Dear 2009:

I am leaving you with a lot of feelings.

Some resolved, some freshly scratched open. Some aired out and blown into the fall and swirl of any day's breeze. Some tucked beneath my ribs, pushing against my heart, growing... sleeping... wandering. Pacing. Aglow. Some: still, untended, brittle at the core. & some have rushed up and out to hang in the air like a haze you don't exactly want to see through.

I already know two things. 1) This could be wickedly long, and 2) parts will be unceremoniously vague while others are clear to the point.

FEELINGS: Despondent. Heartbroken. Confused. Gradients of Sadness & Anger. [All resolved]
Perhaps the biggest chunk of 2009 was The Great Letting Go. Consider the break in November 2008- ripe and explosive before a string of holidays. Perfect! Tack on six months of back and forth, do we don't we, we really fucking should not, but maybe we almost could... until, finally, my backbone recalled itself and said: Fucking no, goodbye. Cue a week's worth of downward spiral including one extreme hallucination and terribly restless nights that led to sleeping on my desk at work. Most definitively not my finest hours, that week. Or, really, the first six months of 2009 = some of the roughest blurs of my 2009-life.

(That is what happens when you give three years of your life to someone who perhaps means well but truly cannot give you any shape of what you need because she is too consumed with her own demons.)

FEELINGS: Bright Spot. Intrigue. Want. [Tucked down for months]
In the middle of The Great Letting Go of 2009, there was February. Mixed messages. Music. The kind of held eye contact that makes your palms sweat. Suggestion. Intoxicated flirting. Growing awareness of the simplest connections. Plain & simple curiosity. I knew I wanted her and didn't have the words or actions to show it outside of a wine-induced comment that fluttered then shot from my ribs, out my mouth, into the air, into her ears.

FEELINGS: Achievement. Forward-motion. Validation. Total Awesomeness. [FINALLY]
March took me to Tampa. Tampa took me to USF. Kate Bornstein. Gender/Sex skews. FC, SW, LP. A very healthy & happy few days of relaxation with B&L. On a whim, my submission "for fun" turned into presentation & future publication. It also catapulted me into reassessing my future in the education world, and where I want to go. I still don't know where I want to go, or how I want to get there, but without this experience, I don't know that I'd have the motivation to change course.

FEELINGS: China blue. Want. [Tucked down for months]
Minutes. Literally, minutes. Less than five. It was the quickest reminder of "Oh, right... want." Thank you, end of May. Circles, and circles, circles again. Circles, and circles, got to stop spinning

FEELINGS: Possibility. Curiosity. Want? Hope. [Here & gone]
Enter several women. My ins & outs of March-September. I thought I wanted each of them more than I actually did. Call it healing, call it fooling myself, call it Time. If I had been ready, for any of them, I imagine it would have happened. I count 5. If we tack on the currently-unresponded-to-email I received today, make it 6. As I type, 2 more linger in the backdrop. I have learned to push like a professional... pusher. There are times when I want to beat myself up over this, but I have learned that it's not happening with these women because I don't want it to. Not a one of them is who I want to be with on any level outside of friendship. I tried. I did. I was entirely aware of what I was doing and how I was feeling. I've been honest and cognizant. But you can't create a spark when your match won't ignite.

FEELINGS: Freedom. The Wander. Love, Life, Living. [Continuing ad infinitum~]
The Summer of 2009 was one of the best summers I have ever had. Point blank; there's no fancy way to phrase that. I was spontaneous, happy, unbridled, and hungry for life. Rehoboth (recall the bruise on my spine from the railing on the deck). Dewey Beach. San Diego. Pine Island. Richmond. Outerbanks. I lived my life. I got an incredible tan, did not work out as much as I should, read books, whittled time away by staring at nature. It was perfection, and I absolutely did not want it to end.

FEELINGS: Rapture. [Tucked]
It had been months, and at first glance, every muscle tightened and I dared myself to look away. But I couldn't. A few weeks later, time was on my side, and while the fire glowed and the marshmallows and sticks burned, I reveled in the simplicity of good friends. My want stayed safely inside. It was the best place for it.

