my legs quake, asking that question. Except what happened after.

…

I started writing this, scrapped it and started again. I was on a self-imposed gag order about where I was going and what I was doing but I realized by the time I got to sit at my laptop everyone would know. So here I am. Committing memories to the archives. The thing about driving for days is you have a lot of time to think/remember. I have driven 10,000 kilometers over 7 days in the last 18 days. Not including city trips and the quarry.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. My shoulders hurt, I never want to eat at Tim Horton’s again, and I already need another oil change, my 3^rd this August. But I am calm and I am Zen and I am happy.

They say living well is the best revenge. I say no revenge is the best revenge.

The opposite of love is indifference (so pay attention now, I’m standing on your porch screaming out, and I won’t leave until you come downstairs) The Lumineers, Stubborn Love.

Ignore that last part in parenthesis, I refuse to stalk. Maybe I shoulda, but I won’t. Not my thing. Clear invitation or I ain’t coming. Preferably 2 or 3, see above. I am insecure.

I just really like that song and for once I would like someone to stand on my porch and scream my name. It’s been a long hot minute since anyone threw pebbles at my window. It was romantic though if memory serves.

Almost threw pebbles at the aforementioned ‘his’ roommate’s window during a heatwave a couple years back. I said so, jokingly once and he replied, “You could just call you know, you never call or text.” I didn’t. See above where I am insecure and need 1-3 invites to go anywhere.

Where was I going with this?
…
Oh ya. It was weird that I messaged him at all. Hadn’t seen or heard from either of them in a while.

“Are you at home? I feel like swimming.”

“I am, let’s go.”

(later)

“Do you trust me?”

I nodded.

“Put your arms around my neck.”

I can’t remember if I had done this before or if I just watch way too much porn, but DAMN.

He hooked his arms under my knees and lifted me up like I was light as a feather; he was stiff as a board.

OH
MY
GOD

GOODGODDAMN

So where does the revenge come in?

It really doesn’t.

To fully understand we must cross reference with events that occurred in June 2018. A friend, that I am no longer friends with, let’s call her Becel, and I wandered down to the beach for a swim and a tan and came back with an invite to dinner by 2 beautiful men.

The one I liked, liked me and became my summer fling. The other two, not so much.

Mine, I found out later, was engaged to a girl back home, far far away. So I left it and him alone.

My friend in question? That friendship has dissolved in a vat of sulfuric acid, ripped dresses and unpaid bills.

Now usually I carry a lot of gilt for a non-Catholic.

I get more sad than angry. Carry the hurt instead of lashing out and hurting others. And in the grand scheme of things I didn’t hurt anyone. Just got a porn sex, multiple orgasms with a back rub and some good pillow talk karmic reward.

It takes a lot for me to be done with someone, and the two in question…done.

They don’t exist. For a second I felt bad. Like ghosts haunting a perfectly good moment.

And I don’t feel bad about it
It’s exactly what you get
Stop interrupting my grinding*

He didn’t feel bad either.

“I wasn’t really that into her. I always had a bit of a crush on you to be honest.”

I like honest.

“She had way too much attitude for someone so average you know?”

Oh I know.

“I prefer my women beautiful and humble.”

(forehead kiss)

Thanks baby.

“She said if I didn’t message her back I was dead to her.” he laughed.

“You don’t feel dead, nice and warm actually.” He pulled me closer.

I can see clearly looking back that I have a habit of picking the wrong friend when it comes to dating, and life in general.

Flip

Switch.

(*Beyonce)

Once upon a time farm hubby decided we were gonna wait 3 months before we had sex. Like date proper, really get to know each other and see if we actually liked each other.

Okay.

We did, or close, like maybe 2 months and 3 weeks. Good call, by the time we got around to it I was pretty smitten. I mean I stayed for 7 years, mostly, through quite a bit of heinous fuckery most foul. Longest relationship I’ve ever had to date. I would draw a correlation and I still might, but…

We all know what happened there. And truth be told that was a 7 year itchy dry spell. Sex was not a huge part of the relationship, and for me it needs to be. It’s one of my love languages, touch, and it’s a biggun’. It wasn’t one of his, so 3 months of waiting was torture for me and a cakewalk for him.

I’m not generally a waiter. I see someone shiny and vibey and this guttural voice sounds in my head “I want that one.” I think the grunting voice belongs to my vagina and head and heart know better than to argue so they follow along.

