strange musings of a distracted spunk

Last night found me watching the Real Housewives of Orange County, wrapped in a seafoam green fleece blanket, with multiple layers of clothing. This is what no heat and 40 degree temperature leads me to do. Incidentally - California? Lies. “Sunshine! Warmth! Green!” All lies. What they don’t tell you is about the rainy season, and the 40 degree weather and how there are no air conditioners when the temperature surprisingly bumps into the 80s and 90s instead of the cool 70 it’s supposed to be year round. I will never be misled again by this golden state.

However, one of the O.C. Housewives sat on a couch, tears forming in her eyes, and said, “It’s so hard to have it all. We look like we do, but we don’t.” Another housewife chipped in and added, “But damnit, we want it all!” Ain’t that the truth. I look at myself, fairly young in the grand scheme of things. I’ve done lots of different things, had many experiences, and even more stories to share. I don’t think I’ve been pigeonholed into a box, but that just may be because I haven’t really set my roots down anywhere. I was working towards it while I was at NYU and working at my favorite job of all time, but then I decided to move across the country to a place I had never been to, nor knew anyone on a whim. With a month of “Hey, I’m leaving,” I left.

This? Is not what I would quantify as setting down roots. I love what this experience of doing something for my sanity and my rediscovering of myself has become, but California is not my home. My job? While I love it, and they keep adding more and more things for me to do, challenging me, giving me the experience that I hope will finally get me where I want to go? It’s only a temporary thing. So yet again, I touch down to earth for a short period of time before taking flight again. It’s been that way for years - I’m a nomad, restless, constantly wandering, and I will be that way until someone or something gives me a reason to stay.

I thought it might be GDB. That my future might lead to Millennium Park, Michigan Avenue, downtown Evanston, the houses around Wrigley Field with their stadium seating on top of the roofs. I knew I had always liked Chicago, from the first time I went, to the last time I was there. I even like their airport - for starters, their gates make sense to me. And they have people movers, unlike LAX (see here for the back story of my new hatred of LAX.) That I’d forge my way in yet another unknown territory, braving the cold, weathering the heat and passion of what was my relationship with him.

I used to think it would be New York. Skyscrapers, parks with metal trees, subways full of ipods and the people attached to them, my home sweet home for as long as I can remember. Where the literary industry thrives, where everything is constantly in motion yet slows down to smell the bloom of the garbage amidst the flowers. Where my family is. There’s no doubt that New York will always be home. But for how long?

For a time, I contemplated London. Foggy skies, “Cheerio luv!” hours upon hours of wandering through Kew Gardens, museums, the bars that close at impossibly early hours (who goes out before 11?!), access to the rest of Europe. Sure, British men aren’t THAT hot, but think of all the travelers! And Hugh Grant! Minus the hooker story! And Love Actually! Love Actually! Love Actually! I was so ready to move, I had started looking and applying to jobs there.

And instead, I chose California. The East Bay to be precise - the Brooklyn of San Francisco. It’s sweet here - eclectic, funky, and laid-back. And still, I can’t help but feel that I put my future on hold, until I move back to New York to finish my degree. That the things I’m increasingly learning I want - are not here. I want love, passion, a steady job that I look forward to going to and don’t have a time limit on, and an apartment that when I come home at night, I know it’s my place. I love the old-fashioned quirks of my apartment, but it reaches a point where a one bedroom converted is too much for two people. I could have all of those things - but I don’t know that I can have them all in the same place, or at the same time.

Ultimately, I just end up wondering - will I ever have it all? It seems like it’s so hard for me, as a young twenty-something, to really be able to find any stable ground anywhere, stable enough for me to want to put my wings down and let them relax. Nine months to a year - that’s my modus operandi. I move back to New York after a year in California, after a year in New York, after moving each year during college to a new dorm room. Sometimes, I feel like you can only have two things at a time - a great apartment, great job, but no love. Or a great love, great apartment, but crappy job. Or great love, great job, but no apartment. Granted, to a 20-something with no ties, these are the biggest concerns. For those with commitments, the want for more becomes so much greater, because of what they have.

