Monthly Archives: April 2010

April 27, 2010 · 12:28

One month…

I have 30 days left in South Florida.  I came here with a mission in mind and I feel I will be leaving with a sense of accomplishment.  Truth be told, I am terrified.

Something happened here that I didn’t expect.  My outlook shifted.  My ideals for the future changed.  What I want in the present has now moved farther away from where it once was.  Love evaporated out of my soul only to creep its way back in again.  It’s amazing what changes after a year and 3550 miles yet also what remains the exact same.

I dare say I am going to run away from it again.  This time though, I put up a fight.  I gave what I could give.  This won’t break me as badly as it did last time but I know a part of me will stay here until the feeling evaporates.  Again.  Love, you are tricky business and I still don’t understand you.  I must say, I appreciate the feeling more now than I did a year ago.  My stomach does not burn in pain as it is reciprocated.  My face is not forced to smile for it is simply there.  Happiness is not a four-letter word and I dare wonder if I am making a mistake.  Or if this is yet another part of the “everything happens for a reason”.  I would love to know the answer to that reasoning though…

But back home I must go.  I feel her pulling me and as the date grows closer and closer (my moving company has actually given me a ‘frequent buyer discount’), I have to remind myself a little bit to keep breathing, that this will all make sense at some point, and fairytale happy endings may not be entirely necessary.  Oregon makes sense.  That is home, and if belonging has any level of significance in the future, then that is where I feel I belong.

Is that what I want though?  I still don’t know.  I am torn but torn in the right way.  This is balancing with the best of intentions on either side of the fence.  This is writing that list of what I want and what I don’t, what scares me and what brings delight.  It’s amazing to point out what I don’t want and the one thing I do though.  To quote a beautiful woman who came into my life last night: “Mary, sometimes love is enough.”

it is so long since my heart has been with yours

shut by our mingling arms through
a darkness where new lights begin and
increase,
since your mind has walked into
my kiss as a stranger
into the streets and colours of a town–

that i have perhaps forgotten
how,always(from
these hurrying crudities
of blood and flesh)Love
coins His most gradual gesture,

and whittles life to eternity

–after which our separating selves become museums
filled with skilfully stuffed memories

E.E. Cummings

Leave a comment

Filed under The Move

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

April 15, 2010 · 08:15

How dare you…

I am going to touch on a subject that I initially thought I never would on here.  As a someone that has spent a few too many years in the serving/bartending/I really need to utilize college degrees industry, I have come to understand there are three things you don’t talk about at work: religion, sexual orientation, and politics.  I have tried to apply that same rule of thought to this blog.  Not to say I am entirely breaking my rule today, but I am coming close.

I almost hit someone in the face last night.  I wanted to.  It was nearing the point that I almost asked my friend to hold me back.  I grabbed my phone and was furiously texting a girlfriend to come pick me up as my car was at said belief intruder’s house.

I don’t feel it entirely comfortable to share the exact nature of this confrontation.  Maybe it’s the fact that you know my name.  Maybe you could know the man that invaded what semblance of belief I mildly possess.  I am just going to put this out there…judge if you will:  I do not believe in much of anything.  My feelings on faith and religion are well, nonexistent.  This has worked for me and I will gladly appreciate your faith.  I just don’t have any of my own.  I try to hold a level head and appreciation for the belief system and moral compass (or lack thereof) of those around me.  Sometimes though, like last night, this system is tested and I really wanted to look at this person and tell him to die in a fire, you are flat out wrong, who are you to say that cancer is entirely preventable (say it, believe it, just not with me around) with the right state of mind and my father flat out did not have the will to live, and simply how dare you. I lied…I did tell you a bit of the conversation.  Oops.

The Year Ago Mary would have hit him.  Maybe this is a sign of growth or flat out restraint, but it was with every ounce of control in my system not to use my words as absolute weapons and maybe throw a heavily ringed hand to his left eye.  I sat in stunned silence.  The only words I could muster were that of text messaging.  At the end of the night, I found myself in disbelief, not just because of what had been said, but the lack of recourse on my behalf.  Should I have said something?  Should I have stood up for what I believe in, albeit limited?  Would my words have fallen deaf on ears of a man not even worthy of hearing my words?  Or did I do the right thing and say nothing?  I guess I’m saying it all now, I suppose.  Well, not all…maybe just the questions.

What would you do?  How far would you go to fight for something?  Is it such a matter of knowing your audience and knowing that the words you could use as weapons of mass destruction would simply not make sense to the person in front of you?  Or do you honor their opinion and what they believe in, no matter how much it takes away from what had been a perfectly happy evening, or worse, rattle you to your core?




1 Comment

Filed under The Barking Dog

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

April 13, 2010 · 19:45

Almost home…

I am moving back to Oregon in eight weeks.  I started writing this blog a year ago Thursday.  I have thought about rereading and trying to make sense of this.  I don’t think I have the stomach for it.