Also I have been a practising cougar for a while now. I know better than to try and “date” anyone in their 20’s.
And that 28-32 year old window is a dangerzone where they want kids and wives and no thanks. So ya. Logic and circumstance and my choices dictated everything be casual. And it was, and it was pretty good, amen.

Cruz and I banged on the first date and I woulda put money on never seeing him again, but he kept showing up with flowers and food. He was 25. It didn’t make sense, but it was good for a bit. So there goes that theory.

I kinda fucked up with Young Un the First and wanted a title 4 months in. That was 5 years ago and I had no idea what I was doing. Lesson learned and not to be repeated. He treated me more like a proper girlfriend than most of them, might’ve continued if I hadn’t gotten greedy. I get it now.

I have also been pretty allergic to the idea of being in a traditional relationship. I still have wars in my head about it. There were a couple that seemed viable.

3 in the last 5 years.

One I jumped into bed with pretty quick, like 3 weeks and a handful of dates and it was over pretty quick. No fault on either of our parts, circumstances dictated he had to go away. But maybe…nah, I know what went wrong there.

(Biker Body Pillow reminded me it took me almost a year to get over that one and I almost went back.)

One courted and wooed me for over 2 months intermittently, and in retrospect I shoulda held my ground a bit longer but, he was delicious. King of the Fuckboys come to find out, but delicious. Fuckboys usually are the yummiest of all the snacks. He was my 3^rd round of lightning sex. It’s rare but it happens. It isn’t mystic, I’ve had mystic/cosmic….but he was definitley electric.

And the Last One. I mentioned that he messaged the minute I sat my road weary, traumatized ass on the couch after the 3 day drive back from Newfoundland. I swear he knows things, slightly psychic and the thread is still there. I feel the pull every now and again. He pursued me for a year, like a full calendar year before I agreed to meet him. I flat out refused to fuck him on our first date even though he drove a 10 hour round trip to hang out with me for 6 hours.

Two weeks later he did the drive again and after much discussion about waiting longer, we both had some vodka and caved. Lightning sex round 2. He likes to remind me it was September 22^nd, he remembers everything and yet… He likes to remind me of the fact that he remembers everything too. He was gone by October 6^th, I haven’t forgotten that part.

I don’t think he bailed because we slept together. But maybe… it’s a thing that happens.

But there is proof to the contrary in Giant, who I fucked on the second date, and he was still in my life 2 and a half years later.

Big Spoon also politely and insistently asked me out for a full year. I refused because
1. I’d briefly dated a co-worker of his and
2. because I ended up getting a job where he worked
3. he was really young and
4. a myriad of reasons.
We waited awhile and he is still good to me to this day.

And he was the only one from home who remembered when I was coming back and checked on me. He asked me out proper when I got home. I’m not going, I don’t have time, but it was nice to be asked. It is the one year anniversary of our first date. Facebook memories showed me. But again, young and not viable. He likes to remind me I have spoiled him forever with how I do things. Nah babe, just set the bar higher, I was never his girl.

I am wondering if I will ever be anyone’s girl. I’m wondering if I care.

I am tired of waiting for them to smarten up and realize what they have lost. Time to earn it instead, harder to drop something you had to work for I suppose.

They all love me after I leave and for that I have to be gone and it seems rather counterproductive and really unfair to me.

I have made some decisions and a new rule.

60 days. Be consistent, hang out with me, text and check in and then maybe we will see about the sex part.

I am busy, I have shit to do and I am tired of one night stands.

Next time my princess parts yell out that they ‘want that one’, Ima remind her, good things come to those who wait.

“I knew you weren’t coming back. That boy coulda drop dead at your feet and you woulda have curled up next to his corpse.”

Mark said that. Mark knows pretty much everything ever. And I have to admit this to be the absolute truth.

I am gone.

I’m also not supposed to mention Him, but I have once, in passing, when I was listing off all the things I had to go through, get through, and live through out there. Whoops. His ex did stalk the fuck outta me. These things happened, no point in denying them. Kinda proud of surviving really.

And ya, a fucking lot of it sucked, hard, bad and overwhelmingly. I felt like I was in a boxing match, just hit after hit, but I wasn’t punch drunk…I was actually drunk.

A lot of good happened too.

I saw whales and dolphins.

Funny story actually. My second time whale watching we came back to harbor and there were 4 boys out on seadoos, I felt a little twinge of “I wanna be doing that.” Instead of having to rush home to get to work after having this amazing day. I dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. I didn’t think much of it really, until later that night, when I found out by fluke (give me one pun) that the boy was on one of said seadoos, and it became a metaphor for how things were. I’m over here doing one thing, he’s over there doing another… close but never quite right.

