Each time I think about writing this entry, I get stuck. I end up staring at the screen and hope something comes into my head as to where to start. I thought about scratching the whole thing completely and writing about something else but the idea won’t leave me alone. Bear with me please as I stumble around trying to figure it out. I’ll start with what I know for sure and see what happens from there.
Lately, or maybe it’s been for a long time and I’ve chosen not to see it, I’ve been craving a connection with another human being. Not only do I crave it, but I’m somehow pushing it away at the same time because I’ve gotten lost in a forest of craziness unable to accept the help that’s being offered. On some level I want to believe that I don’t need anyone else. It’s uncomfortable for me to ask for help, to ask to be pulled out of the forest and see the light. Maybe I’m not ready to face the light. It’s quite possible that keeping my eyes closed to everything I’ve wandered into is way easier than cracking open my swollen, busted, painful eyelids and let some light in, let it heal my corneas so I can see straight again. I don’t want to do the work. This darkness I’ve settled into is delicious is the best way.
The assistant schedule comes out one week and I see that I’m working Evanston and on Wednesday, I’m off early. The idea of OA works it’s way to the forefront of my mind and when I get home from work that night I pull up the weekly meeting schedule. There is a 7pm meeting in the Lincoln Park area on Wednesdays. I figure out public transit from Evanston and see that I can make it.
I’m excited about this opportunity. I know that no matter what, I’ll be able to connect in ways I normally don’t with other people. I’m hoping that once I’m there I’ll be able to talk, to share and find some sort of relief.
Wednesday comes and I’m out of work on time. I catch the train and head south. I’m getting nervous once I get off the train and start walking. I hope I’m going in the right direction. Despite my nervousness at doing something new there is absolutely nothing that would keep me from going and having this experience tonight. Even if it were raining sideways or I got insanely lost, I would find my way. Where is this determination in other areas of my life? Imagine what could be accomplished if I put forth effort and drive like this into all areas of my life.
I find a non-descript building possessing the address I’m looking for. I push the buzzer and hear the door unlock. I pull it open and walk gingerly up the stairs and down a hallway. I find the room number and walk through the door.
I’m met with smiles by a group of twenty or so people. I smile back, sit down and exhale. I want to know every person in the room. I want to hear all their stories and share mine. For the first time in I don’t know how long my lungs are filled with much needed air. I didn’t know I was lacking oxygen.
As the meeting begins and the minutes pass I absorb everyone’s thoughts, fears and stories. I relate to every single one on some level or another. Relief washes over me and I don’t feel so scared or self conscious.
When it ends I do get a little shy though and quietly walk out the door without saying anything. “I have to come back.” I think to myself. I’m not sure how to make it happen with my erratic schedule but it has to happen.
On the train I see that I’ve missed a call from Charlie. I get off at a stop close to home and call him back.
“Are you coming over?” he asks.
“I can.” I reply.
“I mean, I didn’t know if you wanted to be alone or not.”
Part of me wants to be, part of me wants to see him simply because it’s comfortable, it’s what I normally do now, and yes some company would be nice despite my sudden agitation.
“I’m walking up Milwaukee and will be passing Lovely soon.”
“Ok, I’ll come out and meet you.” he says before we hang up.
A smile inevitably spreads across my face when I see him at the door. Nervous energy floods my system.
“Hey. How are you?”
I shrug. “How are you?”
“Good.”
In his apartment I want to tell him about the meeting but it somehow doesn’t feel important. He’s explained to me many times that he’s here for me, that he needs me to talk and I’m desperate to do so but there’s this huge wall I keep running into. Over and over when I try to speak, try to share, I hit my head on the wall. I’ve done it so many times that the mere idea of talking hurts and so I remain quiet.
Remaining quiet only results in further aggravation. It boils underneath my surface. I try to keep a lid on it, try to sit on the lid to keep it from bubbling over but sometimes the weight of my intent is too light to keep the lid shut and irritation oozes out beneath it infecting anything it comes into contact with.
Charlie doesn’t ask about the meeting but I feel he doesn’t because he’s waiting for me to volunteer it. I do so, a little, simply saying that I enjoyed it and I wanted to find a way to make it every week.
