reminders

nate.  we need to talk about him.  that's a funny story.

tattoo.  i got one.  and we need to talk about that.

dustin.  he's leaving the country in 5 days.  hooray.

hanging in there

still! im ok!

mom (and dad) helped break the pattern i think and im so so grateful.  im being cautious with my mind of course though.  mom explained to me that im such a loving person (thanks mom) that it's unnatural for me to shut him out, to be intentional about not texting, etc. because i want him to know he's loved.  even as a friend.  but, because he got to my heart somehow it's too tender and it's dangerous to do that.  so i need to protect my lil' heart in this case even tho she wants to be generous.  so im treating my heart and mind that way, with TLC, instead of harsh words like, "this shouldn't bother me, suck it up, you'll be fine, blah blah."  amanda, my roommate explained to me that since he is no longer texting me first and/or immediately after i communicate with him it is clear i am no longer on his radar.  he is special to me, but i am not longer special to him.  that, with its matter-of-fact-ness, strangely helps stop the obsessive thinking cycle before it can begin.  angela explained that the reason he was able to move on so quickly is because men can compartmentalize more than women can.  that also helps.  dad explained, with his fantastic humor, "the fact that he was a smoker doesn't bother me.  smokers aren't so bad.  it's the short thing that bothers me.  i'll have to be like, "Look at me in the chest when you're talking to me!"
my dad is funny.

alan came by the market also.  not to see me and he may not have even stopped had i not caught his eye but whatev.  he talked to my dad some.  i talked to his ex-long-term-girlfriend, frances.  i dont think i even said anything to my dad but he brough him up later and said, "that guy alan, he seems like a very nice young man.  from a man's perspective, i would like to hear something from you, like, "it was good to see you again today," so i know you're interested."  i told him how we have been interested in each other for 3+ years but our timing sucks and i think he still has a girlfriend.  dad said, "well he may, but he is either still interested in you or he's interested in me, and i'm pretty sure it's the former.  so i sent what he told me and dad put money on the fact that he would respond.  he did.  pretty sure i'd like to marry that guy. and if i actually when on a date with him or hung out with him outside of the farmers market at all i'd want to even more.  he's dangerous.  or my person. ha.

saw lane at church also.  we have plans now to go to a kick ass old-school r&b concert in june.  he loves me and would protect me in such a good godly sort of way.  he's just good.  i love him, too.  our conversation ended with him saying, yeah, so think about getting married, let me know. he jokes, but he doesn't.  i can't commit now.  never could.  yet his purity and his love makes relationships with these other boys feel so different.  inferior somehow.  why can't i commit to him?

ran into nate the day my parents left also.  hadn't seen him since the day after a drunken sleepover on st. patty's day and hadn't communicated two days after when i responded to his friendly text with, "i'm gonna be MIA for a while.  i don't need to be getting drunk and doing things like we did the other night.  i know that sounds bad, but, yeah."  so i show up at a birthday gathering with a group of christians and there he is.  we talked after dinner.  i told him i was sorry for freaking out in a very cool, charming, why-boys-like-me sorta way.  he said he'd like to go to spain with me when i go for a month.  i think he was serious.  we went back to his house to keep conversation going.  hung out on his roof under the stars and had great conversation until we decided to stop talking.  this time i haven't freaked out.  i mean, i did decide i needed to pray every morning this week about what god wants me to do with my heart/mind/hormones, but i didn't freak out. i rather enjoyed myself.

all of this, and i am still nervous about the market saturday.  will dustin bring breakfast?  if he does what will i say?  if he doesn't will i be sad?  but im reminded of one of my little email notes from "the universe" that said, "do not make decisions, nicole, until it is time to make them."  it is indeed not time.  i'll be fine. i love me. love life. love god. all is well in my world.

YES YES YES

I'm good!  she fixed me.  multiple new techniques, time, love, magic, whatever.
im good.

we were always meant to be casual, no strings attached, easy, fun.  short-term.  somewhere in there, and for whatever reason, we both thought it might be something else.  it just so happened that he realized/remembered that was NOT true and he let it go.  took me a little while longer. (two miserable months longer, despite my best efforts.)  but today i am thrilled to just let let it be what it was.  short-term, easy, wonderful.  it was never meant to be anything but that.

sweet jesus i feel free.  and i will stay this way.  im claiming it. :)

save the day, please

my mom is coming today for an entire week.  i am so grateful, excited, hopeful.  i hope she can fix me. give me that free therapy that will take dustin out of my mind foreva.

why do i love him so?  i know i dont.  my brain is addicted and i cant make it stop. 

all suffering comes from denying what is.  he gave me five minutes and the market and i wanted 5 hours.  so i suffer. 

i suffer more because i dont understand how i can know as much as i know, and love as much and as many people as i do and still want to force a reality that is not and will not happen.  fucked up.

