Week 1

Week 3 11/22/13 8:37 p.m.

My friend, Lan, sent me this poem.

'There is you and you
This a relationship
It is the most important relationship'

Something to keep in mind.

And music, the healer of all things.

Kanye West "Bad News"
Sade "No Ordinary Love"
Wale "Diary"
No Doubt "Don't Speak"
Rihanna "Stay"
NaS "Roses"

"You were always where I needed you to be whether you were there or not there." - J. Cole "Born Sinner"

Still,
with the music,
the wine,
the books,
the treadmills,
I miss him. It doesn't sting so much as it lingers while it lingers on stinging.

I've decided though that this will be the last week... and back to other things, maybe more distracting things, like the trend of condescension from white rappers/singers about hip hop culture that masks itself as anti-materialism. Ha, well, at least that part of me remains.

Week 2
10:13 November 16, 2013

It amazes me how durable the human heart is.
It amazes me that even when, and perhaps most when, I find myself in a place of uncertainty, I am still capable of producing love and empathy.
When the anger passes, those feelings remain the foundation and the driver  of all things. I am not alone in this. It is not unique to me. I find this amongst most women.
When I am angry, I elude to the fact that women love, and they are often drained of love, hurt by their love, but they continue to choose love rather than any alternative.
It is my opinion that a woman is capable of feeling the scars that her brother and her partner feels. It is my opinion that she is capable of feeling his loneliness, his uncertainty, his fears.
It is my opinion that it is a burden, but it is good, because it makes women capable of understanding and vulnerability and of effortlessly producing support... which produces love.
I would be nothing if I could not see and feel from another perspective. Take a step back and think from the mind of a man. I would be angry. I would not forgive. I am allowed to be. But anger is poisonous.
 ---
I am well aware of my womanhood.
I am a little mad at it, not so much for the sexism, or gender hierarchy, or ignorance, or inequality-- those are just battles to advocate against-- to make better for future generations of girls.

No, I'm mad at womenhood because of the additional burdensssss we place upon ourselves, the additional sacrificessss we make even when we know better.

J. Cole wrote "Women's curse is birth" and, it's probably true. Would the world spin around if we didn't give up of ourselves what a man needs to survive and thrive?
Do we ask of the same in return? No... not really, we have that capacity within us. Would it be nice and considerate and fair? Sure, but I don't think they have that strength and We like the burdens. We like to push them to success, they too, maybe, perhaps, would like to see us climb... but they are afraid to spend the time and energy to boost for
what if that takes away from them?

And I think, I know, that's why I'm so fucking mad at him.  I am allowed to be. And maybe at me for expecting different.

--

I used to cut up my rambling free-writes into segments and call it "writing." I don't edit. You can't edit something that your soul vomits out. Ugly or good, the practice proves to oxgenate me the way running always has.

11/8/13 11:14 p.m.

The soul is strong.
After heartbreak, it is able to replenish itself.
The soul is especially strong for womenkind
For She
is the one who sacrifices herself for men
Like a well, drained of water, emptied and
drained again.

What a beauty a full well
would be untampered with
A fat watery well__ even fed with clear,
vital
vibrant water?
But like Mother Earth, her well is emptied and recharged, emptied and recharged.

The feeders are fat, and growing, and selfish.
She is unconditionally exhuasted.
They never give back. 

Taylor Swift

A few days ago, I couldn't wrap my mind around what I could possibly write about on my next post.

But when I couldn't stop screaming 4-hours ago, I knew. I knew that there would be use for this blog again. I tend to write when I'm in distress, when I'm angry about something.
And what was there to be angry with? I had gotten a job that pleases my soul and allows me to Grow. I had bought my own car. Gotten a new I-Phone. My mother cooks for me. And in a few months, I would be going to school to get my Masters. 

And the part that made up the beautiful final piece was being in love with my best friend. So I held it in until the skype hung up, and screamed.

