suddenly, goodbye.

 

Suddenly, goodbye

The last time i saw him, T, we had a dinner of grilled cheese and fried chicken. He was hesitant based on our choice since it was not healthy. I pushed him to do it. For cocktails, a harvest Manhattan for him. For me, a two sisters. Followed by another beer each. My other good friend joined us, making three, and there was such happiness of watching my two special people connect. A sparkler light of holidays past in adulthood lived in the present.

I remembered I cried. Tears of disappointment over a relationship done. He wiped the tears away with his words. Like he always did. He talked of his pending trip and not really wanting to go. I wish he hadn't. Ever left. It's going to be too hot, he had said, not like his wonderful trip with his boyfriend. He tried to leave multiple times, but the sway and spark of conversation kept us all there. I remember hugging and kissing him and saying I love you. I'm so very glad I did. Two sisters bars and books. Within, the valley of the Hayes. The only and last time I have been a patron. That would be the last time I ever saw my dear friend. Our last dinner. I can't walk back in the green skin of its wooden bones, that door, and haven't been able to. I wish I would have known he was going to leave us forever. But, I know I would have never let him go. Holding that embrace. Forever. Suddenly, goodbye.

Suddenly, goodbye would strike again almost a year later. The last time I saw him we shared a heritage pork sandwich from Bi-rite made by my student with labor and love and a Justin's dark chocolate peanut bar cups each taking a cup. We laid in my hammock in my backyard and he held me and talked of life as the sun slowly sauntered away. Later, he would walk me to the corner store for a purchase of gum- we split the pack-and paper towels for my home. We held hands and told him it was nice to have someone walk with me in my neighborhood. At 10 pm. As we said goodbye with a hug and kiss. I saw him as he walked backwards off my stoop and out of my life. That would be the last time I would see him. Suddenly, goodbye. Yet there is not one thing I would change or say or I wouldn't hold on to him tight and I have never stopped laying on the hammock and eating that sandwich and one of my favorite chocolates shared in our last moments. Suddenly, goodbye.

See suddenly goodbyes sting anyone. Anyone at all. But for me they have always touched a place deep inside- the place of a person who was never supposed to leave me- my mother. Touches that spot of childhood and hope and hurt and loss. Suddenly goodbyes used to always mean the reliving of her leaving. In the most painful way of stomach aches and sleepless nights and unbearable anxiety. But this time.

As I read the reading of love at my brother’s wedding day, "So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self." And toasting their nuptials with the champagne in one hand and smiling through the airbrushed makeup and photographers photos of the paparazzi style and happiness of seeing my 3 sides of the family all together in one place. The first time ever.

Sitting in my email inbox was an email from him reading:

Date: July 10, 2014 at 12:33:42 AM PDT

Subject: Re: hey!

Kate,

Thank you for your email.

To answer your query, I am not at all interested in pursuing this any further.

Effective immediately, I am hereby directing you to desist from any form of contact with me.

Goodbye. I wish you nothing but the best.

Sincerely,

Sent from my iPhone

First, I checked my eyes. Maybe they weren't working. I was in shock. From a man who communicates. Excuse me, communicated. From a man who spends his days counseling others --young people and pushing others to express themselves --their feelings and to do the right thing. (Feel free to close your agape mouth right about now). From a man who longs to be a therapist one day. Or would like to run a school. And has an empowerment blog. (Insert your laughter here). From a man who shares common friends and works in a close knit field in a city too small to not run into someone. I was in shock. Feelings hurt. Surprised. It felt so very unkind. And not the way to communicate with a woman you had dated, a woman you had befriended. And also like maybe a poorly written cease and deist letter. Google that shit next time. Or a computer generated email. I guess at the very least it wasn't written on a post it. Never in 20 plus years of dating has this ever happened. It made me grateful for those who showed up and said the words. Real respect actually present. Ability to be present and care and show up. Grateful. For them.

