Looking into a scene; Day 9 of Writing 101

You know the most important thing to do if you want to be a writer? Practice. And yet, you get home from a long day at work and you know the last thing you want to do is sit down and write. Me too. Until I signed up for Writing 101 – WordPress will sent a prompt every weekday for the month of April.

Day Nine: “A man and a woman walk through the park together, holding hands. They pass an old woman sitting on a bench. The old woman is knitting a small, red sweater. The man begins to cry. Write this scene.”

It wasn’t so much the coarse, red wool that the woman was methodically moving between her fingers and the long, wooden knitting needles that got to him, but her fingers themselves.

He and his wife were walking through the park, when the nostalgia over took him. The memory of his grandmother’s gnarled fingers wrapped around a wooden spoon with the smells of garlic, onion and tomato surround her. Her fingers pulling the covers up to his chin as she tucked him into bed as a child. Her fingers operating the knitting needles into the click-clicking sound as she created him a bright blue scarf.

Her fingers plucking at his sleeve as he sat on the edge of her hospital bed. The pair of them, sitting in silence watching the liquid-chemical concoction running down from the IV stand in its sterilized rubber tubing; the chemotherapy, which was supposed to cure her.

It’s didn’t work. She fought for eight months, but in the end the cancer won. And those finger would never again grasp his hand with pride as she looked at her grandson’s accomplishments.

The man stopped in front of the old woman on the bench. His wife placed her other hand over his and gently tugged him along.

He followed her across the park towards the memorial garden in the distance to say a final goodbye.

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Making something good from the bad

My brother has resurfaced = good

His girlfriend has to leave the country before her visitor visa expires = bad

She flew out today.

I wish I could protect him from the hurt he is going to feel tomorrow morning when he wakes up, in their bed, alone.

However, he is prepared for this and is already making plans to have the experience help him grow. It’s a family trait, making the best out of adversity – the breakup that kicked off my being a runner is just one example.

My brother says yoga to help him find calmness in his life (and increased flexibility), music for sanity (and income) and every odd (or regular) job he can work to save the money so they can visit each other. In a lot of ways I’m excited for him, if he is able to stick to his plan and use the experience of being apart from someone you love, to help him grow, he will be an even more incredible person than he is now.

And the really good news for him is he plans to stay on the ocean for now. This is good because he (like me) is of the ocean and when everything else in life makes you feel terrible, the ocean brings back that feeling of life.

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Two kinds of heartbreak: when memories catch up

That trip home has really got me thinking …

Today I had to do a lot of travel for work, so, unfortunately, I had lots of time to think.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of heartbreak.

One hurts so badly when it happens that breathing is difficult, you can’t eat, or sleep and the pain is acute. It’s this breakup that made me start this blog. This kind of heart break makes you feel like you will never recover, but eventually you do, and when it comes back, it’s a short, sharp pain and goes away again.

The other doesn’t hurt so badly at first. You know the decision is the right one and going separate ways is better for both of you. But, this is the one that burns in the back of your brain, catching you when you have moments of weakness, making you wonder if you have made the right decision.

I’ve experienced both and neither is that good.

It’s the second one that I experienced this past weekend though. That guy has moved on, and 90 per cent of me is so happy for him, we continue to be friends and the new girl is lovely. I know he isn’t the one for me and having him as my friend is more important than him as a boyfriend ever could be. However, when I visit home, all those places we were together, the places we walked, drove, visited, the events we attended, all those memories come flooding back and I forget all the reasons why it wouldn’t work.

Then I pack up and fly away again and wait for this burning in the back of the brain to recede once again as I look forward to making new memories with new and incredible people.

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Being honest with your feelings: Damned if you do and damned if you don’t

I never told the guy from the international incident, two years ago now, how much I cared, how much I loved him.

Well, not until the day we split, then amongst my tears I managed to gasp out, “but I love you.” Like that would somehow change the current situation – I’ll admit that it wasn’t mine finest hour.

In that case, I had kept my mouth shut to protect myself, to not seem clingy, to not get hurt. Right, that was an epic fail.

This time I decided would be different, I was open. I told the professional that I liked him – I mean not in some creepy, stalker, I’ve-known-you-only-three-weeks-but-I-love-you-and-want-to-have-your-babies way. But, when the opportunity came up, I made sure he knew how I felt.

“Hey, I know you’ve been busy, but I like you and wish we could hang out more often.”