End of discussion.
Time keeps moving. I feel something stirring in my head. I don’t know how to describe it but whatever it is it’s trying to save me from whatever hole I’ve fallen into. It’s starting to gently pull at my limbs, tugging at me, coaxing me out. I’m only mildly resistant and mostly curious as to what this is. This energy pushes itself into my fingers, making them construct a note to my assistant manager in Evanston asking her for the Wednesday schedule adjustment so I can make it to OA. I stop what I’m doing to write this note, afraid that if I don’t do it right this minute I’ll regret it. I place it next to our assistant schedule and continue on with my day.
The next step this feeling has me taking is to promise myself that I’ll make it to the gym three times a week. It doesn’t matter which three days, I just need to get there. No more excuses, no more “maybe next week”, it’s now or never, do it.
So it begins. I go and go hard. Nothing gets in my way, not even the rain. I notice that I stay longer and work harder. The pressure is off to go five or six times a week. Three is enough for now and I know that if I want more, I can go more. Having this knowledge and accepting it has made all the difference in the world. Where was this serenity when I needed it last year or even the year before? How did I achieve this all the sudden?
In no time I find myself online and posting a thread on couchsurfing.com, looking for fellow writers to get together and bounce ideas off of. I’m looking for support and understanding. I’ve let this thought marinate in my mind for the longest time now. Taking a step to reach out means putting myself out there, further solidifying my attempt at writing a novel and increasing my risk of failure if I don’t do it.
Taking all this action feels like preparing for something. For what I don’t know. Maybe I don’t need to know right now but just need to sit back, follow it and enjoy the process…
Monday, December 28, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Novel...
It bounces around my head, scratches at the inside of my brain, conjures up stories, and ideas on how to put it together. It’ll keep me up at night, tap me on the shoulder in the mornings, consume my thoughts while doing mindless activities during the day. I want to write a novel.
My dream is to sign a book deal ahead of time, and take a stack of notebooks, pens and my laptop to Stockholm where I’ll sit in cafes all day drinking coffee, eating unidentifiable chocolate objects while getting the project done. I want to explore the depths of my memories, thoughts, feelings and share them with the world. I feel that if I accomplish this, I will be able to put a lot of residual feelings about work in Atlanta behind me. I’ll also be able to better understand my feelings about Rob, and about life. I want this. I want it so badly, to accomplish this feat. Starting is the problem. How do I start something this huge? How do I tell the story? How do I get to a place where nothing else matters but what I’m trying to get out. How do I find a place where I’m comfortable enough to “go there”? Where I’m not someone’s daughter, employee, friend, etc…
I’m scared of where my head might go, what might come up and how I’ll feel about it. I also fear failure and judgment so much that I keep the idea as that. Only an idea.
Charlie replaces my battery for my computer on my birthday telling me it’s to start my novel.
“You can now take the computer with you to Lovely and write.” he smiles. (Lovely is the the coffee shop where we met and is my favorite.) The electrical outlets don’t work there so I only bring things I’m hand writing, or I use his computer for the internet if we’re there together. “I want two chapters!” he exclaims.
I laugh and tell him that will take an eternity at the rate I’m going.
“Does it bother you that I bug you about it?” he asks.
“Not at all. I need it apparently.”
I do begin. It’s excruciating. That first sentence is agonizing. I peck out two pages instead of two chapters. I can’t quite figure out how to start. What I wrote doesn’t feel right. It has it’s place just not at the beginning. I keep waiting for the perfect idea to come along forgetting that it’s simply going to take starting and some trial and error before I figure it out. I keep going though, hoping it’ll resemble something soon.
Weeks later I start looking for people to meet with and bounce ideas off of on couchsurfing.com. A guy sends me an amazing article about the process famous writers go through to get to a place where they can begin and write their novels. Receiving this electronic, orgasmic treat is just what I needed to get up off my ass. I so enjoyed reading about the obscure things people do to go to their “happy place” to write. From creating storyboards, to sitting on the edge of the bathtub, to dressing up in character to get the story out, reading about other people’s process helped me to stop judging my own, accepting it as the way I do things and be ok with that.
