hi again

Endings & Beginnings

In therapy we talk about endings and beginnings, read short stories that I’ve written, and ponder over when I’ll eventually stop coming. We are working towards a final project: a bit of writing in which I envision four variations of my self, split across the timelines, all meeting together for one conversation.

I like the premise but writing about my past self in such a direct way terrifies me, but, not as much as hearing my therapist read my stories out loud terrifies me. In that story the different versions of myself are brought together by an older version of me to occupy a metaphysical space between time: a fictional coffee shop, up north where I used to live.

Near the end of my session, my therapist tells me that, a super power I might have is to empathize with other people—sharing my experiences in a universal way that helps others find their way to some form of stability or happiness or love.

I am sure, somehow, I have been waiting for those words for a while.

Dried Roses

At night we walk your dog around the block and talk about the past as if it were a foreign land. Here, in the middle of things, you phrase each sentence as a question. “What,” you ask, “could we have done differently? Do you ever wish we could just be friends instead?”

In the moment I am silent, though I have thought of this question before and puzzled out an answer I have since forgotten. “I’m not sure,” I say—which is true, because who ever is sure? “I think what stings the most is that things could probably never have gone differently no matter what we did. We could have been friends.” I stall, and choke up on the leash to keep your dog from pulling too much. “But that would never have been enough.”

Once, in therapy, I told my therapist that the strongest indicator of romantic love I have for someone is friendship. How I feel close to men only when they cross that threshold of intimate friendship: the boring evenings spent texting and playing video games, the monotonous Sundays spent washing clothes or drinking beers. I wondered then, like I always wondered, if I had always confused the too, or if I simply craved affection anyway it was given to me.

“Regardless it was for the better,” I say, though I’m not sure if you agree. “I never wanted to love someone halfway. I always wanted to be torn apart by their departure.” 

“That’s no way to live,” You said, but I knew somewhere inside, you felt the same.

Trying

We’re nearing the end of spring and I am terrified of the summer. I am trying a lot of new things or retrying lots of old things.

• Volunteering for the pug rescue where I got Cookie

• Trying to eat healthier again

• Trying to write short stories again

• Trying to be more active

• Trying to invite people to hang out more

• Trying to read more

• Trying to be open about my feelings

• Taking my dog on longer walks while I can (before the summer hits)

• Getting better at keeping my house clean

• Trying to save money

• Trying to be open to the fever of love: a man who asks you to marry him eventually.

Wake me up to drive

Cherry blossoms at the beginning of spring. A lazy Sunday morning spent lovesick in the bed, our black pug wedged between us like a promise. In the afternoon I repot plants in our backyard: gently lifting the body from the frame, brushing away the old dirt to replace it with something new.

It’s astonishing the gentle care it takes to keep something alive. Still I am planning for the future: red vines next to green; pink blooms in clay pots; yellow creeping vines mixing with light blue bushes. It is not so hard to nurture a thing with guidance; you keep a routine, pick dead flowers from the top so new ones can bloom, water throughly, stake each sturdy stalk so it can grow tall and strong and higher than before.