a woman in crisis

i have not made many stupid, spontaneous decisions in my life.

but in the last two days i have made two extremely uncharacteristic, insanely stupid, totally crazy decisions. old me is looking at this current me, shaking her head and judging her harshly for putting herself at risk, for taking so many chances, for being so foolhardy with things like her body, her heart, her dignity, her sense of self-worth, her sense of hope. i feel so alarmed by this person i am becoming.

all in an effort to try to forget this consuming sadness that creeps over me more and more each day.

so much energy spent to lose myself in small moments where i don't remember how sad and lost i feel. but then i emerge from those moments feeling even shittier and more aware of everything, a sinking hole i will never emerge from as each day brings new depths to this despair.

----

ETA:
i know that some of this is due, in large part, to the fact that facebook has made it perpetually impossible to avoid seeing Ben's stupid face on my computer every day, particularly since he has taken to cavorting with women and friends of ours/mine/his so that i'm attacked from multiple angles, multiple times a day and reminded: he is moving on, he is seeing other people, you are a forgotten memory to him, he is happy and you are not.

these daily attacks on my fragile sense of recovery have had the following effects: profuse sweating, a nauseous feeling that rises from the bottom of my stomach and wraps around my heart and causes my heart to pound so hard i think it might kill me, a swimming dizziness in my head that i can only explain as all the tears that won't come out drowning my brain... i feel like i'm being torn down the middle, my skin ripped open and my insides turned to dust and tossed to the wind... like i'm being erased, that everything i cared so much about for the last 7 years mattered to no one but me, that i lived a silly dream and as i get closer to waking up from it more and more details are falling away, unable to be recovered.

get with the program!

of all the frustrating things to be upset about post-breakup, here's one i never expected:


my phone must have an algorithm for frequently used words, because every time i type "been" it auto-inserts "Ben" instead. a source of endless daily sadness. if i can stop myself from thinking about him, my phone will unforgivingly, unfailingly remind me when i least need it.

foiled by technology, again!

the world forgetting by the world forgot

i tried to avoid watching eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, but couldn't help myself. Watching little clips of it on YouTube, bawling my eyes out, which hurts extra much because I was in a bike accident today, flipped over my handle bars because I only got a set of front brakes, and hit my eye socket real hard on the handle bar on my way down.

Watching clips made me realize the process of forgetting, viciously forcing my brain to try to forget how much this hurts, trying to forget how angry and sad I feel in the wake of things. I realized the process has begun, we are forgotten to each other. Memories pushed away. It made me so sad, the thought of all these stories we piled up over the years, now disappeared to where? Two strangers who fell in love, now strangers again. Worse than strangers, because we are actively purposefully trying to remove ourselves from each other. It feels like killing someone, removing the evidence of their existence, the act of forgetting them like stabbing them in the heart until their heart stops and you can make them disappear.

I'm lying in bed crying, my throat sore from a cold, my head throbbing from being bonked. I can't help thinking for a moment I'm back in L.A., in our old apartment, Ben lying next to me in the dark, comforting me thru all the pain. Remembering how it felt to have all that pain and aching washed away from you by someone you loved, who loved you. How we once were that for each other.

I made the mistake of calling him to try to tell him this, how I'm scared of losing all of it, of letting go of the happy memories, because so much of life is tied up with it. Days spent on the beach, by the sea, in the sun, so many memories of being happy and young and feeling unafraid. I'm afraid to forget completely, even though I feel it happening. I want to forget, but am scared to lose it all.

singing in the rain

it's been storming a lot the last few days. trees torn out by the roots all over town.

i've unfortunately been caught outside during every single one of these storms. i can't seem to learn my lesson, with relationships or with the weather. i'm stubborn, i do what i want.

i've been getting back into music again, listening to a lot of really great records, bought some new stuff at a used vinyl shop before the torrential downpour, and playing some music myself. trying to pass the time productively while i figure out next steps. the best part of this is that it reminds me i love creating things and really enjoy making music. i haven't done much of that lately... i guess one thing i refused to admit to myself was that i really hated ben's singing... boy couldn't sing a note in tune to save his life. would literally make me cringe. he was great at guitar, but had no rhythm. (sorry, cruel words, but the guy's a jerk. and his singing really is awful). so my singing is a little shaky from lack of practice, but it's nice to find a voice again and the space to let it out. i've been playing so much ukulele/guitar that my left fingertips have completely calloused over and turned numb. never has not feeling felt so good. if only i could say the same for my heart.

hope you enjoy listening as much as i enjoyed learning them.

a Rihanna cover on the ukulele:

and if you love Sam Cooke as much as i do, watch an improved rendition below!

