lextopia

A few days ago I received a message about something very painful that happened in the past, something that I had done. The event was horrible and was my fault, but what had led up to it was just as horrible and hadn’t been my fault, but the message I got didn’t mention any of that. It just tore open the old wound for all to see.

I’ve been exhausted. Like, really, really, hit-the-wall kind of exhausted, and so when the note came I faltered a little bit because I didn’t have any resources, any strength, to bear up against it. Now, after a few days and some small successes, I’m feeling much better, much stronger, and the note doesn’t have the same impact. I can see it for what it is now: just a big mistake that will end up hurting the writer far more than it ever could me. That said, the note did change something profound in me. Something snapped and finally released, and as I finished reading I knew it was time to put some things away.

I’m apparently going on a long trip, but I think it’s one of mind and not of body. My meditation practice slipped in the last two weeks because we’ve been working just too damned hard. The President & First Family have been on-island and we’ve been all over them, filming, editing shows together quickly, and wringing ourselves out. Well, it’s done now. The “Obama Shows” have aired and the crazy summer season is drawing to a close–which is why I can write this from home at 9:30am on a Friday.

One of the things I have to put away are the cats. I spoke to the Animal Shelter here and will likely be dropping the cats off in another week and a half. This will be terribly difficult for me. I care for them very much and am not, as we know, at all good with letting go of things I love. But I don’t want to care for them any more. I just don’t want to. They’re hard in terms of upkeep, and remind me too much of a past I want to turn away from so I can finally move forward in a brand new direction. I’ve been in limbo for over two years. Two years. A lot of that was the economic crisis, but at least 50% was due to raw wounds that have been taking too long to heal.

In mid-Sept. I’ll finally “move” back home and have some serious time to work on the coal film. THAT’S where I live now: in my work. I’ll try to craft a happy life despite the hole in it where Mom used to be, but the main focus will be doing what I do: making stories that I hope will have some impact on even just a few people. And I’ll travel. I’ll go to all the places Mom always talked about but was too afraid to visit. I’ll stay longer than one does for “vacation,” and I’ll get to know new cultures.  I’ll read and I’ll write, and make sure–as much as I can–that my friends are healthy and know that I love them.

We’re all in limbo, in transition. Chogyam Trungpa, the late Buddhist teacher used to talk a lot about negative/uncomfortable emotions being preferable to straight-up happiness because there’s so much energy in them. He said it’s better to walk right into the center of ill feelings and just hang out quietly because what you’ll learn will blow your mind.

Bon voyage, everyone.

"Untitled" by ImaginationRoom (http://imaginationroom.posterous.com/)

I don’t know where to start. This morning I’m feeling a lot of fear mixed with stress mixed with the intellectual knowledge of peace and relaxation. This job is just too much, I think. There is literally NO BREAK. I have one or two weekend days each week and they don’t even help me to catch up on sleep anymore. Tina was right, I need to train someone to share the load. I thought I had been doing that. Looking back now at May, June and the first part of July, I can’t understand at all how Hannah survived overseeing the show as well as ads creation. Insanity.

I spoke last night with a woman who is back from the brink. She has Lyme disease and mercury poisoning, but because she has a lot of money, she is alive. I’m afraid to watch the documentary about Lyme that she financed. I’m afraid for my friend Su, who has Lyme, and afraid for myself that I may not have the courage to help her the way she needs to be helped. At the moment I am stressed out enough just watching over my own life. The mortgage. Always the mortgage. But for me that struggle is worth it because I am surviving and my house is my life-raft.

Could I do this job again next summer? I might not physically or psychologically be able to handle it. If Courtney stays then I could train her in May and June and then, hopefully, something will have turned for me so that I can leave as Hannah left this past July. I just can’t imagine doing this all again. Not without someone like me to share the full load.

I saw “Eat.Pray.Love” last night–the Hollywood representation of one of my favorite books. The movie, frankly, sucked. I’d needed it to not. I’ve needed some kind of heart vacation for a while. Not romantic, something to help me feel at peace. I stayed in the movie while others left, not because I had hope, but because the images, at least, were something I’ll be able to hold on to later. And, hell, Julia Roberts is pretty, so…

There’s no one way to tell a story, but if you’re going to try, you have to settle on a direction. The director of Eat.Pray.Love, I think, shot a 6-hour film. Pity we didn’t see that version. Another film, “The Kids Are Alright,” reinvigorated my love of movies and visual story, and showed a decent, hard-working, loving family. Two lesbian parents and their teenage kids. I thought ti was wonderful. A friend thought it was insulting to lesbians worldwide because of something that happens in the story. Her anger and staunch position nearly destroyed the tender story for me. I got sad listening to her just not letting it go. There isn’t just one way to tell a story, and so you shouldn’t get mad at one interpretation.

