Meanwhile, In 2006

Between reading a history of indie rock with The King of Carrot Flowers and getting deep into my Portlandia rewatch, my ears have decided they need to be filled with The Flaming Lips almost all the time. I like the way the bleeps and bloops and bwowwwmps bounce back and forth in my headphones.

So now it's time to write about one of the most beautiful and sad and gorgeous nights of my life so far: a birthday-weekend Flaming Lips show!!! The openers were The Magic Numbers, Sonic Youth (!!!) and (I can't believe I forgot this until the King of Carrot Flowers reminded me!) Ween. I don't think it was too long before my crush/our friend-breakup, but that night, it all worked together perfectly somehow. I felt everything all the way. I was overwhelmed with love and wanting-to-be-loyal about Sweetie-Now-BFF and I was frustrated as heck that I couldn't heap love upon The King of Carrot Flowers as well.

The longing was such a presence at that show that I feel like I should've bought her a ticket. Two wives, one best friend, one longing please! I think that's who I'm always buying a just-in-case extra concert ticket for.

The longing is what the music is for. Like edibles or good speakers, it makes the songs more vivid.

There was a loooong time of sitting in the bleachers and being low-key, listening to Sonic Youth sing "What a waste...you're so chaste.." (They do that one on Gilmore Girls, too! I love the way Kim Gordon bounces and shakes when she sings. I try to imitate it every time I'm singing loud/doing dishes.) The Magic Numbers played Mornings Eleven: "Call me if you're on your own, maybe you can meet me in the morning."

I WANTED to meet The King of Carrot Flowers in the morning, then return to my cozy home with Then-Sweetie come evening time. Sometimes that DID happen, but not for illicit snuggles! We would go for a swim or for ice cream or one time, with a bunch of his grad-student friends, the zoo.

By the time The Flaming Lips came on, we'd migrated higher up the bleachers and a few of our poet friends and work friends joined us. I felt elated, but also urgent, like WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE THIS! How did we all get to be here, together?! How did we get loves and friends and friend-loves to all be in these bleachers with us!? As happy as I was, I was also a little mad--how could I possibly express this tsunami of affection? How could I be present hard enough to honor this unearned miracle?

Luckily, we were at a Flaming Lips show! Sparkles and confetti and martian girls and lifting up the sun and battling the pink robots (I strongly suspect that the Flaming Lips are Phish for hipsters. I'm trying to banish this thought but cannot! Now you have it too!) and singing along to Do You Realize?? under the stars in my hometown with my arms around my dear ones, it was a rare moment of being sure I was giving life the honor it deserves. A rare moment of loving exactly as hard as I wanted to.

Okay, Yes, It Was a Miracle

 

The tides of heartbreak shift so fast! Last night, I wrote this draft about miracles, but my mood this morning is kind of just—well that was a crazy thing to try! Why did I think the thing with me and The Shy One could EVER work?! I mean, it did work, in its own halting way, as long as we could manage it, but, really, this?! Nuts.

A therapist told me once, not unkindly, that I may not have the best judgement. She was talking about how I thought I should be a full-time teacher in a pretty harsh school district. Actually though, I’m glad I did that too. Sometimes I do a hard and beautiful thing that smashes me to smithereens, but I come back together eventually, in a new, expansive, not necessarily wiser shape. Once in a while, I break myself. I don’t think I do it on purpose.

But let me stop comparing this cute man who wasn’t a match to the job that nearly killed me. There’s no why except attraction, except curiosity, except love. It’s beautiful how two such badly mismatched people could have tried so hard, for so long. (To me, ten months with an asterisk is LONG.) I was fighting so hard for what he couldn’t give. He tried his heart out to be enough for me, and it made him sad that he couldn’t get there. I hope he felt acknowledged enough, appreciated enough.

A year ago, when I was getting ready for Valentine’s Day and enjoying the last bursts of loveliness with The Good Boy, I would never have imagined the year of love and adventure that was to come! Even the sequel with The Song Sender seems like it was fated, written in the stars—and that guy SUCKED.

Now here I am, with a for-later treasure trove of frilly things, a deep abiding love in my homebody heart for Sierra Leone, (Buy WHY, Frank Ocean song. Just why.) a Hidden Folder full of hotness and cuteness that I never, EVER would have dared to imagine when I started these adventures 11 years ago.