FEELINGS: Absence. Second-guessing. The Final Push in Letting Go. [Resolved]
Fall has never been much on my side. 2009 was no different. Fall beats me up, chews around, spits me out in pieces that I'm left to string together in a semblance of The Real Me. I survive fall. This fall, I pushed so many people away. I just wanted to be alone. Quite honestly, much of October and November are a blur of going through the motions (however, I did run my first 5k somewhere in there) and a few too many Friday-after-school beers. I entered this strange period of self-loathing and didn't want much to do with anything or anyone. There were Bright Spots tangled amid other bouts of confusion, but overall, fall failed me. Or I failed it.

I'm glad it's winter.

FEELINGS: Spinal. Guttural. Rushes to the head. [Loved & Over but Present]
I have a dirty habit of not getting mad, of not feeling or directing my anger. This was pointed out to me somewhere in 2009, probably in its early stages. I got mad about the fact that I don't get mad. How meta. Despite my overabundance of them, I love feelings. To realize that I was not capitalizing on the most powerful of feelings was a good kick in the ass. In November or December, I got really fucking mad. And I unleashed. I do not like it when people do not listen to me, but only hear me. You need to fucking listen to my words. Someone didn't, and someone heard all about it. The surge of anger was tipping my nerves into sunshine, and I felt so goddamn alive. There was no holding back; every last bit came out.

It was the first time I'd yelled in probably years. Perhaps some of the anger was misdirected [Great Lakes never got yelled at, and if anyone should bear the fire of my ire, it would be her but that is a lost cause of imperceptible proportions] but most of it was justified. Weeks later, the same person pissed me off, and my spine straightened. It was fucking amazing, and I am never bending again.

FEELINGS: Gratitude. Safety. Love. Stomach-aching Laughter. [Endless~]
One thing that has been made perfectly clear to me throughout 2009 is that I have amazing people in my life. My family is entirely supportive & loving of all my pitfalls and strengths, and my friends are saints for putting up with my over-thinking bullshit. Having been untangled from a controlling relationship, my freedom to do whatever with whomever (and not have to lie about it in order to avoid a fight) has taken over. My internal hermithood may never evaporate, but I don't think I've ever been this social in my life. And the truth is... I enjoy it. Granted, it makes the lay-low-at-home days that much more meaningful. I do not ever again want to lose sight of the goodness that exists in my life. It can be enhanced, absolutely, but I have no reason to not be happy with what I have. That feeling, that recognition-- irreplaceable.

FEELINGS: Peace. Appreciation. Clarity? Hope. [Here... hopefully to stay]
Continuing from the Gratitude, I think it's important to express the feeling of peace I am at with my life. I've not felt peaceful in years. Part of that is due to my constant interaction with women. Dating, relationships, dalliances, whatever. By the beginning of December 2009, I was wholly unattached and very much at peace with it. Am I willing to explore something with someone? Absolutely. Just don't disturb my peace~

FEELINGS: Want. Surprise. Comfort. Warmth. Curiosity. Release. Hot. [...processing]
Truth: I did not expect to end 2009 in this way. My patience had taken over the best of me.

When you are with me, I tend to lose focus. My tongue takes its own trek with words, and my mind flows over and above the conversation dribbling between us. But I was on par that night. The previous two? Not so much. But that night, yes, I was exactly where I wanted to be. It appears that you were, too. Thank you, winter.

It's a want that has tightened my nerve-endings for quite some time. Fulfilling that want... I don't know that I have the words, but perhaps this will do for now: the strongest memory is my mouth, your mouth, moving together, your head lifting ever so from the pillow. One of my hands in your hair. The other hand meeting your hand, your fingers lacing through mine. That is the image cemented in my mind. There are many other sweeps of recall from that night, and you already know I remember everything (though I admit: parts of conversation are hazy), and I could go on with descriptions and images but I don't want to. I want this tucked beneath my ribs with the surges & sparks that follow the memories. I want to keep it safe. Honestly: I don't know how to write it. I do know that you are fucking beautiful, and my want continues.

FEELINGS: Closure. [AMAZING!]
2009 was, kindly, a learning experience. To emerge from the year without new battle wounds is a huge achievement. I've healed, processed, moved forward. I know myself, now, better than I have in a very long time. And I'm comfortable with who I am. I don't put up with bullshit or crazy. I take care of me on a daily basis. I breathe deeply and completely. While I may never stop over thinking, I at least have learned to better compartmentalize my wayward thought processes. I don't feel the need for anything, but I continue to want. My priorities are (relatively) clear. I have had these incredible bursts of awareness & happiness amid the general peace of my life. I am well.