but totally loved jesus and was all happy yesterday.  and today i am again nuts.  that is why i am additionally fucked up.

ok, you can go. i guess

sobbed my eyes out AGAIN last night.  about the same shit.  but my mom is so wonderful.  seriously. nobody has comforted and helped like she has in this situation, mainly because she thinks, operates, heals, on a psychological level that i operate under as well.  she was able to relate.  granted, she was using a "break-up" with a couple of girlfriends to do so, but it worked.  she said some days she just can't believe it's over.  that they were friends for twenty years and she sent a birthday card and heard no response.  she said she's had to work thoughts about the relationship through multiple times over the last year.  she has asked herself what she would be getting from the relationship if she had it back.  decided she would have that experience of somebody really understanding her, the closeness, the comfort of just being yourself.  but she would also get the experience of someone not calling her when they were in town visiting, someone who always choses another friend over her, someone who acts like she's unreasonable for wanting/needing what she does out of the friendship.  and she says she doesn't really want a friendship like that.

so i asked myself what i would be getting if i had the relationship back.  first thought is him looking at me, touching my face.  i felt like he was crazy about me.  he made me feel like he loved me, whether i acknowledged that consciously at the time. i felt beautiful.  like he was intrigued and impressed.  and i was myself.  i did get that.  i got physical affection.  i got distraction.  i got to feel like nothing else mattered.  i got to dream and to feel like i didn't care about anything else but being close to him, learning about him.  i got to be in awe at how i could feel the way i felt.  and i fucking love that feeling SO much.  that's what i miss.

i also would get a relationship where the guy is not ready to say that i'm the coolest thing he's ever met, that he would do anything to be with me because he realizes what i am and how lucky he is.  i would also be with a guy who doesn't really go to church, smokes, believes he's going to get cancer and die early, has a family full of disorder, and goes out sometimes on a tuesday and gets hammered for no good reason.  who also makes me nervous sometimes that he might be manipulating a situation to get what he wants.  who has justified his reasoning somehow and his actions might be hurting someone else.  someone who uses his confidence and intuition to make people feel loved but never really lets his guard down to let people in because he's afraid.

somebody who would leave me at my house when i was hurting and clearly didn't want him to go.  that right there is not what i want.  i want a man who will not leave.  whose heart loves me so much that he could not look at my face and into my heart and know he was hurting me and do it anyway.

i went to sleep exhausted, needing jesus to hold me and rock me to sleep.  to be enough.  for it to be okay that i was too tired to "work it out" in my mind.  i woke up with at least a small amount of faith that i WILL feel that way again.  i dont necessarily want him, i just want the feeling. so if i believe that god has good things for my future, that i will feel that feeling again with someone else, then i dont need to hold on to dustin specifically.  he was just a vehicle for this short season.  we hold on to people because they are concrete, our experiences with them are concrete.  i KNOW i can feel that way with him.  i dont know about anyone else.  when, where, how.  but i do know god is good.  and life is good.  so im letting go in faith.  with reluctance, yes, but im letting go. one fiber at a time...

it's not you, it's me.  and its my heart.  it will come alive again without you.  we cannot fathom the depth of experience god can give us here.  i'll hold that today.

today i got a sudden weird tightness in my chest and for some reason my first thought was that he was seeing someone else.

this is so fucked up.  i CANNOT BELIEVE i still give a shit.

movement

Man what a weekend. An emotional one. Imagine that, eh?

I saw dustin Friday. I knew I would, I could feel it. I was hoping it, anyway, and of course, dually prepared to be disappointed. I saw him, hugged him, commented on his unshaven face, which I don’t like nearly as much as his bearded face. He says I look good, he’ll catch up with me later. no he wont. No he didn’t. I had the BEST time with my other company at the bar, laughing for six hours straight. Seriously, don’t know if I have ever laughed that long or that hard before, and my brothers and sister and I laugh A LOT. Anyway, this fantastic evening did not keep me from not being able to sleep for missing him. Wanting him. Wanting us back.

I sat on the piazza the next beautiful Saturday morning and painfully wished and wanted every
single person that came around the corner to be him. Then I cried like I needed to cry. Called my mother with sobs in my voice as she picked up cheerfully. She got the, “hi, moooom,” greeting, the one that probably breaks a mama’s heart. “awww, honeeeey,” was her response. She listened to me be honest about how badly I wanted to see him right then, how empty I felt, how disappointed I was. Grief is a crazy thing. You can hold it back or try to tame it, rationalize it, soften the heart squeezing with gentle logic, but sadness like that needs to be felt in order for it to move. We finally have to come to a place where we have no more juice to fight or rationalize the pain and we just let it be there. We quit judging it cuz we don’t even have the juice for that. And if we’re lucky we have someone amazing like my mother who will listen and just let us be in that place. Because THEN the magic happens.

