So Long, Farewell

It was a nice (and kind of adorable) little run we had.

But now it's over.

I've calculated in my mind that I've broken up with 27 men in the last 13 years of my dating life. Sometimes they're the ones who pull the plug, sometimes I am. I think either way it's usually me doing it somehow.

Most recently, it was someone I actually had a lot of fun with. Someone I thought I had enough in common with to actually be intrigued on a pretty constant basis. He made the break up with D seem less like a terrorist attack on my heart and more like life just slowly changing. He wasn't a rebound, just a good guy.

But that's all behind us now, and we decided to end it last night. Which is fine. It was going to end anyway come January. I already started to get used to that one. In a way it was silly of us to indulge in the whole thing as long as we did. But this sort of thing has a way of just making sense until it doesn't anymore.

(©2009 Lotus B.)

4 Gentlemen & A Lady

It's quite possible, that I am more single now than I have ever been. It feels like there is no one, not even anyone who is just genuinely my friend within a 2,000 mile radius. Ironically...my ex-boyfriend is moving to Houston next week. Oz and I have grown a bit distant but are still friends, D and I have settled into ex-friendship (a hybrid of rebounding with your ex on a platonic level), and someone I've known nearly a decade (which feels like my entire life), whom I never really dated but have always thought the world of is coming to town next week as well. In a sense...I will be a totally single woman surrounded by 4 ex's starting next week. FOUR.

Does that seem fair?

I relayed this fact to my sister over the phone the other day and for a second she wreaked of jealousy. She, who is happily married to my brother (in-law) whom everyone adores, and who adores her to no end. The two of them are in the "process" of attempting procreation and embarking on the next glorious phase of life where you start to truly become an adult for the sake of a new little life. As she envied me, I was envying her in return.

Of course, I'm more than aware that I'm in no position to have what she has. For the most obvious reason, which is that I have absolutely no permanent prospects. Not that I want any, but I can allow my mind to wander on the subject a bit....at least for the purpose of this blog post.

It's not a secret that I'm in the very least NEARING that part of my life. After all I was perfectly prepared to marry D, have his children and start a real life with him. If it weren't for the un-ignorable components of our relationship that were tragically missing, we would probably be planning a wedding right now. I was ready... just not ready to settle and make someone else settle for something that wasn't right. I refuse to commit to someone that I have to squint at in order to see them as perfect and who does the same of me. Smearing all the jagged lines, and pretending a blurry version of each other is good enough. No thank you. I'm not looking for perfection, but I would like perfection's half brother. Distant cousin, perhaps.

So from time to time, and as the "Engaged" announcements continue to fill up my Facebook page, I do feel that pang in the depths of my stomach. It reminds me that I'm at a very exciting place in my life. I'm single. Single in that REALLY single way. Where I am not obligated to anyone or anything but myself. On the other hand, I know I CAN be in a relationship. I'm capable of being with one person, if he's the right one, and making something work and possibly building up to what me and D almost had and beyond what it should have been.

In the mean time, I kind of get to just be me again. Sure, these last few months in Houston will be kind of a bore. But once I get back to New York, I'll have school to look forward to. Setting up the new website with Tia, partying and meeting new people, writing, kissing the air in Brooklyn and whatever else might come my way. I'm looking forward to FINALLY, after a long time of holding my feet in the air...planting some roots that I might want to share with someone one day.

(©2009 Lotus B.)

Theory of Evolution

I know that if I step back from the canvas and take in the entire scope of the story, I am only at the beginning. There is so much that is hard to see right now. I know that "this too shall pass" and before I know it I'll be painting the walls of my new apartment in Brooklyn, and taking bitter cold walks to Tia's house for wine and chit chat like before. I know I'll look back on this and think of how grateful I am that I was such a hanger-on-er. But right now, for this moment and for the few days immediately surrounding me, I am miserable. From the cockroach invasions to some of the country-ass social retards I deal with at work, to the bittersweet awfulness of living so close to Desman and so far from my family. It's times like these a girl like me needs to make a few simple lists:

Things That Make Me Miserable:

1. The girl at work who thinks I'm an idiot and doesn't realize I'm just more polite than she.
2. When D acts like we're strangers.
3. The fact that we actually ARE strangers.
4. My hair…I never should have straightened it.
5. Those disgusting cockroaches that crawl around all over the fucking place.
6. How being "different" isn't considered a commodity here (in this city).
7. The girl at work who is painfully afflicted with diarrhea of the mouth (different girl).
8. Hurricane Season.
9. Not having a car or access to a convenient transportation system anymore.
10. Weather that feels like living inside a whore's vagina.  

Things That I'm Grateful For:

1. The ability to write about any and everything that is on my mind (publically or privately).
2. An amazing best friend who keeps me sane.
3. An apartment in Brooklyn that is mine for the taking. 
4. A pretty face. 
5. A mother who (and I've checked into this) is the BEST kind of mother to have. 
6. The learned ability to give things a try before I dismiss them. 
7. My blackberry. 
8. A place to rest my head, cook my meals and read my books. 
9. Ossie's return home this Sunday. 
10. My guts…which will allow me the nerve to chop my hair off again (coming soon!). 
11. A job that pays me well enough to live, save, and occasionally enjoy myself. 
12. A detachment with the shitty worldly things that turn people into animals. 
13. My confidence in my personal belief system; there is a God and she is everywhere. 
14. Vegetarianism; we live longer and apparently taste better… 
15. The 50% off coupon I got in the mail for Adam & Eve dot com…. (Google it if you don't know). 
16. The left over Chinese take out I plan on murdering when I get home today…Lo Mein is my boyfriend. 