“What is my process?” I ask myself. This is what I know for sure. I’m controlling. I want it to go the way I want it to go, often being resistant to the story taking on a mind of it’s own. I love writing in the mornings. I don’t do so well at night. With my blogs, I write them in the morning, “sleep on it”, wake up the next morning, revise it, making sure it’s something I want to post, then post it. I know my journals must be handwritten and my blogs must be typed to effectively get my point across. I sometimes write in fragments when I’m upset. I’m easily overwhelmed at times with emotion while writing and other times, there is nothing that comes to mind when I feel I should write. I’ve learned that patience is something I need to work on and trust that whatever it is I need to say, it’ll come out on it’s own, in it’s own time.
I read that this one author writes only what she knows and eventually puts it all together. She has a huge bulletin board in her room where she tacks up stories, thoughts and ideas she scribbles on various pieces of paper and torn out notebook pages. This lights me up and I start to explore this idea. I know that I’m haphazard in a lot of areas in my life. I’ve noticed, or recently acknowledged that when I close the salons alone, there is no rhyme or reason as to how it gets done it just does. If I approach my writing this way, maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to get this done.
At Borders I buy a huge notebook. I start pouring over past journals, trying to pick out something to start with. I begin writing random thoughts and ideas in the notebook. Some of those thoughts become full sentences that grow into paragraphs. When one paragraph gets stuck I move to another story. When I can’t think of how to start it, I begin writing the ending. When that gets tough to piece together I write about something that happened that I wanted to explore with words, stringing them together as if I were painting a picture. I move the words around, crossing them out putting new ones in the old ones places, I fill the pages that were once blank and while it doesn’t look like much I am on top of the world. I’m learning so much about how to get this done in a way I can accept. I feel in control of something finally. Starting this has helped me see that a lot of areas in my life are out of control and I’ve been acting out in a lot of ways and need to get my act together.
I write while riding trains, in coffee shops, restaurants, and even at home briefly. I type thoughts into my phone, and scribble them on scratch pieces of paper as I move through each day, knowing that whatever I come up with will have it’s own place just as soon as I figure out where that place is.
I start walking more, working through things in my head, start taking the gym more seriously, and feel something in my head is shifting, changing and opening up. I’m letting go of something I can’t identify yet but it feels good so I go with it. I love how in this little corner of my world I can be myself, I can tell or omit anything I choose to. The paper has no opinion. It doesn’t pass any judgment. I can take any direction I want with this project. That knowledge is both daunting and exhilarating at the same time. The process is different than blogging or journaling. I seriously feel I’m constructing a work of art at the moment.
“Where are my two chapters?” Charlie asks over the phone one evening.
“I’m working on it!” I exclaim. I tell him about the email I got about the process of writing various authors use and how excited it’s made me. “I started writing and it doesn’t look like much now but I’m really happy with what I came up with. I’ll show it to you when you get home.”
Charlie’s been in Orlando for a little bit. I hear the words exit my mouth but feel that I won’t be sharing this with him for some reason. I honestly don’t know how to first of all, but something doesn’t feel totally right. I dismiss the thought. Of course I’ll show it to him. Of course. Right?
I my mind there is suddenly no reason in the world I can’t have this and reach my goal of being published. I don’t have all the answers yet. I don’t know where I’m going to find an agent to represent me, but I feel that person is out there. If not, I will self publish and go from there. For now, I’ll keep working and trust that the answers to my questions will find their way to me in their own time.
My dream is to sign a book deal ahead of time, and take a stack of notebooks, pens and my laptop to Stockholm where I’ll sit in cafes all day drinking coffee, eating unidentifiable chocolate objects while getting the project done. I want to explore the depths of my memories, thoughts, feelings and share them with the world. I feel that if I accomplish this, I will be able to put a lot of residual feelings about work in Atlanta behind me. I’ll also be able to better understand my feelings about Rob, and about life. I want this. I want it so badly, to accomplish this feat. Starting is the problem. How do I start something this huge? How do I tell the story? How do I get to a place where nothing else matters but what I’m trying to get out. How do I find a place where I’m comfortable enough to “go there”? Where I’m not someone’s daughter, employee, friend, etc…
I’m scared of where my head might go, what might come up and how I’ll feel about it. I also fear failure and judgment so much that I keep the idea as that. Only an idea.
