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mi vida loca ~ September 30, 2002 - 2:58 a.m. didn't mean to leave y'all hanging... it's been a hell of a week. and no way should I still be awake. definitely I should be in bed by now, long since, but I'm feeling like I really need to write about it all. or at least to make the attempt. there is just too much going on in my head. and I'm an emotional wreck. I think it's all starting to hit me. it feels something like a car crash. I have this tendency to just cruise through life in tough girl mode until something pushes me over the edge and I realize: damn, some of this stuff has been really HARD. and it's cumulative, too. these last couple of weeks have just been one crisis after another. there's only so long you can do that before you start to get seriously tired. people keep asking me how it is that all these things just happen to me. and you know? I don't know. I know I'm an adventure girl, and maybe moving through life with a taste for adventure draws its own special brand of chaos. maybe it's just my karma. who knows. what I do know is that I'm feeling really ready for a rest tonight, and not due for one anytime soon. that's for damn sure. so, an update: the fire is under control. they got it contained saturday night, but as soon as thursday we knew it wasn't likely to head our way anymore. the fog rolled in, the weather changed, and we were able to shift out of crisis mode for the first time in three or four days. friday I went down to the climbing gym with patrick and worked it for a bit, first volunteer belaying for a group of teenagers and then climbing the walls for a couple of hours. I loved belaying for those teenage girls, watching them come down off the route all flushed and excited, forgetting for a moment all their insecurities and issues. did you see me? I was way up there! I wish I'd gotten turned on to climbing when I was a teenager. it might have changed my whole world. then I headed up to boulder creek to deal with my bike. called triple-A and waited two hours for the locksmith to show up. spent another three hours watching him attempt to make keys. he almost didn't manage it. I was chanting a piece of pagan chant in my head: let the way be open, let the way be open... when he moved on to busting the disc lock off my front tire and almost couldn't manage that, I began to invoke ganesha as well, for removal of obstacles. in the end, he managed it all, by which time the sun was down and a cold wind blowing. I was so grateful that I tipped him twenty bucks I certainly can't afford. on top of the ninety I had to pay over the triple-A coverage. but now I'm mobile again. which greatly facilitates all the errand-running that needs to happen before I leave for southeast asia on tuesday night. I am, of course, riding with what I consider insufficient gear at the moment, but it's the best I could come up with on little or no money: the gorgeous harley leather jacket my mom gave me for christmas, lined suede work gloves from the hardware store, jeans, boots, helmet. but the leather is good and the gloves are warm, and I have to admit: it feels good riding down the road in that sexy jacket, my hair streaming out behind me. not as safe as I'd like, though. I miss my body armor. when I get back in the country I'll have to see about setting myself up with some real gear. after the whole locksmith ordeal, I rode over to patrick's to spend the night, and I got there exhausted and tweaky and on emotional overload. kinda like I am right now. and we were cuddling, and I just kind of collapsed in his arms and started to cry. and then I told him about the fear. the fear I haven't really been talking about, to anyone, and especially not to him, because I didn't want us both to be haunted by it. but it's that fear which every woman who has sex with men and isn't neccessarily entirely careful knows: I am waiting for blood. and there's nothing quite like that feeling. and like most women, I've been carrying that fear alone, not wanting to freak him out for no reason when I'm not even late, for godssake. but I was/am just a little haunted by the persistence of that thought: what if I am? and the whole thing is just too huge and complicated. in part because it doesn't feel like at all the right time or situation to be having a baby-- and yet I'm not at all convinced that I would want to end a pregnancy, herbally or otherwise. in part because a great big part of me wants a baby, and thinks I would be a great mom, and that I would enjoy the hell out of motherhood. I know it's something I want to do before too much more of my life has passed. I mean, I'm going to be 30 in a few months. you know? but I also know that this sweet boy who I share such a gentle and light connection with is five years younger than me, and not at all in the same place in his life. he's focused on school and all of his many projects and not at all in a space to take on fatherhood. like I said, it's big and complicated. I guess it almost always is, when pregnancy is of the accidental type. but the ridiculous part about all this worry is that I truly have no idea if I'm pregnant or not. my moon is due something like tomorrow, and since I've never been pregnant, I really don't know how to differentiate between symptoms of pregnancy and PMS. there's a lot of crossover. and really, I think if I was pregnant, I'd feel a lot more different than I do. it's just that my body has been strange lately, my energy has been low, and I haven't always understood what my body is feeling. and being that I'm seeing a boy, it's easy to get nervous. I haven't had to worry about this in some time. so. there's that, on top of everything. and a going away party thrown for me by TravelingEd on saturday, which was sweet and fun, but also a bit stressful, as social situations where you don't know most of the people always are. are you excited? they kept asking me, and I guess it's what you would ask, but how could I not be? I'm so excited I feel nauseous. you know? and then a firedance family gathering, drums and dancing and sweet love. exactly what I needed, but I was having a hard time letting go. too many heavy prayers weighing me down. but this family, they love me, and they let me be exactly wherever I am. and another night curled up warm with patrick, and