Stay With Me

another entry in my growing ukulele/guitar repertoire: a cover of Sam Smith's "Stay With Me"

if you're not familiar with Sam Smith, he's great. his cover of Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know" is so heartwrenchingly good that i feel compelled to post it here.

emotional archaeology

i've been slowly curating a cheering up, emotionally cathartic, half dance/half trance playlist to help me thru the stormy confusion of feelings i'm in. and today i decided i'd share it, since good music is always in need of sharing. and i can't think of anything that would make me happier right now than having others listening to this with me and having little secret/not-so-secret angry happy dance parties across the globe together.

the title of this ever-growing playlist is "cruel summer." (because what is crueller than surviving the winter and making it to summer and then having your best friend/partner leave you on a whim... summer should be for life and exploring and adventure and he ripped a hole in my sail. spending the days depressed and crying inside when the sun is so bright and hopeful outside... that is cruel existence in its real-est).

the playlist was first named "this moment," but i realized that "this" moment was always changing and i shouldn't confine myself to living in "this" moment forever. this sadness will fade, this anger will pass, i will grow out of it and the music will change to fit new moods, and the playlist, like emotional artifacts, will chart my progress. emotional archaeology. i will come back to this one day and laugh at how far i've come.

already i see the way this playlist builds a story of the last few months. sadness in the beginning, a begging feeling of preservation, some moments of denial that seeped into anger, easing now into acceptance and filling the gaps with a certain strength that comes from knowing everything will be alright, you're better without him.

"falling swiftly thru layers of memory, drowning in and out of love"

defying gravity

nothing makes me feel more empowered than doing what seems physically impossible. no better way to remind yourself of your inner strength than mastering an arm balance.

get into this from eagle pose to give yourself an extra boost of confidence.

life is too short to waste any more of it on you

i finally told my parents about what happened. they were amazingly supportive, clear-headed and wise. i don't know why i expected any differently.

the best advice they could have given me was this: life is too short to be unhappy and life is too precious to let bad people break you down and make you feel less worthy of happiness than you are. forget it like a bad dream and move on. you owe it to yourself to fight for what's yours, for the happiness you deserve.

god, i love them.

and they are so right. onward! upward! the past is behind me and i'm not looking back.

all summer long

security blanket:home :: ex-boyfriend's t-shirt:love

this series of portraits documents women wearing their ex-lovers' shirts and talking about the experience of love (and love lost). i feel like i'm looking into a mirror on my own experience. it helps to know i'm not alone and i'm not a weirdo for doing this too. so much comfort in the feel of that soft fabric against my cheek, even if there isn't a person behind it any more.

i sleep with my ex-partner's shirt beside my pillow. i nuzzle into it at night when i start to feel sad, when my awareness shakes me awake and reminds me again that i'm alone. for some reason just the smell of him helps me feel better, puts me in a place of calm and comfort, makes me think of being in california with nothing but his old shirt in bed with me. he started it; the first time he went away to Turkey, he hid it under my pillow for me to find later, and i slept in bed every night with it wrapped around me, the sleeves around my waist or draped over my shoulders, and somehow through all of that it never stopped smelling like ben, maybe it smelled even better over time because it smelled like us. even though the shirt i have isn't one he left for me, i keep it close by as a reminder: you weren't dreaming, he loved you once, he lived here with you and now he's gone. you were a we once. you loved each other. this is all that remains.

"It feels like a flag I can’t stop flying. It comforts me in the meantime between the spaces. It’s just a rag I turned into a promise that he would never leave. Some sort of common thread between us. Part of me wants to rip it off. So many what-ifs and could’ve-beens and should’ve-beens and never-weres. It’s just a shirt. It’s been there for me when people haven’t. It makes me feel childish and taken care of. It makes me look a little stronger than I am. As long as I hold onto the shirt she is never completely out of my life. I’d wear it every day if I could. As much as you build a house around it or put a ring on it it’s all still temporary and dissolving so all you can do is love it. Even if it’s painful we need to hold onto something. Proof that we did it. That we went through it. That we learned something. That our hearts were broken. That we were loved. That we weren’t loved enough. For someone I won’t be something that will be so easily shed."