In a way, I feel like I’ve been promised too much. I knew you had to work to get what you want, but I never realized just how much. Life doesn’t hand out A’s when you do well on this test or when you win the lead in a stage performance or get elected president of the English Honor Society. Life just sits back and lets you guide the course, and sometimes you get what you want and sometimes you don’t. Now I’m in a place where I feel like I’m working, and I’m working, but I just don’t know what I’m working towards.

It just makes me want my future even more right now. I’ve never been a patient person, and with today’s gray area and plans but no definites, I want answers to my questions. And yet? I don’t. Because if my future were my present, what would I have to look forward to? There’s so much left to discover and uncover and experience, and as much as I may want to know my tomorrow today, I don’t want to miss out on living my life either. Until then, I’ll be here, flapping away, looking for a reason to plant seeds and start from the ground up instead of scouring the skies for a place to land.

I don’t usually post twice in one day. But today? I’m bouncing off the freaking walls. It has to come out somewhere.

• I yelp when I get into the shower. Typically because I’m so excited to be somewhere it’s warm and not freezing. I should probably mention - for the last week, our apartment’s been blowing fuses because my roommate, myself, and the apartment across the way all had on our electronics and space heaters. And this apartment is not exactly up to code when it comes to modern innovations. It gets COLD up here, man. So…to keep the fuses from blowing, we’ve agreed to not put our space heaters on. This means DS, wrapped in layers and blankets. Hence, the yelping in the shower at the drastic temperature change. (This is not helped at all by the random shower fluctuations. I think this may be a reason why I bubble bath more often than I shower - the water temperature is guaranteed to be the one I want it at.)

• Likewise, I yelp/squeal/sigh/make contented noises when I curl up in my bed at night. D used to make fun of me for this. I never realized it until he pointed it out to me - it may just because by that point, my hearing aid is off, and I can’t exactly hear the strange noises I make. Believe me. I make lots of them.

• I don’t know how to scream. So I squeak when someone scares me. My roommate does this a lot. He’s suggested buying a flag and waving it in front of all the doors so I’m not startled every time he walks into the apartment/a room. This would help, but I still think I’d squeak at the sight of big flags waving at me with no warning.

• In my shower tonight, I contemplated what would happen if I changed my name to Dancing Spunk. And realized all of the horrendous google searches coming my way. That’s a negative.

• It’s really hard to fold sheets by yourself. This is a two person effort. I am one. Curses!

• I now owe the Berkeley Public Library money. This is what happens when you request a bunch of books and they all come in at once, and you actually have a life for a change. So I’m a bit behind. Whoops.

• Sports bras are painful. I think the higher volume of male attention may have been due to me going, “Ow, ow, ow” with every glide of the elliptical as my boobs jumped up (and out?) while my nipples decided it was time to go on display. Seriously. Fembot, much? Where’s Austin Powers and his shagalicious powers?

• My period craves popcorn. My mind craves literature. My body craves warmth. Damn blown fuses.

• Bladder: use it or lose it, buster.

• I can sit and watch shows like “So You Think You Can Dance,” and “America’s Best Dance Crew” for hours. Jack of All Trades watched once with me and laughed at me the entire time. Because I clapped my hands like a three year old, giddy at the movements, and sometimes, if there was a dance that I LOVED (like this one) that moved me to tears, I’d have to watch it over and over again. I’m such a child. But I can’t watch whatever this Bruno and Carrie Ann Dance War show is. I tried but the dancing was so uninspired, so insipid, that I had to turn it off. It was like watching dance recitals and trying not to be critical of the dances, but feeling like it was impossible just because of the level of dance I was at. Also - a teacher I’ve taken a few classes with is on one of those shows (one that I like), which is freaking awesome, because he’s complimented my movements multiple times. So by association, I am good enough to be on these shows. *nods*.

• I’m a picky eater. But lately? I’ve gotten into oatmeal. What’s that all about?

• I love the way my hair feels after I’ve just gotten out of a shower and it’s at its longest. It reaches to my midback, and sometimes, I end up wondering what that sensation on my arm is before realizing it’s my hair. Long hair just works well on me. Especially because it’s red and it’s like, “Whoa! Red head! Feisty! Sparkles! Sex-ay mama!”

