[truthfromtheboot-blog]

me: I’m just tired of feeling like a convenience

c: in a way, i am too

let's be fucking inconvenient

You don’t pay no rent

You don’t pay no rent

All this time I’ve spent

Still don’t pay no rent

Bitch, I’m your landlord.

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

looking forward, looking back

Recently, on a friend’s Facebook post, i mentioned this blog and how therapeutic it was for me. Re-reading, I’m able to see how far I’ve come since Spring 2018, and how far I haven’t.

Today started and ended in a way that seems both depressing and fitting for a new year - sad and prompting a lot of self-examination and hard conversations. It also involved snuggling with Marla on the couch, finishing a knitting project, listening to WWOZ, grounding myself.

Tomorrow, I fly to California to drive the PCH with E, a somewhat spur of the moment trip that I’m eager for - it feels right to start the year with a new experience and an old friend and a journey.

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

moments

a calm moment: standing on a pier in the middle of lake pontchartrain, wind whipping my hair and fluttering the butterflies s had stuck all over us. two men reading tennyson, reading tennessee williams, reading their favorite passages from their favorite books through their friends and loved ones, and they were surrounded by love and in love, and it felt okay to be there, sharing it with them.  a happy moment: c and i, in the car, driving around town. even though it was a little anxious, it was good and happy and i was glad for it.

holding m for a snuggle in our deck chair. 

an anxious moment: when you know that they know, when you retroactively realize that the strange emotion you picked up in that milquetoast smile was pity.

a bad moment: today is j’s 40th birthday party. and i am full of rage, bitterness, disgust. this evening, i want to die. k: There's so much of his own shit wrapped up in it....I don't think it was that you didn't matter. He told me he has this thing where he starts feeling like he's wasting somebody's time, because he's not good enough. He didn't say that specifically in reference to you, just in general, but I think that was probably seriously at play. m: He also told K that he just loses attraction to women after he gets with them. Something you know K told me. Which he then denied telling Kari, but of course he did k: I think he was checked out. He won't say that, but I think even before _____, maybe before _____, he just was checked out because he felt like he couldn't give you what you needed, and then suddenly he had a reason to be done. m: He also refused to ever seek therapy for any of this. But then he leaves me and suddenly he’s in therapy, on testosterone, in the gym. And yes. He was checked out. I know you think I’m blaming him for what I did, but I gave up everything for him. I didn’t want that.

m: He needs to get his shit together. He is a good person, but also a deeply selfish person. And I was too. But he’s using my selfishness as an excuse to not address his own.

m: I just...I’ve been really good since I moved back. But today, I’m just full of rage for him. Rage and bitterness and disgust. k: It's because of the party. I knew it would probably be hard for you. I'm sorry. Not the same without you here.  m: Thanks. Yeah. It’s just really really fucking hard. It just feels like he doesn’t care. That’s why it is. Hanging with ____, having a party, living life. Because if he cared, how could he bring himself to have a party with - not just invite over, but literally have a party with - the person who broke up his marriage? I don’t care if it is _______. How could he invite over people that disparage the woman he supposedly loves/loves? But none of it really matters to him. He gets the life he wants. He’s “just trying to live [his] life.” I don’t matter enough to him , and maybe I never did. And it’s just really painful. k: I'm sure it is. I think some of it might just be more than he can face....especially the ______ stuff, but yeah, I think he just wants his life to be as ok as possible and not think about anything that would make it less ok. m: That’s weak. k: I hope tomorrow is better. 

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

day 39 - 4/9

since i moved home, i have not wanted to die. having spent much of the last year considering that i wanted to die, this is a pleasant change of pace from one norm. 

i look forward to the days when this becomes my norm again.

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and belong deeply to myself.

Warsan Shire

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

day 32 - 4/2

today is one month since it happened.

one month since coming home, the undersides of my arms feeling literally as though my blood was running cold, the way I felt when I knew something bad was going to happen, and finding a sheaf of papers in a manila folder, secured with a small red paper clip.

the paper clip sticks with me for some reason. Days later, I spitefully threw it away.

I am in a different place than I was a month ago, a world ago, literally a life ago. That evening was spent kneeling in a shower screaming, staggering through the house, begging god and everyone to give me my life back. A terror of a night spent waking every hour to a nightmare.

Today, I:

-walked a mile, the longest distance I’ve tried since my stress fracture was diagnosed.

-signed up for a three race series.

-cooked food that made me happy, chickpeas with roasted vegetables and peanut butter and feta cheese.

-removes people I didnt trust from being able to see anymore of my life.

-helped my grandma.

-let myself be angry.

-processed it, and decided to do yoga before bed to cope.

-realized I wouldn’t go back.

That last one is new. Part of my anger is that this happened. The first time J and I talked after everything, he asked me so poignantly

how could you let this happen to me?

And today, I wanted to ask him the same.

how could you let me wither on the vine?

how could you let everything you loved about me die when you knew I was suffering?

why did your pride matter more?

how could you abandon us? for what?

But those questions aren’t fair either or if they are, they don’t matter anymore. What’s done is done. And I realized that if he called me tomorrow and said he regretted it all, that he was wrong, that he wanted to try again...I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t leave home, where I’ve started to feel whole again, where my family has circled around me and breathed life back into me, where I am single but never doubting that I am loved, if only because I have to love myself to be there. I wouldn’t step back to a man who I love more than life itself if it meant giving up on hope that life could be bigger than just us two alone, apart even together. That’s it’s own sort of awakening.

