11:11 pt. III

"She told me she met the love of her life," Zohra says at last, still staring out the window. "You read poems about it, you hear stories about it, you hear Sicilians talk about being struck by lightning. We know there's no love of your life. Love isn't terrifying like that. It's walking the fucking dog so the other one can sleep in, it's doing taxes, it's cleaning the bathroom without hard feelings. It's having an ally in life. It's not fire, it's not lightning. It's what she always had with me. Isn't it? But what if she's right, Arthur? What if the Sicilians are right? That it's this earth-shattering thing she felt? Something I've never felt. Have you?"

Less begins to breath unevenly.

She turns to him: "What if one day you meet someone, Arthur, and it feels like it could never be anyone else? Not because other people are less attractive, or drink too much, or have issues in bed, or have to alphabetize every fucking book or organize the dishwasher in some way you just can't live with. It's because they aren't this person. This woman Janet met. Maybe you can go through your whole life and never meet them, and think love is all these other things, but if you do meet them, God help you! Because then: ka-blam! You're screwed. The way Janet is. She ruined our life for it! But what if that's real?"

---

"What is love Arthur? What is it?" she asks him. "Is it the good dear thing I had with Janet for eight years? Is it the good dear thing? Or is it the lightning bolt?"

---

"You want me to stay with you here forever?"

"Last Turn"

Is there a word for the feeling when you look back and you realize that things would have been so different if you were then who you are now? It's more complicated than regret - the heaviness and unfairness of regret is there, but it's balanced with joy that you came this far, and hope that things can only get better if you keep getting better. There's guilt, too - why didn't I figure this out before now? What pain could I have saved? And peace. Peace because I feel like I'm finally making it better.

"Mr Shaver had, in fact, been aware of the upcoming nuptials. The only note he left behind was inside a blue envelope addressed to Ms. Ryan and her husband and placed on the dining room table.

It offered no insight into the end of the Shavers' time together, only a simple wish from a man who had come to know what must be cherished.

'May you both have many years of happiness,' it read. 'May life be good to you.'"

11:11 pt. II

"In every relationship, there are request moments, which seem small (did you like my haircut? I rearranged the Tupperware drawer. This is your hair I cleaned out of the shower...) but are in face little moments of longing (do you desire me? do you appreciate me? do you care for me too?) They can be hard to see, or tiring to address, or even seem like nothing, but in the long run of love, leaning into rather than away from or not noticing, these request moments is essential. It's a brick by brick life of active attention: I hear you, I love you, I see you."

"Tell me, my love: Why did I have cancer three times? How did we have two children with autism? Why has nothing turned out as planned? Then again: How are your same 10 jokes still funny? Why does your morning coffee still taste the best? Why, after 22 years together, does my heart still flutter when you walk in the room? How did I get so lucky to have your love?"

"Here's the things about marriage. We commit to sticking together for richer or poorer, through sickness and health and during good times and bad, assuming that the tough times are the stress test. But what if it's the opposite? What if the hard times bring out our best and make us focus on what's important, while the danger zone is when we grow so complacent that we can afford to obsess over a neglected shirt for eight months?"

"Love is honoring another person as their own whole being and not projecting your need to fix/save/rescue onto them. [...] Love is knowing it isn't a fairy tale, a happy ending, or a romance novel."

"Write letters. Be honest in them. We write every time we are apart, and a few times a month when we are together. As an older ranger told me before my wedding, 'start every day saying I love you, then spend the rest of the day trying to prove it.'"

December

1. Maybe I don't shed compliments because "I am humble". Maybe I push back on the giver to test them. Will they dig their heels in and insist that I am wonderful? Or will they step back and let me say yes, everyone is special, and I'm just another face in the crowd.

"I have quite the reputation to live up to now."
"It's just who you are so I wouldn't stress too much."

2. Feelings aren't facts. This is really hard for me.

3. Be more interested in understanding people than being understood.

4. "A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not on the branch but on her own wings."  / "Real maturity in a relationship is letting your partner know when your mind feels heavy/turbulent before your thoughts find a way to make a story that blames your tension on them; naming it allows you to know that it is there and your partner to know that it is time to support you/hold space."

Where is the line between finding someone to lean on, but not leaning on them "too much"?