So I guess, as long as my list of crummy shit is shorter than my list of fab shit, I'll be ok. True, at this moment…I kind of half want to quit my job and run out into the street screaming "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"….but I also half want to close my eyes for a second and tell myself how strong I am and tell myself I've been through worse and hope that my mother is right about all this; that all the miserable crap is really just to shape us into better people.

(©2009 Lotus B.)

Confession of an Urban Nomad....

When I was a kid and there wasn't much to smile about, I tended to find relief in my own imagination. I suppose it's what contributed to me wanting to write. If I had a pen and a paper, then I could create my own reality. I could be anyone, and anywhere and whatever I felt was the ultimate dream could be my truth for that moment.

Now, since then, I've learned to curve my imagination. I learned that living in your own head can really end up hurting the reality you have to actually live in. Like seeing the perfect life with someone and later realizing that you actually over looked a few hundred details because those details weren't pretty enough to fit into your ideal.

Right now, with my imagination slightly stuffed into my pocket, I am wondering where all of this is going. I'm thinking about my future and realizing that I'm actually in a pretty awesome position. I have no ties. To anything, anyone or anywhere. I'm totally perceptive to what might happen and totally willing to follow a new path. I think I used to feel imprisoned by freedom and freedom in prison. I was comforted by limited options, because that meant decisions where made for me. But over the last few years, I've slowly come to the conclusion that I'm just not one of those people. I don't need permanence right now, and I don't even really want it. I want to continue getting my life together; school, money all the things your supposed to get together when your in your twenties. But I also want to see where this whole thing is taking me. I want to see the world, and live there and take it in and absorb whatever strangeness I find. As long as there is a voice in the back of my head saying, "Maybe there is something else..." I'm going to allow myself to follow it. I know that sounds kind of movie-of-the week (cue Greatest American Hero theme song, "Believe it or Not"...), but that is a definite truth.

I will, however, say it's nice to have an equally nomadic friend...

The Ultimate Vegetarian Nachos...

I told Oz today while balancing my cell between my face and shoulder, and grabbing bags of supplies from the front seat of the car, that I had woke up this morning thinking about making some awesome vegetarian nachos.

"You must be an empty-headed person..." he said.

Touche.

The reality of it is I woke up this morning with SO MUCH more than just making nachos on my mind. Between my family, school, work, moving, D, my friends, my money, my writing and the intense pain I've had in my back for weeks now, I was completely drowning in thought. The sun was blazing through my window but the air had been on all night and the temperature was perfect. My bed felt inviting and soft and it tempted me to sleep in even later than I already had (11:30 am). Instead, I decided to push all those nasty "grown up" thoughts out of my head, wake the hell up and just make some awesome nachos.

The problem is whenever you get nachos your left at the mercy of the venue. Limited to their ideals and preference. Some people consider nachos to be some crusty tortilla chips smothered in melted American cheese (you'll find this strain mostly in bowling alleys and ballparks). Some places make awesome nachos....cheese, jalapenos, guacamole...the works. However in my experience, the people who make the best nachos usually top it all of with chicken, pig or cow. Three things I don't consume. So today instead of sitting and write angrily in my journal about the desperation I feel inside or the admission I made last night which I swore I'd never tell anyone or the fact that I have to move (again) although it's dreaded and sometimes feels like a bad decision; I simply made nachos. I made them with a big goofy smile on my face. And I made them with soy beef.

They were so delicious that D, who had already eaten decided to help me finish them off. They were so good, that I forgot to snap a picture of them before they were completely devoured.

Mmmmm....denial tastes like happiness.

So I Came Home Late Last Night...

I tried my damnedest to get home by the agreed-upon 2:30am... Some may call this a curfew, I call it an AGREED UPON time to be home respectively. Regardless of the verbal spin...I tried to adhere to it....(well I needed some convincing, but I digress..).

So I'm laying on my bed halfway out of my clothes, one foot over the edge one foot propped up on my comforter occasionally glaring at the clock....it was 2:50 AM and D wasn't home yet. Now, I'm caught halfway between angry and worried. A) Because D is very rarely late to anything.... B) Because don't give me an agreed upon time to be home respectively and then fuck it off. So I wait...catching myself as my eyes are forcing themselves closed.

Next thing I know, D shows up in his plaid shirt (a purchase I totally influenced) worn-in jeans and one of his millions of pairs of shoes in his hands.

"Hey Boogs..."

"You know I can now come home whenever I feel like it right?" I say, bypassing a greeting altogether.

He smirks, and kind of stares at me. Drunk, much? Of course I don't CARE that he's been out later than me. I just don't want to be the only one rushing home for no good reason. However I was curious as to what kept him out so late....perhaps something I could use to display an example of encouragement and support...then he wouldn't feel so obliged to keep me on this agreed-upon time to be home respectively.

Some party...blah blah...with his friends..who cares...Rosemary...ERRRR???

I let a wide smile spread across my face. I mean as long as D and I have the strangest most WHACKED out situation of all time in our hands, why not make it even more awkward and tease him about running into some girl he knows while he was out.

"Did you get her number..?"

"I always had her number.." (fuck you too)

"Well I imagine you didn't do very well, since you suck at flirting.."

This is the new-age friendly banter that has evolved out of our broken relationship between the walls of our broken home.

When I woke up this morning he was laying on my bed snoring like an injured whale. My mom called, "Did you just wake up? Are you alone?" (a question she started asking me after I turned 20 and realized I had frequent male visitors.

"No, I'm not alone...but it's just D."

Said with love, satisfaction and emotional distance.

The divorce is final.