So, thanks 2009, for all the feelings. You've given me a lot to work with. & as I write this, 2010 looms less than 12 hours away. I'm ready for it; I know it will be good to me as long as I am good to it.

It's Not About You

I said: It's getting better. Stronger, longer, I feel my edges sparking and the world goes blurry. I'm getting older.

You said: It's not about getting older; it's about who you're with.

I thought: It's not about you.

There was cold air around us, always. My heart was snowed in, plowed into a corner by your stick-shift jerks and shoves. It was always winter. We were winter.

It's still getting better. Stronger, longer, tricked with a short blast followed by a languid, shivering crescendo. My edges are thinned and my world is clear-skies. I've gotten older, again.

And it's still not about you.

Scenes from the foyer

Today you are pressed against my closed front door. I am on you like fire: our bodies pressed furtively against each other, mouths connecting in a spreading spark that floods our senses with long-harbored lust.

We are explosive, today.

You are kissing me, moving between sharpness and air, lacerating my thoughts with each flick of your tongue against my lower lip. And I am kissing you. I am drawing your upper lip into my hungry mouth, teasing the tip of your tongue with my own, moving the emptiness away from us and lulling us into the depths of one soul-haunting kiss.

I can feel your heartbeat pumping through the fabric of your t-shirt -- the one I ache to tug over your head. The one I have seen you in countless times before and always, the same thought: too much fabric.

You slow, I follow. Your breath is rapid. Mine is- is it?- cautious. I realize that my hands are rounding your hips and yours are wrapped around me and your head is tucked between my shoulder and my neck.

Your lips are still moving.

this is you- me- lonely

I wonder when my walls will tumble down. Is it something I have to manufacture? Do I need to climb them, scale them to their uppermost perches, in order to rip them down, sheet by sheet of startlingly thick glass?

That's me: you can see me. Anyone can, if they look hard enough. My eyes hide nothing, which is why I fix my gaze on a wall when I'm speaking from my roots. We can all look for as long as we'd like, but you can't touch. You can't get in.

Even if you think you're in, because you think you do, you have to realize that you're not. Yes, I tell you a lot. Yes, I let you see me cry. Yes, you read between my scribbled lines. But you don't always hear me, and that's because I don't speak loudly enough.

The matter of want is still plauging me, twenty-four hours later. I don't know why I'm so fixated on this. (Even my Obscure Object had something to say about it. I'm not sold on her musings, but she is right, in the way that I almost don't want her to be right. So I'll say that she is right in some ways. Not entirely.) I just said, not fifteen minutes ago, that I don't know what I want. I was lying, sort of.

I don't know how I feel about falling in love (again). I love a lot, it's true. Right now, I'm spreading my love like a fucking virus. Sometimes it's a silent sweeper, other times it's a warming fever. [can you hear me?] But being in love? No thanks. It's just not what I want right now. I like feeling steady and self-centered (at least I can admit that I know I am self-centered). I don't want to worry about how someone else feels. I mostly like my life just the way it is. I do feel at peace, I am happy.

Seriously, I just think far too much for my own good. I can't even continue this tangent because my brain has overlapped and my thoughts are too tangled to bother to work through.

The morning I came untethered

You know that feeling? The one where you can feel your heart slide down your torso and drop directly into the pit of your stomach?

That's the feeling you give me. When I see you, hear your name mentioned, sometimes just the simplest thought of you: it falls. & I fall with it. (more than you'll ever know)

I realized something tonight-- my irritation re: the slightly illicit affair that two of my friends are having- with each other- it is a matter of jealousy. And it doesn't have a thing to do with my feelings for either one of them, as I do not have feelings for either one of them. The jealousy comes from the matter of the affair itself. The fact that they are having it. The fact that someone gets to indulge in her straight-woman crush, and languish in the moments they spend together. The escapes. The right-under-the-husband's-nose moments. The fact that they are acting, executing, the very thing I yearn for (though mine is not as illicit, as my Obscure Object is not in a relationship... she's just unattainable and categorically heterosexual)? That is the root of my jealousy.

