Posts tagged with "women"

the beginning of me wanting myself

I had a date around this time last year. She was a teacher-turned-librar­i­an in her mid-40s with two kids, a pix­ie-cut, and thrift store style.

Before we for­mal­ly intro­duced our­selves, I rec­og­nized her from across the room and was imme­di­ate­ly struck by the way she car­ried her­self. There was a con­fi­dence when mov­ing about; clear­ing a table to sit at with­out a momen­t’s hes­i­ta­tion as to whether any­one would mind; inter­act­ing with the staff; bump­ing into an old acquain­tance. Something com­mon among par­ents and peo­ple in the edu­ca­tion sys­tem, lest they show weak­ness to a group of chil­dren (and the com­plete oppo­site of Heather, who’s shy and awk­ward and always tries to take up as lit­tle space as pos­si­ble).

We both under­stood how dif­fi­cult it can be to get to know some­one through a screen, and agreed it would be bet­ter to meet soon­er rather than lat­er. That meant I did­n’t know too much about her, aside from the details in her pro­file. I was com­fort­ed by the fact that she men­tioned All About Love by bell hooks under “A book every­one should read”, because Tiana hap­pened to rec­om­mend it to me ear­li­er that year and it became a big influ­ence on the way I approach my rela­tion­ships. Also by the fact that one of her needs was “under­stand­ing of sys­tems of oppres­sion”; as I drift fur­ther to the left on the polit­i­cal spec­trum, I’ve learned that I tend to get along bet­ter with peo­ple who have an aware­ness of social inequal­i­ty.

Continue read­ing “the begin­ning of me want­i­ng myself”…

those who leave but never leave you

I’m sor­ry she nev­er replied, but I’m also glad you fig­ured out that she does­n’t owe you an answer. I think that says a lot about how much you’ve grown and how far you’ve come as a per­son.

It was no small step to reach out after all this time and the things you’ve been through togeth­er. I think you did the right thing cause of the way things end­ed. Offering to make amends by putting your feel­ings out there was more gen­er­ous than I’d expect of any­one.

After all, you nev­er deserved to be led on like that. I wish I could explain why she did­n’t give you the space you need­ed at first. I’m sor­ry you weren’t strong enough at the time to stand up for your­self, but it does­n’t mean you deserved it. It was­n’t fair. You were lone­ly and vul­ner­a­ble and it was the last thing your heart need­ed to heal. I don’t blame you for hav­ing a hard time get­ting over her after that.

That’s why you had every right to ask for anoth­er break. Needing it was nev­er a reflec­tion or judg­ment on who she was. Just because she did­n’t like it does­n’t mean you did any­thing wrong. In fact, she should have respect­ed you and your request instead of get­ting upset or tak­ing it as a val­u­a­tion on her as a per­son.

I’m sor­ry she nev­er acknowl­edged your pain or her role in it. I’m sor­ry part of you still feels so bad­ly messed up. I’m sor­ry you nev­er had a chance to tell her.

The fact that you haven’t heard back is like­ly a sign of how much she tru­ly cares about you. That does­n’t mean you have to stop lov­ing her. Your feel­ings are com­plete­ly valid. It’s okay to love some­one from a dis­tance. It does­n’t make you a bad part­ner or per­son.

So take as much time as you need. There’s no right or wrong way to mourn the end of a rela­tion­ship.

a reckless careening of emotions and actions

That’s how you described your­self, soon after your dad died. A girl lost in grief, try­ing to drink and smoke and work and fuck her way out. Living her life like she was the only one who had­n’t fig­ured out what to do with it.

It’s hard to imag­ine you being so sad once. Or sad at all, and secure enough to admit lone­li­ness. You even had the objec­tive­ness to know that you shrank from oth­ers even though you did­n’t make your­self hap­py. That’s why I keep going through these entries in your old blog. Not just a dream jour­nal, but a jour­nal of dreams. Before you became trapped in a domes­tic life and your heart turned into a lump of stone.

Continue read­ing “a reck­less careen­ing of emo­tions and actions”…

stay is a sensitive word

I haven’t been able to come up with a way of explain­ing the absence. I guess I’m still fig­ur­ing out where I stand at this par­tic­u­lar moment, and what it means to keep going. Many days were lost to the flux of ambiver­sion, when all I was try­ing to do was sur­vive the bal­ance of how much space I need­ed with how much com­fort I could only get from oth­ers. Suffice it to say, I’ve learned the impor­tance of tak­ing the time just to feel okay, which has most­ly involved enjoy­ing the games I’ve put off play­ing for so long, spend­ing time with those who make me feel wanted+needed+awesome+loved, and draft­ing as often as pos­si­ble.

girl and cat

My birth­day came some­where in between, a day I got to pick all the shows, eat dirty bird, and nest with the cats on me when they weren’t in the cud­dle train. It made the whole day mine, not because it was some­thing I asked for, but because some­one want­ed to give that to me.

I’m slow­ly let­ting my guard down, let­ting myself share new songs in the dark, so the pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences become a per­ma­nent part of me. Making new mem­o­ries is a step towards sooth­ing my his­to­ry with heart­break. The com­fort I find in our embraces car­ries me through the time we’re apart, but feel­ing safe is still very for­eign. Just touch­ing fin­gers is a vul­ner­a­ble step, and it’s like being on a tightrope every time I put aside my inse­cu­ri­ties to make progress. Thankfully, she has­n’t let me fall yet.

Magic: The Gathering and beer

Most recent­ly, I start­ed work­ing at the busiest com­ic book shop in the city as one of the res­i­dent Magic experts. It’s left me try­ing to find my bal­ance again, even though the job is part-time and nev­er feels like work. The posi­tion most­ly involves run­ning the tour­na­ments, trading/selling/organizing cards, and giv­ing peo­ple game advice; things I already love doing in my spare time. A nice bonus is the fact that a new friend hap­pens to be one of the reg­u­lars at the Modern Constructed tour­ney, and I get to root for him and see how he does between match­es.

Shawn even came in to say hi and give me hugs on my first day. Reminders all around that make me feel worth­while, instead of just believ­ing it. It’s the dif­fer­ence between know­ing some­thing in my head to my heart, a gap I’m start­ing to bridge with help from the right peo­ple.

a quiet moment

I took a break from gui­tar. Not a con­scious deci­sion, just days that were busy enough that I did­n’t think of pick­ing her up, which means I don’t even know how long I’d stopped. All I know is that it was long, cause I feel the strings vibrat­ing through every piece of wood that touch­es my body now, one of those sen­sa­tions you stop notic­ing after enough time.

I haven’t had much to say either. Nothing seems impor­tant. At the same time, I’m try­ing to move away from this social media over­load, where so many peo­ple speak only cause the pow­er to do makes them believe they should. It’s mak­ing the gaps between my entries longer and longer, and I won­der if I’ll even­tu­al­ly stop writ­ing alto­geth­er.

getting dressed

All I have are mem­o­ries of lives I lived so long ago that I feel like I’m watch­ing them in 8mm. The friends and the lovers, the love and the hate, the cycles and the pat­terns. I’m only now sort­ing out the mean­ing of each one, maybe cause I’ve final­ly grown enough to under­stand myself and my rela­tion­ship with the world at large. It’s com­fort­ing to see how far I’ve come when com­par­ing the per­son I am now to each per­son I used to be.

But such progress came at the cost of my inno­cence; we aren’t always ready to learn the hard­er lessons, and sur­viv­ing some­times means we change in ways that pre­vent us from becom­ing the peo­ple we’re meant to be. I’m try­ing to take back that inno­cence now, cause I know my hap­pi­ness is at stake.