• Snow Patrol? Seriously? You make me sigh with happiness. *glee*

• I love getting random text messages that mean absolutely nothing. It means I can banter and not have to think. Bantering? The gift of gods.

• I’ve always wanted to sneak off into a bathroom with a drummer. That was one thing GDB and I never got around to doing. I always missed his band’s performances. We like to joke that I will sign his breasts if we do get around to sneaking off to the bathroom after he plays.

• Seriously? Hyper. As on crack. Oh! I once convinced an ex-boyfriend of mine I was on crystal meth, because he couldn’t understand how I had so much energy, all of the time. This is 100% DS, folks. Welcome to the skitterish side.

Thank you for validating me. By telling me that I do at 50% what most people do at 100%. For telling me that you’re so confident in my ability to keep up with all the work you assign me, you want to give me more responsibility - that of event planning. Which is incidentally what my dream job, current degree-in-progress, and past experience all involve. Because dammit, I am kickass at getting all the details together and putting events on like nobody’s business. I know now that I needed the job from hell to get to here, to a place of positive reinforcement and actual work.

It might be 3 or 4 AM your time, yet you’ll still talk to me for hours on end. You’re there for me when I need an escape from my own brain, you pick up the phone on a Saturday night when I decide to look for Mrs. Field’s cookies at the local supermarket and fail, and you laugh at all my quirks. Thank you for all that, and for knowing me better than I know myself. Road trip? Yes?

You’ve been around longer than most people. We might be in the same state now, but there’s still quite a distance - and that’s okay. We’ve figured out how to keep our friendship burning bright and strong, when you were ten minutes away, or an ocean away. Also, since our lives are so ridiculously interconnected, you give me hope that if you can make it work, I can make it work. Funny how we always lean on each other, eh?

When I feel particularly crazy, I think of you, and realize how tame I am in comparison. You’re my brother from another mother, and when I need a crazy night out, you’re the man to call. Now come home already!

I’m not quite sure how I got so lucky as to find you in class one day - you sat across from me and laughed at me every time my pen cap flew across the room. Distractions and all, more than a year later, you’re one of my daily confidants. It’s so refreshing to not have to explain things to someone who knows it and has been there already. Whatever did happen to dancing Barbie?

Four years ago, I wanted to kill you for your bipolar nature. Now, I want to hug you for making me laugh when I wanted to chop off my boobs because they hurt and I was in a terribly bad mood. You even offered to marry me without boobs to save others from my “sparkling personality” (as long as I was rich and there was no prenup).

Whoever you are, epic boob girl, you send a ton of traffic my way. So…thanks?

You laughed at me when I told you that I might secretly want to be a wedding planner someday. Because I love details and putting things together and making one hell of an event at the end of it all. And maybe that’s why I’m watching all these wedding shows. Or maybe, it’s just because for the first time in my life, I really want to have a wedding. Thank you for not judging me on either of those, and promising that we’re going to have kick-ass weddings, even when you’ve been feeling all over the place yourself. Also, you got me started with this crazy blog world. I both blame you and will adore you forever.

A year ago, you broke me. It sounds dramatic, but I was at the lowest point of my life. Now? After telling me you never wanted to talk to me again? We talk semi-regularly. You may have been the single-most devastating blow I’ve ever experienced, but I know I will never suffer anything as traumatic and deep as I did with you. Simply, because you kicked me when I was already down. I won’t ever be down there again. Either way, there are no hard feelings. Only hard lessons.

You drive me crazy sometimes with your puns, corny jokes, and self-deprecating humor. But you’re still the big brother I never had. And the only person who tried to save me from what became the biggest lesson I’ve ever learned.

You don’t read this, and I probably won’t ever tell you, only because you get how I feel before I get how I feel. There’s no point in you reading something you already know, and if I ever did tell you this, you probably would be mildly curious and then say, “Yeah, but I know all this. If you want me to read something, I’ll read it for you. But that’s your personal space.” It still bothers me that we’re in this place right now, where future and present collides. But when I feel low, Gwen Stefani sings “I really hope we make it, do you think we’ll make it? We’re running, keep holding my hand, so we don’t get separated,” and I think she knows what she’s talking about. Thank you for making my heart leap when I only wanted to keep it buried under miles of jagged glass. No matter what happens, I won’t live with regret.