I’m exhausted. This post is one, fucking stream-of-semiconsciousness, isn’t it? Sorry about that. I’ll try again tomorrow. If anyone sees a thruline here, please comment so I’ll know what the hell I’m talking about.

Cheers.

Love, I get so lost sometimes.
Days, hours, and this emptiness fills my heart.
I want to run away, drive off in my car.
But whichever way I move I connect to the place you are.

Spoke with an old friend last night over Skype. She’s in LA. We don’t chat or see each other enough, so these occasional communications are vital and soothing. We both feel that there’s something fucked up going on in the world, in the air. Everyone around us seems depressed or in some difficult transition. To me, it feels like we’re all evolving. The astrologers say so. They talk about some cosmic shift in the planets affecting everyone and forcing change. Well, I’m kinda done with change myself. I’d like my fucking status quo back, thankyouverymuch. I had a home, a love, a job, a life. Hell, I had a dog and two cats! I still have the two cats, but I miss walking the damned dog, even, though, back then in The Life, I resented it at times…

When is this “weather” going to break? What have we done? You can’t move about your normal life anymore in the U.S. and not think about how the oil spill is going to affect you. Recently I filmed a bunch of fish markets. Most of them get their fish from fishermen who fish the Atlantic. That means that soon those fishermen are going to be running into oil. I looked at one man, one fish market owner, and thought about how long his family has been doing this–selling fish. His livelihood and those of his children and grandchildren could be disastrously affected. They must have all of their investments in fish.

In mid-April, before I came down to the Vineyard to do this job, my sleep pattern changed. I now get up at 5:30am whether I want to or not. I fall asleep roughly between 9 and 9:30, and by 6:30 I’m back from my daily run and having coffee. Nothing precipitated this change except for massive doses of anxiety and stress. I was TERRIFIED to make the move. Terrified I’d be giving up my house, terrified I’d lose everything, terrified I wouldn’t remember how to work in an office with other people. All those fears are mostly gone now, but I still wake up at 5:30. Also, I’m sad. Just sad, sad, sad. I realize I’ve been sad since the last year in CA, when things got just awful between Molly and me. And now, today, I miss her like an organ that was ripped out of me. The difference between then and now is that I can feel that place in me healing–scabbing over. There’ll still be a scar forever, but, like all scars, I’ll learn to live with it. I’m learning to live with it. It sucks out loud, but I’m learning to live with it. One of my solutions seems to be dreaming of her every night. Solution? Torture? Who fucking knows…

I’ve never been not happy for this long, and I hope it’s all just a phase, just a “transition,” as the astrologers say. I don’t know how much more of this shit I can take, or how much any of us can take.

It’s been a while since I’ve written, I know. Don’t scold, you didn’t even like that I was blogging at first. I’m well, or well enough given the ever-present money problems. Yes, I WILL be going into one of my IRAs if things get even worse, but there’s still some time to wait to see if “anything turns.” I love phrases like that, don’t you? They imply some kind of beneficent moment of fate, like The Angels of Mercy are going to come swooping in and change everything for the better. Not to be cynical, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Still, it’s hard to complain a) when I have so many gifts, and b) when Spring is about to burst here in New England.

Laura said last night “At least we don’t live in a dirt hut.” She’s not unemployed but not as employed as she’d like to be and so she’s doing what she usually does in frustrating times like these: she picks a topic and goes to the library and gets every single book about it. This time, the lucky topic is Montana. I’ve never known or thought that I would ever know this much about Montana but when you have a walking, talking encyclopedia you do take stuff in. One piece of news is that Montana settlers used to live in dirt hut because they were warmer. There are few things that truly shock and/or astonish my sister-in-law and the stalwartness of these Montana settlers is one of them. They lived in dirt huts and eked out a living on hard, cold, wide land. Yeah, I don’t really have much to complain about.

Anyway, I’ve got to go but wanted to share about the Montana thing, and to let you know that I was alright.