Of course, I say this and recognize that the aforementioned affair is not the best relationship. How could it be, with the varying levels of deception and sneaking around? I know how/why some people find those things sexy, mostly because I've been caught there once or twice. I don't want that part. I don't want the uncertainty and fear and hurt.

I just want the woman that I want. The simplicity startles me; my inaction and (rational, sort of) fears are what complicate the simplicity.

I'll tell you what, I'll save you the trouble of running away

I had a night full of friends, good food, and abdomen-bursting laughter. Honestly, it couldn't have been better than what it was. I am grateful for it, and suddenly/finally cognizant of the meaning of "want." I want things, of course I do. Who doesn't? But the things that I want are not insurmountable, nor are they permanently unattainable. It's momentary. I don't know when the moment will pass. I don't know how much I care. What I currently have is more than enough. What I have sustains me, supports me, loves me, laughs with me, cares about me. It is enough- sometimes and always more so.

I'm typing with my thumbs still pushed through my jacket's sleeves. It's fucking cold tonight (I love it). Walking the dogs and running with them in the backyard, I still felt the warmth from the previous hours of my night. I haven't laughed that hard in a while, and I've been fortunate to be laughing a lot lately. I could go- I could leave at a moment's notice. Sometimes I train my mind to thoughts of disappearing and reworking my ground somewhere else.

The truth is-- I am not lacking. I am fulfilled. I am doing more for myself than I ever have. I realize I'm happy and keep moving.

I realized today, while listening to Pandora while grading papers, that I am ready to love (again). I retracted the statement not five minutes later, claiming I was kidding, but I'm not. Not really, anyway. I have the love to give. I have the capacity to give it. I have the want. But I know myself well enough to know that I won't give any love until I stop wanting my Obscure Object.

...and I can't say that I want to.

And I can understand, all I need is your hand

Have I ever mentioned that I'm not going to tell you all of this? Any of this? Nothing. No thing.

I breathe around you like it's any air, not yours.

I thought you were going away and leaving my system. I thought my brain and lungs were safe again; the tug and yank of every fiber of my living, breathing body could sit still. Be still. I thought I had myself fooled. (and then I saw you [again])

Oh won't you take the fall / it is me after all

I gave up running a few weeks ago because I didn't like what it was doing to my body. Now I'm restless and sensitive. Porous. That whole time- I was running away to you. Running from you. For you. Despite you.

Can I count days this high, this long? This far into knowing you, and I don't know all I wish I did. I do know: fall is within is, are we falling in it?, winter comes next and I love you in the grey-cold snow-threatening air. We don't do warmth. You seek me when it's cold, and I trip into your line of vision just long enough for you to see a sliver of all of the no-things I'm not telling you.

I do know: I wouldn't change any of this. That chance, once upon a glass of wine? I wouldn't go back and take it (I'd prefer that you don't hate me/you in the glare of dawn). The rushes and lulls? They can stay. That week I thought I was never going to be able to stop thinking about you and couldn't understand what was happening to my heart? That morning I pressed my cheek against tile and exhaled the previous night in fits of breathless confusion? Your indescribable attitude the other week? My stumbling tongue, bathed with or without alcohol? The way my stomach twists, wondering what you'll say next? Your eyes steady against my own searching, the way I worry I'm not holding enough/too much back in a single look that I'd swear could unravel my every feeling?

(I wouldn't change it.)

Instead, we should change our future. I'm ready for you and I thought I'd be terrified to say that because you are more than just you but the truth is I'm not scared. & I thought you should know.

All around me are familiar faces / worn out places, worn out faces

What is it about you, October?

You've brought such extremes to my life over the past four years. In the first, it was sugar-high love, the kind you can never get enough of. But even with the sheen of love, life exploded- mania exploded. I remembered, today, the extremity of the Pumpkin Carving of 2006. One wasn't enough. Nor two. Nor three. I distinctly remember driving to buy more pumpkins because she hadn't carved enough. I thought it was cute. I thought it was good: creative energy. But the carving segued into seed-roasting, staying up late to percolate the house with garlic and dill, cinnamon and sugar. Five or six pumpkins' worth of roasted seeds, and we never ate them all, but I knew, for her, it wasn't enough.

