Fuck Yes

thank you spin class, for I can now rock this with a vengeance

that is all

*scorpio*

(also thanks to Zara)

On Fear

Abridged from Jonathan Franzen's commencement speech at Kenyon College:

My friend Alice Sebold likes to talk about “getting down in the pit and loving somebody.” She has in mind the dirt that love inevitably splatters on the mirror of our self-regard.

The simple fact of the matter is that trying to be perfectly likable is incompatible with loving relationships. Sooner or later, for example, you’re going to find yourself in a hideous, screaming fight, and you’ll hear coming out of your mouth things that you yourself don’t like at all, things that shatter your self-image as a fair, kind, cool, attractive, in-control, funny, likable person. Something realer than likability has come out in you, and suddenly you’re having an actual life.
This is not to say that love is only about fighting. Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. To love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self.

The big risk here, of course, is rejection. We can all handle being disliked now and then, because there’s such an infinitely big pool of potential likers. But to expose your whole self, not just the likable surface, and to have it rejected, can be catastrophically painful. The prospect of pain generally, the pain of loss, of breakup, of death, is what makes it so tempting to avoid love and stay safely in the world of liking.

And yet pain hurts but it doesn’t kill. When you consider the alternative — an anesthetized dream of self-sufficiency, abetted by technology — pain emerges as the natural product and natural indicator of being alive in a resistant world. To go through a life painlessly is to have not lived. Even just to say to yourself, “Oh, I’ll get to that love and pain stuff later, maybe in my 30s” is to consign yourself to 10 years of merely taking up space on the planet and burning up its resources.
When you stay in your room and rage or sneer or shrug your shoulders, as I did for many years, the world and its problems are impossibly daunting. But when you go out and put yourself in real relation to real people, there’s a very real danger that you might love some of them.

And who knows what might happen to you then?


Jason leaves for Italy tomorrow. It occurs to me that this epic summer we have planned - both together and apart - will either make us or break us. He & I will spend 25 days apart while he's launching the Rome leg of his company. The most we've spent apart since we've met is 5 days. It's starting to get to that annoying point where even two days feels like a long time. I hate this point because I know what's coming...

Crippling co-dependancy. Loss of control. Fear. Pain.




Some people call it love, too.

*scorpio*

Timing is Everything

Yesterday, a tour of the Sistine Chapel in Rome ended with a mass in person blessing from the Pope.

After a deep realization while sitting in front of La Fontana di Trevi at 2am, I caught the right train seconds before it left and ended up at the possible point of my near future, Florence.

I am currently enjoying a long lunch for one with a glass of Prosecco in a lovely restaurant in Piazza Madonna. I am reviewing a course book from Lorenzo de' Medici. They offer a class called Love, Beauty, and Natural Selection: The Science and the Myths. Maybe I will come to Florence and study love....that would be ironic.

I occasionally glance up at the piazza to see the locals and tourists stroll by. I can imagine my life here. I am waiting for my Italian lover, who apparently has a romantic surprise for me?

Again, timing is everything!

*Aries*

"And that is what they call CLOSURE"

Last Friday, I had lunch with THE EX. The first person I ever loved, the biggest heartbreak I've ever suffered. He was in a motorcycle accident not long after we parted, and almost a year later, he's still unable to walk without aid. After the crash, I visited him in hospital and we began a delicate friendship. At the time, I still wasn't totally over him, and seeing him once a week wasn't helping. It was only after he hurt me once again that I was able to literally & figuratively close the door on our love. As soon as I did, I found the person I really wanted.

He and I remained text buddies though, I wanted to keep tabs on his recovery/ act as suicide watch. I mentioned to Jason that he and I were to meet for lunch, to which he replied, "You don't have to tell me that stuff." And he never asked about it again. Whoa, right?

