I met you and suddenly I find myself needing to know the plural for apocalypse.
Riley Finn, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I didn’t check my memories when I woke up this morning.
I usually do.
Got a notification reminding me, so I looked.
There is a LOT in there.
Yep.
Martyrdom is exhausting at best. All sacrifice, for what?
Saint Sarah, patron saint of gypsies. For reals, look it up.
I look after those who wander, while I myself wander?
Great, thanks.
And here I am 7 months from homelessness without a clue where to go or what to do.
Pray to myself maybe?
And weirdly, or not so weirdly, “Maybe God is Trying to tell you Something” just came on my Spotify playlist.
It’s been dead air and blackness for a couple weeks now.
Go ahead god, I am listening.
I had a vision of the future where I was happy. I sat down and did the actual paperwork and budget for it and realized it was a practical possiblity.
But then it got snatched away and replaced with the nothing I am currently navigating.
It is dark here.
I have stood at the edges of so many abysses and never seen nothing like this. I’ll jump when it’s time, I always do.
A year ago today I was in Erie Pennsylvania, a week before I was supposed to return to Perdition, a week after I realized I was leaving finally, and I had a way out.
We got stuck in Erie. This stretch of impassable highway, going 10 miles an hour not sure where the road was or if we were even on it. It had happened before numerous times. That last bit of meteorological fuckery stretching out the last 4 hours to home into a half a day or more. Why the good people of Pennsylvania built a road that close to the lake where the snow flies sideways for ¼ of the year is beyond me.
Last year we thought we were going to have to stay the night, stopped for gas and snacks and sanity and somehow managed to get into a clear band between the blizzards and chased it all the way home.
In other words, we didn’t think we were gonna make it, but we made it.
And I too will make it even if I have no idea how. I can either wait out the storm or seize an opportunity of clarity and just keep going.
6 years ago it was this…
Life isn’t something I have. It’s not something that happens to me.
It’s something I participate in, wander around with child like wonderment at the beauty of it, and something I create with my thoughts and actions.
On that note, and being single for once, I have given a lot of thought on what kind of love I want to have.
Someone called me and that boy from high school ‘Mickey and Mallory’, but that isn’t it. I don’t want a body count.
For a while I was fixated on the idea of Johnny and June. But I can be more than a pillar and a muse.
I want Ricky Fitz and Jane Burnham, instant and total acceptance of each other’s weird.
I want Tyler Durden and Marla Singer, with the godlike sex, and the open ending, he came around in the end and the world fell apart while they stood together and watched it.
There is no pre-written conclusions here. and I can imagine them happy after the credits roll.
Wow, I am still exactly where I was before I even started this blog. Not okay.
Today was the day 6 years ago that I scheduled my first post for the solstice.
12.13.14 I let go of that boy from high school and the toxicity that came with it. 6 years and 4 days.
4 men have reached out to me over the last 4 days.
One I have known since grade 7, one since 10th grade, one was the aforementioned Mr. Solo from my 18th/19th year on the planet, and last night Giant checked in.
2/4 did this weird thing (last night, within moments of each other) wherein they used my full name and demanded to know if I was alright and safe.
They all know I would never cry wolf, not even with a wolf at the door.
I am safe, but I’m not alright.
(You knew that or you wouldn’t be here)
And not to be ungrateful, but let’s say I wasn’t safe…whatchoo gonna do about it?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m far from ungrateful. Giant almost always shows up exactly when I need him before I even realize I do need him.
But these problems I have right now are existential.
They don’t have solutions.
Men like to solve things.
I stumbled on this truth a few weeks back, that I don’t need something to do, I just need somewhere to BE.
I have to accept my lot in life or change my life.
Or just my perspective maybe.
It’s all posthumous autopsies over here.
I asked Solo last night, “instead of going over what went wrong with us, maybe we should look at what we did right.”
Him: A lot I think
We did love each other
Me: It was love wasn’t it
That kinda hit me like a train in my chest. We did love each other and it didn’t end up mattering.
He cited me taking care of him. And I did.
That is kinda what I do.
But I was 19 at the time. It wasn’t what I did then. But it might have been the beginning of becoming that girl.
What teenager put the needs of someone else before her own like that?
Me, I guess. Weird that it took 20 years in between being with him and then 7 more of being alone to realize all of this.
And hindsight says ‘yes’.
That was the beginning.
I also exhibited the emotional maturity at the time to accept that something was good without having a label on it.
Been practicing that for years and years now it seems.
He says we were kids experiencing grown up love and had no idea what to do with it.
He isn’t wrong.
I accept the term ‘grown up love’ with quite a bit of bitterness. I have years of anecdotal proof that most grown-ups do not have a fucking clue about love. But, at 19 and 20 respectively, he and I stumbled on it. The comfort we felt around each other allowed us to safely explore the people we were going to become.
3 out of 4 of the men who I spoke to last night have, at times, expressed different levels of regret for treating me the way they did in the time called before. I would have happily dated any of them. Tried to actually.
Giant no.
But that is different. He is the practice test for all the things I have learned… and I’ve passed with flying colors every time, even when the lessons and the questions change.
He says he has questions for me. Things he regrets not asking.
I don’t know what they are.
I don’t mind when he is cryptic.
I promised to answer them when I get back.
I feel bad for him actually. He seems to always find me right after a storm. The levees break and he just stands in the rush of my thoughts and my words getting drowned in my inability to shut the fuck up. I can hear myself talking way too much and I cannot stop myself. It has always been this way now that I think about it, and he is still here.
My tattooer friend from grade 10 sent me a long message asking me to see myself as more than the sum of my physical parts. I am trying.
They are all trying really hard to get me to see what they see, and I am grateful for it. Willfully blind but grateful.
I haven’t felt inclined to lie or sugarcoat how I am feeling and that in itself is a gift from god.
Solo says I am a good woman. They all do.
I needed to hear it.
I am not inclined to argue, but I end up alone regardless of my goodness.
And herein lies the existential dilemma. Do I continue to love the way I do and have that be reward unto itself?
Memories say yes.
Love these kings dressed in rags who have amnesia*, until they remember who they are.
No further instructions.
Just this.
Source*