All my love, A`lex

Before I go another back-breaking minute of transcribing a long interview for my coal film, I’ll pause to tell you about a treasure I just found…

When Mom died I did three things: gathered all her clothes and jewelry and farmed them out to family, friends, and charities; brought home my third of her ashes (morbid, I know, but I really wanted “her” near me); and collected as many of her cookbooks as I could find. Specifically, I searched for books that had her writing in the notes and margins. Mom thought in recipes all the time and when she had an idea, she’d write it down. Everywhere. There are bits of loose paper, newspaper articles, notecards, and books written all over in Spanish and English. Names of spices and proteins, temperatures, and cook times.

Today, as a break from the transcribing and in the name of finding something yummy to make for dinner, I pulled out one of her stacks of random recipes clipped together with a metal binder and looked through them. What I found are recipes and memories:

“Chicken Curry, Juthica.” Juthica is an old family friend and a good one to begin this list with. Mom and Juthica met through their Yale connections in New Haven, CT in the 60s and became good friends. Mom always liked strong, independent, and smart people and Juthica was certainly that. One day while I was in my sophomore year in college in NYC, I got a call from Mom telling me to come home immediately, that she had someone she wanted me to meet. It was in the middle of the week and so I reminded my usually VERY academically-minded mother that I’d be missing a day of COLLEGE if I came home. “I know. It’s worth it. Come tonight,” is all she said. I got on the commuter train early the next day and met Juthica that afternoon. Like my mother before me, I was instantly entranced by charismatic Juthica–a native Bengali of Calcutta–and resolved to help her with the humanitarian aid project she’s started only a few years before. Little did I know that this would be the first spark in a film career that would have it’s first international accolade (“Soma Girls”) because of Juthica.

“Alfajores.” These are basically the cookies to end all cookies. Think of an oreo where the chocolate cookie-part is a butter cookie and the middle squishy part is half-hardened caramel spread. My brother would beg for these.

“Roast Pork ala Nilda.” Nilda was my mother’s name and almost nothing in her repertoire of savory dishes would exclude cumin. That’s where the “ala Nilda” bit comes in, I think. Not surprisingly, therefore, this dish has a bunch of fun spices as well as cumin and on the notecard includes the instruction: “Let sit for ten minutes, then serve with the pan juices.” Neither my mother nor I have ever met a pan of juices we didn’t like. The theory is that if it’s slurpable with bread, it’s “FOOD.”

When I was much older and had only a modest number of recipes that I could cook well, my mother bemoaned her former strictness in the kitchen. Even though she came from a traditional culture where women were suppose to learn the “domestic arts,” she hated having me underfoot when she cooked. True, I did have an annoying habit of grazing as things got prepared (something I also plagued Molly–another fabulous cook–with), but that wasn’t it. I think she just needed her space clear. The kitchen was her church, her fiefdom, her production studio and she needed it controlled in order to create her masterpieces. Thankfully, I have a very good sense of smell and memory for the flavors and dished she created and so even though she made me stand at arm’s length, I saw most of what she did and how she did it.

Today I still cook only a few of my mother’s dishes–I’m slowly building up the amount that I memorize–but the ones I know have their impact. Recently, I made Mom’s Bolognese sauce for Michael and Laura. Michael flipped when he tasted it. I saw the memories and joy fly across his face. It must have been almost ten years since he’d last had it with pasta. That sauce has a Molly memory too: her family loved it so much that they used to commission it. Or, sometimes, when I was making it for just Molly and me word would get around that “Alexia is making meatsauce,” and before we knew it we’d have many more at the table for dinner.

Mom’s meals used to feed armies of children in New Haven, mostly Michael’s friends who, if they became “regulars” soon saw themselves being cooked-for specifically. “I’m making the pie for David,” Mom would say of Michael’s best friend. I’d have to have children in order to have those kinds of numbers of people climbing through my house, but when there’s a group event that I’m either hosting or contributing too, I always make something of Mom’s. It’s an easy way to make people happy and introduce a whole new crop of devotees to “ala Nilda.”

Orchid’s soft, warm little paws press against me as she sleeps. We’re on the couch. I’m doing work and Orchid is purr-snoring beside me. I take a lot of time, regularly, to stare at these little cats, Orchid and Tut, and still, every time I do I wonder at how someone could abandon a living thing. I can’t explain the sense of responsibility I feel toward these guys beyond using the word “unconditional.” There is nothing they can do to feed themselves in my house. They cannot clean their own litter box. And just like us humans, they need affection and compassion and joy. And so I move around doing those things for them as much as possible because in addition to being otherwise powerless, they have given me a lot of joy, compassion, affection, and unconditional love. So I feel I owe them…

Sculpture by Tara Donovan. Photo by Molly Zenobia. This was the last day we had fun together.