So the ex and I ambled to lunch last Friday, he in his cast and me in my skyscraper heels. We ate and laughed and reminisced. It was one of those lunches where you realize how far you've come. This time last year, we had lunch the day after I was fired. I was still deeply in love with him, deeply in debt and crushed with sadness. This year, I'm into an Ivy league grad program, debt-free, and thrilled with my new boyfriend. Last year, he was just accepted to Georgetown business school, had a new girlfriend and a packed social calendar. This year, he's just back at work after a 9 month hiatus, deeply in debt and his friends are all married or living together. He's the last single one.

Still, it was nice to see him again. He asked if I was in love with Jason, and I stuttered and blushed. He reassured me that it was ok to tell him, and I said, "Well, I'm a bit gunshy towards love considering the last person I said I love you to was you. If I recall, you replied, "I want to love you but I can't" which is probably the single most painful sentance in the English language." We both laughed at his commitment phobia and he told me that he probably would've given me the key I asked for if he wasn't so insecure. While that would've thrown me into a tailspin a year prior, now I see him for who he is. And it's ok.

Walking away from lunch, I felt light and happy. We'd made jokes out of our old wounds, we'd given each other advice (his, of course, was to not see my fuck buddy ever again. Pretty solid, if you ask me), I'd teased him about his man-whoring and ability to pick up women no matter his physical state. It didn't bother him that I was happy with my boyfriend. It didn't bother me that he was sleeping his way through the city. The love was gone but the friendship remained.

Kind of the best of both worlds, eh?

*scorpio*

PS I'm still terrified of falling in love. I'll never forget that searing pain.

I'm Just A Girl

And this is what I want my future boys to look like........

*Aries*

Closure, at last

The night I left him, the world froze. Biting white flakes whirled aggressively to the ground, forcing erasure. A new begining. A demand to forget.


I met him in the sunshine, I left him in the snow. My tracks have been covered.

I'll never go back.


*scorpio*

I Hate My Heart.

How come I couldn't care less about the very well-read, feminist, highly successful doctor/hedge fund owner/chairman/charity founder (with all his hair!) who thinks I hung the moon...


...and I can barely wait to see the temporarily disabled, slightly depressed, hyper-masculine, culturally incompatible bald guy who's admiration I can't win, no matter what I accomplish?





I know... I know.



*scorpio*

A Confession...

I like to 'try on' relationships: see what it feels like to be serious with someone, play house, even talk wedding. But in the back of my head there is always and endpoint. It's as if I believe that no relationship lasts forever, and happiness in love is fleeting. And if it seems like it may last, I ensure it doesn't. I'm only comfortable giving my heart away when I know I'll take it back. I've always done this. I've never made it over a year: I just have this intrinsic belief that it won't last. It's imbedded so much that I didn't even realize it ... until I left my last boyfriend.

I told myself I would be fine - better off, even - but I wasn't. And I couldn't understand why my old getting-over-him tricks didn't work. Months went by; a year even. But it was like my heart thumped his name. I couldn't move on... despite how I tried. It was terrifying. I didn't understand. And then I looked around me, at other relationships, and realized it didn't always have to end. Love doesn't have to mean pain. It doesn't always have to explode/implode so catastrophically. I was always looking for the ways it would fail, the inevitable destruction, and protecting myself against it by leaving first. It's the oldest story - but to me it was like the scales had been lifted from my lids.

I watched my younger brother with his live-in love, and how easy & solid it was. He recently casually mentioned to me that she was his best friend. I thought about that for weeks - I didn't know it was possible.

See, my parents' divorce was epic, and as the eldest I bore the brunt of it. I would bring my brother into my room when I heard the yelling, and we would play loud music to drown it out. I would play games with him when my mom would take us away in the middle of the night. He told me that he didn't remember the fighting, which means of course that I was successful in protecting him. It also means that he believes in love. He believes it can be safe & happy. And I'm so happy that he feels that way. I only just realized I could have what he does. Just because I saw a spectacular failure doesn't mean I'm destined to repeat it. I don't always have to be hunting for the fatal flaw. I don't have to destroy before I am destroyed. And most of all, my partner & I can be on the same team.