Suddenly goodbyes happen in the most unexpected time. They always do. You can never prepare. And some people you can't let go of and you eulogize those last moments and places and dream of one more day, one more moment like my dear friend, T who left this earth too early.

Others. You let them walk slash run away and don't even begin a trot after them. And you wouldn't change a thing. Like you happened to give him Hornby's "How to be good" and Diaz's "This is how you lose her"- books borrowed. Lost. Now. Foreshadowing my future of a movie ending.

Suddenly, goodbye. The difference is now I realize the resolution will never be found in another. In another's words. I used to think that was the only way. But inside yourself. Inside of me. Is the only way to find it. And yes, a proper respectful goodbye from someone who knows better and is literally trained how to say goodbye would have been at the very least nice.

Suddenly, goodbye. They are all not the same. They used to be. But. Not. Anymore.

And even in the midst of suddenly goodbyes things always happen. T taught me to pull over for that view always. And say what you mean every time and his vigor for life and him leaving made me really enjoy the moment. And cherish the people in my life. And his people are now my people. Bonded in the loss and memory of him. The most simple things remind you. Really look at the view. And be hopeful. Always. And that it will all be okay.

So when I caught that bouquet at my brother’s wedding, I did not throw it to the ground in despair. Because good luck and new beginnings will be mine again. They already are. And as the wedding reading concludes- "Love always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end."

Suddenly goodbyes are hellos before we know it.

the Polaroids that string together a good life

Moments of joy mixtures into words you choose to ignore because you must.

Joy. Fun. Swing of a dance move. Swaying around. Life. I choose to ignore the pitter patter of he is loaded. I'm going to get that person fired- spewed with very expensive whiskey in hand.  It's almost never good enough. But money really doesn't buy what you want and never will. Keep banging  your head against the capitalist wall while singing  the chant work hard, play hard.

I enjoy hard work. Hard, meaningful work. The messiness of beginnings and endings and everything in between. If we are always trying to capture the perfect picture everywhere we go - we miss the view. We miss the  Polaroids we capture in our mind of the most beautiful moments.  Almost always simple in nature. We string them together with rope and twine that we find along the way. The only way we know how.  Because they are  are just moments. That string together a good life. The quest for it to be always beautiful and grand -every single moment -is futile.  Just. Moments.  We can only appreciate them since they only last for right now. Right now. This very moment. But they still exist strung together around our hearts and mind.

And when in the depths of the other extremes of life. We can open that part of ourselves again. And watch the Polaroids string sway in the wind of our lives.  Or in the greatest of moments  of the smallness  measure when  outside for a walk and hearing a child playing or the view that makes us late for work or that sunset  that honestly made you gasp or laughter never ending. Or  the day you wish you could play on repeat.   Or seeing a face you never thought you would see again.  Capture another photo to add to the string. And see them in all their  entirety.  If you are lucky. You will be able to see it. The  Polaroids that sway back and forth in the winds of our life.

if this doorway could talk

it has been so very long- i have been writing- but not blogging.  be patient with me.  this started one day as i walked down my stairs and truly saw my doorway in a new light.  enjoy!  all my thanks as always!

If this doorway could talk. It would tell you of a crush- a possibility- which gave birth against its neighboring wall as he picked her up once as they continued in their kissathon side by side but never again. He never did cross the space between outside and inside again.

The doorway would tell you about the box spring that didn't fit through it. It never made its way in and after hours of trying super burritos and Mexican cokes in their respective bottles were their own solace.

It would tell you how casual sex died for me. The door felt the brunt of my choice to sleep with someone I hadn't known well enough. I didn't know he had a girlfriend. Knowing. And months later. She found my doorway and beat it as if it was me and doorbell screaming in tones of a woman scorned and every word you could call a woman that you would want to destroy. Casual sex died for me and I walked with a kombucha bottle to protect myself until I got that pepper spray.