When I was driving cross-country in early June 2008, leaving L.A. for good, I had the cats with me in the car. After one day of being crammed together in the crate in the passenger’s seat of my Honda, it was clear they preferred liberation, so I changed my morning driving routine. After breakfast I loaded them up in the crate, settled them into the front seat and when I knew I had enough gas to go for a while, I let them out to wander inside the car. Freaked out by the motion of driving, Tut instantly disappeared into the guts of boxes and suitcases packed in the back, while Orchid planted herself on a mound of soft things between the front seats but only just enough behind me to be able to look over my shoulder. From this perch she watched the road pass by as we made our way to our new home. I’ll never forget that. She’s only a cat, but was still there with me, present, through the whole trip. She had a strength and a personality and a wish: to be warm, to be near me, and to be free.

I clean their litter everyday because I know how awful it would feel to me to have to go to the bathroom in a “full” toilet. In CA I used to get up early to essentially do the same thing for Molly’s dog. He needed to go out and pee. Like the cats, he didn’t have a choice to get up in the middle of the night and go outside when he needed to, he had to wait for one of us to take him. That seemed so unfair to me that I worked hard to make him comfortable. By way of recompense Bobby (the dog) gave me the joy of his unconditional affection. He would nuzzle me and jump, literally, for joy when I said “walk” or took up his leash (which he didn’t need).

I don’t understand the ability to abandon a living thing. A friend said “It’s called lack of responsibility.” Molly got these cats with her girlfriend before me. They raised the cats together for one year in CA and then I showed up. I’ve never had cats or a dog, but once I understood their needs I accommodated them. If I hadn’t cleaned the litter regularly in L.A. it would have gone for days–over one week–without being touched. Molly just wouldn’t do it and the truth is that when I was working a lot and would come home wiped out, I resented having to clean the litter, so I didn’t. Many times I just let it go. I thought, I hoped Molly would do it so the cats wouldn’t have to step on their own shit, but she didn’t. Knowing they had to deal with that as much as they did back then is why I clean their litter box every day now that we’ve settled into our new place. It’s something so small that makes them feel so safe and comfortable.

I’m working on a lot of heavy meditation concepts today, which is why this is coming up. The work is on compassion and loving-kindness and the main message is that you can’t expect to have any compassion and loving-kindness for others if you don’t first have it for yourself. But the reverse is also true, and therein lies the power of the lesson. If you see yourself not having compassion and loving-kindness for another living thing, then there’s a good chance you’re treating yourself like shit too.

A couple of weeks ago I got a fake apology email from Molly. I say fake because the majority of the email consisted of criticisms about my behavior in our relationship. The rest were antiseptic broad “apologies” about her “role in our mess.” But even given all that was there, for it was an uncharacteristically long email for Molly, what struck me was what wasn’t there. There was no mention of the material stuff we still need to exchange, and no mention about the cats. To be honest, Molly hasn’t mentioned the cats once since last August when we briefly discussed her making fliers we could put up seeking adopters for them after we broke up. We never followed up with that, but even still, once I left CA she never, ever asked about HER cats. Never. As I try to learn about loving-kindness and compassion this is one problem that sticks in my head. How could someone abandon a living thing, and what does that say about them?

Seeing her do this and other similarly baffling things yanked the rug out from under me because I considered this person my soul mate. Molly and I were bonded so powerfully, and still are even though we don’t talk. No matter what happens in my life if she calls and needs my help I would be there like a shot. I love Molly very, very much and hope she too can find her way to loving-kindness and compassion, especially for herself.

When Ken Burn’s The Civil War was broadcast on PBS it quickly became a family event for my father, my mother and me. My brother was still living in Boston at the time, and so he didn’t watch it with us. In the film there was one much-quoted character who stood out: Mary Chestnut. I loved her first because my favorite actress, Julie Harris, played her voice, but then grew to love her for her words and herself, even though she was a Southern secessionist.