To which, he said, “I agree.”

I thought that by applying a lesson learned from the first experience, I wouldn’t get hurt this time. This also has not worked.

I’m a pretty smart girl, but I’m clearly missing something. It seems that I’m dammed if I do and damned if I don’t. Or maybe I just really have bad taste in men.

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Seven stages of dealing with a breakup

There are seven stages of dealing with loss – on the list is negotiating, denial, anger.

And the rest include things variations of sad before the recovery stages that end with acceptance and moving on.

I’ve had company for the past few days, so I’ve been able to ignore how I’ve been feeling, it’s been just too busy, but now the company is gone and I’m on my own.

I believe this stage is called, depression, reflection and loneliness … not that I’m particularly sad, but I’m rather at a loss of what to do with myself.

I definitely prefer the anger stage.

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Open letter to another man to break my heart

When I gave you the choice to go, I meant it. It wasn’t a trick or a trap. You could have left and slept at your own house.

When I said if you stay, you had better mean it, not for five more minutes or five hours, but for five days, weeks, month or years. Stay until there is a reason to go. When I said if you stay, I’ll start to become attached, I wasn’t lying.

If it is the sex you were after, that’s okay; you don’t have to lie to me to get into my pants.

I said, “don’t stay because you feel you should, stay because you want to.” In fact, if some weird sense of moral guy obligations is what is keeping you in my bed, then I prefer you go – it doesn’t mean you can’t come back – it just gives me a fighting chance to protect my heart.

When you ask, “are you kicking me out,” and look horrified at the thought. When you realize I want you to stay and mean it. When you wrap your arms around me, tuck me in a close and go to sleep that way, you work your way into my heart.

This means you’ll hurt me when you leave. It’ll hurt me the next morning. It will hurt me all week when I wait to hear from you, and it will hurt me when you text me two weeks after you move away to say, “I can’t promise regular visits in person.”

Because of the choices you made and because of the things you said, I let you into my heart for the first time since I had my heart broken years ago, I believed I could have a real relationship. It wasn’t like you didn’t know you were moving … yet you said you wanted to stay just five more hours each time anyway. Of course I thought that meant you would want to continue to see me – texts, Skype, phone calls, airplanes, all of it.

However now you are gone and all I have left is a text freeing me to see other people, who I don’t want to see.

And now I write an open and anonymous letter on a blog, because it is all things I could never tell you in person, because we’ll likely never talk again.

Was I naïve to believe that you understood what I was saying, when I told you what would happen if you stayed? Or are you just kind of a jerk? If it’s the latter, which I truly believe it isn’t, I wish that next girl you meet a whole lot of luck and more of a chance than you gave me.

Sincerely,

The Girl

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The morning after; waking up after it’s over

Waking up this morning went exactly how I knew it would.

Eyes open sleepily, big streeeettttccchhh, yawn, enjoy the sun streaming in through the partially closed blinds and feel good for about three seconds and then that horrible, exhausted, crushing feeling.

It’s been a while since I felt this way – two-and-a-half-years ago really.

The good news is I have been though this once before, which means, unlike last time, I am prepared for the stages of losing someone you love. Strange, thinking a previous breakup as something good, but I think I can handle it better when I know what to expect.

The bad news is that it still hurts, when I stop to think that, again, someone I care about isn’t willing to wait or try to make a relationship work with me.

The good news is I know from previous experience that if someone isn’t willing to put the effort to make a relationship work now, it won’t work under the same conditions later. This protects me from all those not-so-helpful demi friends that will try to convince you that if I just keep in touch he’ll change.

The bad news is a little part of me thinks that maybe if I keep emailing him that he will realize that I’m awesome and worth waiting for.

The good news is a breakup is fantastic motivation for me. I will become a skinnier, prettier, tougher, more skilled, bad ass version of myself.

The whole experience also teaches me that I need to not have expectations. I had it in my head, I’d fly to see him, he’d fly to see me … er, or not. Those without expectations of others are not disappointed. I guess that  is another rule for living, if you just live and experience things as they come versus expecting them to happen in a certain way, you will be happier.

Too pragmatic? Well it’s this or curl up in a ball and cry.

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Here we go again — another breakup

I cannot catch a break when it comes to men.

After 10 days of thinking (and let’s be honest, telling all my friends/anyone who would listen) that The Professional and I were meant to be, that he was texting, that we fit so well together – it’s rare I find men taller than me, so I can tuck up against their shoulder when we walk – we had THE conversation.