It would tell you of the Chinese food some cheap- some voted best in the country and pizza that crossed over into my hands. Always definitely a man delivered. Mostly to eat alone. Sometimes to share.


It would tell you that my parents come across its wooden bones only twice. Once when I had surgery. Second time when I graduated a week later. It yearns for another visit.

The doorway would tell of a fall first kiss after a date that resulted in me standing on one leg- good thing for yoga - other leg wrapped up towards him. It would tell you how the door opened and closed in indecision. He left. And returned. It would tell you how I said goodbye to him many visits later. And meant it. The wood felt the weight of my feet-my sorrow expressed in a heavy heart silently. I closed the door slowly and meaningfully. And walked back up to the reality of it all.

The doorway would tell you about the pounding through of the excitement of the rushing to change or find refugee in the couch or the soaring in my post yoga or run glow. It would tell you once I opened it braless in short shorts answered the door to Jehovah witnesses- who said they were looking for Spanish speakers. I told them necesito practicar and they handed me in a brochure in Spanish.

It would tell you once I needed help crossing its barrier as my father held me walking up the stairs swimming in the sea of sedation and incisions freshness of a surgery. It would tell you I wished for someone to knock upon it. More than once. It would tell you that my drunken feet had slide through it and sometimes how I put the wrong key into its keyhole. And how I would take a moment before taking on the hill of stairs. A reprieve. Hoping I can make the climb in my drunken feet. Not so much anymore.

The doorway would tell you the smile I get on my face as I look through it to greet a friend. Or the hope I have some days when I close it- something is beginning-something about being home. It would tell you I always double check. Double check it is locked.

The doorway sees me in my quiet moments of pausing after closing the door. I lean against its core. It would tell you how often I reach it just to run away again. Always forgetting something- always carrying more than one bag- my life long ode to the bag lady.

It will tell you of the most recent new beginning. Of being lifted in front of it more than once-our new ritual. Lifting. The perfect way to say goodbye to a new beginning of excitement and uncertainty wrapped into one of those desires I have held onto for so very long. The doorway sees my smile shone in my eyes that only newness can hold as I close it and make my ascend back home. It sees the questions move from my face to my head to my heart rapidly. And repeated.  Again.

This doorway. I barely recognize it. Or talk to it. But this doorway has seen so much. Of me. I never say thank you. Or hello. Or anything. I take this doorway for granted. But it has allowed the outside world into me and protected me when I needed it. Observing and holding.

I need to do more. Fix its blinds. Redo its varnish. Pay this protector some homage. It has seen so many of my beginnings and ends. It reminds me of the middle parts because I forget. I need to remember. It wasn't until I listened.

As I walked slowly down the good friend of stairs-30 and counting- I glanced at the doorway in the tunnel of lights and remembered. Remembered the doorway into my house knows me better than some of my closet friends. It would tell you of those who crossed its embrace and knowing that more will tomorrow and the next day. Opening and closing this door. The doorway. Where everything begins and ends. The doorway-the keeper of letting people in and out of my life. The keeper. The protector. Of. Me.

driving in my own show of humanity

hello my friends,
happy almost new year.  i am hoping given my new job and the fact i have been moved to do more writing might mean more blogging for me.  all my thanks as always.  i hope the new year brings true happiness in a way disney and fairy tales could never imagine.  and that people would understand the power they have to do good in our world.  not too much to ask for.  not much at all.

Am commute how you change just as I get used to. Yesterday, my eyes sanded down by too much melatonin taken at midnight for I must sleep.  They now heard the call of the day screamed in tones by my I phone. I got up from the sleeping bag of my sleepover for one. The warmth of the water awoke me enough for my peanut butter toast breakfast with a side of a homemade cookie. Breakfast of my champions for a Monday. One might say.  No coffee. Today. And onto the maze of the city from my home in the mission to the oasis of the presido. 