So be it.

I am gone.

I went to the quarry with Mandy today. Had the sunroof open. Coffee, smokes, open road and the music cranked. I haven’t been swimming this year. No wonder I was mega-super-ultra-depressed, surround by water and I never went in past my knees. I fucking live to swim, I was at the quarry 3 days a week last year. Closest I came was walking into Middle Cove with my dress pulled up as far as I could, I wasn’t wearing panties or I woulda tore my clothes off and dived right in. Again, so close.

Speaking of…

As we were driving, I started telling Mandy the story of Mister, and it started a little something like this.

I had a broken car. Mister found me a mechanic, picked me up, took me to get a birthday cake for Lucifer Luu (a girl I worked with) and got me home. Pretty knight in ‘shining’ armor if you ask me.

He then fetched me the next day with coffee and we went for a drive to get the part I needed. He drove this big fuck off diesel pick up that made that amazing rumbling noise that gets me a lil wet, not gonna lie. It was one of the first nice days we had on the rock, I was in a t-shirt and jeans, sipping coffee (he remembered how I take mine, bless him) smoking a Marlboro, country music playing, driving with the windows down and I laughed.

He asked what was funny and I replied “Nothing at all, I am just perfectly happy in this moment.”

And I really was.

“Cute man/boy, big pick up, back roads and country music, good company, good coffee and in this exact moment everything is just fine.”

He smiled so big his eyes crinkled up at the corners.

He thought that was really cool. He thought every fucking thing I did was so fucking cool. Not only did he tell me with sparkles in his eyes and sheer reverence in his voice, he took photos. Wrangling his big dogs and getting them to heel and listen. Walking barefoot everywhere. The way I fuck, the way I look, the way I touch and talk.

I do love when I can be IN those moments.

She said “it’s so cool you can do that.” So we spent the rest of the day doing exactly that, enjoying the moment. Floating, jumping, sunbathing, chatting, making fun of the white kids down the way trying to rap and getting serenaded by so many cicadas.

She asked me to finish the story of Mister on the drive home and I sucked my teeth and chuckled in a cynical way that made her go “Uh oh.”

Ya, uh oh.

I don’t want to go through it yet one more time. I already said it once today. And ya Brandon, I cried.
Every time I scroll through my phone looking for this or that I am reminded of what he said and did…and worse, how I felt. I thought…ha, how many times have I ‘thought’ something that turned out to be bullshit. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I had to go back to that island because there was a man/boy there who thought I was made out of magic. I remember sighing this deep sigh of fucking relief and thinking, “okay, there it is.”

There it wasn’t.

The kicker is, I am made out of magic. I forgot and he reminded me, and I haven’t forgotten since.

So he did serve a purpose, all of it did. All the things I ought not to do. Waiting is on the list, I think it is the list.

Giant said he was sooooooo looking forward to me coming home and stopped messaging me 6 weeks before I got here.
I messaged him a happy birthday and he invited me over.
I am not going over there.
The Last One must have some kind of homing beacon, he messaged my first night home. At least he has some sense of self awareness and said “I know I wasn’t very good to you and you deserved so much more.” No apology, but that’ll do Donkey, that’ll do.
And no we aren’t having lunch.
Hulk wanted me to fly to BC and see him, but something came up, something important to me and I have to see it through.

Not a boy this time, a job. Something I really want.

I had a lot of isolated joyful moments out on that island. Sometimes alone or with the girls. Sometimes at work, the night Smiley and friends came by and treated me like a princess. The night I found the biker with anxiety and we hid in the corner until it was time to leave. The other time I babysat one of the seadoo boys because we were both overwhelmed with the masses out on George Street for the festival. Midnight drive with the Nope. Stolen kisses here and there. Miracle Mondays where me and Tina 2 (now 3) Chains made over a grand. Girls chilling in my clean bedroom, finding time to write, feeding my coworkers and listening to the silence because they loved what I fed them too much to talk.

There IS magic in the little things, and me.

Thanks Mister.

I started today like I start most days. Hit the ‘memories’ option upon ye olde Facebook and go meme hunting for stuff to post on my page. I tend to stop rolling back around 2010 or so, there are no memes beyond that point, and a lot of me blowing sunshine or bitching about farm life.
Fuck I tried to make that look so much prettier than it was, until I didn’t. I was a vicious little cunt at certain points and all of it makes me cringe.