Even that Monday “good morning” text that went missing in the ether, that accidental silent morning that made me cry so hard and so deep about feeling so disconnected, even that perfectly ordinary glitch seems like the most powerful divine intervention I’ve ever witnessed.

How could something that was THIS much of a mess still feel so sacred, so how-it-was-all-supposed-to-happen?

Darn gratitude. I was really trying to be salty. I’m sure I’ll be that too.

Fuck this Brunch Epiphany and Fuck These Two.

I don’t know how long The Shy One had been trying to break up with me. Maybe since we tried getting back together in July.

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I wanted some privacy to let the thing with The Shy One grow on its own. What happened was, it didn’t. I’ve tried really really REALLY hard to figure out how to fit into his life, but the space just kept getting smaller. Still, there was so much goodness there too—sex so profound and beautiful I never did learn to get my head around it. Pretty lingerie I’ll take pictures of before I put it away maybe forever. Cuddles in front of Gilmore Girls. He let me drag him through The Fancy Gardens even though it was freezing cold. He came to my Christmas party and met my students, and my mom, and the one aunt who’s not too vocally fascist to talk to.

But the feeling I couldn’t stand anymore was Waiting for Him to Text Back. I wanted to throw my phone in the river because no matter how much he tried to stay in touch, the distance between us would not close. He said he loved me but I couldn’t feel it.

And the feeling of Wondering If He’s Ignoring Me Because it’s Her Time (It’s ALL her time, turns out, I kind of knew that last May.) And I’m Not Allowed to Know When That Is. (Because it’s always.)

Or wanting to send him a picture of the sunrise or sunset or a painting or a cloud but feeling resentful because he’d kinda stopped sending me pictures of anything after he got home from his big trip. Then sending him the picture anyway because he said text whenever but that wasn’t really the rule either. (I still don’t know what the rule was, only that I got snapped at if I got in touch wrong.)

To paraphrase William Carlos Williams, so much SHOULD NOT depend on an emoji. Or a GIF. Or a “good morning.”

Anyway, so brunch:

I was trying for every-other-month brunches with Mrs. Shy One. I really liked hanging out with her and was learning to think of her as a regular non-fictional human and not Nakia from Wakanda Forever. (Mrs. Shy One doesn’t look like Lupita Nyong’o, it’s just a vibe.)

Last Sunday, we went to a place she picked, full of cool people and hustle and bustle and noise. All the menu options had a lot of adjectives. I tried the Deep Fried Bread Pudding French Toast with Candied Bacon and Lingonberry Jam. I thought lingonberries only existed on Portlandia.

It’s not her fault (Probably? ) that I felt ugly and stupid and clownish and poor sitting there with her. But these two things she said, jeez.

When she asked, “Who else are you dating?” I joked like oh, you know, just this one guy. And she was like “Who?” And I was like “Uh, (The Shy One)?”

“But I know you’re always out there, right?”

I mumbled some excuses like having too maybe-misleadingly-slutty of a profile pic, but, no, not really. Just then, just this past while, I wanted to be dating just him. He was a lot. A LOT. And I needed time and space to settle in if I was going to. I was swiping Feeld sometimes, not totally off the market, but like, let me just be in love with this guy for like five seconds. I think it’s a totally valid way to be poly sometimes.

I felt so stupid, like I wasn’t doing this right, like I was too dowdy and dim and simple and needy to keep up with these two FUCKING SUNBEAMS.

(Did I mention that he emigrated for her? Crossed the whole ocean and came HERE of all places?! And I had to clamor for anything other than a few hours on a Tuesday.)

(But actually, we had a trip coming up on the 17^th. The ticket cancellation showed up in my inbox at 4am. At least he couldn’t sleep after the breakup? But why couldn’t I make it til through to the trip. Other than I couldn’t figure out how I was going to eat or poop all weekend and I was scared of ending up stranded in the middle of a pretty-scary part of the state.)

ANYWAY back to brunch. Mrs. Shy One said something like “Oh it doesn’t matter if I don’t see my girlfriend for a couple of weeks, I always have dick at home.”