As I mentioned in previous posts, since Mom died I’ve been reading mostly about death, but exclusively non-fiction. As I come to the end of Isabel Allende’s latest book I panic wondering what could possibly come next. Then I get another cryptic, from-the-universe type of message and before I know it am pulling out books I’ve been carting around for years and have yet to read. All are books that had been originally inspired by The Civil War, one being “The Private Mary Chestnut,” Ms. Chestnut’s “Unpublished” civil war diaries.

Last night, returning from a concert of Hindustani classic music with friends, I glanced over at my livingroom bookcase for no reason at all. Something drew me to the stack of books hidden in the back row of the top shelf, the place reserved for books of no current importance. There were four books in total that I pulled out: “The Private Mary Chestnut,” “The Granite Farm Letters,” “Bullwhip Days,” and “Richmond During The War.” All are civil war rememberences, diaries or oral histories, and will be my next reads. Why? I’m not sure, but do feel there’s some connection to be made between my recent sense of closure, however odd it is, and the struggles and losses of those who, over a century ago, walked the earth on which I now live. They struggled in a conflict that tied up their hearts and caused them to tear each other apart. The connection I feel to that may have to do with a new sense of gratitude and grace. Like the folks in these books, who lived on this land, I have a choice in this moment. Incredible. As my friend Maninder said: “It’s like a game show, you can either take the $100,000 you’ve already won and walk away, or play it and possibly lose it all.” Like the folks who survived the Civil War, I am trying to eek out a new life from ashes. No, my war(s) weren’t waged with guns, but they did last too long and covered a lot of ground. And there was emotional pain. I’m luckier in that no one died.

I will be remade this year, whether by my own hand or others’. I’m looking forward to it, but it will change a lot, I think. Whatever this phase is that I’ve been in for so long is now, finally, over. I think it started when I was 26, when I first started having intimate, committed relationships. I’m not sure, but hopefully Mary Chestnut and the others will help me find clues and, ultimately, answers. Why not? Worked for Nicholas Cage in National Treasure…

See? Still looking behind me for answers. Hidesight, something-something-something…

This coming March I will have been unemployed for one full year, the longest I’ve ever been unemployed. And so, I straighten the books on my coffee table.

There are “prospects” of jobs on the horizon, but there have been for almost all of the last nine months, and so I vacuum, and vow that when I come into my house from outside from now until Spring, I will change from sandy/snowy hiking boots to slippers so I don’t track mud everywhere.

Every day I troll the interwebs for a job suitable for someone who wants to stay in the town where she lives and not have a commute longer than two hours, and so I jump rope, do yoga, and meditate to keep from going insane. The thinking is that taking this time to “improve” myself in other ways will somehow show the universe that I’m worthy of employment. “See? I just lost three pounds, and I don’t as angry as I used to! Hire me!”

The one thing I can actually pride myself on is that I haven’t actually gone crazy in this time, but yesterday nearly brought me to it… I went to the Apple Store to participate in a “hiring seminar.” The exercise was fun, for the most part, but the overall feeling from the group of applicants was buzzing desperation. We were all ages and all freaking out. This was, for most of us, it felt like, The Last Resort. Retail. Yes, I am applying for a job as a “Creative”–someone who teaches customers how to use Macs and their associated programs–but I think in order to ascend to that lofty position you have to “work the floor” for a few weeks, or maybe even months. I did retail. The Hard Rock Cafe. In my early 20s. The honeymoon wore off quick then and I don’t think I can resurrect the love for it today. That said, if they call, what choice do I have…?

This time of economic depression, like the famous one before it decades ago, will be marked by the bodies and souls it leaves behind. If it’s assumed that most of us will come through this one alive, it’s also possible that many will be letting go of pieces of ourselves that, whether sentimental or destructive, good or bad, given our new weaknesses will simply be too heavy to carry into the next phase of our lives, a phase that will begin with us nervously rebuilding our senses of self. I can already feel that creeping in to me. Yesterday, during the seminar, I was in my element–I understand Macs and their software, own an iPhone and iPod, a Cinema display–but despite this couldn’t help but feel that the woman who was co-running the seminar along with a male counterpart had a thing against me. Every time I spoke up or answered a question when they asked for responses from the group she glared at me disapprovingly or dismissively, I couldn’t decide which. Now, was all this in my head? The damage left by nearly twelve months of self-esteem-crushing unemployment? Or did this chick really just hate me without knowing me? These days every little reaction from a stranger in a position to alter the course of my life sends me into a stock car race of abusive self-analysis. And so I chop up wood in my workroom and reposition the hand-me-down leather sofas in the hope that soon I’ll feel relaxed enough to sit by the fire…

Since Mom died holidays have been odd, tough to define. Mostly they’ve felt not mine, like I was carpetbagging. As a result the last–what is it five? four?–years of holidays have gone by without much memory. The best so far, I think, was Sarah’s tree last year. She was soooooo happy and thrilled about her “pesky tree” that she made the holiday feel like an actual holiday. These days, though, with Mom’s stuff dispersed between Michael, Dad and me, it’s hard to settle in to anything. To find a “home.” Cut to my breakup with Molly and you have One Confused Alexia.

