I Couldn’t Ever Lose

When I boarded a plane from Chicago to Arizona, I was surprised that my head, already so full of whatnotted thoughts and anxieties, did not pop off and roll down the aisle from pressure. I’d been instructed to relax and to Let It Go, that amorphous and ambiguous It, like I could simply send It plummeting thousands of miles from the bottom of my roaring feet, through the cargo hold, and down into the West. Leave it there, tumbled and torn on some red, rocky vessel to burn and wither or be eaten by a coyote and all the other glorified and exaggerated tropes of the desert.

Besides, I already felt as though I was being eaten alive by my own torrid self. What I wanted most was to be alone without being alone. Often I Google self-help books, gobbling the summaries like prescription pills for some undiagnosed explanation for the aggrandized feeling that I do not fit in. What is this longing to be a puzzle piece in a bigger picture?

When my heart leans toward breaking, I say nothing. Words, they never come, and if they did they are never in the form of gut and needle. I cannot be sewn, for I am constantly prone to the nature of undone. Sounds carry too easily between the walls and floorboards, the boom of my brother’s footsteps and my father, often heard walking back and forth, the hallway trading layers of paint for layers of rock and echoing like the Grand Canyon. Is that thunder or the television?

As I try to find my roots so too do I try to run, tripping over the branches of family tree and diplomas and Facebook, chasing It. I carve my identity over and over, a ruby where my name should be.

 

Polyester Blend

The dress is blue. Undeniably and unarguably blue. I have worn it so many times, drunk too much wine in it, laughed to loudly in it, and I have certainly cried in it. I have felt amazing in it. I have felt like my arms were something between beached whales and blimps in it. It has been well loved and well scorned. The last time I wore it I cracked open a fortune cookie left on a bed in a hotel room, and I have no recollection of the premonition, only my amazement at the time.

In all this consideration it occurs to me that it must go into the donation bag of other discarded clothing for a friend’s yard sale fundraiser. The sight of it fills me with a certain dread, like a sticky spacebar on a keyboard or a cracked ice cube tray; still functional but marred and nagging.

Spending time in my closet is like spending time with a stranger whose face is familiar somehow. Here is the girl I was, the girl I am, and in some cases the girl I still hope to be, a patchwork quilt of stuff born from thought and intention. The shelved sewing books and cross stitch patterns still wait for the inspiration from the Alex that wanted to cultivate hobbies and talents last summer. They will stay. The giraffe print shoes from the Alex that so fiercely believed a good woman must never want for shoes must go, as they make me feel alien and disingenuous.  There is the scarf I started knitting, along with the instruction on how to make flowers. There is the floppy hat I never wear but want to. And I want to so badly, along with the fringe boots. A mustache bottle opener that a lovely friend gave me for my birthday last year is tucked up on the shelf. I won’t use that or the Matryoshka doll measuring cups anytime soon. I am briefly swayed to consider the plates and cookware and my other things, stored and kept away. But I can’t, because it pains me to think I must keep these pieces of myself in waiting, the pieces that have decorating desires or personal tastes.

It is not the stuff that is important. It is all the resemblance of a self I feel I am losing. While I am tearing down walls, I appear to be forging new ones, stalled for the sake of starting over, a necessary but complicated procedure. It is a different sort of heart and brain surgery. And sometimes I wonder if the recovery process is to not recognize all the love my friends, family, and boyfriend shower me with while I attempt to rediscover the person within this closet.

While their patience remains steadfast mine erodes.

A blue dress for a blue lady, I think, rolling my eyes. Let the thing end on a high note and a new chance rather than the random nostalgia born of someone who is working on letting go and soaring.

Pronating Nation

The weather in Chicago has been suspiciously warm, so for the first time in many months I went running. Immediately I was aware of several things: the need for new running shoes, the tightness in both my legs, the lack of core stability, the tension in my shoulders. All of this combined made for an extremely labored run, and I was quickly overcome with frustration.

I have a tendency toward impatience. It is a greater enemy than spiders. I can throw my shoe at a spider. My impatience merely turns any sort of desired hobby into an insurmountable mountain.  So when I find myself performing at a less than desirable rate, I give up. If I can’t do it amazingly, I don’t want to do it at all.

My history with running is soiled by an injury that occurred in the later months of 2010. During this time I was at the height of my running. I was doing a 7 minute pace, running at least 3 miles every day and prepping to begin training for my first half marathon. I took care to strengthen muscles. I was the thinnest I’d ever been (though this admittedly was compounded by the fact that in my obsession with running I had also developed an obsession with food control and I was not eating nearly as much as I should have been).  One day I finished a 6 mile run and my right ankle screamed at me. I thought that perhaps because it had been raining I’d slipped my foot a certain way. In a couple days I expected it to be fine.

It wasn’t. I kept running for the next few weeks, but my ankle was never, ever fine. To top it off, the left one soon joined the right in being a menace. Finally, I went to see a specialist who was generally unhelpful, but told me that perhaps I needed a stability shoe. So I went and got a stability shoe and I continued running. My pace was suffering in a big way. My ankles continued to throb and ache. By now the race was a few months away and I was too afraid to follow up with the doctor. I didn’t want to be told I couldn’t run the half. So injured and in pain, I ran the half marathon. How I did that, I will never know. My ankles throbbed the entire time, but I simply wouldn’t stop running. Adrenaline, stubbornness, too much time and money invested; I don’t know what got me through.  I’m oddly proud of that.

I would never, ever advocate ANYONE doing that because when I got home and finally saw a (different) specialist, I had contused the muscles on my ankles so badly that I needed months of ultrasound treatments, I wasn’t allow to do any sort of physical activity during that time, and while I learned a lot about my body and how it works and that flat feet and pronating ultimately were the culprit (that orthotics have helped with), my running suffered more than it would have if I’d been patient with what I needed from the beginning.

I so badly want to run like I did in 2010. That is the girl I want to be. That is when I was my happiest, felt my most accomplished, and felt so much energy I didn’t know how to sit still. Running is near and dear to my heart. It really saved me.

 

Since I am not there right now my knee jerk reaction is to declare the run an awful, awful time. But that would be wrong. I have not been willingly honest with myself about my running. I feel like if I don’t admit I have fallen far from where I used to be then it never happened.  It’s not real if I don’t acknowledge it. But by not looking myself in the mirror and being honest, I am just busy being ashamed.

To begin with, I ran. And while I did not run for all of the 2.5 miles I set out to accomplish, I ran for more than half of the distance. When I wanted to give up, I didn’t. Chris helped, reminding me it wasn’t about finishing in x amount of minutes. It was about getting to the finish line.

But if I don’t acknowledge it, I will never get there. I will never save myself again if I am too busy criticizing myself.

Jaywalking

When I arrived home the jug of iced tea was still there on the floor next to the phone charger. An abandoned pen stored among the items of my nightstand like a shameful secret, dwarfed by a liter of Diet Coke. My sheets strewn and wrinkled, the pillows folded in half and stacked two high. Crumbs from where I smashed a Zebra Cake in his face sprinkled my carpet.  The window was still open.

How I could languish there, in the loveliness of this tiny disarray. It matches my own way of loving, so disorganized and needful and scattered and particular. Yes was always on the tip of my tongue but my teeth interfere, and the end result is a smile reserved only for him. I say “I love you” just as much for him as I do myself, the inability to cope with it quietly.

Before the tea and the pen and the smashing of cake, we walked after dinner, an unusually warm March night that left me free of shivering. I listened as he explained the importance of vulnerability. My jacket was open.  I was trying to unbutton the rest of me. The street upon which we strolled is one I’ve regularly trolled, sometimes drunkenly to ward off the effects of too many banana bread beers. When we reached a stoplight, the one I generally I use as a benchmark to turn right back around, I remarked that it had never seemed within the realm of my possibility to turn right or left.  

My hand in his, he said “Let’s go,” and we turned left. 

Twenty Seven

I used to live there in those heart shaped cakes and glasses of wine, the television always on.
I don’t hang my hopes on that balcony anymore. The dirt was too gritty beneath my feet anyhow and it never came off.

After work the chase: red lights and walk signals and diner desserts,
empty glass cases and Formica.
The future, as far as I can hope: a visible ribcage, standardized tests, a violet strand of hair.

Now I am the chimed and charmed, the scent of the night before on my pillow like feathers. Instant yearning brewed in and over cotton sheets.
Arms and morning breath, and a first thought with the a.m. alarm clock and a last thought before goodnight.
The television sometimes on, and one day, an open window.

Tuesdays at Lunch

You could count on a ticking hand more than you could count on God. But every week we talk about Heaven. We discuss purgatory like it is math. We worry after our souls.  Hell is not an idea or theory but a threat, just like coal in your stocking, but meatier. Forced to ponder eternity when I cannot see beyond tomorrow, the Church is no place for taking life “one day at a time.” I listen to my coworkers, their abundant faith oozing like warnings. They are Paul Revere. Jesus is the British.

I cannot save my calories let alone my soul. I drink tea to feel loved, steep my affections with leaves and spices, swallowing the color purple until my limbs are warm. My head is consumed with more earthly pursuits, the sweet potato in the microwave, the text message on my phone, the word I laid down in Words With Friends, the bookmark in my novel, the existence of hipsters, the overabundance of social networking, the dull ache in my ankle, and the tightness of my calf. Then I lend my heart to all of it, the subtleties and mundane, and it shall swell with meanings so sincere, so genuine.

I’m my own sort of reverent, my own right angle, and I just doubt God would disapprove.

And Never Brought to Mind

Of New Years I am often ambivalent. Do I imagine a sequined dress, confetti spreads, and champagne flutes? Always. Do I want it? I don’t know. Most often I feel let down by a universal expectation. I’m far too introspective and when not that, I am far too drunk. New Years consistently feels out of reach, my fingertips barely welcome. While I so desperately long to be the sort who languishes in the party atmosphere I mostly feel… inadequate. I am not superstitious. I do not believe in any mystic or magic about the midnight hour on January 1, predicated by the prior 24 hours of December 31. I believe change can happen at any time. Resolutions? I resolve to not limit myself to a yearly pledge.

I can recall a moment at a party, my college friends lacquered with booze, and I, not at all sober, awkwardly crying in my friend’s bedroom as he and another looked on, assuring me that they did not feel as old as I did. This was two years ago. Friends played Rock Band. They danced. They gnawed on crab Rangoon or passed out in kitty litter or kissed and dropped their pants and me? I cried, sweeping my tears away on my sleeve one minute, and in the next plastering a smile on my face while sipping from one of those infamous red solo cups. The next morning I puked, hangover lurking in the background, and swore to myself I’d not spend another New Year crying over feelings I wasn’t even sure I was really having.

I’ve stopped feeling old, as much as I’ve stopped feeling a lot of things. I am unskilled at feelings. My method of addressing them is to drive, green tea lemonade corralled in my cup holder, vintage Britney Spears pulsing from my Camry’s speakers. It is the equivalent of a temper tantrum for twenty-somethings.

2011 was marred by discomfort. Two deaths, one slow and suffering of which will always be one of the most horrific things I have witnessed, of which I have still not properly dealt with. And of the other it was unexpected and sudden and I discovered that it had happened on Facebook while visiting the Grand Canyon.

I was injured, losing my momentum with running and exercise, my hips rounding out in ways I am uncomfortable with, my muscles atrophying far too quickly to be fair. I am unhappy with just how much I languished in letting go.

I moved back home, a slap in the face of my self-esteem, my ability to feel proud that if I loathed my  job I was at least providing for myself swept out from under me.