See, frugality affords me a few things. After the bills, there was the Save to do the right thing and protect the future category, save for school category, AND, most importantly, save to fly or bus here in there, explore this and that, with HIM, category. For which, I'd become exceptionally frugal.

I don't know where that stash is going now.
I screamed thinking about it. Thinking about 2 months without Starbucks, I love Starbucks.
The next trip would have been somewhere to Asia, I'm sure of it.
And every dollar spent had always come back 10 fold. When the laugh would crawl from the beer-filled belly and emanate through his whole face. If it was a real laugh, he'd laugh with his entire torso and sort of bounce up when something was really funny. The dimples dug deep... I think I was, I am, in even deeper.

I could withstand this long distance and marry him for that laugh alone. Unbeknownst to him, winter trips had already been planned out in my head.

Isn't it strange that I can miss a laugh as though a person had died but he's still alive and kicking right there? Or I could scream as though I were in a war, or I had killed someone? But in fact, it was just an ordinary breakup that happens thousands of times each day? And he didn't even cheat on me, he wasn't even mean, he just... was scared, wasn't ready, was questioning, was ... still in boy mode. 

But break-ups are rarely about losing sex, or romance, it's about losing the dorkiness that two best friends share. It's about losing THE person to spill the secrets to, to show the vulnerability to... when  in the world, I'm a go-getter, a buy your own shit kind of female, a feminist, an... almost indestructible force when it comes to emotions and leaving, things and people, behind. I was secure, sort of, but I'd fuck a short ugly douche-bag in college, just to anger him, just to make him notice what he wasn't paying attention to, create an OK-Cupid, never check it, flirt with other guys when he was too independent... I was insecure. And it worked. It's about a person who makes me feel beautiful without saying it, without me having to do a thing, with nothing on, just by looking at me. When I'm thick, when I'm thin, when my skin was flawless, when I had pimples, braces, or none, when I wore red pants hipster that annoyed him... I still felt beautiful.

The money maybe came back 20-fold, the anticipation made it better, made each moment more cherished. In the drab of Maine, and the heartlessness of D.C., it provided air.

Maybe, because I have never experienced loss, I don't know what fear is. I think Eddie, and people like him, who know what fear is, who are cautious of it, agitate me. I can't wrap my mind around them. Because all the what-ifs steals from the moments of love. I couldn't love him more, but his fear was stronger. His doubts. His youth. And because he should be allowed to feel what he feels, he is right. His feelings are right.

But all of that shit, steals away from the reality that I had crafted. I had always dreamed of getting a Masters. And he was born to get one, if not a Ph D, smartass that he is. We'd take trips back and forth. And I'd drive down on weekends, when he finally returns Stateside to get it. And I'd be exhausted and want to see but one person. And when I'd be done with my degree, I'd plant myself annoyingly all over his presence. And we'd grow up and the world would lead us where it leads us... whichever continent, whichever country, however long, there would be a light by the end of the tunnel, My Eddie stash on hand.
Trilingual, Tri-cultural, Triracial, smartass babies with knowledge of different religions and beliefs in our 30's. Can you imagine? No Fear.

So the screaming, I couldn't stop for an hour. The sobbing, then the screaming, then the sobbing. That now, I had been infected with the grossness that was fear and precaution.
It disgusts me. The fear that, I cannot text stupid stuff to a person I want to annoy most. Or, no "I love you" texts. No, "when are you free, asshole?" text. No talking about how ordinary our looks are... while pretending that we are hot... None of that.
Fear of seeing the day he replaces me with another best friend. 

How many times had we broken up before? But this one bears finality. There would be more screaming. It's ordinary, but overwhelming.  And I apologize to Eddie, as I apologize to the unambitious people I used to be attracted to in high school, for being entangled with a self-proclaimed writer. Either write or scream. Either whine or scream.

Scream for my stash, because it can't go anywhere now, that reaps rewards the way it had just this morning.
My dork is gone.
And I don't want Starbucks.
That money was for him only.