It MOVES. Can’t explain it, can’t force it, you can’t even really make yourself feel the sadness in efforts to help it move. But if you genuinely feel it deeply, express it as you need to, and don’t judge it, it will move. No rules for how long you have to do that, or how many times, and how the gradual the move with be, but it will move. And hallelujah, mine is moving.

With my sadness came honesty and I did send him a message that morning telling him I would love to catch up sometime. He says, he prefers the any’s to the some’s. my response: when I said some I really meant like right then, and right now. A few messages ensue, but with enough time-space between them for me to continue working the grief through. so long story short, I see him Tuesday for 10 minutes. I ended up parking right near his work for a delivery and ask via texy if he, “wants to come outside and say hello to a cute blonde girl he used to know with a great ass.” Response: “phenomenal ass. Be right out.”

Im nervous but centered, feeling after all the grief im finally ready to accept and let it go. Let us go. He and we are not coming back. But that does not mean we can’t still look at each other with gratitude and remembrance for that amazing season we had together, even if getting back together is no longer an option at all. [ Sidebar: It probably never was for him, even though he said truly believed that the timing just wasn’t right and that maybe down the road we would end up together. I don’t believe he really meant it. He may have thought he did, but no.] that’s what I was hopeful for: looking at each other with respect, love, and fond memories, but no longer with hope. So my heart is pounding and im shaking a little. I ask whats been going on, he tells me lots of stories. I am excited for him, encouraging. As comfortable as I could be in the situation once he started talking. He seems sort of blah. Not excited about these things that are happening that I thought he would be stoked for. He hasn’t been working out, talked about being out of control at an oyster roast a couple of days before, and his teeth look like he’d been smoking a lot. Ha. I did not feel vulnerable. I felt observant. He seemed distant, which also could’ve been due to discomfort with the situation – I did defriend him recently, does he think I still want him so he’s trying to be distant, or, super girl analysis hopeful shit here, when he hugged me I kept it short and sweet and I felt for a second he was trying to nuzzle into my face like we always do…like we did when I ran into him on king street a while back and we hugged and comforted each other like we needed…the hug that says many words….i didnt do that this time so maybe he was bummed/noticed. So we talk 10 minutes and he doesn’t ask me one single question. Fine, but that contributed to the distance. To the awareness that we are not the same couple we were. We no longer have the same powerful connection.We are not on the same wavelength where we just love, accept, are present. I was feeling present,positive, centered, loving, okay with us being apart. He was….i don’t know…not the same. I decided, in honesty and humility, if thatcan be said here, that I/we/our connection brought out the best in him.

Surprisingly I felt good when I left. Not the same as before where I hate that we are not together and am sad that we are no longer the same. Just like, “okay. The magical place/wavelength we were on together before..im still there…he’s decided not to be there.” Not, “he’s decided he doesn’t love me,” just he decided he wants to hang out in the non-powerful place. So that’s ok.
And the fact that I felt okay about it made me feel GREAT about it. I’ve been not okay about it for too long, so this was a feeling accepted most joyously and gratefully.

Man it’s so weird tho. The last time we were together and we were talking honestly about what we had and how much we miss each other I was with the dustin I loved. Open, loving, honest, even if the truth hurt. And this guy is not the same. Does he really just change what he gives and how he’s acting based on the outcome he wants and suits him best at the moment? That’d be crazy. Cuz not enough has happened between us in the past month for him to go from our affectionate coffee shop meeting to the distant dustin he just was with authentic reason. I mean,
enough has happened for me, but he has no idea the shit my mind has put me thru for the past month. I suppose he could have met somebody else and that could do it.

Whatever. Great thing is I have (for today at least) quit thinking we will get back together. My mind never really thought that we would but my little tender heart hoped for it. Another good thing is we have opened doors of communication without so much pressure. The farmers market
reunion can or cannot happen and I am indifferent. I wont have been wondering what he’s been thinking all this time. I just assume he has not been, and im okay(ish) with that.

All these things are true, and I do feel like my heart and grief have shifted to a new place, but the crazy thing about hearts and connections is that there still is this little part of my heart that warms when I hear from him. That sighs like everything is going to be okay. My soul rests for a minute just having him near, even if it’s only a text message. A text message that still holds the reality that he does not miss me like I miss him. Today, it doesn’t even matter for some reason. Maybe because I don’t have to wonder what he’s thinking about us, I just don’t think he is, I can just miss him by myself and only miss him. Not miss and wonder. Thinking about him now and letting the memories of what I loved about him and us fill me from the inside and cover me from the outside doesn’t feel so dangerous. It feels comforting. Yes, I admit i feel like im succumbing to an addiction, but I need it. I need it right now. Just for a little while. I can only let go of so much at one time.