Good Day

Great kickboxing class. I'm glad I went and I should have gone last week. Even though my sparring partner was 200 lbs and kicked like a battering ram. I felt like I might puke and it was hard to breathe, but I feel better now.

I feel better kind of generally. I feel like I will be able to heal, and tonight, walking out into the mild dark after my class, I felt like I wanted to heal on my own terms, the way I want to do it. Rushed then slow, or slow slow slow, I'm not sure how it will happen, but I will to listen to myself and let it happen. This is my life. I can do whatever I want with it.

What will that be? I want to be happy and I want to create something that helps people. I have been thinking about an organization similar to Stella. Sex work is one of the only issues that I have a strong opinion about, and I feel like I could help people. So there's that...

I don't want to stay in this job, but it is not a bad place to be for one or two years. I like the people. Yesterday Art and I had an email exchange prompted by my saying it was so cold I wanted to dive into my cup of tea. We imagined an exploratory safari in the glades on water that went from tea-dark to silty hot chocolate, African Queen style. It was silly, but I love that shit, and it makes the day so much lighter. I also feel like I should learn as much as I can while I am there. It might come in handy when I figure what I really want to be doing with this life that is mine.

Also, butternut squash lasagna is delicious. Even after I have eaten it for four meals straight.

Art also introduced me to Alasdair Gray. I haven't read his books, but after looking at some of his art and what a lovable curmudgeon he is, I am sold!

Let It Begin

Friday was a mistake. I knew I wasn't ready to make small talk with the Russian, but wanted to talk to him so desperately that I did. The result was an outburst of sadness that began to leak out over dinner with Christine and then broke open in a flood on the drive home.
So.
Everyone goes through break-ups. Everyone gets over them, eventually. I will too. I realize that in my heart I wanted to stand apart, have this beautiful connection with someone no one thought I could have it with. Or I thought no one thought I could have it. Maybe it was just me. As if having something work against the odds, that because it is hard, because it took so much work and sacrifice, as if that made it more valuable than if it had come easily. The old horse with his head in the tree. Whatever is in there is probably the same as something that could be had without having to put your head in a tree. The truth is that the Russian is warm and funny and smart and handsome and made me feel special, and we like a lot of the same things, could spend a lot of time together, have the same sense of humour, clicked sexually, and genuinely loved each other. But he also made me feel bad about myself, judged me quite harshly at times, wasn't always there for me, lied to me, and took out his frustration on me, and could often be cold. So no matter how many good things we had going, there are some things that would continue to take us apart. He said it was his doubt, about a future with me, about his ability to be faithful, but I suspect it is really more about who he is. I was always waiting for who I saw inside him to come out.
It makes me so angry that I gave our relationship everything I had because I loved him so much, still love him, and yet, I still didn't get what I wanted. To be seen fully and to be loved by the person I love because they know who I am and they want to know more, to watch me grow, to grow together. But not this time. I feel like I deserve it, to get what I love. Maybe that isn't the way to think about it, though. I honestly wasn't sure if I had that kind of love inside me, and at least I know that I do. I just have to give it to someone who deserves it. But this talk of deserving...
I don't think I could have retrieved myself out of that funk without Christine and Bby. I need to be grounded every so often, because my emotion fueled rationality starts turning on me and my thoughts go bananas.
I cleaned my whole apartment today, and ran until I thought I would collapse, and watched both National Treasure movies and yesterday I watched the latest Indiana Jones movie. All three were much better than I thought they would be, or perhaps more accurately, I am the perfect audience for them at the moment.

I am ready to accept what happens next, which I think is letting time have her way with me.

Smaller

I have dozens of draft emails. Someone was talking about a man who works in my building who is on parental leave. He has grown a somewhat wild beard. People were joking about it and I was thinking of the Russian's winter stache last year. Now I am sitting here and tears keep stinging my eyes, but they won't fall. But I feel miserable. I shouldn't have exchanged emails with him this week. I don't understand why I can't believe that he doesn't love me. It is in part him, what he says and has said, but it also feels like this stone inside of me that won't be eroded. I think of him moving from person to person at the opening last night, and then noticing a pretty girl and talking to her, remembering how much fun he has when he is in that moment, and it is like I am watching myself get smaller and smaller in his heart. I want to feel free when I think of those things, because it doesn't matter to me anymore, it doesn't affect me.

