Winter's Last Throws

I have been bracing lately, waiting for the punch of reality to come down on me. As with most things, I believe that waiting for this particular ax to fall is the worst part of the experience. See, I know D and I ended it, I know it cognitively, but my heart has never really learned the art of letting go. Due to this fact, I knew that in the end it would still be him who would walk away.

In 2010 technology has taken the place of telepathy. We no longer have to wonder what other people are thinking, all we need is an internet connection and the online stalking tools of facebook and blogger. I was in the mood for a little self-mutilation, so I logged-on and looked at his facebook page. There it was. Flashing across the screen; "updated status-It's complicated to Single". Ok. I knew it was coming, but seeing it, knowing everyone else was seeing his departure too, that really drove the punch home.

It's going to hurt like a bitch when he comes home, packs his bags, and physically walks away. Once again, I cognitively knew it, but now I feel it too. Damn.

I suppose this is all just part of the process. I know that things are going to happen just as they are meant to. If we are meant to be together, nothing will keep us apart. If we aren't, well then, I suppose that will be okay too, I just haven't really been able to face that one yet.

I think I am going through the grieving process, entering into the anger phase. On of my EWI members sent a request to the group for input on which restaurant he should take a date to. The thought and effort he put into the planning and reservation pushed some serious buttons for me. I began to think about the fact that no one has ever made a reservation for me. This boy's actions flew in the face of all the male excuses I have heard before as to why date planning and reservations were always left up to me. It left me feeling cheated. It then left me wondering if it was my fault. Maybe there is something about me that makes putting in too much effort seem unnecessary.

Well, my anger is waining. I sent D. a curt message about his "new status". It was childish and unfair. He did not do anything wrong. He is going through exactly what I am in his own way. I suppose he is just doing what men do, he is turning the page. As I mentioned, this is not my strong suit. I guess I just never really was able to wrap my head around the love thing. Not the beginning or the middle, but the end. In my mind I suppose love does not have an end, and this is not so much the end as the evolution. Still, I guess I have not learned how to make my mind and heart come together on this point.

What I do know, in my heart and mind, is that this is going to hurt like hell. I have not changed my relationship status, I don't think I can right now. Though we are not together, though I suppose I am single, my heart is far from open, my heart is far from available. I still act as though he is waiting just around the next bend, I still hear his voice in my ear, I even still write as though he is reading every word.

I have emotional anesthetic pumping through my veins at the moment, but I am not foolish enough to think that it will be any match for some of the things yet to come. There is hurt on the horizon, but just over the peaks I know there is something else coming. There is a peace, a calm, a glorious moment when I will be neither hurting nor numb. I can't see that ray of light yet, but I know, I just know it is coming.

I wonder what that will feel like. I imagine it will feel like the first real day of spring. That day when you walk out of your door and don't have to flinch at the sting of a cold air, the day that you walk languidly down the street feeling everything fully, a gentle breeze that soothes rather than torments. That day you feel so lucky to bask in perfect climate,free of the anxiety that comes from waiting for the next chill to strike though your bones. Yes, I imagine that is what it will feel like.

The Gray Waiting Room

Waiting rooms can be places of anticipation, of fear, of boredom, of detachment.
The gray waiting room, with mere sadows pacing back and forth offers little joy. Looking out the window for a glimmer of beauty I see only gray clouds, no sunlight or signs of life to distract me. Distraction, that is the order of the day.

I move to another waiting room some days, this one is beige. There are a few distractions here; a joke, a smile, meaningless banter. Between these rooms, I search for signs of life beyond the walls,but those here with me seem to have found their home here. Even their dress reflects the monotone palate of the space. They are here and they aren't going anywhere.

I come to this place in the shadow of darkness and leave after the sparse rays of light have gone. My hours are good, much more limited than I have ever had before, but the weariness I feel seems to lengthen my days and steal my time away from this place.

I have been working here for a month now. I paint on a smile like a warrior puts on camouflage; just part of the uniform. I am good at my job, but I always am. My heart is not here though, it is too busy doing somersaults inside my chest. Watching the parade of sick old men come through my office affects me in ways I never expected.

I have never been squeamish before. I spent time in the hospital in Mosul, Iraq. Never was I taken aback or nauseated. The young wounded and ill, my brothers and sisters, they did not frighten me. The deteriorating lives I see on the wards and the infectous disease warnings that flash across my computer screen make my stomach jump. My compassion is stronger than my reservations, I touch the patients- a reassuring hug or pat on the shoulder, but this is always followed by a large dose of hand sanitizer when I am back in the confines of my little office.

I help them as best I can, but in a large bureaucratic organization, I am just one tiny piece of the machine. Reading the files I am filled with sorrow and rage as I read about men who destroyed themselves and who were destroyed by others. My job is not hard but it is heavy. I am just so tired.

I built my new life this year on the knowledge that your job does not define you, that life can be lived around your 9-5. I am struggling though. I need the life, the beauty, the hope that springs from my pretty past-times, but the gray exhaustion has consumed some of that. I find it hard to come home sometimes. I work a second job, make plans and go out, the gray exhaustion waits for me when I enter my apartment, throwing me into bed and pinning me down for anxious sleep.

My glimmer, my shining star on the horizon is starting school at NYU in January. Yesterday, as the impatient admissions aid told me that I had been wait listed, I felt my heart drop into my stomach and I felt my hands begin to shake slightly. For some reason, through all the little sorrows of the last few months, tears have not come for me, and yesterday was no different. How I long for tears, but my eyes are like deserts, instead re-routing all the anxieties in my life to the pit of my stomach.

Wait listed is not a no, I know that. I need this so badly though, I want to cling to it like a life raft when the gray walls begin to close in on me! I need a place in my life where intellect, creativity and passion can take me out of this waiting room, help me soar above it and see it as merely a tiny piece of my world, not the hulking megalith that stands before me now. But it is not a no. I will move forward as though it WILL happen. There is always a sweetness to painful longing, it is the knowledge that you have found something to desperately desire, kind of like being in love.

Perhaps it is not the room but the season. Winter is a gray bitch indeed. For now I will cling to my sweet distractions, continue to paint-on a smile and pray for the warm sun of springs yet to come.

Me and my Words

My mind has been filled with a tempest of thoughts lately; words begging, demanding to escape. Despite their clawing at me from within, I have merely been able to jot down notes, compose queries in my mind and I lay awake in bed. The knot in my stomach should begin to loosen and I release these tortuous thoughts, lay them to rest on paper. At least I hope so. There are so many, the question is where to begin. Is it with the growtesc nature of man? The drab gray of my professional life which I desperately try to add color to? The sweet melancholy of longing?

Well, New York in all her wisdom, has chosen to strand me here alone in my apartment. The impending blizzard dashing any hopes of the sweet distraction of my EWI event. I am here, just me and my words, and all the time to put them down.