Each day I take a different route. Based on the cars almost kissing each other. Based on the time. Based on an errand. Based on an experiment. Every day, I roll down the windows and blast music and sing terribly, an one woman's karaoke just for me. Or possibly for some spectators along the way.  Yesterday I saw a man projectile vomit on the corner. The image was hard to shake from my brain that is used to playing on repeat like teenage days past. What saved me was the air and the lumineers. Hey ho. And probably a deep breath or two.  And away drifted the old Asian man in a jump suit barfing water. 

But today. Today was different.  The light of sun in the clouds. A moment in time a camera can never fully capture.  No justice served in trying.  The coffee as my companion. And as I drove. I saw the mom and toddler with panda hat walk across the street while the toughish looking stranger looked down to the little girl to bid her hello. Smiles splash their faces.  I saw elderly friends of familiarity meet on the corner. And the kids bubbling race to the end of the block. 

 And as I sit in this car disconnected from others somehow I am watching my own show of humanity. I am not the star. Today. Just the observer of a Tuesday am. As I sit at this light, again, the flock of birds move in unison again and again.  The circle of their kind. They keep moving as one. Quietly.  Again and again.  And I'm okay waiting at this light. And watching. It all.  I might have missed it. If I hadn't been watching.

facing my greatest fears. motherhood. redefined.

i am back on the writing train.  enjoy-all my thanks always.


Fear. I fear many a thing. Like tight places or being in a crowd and not being able to move or being trapped.  A no exit of my own making, my own reality, no longer a play I read in honors English over a decade ago. I used to fear tanker trucks and would avoid them at the fear I might blow up at gas stations.  On the road.  But never did I. Blow up. I still get warm when I cross a bridge.  The no exit and the no return part makes my heart pitter patter and deep breathing my only refuge. Classic- my abnormal psych professor said of someone who had been abandoned.   Somehow comfort missing from the equation in this knowledge.  I fear loss. And being left. And being alone.  And not finding the right person.  To call my home. 

I used to fear I'd become like my mother- not in the typical fashion into a nag or choreograph into her. More like I might one day be crazy like her. Certifiable.  One day be an addict like her. But crazy isn't always inherited and addiction can live and breathe in your body and not ever be yours. I feared I wouldn't break the cycle. The cycle of loss.  The cycle of abandonment   The cycle of  my mother losing her mother tragically at 13 and me losing my mother starting at 8 and more permanently at 18.  My greatest fear is I would be a mother and I would leave.  

One of my goals written across this fearful and hopeful heart was to break this cycle and be a mother. But I haven't been a mother.  Not yet.  I haven't found that love of my life to make babies with.  But this isn't about birthing babies or the tanker trucks or bridges of my life I  have crossed.  It is about much more.  I am surprised.  Surprising myself is I don't have to birth a child to love a child part of me just the same. The gift of helping to raise children is more than the greatness of it.  It is the realization that my greatest fear that I'd be a mother a mother who would leave won't happen- won't happen to me. It is a choice.  And I choose in a way -I always have. In the raising of my brother and my choice of profession and my work of always being around the children.  

Time lines thrown away.  Clocks forgotten.  I may not have that luxury of the regular textbook mothering-but as I look around I can't help but be certain I will be called mom one day.  A mom who stays-a mother who doesn't play out the perfect fantasy of undoing of her own childhood to better her own.   Mothering isn't what I thought it would be. A child looking at you to feel safe and loved and seen and to truly bask in the beauty of childhood.  I am already doing that.  My fears.  My fears aren't permanent.  I can mother and mother in a way-in a way that works for me. And stop being scared that I will leave. Leave.  

the meaning of a word on a beer label

hello all,  i wrote this last summer in a notebook outside a cafe transferred it to the computer and decided to hold onto for awhile.  i let go of this man a long time ago.  and never thought he would provide me more than enough material.  writing and otherwise.  he also made me realize what i really wanted.  and for that i am thankful.  i think this will be the last piece he will be a part of. okay enough reflective words on the past.  without further ado- the meaning of a word on a beer label.  all my thanks always!

