"It's too late to change your mind
you let loss
be your guide."--Broken Bells
By the Monday after Valentine's Day, the city had been frozen for weeks. Ice on top of snow on top of ice, and the temperature was seldom higher than 20 degrees. I've been through fifty-one Februaries, and most of them seemed like they would never, ever end. I'd been trapped here learning to love myself with varying success. My brain imagined Guy Next Door having the most lighthearted and casual adventures while I worked my steps and did my therapy sessions. It was time to thaw. It was time for colors and light and alive smells.
So BFF-Formerly-Sweetie and I planned a day at the Fancy Gardens, almost as an emergency. We were both excited to look at colors and I planned to flood the entire internet with flower pictures.
But BFF's back was out! She had a brace on and was walking with two canes instead of two. It broke my heart the way it always did when she was hurting and it also made me remember times when she'd been hurting and I'd been unkind. When I'd been heartless and impatient. I don't think I could ever forgive myself for the ways I've let my BFF down. Here I am, lucky enough to have someone to stand by me, to be my Emergency Contact. It's been twenty-five years (That gum you like is back in style.) of the deepest and most meaningful relationship of my life, and I still couldn't figure out how to *save* her or to at least make up for all the pain and neglect.
Her version might just be that her back hurt and we had a really lovely thawing day looking at flowers. But OCD and codependency had different interpretations for me.
There was another memory of The Fancy Garden around the edges of my (Nonetheless taking SO many pictures of flowers, do not worry!)
fraught-feeling soul: The Shy One. On February 6th it was three years since he broke up with me. The week before that, I'd taken myself to the garden for winter emergency reasons, yes, but also just to listen to myself.
Things had been off between us since he got back from his trip home. He was colder and more elusive and I was kinda going crazy because he came home with "a little malaria" and I couldn't come tend to him, couldn't help "fix" the situation. And I was scared, because I'd never encountered malaria outside of novels. My imagination ran wild and I thought he was going to die. I mean, everyone's going to, but I really was afraid I he was on his way out.
(One time he told me it was like I knew he was going away soon, like I was trying to have the whole relationship at once. I've wished for years I could go back and be more present, more patient, more accepting, but I was what I was, and so was he. I don't wish like I used to that I could turn back time and do right by him, but I am TERRIFIED of making the same mistakes.)
Anyway, back to 2023 Fancy Garden. Texting flowers had been our thing, Shy One and I, but though he had recovered he was still being snappish and uncommunicative. I remember looking at a shot I took, a semi-lewd close-up of a fiery orange amaryllis, with bitterness in my heart, like, if he's not going to say more than "good morning" with no emoji, I'm not sending him one more piece of art he doesn't care about.
Back in 2026, with the glass-warmed sun shining on me and so many different purples to look at,I was also in the middle of making third-date plans with Sweet Valentine and he was Not Texting Back. And OCD was telling me it was Shy One all over again, that I was making the same stupid mistake. I felt one of my deepest fears: What if I can ONLY be drawn to people who really aren't drawn to me, who don't text me back, who don't need me for anything at all.
(They tell me in Codependents Anonymous that I can be loved without being needed, and I totally feel that sometimes! But not on this particular day.)
(I know from my OCD support groups that texting is one of the hardest things for those of us with Relationship OCD to handle. I'm definitely the only neurospicy hottie who regularly wants to fling her phone into the sea.)
(Back in 2001 when BFF-Formerly-Sweetie and I were getting together, it was the red light on the answering machine that used to vex me! But there weren't so many other things to check so the madness of it was less maddening.)
We had a beautiful day at the gardens. BFF was glad she came, if still hurty. I still very much wanted her hurt to stop. I've always been more emotionally fragile than she is, but her physical fragility is so hard to handle. I can't help but flash forward to a day when I'll be without her, when I'll SOMEHOW have to figure life out without her. I hope that's in a long, LONG time but sometimes, it seems like it's already here.
I cried a lot of the way home; good, productive tears.
It turns out I wasn't OCDing about Sweet Valentine's quiet, or not JUST OCDing. I was kinda reading the room. He'd been wondering if he couldn't live up to all his obligations and still be poly. He wanted us to slow down so he could listen to himself about what he really wants, what he's really capable of.
That is actually so lovely! But friends, I melted down. All the griefs of the day and of the years came out in a tangle to this already-overwhelmed-but-extremely lovely man with a life just as big and messy as mine. After two dates, I would like to have preserved more mystery, but he heard me about two-thirds of the way to my worst.
But he stayed in the conversation and had the conflict with me. I still felt a warm soul-connection to him and he SOMEHOW still liked me, even after I got so tangled. So that's why the month break, which has a little more than two weeks left. Most days, I feel carried and faithful about this, like I can trust both of us to listen to ourselves, to do what we really want. I trust, if he comes back to me, that it'll mean that's what he really wants. I think I already know what I really want, but who knows how two more weeks will change me?
That night when we were agreeing to the break, I told him I hope our respective Totoros will take us just where we need to go. He said he loves Totoro, because of course he does.
So if you want to know how this story will turn out, here's the only person who knows:
