Memory Is Not Love

I felt it first, a stirring, one of those intuitive feelings that starts in the pit of your being and slowly spreads through your body like a ripple stretching out across a pond. 

Something is happening. 

My chin lifted slightly and the sound of the voices around me seemed to fade. I turned my face over my right shoulder, something invisible was pulling me there. And that’s when I saw him. 

I was startled. It had been a long time.

His eyes were taking me in, while the woman he was standing with tinkered with something on the store shelf. It took a second for him to realize that I was responding to the silent call and was looking back at him. But, at the instant when our eyes would have met, he quickly turned his face back to the object on the shelf, pretending not to see me. Simultaneously, a response was welling up in me, my mouth opened to say something that my heart hadn’t had the chance to translate into words but froze when he looked away. 

Maybe he was scared, maybe he was conflicted, maybe he was angry. I didn’t know what he was because I didn’t get to look into his eyes, the place where truth screams when all else is silent. His heart was always dwelling there, clearly visible, no matter the stoic look that otherwise occupied his features. I used to pretend not to see the love shining back at me when I looked at him—it was too complicated and I wasn’t ready to take that chance again. But now, all I wanted was a peek into those eyes to see how they reflected me and if there was any chance of recovering even a tiny piece of the relationship that we’d once had. 

My dear friend, I have missed you, I am sorry.

The words were burning in my throat, roaring up from the pit of my being, almost throwing me towards him with their force. But I stood rooted in place. He didn’t deserve the pain I caused him, he didn’t deserve this moment or the confrontation that I wanted to have. I snapped my mouth closed but understood that he could hear the words through the gaze that I briefly cast in his direction and feel the emotion moving toward him that not even my stilled-feet could hold back. 

I sharply whipped my head back around to the teapot I had been examining on the shelf. I didn’t know what to feel; happy that he was so close or sad because it didn’t seem to matter. I closed my eyes against the conflict and my hands tightened into helpless fists at my sides. Memories flashed before me; the first time I rounded the corner and saw him standing there, coffee in hand…the tipsy birthday kiss at the red-light on Hawthorn and Randolph…sitting in the sand on a beach at midnight feeling like we were the only two in the universe that understood each other. But none of that mattered anymore, I realized, as haunting lyrics whispered in my head, “Memory is not love and it’s not life…” 

I suddenly became aware that the man I was shopping with was talking to me and I opened my eyes, only to stare at him unseeingly. He didn’t seem to notice my conflict or that as he continued to speak, his voice became muffled against the loud pull of the other man standing three, totally, irrelevant feet behind us. I chanced a glance behind me to see that the woman also seemed unaware of the past that had unexpectedly joined us as she continued to move about normally. 

It seemed like fate that we had both wound up in the same place at the same time.  As far as I knew, he was still traveling and I had since moved halfway across the country but here we were, standing in this little obscure gift shop on East Boulevard together—but not.The tortured ghost of decisions-past roared to life inside me. He was the road not taken in my life—the ‘what if’? And for the ga-zillionth time, I sadly wondered why he waited until I was wrapped in another’s arms to tell me that he finally chose me and that he was coming home to stay. 

A year ago, I told him, “You break my heart”

“Likewise", he said

And he abruptly vanished from my life.

My eyes burned with tears as his scent caught up with me and my heart felt heavy with the realization that we had both made the decision, right at that moment, in that shop, to hold tight to the destiny that had already been handed down by the sad, beautiful, mysterious and ever-confusing universe.

I was disorientated and heartbroken as we all four moved about the small room, circling around the shelves, each other, and a past that in that moment, was still alive, still longing and still loving.

June 2014

*Lyrics from, "Bare" by The Cure

If Only For One Night

She laid her head down on my shoulder, gently bridging the distance between our two bodies. I fought the urge to close the last inch between us, to smell her hair, to brush a kiss across her crown. But I remained still. I could hear her declaration just the day before echo in my head,

 “We’re just friends”.

The universe is full of mysteries but never had I encountered one as confounding as the woman sitting next me in the sand. She had decided on the spur of the moment to make the long drive from our hometown just to come visit me.  Normally, I sat on this beach alone and I was glad that she had chosen to be at my side--if only for one night.

There we sat one boy, one girl, two just-friends people silently staring out to sea, pretending that we could see the divide between the dark ocean and the midnight sky. I know now that we were really just staring into a romantic idea of what could lay just beyond. My senses felt heightened while I watched the waves as they arrived on the shore, a faint trim of white flashing quickly just before receding back into the darkness.  

This was our relationship. We were best friends; although there was always something more lingering just out of sight, maybe hidden in that dark divide between the depths of the ocean and spaciousness of the sky that we were now staring at.

As if reading my thoughts, she chose that moment to look up at me. Her large hazel eyes brimming with contentment and I swallowed hard at the message I saw so clearly--if only for a tiny second--in them. She was so close. She smiled brightly as she burst from the sand and dashed towards the sea. Her hair loosened and stretched out behind her in the darkness. I watched with the wonder that a person has at seeing a caged bird set free. She splashed into the water, lifting her dress more as she waded deeper in and for a moment I was awestruck.

The sight of her willed my body into action; go to her, dance with her, snatch her up before the moment faded into reason. I climbed to my feet and with every step I took; I became aware that the universe was opening to her, to me, to us.

I waded into the water; she was still now, staring out into the nothingness as the waves lapped against her thighs.  She had known without a doubt that I would join her and her body swayed in a way that welcomed me. I closed the remaining distance between us and she leaned back into me. Her hair tickled my nose as the back of her head came to rest on my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her, my hands inching their way slowly across her hips.  She breathed deeply, inhaling the intoxicating smell of the sea. Her breath caught for just a second before she exhaled and the last of her resolve disappeared as she sank fully into me. I brushed a kiss just below her jawline and she arched her neck in response. My hands held tighter to her hips while my lips took advantage of her exposed shoulder. We released all fear and reason in that moment, casting it out to the hungry sea.

We danced there to the sound of the waves crashing, our bodies touching, our souls embracing, with the darkness hiding us both beneath its generous cloak. The whole of the universe seemed to be captured in that moment, on that beach, between heaven and earth and the breaths of two people—if only for one night.

Just a Kiss

Although it was just a kiss

And not love

She found within it

A tiny grain of his soul

Delivered so softly

In one gentle touch

Shy hearts opening

For one tiny instant

No reason at all

For this kiss to exist

Just him offering

A sweet moment

Without expectation

And her accepting

Eyes closed

They touched without fear

They touched without regret

Allowing life to be

What it is

In the moment

The culmination of their lives

Manifesting as a kiss

A tiny taste of the universe

Life breathing quietly

On the lips of another

Although it was just a kiss

And not love

She found within it

A fond memory to be held

In the silent moments

When she feels alone.

Originally written April 30, 2011

Broken

I blinked back the tears as I sat waiting at the red-light at the intersection of Billingsley and Randolph Roads and tried to allow everything the doctor had just said to me to really sink in. I replayed him in my mind’s eye as he flipped through my medical chart. The routine physical I had in February showed that even then, I was pretty sick—deficient in most vitamins. His finger slid across the yellow paper landing on every circled spot-- life-force that disease had apparently been stealing from me.  I could only stare down in silence as my eyes followed the zigzag pattern that lead straight to my diagnosis of being undeniably broken.

The look in my Gastroenterologist doctor’s eyes wasn’t scary on purpose--it was honest--and the truth of the matter was, that things were not good. He sent my primary care doctor a note to tell her that he had given me a new diagnosis.  I frowned down at the newly inked red circle on my chart that enclosed the words “Crohns Disease”.

I had my own suspicions, I did some symptom-based research but nothing prepared me for the enormity of the diagnosis and as the news of my particular dire health continued to come, it grew, dwarfing me in the corner of the already too-small and cold gray examination room.

He said that I needed to see a surgeon immediately to address some other complications. Fear struck my heart—a surgeon?  I tried to listen to what he was saying but my inner voice stole the show; the worst is over, right? I am better, I can walk again. I drove myself to my appointment today.

He sensed my disbelief. “You are very sick.”

My mind rose in conflict with the information that he was telling me, presenting me with pictures of myself doing intense workouts, jumping-jacks with weights, balanced on one leg in my favorite yoga pose, and hiking my favorite strenuous trail in the mountains.

No!  My mind refused. Wellness was my thing, my identity, the way I lived in the world and I wasn’t about to give it up.

His words continued to come anyway, like rocks being pelted at my glass house…Multiple ulcers…no workouts for at least six months…no hiking, no more raw veggies…medications…no cure…forever...My eyes stared unseeingly at the doctor as I dodged the shards of glass crumbling down around me, the remnants of who I thought I was and the life I had lived up until today---all gone, all broken.

He told me that it wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t do anything wrong to cause this disease. Maybe he thought that somehow this information would soften the, your-life-as-you-KNEW-it-is-over blow.

 It didn’t.

I mumbled instead, “I can’t get sick, I can’t have surgery, I have to find a new apartment in a couple of weeks, I have to move, I have to get back to work….”

He said I wasn’t listening to him and he was right. I kept trying to talk myself out of it, talk him into spinning answers that I could live with. He’s no fool, he knew what I was doing---denial. He looked me straight in the eye again and told me that I had a non-curable disease and he repeated it until he was sure that I comprehended what that really meant.

And what that really meant was that there was no going back to ‘before’. My health would change from day to day or even sometimes hour to hour. No amount of bootcamp, yoga or healing foods were going to chase Crohns away or even guarantee a remission.

“You’re going to have to face this.” He stared at me hard, unwilling to let me leave the cold gray room or say another word until I accepted it.

He had obviously seen my kind before; the person that just thought they needed more exercise, the person that avoided medications at all costs, the person who powered their body with the willpower of the mind, the person who waited until they were so broken that they could hardly walk before asking for help.

As I continued my drive home, I recalled the last few weeks of my life before I came to be in his care. My “condition” had deteriorated very quickly. I was in immense pain, the kind that caused an adrenaline rush followed by the threat of a blackout. I couldn’t walk, drive, cook, or even get up to open the door. I sat in a valium induced haze on a heating pad sleeping off and on and barely eating for two whole weeks but even knowing all of that, I still sat in a doctor’s office today denying that I was really, really sick, that I was really, really, broken.

Tears started to burn my eyes as more of the denial lifted and yet another realization begun to sink in, I was only able to walk today because I had been taking ten anti-inflammatory pills, two steroid pills and three antibiotic pills a day since my colonoscopy only four days earlier.

The light at the intersection turned green and I could hardly believe that I made it through without killing someone.

Obviously the meds he gave me before the actual diagnosis were helping but it was almost as if I had erased the last three weeks from my mind as being "real”. Despite hating pills, I hadn’t read-up on the side-effects from the meds but was choking them back three times a day—denial.  I didn’t want to know what these chemicals were doing to my body, I just wanted to get better as fast as I could, to be normal again, to exercise, to stalk food trucks, to once again enjoy my beloved broccoli and cauliflower with spicy Asian sauce at lunch time.

I was treating myself like I had an injury; already making plans to go back to work as soon as possible and designing a workout regimen to get myself back to health. But he was telling me that I wasn’t injured, I was broken.

Eventually, and begrudgingly, I let the truth reflected in his firm eyes enter into my hard head. It was only then, when he saw the last of my denial crumbling, that he continued.

He spent the last part of my appointment going over the startlingly dangerous side-effects of the medications and the different stages of meds used for Crohns—I was started in stage two because I was too severe for stage one meds to work.

I had waited too long to seek help.

I cried the rest of the way home barely giving a thought to the curious stares of the people in the cars around me all stuck in five o’clock traffic on a Tuesday evening.

I sat in the car wondering, where did my life go? In the space of an hour I had suddenly become two people—the health-nut person that I still thought that I was and the sick Crohns-person that the doctor said that I was. How was I going to put these two people together?

Medications, surgeries, hospital stays, regular GI doctor visits, higher risk of cancer, random bouts of pain….never again making a food choice without thinking, will this be a trigger, will this land me in the hospital again?

My house was empty when I walked in the door. The friend who had nursed me over the last two weeks had left because we thought that I was better. I suddenly became more aware of my body and of the great betrayal that my mind had done it. I had thought it was nothing too serious. A year of symptoms, piling on top of each other, my mind finding new reasons to explain them away.

I eased my foreign-feeling body slowly down onto the softest spot of the couch—newly aware of the ulcers and other suspected medical complications of forming abscesses and fistulas. I touched my abdomen and compassion washed over me for what my body had been though over the last three weeks. I thought of all the tests, the scans, the scopes, the bleeding, the starvation, the medicines and worst of all, my relentless pushing.  I cringed.

Old habits die hard and it wasn’t long before my amazingly stubborn mind wanted to take over the situation, wrench the reins from my emotionally devastated-self in an effort to salvage something of the self I knew. It wanted to go into warrior-mode, grab the computer, research, research, research, and find a new way with no meds, some weird ancient herbal treatment, or some secret code out there in the universe to unlock this prison of sickness that I had been confined to.

I sat up suddenly, wiped the tears from my eyes and opened up Google but my fingers just hovered. I started to fight with myself. My stubborn mind had already pushed my fragile body so far and here I was already pushing again. I shoved the computer away, angry at myself and lay back down on the couch. Grief met me there. It wrapped around me like a blanket, holding tightly to me until I could resist no more. I let the idea of who I was and where I thought I was going in my life dissolve; the fitness buff, the mostly raw veggie diet lifestyle, the no meds allowed policy, the idea that my body, like my mind, had no limits. I let it all go, released my grip and let it fall like sand through my fingers.

 I am sick. I am broken.

I felt my mind begin to soften towards my body, like a mother to an ailing baby.

I wrapped my arms around myself, until the waves of sadness and grief finally faded to acceptance and then I did something that I had resisted my whole life---I rested.

Originally written August 16th, 2012

Sunflower

He pulled off the road and I could feel my agitation start as I anticipated another of his spur of the moment, time consuming detours. We were making our way back from a half day hiking trip and were in a slight rush to make it back home before it got too late. I opened my mouth to give voice to my annoyance but stopped short when I looked out my window and saw headstones - we were in a graveyard. 

As we crept up the long driveway, I could see a sea of grave-markers, most of them dotted with brightly contrasting flowers, stretching out into the distance over a large green hill. My agitation quickly melted into curiosity and he seemed to sense the question forming in the back of my throat. 

“Someone that I know is buried here”, he said as we eased further into the cemetery. 

 I looked at him slightly perplexed but he didn’t seem to notice. Someone? His vague explanation sent my mind spinning. I pictured a long-dead relative known only to him through one or two old and worn, black and white photos in his grandmother’s photo album. Everyone has that “legendary” member of the family, the war-hero, the celebrated relative, the one that the older people tell stories about when they gather at holidays or reunions. I figured that maybe he had grown up hearing the name of the cemetery and that somehow, we ended up passing by it as we meandered through the North Carolina back-roads on our way back into the city. I was sure that my silent musing explained the spur of the moment hard-turn that brought us into the graveyard. 

We stopped the big black jeep on the driveway for a few seconds as he looked over the neat rows of headstones. I could almost see the indecision in his eyes about which way to go despite the black shades he wore. “There is a sunflower on the gravestone” he said without looking at me. I wasn’t sure if it was a thought being stated out loud or a prompt for me to help him search. 

Sunflower? The previous idea of some long-dead family war-hero faded from my mind as I followed his lead and searched the headstones for a sunflower from the passenger-side window. Not seeing anything from our current vantage point, he put the car back in drive and we drove further in. We rode slowly about half way up the drive and then came to an easy but hesitant stop.

 “My sister is buried here”, he said almost casually as he suddenly hopped out of the car.

My heart stuck a little as I recalled him telling me of her fatal car accident when he was just fourteen. I was surprised that this mainly stoic man had dared face this emotional wound in my presence. My hand hesitated on the door handle, I wasn’t sure if he wanted me tagging along for something like this. I knew this wound wasn’t healed and that there was still a lot of pain there for him—some of it coming, ironically, from the wall that he had built to hold it at bay and the guilt he accumulated for waiting so many years to come back and face that sunflower etched headstone. 

I could feel the heaviness in the air as he gestured for me to get out of the car. Still hesitant, I tried searching his expression for confirmation that he really wanted me to join him but his eyes were still hidden behind the dark shades. As my hand pulled the handle, the normally faint sounding pop of the door opening seemed exaggeratedly loud in the heavy, quiet atmosphere. I slid one leg out slowly and became aware that I was feeling a mixture of things---his pain, my compassion and a sense of honor that he allowed me close enough to see a portion him that he himself had trouble facing. 

He stood there waiting on me, his demeanor seeming calm and solid. Both of my feet found their way to the ground and I pushed the feather-light jeep door closed behind me, the sound of it echoing loudly, breaking the solemn silence. He didn’t seem to be as bothered by the noise as I was as I joined him on the grass and we meandered slowly, passing quietly through the cement markers that held down a small patch of earth, not so much for the lifeless bodies below, but more the living that needed a place to mourn. 

I stayed a few feet behind, my intuition telling me that he needed space. I looked at all the names and dates of the people who had once lived in, contributed to, and died from this world that I now exist in. My eyes couldn’t help but linger on each name. Who was Emma Fowler and who still places flowers on her grave in the cold of January twenty years after she has passed on? What color was her hair? What kind of life had she lived? Did she ever picture strangers walking over her grave and wondering what kind of person that elegantly shaped headstone was left to represent? 

I felt the need to read every name as I passed and it was only when I had gone too far, that I realized that he had stopped. I halted a few feet behind him and only when he knelt down, did I see the sunflower.

I---having an almost sixth sense where emotions are concerned---was suddenly aware of a gateway of sorts opening in that graveyard, releasing a deeply sheltered ache. It was palpable and I could almost hear it breaking the silence as it neared, making its way to him, getting louder and louder as it weaved around the other headstones, engulfing their presence. He didn’t move from his place in the grass. He was solid—as always---as he faced her headstone and a barrage of other things that I could sense but not see. After more than ten years of hiding from himself, her and this moment, he was finally ready to open up.  I wasn’t sure if it was a final ‘goodbye’, a long held, ‘hello’ or just an honest, ‘I miss you’ but I knew the silence had waited far too long to be broken. 

I could sense him giving in as his long-held pain met up with the physical place it had been scared of and I knew that my presence wasn’t needed. He didn’t need my support, my shoulder, a hug or even my reassuring smile; what he needed was what he had been too scared to ask of himself all this time--to be alone with his sister and tell her how he was. I whispered that I was going to take a walk and I was met with a raspy “Thank you” and a slight nod of acknowledgement over his shoulder. 

I turned in the opposite direction but couldn’t help glancing back at him. I felt this strange sensation of intrusion and curiosity both at the same time. I was torn between moving away from him quickly, giving him the privacy to mourn and the wanting to witness something so profound;  the breaking down of a wall, the facing of a long denied truth and the bitter-sweet self-forgiveness that would settle in the wake of it all. These were the moments when life seemed exceedingly fragrant and vulnerable, when the heart opens after being walled up for so long. 

I turned away from him and passed the parked jeep, holding closely to the gift I had been given at being a rare witness to one man’s fear finally dissolving into the raw-openness of the heart.

 As I walked away, I studied the play of light in the fading January sun. I noticed how the barren trees stretched long, casting even longer shadows as they stained the grass with darkness. I entered the other side of the graveyard and made my way to a statue of three men who looked out mournfully, watching over the last markers of earthly existence and I stood next to them and waited.

I lingered there for a while, wishing I could see him from my lower perch. I knew he was over there and I wondered what he was saying to her. I wondered how one manifested that tightly held pain into words and I wondered what expression his face held when he finally let it go. 

It wasn’t too long before he appeared on the rise and I felt guilty that I had wondered so far from the jeep. He didn’t seem too bothered by having to look for me and he stood silently, patiently and waited for me to cross through all the cement souls to reach him. 

 “I left a picture of my son”. My heart turned over for him. “It’s a relationship that will never happen”. He continued solemnly, “I told her about him”.

I pictured the delightful little seven year old boy who stole his father’s good looks and rambunctious mechanical mind. I ventured a suggestion, not knowing how it would be met. I quietly told him that maybe next time he visited this place that he should consider bringing his son. He was quiet, clearly mulling over the probable scenario and after-effects of such an outing. I didn’t want to intrude too much because I don’t have a child and could not fully understand this situation by the nature of being on the outside looking in but I reminded him that this place holds love and truth and that neither of those things should ever be hidden. 

When he finally spoke, I was ready for him to tell me to mind my own business or that I didn’t know what I was talking about but he didn’t and I realized just how safe he felt with sharing his wounds, regrets, fears and hopes with me. “My son has an un-natural fear of death.” 

“This isn’t about death”, I explained, “Its about building a bridge between two people that you love the best way possible in this very limited physical existence.” He took a minute to ponder my words and then nodded his head in silent agreement.  We walked in silence a few minutes more and I wondered if his son’s fear of death in part, stemmed from the wall that his father had constructed to protect himself from grief; a wall that effectively kept out the pain but also closed him off from love and living life in the process. 

As we neared the jeep, I rubbed his back, he caught my hand and gave it a squeeze and I couldn’t help but wonder if he would be different now. 

We climbed back into the jeep and it wasn’t long before the conversation expanded to include not just him, but all families who had lost a child, a sister, or a brother. It seemed that there were few more destructive things that could happen to a family than the death of a child. We talked about how grieving can take many misunderstood forms---one of which being, isolation. 

I wondered silently what the other three members of the family had gone through in their own personal battles with pain, grief and acceptance. I wondered how the death of such a vital link created four unique pathways of coping and sometimes how those pathways crossed over the others or as in my friends case---carried them briefly further away. More importantly, I wondered how each of them had overcome and who, if anyone was around to witness that fragrant, vulnerable moment when the heart opened—a moment like I had witnessed with him today.

He opened up to me further, expressing his guilt over leaving home to join the military and the idea that his choice to “run away” somehow contributed to the well of grief for his family and had especially weakened his younger brother’s ability to cope with the loss. I listened and became very aware of how his grief grew, like the roots of a tree, reaching deeper and deeper into his life and wrapping around the choices that he had made. I stared straight ahead, out of the windshield at the double yellow line and realized that his burden was bigger than I ever knew.  I swallowed past the lump in my throat when I saw a tear slide from under his dark shades. His face crinkled slightly and I knew he was crying, although his voice remained mostly stable. I reached out and grasped his hand. 

The warmth from where our hands met and the feeling of life and love contained within that grasp gave him the courage to continue speaking. Having reached the end and confronted the grief, he was ready to revisit the start---the day it happened. He sucked in a deep breath and told me about being called into the principal’s office and told that his mother’s friend was there to pick him up. He immediately assumed that he was in trouble and had no idea that the sound of the traffic accident that he had heard earlier from his school classroom was the sound of his world changing. He had heard the impact. He had heard her death. 

As we pulled into my driveway, I was reminded of the Buddhist philosophy that all beings are interconnected and that we all share the same pain. I realized that although I have never had this kind of grief in my life, that I am profoundly affected by the emotional journey of my friend; a journey that started with the death of a woman I never knew. I marvel at how every life lived ripples out to somehow touch us all and I have no doubt that some tiny piece of everyone, even people unknown to me before today---like Emma Fowler---has found it’s way into my life, even if it was just in the form of helping me be there for my friend, write this piece or bind me deeper to the world around me.  

I looked over at my friend once more before we climbed out of the jeep and further away from this profound day, and knew that the image of him kneeling down in front of that headstone, delicately etched with a sunflower, would be burned into my mind forever as a memory of the moment that someone I love faced death and ultimately found life. 

He turned to me with one final thought, “That headstone, that place, is the only real evidence that she existed other than me or my memories.” 

As I recall this day one week later, I think about those words and the significance of a person’s final marker in life---their headstone. They say the message of a sunflower is to always look towards the light and even though I don’t know the specific significance of the choosing of a sunflower for her final resting place, I must say that after what I witnessed in that cemetery, that I couldn’t agree with that message more. 

*originally written February 2012

The Little Things

October 2009 - It finally happened, I thought to myself as I stood there looking at the barren walls of my new little apartment. My cat sat close by, still weary of her new surroundings. I was embarking on a new life alone, by myself and I wish I could say that it was under better circumstances. Me and my little furball were suddenly ripped from our warm and cozy life and deposited into a cold little empty apartment miles from “home”. This was surreal to me after having spent all of my adult life in one of two long-term relationships.  I had no idea what I was doing, well maybe I kind-of did but I was used to having the security of that other person to bounce things off of. I had to learn a whole new way of going about life or “tackling life”, as I like to put it—alone.

This challenge would have been easier without heartache in tow but more often than not, the circumstances of drastic change are not of the kindest origin. My latest dive into “drastic change” came when my most recent relationship ended almost abruptly just before my thirtieth birthday. 

I walked away with almost nothing. It wasn’t that he was that selfish (or maybe he was) but it was more about turning the page—I left my garden, one of my two cats, the trees I had planted and nurtured and my gas stove. I walked away from the man that had been my other half for almost eight years and moved across town to an empty, cold apartment---welcome home! 

As overwhelming and “big” as all that was, it was the little things that I was really scared of—you know, that whole business of getting used to life without a man to do the little “man things”. Who is going to move the furniture when I need to clean the carpet? Where does the garbage go when it’s full? What kind of light-bulbs do I buy? How do I use the fireplace? These were just some of the things that I didn’t know because they had always been done for me. They were the day-to-day mini-challenges entwined with the bigger life ones; moving, moving on, going at least two hours without crying, fears over money, and losing the man that was my best friend. 