October 2006 was also the month of the minor car accident and my distorted/hopeful thoughts that she would always be that compassionate. It was also rolling over in bed the morning after the car accident and feeling so terribly unsafe but not knowing how to say that without ruining everything. Instead, I cried. I shelved the anxiety and she held me and I felt safe again but that moment was off and running before I could so much as focus in on a mental picture that would pull me, lull me through confusion.

But that night, carving on the wooden floors of my parents' kitchen, laughing and loving and her saying: "You are enough. I have no doubt that I love you. I have never been this happy. I have never been this happy."

Is it a lie when you say something without realizing that you actually have no idea what you're talking about because you're saying you're something that you have no concept of? But you're saying it because you want to believe it: "I don't know what happy is, but if I put air into my lungs and exhale with a word (happy) maybe it will be real and I can say all along I knew what it was but had never felt it until I said it and I said it because I want to be. I want to be happy. With you. I want us to be happy."

Here is the truth: I don't think I ever really was.

I know this because June and July, 2009, I finally opened my eyes to happiness. Each morning since then, each half-smile and sparkle of the eye, each deep breath on Saturday afternoons-- I realize, yes, I am happy.

But in October, I have been notoriously unhappy because I have been frequently blindsided and led astray by extremes. In 2007, Columbus Day gained new meaning and now I refer to it as The Columbus Day Massacre of 2007. She said she'd never forget it, and for a while she apologized a lot for it, but she doesn't have to open that closet door multiple times a day and if just for a moment recall that image, that punched-through-the-stomach-into-the-throat feeling, that complete loss of rationale and understanding. For her, it is probably just another step in her unhealthy journey of attempts to forget herself. But I remember the shaking. I remember the blood. I remember my total and complete lack of movement. What I also remember is the anger.

That should have been the last October- it should have been the last of many things. But despite that, despite the following corrupt months of tension and instability and push & pull, DESPITE APRIL... despite my heart arching elsewhere, aching to bloom in spring but instead being drowned by not tears but by hope: October 2008 existed. And it existed for us.

Two things happened in October 2008: she came here, and I went there. The stretches in between were roughed with knowing the end was near and not knowing how to escape it or embrace it. So I avoided it. Because that is what I do.

When she came here, she left a present of blood on my garage floor. I don't know where it is anymore (I stopped looking for it long ago) but I know it's there. There were demons and manic impulses, there was a clear sign of things being anything but right. I pushed, that time. I pushed hard. But my heart is weak, and in the end, I pulled like hell. I tugged with every ounce of my being until I found myself lying alone in bed, feeling the sinking emptiness of our love streaming out from my pores. It needed to be aired out. It needed to be freed.

There was one night in particular when she packed her things and was ready to go. It was late. I was worried. She'd been slipping in and out of consciousness/sanity and I didn't realize until December that what I'd been so worried about was most likely an act of psychosis, in that nothing was wrong with her other than the fact that she was crazy, knew she was losing me, and yet again was pulling extreme measures to try to keep me. I fell for it, then, but only part of me. The other part was too far gone already. Too aware. Too ready to leave and be safe again.

When I went to her, at the end of October 2008, we were sitting on the bed, she was unusually sweet, I was in a horrible mood, and she said our next step was to get married. An extreme leap, again, to maintain us, to push us forward. Never mind that the logical next step was for one of us to move. Or for us to get counseling, together. Or for me to go. I know I didn't say yes, I know I couldn't hide the look of slightly irritated surprise that shocked over my face.

Marriage never came up again.

It couldn't, as no more than two weeks later, she avoided me steadily for a few days and then we broke up. Finally. And I must have known it was coming, after that last visit. Because in the same moment everything felt warm and I was so, so starkly cold.

Last October, in 2008, somewhere between her being here and me being there, I went to a pumpkin patch. I remember writing about it last year. I recall a particular woman, a lesbian at that, and I remember trying to get her to look up and catch my eye. I can't remember if she ever did. Today, I went to that same pumpkin patch. Today, I found myself sitting on a bale of hay on a trailer attached to a tractor, and I looked up to meet eyes with two lesbians sitting directly across from me. They had an elementary-aged girl with them- the daughter of the taller woman. The women alternated staring at me. I don't know what their motive was. Yes, thank you, I know I'm gay and I don't need you staring at me and getting me to curiously look at you for me to suddenly realize I like women. No, I'm not really attracted to either of you and that's why I'm not staring at you. Obviously. As you are staring at me, for whatever reason and no, thank you, I don't care for an explanation.