Charlie replaces my battery for my computer on my birthday telling me it’s to start my novel.
“You can now take the computer with you to Lovely and write.” he smiles. (Lovely is the the coffee shop where we met and is my favorite.) The electrical outlets don’t work there so I only bring things I’m hand writing, or I use his computer for the internet if we’re there together. “I want two chapters!” he exclaims.
I laugh and tell him that will take an eternity at the rate I’m going.
“Does it bother you that I bug you about it?” he asks.
“Not at all. I need it apparently.”
I do begin. It’s excruciating. That first sentence is agonizing. I peck out two pages instead of two chapters. I can’t quite figure out how to start. What I wrote doesn’t feel right. It has it’s place just not at the beginning. I keep waiting for the perfect idea to come along forgetting that it’s simply going to take starting and some trial and error before I figure it out. I keep going though, hoping it’ll resemble something soon.
Weeks later I start looking for people to meet with and bounce ideas off of on couchsurfing.com. A guy sends me an amazing article about the process famous writers go through to get to a place where they can begin and write their novels. Receiving this electronic, orgasmic treat is just what I needed to get up off my ass. I so enjoyed reading about the obscure things people do to go to their “happy place” to write. From creating storyboards, to sitting on the edge of the bathtub, to dressing up in character to get the story out, reading about other people’s process helped me to stop judging my own, accepting it as the way I do things and be ok with that.
“What is my process?” I ask myself. This is what I know for sure. I’m controlling. I want it to go the way I want it to go, often being resistant to the story taking on a mind of it’s own. I love writing in the mornings. I don’t do so well at night. With my blogs, I write them in the morning, “sleep on it”, wake up the next morning, revise it, making sure it’s something I want to post, then post it. I know my journals must be handwritten and my blogs must be typed to effectively get my point across. I sometimes write in fragments when I’m upset. I’m easily overwhelmed at times with emotion while writing and other times, there is nothing that comes to mind when I feel I should write. I’ve learned that patience is something I need to work on and trust that whatever it is I need to say, it’ll come out on it’s own, in it’s own time.
I read that this one author writes only what she knows and eventually puts it all together. She has a huge bulletin board in her room where she tacks up stories, thoughts and ideas she scribbles on various pieces of paper and torn out notebook pages. This lights me up and I start to explore this idea. I know that I’m haphazard in a lot of areas in my life. I’ve noticed, or recently acknowledged that when I close the salons alone, there is no rhyme or reason as to how it gets done it just does. If I approach my writing this way, maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to get this done.
At Borders I buy a huge notebook. I start pouring over past journals, trying to pick out something to start with. I begin writing random thoughts and ideas in the notebook. Some of those thoughts become full sentences that grow into paragraphs. When one paragraph gets stuck I move to another story. When I can’t think of how to start it, I begin writing the ending. When that gets tough to piece together I write about something that happened that I wanted to explore with words, stringing them together as if I were painting a picture. I move the words around, crossing them out putting new ones in the old ones places, I fill the pages that were once blank and while it doesn’t look like much I am on top of the world. I’m learning so much about how to get this done in a way I can accept. I feel in control of something finally. Starting this has helped me see that a lot of areas in my life are out of control and I’ve been acting out in a lot of ways and need to get my act together.
I write while riding trains, in coffee shops, restaurants, and even at home briefly. I type thoughts into my phone, and scribble them on scratch pieces of paper as I move through each day, knowing that whatever I come up with will have it’s own place just as soon as I figure out where that place is.
I start walking more, working through things in my head, start taking the gym more seriously, and feel something in my head is shifting, changing and opening up. I’m letting go of something I can’t identify yet but it feels good so I go with it. I love how in this little corner of my world I can be myself, I can tell or omit anything I choose to. The paper has no opinion. It doesn’t pass any judgment. I can take any direction I want with this project. That knowledge is both daunting and exhilarating at the same time. The process is different than blogging or journaling. I seriously feel I’m constructing a work of art at the moment.