The little things weighed like an elephant on my chest, a chest that not-so-successfully concealed a heart that was totally shattered. I was terrified but determined not to let him see my fear of living without him when I walked out that door. I did what I have always done when life pulls the rug out from under me, I held my chin high and I set out not only to make a new life alone, but to make a successful new life alone.

This successful life alone required the careful blending and balancing of these little challenges with the big ones. The big things are what is and you deal with them because you have no choice. The little things are harder because they sneak up on up you. For instance, when I made the decision to leave, at no point did light-bulbs enter my consciousness and although light-bulbs themselves are not decision makers or breakers, they held enough power to crumble my spirit. 

It was October when I moved into my apartment and the evenings were cool and much like my heart, were getting darker by the day. There was a serious lack of overhead lightening in my new not-so-cozy apartment so I bought a set of adjustable lamps and set to work assembling them. With the evening hours bearing down on me and the threat of complete darkness howling at me from the dark corners, I was disappointed that it took me forty minutes to assemble the fussy cheap lamps but that seemingly unstoppable go-girl spirit finally kicked in and with it, a feeling of profound satisfaction that I was able to complete the task alone without man or “real” tools—another “little thing” kicked in the butt. 

My recent accomplishment and pride were evident in my lighter step as I ventured out to the store to get light-bulbs. My new title as, “Lamp Assembler Extraordinaire” quickly got lost as I experienced a hit of anxiety when I couldn’t locate the light-bulbs in the grocery store. I meandered around and successfully located the other obscure non-food items such as diapers, turkey basters and Dora the Explorer coloring books. My spirit was withering a bit when at last I located the elusive blubs. I spent fifteen minutes in the aisle trying to figure out what light-bulbs to buy--- I had clearly not spent enough of my life thinking about light-bulbs. Silly me, I thought that I could simply pick the wattage that matched the wattage listed on the lamps but this was not the case. There were light-bulbs that had three different wattages, there were tinted light-bulbs, there were different sized light-bulbs, there were energy conscious light-bulbs and the list grew as my spirit deflated. 

I was bombarded by questions in my mind: What would happen if I get the three wattages bulbs even though one of the wattages matches my lamps? Will the soft pink bulbs make things look orange? Why are some bulbs shaped funny? And finally my most destructive thought on the whole subject: Which ones did he used to buy for our home? I was nearly on the aisle floor fighting tears trying to decipher the labels and wattages--my previous assembly victory long-forgotten. I felt incredibly alone in the packed grocery store and I was beginning to feel sorry for myself. I put the self-pity bat in the other hand and started to beat myself up with it, I should know this! Why is this so complicated? I stood there fighting back my impending breakdown and thinking that I had managed to drag my depressed-self out of bed today only to be undone by a little thing like a light bulb!

A week later I regained some of my appetite and my determination to make this new life work so I headed to the grocery store. I have always expressed my creativity through cooking and decided that today was the day to reclaim that. I cruised around the grocery store carefully avoiding anything that would dent my determination--his favorite foods and the light-bulb aisle. I saw that red bell peppers were on sale. My favorite homemade pasta sauce came to mind and I decided that I would make that for dinner. Positive energy surged through me and I buzzed around the store grabbing up all the ingredients to create my masterpiece and headed home. 

After stashing all the groceries away, I set to preparing my ingredients for the sauce. I peeled off the produce stickers and washed my bell peppers. I turned towards my stove and was hit upside the head (and heart) with the realization that I didn’t have gas burners anymore. In my former life, I used to roast peppers over the open flame gas burners—what do I do? I sensed the edge of a cliff and I was heading towards it. I was determined not to fall! I did a quick mental-shuffle through the millions of cookbook articles I had read and recalled the alternative method of cutting the bell peppers in half and broiling them in the oven. Ah-ha! Good mood retained, “little thing” overcome and cliff avoided! 

I set to work on my peppers, placing them on a cookie sheet in the oven and closing the door with a victorious smile. I prepared the other ingredients, dancing around the kitchen as I worked and once I was finished, I peeked in the oven to check on the peppers. To my horror, the kitchen started filling with smoke and the peppers weren’t even toasted. I stood there for a second absolutely dumbfounded and confused as I stared at the almost-raw bell peppers. All of a sudden I am startled out of my confusion by a loud piercing sound—the fire alarm? Another layer of confusion piles on as I scramble to find the offending alarm, tripping over my cat in the process (who is clearly startled and running for cover). I locate an alarm right outside the kitchen pass-through and attempt to locate a button to stop the blaring noise. I notice that the light is blinking green as if everything is fine and dandy and I am confused by this—shouldn’t it be flashing red? This pettily green color doesn’t convey danger! And that’s when I see the words “carbon monoxide detector” as a wave of stupidity washes over me—wrong alarm. Those damn little things. 