I hate to admit, but I have backslid to some semblance of that girl in the last 6 months. I saw it and I couldn’t necessarily stop it.

But now I have people bashing the place I used to live and I see what I did there.

It was exactly like the moment when I went back to farm hubby one more time and my friend Anna threw up her hands and disowned me forever.
I had never told her one good thing about him. She didn’t understand, how could she?

Scrolling through my memories this very morning, I was given the information that in about a week it will be the 7th anniversary of when I was forcibly liberated from the farm…for the last time.
There was beard ripping and camera smashing and I never went back inside the house after my things were out.
I did end up at the end of the driveway once, holding ex hubby while he sobbed realizing what (he thought) he lost.
I will always be that girl who forgives and kinda basks in the moment they realize what I am, even if it is beyond too late.
I think I did the same thing with Nfld as I did at the farm. Only posted the bad things.
There was a lot of Good.
I had the money to leave that island months ago, and I stayed because I wanted to.
I didn’t get what I wanted exactly. But I wanted the wrong things.
There was honey.

My horoscope a few weeks ago said “Make do with bread and butter until god gives you honey.”

I can’t shake the idea that I was starving myself, waiting for honey. And it did come. But my whole mindset out there was wrong,

I wasn’t there for me you see.

This is going to come out messy. I am rusty. Probably wrote what, like 6 articles in 6 months? Not like me at all. And now my hands are aching to type and I have no time because I have to put my life back together out of boxes and memories.

I have a whole hour because I couldn’t read the time properly on my phone with my blurry morning eyes and thought it was 8. It was 6.

Maybe I am still on that other time zone. My computer is, haven’t changed it. Tiny time warps in my tiny room.

I have an hour.

What do I write about?

I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter?

198 days

The Long Drive Home

The Last One for the Last Time

Fuck, I don’t even know. So much has happened in a relatively short period of time. I scroll back through my photos and it is the most bizarre thing. So many definitive chapters. This is when he was here, or that one, or those girls were visiting, or Sexy Giraffe was around. There were whales.

I did have an epiphany yesterday sitting in a parking lot in the Hammer, waiting for a song to finish so I could go get my girls a “big bottle of something red and cab savvy” at the lick bo. I was at my worst in Newfoundland, and they all loved me anyways. I have never been so forgiven for all my shortcomings in my life.

My buddy Andrew, who is part of the reason I ended up on that rock in the first place, said

“That’s what I miss the most about St. John’s. Absolutely zero next-day drinker’s remorse, because no matter how bad I got I was NEVER even close to the most fucked up person in the room.
Well, that and how everyone gets bored and fucks everyone else”

I was the worst one in the room a few times, not gonna lie. But I was still forgiven. For sleeping in a pile of blankets when I ought to have been working. When rivers of tears ran down my face like a dam just broke and there was no way to stop them. “How bad do I look right now?” Tina 3 Chains would always tell me the truth. “You came downstairs without a stitch of make up on.”

Its things like that, the evolution of Tina from one chain to 3. The fact that she trusted me with her mother’s ring even though I was a hot mess often.

The evolution of me from hiding in room 1 from Stompy nursing a bruised tailbone and a broken heart. Moving up to 4, having responsibilities and all the keys, and still a busted heart. The comings and goings of girls I just met and loved, girl I knew and didn’t care for, this one leaving that one coming back. It was like summer camp, I just stayed.

There was the realization that my son was grown and didn’t need me anymore do for the first time in over half my life I only had me to look after and I had NO idea how to do that.

There was the Creep chapter. Followed by the Nope…then a good break and Mister showed up. Then the Viking for a minute. With the exception of Nope whose dog I never met, I realized I was more enamoured with the puppers than the men themselves. Almost true.

The realization that I am a horrible hustler and all I did was sit at the bar and wait for something to happen and poured whisky on everything.

There was the moment when I had driven 9 hours to the west side of the island and gotten queued up for the ferry and a big black pick up pulled in behind me and I couldn’t help but keen and wail and the nice Newfie in the SUV ahead of me gave me a Tim Hortons cup with a healthy swig of Jack Daniels so I could calm down enough to go get my pajamas on and wait for the boat to take me away.

There was 2 more days of driving where I saw clearly everything I did wrong and realized, I burned no bridges out there, they are fireproof, almost. That I was loved unconditionally and yes, there was honey.