As I stand in the aisle, feet planted in the front of the multiple colors bottled with labels and letters spelled out into words, more words, into the word: Parabola. It stands before me. Boxed because its special. My eyes reading the book of beer bottles scanning left and right and left and right-typewriter swinging. Until it stops on the one word I had forgotten until it stands there with its paper colored box and the description underneath-attention beer geeks and this will go fast. And the flashback of the year earlier roams through the maze of my mind and lands on my chest. 


I pause. I pause. And think about the bottle I still have sitting in my fridge. With the same name. The one released in 2010. Sold out but I got one of the last bottles to call my own. I bought it to share. But never did I. It transferred from my old house in noe to soma to inner richmond and back and where it lives and has lived since september in the mission. I had bought this to share with someone who I'd stop seeing more than once, twice to be exact or was it three times, the last being a drift of little to no contact to calmness of the still pond.

So this most recent time and this bottle of beer. When we started again in the causal of coffee and parks and dog watching and playing. This time it was my own investigation that resulted in the meeting. My own curiosity and needing to know he was okay. Because the rumors that touched my ears didn't tell the words I wanted to believe. So I had to do what I needed, what I always felt I should and went into see for myself. The recon of inquisitiveness and instinct. 

He had told me before. People tell you who you are but we are blind and deaf and gullible and have a possible male version case of selective or the i am on my cell phone and can't hear you- hearing intensified in wanting to believe that damaged goods doesn't mean a permanence of forever. We look into the eyes- I look into his eyes and want to believe. Believe in the fairytale of trauma resolved by doing little work. That white lines were once in awhile. That him saying this conversation is over, abruptly, coldly, right now- would stop. That the fact that he wanted to die, he had, all could fade away in my embrace.

In my potential seeing grasping wanting to believe that we all could be different because I was different and I hadn't let the twists and turns of my childhood paint a dark D upon my chest. I had brillo padded and scrubbed and massaged and crossed over and spray painted it to form a S. I worked hard to keep that letter there and showed it more than I should. To anyone who might need it.  I did this again all feeling new with my glistening sparkly S upon my chest. I believed I could save him. Save him from the despair of loneliness while saving myself in companionship. 

But the pull, the tug on the fish line from my heart to his hands upon the pole, the sparkly distraction was just so tempting. Tempting to let that shiny S show again. I didn't want to save him. So I told myself. I wanted to make sure he was okay. Not too skinny. Not too close to the edge. I never thought it through what I would do with my google results of how do you tell someone has a cocaine addiction or might be suicidal? What to do other than see if these rumors are true. 


And if this man who I loved. Even if it wasn't warranted. I had to see if he lay on pieces on the ground, his potato head nose and eyes and lips and hands to feel needing to be put him back together. But with my hands. For me to help him form into completion. Into the real him. The real him he could be. It wasn’t just about him. It was about me. Me feeling I was important. Me feeling indispensable. Me saving others to make it feel better I could never help her. My mother. I guess if I saved enough people it would feel okay giving up on her. Another notch on the superhero belt of humanity might make me feel more alive. Less guilty. More alive.

So our visit at the park gave birth to more. My google searches and my own evaluation resulted in results uncertain. Uncertain I was. I needed to do more research. But objective I couldn't be. He might be broken, broken. Beautifully broken but he was comfort still, the familiarity of him, us, warmed me. The familiarity of him and me and the story of how dysfunction and addiction and missing parents can perfectly end so very differently.  My own fable of my making. 


 The park became phone calls long bubble gum outstretched ones like ones when we were in the thick of our love affair. And for a brief moment, I paused and fell back in not caring about the future but the now. Only the now. So I did what anyone who didn't care for the importance of the future. I had sex with him multiple times and once on backyard swing. But somehow our romp on that swing allowed it to end. Really this time.