i will not be erased

you do what you can to erase me from yr life
as if i never existed

you made a playlist for us once
i found it on spotify one night and cried tears of relief and joy
thinking we had one chance left
songs curated for our every moment
tender moments we shared
and delicate hopes for the future

when i asked you if it was meant for us you said yes
SLBK
our initials side by side

today i find the playlist changed
the songs are the same
but the name is now
SLOW DOWN

and i imagine you making love to yr new girlfriend
pretending like that list was for her
you forgetting all about me
these things have no value to you
but meant everything to me

here is that playlist now.
i will never forget.
you loved me once.
and i will not be forgotten.

point of contact

i.
you call me for no reason today
    i was in a meeting
check my phone and see yr face

yr message says you're calling to see how i'm doing
   ask me to call you back

my heart sinks
    boils in my stomach
    my throat tightens
    my face scowls
    my body shakes + sweats

not because i'm excited to hear from you
you calling must mean you have something to say
and i don't want to find out what it is



ii.
you don't get to check in on me like you're doing me a favor
like you're such a noble dude
like you're doing a good thing
walking out and hurting me in the deepest possible way
and then call me in a few days as if that will make things better
you don't get to break into my life again whenever you like

you don't get to ask me how i'm doing
pretending like you care again
when yesterday you acted like i'd done the worst possible thing
by falling in love with you

you don't get to check up on me
when you're the reason i am this way
and you're the reason i'm here
and you're the reason i'll never the be same

you don't get to call whenever you like
and disrupt my world
just as i'm learning to live without you

you don't get to feel better by patronizing me
as if all i've needed is to hear from you
FUCK YOU

because you're not helping
and though i still love you
i kinda hope you rot

sea of love

i've sometimes wondered how i would handle something like a life-shattering, emotionally devastating break-up if i had to (obviously, i didn't think about it often enough, or i might've been better prepared. alas, some things you can just never anticipate).

in the past when i've grieved the loss of loved ones, i've shut myself down, unable to find the motivation to move forward in productive ways. i always beat myself up over things, whether it was the time i got fired from a job, or the time my first boyfriend cheated on me, i've always put myself at the center of that blame ("you weren't smart enough," "you didn't work hard enough to make things work," "you're not pretty or interesting, why would anyone ever want to be with you?") or found ways to blame others if i was feeling generous to myself that day ("the management at that organization was a mess, those people were jerks!", "the lady my dude was cheating with is ugly, why would he want to be with her?") neither one of these approaches is healthy. but we do strange things when we grieve.

when my uncle passed away, i blamed myself, somehow, for it happening. i beat myself up over not visiting him in San Francisco just months prior, thought maybe if i had, the entire course of time would have been changed and he would still be alive. when i got the call that he was in the hospital, i was teaching a class full of irate special ed students in South Central LA and i put the phone back in my pocket, in casual disbelief, and somehow didn't let things sink in enough to phase me (he died that night, when i was in grad classes. when i got the call, it suddenly sunk in so much that i felt myself sinking... tears leapt to my eyes, i couldn't breathe, i ran out of the classroom and got in my car, drove thru the night sky wailing and begging for everything to go back. i called cousins and cried while they told me they loved me. i just stuttered in my stupid grief. i couldn't tell them that more than anything else, i felt guilt, i felt i had caused this to happen... i had believed so much in my world continuing uninterrupted that the universe had to send me a dramatic sign to WAKE THE FUCK UP).

when my grandma passed away, i did the same thing. i thought about the call i had with her just a few days ago, how i was happy to talk to her but also eager to get off the phone so i could go back to whatever stupid selfish thing i was doing at the time (probably studying or writing a paper, or more likely pretending to do that while i wasted time on the internet). i called her every week and this week she was more talkative than usual, and took the time to tell me she loved me, how much i meant to her, and how proud she was of me. i took those words in, but didn't let them resonate the way they should. when she passed away i thought about that conversation, and still do quite frequently, as my grandmother knowing her time was coming and needing to say everything she needed to say to me. how selfish and self-absorbed i had been at the time to not appreciate and be there with her in that moment... it is still a guilt and a pain i hold tight to my heart to this day. i did so many little things to show her i loved her, but when it counted i wasn't there for her in the way i should have. if i could have that moment back, if i could have a handful of moments back, would everything be changed? could my love for her and for my uncle have saved them if i only let them feel it a little more? i had the belief that my love was magical enough to protect all those around me.

