Kentucky Building

I was in Paducah, by myself, and some friendly Kentucky boy tried to sit down next to me while I was trying to write.  I politely turned him down, and he sat on the next bench down, furiously texting someone and occasionally glancing at me. This derailed my planned Deep Contemplative Thoughts and led to me becoming a 13-year-old, writing in her diary about who likes me and who doesn't.

When did my heart stop growing?  Was it at 11 when my parents divorced?  At 13 when I was so deep in despair that I wanted to die?  At 18 when my first serious love broke up with me?  I picture my heart in my mind as a solid foundation, incomplete but well made, with a random patchwork of rooms and floors stacked on top.  Dead end hallways.  Windows on brick walls.  Rooms with no doors.  Some living spaces are bright, clean and full of air.  More often, walls are patched over with crumbling plaster and duct tape.  Bit of a mess back there -- under construction with nails sticking up and tools scattered all over the floor.

The foundation is strong, but this feels like a gut rehab.  I only hope I have the energy to see it through.

My Kind of Man

Yesterday a man asked me what kind of men I am attracted to.  I found that very difficult to answer, but now a picture is beginning to emerge.  I am drawn to men with anxiety issues.  Men like the one who asked the question.  Men like the Ex.

I don't know where this began.  With the ex?  Before the ex?  Who knows.  S says I have a caregiver personality, that that is who I am.  I question whether I should even try to change that.  Is it really so unhealthy?  Is there a way to make it more healthy?

This morning I got a text message from the man who asked the question, saying he was feeling "crushed under the weight of loneliness."  I feel for him in his anxiety, but it is not my task to make him feel better.  He says I am working through something psychological and I am, but so is he.  He says he feels calmer focusing on others -- and I think that is because then he isn't focused on himself. I have compassion for his suffering.  I will try to help as far as I am asked and able, but the digging and remodeling is his alone.  Just as mine is mine alone.

Couldn't these be thoughts from a healthy caregiver?  Couldn't this be a glimpse that there is such a thing as just anxious enough, just nurturing enough?

The Most Awkward Dinner of All Time

It was too soon, is all.  Before he moved out, we went out to dinner and talked about a settlement.  It was cozy and friendly and almost comfortable.  And there was wine.  So we went back home to the same place.  I sat n the couch and he sat in a chair, and through my wine haze I talked about how we could still go kayaking together.  Or learn how to windsurf.

A few weeks later he moved out.

A few weeks after that, he wanted to talk about the settlement again, to finalize the details.  He wants to meet over dinner.  My tiny little sane inner voice said "No," but the he suggested a good vegan restaurant I'd never been to.  Bribed me with food.  As it got closer, I got nervous.  My aunt said, gently, that maybe it was too date-like a setting.  Little sane inner voice agreed.  But, vegan food.  So I went.

And I had The Worst Dinner of My Life.  As soon as I saw him, I wanted to run out.  Everything about the place became oppressive, from the lights with no visible source, to the black-clad serving staff with their fucking friendly smiles and perfect vegan skin.  I went into defense mode, saying right away that I had to teach early, so couldn't stay long.  (Subtext: no wine and no friendliness.) We looked at the menu.  We talked business.  We ordered food.  We finished our business talk.

Then we were left looking at each other before our food even came.  He asked me, plaintively, I thought, if I would even have a glass of wine.  No.  I just wanted to run away.  His appetizer came.  He offered me some.  I said no.  (Truly, I felt like I would vomit if I swallowed anything other than water.) He offered again.  I said no.  He begged me to just take a little.  I let him put some on my plate, and I pulled it apart with my fork.

Our food came.  I choked down my salad, grateful that I had the foresight to not order anything else.  We finished eating.  The server, poor woman, entered the veil of awkwardness and whisked our plates away.  She packaged up his leftovers in the speed of light.  I think we were giving her wrinkles with the tension.

He offered his leftovers, desperately.  I said no.  He offered to settle up so I could leave and catch the train, and I was up and out the door practically before he finished his sentence.   Just another woman sob-walking through the West Loop.  Nothing to see.

And I spent the next few weeks trying to make it up to little sane inner voice, who somehow knows.  Always.

Stuff is Nonsense

Well, he finally came over to get the rest of his stuff.  He claims to have it all.  All the CDs, everything he wanted.  He did take away everything I set aside for him, even the crappy Christmas lights I didn't want to look at any more.  For that I am grateful.

On the day,  even though I was on vacation miles away, I was destroying my karma.  I spent an hour reading about accepting, non-grasping, and having patience with those who hurt you.  Then I picked up my journal, and I wrote this:

"I hope he sobs so hard he can't put the tape straight on his pathetic little boxes of stuff.  I hope he picks up something and remembers something I said about it.  Something clever, funny, tender, simple.  Something you don't remember but can never forget.  And I hope his heart breaks."

It's a good thing I don't believe in reincarnation, because I'm sure that little outburst pushed me towards the cockroach scale.  I wrote it out, took a deep breath, did some stretches and had a solid, dreamless night's sleep.

When I got home and started looking around, I saw that he didn't really take everything.  He left this. Dance party in 3 . . . 2. . .  1 . . . .