“Where are my two chapters?” Charlie asks over the phone one evening.
“I’m working on it!” I exclaim. I tell him about the email I got about the process of writing various authors use and how excited it’s made me. “I started writing and it doesn’t look like much now but I’m really happy with what I came up with. I’ll show it to you when you get home.”
Charlie’s been in Orlando for a little bit. I hear the words exit my mouth but feel that I won’t be sharing this with him for some reason. I honestly don’t know how to first of all, but something doesn’t feel totally right. I dismiss the thought. Of course I’ll show it to him. Of course. Right?
I my mind there is suddenly no reason in the world I can’t have this and reach my goal of being published. I don’t have all the answers yet. I don’t know where I’m going to find an agent to represent me, but I feel that person is out there. If not, I will self publish and go from there. For now, I’ll keep working and trust that the answers to my questions will find their way to me in their own time.
Teachback...
I’m awake before the alarm on my phone goes off. I pull myself out of bed, pack my things and head out Charlie’s door and into mine. I thought I’d want to go for a run being I was desperate to do so yesterday but I’m awfully sleepy and don’t feel like it.
I make breakfast, and check email, trying to identify my feelings. I’m nervous. Yup. I think that’s all I can come up with right now.
Instead of running I decide to walk to Alliance and get an Americano. I don’t want to be jacked for this presentation but I can’t imagine not having my usual cup of crazy.
The walk to Alliance is chilly but nice. The sky is beginning to lighten. I love this time in the morning. Everything is quiet and beautiful before the insanity of everyone’s day begins. I’m listening to my iPOD and letting my mind wander as I cross the streets and walk into the little shop. I order my Americano and head back out, almost sad there is no time to write. Once I’m home, I jump in the shower.
While wrapped in a towel, waiting for the lotion I just put on to sink further into my skin, I turn on the tape I have of Rob’s funeral while pulling out the clothes I want to wear today. I listen to his sister Kate speak, smiling at her voice telling a story about Rob and her when they were younger. Tears sting my eyes. I then hear my own voice begin to speak on the tape. I feel like I hear something different each time I listen to the tape. It isn’t often that I turn it on but when I do, I barely recognize the tone of my own. I listen to myself speak about Rob’s love and all that he did for me in such a short time. I didn’t realize I was on the verge of tears. I don’t remember hearing that or feeling it when I was up there.
I pull on black tights an slide on my favorite black dress that Nathan gave me in high school. It’s seen all sorts of occasions from sports banquets in school, fancy dinners, job interviews, Rob’s funeral and now my teachback. Once dressed, I paint my face in the bathroom, finishing with a new cranberry lipstick I bought for the occasion.
While pulling my things together I listen to Rob’s favorite CD. Once I have my gear packed I head to the train.
The Wicker Park salon is only one train stop away from where I live but it’s raining outside and I refuse to walk today. Plus, I’m wearing knee high, 3 inch heel boots. I bought these for work and wore them on my first day. I was practically in tears by the end of that day. My feet felt bruised for three days. I used to be able to rock out the heels in Atlanta, but Chicago? Not so much.
The salon is locked when I arrive. I reach into my bag for my phone and realize I’ve left it at Charlie’s. Dammit. Minutes later Annie and Blair walk up.
“Hey!” I exclaim.
“Mama!” Annie beams, hugging me. “How you doin’?
“Good! Crazy. You?”
“I’m not nervous yet, but will be when everyone starts to get here.”
Blair and I nod in agreement.
“So, I think Paul is going to be late meeting us here to open the doors.” Blair tells me. “I’m going to Starbucks at 9:30 to pick up the coffee.”
I nod.
We talk and laugh about our night last night. Annie and Blair were up with headsheets, a brand new printer Blair ended up buying to print out our booklets, with some Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I laugh with them before telling them I enjoyed my quiet evening with Shannon and Charlie. We decide while standing there to run through what we’re going to say.