Today, mid-fall, I saw fall. I surveyed the light blue sky, alit with puffs of clouds, crushing against the burnished pale yellow stalks of corn. I searched for the globes of orange rolling about the crunch-beneath-your-feet landscape of farmland. I felt the wind whipping around me, through me, taking with it memories and leftover pain. I can see and feel these things, I can hear fall puncture the air around me, because October 2009 radiates with the extremity of absence and of silence.

Why does October always feel so cold? I see the warmth radiating between people, and people in-love. I felt that warmth last night: hour upon hour till all I wanted to do was sleep- and I was grateful every second of the night. I have been entertaining, again, the running (north this time: uncharted territory) but sometimes I simply have to be reminded of how lucky I am to have what I have. I am almost ready to admit how much I want that warmth back. I've touched glimpses of it over the past eight months, but it hasn't been enough. It hasn't been the warmth I crave... or the warmth I need, and I don't say that very often but with this whole happy, self-aware, confidence thing comes the reality and admittance that I do have needs and I don't particularly feel like suppressing them ever again.

I could settle. I know this. I could settle very easily, and the only reason I don't (everything there is pretty great, yes, except: ) is because while there is love, I am not in love, and I'm not going to compromise that. So beyond that, beyond the minutiae of my options (diverse as they are), beyond my lingering affections for the Obscure Object, I wonder: where is mine?

Maybe next October will be different. Maybe it won't be extreme. Perhaps next October, in 2010: maybe it will be mine.

Give me clear skies; I'll tell you a story

Here's something I've apparently just realized: The Obscure Object is kind of a bitch.

Her tone is my least favorite thing about her. Written, spoken, inferred with a look: it is either completely difficult to decipher, or flat-out bitchariffic. I can think of three recent & specific examples of this, and I don't particularly care to regurgitate them here. This is something I needed to realize, though.

Maybe it's me overreacting (because I never do that), but I pick up on tone much better than I do body language. And she and I have, in the past, misread each other's written tones. She's one- if not the only person- of a few people I have that habit with.

I over analyze, yes, and over-think. The perplexion and confusion and hidden/not-so-hidden possibilities don't help calm this over-ing. The fact that I can't seem to have a simple conversation with her doesn't help. Not knowing, knowing too much, failing to see how I can properly communicate this: not helpful.

I don't know where this leaves me, but I also don't know that I care.


I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
-Amy Lowell, "The Letter"

Where do we go from here

One of my coworkers ran into me in the hall today. She was on the wrong floor; I rarely see her otherwise, but always, always enjoy our stream-of-consciousness conversations.

When she saw me today, and after she realized she'd gone up an extra flight of stairs, she said: "You know, you should really be on tv."

From there, we talked about vocabulary, lexicon-flexing, teaching English, expressions, immersion, Middlesex, homosexuality, ES classes, epiphanies, influence, change, growth, Dr. Ruth, and so on. I so thoroughly love those conversations, the kinds that spread over landscape and grey matter without effort. Complete ease, unsuspecting flow.

As we parted ways, she turned and called over her shoulder: "So what are you going to be when you grow up?"

Without hesitation (there may have been a slightly abashed shrug, because for as much as I like to talk about myself, I worry that people A) don't take me seriously, and B) see me differently than I see myself because, yes, I can be dense/a little slow on the uptake/silly-excited about the most minute things/and occasionally I think I don't show my intelligence simply because I don't want to) I said: "Finish my masters. Get my PhD. Go teach college level. From there... wherever it all takes me."

And write. Sometimes, all I want to do is write. It's just that the words get stuck on my ribs, stuck in my fingertips, smeared around my teeth and tongue and nothing comes out the way I expect it to. But, I write.

And I write because I generally can't form sense with my voice.

Part of this, all of this, is because of my dirty habit called Over-Thinking. I place too much value in not only the things that people say to me, but also the way that they say them. I pay more attention to tone than I do to body language. It's easier; I hear more than I see. Maybe I pay too much attention. Or maybe I don't pay enough.