He called soaked in worry that I would want to be together and he couldn't give me what I needed. I didn't. Not in a cold callus way but in a way of knowing the truth. I thought it was fun.  I don't regret it. Words falling out of me from my script I had written. I guess I should have thought this through. He would say. Surprised by the swings change in me. I should have thought it through as well. 


Thought about what grabbing onto the shiny lure would mean. Meaning. The word. Parabola. Glistening in the florescent manufactured lights above. It sits there and reminds me of the buying of it in the limbo of a beginning of summer stickiness of the heat wave san francisco summer of before. The accident of the weather and sleeping together and diving into to it again. And the bottle I bought for us to drink together.

And as I stared at the bottle- I remember we never drank it, not together, I never did drink it not even alone. And I think maybe I should buy it. Buy this new version limited edition again. I stare at it the only way you can feel nostalgia for a bottle. For a moment. I stand. And stare. And he is standing next to me again. 


For just a few moments. There was only one choice left. And as I walk away from this bottle brightly light and perfectly packaged- still not knowing what was inside but knowing more than enough. My eyes turn slowly as I span out until it is in the distance of the corner of my eyes. I didn't look back. 


 Until. A few days later when I was shopping I happened upon this aisle again. But this time I wanted to buy it. Maybe. But it was gone. And so was he. It was as if they have never been there. There at all.

it was over 365 days ago when i choose to keep my heart in one piece

It was over 365 something days I decided. I decided. To keep my heart in one piece. And I succeeded. I did it. My heart stayed inside this very chest. It did not fly on to the floor in a million something pieces. I did not need a bungee cord or super glue to put it back together. I did not lay on the ground kicked in the stomach saying why me again?  I did not need a therapist to hold my hand to walk outside. Alone. I did not lay in a puddle of my own despair. Not anymore.  What happened? It is not a disney story. For those only exist in the confines of tvs and screens and movie theaters not the reality of every day. Storybooks of childhood of happy endings made easy.  What happened? It was not sexy. It was boring. It grew tired. I grew tired from the lack of excitement without the crash and burn and the quick fire repetitions of love affairs. I grew lonely. Boredom. Now. It was not pretty this keeping together of this heart. Loneliness foreign.

What happened next was. Was I learned how to play hide and seek with boredom, I let loneliness become my friend and no longer an enemy sown together-it lost its power. I let the desire for the excitement bubble outside of me in other ways. I said out loud what I wanted while my heart was held together in all its entirety. I stopped looking. And somewhere along the line, I surrendered. My own rendition of a child's pose.  In this game of love. And turned a new page, created a new story.

A new story of my attempt at love. For the first time in the history of Kate. I kept my heart in one piece and allowed life to happen in a way I did not take every opportunity and make it happen now. Right now. Because what if it was our only chance?  But I let go. Because I could not stomach another heart wrenching demise. And I woke up into. A new story. Of a relationship. Possibility. Just because you get a new story, does not mean you get a new ending. It does not just work that way.

But could be breaking the curse of loser guys and dismantling not getting what I need and the storyline of falling for ideas of people-outlines of real men- being over. Be enough. Could my heart being in one piece. And me being okay. Even if this might be over. That in this ending. My heart staying in one piece. Might mean. It all is different. In a way I wanted. In a way I have always wanted. In a way I had never dreamt. That goodbye might not be the shatter of the pulse and core of me. But instead. Letting go. To see what might be next. For us. Or just me. But no matter what this pitter patter that stays with me enclosed in its home of protection. Hasn't left.

I said over 365 days ago I could not survive another heart break. And as I stand here. Thinking of what will be next. My heart is in one piece. And knowing there is more. More of this to come. Might be the greatest gift. Of all. By myself or with him. Or someone else. I know I am not broken. Anymore. So many times it took. For me to stand here. Really stand here. And my promise to myself unbroken. And this story engrained on my heart has changed and so have I.