Rizzo’s voice has been in my head all morning for no explainable reason, singing “There are worse things I could do.” So I thought about it, her alto voice reaching out and pulling me in as I stood by my ancient yellow stove with multiple compartments (one for warming, one for broiling, and one for storing), making French toast. I’m a cinnamon girl through and through.

And then it hit me. Rizzo sang the song when she was unsure of Kenicke, unsure of what their future might lead to, unsure if she was pregnant with his baby or someone else’s. She contemplated going the good girl route, stay at home every night and wait for Mr. Right. She also considered hurting someone like her, out of spite and jealousy – because essentially that was what she had just done. Ultimately, she was left questioning her relationship, her motivations, her reason for being where she was.

Where I am right now is exactly that. Unsure of which direction to go, if I should preserve myself, or preserve what I have with GDB in the hopes that it will eventually become what I want it to be. We finally talked last night, for the first time in almost two months, about everything. About how hurt I was, about how he was feeling about things, about how hard the reality of it is. About how we both want it, but at the same time, it’s so hard to see how this could work.

We both seem to have the same answer, but different methods of getting there. That if it weren’t the distance, if it weren’t the time, it’d be us. He told me last night when I asked him if it could be me, he said hell yes. Let’s date. Let’s get married, have kids, the whole thing. But it’s not realistic. I shook my head at him, because until I met him, I had never wanted any of that tangibly. Sure, it was something that might have been nice somewhere down the road, but I could never picture it. And here, there’s someone telling me that yeah, he wants the same thing I do, but it comes back to whether or not we can truly make this work.

It leaves me questioning, is this fair to me? When I have so little optimism about us, because the reality of it is so hard? I wonder how it was so easy, so delightful just a few months ago. Were we just in denial? Or was it that we hadn’t really hit any major road blocks that sent out warning flares? As we’ve left it, we’ve returned to the day-by-day routine, one that set the tone for almost every major turning point in our relationship. I can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt to know that he wants me, but he doesn’t see how he can have me. I asked if you really want something, you make it happen. He said he’s been disappointed too many times in the past to do that to us.

Grease has never been a favorite of mine, but Rizzo’s song has always affected me, every time. Because I’ve been every girl she’s talked about. I’ve been the girl who wondered if she should wait for Mr. Right, focus on my life, my work, just wait for him to come to me. I’ve been the girl who would flirt and banter, and if a boy were lucky, he’d come home with me at the end of the night. Or I’d go home with him. I’ve also been the girl who has done things out of spite and jealousy – granted, my boyfriend at the time was cheating on me with at least five girls, but instead of sleeping with other guys, I should have just broken it off with him. I’ve been all of those girls, but it still doesn’t explain why its on loop in my mind. Course, there could be worse songs to hear over and over again – “Whip It” comes to mind.

The emotions that have disappeared more or less reappear when I orgasm with him. I always cry, as though my body senses my need to release these tears in some manner, and with someone who I am comfortable enough and trust enough to do this for. Indeed, it’s one of the things he loves about me. Knowing that he means so much to me that it’s such an emotional release, as well physical. It’s hell on earth knowing there’s someone out there who is insanely attracted to me, my mind, my body, my heart, and yet, he just doesn’t see how it can work.

It kills me to know that I don’t know how it can work either – at least not right now. I end up wondering if I’ll be the one making sacrifices now to get what I want long term. Or if we’ll just continue down this path of not knowing, until one of us says we can’t do it anymore and leaves, leaving a friendship, a love, and a possible future, as impossible as it may be right now behind. I wish it weren’t so complicated – that I knew if it would lead to my happiness or my pain, but instead, it just remains gray. As it will until time reveals to one of us what our destiny is supposed to be. It is only slightly reassuring that both his horoscope and mine reveal our future to be with a great love, the right love whom we already have, as long as we’re willing to work for it. That gives me hope - that if the stars dictate it, then maybe we can make it work somehow.

