these are the kinds of ridiculous things nic says to me that actually make me a little melty.
it resonates with me so much more than something saccharine or effusive. nic loves me in a way that feels grounding and stable. it feels everyday, in the most comforting way.
i will take being the last crazy girl on his dance card any day.
me and this guy, forever.
today we were graced with a magical dose of fall. it's chilly and blustery and the light is slanted and just a bit golden. so I decided nic and I and our best friends should go on cozy date to Huber's orchard tomorrow for cider and hay rides and pumpkins/ apple picking.
nic apparently had other plans with a friend, but conceded that we could do whatever I want.
this was our conversation/ dating me in a nutshell.
nic is sweet to me and I am a thinly-veiled asshole.
also I got bangs, and nic rarely wears clothes.
i have been going and going. furiously. almost obsessively.
the details aren't important except to say, i'm trying to get more done than i feel i have time to do. i recognize that a large part of that is perception.
last night i sat down and had stale corn chips and a tiny glass of old ass red wine for dinner, while i churned out progress reports for school. i feel an impassable chasm between my brain and my body, from my life as i feel it's meant to be and how i'm living. it's not terrible, but i feel this lingering sadness, like i am missing my own life.
this morning i was texting my mama, as i do each morning, just to share tiny life moments and a serving of love for the day. and she said,
"elizabeth allison, you have 10 minutes to stop and buy a decent salad or an apple and some nuts. if you were uncovering bodies from the rubble, you would keep going, but you know, sweet girl, when you have to push and when it's really okay to not try to do it all."
i am not uncovering bodies.
my work is deeply important, but it doesn't have to be perfect. it doesn't have to all be done at once. it doesn't have to mean i lose my soul.
i have ten minutes. i will take it to love and nourish myself.
thank you, sweet mama, for the reminder.
i posted this drawing a year ago today and still think I'm terribly funny, because it's so true.
there is just something about being in a relationship that sometimes makes me act like a petulant child, incapable of even the most fundamental acts of adulthood.
luckily, nic sticks around and that, i believe, is either masochism or abiding love.
i woke up at 5:10 without an alarm this morning and immediately launched into my morning routine: meditation, peppermint tea with collagen, 2 hard boiled eggs and veggies, answering emails.
amidst the emails, i pushed play on a suggested radio station on spotify. jackson 5 came on.
my body practically pushed me out of the chair. i had to dance. huge, committed, unattractive, happy, full-body, all-my-energy dancing. i did not give a shit. i didn't look for myself in the mirror. i didn't check the time or think about the other things i had to do.
i danced until i was done. i was sweaty.
for a tiny moment, i got what nic always says to me, it's not that serious.
it's not that serious.
at any moment, amidst the drudgery i sometimes make for myself, there is an invitation just waiting to sweat, to shake it out, to get weird, to let it all go, to dance. push play. get up. dance.
tonight i went climbing for the first time ever.
jessica and i have been talking about it for months. i casually find an excuse not to go every time. all day i was praying she would cancel. i am deeply tired, not because i have to be, but because there is just enough in my life to justify it, so i am giving in and being a pathetic, ungrateful, disparaging sack of shit.
that was my excuse today. i'm tired and i don't want to climb anymore.
but she didn't cancel, so finally, begrudgingly, i went.
for the inexperienced (ie me 3 hours ago), rock climbing in an indoor gym looks like a variety of colors and shapes of footholds arranged in patterns along walls. they are rated according to difficulty. i am a solid zero. (this is not self-deprecation, but rather an accurate assessment of my actual ability.)
yep. it starts at zero.
and the best part is that the routes are called problems.
i won't make all the obvious analogies that went whizzing through my head, because it's too easy. they are problems that take determination, strength, and a significant amount of ease, which i lack. they sometimes require you to literally step back and look at the big picture. they sometimes require falling. they most definitely require letting go.
okay, i'll stop.
i'm not going to write anything magic. i'm realizing more and more that the magic lies in simply having shown up, in being willing. i didn't have a life revelation. i didn't pull myself entirely out of the pit. i didn't discover some sort of superhuman strength, as i barely conquered much more than a one, on the rating of difficulty.
but i showed up. and i talked to my friend and afterwards i drank a cocktail and ate a salad and just ate the fucking roll that came with it, because it is top 2 most delicious pieces of bread in louisville.