In an effort of honesty, I am still a bit surprised that I have made it this far – that I’m here in the first place, still alive, and haven’t completely lost my mind yet.  Though my hormones are taking me on one hell of a roller coaster right now (damn you age and estrogen), I feel far more level headed than I did a year ago.

A year ago, I was in shambles.  I had no idea what I wanted.  The only thing that seemed to make sense was leaving Oregon.  I thought I couldn’t move on from heartbreak if I was still there, seeing his face, or even just the thought of sharing the same time zone.  Needless to say, I will never do that again.  Both the falling in love part (though out of my control, the level at which I fell was absurd…control yourself, Mary) and the running part.  I look back at the Year Ago Mary and think wow, I let that happen to me.  Who are you and where did Mary go?

It’s nice to feel back home again.  No, not home in Florida but home in thought, mind, and overall presence of self.  The level of instability I allowed was appalling.  I let all of this happen – the move, the heartbreak, tainted friendships, and perfectly good money spent on a moving van.  I could have stayed.  I almost think I should have stayed but if I had, where would I be?  Would I be losing that battle still?  Would I have actually started to pull my hair out?  Or would life simply be a mundane existence that would have left me yearning for something more and still have driven me here?  Who knows…it all could have happened.  But it didn’t.  I ran away and have spent close to a year learning how to be comfortable in my own skin.  Age, you’re a bitch but I learned something about you this year.  Though I don’t know if I harbor anymore knowledge of love and its recourse of action, I don’t feel as though I am bitter to the thought of it.  I am not so welcoming of the notion, but I haven’t exactly looked love in the face yet and told it to go fuck itself.  I have come close though…

But I’m almost home…and I am nervous.  I don’t know if these are just nerves, but I am on the fence about excitement.  I am wavering between joy (and let’s face it, I despise South Florida more than I do cooked vegetables) and sheer fear and second guessing.  Am I running again?  What am I running from this time?  Am I really making the right decision?  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…

2 Comments

Filed under The Barking Dog, The Move

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

April 10, 2010 · 13:53

Just speak…

Do you ever find yourself without anything to say?  When the words are almost at the tip of your tongue then they cannot escape into the sentences you so longed to say?  When if anything, you wanted to scream them at the top of your lungs in the middle of a crowd, only to find yourself silenced by fear, judgment, or the worst – yourself.  Well, I lost my words.  I couldn’t scream.  I couldn’t write.  I couldn’t even talk.  I think I found my words again.

Berlin came creeping in again.  Now before you roll your eyes and say “Oh, not this again”, rest your weary eyes and read me out on this one –  I win.  I finally have conquered this.  In some strange version of technological, love-ninja, warfare, he found me again.  But that was all – he just found me.  He didn’t get to me.  My heart didn’t skip a beat.  My palms weren’t sweating.  My world did not suddenly stop and revert back to my strange Oregon standstill that had so plagued my first months here.  Everything kept moving…I kept moving.  For the first time, I can finally say (and believe myself when I say it) I am over it, him…all of it.  I slightly feel like I conquered the world, or maybe just my little world.  Either way, I did something right by moving here.

Back to the words though.  My best friend and I have long talked about starting a blog together.  We finally came to an agreement last week with another girl that we are going to do it.  Tomorrow, I will begin construction on the new blog and the three of us will be up and running with love, relationships, and everything I have lived in fear of saying on here.  A, this is where questions are not asked and some strange semblance of anonymity can be achieved.

But the words, Mary!  The words!  I have been sitting on something now that I wanted to say and I haven’t been able to muster the strength to say it.  Maybe strength isn’t the right word, maybe it’s courage.  I have felt them begin to pour out, yet there is some bizarre membrane encompassing them; a censor, if you will.  I ask you friends, when do you finally say the words?  When do you release all guardianship of yourself and just say it, just let it out?  Even if it is just to hear the words come out of your own mouth, when is it the appropriate time to say them, anything, whatever they may be?

I will keep you posted on the word jail-break, my friends, and also the latest addition to the blog community.

There is fiction in the space between
The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesn’t mean
You’re not just telling stories

There is fiction in the space between
You and reality
You will do and say anything
To make your everyday life
Seem less mundane
There is fiction in the space between
You and me

There’s a science fiction in the space between
You and me
A fabrication of a grand scheme
Where I am the scary monster
I eat the city and as I leave the scene
In my spaceship I am laughing
In your remembrance of your bad dream
There’s no one but you standing

Leave the pity and the blame
For the ones who do not speak
You write the words to get respect and compassion
And for posterity
You write the words and make believe
There is truth in the space between

There is fiction in the space between
You and everybody
Give us all what we need
Give us one more sad sordid story
But in the fiction of the space between
Sometimes a lie is the best thing
Sometimes a lie is the best thing

Tracy Chapman – Telling Stories

Leave a comment

Filed under The Barking Dog

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,