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

day 29 - 3/30

It seems insane that it’s been less than a month since all this happened.  geographically: I’m back in Louisiana. the morning I left, I saw my ex-MIL for the last time. we had a frank, quiet talk in a dark dining room before 6am. I made coffee. we held hands, we whispered earnestly. “look forward,” she said, “not back.” When she walked out the front door, she squeezed my hand, looked over her shoulder, and said, “be happy.” Thirty minutes later, I left that house for the last time. I loaded the car, came back in, and grabbed my purse and the cat. Walked out into the rainy pre-dawn and drove in silence until I reached I-81. I haven’t cried since that morning.  physically: a WRECK. like my body has been saving it all up for me. I have an awful sinus infection, my mouth is full of sores, and I have weird hives on my face and neck. 

mentally: better. I still want and need therapy. But being close to home, feeling wrapped up by my family, has been so joyous. it’s been so good to be HOME - with my family, but also in familiar land and climes. I feel a measure of safety here that I hadn’t been able to access through all of this trauma, and that has helped me heal. Instinctively, I knew it would, but experiencing it is a balm. I feel peaceful. My anxiety is at a minimum. I trust my instincts. I feel better.

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

“Hope is a funny thing, though. It seems to have a life and a will of its own.”

- Julie Yip-Williams

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

day 22 - 3/23

the movers came today. they packed everything in the truck. they’ll see me in LA on wednesday. I leave tomorrow. I leave tomorrow.m: this is so hard right now. the movers are gone. the house is empty. and I'm just overwhelmingly heartbroken. k: Oh shit. I am so sorry. That has got to be so hard to look at. Can you get out of the house today? m: no. I have to finish this grant. and I'm not fit for public. I'm just so sad. k: I hate this so much. Want company? m: I keep seeing things like the water heater we invested in, the thermostat. and it's all these tiny reminders of the life we made together that no longer exists. of all our plans. no, no company. I need to just get this out and plow through the end of this grant.I'm just so fucking sad.all I want is my husband. and I don't have a husband anymore.

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

day 21 - 3/22

horrible stress. bad call with my boss and his boss, trying to get a grant done under deadline, trying to be packed and do all the last minute things, trying, trying, trying, but not succeeding at anything. 

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

day 20 - 3/21

Lots of lasts. Last time at the bakery/coffeeshop I love. Last work session with K. Last time having friends over to the house - for a goodbye party.  There were just 5 of us, but it was 4 people I really wanted to see. I’d worried I’d invited too many people anyway, so it worked out. We spent 5 hours talking, eating, drinking. I only teared up once. It was nice to be surrounded with such love. 

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

day 19 - 3/20

Fran Lebowitz has this famous quote on love: “Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one. It's a drug. It distorts reality, and that's the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw.”

And I guess, in some ways, that is true. Love makes you see the best in people. And when that image shifts, when the scales fall away, when you see someone at their worst, sometimes the ruination of that vision is too much to overcome. But I think there’s another kind of love, platonic love, that can bring yourself - or maybe your best self - into focus. Over the past few weeks, I’ve realized who I am to a lot of people (and am filled with gratitude for the caliber of people I’ve brought into my life, a well-honed sense of judgement that I can only thank my discerning mother for). That, balanced with having to face the complexities of my own loss of romantic love and facing myself, shed of excuses for my behavior, has been an enlightening experience. Here is me, with all my faults, my desire to skirt the blame, my sorrow that I let drag me down much too far because I didn’t want to acknowledge it, me who can’t accept that it can’t be fixed - but also me who loved people, me who has felt more compelled than ever to show kindness and thanks to everyone who has loved me, me who is fucking trying, trying very hard. I appreciate having an opportunity to see those selves by each other, who they are together, and how they could merge, be better than the sum of their parts. yesterday morning, I talked with a friend and mentor, and she shared with me that she had gotten a divorce at 25, after a 3 year marriage. “I’ve been married 32 years now. you have your whole life ahead of you. your life will be wonderful.” thank you, I said. I needed to hear that. 

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

[truthfromtheboot-blog]

day 18 - 3/19

I feel like I should also capture here some of the good that has happened with all of this.  I’m doing more in the way of self-care. I’m trying to prioritize myself, and not do what I think others want me to do. My friends have been amazing. There’s that cliche about the hard times show you who really has your back, but I have been amazed and humbled to see how many people do. even people who I wouldn’t have thought cared, do. People checking in on me, sending me funny memes, sending me loving notes, stopping by on their way out of town just to give me a hug, planning a welcome back party for me, going out of their way to tell me they hope we can be closer when I return. it makes me feel...purposeful and loved in a way that I desperately need right now. 

I’ve learned a lot. In those first few days, my mind was a terror, so I read and read and read. I read about ancient england, and movies, and politics, and the south. I’ve listened to innumerable podcasts. I’ve studied genealogy. In some way, I think I forgot how much I loved to learn for the sake of learning, to do things just for joy of doing them and not for an end goal, a checkmark. It feels...indulgent, in a way that makes me a bit sad. I would like to get back to that point, where doing things I love for no good reason is just a way of being, and not a tally mark. 

[anthony-samaniego]

comfort zone instagram

[remanence-of-love]

Remember I loved you.