I try to calm down and take stock of the situation; my kitchen is full of smoke—bad—but not on fire---good. The fire alarm clearly works—good---but the noise is so loud that I can’t figure out where it’s coming from---bad. I don’t know whether to fan the perfectly-not-burned bell peppers or continue my vain search for an alarm near the kitchen. I turn to look down the hall and lock eyes with my cat, who is fearfully peeking out from under the bed telling me to not let her die. I gaze up slightly and there it is---the alarm---right near my bedroom door. I push the oven door closed and dash down the hallway. The cat looks on, as I reach overhead spouting the command internally “go go gadget arms!”-- Or not. I quickly realize that my petite stature isn’t going to cut it in this situation. I dash back into the living room and grab the lawn chair that I have been using as living room furniture. I hop up but can still barely reach the alarm. I will my fingers to grow just a quarter of an inch, all the while the alarm is still blaring and announcing to all the neighbors that I am an idiot. The cliff is visible again, emerging out of the darkness. I can’t find the ‘off’ button or battery compartment, my cat doesn’t want to die, my peppers aren’t cooking and here I stand on a lawn chair in the middle of a life that I don’t know how to live. 

 In a final act of desperation, I knock the alarm off the ceiling and stare at it as it dangles just above my head teasing me as it continues to scream, “Your new neighbor is a dangerous idiot” to everyone within the apartment complex.

 I am falling over the cliff. I plop down defeated onto the lawn chair and cry. 

After about five minutes, the screeching stops and my cat creeps out to say she’s sorry for doubting me by rubbing against my legs. I head back into the kitchen and eye the bell peppers that obviously aren’t going to get roasted and the thought occurs to me that my favorite hobby might also be history just like the failed relationship. I close my eyes and put my head on the counter. I allow the tears to come because this can’t be real. When I open my eyes, I will be back in my airy kitchen with my gas stove and boyfriend who will know how to turn off the fire alarm—Wrong. It didn’t happen, I opened my eyes and I was still where I was and there were still raw bell peppers in the oven. My cat hops up in the kitchen window, excitedly watching a chipmunk from her new perch. She is seemingly unaffected by what just happened. My view of the situation suddenly changes and I decide that I will make this work, the fire alarm, light-bulbs, and cat’s lack of faith in me will not break me. 

I attempt one more stab at roasting the bell peppers in the toaster oven but after forty minutes on one pepper, I start to get discouraged again. I stomp my feet, scream to myself and smack the counter a few times with a dishtowel. I GIVE UP! I start putting equipment away and that’s when I remembered that I had a jar of pre-roasted bell peppers in the cabinet. I fretted for a minute about whether I should make this sauce with less-than-fresh peppers and whether I could even eat at this point but my determination kicks in and I decide that dinner is back on.

 The little things seemed to have a domino effect, making victory and a successful life alone seem less and less attainable but I hung in there and thirty minutes later I had my sauce. One taste confirmed that you couldn’t really tell that I hadn’t used fresh peppers. Of course, on the back of victory, came a fresh wave of sadness as there was no one there to share the success with and that I had gone to so much trouble for only me.

I forced myself to choke down the pasta through bitter-sweet tears. I cried for the success that was hard earned but also for my recent discovery that moving forward sometimes means leaving some part of you behind.  

I spent the rest of the evening sitting in my lawn chair in my newly lighted living room and looked my new life right in the eye. I found hope in the thought that one day, this situation will seem really comical and I decided that I was going to accept that although I was still grief-ridden, my new life was not bad--just different and a new life required a new approach. 

My dream of a successful life alone didn’t disappear but I found that success isn’t about doing it alone, success is about having the strength to face everyday life, conquering the little things while still coping with the big ones. Its about caring enough about yourself to make life work for where you are now, whether that be alone or in a relationship. 

I also learned another lesson that day, that sometimes you have to fight to hold on to the things you love and that when all was said, done and conquered, I was worth the trouble (and false alarms) of homemade pasta sauce.

--Gigi

Originally written November 2009

The Phone Call

She held the phone to her chest in utter disbelief – all this time; he had been carrying her around like a weight upon his shoulders. He had thrown all she was—all they were—into the deep dark bag of failure with all the other things and people that he had given up on. She was horrified to find that she had become part of that darkness, part of that heavy burden---part of what he couldn’t face within himself. She didn’t want him to remember her that way. 

 She suspected from the very beginning of the end of their relationship that she might end up in that bag of demons but she thought that it was only temporary. She believed that it would only last until the heartache was over, or until he found what he threw her into the fire to find. 

She could feel her hands tightening around the phone. Two years of not understanding had unexpectedly come to an end in one hour, in one conversation, in one phone call. She stood there in the darkening office, the sound of chirping printers and muted desk phones fading from her awareness as she replayed the confusion she had felt over him during the time leading up to their phone call today.  

Despite their personal split from each other, they shared the same employer so complete avoidance was next to impossible and staff meetings were a must for both of them. He would always sit at a distance and pretend--not so successfully--to be unaware of her presence, as if eight years of loving her could be hidden underneath the conference room table. He appeared anxious and she couldn’t make sense of why, when two people had meant as much to each other as they had, he found it so awkward to be near her. How could he just pretend her away? Why did he feel like he had to? 

The emotional energy between them was something she recognized but his behavior was another thing altogether and she didn’t know how to reconcile the two. Her logical, believe-what-I-see mind battled her not so logical, believe-what-I-profoundly-feel heart and both challenged her intuition—she hadn’t known what to believe. Now as she stood there, two years later in the quiet office, she finally understood what had been going on all this time. She hadn’t known that he had been avoiding her because she was a source of “real-time” pain for him. Time had allowed her the grace of healing but apparently hadn’t been as generous to him. 