This pronouncement SUCKS for everyone involved, but it really made me come to terms with all I was left out of, all I was missing. I couldn’t imagine ever being that filled up, that confident, that wanted, that loved. I mean, I had that with Sweetie-Now-BFF, but I couldn’t figure out how to fit in that relationship either.

I could never measure up.

I could never have what she has, especially if I kept pining after a guy who erases my existence to every single other person in his life. Who lies to his kids about his love life and would only let me drop him off at home once.

“It’s my street,” he once said angrily, while of course being cuddled and feted on my street.

Their life is perfect without me, without ANYONE else. The rest of the world is a threat to what he really wants. (I mean, the rest of the world IS a threat, but that’s seventeen other conversations.)

Not with a bang, or a sweet-but-resolved text. With a “good morning” that got lost in the ether yesterday. I called to check in later in the morning, and he offered to send me a screenshot as proof. She’d done the same thing when my phone dropped her text confirming brunch. These two are scared to fucking DEATH of me. It’s so awful that they felt like they needed receipts.

I didn’t want to be scary. I tried to ask for as little as possible, to be self-contained, to self-date my way to satisfaction, to just be quiet and leave him be as much as I could stand to in hopes that I would stop being an irritation. That he might miss me and be kind and want to be near me.

I feel dirty, and broken, and ashamed. I’m literally surrounded by pretty presents that couldn’t bridge the gap.

I wanted to be part of his life. Of their lives. I didn’t want to be a secret. I wanted to meet the kids, or at the VERY LEAST for The Shy Ones to learn what a babysitter is.

He wrote it as a starcrossed kind of story, just circumstances. But I wanted him to see me. To choose me, not instead of them, but alongside.

He said he “prays that I find my person,” but my mind doesn’t work that way. I don’t want The One, I’ve loved many Ones and will (I GUESS) love many more. I think they’re all valid, they all count. I wish this one had counted more to him. I wish he could see me without the threat that haloed me in his mind no matter what I tried to do. I wish he could see me.

It really pisses me off that in like six months I’ll be like oh, poor us, just a bad match. I hate magnanimous. I hate how small I tried to be in his life, and I hate how I’m an ogre in his mind anyway. I hate this.

Perfect Birthday Date with The Shy One, Part Two

(As I sit down to type about this dreamy date, it’s a really, REALLY tough day here in polyland. I don’t think anyone ever died of being left out of a sexy, beachy, play party-y weekend, but it feels like I might.

I usually love my Saturdays to myself, love reading and taking walks and zoning out on my Animal Crossing island. I love listening to Nicole Wallace on a Saturday night to get riled up enough to fold the clothes. But today, nothing’s working. My brain just wants me to think about why they’re there and I’m not, how I’ll never find a real place in his life.)

Filet mignon. Lobster mac and cheese. Wine on my own since he hasn’t been drinking with me lately. Cheesecake with a birthday candle in it. Maybe I am a fancy date girl after all.

It’s strange being in such a wildly romantic context with a guy who doesn’t do PDA. Handholding had to express the whole bouquet of attractions and emotions, it’s pretty intense. We talked and schemed. I made him blush. I love the way his entire face glows when I tease him—the deep-seated smile, the twinkling eyes. Oh, the cheeks. I can’t even with this guy.

On the way home, the driver’s seat was too far back, so my legs wouldn’t fit on my side, they had to spill over onto The Shy One’s feet. Half a cuddle. More hand-holding. I felt swoony even though the music on the radio decidedly wasn’t, felt like I was looking at the moon even though I wasn’t. I closed my eyes and felt his hand softly on my arm. I opened them and saw the city lights, glowing in the twilight, the river reflecting the darkening sky.

Let’s just take a moment to say: I love him. I love him to the moon and streetlights and stars, from the river to the whole entire sea. I love him as sweet as birthday cheesecake and as special as wine. He hasn’t said the love thing yet, though the l-word snuck into a couple of GIFs last week, maybe by accident. But he does the love thing—he is love as a verb. He listens, he pets, he caresses, he reassures. He celebrates. Someday maybe he’ll say the thing, maybe I’ll wait forever. But for now, love as a verb.