and i tried.
and that is the whole story.
i was afraid of doing something new, but i tried anyway.
my hands are roughed up and my nails are shredded and i'm pretty sure i've permanently lost use of my shoulders, but i did it.
if that is the paradigm, then i can do mf'in anything in the world. i can do anything. just watch me.
i distinctly remember being 8 years old and persistently experiencing something i only knew how to describe as "the empty feeling." it was a deep pit inside of me that felt like my heart was being stretched out low into my belly by something heavy. i had this terrible fear that my parents would leave and never come back. or that the fires that were always in the mountains would descend into the city and burn up everyone but me. it was morbid, fearful.
the pit was always about loss. not of something happening to me, but to those around me.
as an adult, i can clearly identify that feeling as anxiety. this deep, blanket fear that things will not be okay.
it's manageable, as a 32 year old woman. but it's still there. the empty feeling. lingering.
it came up today. it's here now. and i feel silly.
i feel silly because in the last 24 hours, all i've done is have fun with nic. last night we drank wine and ate tacos and watched old sitcoms. today we woke up early to play with the cat, make breakfast, and do yoga in the living room. we rented a tandem bike and rode through the parklands, laughing at how miserably unfit our legs are. we came home and had the most delicious cantaloupe and blt salad for lunch. we snugged.
so when i felt that pit of despair low in my stomach, i recognize that 8 year old girl and the immense terror she felt at the idea of losing what she most loved.
which is always people.
so when debew asks, what is it? all i know is, it's nothing. it's nothing real.
it's love and the fear of losing it. it's my immature desire to wrap my fingers around the neck of whatever's good and hold on so tightly i'm more likely to kill it myself than ever lose it. it's lack of ease. it's deeply ingrained fear. it is the inability to let go.
i feel like if i announce it, it won't have so much power.
so here it is: sometimes i feel empty. sometimes i am deeply afraid of how big and far and consumingly i love. sometimes the more i love, the less secure i feel.
sometimes, now, it is time to confront all the old paradigms. it is not just something to live with.
nic asks what i'm writing about. i tell him, the empty feeling. he knows about it already. he says:
"i think you're more level-headed than most people are. and ready to take on most situations. your ability to overcome whatever it is you're afraid of is why whatever you're afraid is never going to manifest in your life."
this man. i'm afraid of losing a man, who would rent me a two-person bicycle and choose the best cantaloupe and assert that i am unconquerable. i love him and, even though i purport to be very good, very well-versed in loving, it terrifies me profoundly. to have my heart so hurled open.
i guess, of problems to have, it is not so bad. the loving and being loved so much that it's scary.
he rationalizes with me some more and i say, it's not logical.
"i know," he says, ending his rational argument to lean over from behind my chair and kiss me.
there's so much to terribly much to lose.
and it's the greatest gift.
since i'm still basically 12, i spent my friday night babysitting.
also because i'm 12 i have a pimple that's bigger than my eye on my cheek, as depicted in this photo. which one's the eye and which is the pimple is still unclear both in cartoon form and real life.
for dinner, there was pizza.
and, to cut to the chase, i ate it.
here is my sign. my woeful admission. my scarlet A of pizza-eating.
it's only shameful, because while i was eating said pizza, a paleo magazine rested silently in my hipster reclaimed vintage material book bag. literally. i'm a bad meme waiting to happen.
about eight weeks ago, i committed to actually eating mostly paleo, with my big, specific no being consumption of grains. and dairy, too, for the most part, or at least in the reckless creamy-latte/ bucket-of-ice-cream/ pile-of-melted-cheese way. basically because those things just make me feel awful.
tonight i could have planned better but i didn't, so i ate the damn pizza.
it feels like there's a ton of bricks in my stomach, but i don't actually hate myself.
and that's really weird and uncomfortable for me. even more so than feeling certain that i've derailed my entire life and have failed as a human being and should give up any hope of a future.
i am really, really, really extreme. like, all the time. i feel all the things and i say all the things and i write all the words and i emote all over everyone. all of my moments are saturated and intense and terribly fraught with meaning.
and then tonight, as a declared paleo (i'm choosing to use that as a noun, like one would say they're a vegan, but if vegans ate a lot of meat), i ate a piece of pizza (papa john's, no less) and i didn't implode.
