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I’m back from my watery, sunny, rum spiked adventures down south. Six nights, seven days of sun, boats, and island hopping around the US and British Virgin Islands. Specific locations visited include St. John, Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Jost Van Dyke, … Continue reading
I’m wearing my three inch, open toe, Kate Spade patent leather stilettos around the apartment because I can. I’m listening to Queen’s greatest hits because I can. I don’t give a fuck that the Giants just won the Super Bowl. Maybe this is what it feels like to bottom out, as Ann Perkins similarly experienced in Season 3 of Parks and Recreation after Chris Traeger dumped her. While I’m not spending $700 on candles, I have been buying lots of clothes from Ann Taylor Loft and jonesing after very impractical purchases. Case in point, I really want an occasion to buy this skirt. It matches my Kate Spade shoes! Or how about this dress! I’ve also been buying lots of lingerie in the event that dating leads to more.
Someone needs to save me.
This is what happens when I spend two days by myself.
Whee! Shopping!
Oh. OH! I just remembered. I’m going to St. John and Tortola in two weeks! Whee!
Maybe shopping and Caribbean travel is my antidote to my burgeoning existential crisis?
Edit: This post may have been influenced by Prosecco, Queen, and too much alone time.
I’ve been having a lot of thoughts lately. Big, soul searching thoughts. In many ways it wasn’t until K moved out in early December that I was able to move on, to grieve, and go through an emotional process that was otherwise delayed.
I’m not going to lie — it’s been tough. Just when I begin to think I’m gaining on new ground, I cycle back into the grief that claws at my heart and forces me to take a hard look at reality. Who am I? What do I want? Where am I going. Just your normal existential crap.
Bear with me, reader. As much as it pains me to wallow, wallow I must. For now. Continue reading
And here we sit
On the nature of that which is coming
New light
New ground
New love
And this is my psalm to you, oh dear reader
In luxurious space we await
To heed that which will come
This new life
New love
New wants
A new ocean for us to cross
Too much has been assumed.
Let it unfold.
K moved out on December 5th. In many ways I was ready for it, tired of the in between and her growing pile of boxes. In other ways I was surprised by the amount of emotion I felt, at times overwhelming, when I had so naively thought I had moved on. My therapist likened it to repeatedly visiting a terminal patient in the hospital. It is only when the patient dies after months of waiting that you can finally grieve. Ready as I was to move on, there was a shock in coming home that evening and feeling her void like a punch in the gut. My loss was no longer abstract. And I felt a tangible sense of emptiness.
In the days afterward I struggled to fill the space, buying a new rug and moving this here and that there, but the expansion felt strange. I went to parties that I may have not gone to before and met new people outside of my social circle. My outward steps were shaky like that of a toddler. Then again, all of these feelings are rather normal. Just as it’s normal to feel down this time of year, my recent separation all the more acute. Continue reading
You know that feeling you get when you’re out, doing an errand, and you look across the street and see your ex with her new girlfriend? Yeah, that happened to me. Yesterday to be exact. In Park Slope. I don’t even live in Park Slope.
I’d like to think that I held my head up high, waved hello to K, and looked Jess powerfully in the eye, asserting my authority. But no, snapping out of my 10 seconds of panic and paralysis, I scampered up 5th Avenue before they could see me in something akin to a fugue state. Continue reading
In astrology, the Scorpio archetype, one of twelve archetypes describing the stages in the human experience, takes us by the hand and leads us into the underworld. Sometimes we are snatched, just as Persephone was in Greek mythology, and brought down into the dark against our will where we are irrevocably changed. Therefore the sign of Scorpio speaks to any experience that transforms us through the shadow, through death and powerful rebirth.
I mention this because today is the New Moon and it falls in the sign of Scorpio. My experience with this archetype expressed via a lunar lens is that of emotional discomfort. Indeed Scorpio speaks to those experiences that are emotionally uncomfortable — sex, death, and soul bearing intimacy. It likes to pick at the scabs and pull out all the thoughts we’ve stashed away in the dark recesses of our psyche. And Scorpio’s sole function is to get us to purge that which no longer serves us just as death naturally transmutes the physical body into another substance. Continue reading
I had a rather abrupt realization the other day. I love being single.
The thing about healing after heartbreak is that it isn’t a binary state — one day you’re sad, the next day happy. No, each day is an incremental journey towards the other side, towards acceptance and integration. Some days you slide a little, but there comes a day when you realize you’re in new territory. Continue reading
In the month since I last wrote, I’ve been adjusting to my new routine of separateness. On one hand I relish waking up alone, stretching out under the covers, or simple things like home-cooked meals that no longer require extensive negotiation. I hadn’t realized how much I missed my freedom. But on the other hand I miss having the physical presence of someone close, the intimate moments and language that only a couple can have, and, yes, I miss waking up next to the person I love.
K is still around and still living with me, but our time together is abbreviated. Two or three nights a week she’s out with Jess and sleeps over her place, the other nights she’s either at home with me or I’m out or she’s working late at her second job. For now this arrangement works, giving us ample room to carve out new lives. I’m not angry or resentful, just eager to be in a space that feels less transitional, yet anxious about what that life will look like. Continue reading
Earthquakes come in two forms.
There are, of course, the literal ones, the geological varieties that cause multi-story buildings to sway as if a branch in the wind. Then there are the metaphorical ones — earthquakes wrought by a buildup of wrenching emotional tension and heretofore unexpressed grief; earthquakes that threaten to rip apart the psychic landscape with their undeniable power; and earthquakes that cause an illusion to slip, laying reality bare. Continue reading