i carry so much guilt and sadness with me every single day. all the ways i've wronged my loved ones and all the times i've been the recipient of love and taken it for granted. when i stop too long to think about it i get sick and angry at myself, and in the strange way of grief, wish i could bargain my life, my youth, my health for the chance to bring any of those people back.

i spend a lot of energy thinking about this. in the last few weeks, as i've had to adjust to losing my job and losing the love of my life in the space of a month of each other, i've wondered every day if this is all somehow my fault. if i deserved this. if somehow the universe designed this as a punishment for something terrible i did.

every morning is a battle between two forces inside my head. one that wants to punish myself, to see myself fail, to never be happy again, to never rise out of bed, to shrivel and die and be forgotten and disappear. the other wants to fight, to prosper, to create and reach out and risk it all because there isn't a lot left to lose. i am never sure each morning which one it's gonna be. and throughout the day those competing forces still rage on inside me. there are moments when something reminds me how bad everything feels right now and i shrink into a ball, just break down inside myself and if i don't cry, i stare into the distance and see nothing.

but i am still here because of a few small things that mean everything. at my lowest, darkest point, when i could feel myself suffocating under sadness and grasping for a way out, i had a friend who was able to help me. i'll never forget this moment because he saved me. he gave me what i needed before i even realized i needed it. he told me it's ok to grieve, to be upset, to feel torn down. but never, ever, should i blame myself for any of it. people do cruel things to one another but we cannot be cruel to ourselves. even if i forget that, he reminded me that there are people who love me. and even though there are so many people who hurt us, who take us for granted, who make us feel small and invisible and insignificant, there are more who love us, for whom we are the world, who would be devastated if we disappeared.

in the last few weeks i'd beaten myself up so much i stopped eating, stopped sleeping, and stopped feeling anything besides sadness. i got good at smiling in public, but mostly so i wouldn't make people around me uncomfortable. my family has had the worst of it -- i haven't told them about my job or relationship problems because i don't want them to worry about me. for my burdens to be their burdens. but they can tell. my dad told me on the phone as he waited for his flight to London that he worries about me because i haven't sounded happy in a long time. we're having a family reunion in a week and i'm worried about bringing all this sadness with me. he told me he loved me, so emphatically, that i would have cried if i had any tears left in the tank.

my cousin said it best: "remember that there are people who love you. put one foot in front of the other until you get yourself out of this."

remembering in this helps me to lift my head and get out of bed every day. if not for myself right now, then for the people who love me, who believe i can do great things.

since things started falling apart, i've been slowly finding my feet again and managing to put them one step at a time towards the future: i started playing guitar and ukulele again (as evidenced by my videos), i've started reading and writing again (as seen on this blog + got a public library card!), i've found new communities and causes to dedicate my small efforts to (joined a community bike repair group that fixes bikes for low income youth, did a 50 mile bike ride in support of programs for homeless individuals in Syracuse, will be joining weekly rides with the same homeless advocacy group, trying to find opportunities to work with inner city youth on violence prevention, thinking about starting a cycling group for women and victims of assault and abuse). and even though it once felt impossible to love again, to open my heart to another person and risk being hurt again, it hasn't stopped me from loving my friends and family... if there is anyone in the world deserving of it, it's the people who have been there for me when i needed them most and asked nothing in return, who have seen my sadness and met it not with revulsion or annoyance (as my former partner did), but with patient, steady, everlasting love.

this is not a break-up song, but a thank you song. a song of thanks for showing me the sea of love i am immersed in.

habits of the heart

i go about my day
       wandering aimlessly
             i realize how i carried you in my pocket all these years (a phone call away)
                 and now you're not

it feels the way it did in California
     sun shining, chill breeze
i'd wander around alone
       collecting thoughts and images
       gathering stories from the day
       to share with you later

a habit that hurts when i return to the apartment later
          and remember you're not there
          and it's no longer ok
          to call you with a moment's forgetting
                                  a moment's little happiness
                                  the day's small news

like, i took a bike ride today
       a small bird alighted next to me as i sat in the grass
       the lake was shining as if you were there next to me and
       i miss you

solstice

it's the longest day of the year
     a horrible day to be alone
          and missing someone

i'm starting this summer
        and the rest of this life
                 without you

there are more minutes than usual to while away
more minutes than usual to think about you
more time than i want to spend fumbling thru and waiting
more moments than a usual day to be reminded
                  i'm without you