i don't know if i'm so tired that i just haven't mustered up the energy to freak out yet or if i'm actually, slowly learning not to be a psycho during all of the minutes, but i feel really good even though i feel bad.
like, i feel like there's a pizza-shaped barbell in my gut, but i also feel like i might not be totally crazy. and that might have been worth it.
to be real, i know i'm not crazy. but growing up and balance is hard for me. because my tendency is to hover at the extreme ends of the pendulum, ever poised to wildly hurl myself back to the other side, never allowing myself space in between. and it seems i may be starting to take small pauses in that in between area.
it feels really weird.
and i guess it tastes like pizza.
yesterday i continued to be a horrible person. maybe even more so than monday.
i texted nic about my misery during the day and he said, "there will be chocolate."
i told everyone i saw. my boyfriend gets it. i'm having a bad day(ssssss) and he mentioned chocolate. he really gets it.
i got home, and he'd made dinner again! this time i didn't hate him for making me delicious food. we sat on the porch and ate spinach salad and burger patties with caramelized onions. i drank a glass of wine the size of my head. there was chocolate.
i went in the house and out from underneath the couch popped... a cat.
there was chocolate.
and a cat.
i didn't scream. but i was really fucking surprised.
i won't lie and say nic didn't talk about getting a cat. but in the last few weeks, nic has also talked about moving to columbus and/ or china, taking a job in indianapolis and/ or detroit, going to chicago on his day off, buying a new car, adopting a baby, and learning to build boats. i take it all with a grain of salt. i said, "sure, get a cat."
and he did.
also, in fear of seeming like more of an awful person than i'm already trying to convince you i am, i am not an animal person. i love to watch them, but i don't want to snuggle them, touch them, talk to them, or ingratiate myself to them. i'm sort of terrified of pets, especially after growing up with three cats, all of whom had impossibly unlikable and terrifying qualities.
but here was ohna.
her name is swedish for anna.
she's a siamese cat. blue-eyed and slim with tiny white mittens and incredibly soft grey ombre fur. she's skittish still. she's quiet. she had two stillborn babies just last week and evidently was quite depressed afterwards. the people at the humane society said she kept looking around for her babies. she didn't want to let them go. she kept trying to nurse them.
nic said he just couldn't leave her.
i didn't love her right away and i don't love her still. she doesn't love me either. but we're curious about each other. and i have this weird, magical feeling that maybe ohna will be the one to teach me to love without needing to smother. that you can coexist without constantly having to interact. that love can look a lot like just knowing without having to always show.
or maybe she's just a cat.
but it's a new adventure. and i welcome it. i welcome feelings i don't understand and fear and slight discomfort and eagerness and joy and the promise of a decade to come together.
sometimes nic is so weird. he surprises me. i don't know what he's thinking or how he thinks it sometimes and, while it can make me crazy, i ultimately relish it. i am pragmatic and organized and overly logical and nic, at any given moment, might move to china or adopt a stray feline.
i am so grateful for this strange life of wonder, in which, unbeknownst to me, there just might be a cat under the couch.
i wanted to start out super positive, but, as promised, i'm being real and i feel anything but positive today. i'm borderline hateful and of course there's no one better to take that out on than those we love dearly.
i arrived home from school, not yet quite aware of how truly crabby i was. until i immediately saw that nic hadn't done the few things i'd asked him to do around the house during the day.
HOW DARE HE? my inner sanctimonious asshole roared.
that was pretty much it. the beginning of the end. i blustered into the house and immediately began passive aggressively doing the things i was sure should have been done on my time table and at my command.
to make matters worse, he had made paleo hot chicken and sweet potato fries. and it was delicious.
then he asked me to go for a walk.
(these things both felt truly offensive to me. i really wanted to hang onto my mood.)
i was sullen the whole time.
i recognized my horrific crankiness not as his fault in any way, but i couldn't help but feel annoyed at every thing he did and said. i needed someone to blame and wasn't ready to take responsibility for how i got there, all by my lonesome.
at the end of our walk and my three mile marinating in personal grief, nic looked at me and said these words.
i don't mind that you're crabby.
it didn't make my crankies stop, because i'm too much of an asshole for that today. but it did make me pause, and beneath the many layers of clouds i'm wearing over my usually sunny heart today, say to myself, thank you debew for teaching me about unconditional love.
may all us assholes be so terribly lucky.