I hate my job. That can't be helping. What am I doing? Christine says it is all fixable. How do I do that?

LalaLove

I had a nice time tonight. I went to see a play that one of my coworkers was in. My newish friend M was there. I was skittish. Titsy made a comment about us dating which I think he enjoyed. In any case, it was a fun evening. I laughed, and ate fish and chips and fried pickles. I tried not to think about the fact that I was missing the Russian's opening tonight.

It doesn't seem to matter how hard and far I run, or how many fun activities I pack into my day. I list all of the reasons that I am better off, and I even enjoy some of them. But I just want him. I want to be there tonight. I should try and keep my apartment cleaner.

Drowning Not Waving

Saturday I went to a folk concert that started at 11 in the morning for no reason I could understand. The drummer of the second act played the coffee table, a birdcage, a tupperware, a lampshade, and some other stuff with a mic and an amp. It was remarkable to watch. He was cute too. Which helped.
The third act fell apart. He played a ukulele and had a sampler. He looked battered. At first I thought he might be nursing a hangover. His lip had a healing cold sore or a cut on his lip, and it arched sort of strangely when he sang. In any case, I liked his first song, and I like him. For his third song, he tried to play Let's Stay Together. He blushed and then I think he started to cry. I was sitting about a foot and a half away from him, but everyone noticed something going on. He re-started a couple of times, but he couldn't get past the first line. I don't know why.
Whatever was making him waver, it got to me. My eyes filled up, but I was embarrassed. So I drank some water, which I choked on.
He made it through the Al Green as his last song. I wanted to tell him how affected I was by the whole thing. I bet he thought that he had failed, that whatever was making him unable to play sappy songs had gotten the better of him. The Russian has a quote he is using as a touchstone for the show he is curating: "One can make out of failure a powerful strategy for working, like the bad magician transcending illusion."
– Vik Muniz
The musician, his initials are AV, but I can't remember what his name, is created something completely unexpected and moving out of his failure. I kept it with me for the whole day. I should track him down and tell him.

Let's Get On With It

What better time to rekindle blogging than in the midst of heartbreak? I chronicled the beginning of that relationship here, so it seems appropriate to try and lift this hurt up off my chest and put it somewhere else.

I have been thinking about how I have changed over the last two years, and I think it has not been much for the better. My coworker was telling me about a party she and her friends had because none of them went to their proms, so they decided to recreate it. They all graduated in the 80's, so it was essentially an 80's party. I remembered that I still have my prom dress my mom made me. And I am sitting it in now and it fits me. My tits are a little bigger, but everything else is just the same. The same as when I was 16. Except now all I see when I look at myself in the mirror are my thighs and ass and belly. I remember feeling satisfied looking at myself, and now all I see are its imperfections. Things I never even used to think were imperfections! I look at other women that I didn't used to be envious of, and I am jealous of their narrow thighs and length and height, their elegance.

That is just my body. These days, I am not sure how I think people should treat each other. I used to be a little bit more sure, or maybe I just trusted my feeling about it, without putting too much thought into it. I believed in honesty, but now I don't know if that is just because I am scared to not have control and it is easier to be made a fool of when you are caught unawares. I never thought I could make as many concessions as I have, enjoy pleasing someone so much and never really wish to be pleased. I have learned I never want to be in the wrong and will do a lot to escape it. I am scared that I stack up good deeds so that my bad ones can't be held against me, so I will always be the wronged one and will feel entirely justified making that claim. Who wants to make that kind of claim anyway?

Maybe this is what toxic relationships do to a person. They bring out all your weaknesses in the worst light possible and pry them open. I think it is good to learn about yourself. But it is better to examine them from a stronghold, no? From somewhere safe where they can't rush you in force and overwhelm your defenses. Or from the safety of someone loving them because they love you.

I sometimes feel like I brought out the worst in him. The best too, but I was always forcing him to confront ugly things about himself that he had never thought were ugly. But thighs and lies are not the same!

Shit. I don't know. I am sad and still sort of in disbelief that this has happened. I wake up every morning thinking we are still together.