i think of what we'd do in our other life
       pack up a picnic, sit and listen to the whispers of the lake
       ride bikes, wind like fingers thru our hair
       lay in the tall grass and feel the comfort of sun our face
fall asleep later and thank each other for a good day
wake up happy to see the sun rise again

when you're happy the extra time is a gift
         you want to stretch those moments out forever
         time is never enough
         (we used to feel this way)
when you're unhappy the longest day is a torture
        a sentence to be painfully waited out
        time is your punishment
        (this is how i feel now)

let this be a warning

"Don't let this fading summer pass you by...
you thought that you could outrun sorrow
Take your own advice
This thunder and lightning gets you rain" 

as if a dream

i imagine other worlds
            parallel existences
      somewhere out there
             there's a version of us
                   that gets to stay together
                   that finds a way to happiness
     somewhere out there
              i'm still holding your hand at night
               drifting thru sleep
                       like otters in the sea

maybe that can be my life one day
       and i'll wake up
            and this version can disappear
                       as if a dream

a poem for the last day of our shared life

I.
feeling like i've been torn apart
  a train running thru my heart
  crushing everything on the tracks
  turning me into pulp

II.
i want to write down every memory before
    i forget
before it's washed away
    before it becomes too gone
                                   too the past
                                      too lost
                                        too never again

these are the last times i will ever think
   about you

III.
so much emptiness around me
   the room divided in half -- yours and mine
    but now you're gone
  half an empty table
     half an empty dresser
             half an empty bed
         a limp and empty pillow case where your head used to lay beside mine

your coats are gone
    your shoes too
     all the little stray hairs cleaned up
           and scattered somewhere else

IV.
i always thought when we left here we'd be leaving together

packing up our stuff for a new adventure

but you leave without me to start your life
   and i remain in this half empty apartment
                 alone
      every corner a memory
         every moment a ghost

i never prepared myself to be abandoned like this
  i don't have bags packed for this trip

V.
the left and leaving feeling
       the reality of loss
           you don't feel the finality until you see the physical emptiness
suddenly surrounding you

VI.
i watch as you pick thru things and
   stuff them in boxes
   what you choose to keep
     and what you leave behind

notes you wrote me, i find them crumpled
   and discarded in the recycling
  like small helpless birds with broken wings
    i pick them up and unfurl them in my palm

my heart sinks when i find those pieces of us thrown away

a picture of me from Occupy, left on the refrigerator --
    you don't want me coming with you

pictures of us in California --
    a fortune cookie message we somehow got twice
        "Your dearest wish will come true"
    you pinned them to the pictures above our desk
you left those behind too

in one of the pictures, we walk towards each other
    thru a maze of sea stones --
    forever frozen in time, never reaching each other before our moment ends
stuck in the amber of time

scraps of napkin with tape on the back
   a poem we wrote together
   where did this emerge from?
   you kept it safe all these years, only to leave it behind now like trash

a book of pictures -- The Story of Us --
  our happiest memories, a gift i made you
  that gets left behind too

the scarf i made you for Christmas one year,
the only thing i've ever knit, you took that
i imagine you wearing it around your face years from now, not even remembering me
     or maybe you discard it in a Goodwill pile when you wear out its fibers at last

Mystery Girl

heard this song on NPR the other day in a story on Roy Orbison and it's been stuck in my head since. here's my ukulele attempt at it:

i should leave it alone but you're not right

today brings: more acoustic distractions from the pain i can't stop feeling. one day i'll be able to write and speak with clarity the sorrow of love lost, will be able to give shape to my pain and then discard it like a husk. but until then, these songs are all i have to offer for utterance.

edited to add:
a few hours after the initial video was posted, i rode my bike to the lake and i cried as i stared out across the water. when i got home, my longtime partner and former fiance packed up his stuff and moved out. empty bookshelves and half an apartment vacated... literally holes all around me where a person i loved used to fill it. in the trash i found a note he'd written me last christmas: "Happy Christmas, Baby! Want to color and/or read together tonight? I love you so much, Your Baby Boy" -- so much lost in a year. and he took the activist coloring books he gave me as presents with him. he left other things... frames of us on the floor, a copy of a book i gave him when we first started dating, piles of laundry. such an empty hollow feeling. right now i don't know how i'll ever not be sad, this feeling seems like it was built to last.

so i cried and i cried and when i had no tears left i tried this song again and this is what came of it: