become mighty

i got my license as a teenager like many of us do, but since we didn’t have a family car, i never made use of my new ability. i took the test, and basically never drove again. as an urban person, i rarely felt the need to drive and considered myself Very Clever to have avoided the cost (both financial and environmental) of owning a vehicle.

but this also meant i never got comfortable behind a wheel. as the years between me and my driver’s ed course turned into decades, my mild nervousness driving, on the rare occasion i’d be asked to, dwindled into active discomfort and anxiety.

then as my sad little basket of loved ones killed on the road began to fill, i became downright phobic.

and my lack of confidence really was firmly supported by lack of skill. the whole situation felt impossible.

interestingly, one of benefits of having almost every aspect of my life broken is a strange sort of liberation. when it feels equally shitty to drive, or put on socks, why not try driving?

you know, after you get those socks on.

my landscape may have been razed, i may have an emotional concussion, my will-fingers may be snapped, my heart may be skewered by a blade whose handle sticks out of my back, but i’m here to tell you, there’s life after death. i’m not sure i’m human any more, but i’m here, fiercely loving, savage, and disloyal to anything that isn’t juicy and good. that isn’t nourishing. i’m filling myself back up. laying new stones. i have to love each brick, or it doesn’t get placed.

today i’m going on the longest road trip i’ve ever been on alone – about 11 hours! – in rosie, my first vehicle purchase. an old VW van—ha ha! rosie, my rusty beauty queen! my brown barbaloot!

i’m scared and excited.

at first J said that it wasn’t about me. that if it weren’t for this architypical childhood love, he wouldn’t be going anywhere, but this was true, everlasting love. a couple of days later, she changed her mind and went back to her husband.

less that a week after that, J started sleeping with someone else.

now they’re in a relationship.

i don’t give a fuck about the other women in-and-of themselves. what fucking KILLS me, is the infidelity of non-commitment. the lack of effort. the lack of scrutiny.

obviously i put my heart and womanly vulnerability into the hands of someone who doesn’t have the first fucking clue of how to handle that gift and responsibility.

who doesn’t have the first clue of what a long term relationship looks like.

if this new gal’s over 25 years old, my jaw will drop.

he’s an adolescent.

i wonder if i’ll ever be able to find a man who can meet me eye-to-eye without flinching or going numb. without flinching from any of it.

yesterday i got mad. really pissed.

i had a nap on the beach in my pants like a bag lady, like someone who no longer has a home in which to nap, in which to change into beach clothes, like a shifting groundless person cut loose from the safety and restrictions of the normal, while kids ran around me in bathing suits.

at night, the mist-softened gibbous moon rose, revealing the sharp, black silhouette of a tall fir tree in the cricket noise.

i’m eating all of mum’s cherry tomatoes. at this rate there won’t be any left when she gets back next week.

today i climbed up and slid down hills on my trusty purple steed, sun and wind, with no helmet on. not only foolhardy, but illegal in this fair land of mine. i worked hard to get my broccoli: there were big hills. a man was putting out peaches and they smelled good, so i bought three, and on the way home, turned off the road to the ocean and walked straight in with my clothes on.

i forget every time how buoyant salt water is until i get in. i floated on my back, currents of warm and cold swirling around me, nipples scrunched, and looked up at the blue sky . little colourful crabs scuttled around everywhere amongst the rocks by the shore. i sat in the dry air letting my clothes drip before getting back on my bike, while flying ants walked on driftwood.

sometimes it’s hard when i think of him naked, or of meeting him in the future and feeling that painful distance from intimacy. sometimes it’s hard because i don’t really understand what’s going on, and he’s not helping me out with that. i’m asking the universe for the best possible thing for me, though. whatever that is.

the absolute best possible thing.

after discovering i was gone, jay freaked. and no wonder. my absence in the house literally echoed. he wanted to see me right away, but i wasn’t ready yet. good thing, because after the dust of my departure settled, it turned out that he’s really still mourning the loss of this Other Woman.

i find this very difficult to, um, console him over.

and i know it’s not my job to, it’s just… ugh. i don’t know, i guess i just wish it wasn’t the case. he hasn’t been able to attend to what has happened with us because he’s so wrapped up in this other heartbreak of his. he misses both of us. wants to live happily ever after with her, wishes he could be “perfect” for me, because i “deserve” it.

i feel like an unwomanly sexless farting lump. i feel deeply rejected. i feel like a chump.

but this goal is about becoming mighty. i took my lump chump self to refuge cove (it’s really called that!), slept on a leaky little boat, scrubbed, hauled freight, sawed little trees, and burned things. it was satisfying, despite the anvil tied to my heart.

i was there for over a week. i just got back.

at night the phosphorescence was the best i’ve ever seen. fish darted, causing bright flashes to streak through the water. i took anything at hand, a hose, a cob of corn, and swirled it in the water, writing my name, splashing, watching the green trails of my patterns. i longed to dive in and be surrounded by glowing creature water, but was too much of a chicken to jump in the inky ocean alone in the dark.

on nights that were clear, the stars were reflected perfectly in the glassy water. i stood at the end of the peer and felt like i was floating in outer space, milky way above and below me. it was dizzying and deeply inspiring.

sadly, jay has left me for his elementary school sweetheart who he hooked up with at a reunion a week or so ago. i’m devastated.

two days ago, after walking out on her job, marriage, and four year old child, she went back to her husband. jay’s in the air as i type, coming home, and i’m packing up, planning not to be here when he arrives—not out of coldness or spite, or an inability to forgive, but because i can’t stand any more pain and need to look after myself. if he really wants me, he’ll be able to find me. and then i’ll decide if i really want him.

i will never make myself so dependent on a man again. i have nowhere to live, no livelihood, nothing that i didn’t get as a result of jayson or our relationship. there’s nothing left that is mine but my own flesh. everything else punches me with his fist.

have i been a complete idiot? who is this person that i spent the last four years with? nothing makes sense, and everything is obliterated.

fuck. i can’t fucking believe this. i’m sick. i lost 5 pounds in 24 hours.