Annie starts, then Blair then me. I’m stumbling trying to breathe and talk at the same time. Once I’m finished, Paul is there opening the doors, hugging all of us and helping us set up. Alyx arrives a little later and once we’re set we decide to run through this thing all together.
While Alyx is talking Charlie walks in looking delicious in all black. I motion for him to come over and sit in front of where I’m standing. He does, handing me the “before” pictures he took of Jamie and himself yesterday.
“Thank you so much!” I whisper. He hands me my phone also and I smile. I want to touch him, want to feel calm.
Alyx finishes up and I begin talking. I’m nervous, and going at a hundred miles per hour. I’m focused on not saying “um” and “like”. It’s interfering with the information I’m trying to give. Paul is standing by watching us, commending us on our preparation. The four of us are practically sparkling up there, pleased with ourselves.
Charlie turns to face me. “You’re talking way too fast.”
“I know! I always do that when I’m nervous.”
“Just pump the brakes…”
I just want him to feel proud of me. It’s hard right now to remember everything. I’ve never done this before. I feel proud of myself but want it from him too.
It’s hard and easy all at the same time. I know what I want to say but knowing someone is listening, makes me jittery and I start fumbling.
“Just dumb it down Melissa. You’re thinking too much over there.” Annie reminds me. Inhale, exhale, smile and nod. Ok.
Models start filing in. The four of us begin seating and prepping them. I entertain thoughts of running out for more coffee and a snack but stop myself, knowing I’m just starting to freak out a little and it’s ok.
Once everyone is seated, Paul introduces us. I notice most of our educators are sitting up front. I don’t remember this happening before. I’m so happy they’re experiencing this with us.
He turns it over to Blair who begins by thanking everyone for coming. She introduces and explains her pre-dones before turning it over to Annie. She presents her models and turns it over to Alyx who moves to me when she’s finished.
While standing in front of all these wonderful people who have been there this whole time supporting and helping me through this process, personally and professionally I feel completely, totally and utterly…loved. I find the energy I was looking for, beam and say “Goodmorning!” I’m met with smiles and a delicious calm washes over me.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to work with these ladies.” I smiles, catching Annie’s smiling face. “We’ve definitely had a good time putting all of this together.” I laugh.
I introduce Jamie, calmly explaining how I cut her hair, presenting the products I used and why all while maintaining as much eye contact with everyone as possible.
“My second pre-done is the light of my life! This is my Charlie!” Everyone laughs. Tears spring to my eyes unexpectedly. I blink them back as fast as I can and begin speaking before my voice has a chance to crack, explaining his haircut and turning everything back over to Blair.
“Are there any questions?” she asks everyone. The sound that followed the question was one of the best I’ve heard. It was complete silence. Usually, questions float all over the place but after passing out the booklets we made and explaining exactly what each of us did, there was no room for questions.
“Alright, well, we’re going to dismiss our pre-dones and ask our live models to come over and have a seat.” I hear Blair smile without having to look at her.
There is shuffling around and lots of goodbyes as our models exit.
“See you tonight?” Charlie whispers.
I smile and nod.
The four of us work on our live models, explaining in between telling stories what we’re doing at that moment with the various cuts an color. I feel so comfortable, pushing the razor through Shannon’s hair. I even enjoyed the experience on the spot.
As we’re finishing up Paul and Susan tell us this is exactly what they were looking for when they created the teachback agenda. We’re all smiling. I’m bursting I’m so happy. I feel I accomplished what I wanted to. I got out of this whole thing more than I anticipated. I learned that hard work and taking it all one step at a time led to something amazing. It’s not like I didn’t already know this, it’s just that I wanted everything yesterday without willingness to put forth the work and effort it would take to get what I wanted. I suddenly feel like I can do whatever it is I want. I can accomplish and achieve anything I set my heart on. Why did it take so long to “get it”? Why did I treat this project with love, patience and diligence but not anything else I’ve ever done? I’m always in such a hurry but what am I racing against?
Everyone claps when we’re done. We’re met with praise and love as all of us scatter to set up our stations, getting ready for the rest of class. It’s going to be hard to focus on the rest of the day. I’m exhausted.