The phone conversation started innocently enough, she needed his opinion on something and because of their history together, knew that she could trust him with the sensitive subject matter. She pushed the memories of their failed relationship aside easily enough, her current need for advice taking precedence over any doubts she had about seeking his council. She picked up the phone and dialed the three numbers of his extension that unbeknownst to her, would not only link her to him, but would finally cast light on the confusion of the last two years.

They ended up talking for an hour, the topics ever expanding and the original reason for the call becoming lost in the conversation between two people that understood each other so well. She glanced down at the computer and noted the time and length of their conversation. The office had long since cleared out and here they both still sat at their desks talking to each other. She could feel so much more conversation yet to come and the enlightenment she felt as a result, turned to motivation. Never one to hide her feelings or be scared of reaching out, she suggested that maybe next time, they should talk over coffee; that maybe, it was time. 

The following silence hit like a mute bomb, severing the easy conversation that flowed between two once-best friends reconnecting. For a second, she wanted to reach out and snatch back the runaway words, rip the hopefulness from their joyful stride and rein them back into her mind but it was too late. 

His awkwardness came flooding back in an attempt to drown the friendly conversation but she wouldn’t let it happen. She took advantage of the break in conversation to dispel his obvious conclusion, that just because the conversation was taking place in the “protected” environment of their after-hours office, that it didn’t mean that either of them was safe from the feelings that could result—good, bad or indifferent or that the conversation didn’t “count”. She pointed out that she was OK, that he seemed OK and that it was clear, due to the length of time that they had been on the phone that they missed talking to each other. The conversation might as well have happened in a coffee shop—the “safety” that she sensed he perceived, wasn’t really there.

The tension eased as he absorbed what she said and there was a moment more of silence between them before she opened her mouth in an attempt to resume the friendly conversation but he surprised her by interrupting, “It’s hard for me to be near you because when I look at you, I see all the pain that I put you through. It reminds me that I failed at us.”

She was rendered speechless at the emotion in his tone, the cracking voice of a man who didn’t understand that she wasn’t hurting anymore; a man who clearly couldn’t see the friendship resurfacing for the hold that the ghost of his own past actions had over him. Her heart ached at the thought that he looked upon her with darkness and failure and that she had become something that he did wrong. Time hadn’t moved on for him, the image of the broken person she was the day his behavior drove her from their home for the last time was how he still saw her. The love and good times they shared weren’t sitting amongst the warm and comfortable memories of his past; instead they had become a reminder of his grandest failure---love. 

She wasn’t having it. Yes, he had hurt her terribly, pushed her around, and let her walk out of his life with barely a thought of the eight years they had put in together but her belief in love had prevailed, rising steadily over the two years since the split, to hold the hurt—and him—warmly, comfortably. She reached inside to tap her light—the only weapon strong enough to be used against his darkness. She was not going back into that bag without a fight. 

She stood up abruptly, phone still pressed to her ear, passion burning wildly inside, “We both failed.” She whispered aggressively into the receiver.

She told him how she remembered him with fondness and that she still held tightly to a lot of the things he had taught her; black coffee and dessert, the smell of sandalwood and gardenias and his love of U2 and The Cure--- all things that remained a part of her, ingrained by having learned them through him. He quieted and she could feel her words penetrating, getting through to help to free him from his self-imposed prison of failure and also secure her place outside the bag as something good that happened that had come to an end, not as something that should have never happened to begin with. 

“Don’t remember me like that.” she ordered passionately, as she blinked back tears. “The love is still there, it just went through one hell of a transformation. We’re both doing OK—right?”

She took a steadying breath and he laughed a little and quietly said, “You’re very different than you were back then”. It was a sign that he was seeing her as she was now and not as the broken woman she had been when their relationship ended. He continued, “You’re funnier, too—in the weekly meetings, you make people laugh.” 

“I’m more zen nowadays.” she joked. The conversation was still solemn but becoming lighter again.

The positive energy between them was palpable as the conversation wound down into a sweet silence. She smiled into the phone and she realized at that very moment, that she had been waiting two years to have this conversation and hadn’t even known it. This was the beginning of a new chapter for her, for him---for them.

They said a quick and quiet goodbye, both of them understanding the profoundness of the phone call but neither wanting to speak more on it, knowing that it was new and fragile and that there was no reason to rush what time had already started—forgiveness.

The distant hum of a dial tone brought her back to the moment at hand and she looked down at the phone pressed into her chest. She slowly released her grip on it as she eased herself down into her desk chair, eyes fixed on the gray cubicle wall in front of her. 

Compassion for what they both had overcome on their painful two year journey seemed to culminate in this very moment and she could feel it begin to overwhelm her. The phone call had accomplished so much---it confirmed her belief that if you cultivate love, the hurt will eventually wither away and it also offered him freedom from the notion that she was his failure. She offered him a trade, swap out the bag of darkness for the chance at being friends again—she thought it was a good offer. 

She logged off her computer and gathered her things as tears rolled down her cheeks, eager to join the smile on her lips. She stood and made her way to the office door, glancing once more over her shoulder at the phone sitting on her desk as she remembered his last words to her a mere thirty minutes earlier.

“Maybe next time we should do this over coffee.” 

She laughed out loud as she flipped the light switch to “off” and closed the office door behind her.

November 2011