It was like something finally clicked... I'm allowed to trust men. And that's when I realized that more than anything in the world, I wanted him back. The one man who made even a grocery store visit magical (and I loathe the grocery store). The guy that I was always excited to see, even after a year of dating. I realized I'd made a huge mistake. Love doesn't have to be a prison. Real love doesn't come around that often. My stomach ached as I realized how carelessly I'd discarded mine.

Every day, I'm wracked with regret. And what hurts the most is the fact that I did it to myself. In all my machinations to protect my heart - I ended up fatally wounding it.


*scorpio*

Same Schtick / Different Face

Last night I had my date with the Muslim mystery man. I went mainly out of curiosity… I’ve never dated a Muslim before and I thought I might learn something.

Instead, he engaged me in the same pedestrian, pedantic (and surprisingly prevalent) discourse about male/female relations in NYC.

Apparently – and brace yourself here because this is a brand-new concept:
Men want gorgeous women.
Women want rich men.

Sigh.

Every single man I’ve dated since I moved here four years ago (with the exception of my ex) has launched into this topic with vigor. It’s inevitable. It doesn’t matter how intelligent or substantive they are—they seem to truly believe that women chose men based on their bank accounts rather than good old-fashioned compatibility. And don’t even get me started on “needing the most beautiful woman” regardless of her personality.
I refuse to believe that all men are that vapid.

And conversations like this- especially on dates- make me feel more alone than ever.

Not to be pedestrian myself, but … what ever happened to love?

*scorpio*

Fragments

Three months since you’d last kissed me goodbye, pressing my mouth firmly, warmly, to yours. Your hand on the back of my head as if to ensure I wouldn’t disappear: before I watched you turn to walk away and felt, for the first time, my life without you in it.

One month since I’d knocked on your door, cold and bruised from an ice skating fall, and said only, “I couldn’t imagine spending my birthday without you.” After that, there were no words. Only fumbling and your warmth and the spicy-sweet scent of your skin.

Last night, in my cool blue room, the streetlight streaming across the white sheets, the lone candle flickering bedside; I undressed you. You came over, cold to the touch, but your eyes shined with warmth, love and pride. You had a surprise for me: The suit we’d picked out together, only a month before. I took as long as I could to unwrap you… the stiffness of your coat as it slid off your shoulders, the warmth of your chest radiating through the crisp white shirt. The cufflink surprise, “You shouldn’t have” at your wrists. I wanted to stay in those moments forever. I told myself to burn these images in my memory.

And then after, lying with you, the cool breeze from the frigid New York wind served as our only reminder of a world beyond our warm, safe haven. Casablanca plays on the TV as we remind each other of famous lines. Soon, I feel your breath slow on my chest, your nose burrows in my neck to soak up my scent. Grace Kelly comes back for her love, unable to bear the separation.

I know her pain.

***
Six months later, you’ll take a joy ride on a friends motorcycle one warm summer afternoon. You’ll speed down the street, impulsively revving the engine until you feel that familiar rush of adrenaline. The others are inside--there’s no one to watch you swerve to miss an animal, only to go barreling straight into a street sign.

Your body breaks with the impact: the right hip shatters, the right leg snaps furiously, the bones protrude through both your arms. You’re found in a ditch, your helmet 30 feet from the crash site. (You were never one for details).

I'm awoken by a phone call at 2 AM. You almost died, our friend said. You very nearly lost your leg. It will be months before you can get out of a wheelchair. You may never be the same. As I steel myself against the news, I realize, a part of me has always been waiting for this call.

I think of how we ended- with finality- just two months prior. And how much has changed since then. You feel so far away. I want to rush to your side: hold your head, reassure you, ‘save’ you from yet another disaster of your own design…but I won’t.
You don’t belong to me anymore.


I once called you broken. I now fear you forever will be.


*scorpio*