Until two nights ago…

Two nights ago I slept in my bed for the first time in ten days. Granted, New Year’s was… amazing… but one’s bed is still one’s bed. No matter how much I’d like to make my bed comfy and cozy and “like home” for my new squeeze, it’ll never be as cozy and relaxing as her own. It’s the same with me. Waking up on the TempurPedic with the sun streaming in from all four directions provides a comfort and relaxation I can’t do justice here.

So, as a result of sleeping in my own bed again after such a long time I feel surprisingly “at home.” This is a first for a while, folks, and I’m eager to see if the feeling grows. A LOT of structure will come once I have a regular job again, but in the meantime I’m making the most of the time I have by finally doing the things I’ve wanted to do for a while: clean up the workroom; consolidate all the  media that’s scattered over a few drives; finish some small projects; hang pictures of my family all over the walls of my house; learn After Effects and Logic; fall in love again; and let go of the demons of the past for once and for all. In short, I aim to get off my ass and make 2010 one of the best year’s of my life.

Years ago, while in college, a chick I had a crush on said to me “You decide to be in love, it doesn’t happen like a thunderbolt.” While I disagree about the thunderbolt I also agree about the decision part. What I think she meant was that too often we shy away from accepting how feel about someone, giving in to our worries that they might not like us as much as we like them. But where does that get us? Nowhere and stuck, that’s where. I’ve never been that guy and wasn’t expecting I’d ever be, so imagine my surprise when I woke up in California in the middle of a five year relationship in which I was. Well, that’s working on being done now cuz I’m DECIDING that it’s been long enough. I’m going to think of this phase like sitting shiva. I’m going to let my emotions settle in to 2010 and then I’m going to kick’em out the door. Yes, I still have a bunch of Molly’s stuff and she still has a bunch of mine, but FUCKIT. It’s just stuff. What I need today is LOVE, pure and simple. The love of family, the love of friends, and the love of a new love. Easy? Not easy? Who cares as long as it gets done.

Happy New Year, y’all. Time for everyone’s dreams to come true.

I’m so tired of being unemployed. I keep trying to take it lightly and think of the future when, from the comfort of my job, I can look back to this time and say with grace: “Wow, that was fuckin’ hard.” It’s amazing to me that I was able to edit one film and conduct serious interviews for another during this time. Maybe that speaks to the resilience taught me by my parents, but I don’t know. I just constantly feel like crying about it all won’t do any good, and so I keep working at the films… It’s still odd, though, that during the scariest financial time of my life I am a first-time homeowner, and a filmmaker who keeps getting great ideas thrown at her. Odd & wonderful & curious & terrifying.

“By the way, I’m going to wake you up in the middle of the night because I won’t think you’re real.”

My needs are emerging. It’s been difficult seeing everything I was missing in my day-to-day life with Molly. The neglect, the coldness. She was such a sweetheart, but how did I live so long without touch? She wouldn’t touch me in public. She would barely even stand next to me. She frequently didn’t introduce me, and when she did it was as her “friend.” It makes me sick to my stomach. How did I stand for that??? Anyway, looking back on it all now makes the emotions I buried then come out. It’s sooooooo painful. It’s like I’m reliving it, and for what? Hopefully to feel these things for the last time and finally get the whole hellish experience out of my soul.

And then, in the midst of all of this, comes this new person. All bright and shiny and sooooo loving. We can’t keep our hands off each other and that touch, for me, is food. It is the nourishment I lacked and longed for four years. Her touch makes me aware of how love-anemic I’ve been. Sometimes when she touches me my heart breaks a little and I’m afraid of how she’ll feel about my reaction. Will it be too much? Am I just not letting go? Am I dwelling? Or is this the past in it’s death throes?

These holidays have been very hard. Harder than others since Mom died. I didn’t feel “in my place.” I need to find it–my place. I’m looking…