I don’t want to be Rizzo. I don’t want to have Kenicke hold my hand at the end of the movie, with the reassurance that everything is going to be all right, because movies aren’t real and they were both so deeply flawed anyhow. I don’t know that everything is going to be all right. I can’t even be sure that I’m going to be all right today.

Is it strange that I love the fact that this title’s acronym is babab? That’s like getting a Scantron and filling out the letters of my town and realizing every other letter was a and the rest were all two letters apart, making it almost entirely consistent across the board. It was pure beauty. Anyhow.

I’ve been called a bitch once, in my entire twenty three years thus far. I would say that’s a pretty remarkable record, all things considering.

It was in England, a rainy night in Stratford-on-Avon. Lights fizzing onto the pavement, I felt the rain pattering down by my shoes. I wasn’t cold, nor was I warm – I was just wet, and that was fine by me. We had just spent the last three hours sitting on red velvet seats in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Romeo and Juliet carrying on their love affair onstage, and I was left to wander off into daydreams because it was too far away for me to hear, let alone decipher spoken Shakespearean English.

As we walked towards the bus, excited murmurings about the show, about how hot Romeo was, how beautiful and tragic Juliet was, one girl cursed. She left her umbrella in the theater. I pulled my hood over my head and said, “Here. Have mine.”

“I don’t want your umbrella, bitch.” Without the slightest hint of irony or joking in her tone, she marched off to the bus, leaving me completely befuddled. It only occurred to me tonight, writing this post, that my retraction into myself, shells out with spikes on for most of the remainder of my trip in England occurred after my psyche was so shaken up by this one girl.

I forgot who I was, felt like I was the person she labeled me as, and in my own way made myself an outcast. I felt trapped in the castle we stayed in, trapped in this box that had been so squarely placed on me with a big sign proclaiming me superb bitch. It didn’t occur to me until we were celebrating our last night in the castle, before leaving for London, that it wasn’t anything I had done. I had offered her a damn umbrella! I spent so much of that trip miserable that I resolved to myself to make the rest of it a trip I would never forget.

Almost four years later, my roommate in England still laughs about the first night in London, when I disappeared with four guys I met randomly at the Tower of London. She spent much of the night worrying about how she would break the news to my parents that they lost me in London. What she didn’t realize at the time was that I was out having a great time, exploring the city, striking out on my own, asserting my independence and straying from the crowd. I figured out that people could label me, but I was still me, no matter what. I was in charge of my own happiness – and I don’t regret the remainder of that trip.

I remember telling a new lover that I had been called a bitch once in my entire life, and he offered to go out and beat said girl up because he couldn’t possibly see how I might be a bitch. I laughed at him, thinking it was endearingly cute. But it occurred to me then that sometimes? I really can be a bitch. It’s not that I talk about people behind their backs, or carry on an attitude. It’s just that if I’m not interested, I walk away.

Once, during a Thanksgiving at home several years back, Avocado and I met some friends for appetizers at BeeApple’s. We bumped into a girl from high school who got excited about seeing us and wanted to tell us a story. About a minute in, I realized this story had nothing to do with me, nor was it something I was interested in. So I just walked away and went back to my friends, leaving Avocado alone.

I didn’t do it because I wanted to be a bitch about it. I did it because I was having more fun talking to my friends than I was sitting and listening to her talk about people I didn’t know nor would I ever know. It’s like when I first meet new people – sometimes I’m warm and friendly, and other times, I’m more cold and standoffish, until I figure out what role this new person might play in my life. It’s not meant to be bitchy - it’s just usually self-preservation, and I often feel overwhelmed with how many people I already do have in my life.

Similarly, I know that I often tend to do what I want, when I want. That’s not always something that jibes with other people, but I think it’s understood that in those situations, it’s my independence and my need for space. Few people understand just how much space I crave, which can be difficult. But it’s not something I would ever feel sorry for - because it’s just who I am. It took me a while to realize that the labeling of me as a bitch was just a misclassification - while I may be assertive and independent, it’s never in the step on other people kinda thing.