realizing that I'm also feeling some sadness around needing to let him go. this time has been so sweet and gentle and exactly what I needed. he is so sensitive and loving and spiritual and sane. this time with him has just been delightful. we make good playmates. but we also know that while we are good friends, and likely to be for a good long time, we are neither of us life-partner material for the other. and so who knows what kind of space we may be in when I get back to the country. and ariana, who I've been aching to see for something like six months, can't seem to make time for me, being deeply enmeshed in the ongoing drama of her relationship. and there's just too much to write about that. and she promised me, the friday before last that she'd call me back about whether I could come to see her the next day, and then she never did. and there have just been too many hurts to number, and I can't even unravel all of my feelings about that just yet. and then today... I went by keri and ian's for sunday night dinner thang for the first time in a few weeks, and I had a feeling on my way there. the feeling that this would be the time that he'd be there, for the first time since the day he threatened to either punch me or stick a gun in my face. and I didn't know how I'd react. and I was completely unprepared for how intense my reaction was. when I pulled up to the house and saw his truck, my heart started to race, my breathing got really quick and shallow. I walked into the house. he was in the kitchen, so I headed for the living room, where julie and andrew were, and as I was saying hello to them and shedding my gear, my knees buckled under me and I collapsed to the floor, my whole body shaking. I realized I was having a panic attack, so I got myself into the bathroom and locked the door, slid to the floor and hyperventilated and cried hysterically for a few minutes, until I could get myself into deep-breathing mode. I calmed myself down that way, breathing slow and deep, wiped my eyes and blew my nose and reminded myself that I am surrounded by love and it is all going to be okay. and then I went back out there. went into the kitchen to talk to keri, but she and ian left the room and I was alone with him, and unable to even look at him. all I wanted was for him to leave me alone. and then he said so, are we just going to not look at each other or talk to each other all night? something like that. and I said I think that's for the best, don't you? and then he started to tell me that I still have stuff at his house-- AS IF I could have forgotten... and sure, it was a pretty innocuous thing to say, but I just could not talk to him. could not deal with his energy at all. certainly couldn't make nice and act like we're on socially comfortable terms. he's never even expressed the least bit of remorse for threatening me with a gun. I don't think he even has any idea what a heinous thing that is to do to another human being. nor does he give a shit that he terrified me so deeply that months later I still can't be in the same house with him without having a panic attack. and let me just say that I am not prone to panic attacks. that hasn't happened with anyone else I've ever been involved with. so the first time I'm forced to share space with him after he threatened to stick a gun in my face, he expects me to look at him, to talk to him, to be fucking polite? I was outraged and insulted that he even had the nerve to speak to me. you lost any right to speak to me the day you threatened to stick a gun in my face, I told him. and then he got all huffy the way he does, and he turned to keri and said I've got no right to speak to her, in that nasty little tone he uses-- and she was upset that there was ugliness going on, and said "hey! no fighting!" and I just said quietly that I didn't want to fight, that I just needed for him to not speak to me. and as he headed out one kitchen door and I headed out the other, I said you did this, I didn't do this. I tried to be his friend. I tried damn hard. I played nice in social scenarios, I was supportive when he got into his accident, I did everything I could to keep things peaceful between us. he's the one who decided he'd rather have me as an enemy than a friend. and he was very successful at turning me into one. I'm not one who makes enemies easily. I love people, and I'm compassionate by nature. but when you treat me as horribly as that man did, when you threaten me with firearms, I've just got nothing left to give. I went there prepared to ignore him, but he wouldn't let me. I was still shaking when he confronted me. I wasn't looking at him or talking to him because I couldn't. I've got nothing nice to say to him, and he shouldn't expect it of me. he left after that, and much as I was relieved for my own sake, I felt bad for our friends, who are still friends with him and have no need to get sucked in to the drama I wish had ended a long time ago. I still feel bad for bringing my unstable energy into the situation. I'm thinking maybe I should stay away until I can be in the same house with him without collapsing in weeping hysterics on the ground. you know? and then after dinner I just fell onto the couch and zoned on tv until keri and ian were heading to bed. I just needed to not think for a while. and then left there to head back up the mountain. I wanted nothing so much as to ride up to patrick's and crawl into his bed and his arms, but looking at a clock for the first time in hours I realized that it had gotten ridiculously late while I was zoning. and I just couldn't figure out how okay it would be for me to arrive unannounced in the middle of the night and an emotional wreck and wake him up. and so I headed up the mountain, for simplicity's sake. but I am still weepy and fragile, still wishing for safety and comfort. I want a home of my own, and warm arms, and a life a little less packed with crises and worry. instead I'm heading into the adventure of a lifetime and a land different from anything I've known. it will be wonderful, I know-- and I know also that I will find comfort, I will find family, even surrounded by nothing at all familiar for the next six weeks. I always do, somehow. it's just that right at the moment, I badly, badly want to be held. I'm awfully tired. it's been a hell of a week.
(((rings))) |