“Don’t want to seem like I can promise regular visits in person, want to respect your space and choices to meet people that could make you happy … and not wanting to turn away people I may meet here sometime…”

Well, shit.

All the visions of a high-power couple traveling to see each other in their cities and going on vacation together instantly vanished.

Maybe, I’m reading that wrong, but largely it looks like, I’ll keep in touch with you until I think I have found something better, or at least more locally available. I’m pretty sure I can do better than that as an offer. Although some small part of me, hopes I am having a giant overreaction to a note that simply means, I cannot promise to be with you forever, but would like to keep in touch. If that’s the case, please let me know because I am about to start the whole process that launched blog all over again – yay heartbreak.

Puke.

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Eating with a Rebound … and his Girlfriend

When I was going through a breakup with the ex, my heart felt like it was ripped, still beating, out of my chest.

So when this older, attractive guy I know started paying me a lot of attention, I just drank it in. I was beautiful because I was tall, not in spite of it, he said.

We hung out, a lot, but we never did anything other than see movies and flirt because early on I learned he actually had a girlfriend. I then learned that I seemed to be the only girl in this small town not sleeping with him.

Anyway, as time has passed and I heal, I spend less and less time with him, but I did meet his girlfriend and see of similarities between us.

When then invited me to join them for a meal the other day, I accepted.  However I didn’t take me long to realize, she was head over heels in love in an asshole.

Something I hope people didn’t think when they saw me with my ex.

She doesn’t see that he cheats, or that he doesn’t love her. He tells her, but she doesn’t believe him.

That meal was among the most awkward in my life. I like her, but I don’t really know her. It’s not my place to say anything, but from where I was sitting, I can see she deserves so much better. My guess is she is so in love that she either doesn’t, or chooses not, to see his indiscretions.

I could hardly look at her, feeling like I was complicit in some great wrong against some who was in a position I could clearly see myself in. The evening was terrible.

In the best case scenario, she’d leave him and we could be friends … until that happens I’m keeping a significant distance from them both.

The whole event made me realize another rule for living: do not spend time with people who make you uncomfortable. Especially with my urge to do no harm and to do what’s right, it makes awkward situations even worse.

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Through Peaks and Valleys: Learning to be Okay with Me

This morning I woke up and was feeling exhausted.

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the fighting in Libya, the snow where I live, it’s all catching up with me. That’s the downside to a career in the media — you can’t escape the bad news.

I’m also back to being alone.

Whatever stress release my vacation allowed, whatever it let me forget about work, however it made me forget the lonely feeling, it’s all coming back.

It’s like when you stand at the edge of the ocean on a sandy beach and water rolls in and up to your ankles — you sink a little. Then the water rushes back past your feet as it is flows out to sea again. You can feel the water suck at your toes as you sink deeper into the sand and everything rushes away from you.

At the ocean it is a lovely feeling.

When it’s your life, it’s considerably less so.

But I hang on because I know as soon as the water has gone out, it comes rushing back.

My life is like that too. Just when I’m so bored or hurt or stressed or lonely that I’m worried about my ability to cope, all the good comes rushing back again.

I’ve always been like that, peaks of happiness and excitement followed by valleys of frustration and sadness. It’s never affected my ability to go forward with life, I go to work, out, to classes and meetings, but it can be a roller coaster and it can be exhausting.

Sometimes I think I should work to balance myself out, shave off those peaks to help fill the valleys.

It was my ex —well now he’s my ex, at the time he was my boyfriend — who suggested otherwise. He said I shouldn’t try to ease off or straighten out that path because, “it is the single most human thing I’ve experienced in a long time.”

It was good to hear that who I am doesn’t make me crazy in someone else’s eyes, because I kind of like me.

Thinking about those peaks and valleys helps me rationalize how upset I’ve gotten lately. With him I was the happiest I’ve ever been and until I learn to find that happiness on my own, then without him I’m going to be among the saddest.

But as time passes and I think about the things he said to me, I can take the value out of them and not just sadness or anger. Despite the damage that I feel has been done, I know he taught me a lot about myself and who I want to be. I want to be real and raw. I want to feel, experience and react to every little life throws at me, whether good or bad.

I may still be a ways away from better, but I am getting there and I always know the tide is on its way back in again.

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