In a strange way, I almost want to thank the girl who called me a bitch in England for reminding me that the only person who can truly hurt me is myself. Sure, I may place my heart in other people’s hands, erring on the side of caution and abandoning hope. Sure, I may sometimes sink into my own mind, feeling melancholy and lonely, unsure of what the future may yield and wishing that I could somehow grab it by the reins and tell me what to expect. Sure, the one person who has ever called me a bitch turned out not to be the most credible source herself – instead she became my facebook stalker and has left me with a great deal of amusing stories that are slightly concerning. But at the end of the line, it just made me realize that I didn’t have to lose myself to find myself when someone placed a label on me.

Walls back up around my heart, cement poured, blockading the holes so GDB can’t sneak through like he did last time.

Don’t worry. His hands still can cut off the throbbing of my heart with just one squeeze, or they can revive it with an infusion of warmth and his own heart. He’s giving me miles and miles of infusions, when I only can handle an inch at a time.

It’s like the first oh…seven and a half months of our relationship? No matter what, no matter how hard the fights, it was always me he wanted. It was always me he had to coax out of my own heart and head to join him. Well, he’s back in the water, waist deep this time, telling me to join him, it’s beautiful out here, with the waves slowly rolling in and the sun sparkling diamonds into my eyes as I stand on the shore.

I call back to him. I take the first step, a baby step, into the oncoming tide, hoping, praying that the waves stay slow and steady and don’t crush me. It will be baby steps for now; until I know for sure I have enough hope to keep me afloat when the waves do crash over me.

The first time I ever went to see a therapist, I was given a list of things to check off. Depression? Check. Not sleeping? Check. Relationship issues? Check. Sexual issues? Check. Parental and family issues? Check. Stress issues? Check. After a list of about ten or so items, I think the only ones I didn’t check off were abuse, rape, and addiction issues. I thought to myself, “Well. That puts me ahead, right?”

I walked into the room, having practiced my speech of all the things wrong with me on the way over. In my head, I pictured the therapist’s head exploding after I finished my diatribe, bloody brains all over the walls, and how I would have to explain it to the authorities afterwards.

Well, I was explaining all my issues to the therapist, and after I finished, his head exploded, I would answer.

What could you have possibly said? Unless you were responsible for those grisly murders that were in the papers last week and gave him all the gory details?

No, nothing like that. More like A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, and X, I’d reply.

How could any one person keep all that inside? they would wonder.

Talent, I would say. And a busy academic, work, and social life to keep it hidden.

But what brought it all out? they’d ask.

Night classes. Staying up till 3 or 4 AM and waking up at 11 AM every day, with nothing to do until I went to class makes my subconscious constantly question itself, I’d answer.

We’ll have to take you in for more questioning, they’d say.

Sure! Anything to keep me away from my brain! I’d respond, gladly handing myself over.

It was those empty hours during my first year at NYU, when everyone else was at work or class that I found my deepest thoughts and fears confronting me, taunting me with all the years I had managed to suppress them. It was like my childhood fear of the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but a hundred times worse, and come to throw me in his wagon with just my mind for company.

That and when I curled up into the fetal position and refused to speak to the man of the moment after he made me orgasm. When he sat on the edge of my bed, unsure if he should get dressed and leave, or try to hold me in his arms, I finally untangled my legs from my arms. He watched me, my body still thrumming from my emotional disconnection and my physical misconnection at odds with one another.

“I think you need to talk to someone,” he said.

He put his clothes on, as I threw on a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt, and led him out of my bedroom and into the dining room. It was that night, where we sat at my dining table with red glasses of water, where I let it all out.

About the first boyfriend, who my current love interest knew about and had met, but didn’t know about how I had been treated, how I lost myself, how I lost my body in more ways than one. About how my parents destroyed me a little bit more every time they fought, breaking down the diamond walls, to which I would have to find cubic zirconia patches to hide the holes. About how I had intense commitment issues, and how I would have been much more promiscuous, had I not met so many boys who were intent on their virginity or being with a girl with whom they were in a relationship (a blessing in disguise?) About how D decimated me days before, when he told me how perfect I was for him, and yet it still wouldn’t be us. About how I had stopped sleeping sometime in the beginning of October, and it was now the end of the month. About so much more.