Unfinished/11:11

Have I loved well? I have loved often, and responsibly, and tenderly, and steadily. I have supported, and thought of, and worried about. I have moved in, I have traveled hand in hand, I have cried and laughed and written love letters and celebrated anniversaries. I have done all these things more than most people my age, I think.

Have I ever fallen deeply and madly? Have I ever let my walls down far enough that I could be devastated? And...will I ever be able to answer that question? How do you know how badly your heart can be broken if you don't have anything to compare it to.

Poor you, they roll their eyes. Poor girl who wonders if she has ever been shattered. I have cried, and I have been lonely. I have felt those things while in relationships. Does that make them different? No matter what title you put on it, they are relational (or not) feelings. Or they are feelings that happen because of what is inside of you, and it doesn't matter whether or not you have another person - you insulate yourself or you don't, you let yourself be brave or you don't.

I am working on walking into rooms on my own. I like to follow behind my partner. I like people to introduce me, rather than having to do it myself. I am working on loving without looking for validation. I am working on finding confidence within myself and seeing others in a human way when I put love out and don't receive it back in the way I was hoping to.

Should I strive to let my walls down far enough that I could be devastated? Is loving without thought or without reservation the goal? The goal...like there is one goal. Like we all want the same love, like we all define love the same way.

Love is when you care about someone more than their "things" bother you. Or love shouldn't be defined by pros and cons. Or...

country love songs

"What are you doing?"
"Thinking."

"So many things," I said when he asked what I was thinking about.

"Do you ever stop thinking?"
"Not really."

But what if instead of thinking, I called it dreaming? Why does it have to have a point or a backbone? I'm not thinking...I'm letting my heart float out and feel the space around me.

moonrise

I wonder how other people pray.

Do you ask for things - a list of what you need?
Do you listen - quietly waiting to be told what to do, what to think, what comes next?
Do you vent?
Do you complain?
Do you share what you're grateful for?

And does it matter, what other people do? Isn't it more important what I do...what fits for me? And maybe it's not the same every time.

And what is praying, really? Is it praying when we call a friend? Is it only praying if you're kneeling with folded hands? When I run and let my mind free, is that praying? When I sit in the car after a long day and feel the sun pouring down on me and I close my eyes and listen to my thoughts? When I stand by the water and breath in so deeply that I can feel my heart change...

brain drain 9/20/2019

The impulse to do “good” / to make the world “better”. Heavy on the quotes because I understand that I need to view these words critically, but I don't have a good enough understanding to say them any other way. Teaching as a “philanthropic vocation or romantic calling,” "schools as secular churches,” things that make my skin crawl because they feel wrong, but also because I'm not different.

I allow the myth that I know exactly what I want to persist. I thrive on being seen as driven, passionate, purposeful. I want the gold star that people give me with their eyes when I say I'm a teacher. "We need more people like you." It's not why I do what I do, but it matters to me. Is that wrong?

Selfless/selfish

If we see ourselves a certain way, that encourages others to see us that way. If we question that, is it wrong to want people to still see us that way? Should my flaws be public, to be more human? Or should I hide them, because by putting them out into the world I burden others with complications?

“This notion of giving voice to the voiceless - that’s, to me, very flawed. They’ve always been talking. No one’s been listening.” - America Ferrera

Highway Queen

When I talk about my students, I talk about starting each day fresh. I preach about a student who struggled and was labeled as a bad kid, I (humbly?) tell about how we changed his course together. "There were still bad days - we all have them," I say. "But the next day I always made sure to tell him that he's not a bad person, we just needed to figure out better strategies and practice them. Everyone needs chances." In this story, I'm wise and compassionate. "We need more people like you," they say.

In another story, I come home and I'm still mad at you. I've been mad at you for days. For weeks. For years. I like the other story better.

When I explain why I'm frustrated (/upset/sad/hurt/scared/sad/annoyed/hurt/hurt...never "mad") I tell you that what you did plays into my fears. I can explain it so clearly. If I wasn't healed, how could I communicate so well? I told you from day one what I was afraid of, and shed responsibility then. We sat on your bed and I told you what I needed, and there in that humid dorm room I decided without deciding that I didn't need to work on it anymore. He's here now, he'll listen, he'll fix me.

