It is Déjà Vu, all over again.

For a few weeks now I have walked to the corner store to fetch the milk for my coffee. Been going there for over 2 years now. They always rotate the stock.

But for the last 3 weeks it’s been the same 3 cartons of 3% all dated October 24^th. Yesterday.

2 days ago I was waiting for a tow, for the second time, 10 feet away from the time I was waiting for a tow 2 days before that and Hotel California started playing on the radio.

It is déjà vu all over again.

I have been here, maybe 10 feet away.

My whole life is feeling like this. Down to the brand new cold sore and my crippling period.

Seriously, I was just here 2 months ago. This isn’t supposed to happen like this. My body betraying me and not my own. Just trying to get through.

He never saw me shiny.

I showed up to our first date and apologized about an hour in. Said I would normally get my hair and nails did but life was so hectic I figured it was better to just show up, considering he drove 5 hours to see me for 5 hours. I was right and he forgave me. Looked at me like I carried the grail in my hips.

After he left, I woke up feeling like I was getting sawed in half and got the worst cold sore I have had since 2005. I had barely recovered from either when he came back. And yet he looked at me like I was spun from gold.

I miss him.

Frieda Khalo said two things

1. take a lover who looks at you like you are magic

   and if he leaves you…

2.  change the locks even on the house he’s never visited.

He did look at me like I was magic and I cannot lock him out of anything.

Everything is just spinning in circles, like the tight part of the spiral of time. I know it goes in and out, and loops back around, fresh perspectives on old occurrences.

There is so much new in my world. Too much almost. I can’t figure out which way to sleep in my old/new bed. I finally got my bed back. Had to trade with Panda for just over a year, her room was too small for her big bed, so my room became all bed…her bed.

The Last One slept in her bed with me.

I asked for a fresh start. I painted my room. I pouted and got my bed back.

So I am not even sleeping on the same mattress as I did with him. Maybe that’s it. Maybe my body misses whatever molecules he left behind.

I still can’t wash the green blanket. It guards the end of my bed now. Keeps my toes warm and the monsters at bay.

Margaret Atwood said its strange how we decorate pain.

It is.

I tend to water it down, color it with pale hues, translucent like it was never really there, just a hint of itself. I don’t pretend it didn’t happen, I just dilute it and take all responsibility for the butterflies I thought I felt, like I made it all up in my silly little head and heart and he never really said those things. He was imaginary and my imagination is over active at the best of times.
Hush now, its fine babygirl.
We can do what Jane says and try again tomorrow.
We’ll just be realists this time instead of water colored wisps of shapes and ideas.

Then the inevitable happens and I open that message thread or that box.

And its déjà vu all over again.

And again.

And again.

I see the words he said and I cannot believe he left.

But here he isn’t.

I open old posts on here and see pieces of the girl I was. I study her to see how she got through. But it is different this time. My body is recovering, my heart is not.

Everything and everyone says it’s time to move forward. Go out into the world and find new things. But I want to stay in my tight spiral. I don’t want to leave.

I finally got everything put away enough in the house that I feel I can rest a bit. Everything is in its right place. The closets need some love and that table has got to go. But I can move without tripping over boxes.

The wings finally made it into the house, on the mantle where I can see them. More bed guardians.

I finally dyed and cut my hair, haven’t since before I met him, it was on my list of things to do before he came back and when he disappeared I had no desire to look any kind of way for anyone. I wanted to be mousy and unappealing.

Last night, this house finally felt like home and I cried because he can’t see it.

Maybe at some point I will have cried enough to wash all of this away.

I have to force myself to get up, get dressed, go out into the world, leave this nest and start living again.

But not today. Maybe I’ll do what Jane says and try again tomorrow.