Our conversation looped around me, arcing towards him at times, and towards me others. We started around midnight, and after three hours and several glasses of water later, I finally got it all out in one shot, for the first time. At the end of the night, before he left, because I was too emotionally destroyed to allow him to stay, he wrapped me in one of his big hugs, told me he wished he could do more for me, but that he really believed therapy could help me.

The next day found me making a phone call to see a therapist. The next week found me sitting in the waiting room, thinking of how best to start with maximum shock factor, because if nothing else, I am a storyteller. I even asked Avocado and Jack of All Trades for advice, though I was positive that my new therapist would have never had someone so rationally lay all their issues out on the line for them without having to dig deeper. The receptionist called my name and I was led down a lilac colored hallway, rooms set off each side.

Her room was painted a warm yellow, one that made me think of Tuscan suns, even though I’ve never been to Italy. She herself was warm, an easy laugh that reverberated from her vocal chords into the room. She listened. She watched me. She offered me a tissue that I never used, because I don’t cry.

And afterwards? She looked at me, her eyes searching for the best way to phrase her thoughts. “I think long term therapy would be best.”

It was only then that I started to cry. Not because I was afraid of being thought a complete loon, or because I had become one of those, the people who can’t function without therapy. Because finally, someone saw through my rock hard veneer and realized that inside? I was a complete fucking mess. And once that happened, I was finally able to let go of the trail I had been trying so hard to hold onto and forge a new one. It wasn’t one that I had exactly anticipated or ever foreseen, but instead, it has led me to a new place. One where as empty as I may feel some of these days, I still feel stronger than I did more than a year ago, when I was curled up in the fetal position for five minutes, refusing to let someone who only wanted to care for me touch me. Because that was when I hit rock bottom. And once you’re down there, you can only go up.

Preface:

The wonderful McGee and I have found we play off each other’s comedic foibles quite well. When I walk into a door, she later thinks her breadsticks are chopsticks and accidentally sends part of one flying through the air during dinner. It might be love.

Part I:

When I first started writing here, it was done for a number of reasons, but what it has become bewilders me. I never intended for it to become a blog other people would look forward to reading. I was content to just have my thoughts and my words out there, to participate in the blogosphere, to finally be able to look at my words on a screen and think, “Yeah. Exactly.” Sometimes, my finger tips surprise me - I think my fingers understand more of me than any other part of my body, including my heart. They manage to put together what my heart feels and my brain thinks without losing sight of either, something I have far too much trouble doing.

Part II:

I don’t actually know why I chose anonymity. I suppose I could have put myself out there like many of you, but in a weird way, I think it’s reflective of who I am. Like a Rubik’s cube, there are many sides of me, and they may not always match up but you can be sure that you’ll find a flash of color that you may recognize from the last time we met. I’m so grateful to my friends in real life because they understand my many nuances - that as bubbly and cheerful and happy-go-lucky I am on the surface, I run much deeper than that. There are things that only a few people know about me, and there are things that they know of, but never quite understood how it came to be. In some ways, I think I come across as interesting, because as open as I may be, there’s always a red velvet rope separating the “open book” categories from the “on-a-need-to-know-basis.”

Part of me was nervous about meeting McGee - my first blogger to real life friend, because let’s face it. She knew about the deeper part of me, but I wasn’t sure if she knew about the bubbly me. Also, once you do breach that line of anonymity, you develop a sense of trust that carries your personal life into your public life. At the same time, it’s pretty damn cool knowing that you don’t have to explain anything to someone - because it’s all been laid on the line and they still want to hang out with you.

Part III:

Lately, I’ve felt stagnant. Empty. Like there are things to be done but that I just can’t fathom doing. I think it’s carried over to my writing. It’s carried over to my disappointment with myself that perhaps, instead of writing for me, I’m writing more for an audience. I started this blog, happy to just get two readers a day. I get more than that now, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m less harsh with my edits and judgments of my writing than I would because I know my readers will accept me anyway (for the most part.)