I know. I know, I knew, and I will always know. Why do we do things when we know better? Why does it take 6 years to realize that we knew better? Why do I have to break open to go back and start again when I knew? We played it out so many times - I came home, I sat in my anger, you came home and pretended you didn't notice. I lash out. You know. you knew! You KNEW and you still did it. Proof that everything I felt and thought and conjured and projected was true, because you knew better, and you didn't break open and you didn't go back and you didn't start again.

You had so many chances. You didn't get any chances. Your bad days made you a bad person and I believed to my core that I should be scared of you. I waited for you to prove me wrong, but I was the only one who could change my own mind.

Gaze

"I don't regret things." And then I look back, and I re-read my writing, and I realize that years ago I told myself what I was doing. And promptly buried that concern in doing all those things. I feel shame, but not regret. Because I don't regret things.

I excel at the 5 paragraph essay. Tell what you are going to say, say it, tell what you said. It's so clean. I created a version of myself that is so clean. I created a version of myself that gets up at 4am to work, that reads non-fiction, that arrives to things on time...that breaks down and falls apart because it's not me, and I feel "lost" "lonely" "confused" "_______". I CAN do it all, I tell myself. I can. "I need to be right and I will make it that way," I tell myself, my soft heart hidden below all my walls and to do lists.

"Write for yourself." Me writing for myself is self-flagellation. The voice in my head tears apart each thing I write until there is nothing there. It's a strength and a weakness, I tell myself...the stories I tell myself. I am critical and thoughtful and reflective.

You overthink, he told me. You're too deep.

How long did it take to build this wall? How long does it take to break it down?

even though...

I look back over everything I wrote in the past 6 months, and over and over again, I told myself to go home.

[2/26]: I have been blaming this feeling on New York, but maybe that's unfair. This emptiness in my chest, when it feels like all the warmth is gone. Like nothing is sitting right. I can feel the knot in the bottom of my throat; my emotions sit right there, with no layer to protect them.

I grasp for easy coping mechanisms...I scroll through other people's thoughts and pictures, looking for something that feels right. I call people I love, hoping it will be *that* conversation where we connect. I have started reading again, but that's risky. Sometimes books wrap me up, and other times books strip me down and disclose my fears. It hit me today as I scrolled that I wasn't just looking - I was looking FOR something. I was looking for a quote or a picture or an experience that made me feel less alone. It's why coming home to Nala is the best part of my day. Her eyes love me without requirements. But then I take her outside, and she's cold and scared, and the knot rises and exposes again.

This city makes me feel more. This city exhausts me. This city forces me to be brave, it forces me to care so much. But I haven't found the right things to soften the experience.

"Go, even though you love him.
Go, even though you once said you would stay.
Go, even though you don't know exactly why you can't stay.
Go, because you want to.
Because wanting to leave is enough."

And that's the thing - it's about softening the experience. It's not about forcing it to work, about putting one foot in front of the other, about doing what I said I would do. It's about joy and love and healing and all the other cliche sounding healthy wholesome feelings.

Babble

strength to endure whatever it takes to make it work/
the fear of letting go of control

introversion, boundaries, and skepticism/
the fear of not being loved

intuition for others' reactions and enough humility to apologize often/
the fear of losing love because I am weak, or because I made a mistake

hiding/half awake [12/2018]

I call it "anxiety" - this gripping feeling that takes over my chest as I feel my heart softening. (It's not anxiety.) It's like my ribs are straining to grow over this newly vulnerable piece of me as my emotions try to push themselves out. How can you feel two things so different at the same time? So strong and so weak, so scared but so brave.

I've been trying to do all this "work" - I tell myself that what matters is the concrete, the actions, the interactions. I let myself hide my emotions because, quite frankly, they make me tired. Have you felt what it feels like to let your heart out of your ribs? To let it grow? To let it break? To let it grow and break again, every day, every few hours.

Does everyone have the same capacity for love? Do some people love harder love, deeper? Is it because they can, or because they let themselves?

It's time to stop telling myself I'm working on the people around me. I need to be honest and make myself better.

"There were things
you wanted to tell me
and there were things
I was dying to say

But you were scared
and my voice faltered
so we both sewed our lips shut
and buried it away."