But I also accomplished many firsts:

-First half marathon

-First cruise

-First passport

-First time eating chicken and waffles (I accomplished this today)

-First time in Alaska

-First international flight

-First time ziplining

-First time I went to a casino and won

-First time getting drunk on an airplane

-First time heading the annual Gala solo

-First time visiting King’s Island

-First time I’ve had a running partner

-First time I tried Zumba

-First time I saw a Glacier

-First time I went inside the Drake Hotel

And summer, oh the summer! I cut off my hair, wore flip flops, said yes to nearly every opportunity that came my way. I made a lot of apologies, and I meant them all. I reconnected with friends. I ran again. I took naps outside. I never stayed home if I could help it.

In saying yes to opportunities, I met a great guy who, uncharacteristically, I gave my number and who I then gave a chance and who took a chance on me and with who I am able to learn more about myself and more about life in ways I never have before and with who I will accomplish another first, my last for the year: the first time I have ever spent New Year’s Eve with a boyfriend.

So, I do not make resolutions. I don’t believe in them because I believe in change occurring at anytime, goals that bend and grow and break as I bend and grow and break. But I do resolve to continue to love my friends and my family and for those who I won’t be with tonight, I resolve to enjoy and cherish the memories we will undoubtedly make in 2012 just as much as I cherish your presence in my life.

Winter White

I do not have memories of my paternal grandmother. I did not know her. My dad’s mom passed away before I was born. All I have is the romance of black and white photographs, and I am free to make up all the stories I want about Eleanor. For this reason, I suppose, I don’t ask many questions about her. Although one time I asked my dad, quite naively, “Were you sad when your mom died?” My dad was grown but young, only in his twenties. His answer was a sarcastic, “No. I was thrilled.” I’m not certain what I was after in asking. Perhaps I just wanted the most basic acknowledgement that she existed at all because it was through her absence I learned what every child eventually figures out: the world was here before you and will be here after you.

My hair is pulled back in a bun today, my laziness coinciding with a secret desire to perhaps resemble the ballerina I never attempted to be (dance classes were not among my many childish pursuits). More than mimicking that of a dancer’s, my hair compliments a winter landscape, dotted with more white than I feel comfortable with. With each passing month I find more faded strands. The first appeared near the front, like a skunk stripe, one single block of crisp dead keratinocytes and melanocytes.  Now they are everywhere, reckless and haphazard, and I am unsure of what to do.

I could dye it, cover it up. But that feels wrong somehow. The next time I dye my hair it will be because I’m curious about what a strand of pale pink will look like amid chestnut brown. Or because I’ve bumped my head and acquired the reckless and unnecessary idea that I should be blonde for a season. Or because I’m moody and want the blackest of black tresses.

What I fear more than aging is loss of time. My gray hair does not make me feel old so much as it makes me feel older. Sometimes the face staring back at me is not a face I’m familiar with.

There is a photo of my grandma in which she is sitting at a bar, bejeweled hand around a tumbler of Who Knows What Booze, gazing at my grandpa, just utterly adoring him while he is smiling head on, face to camera. Though young, her hair is gray in places, the same places as my own.

And while I don’t keep my gray hair for her as some family crest of DNA, I certainly keep it because it simply is what it is. Somehow this is me. Somehow it is important that I don’t change it because it is an ugly thing.

I am not an ugly thing.

Heart as a weapon

The truth is that I find coffee revolting, but there are moments I’m so swept up in the need for comfort, a hand curled around a warm mug, that I will take to it, opiate in a diner booth. Last Thursday I had seven full cups, well into midnight, the waitress refilling with complete disregard for my palpitating heart. “I am sorry we have been here for hours,” I said. And I sipped ever after, spooning and clinking, slurping up repose. It is never enough. Winter has reared and I can only think in hunches so tacky, waiting for my stories to find the words, but I think perhaps they are too busy chasing daylight.

Commitment

Midnight rumbled in on the breadth of a storm. I lay blinking at the ceiling aware of a digital glow to the left. The clock, of course, a blue reminder of how much time ticked and tocked right over and under and all around me.

My only recurring nightmare consists of teeth. They disintegrate. They erode. Sometimes they fall out of my mouth and into my hand, stark white, lumpy, inelegant and horrifically detached.

It is the permanence that causes me the most dread. The point of no return, the deed all done, a core part of me severed.