At the same time, and I know it’s a strange time to write this with the 20SB votes coming up, I worry that I’m getting caught up in a popularity contest. If people are going to read me, I want it to be because they can expect good writing. Because they will find something to relate to, or possibly something that they’ve never quite understood, and I’ve managed to make the intangible understandable. I am not a surface person, and I don’t want to come across that way. There was a time when GDB and I were going through a rough patch when we first started seeing each other, when he lived a subway stop away from mine, and he was giving me one word answers. I told him, “I don’t like small talk. If you can’t carry a normal conversation with me, then I’ll talk to you another time when you’re capable of saying more than one syllable at a time.” He got the memo.

Part IV:

I can’t promise to always have the kind of writing I want to have - sometimes, there are more shallow aspects to my personality that float out of me. The last entry is an example of it. But I do want to make a promise to myself to return to the quality of writing I had in earlier months gone by, the kind that when I finished, I felt wrung out by a bigger set of hands, every last drop of emotion and thoughts on the matter out on the screen, in a manner that I was proud of. I feel as though I am slowly returning to that, and I’m excited to find that beyond the emptiness, beyond the flatness that has been my days these last few weeks, there is a spark that has reignited and started burning in terms of my writing.

That is what I meant when I said I had a crisis of writing faith. Because I no longer felt I was writing for me, or even at the quality of writing that I was typically happy with. While I am honored and pleased to have been nominated for some really tremendous awards with some incredible company, ultimately, this blog is for me. Should I touch a few people while writing? Fantastic. Great. Because writing is meant to be shared, explored, brought through your fingers like sifting through grains of sand, and the best writing is the kind that reaches down and scoops out our hearts and makes us think, “Oh, I can so understand this.” I don’t want to be the kind of writer whose words are unavailable and inaccessible, and lately, I’ve been feeling just like that. But I don’t want to be the kind of writer who writes for an audience and no longer herself, either.

The trick is finding the right balance.

Epilogue:

In yet another fantastic night out with McGee, I was reminded that as shallow and vapid as I may feel sometimes, still waters do indeed run deep. And I’m so grateful to know that beyond McGee, there are so many more people out there worth meeting that I would have never had the chance to meet had I never created this little corner of the world. So in a strange and awkward way, I am proud of my past writings because it brought you all here. While I may not respond to every comment, it does mean a great deal, especially when my writing does touch you in a deeper manner. Because then? I know I’m doing something right.

Dear Boobs,

I don’t know if you missed the memo, but not every day needs to be nipple day. Maybe if you were fembots - but you’re not. Down, girls!

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Dear Nose,

Stop being dramatic. You’re already at the center of my face, you don’t need to be the center of attention too. The sniffling? Has gotta go. It’s unattractive. Really. Take the sore throat with you when you go.

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Dear Abdominal Muscles,

I worked you harder than normal this week. Considering I haven’t gymmed in about a month regularly, you should be sore. Sore means muscles are being taught a lesson. I failed at teaching you a lesson. I must be reprimanded. Once the nose stops being dramatic, we will have more one-on-one tutoring sessions to get you back to six-pack glory. Or thereabouts.

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Dear Direct TV,

Thank you for finally showing up and installing cable. You have made me a happy duck. Is it wrong if I admit America’s Next Top Model reruns are my guilty pleasure?

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Dear McGee,

Please bring another vanilla cupcake with intense frosting and super duper sprinkles this weekend. My tummy will thank you.

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Dear FAFSA,

Why must you mock me? You force me to make decisions about going back to school that I am nowhere near ready to make. NYU has me tied up in strings already, over $40,000 worth - can’t you give me more time before I surrender to the student loan gods and work off my debt by pushing wheels around gravelly playgrounds with spiked nails?

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Dear gorgeous new shoes

You have converted me. I will now pray to the shoe goddess daily. I cannot wait to take you out and show you off. Just one thing - don’t break my ankles, k? Sexcellent.

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Dear Blogland,

Why must you mock me also? As I’m sitting here, having a crisis of writing faith, I get an e-mail notifying me of a message from 20sb bloggers. My reaction? “Oh fuck.” Who are you crazy people that nominated me for awards?

Yours truly,

ds.

No post here today - instead, find me over at Froggy’s. I surprised even myself with some of these responses.

Also - thanks for your horrendous Valentine’s Day stories, all of which made me laugh,  and your encouragement at not letting my heart stay frozen for too long.