I have all my models and everyone is wonderful, I’m just brain-dead. Charlie meets us at Rodan, a fabulous little bar down the street from the salon. We all talk, laugh, and drink. While I’m having a good time, I’m desperate to share the rest of my day with him, desperate to tell him about all these feelings that are ranging from Rob to all the wonderful things our educators said to us.
On the walk back, I try. I try to open up, get to that place where I feel safe to speak. Problem is, I’ve never found that place with him. I try. I do. I try a lot. I can feel he’s getting agitated as I’m talking. I eventually stop.
Maybe I need to be enough for me. I think to myself. Maybe I know somewhere in my head that I am but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to share my thoughts with my boyfriend. I need to talk, I need to not bottle things up. I don’t know why I need to talk. I don’t even know what it is I want to say but it’s something, it’s heavy, I’m tired of carrying it, and I want to know he’s ok with hearing it.
I fall asleep feeling lonely. There is a warm body next to me. I want to wrap my arm around his torso and press my face to his chest. Why can’t I just reach out to him? He’s right there…nope. Too scary. I close my eyes and fall asleep.
I make breakfast, and check email, trying to identify my feelings. I’m nervous. Yup. I think that’s all I can come up with right now.
Instead of running I decide to walk to Alliance and get an Americano. I don’t want to be jacked for this presentation but I can’t imagine not having my usual cup of crazy.
The walk to Alliance is chilly but nice. The sky is beginning to lighten. I love this time in the morning. Everything is quiet and beautiful before the insanity of everyone’s day begins. I’m listening to my iPOD and letting my mind wander as I cross the streets and walk into the little shop. I order my Americano and head back out, almost sad there is no time to write. Once I’m home, I jump in the shower.
While wrapped in a towel, waiting for the lotion I just put on to sink further into my skin, I turn on the tape I have of Rob’s funeral while pulling out the clothes I want to wear today. I listen to his sister Kate speak, smiling at her voice telling a story about Rob and her when they were younger. Tears sting my eyes. I then hear my own voice begin to speak on the tape. I feel like I hear something different each time I listen to the tape. It isn’t often that I turn it on but when I do, I barely recognize the tone of my own. I listen to myself speak about Rob’s love and all that he did for me in such a short time. I didn’t realize I was on the verge of tears. I don’t remember hearing that or feeling it when I was up there.
I pull on black tights an slide on my favorite black dress that Nathan gave me in high school. It’s seen all sorts of occasions from sports banquets in school, fancy dinners, job interviews, Rob’s funeral and now my teachback. Once dressed, I paint my face in the bathroom, finishing with a new cranberry lipstick I bought for the occasion.
While pulling my things together I listen to Rob’s favorite CD. Once I have my gear packed I head to the train.
The Wicker Park salon is only one train stop away from where I live but it’s raining outside and I refuse to walk today. Plus, I’m wearing knee high, 3 inch heel boots. I bought these for work and wore them on my first day. I was practically in tears by the end of that day. My feet felt bruised for three days. I used to be able to rock out the heels in Atlanta, but Chicago? Not so much.
The salon is locked when I arrive. I reach into my bag for my phone and realize I’ve left it at Charlie’s. Dammit. Minutes later Annie and Blair walk up.
“Hey!” I exclaim.
“Mama!” Annie beams, hugging me. “How you doin’?
“Good! Crazy. You?”
“I’m not nervous yet, but will be when everyone starts to get here.”
Blair and I nod in agreement.
“So, I think Paul is going to be late meeting us here to open the doors.” Blair tells me. “I’m going to Starbucks at 9:30 to pick up the coffee.”
I nod.
We talk and laugh about our night last night. Annie and Blair were up with headsheets, a brand new printer Blair ended up buying to print out our booklets, with some Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I laugh with them before telling them I enjoyed my quiet evening with Shannon and Charlie. We decide while standing there to run through what we’re going to say.
Annie starts, then Blair then me. I’m stumbling trying to breathe and talk at the same time. Once I’m finished, Paul is there opening the doors, hugging all of us and helping us set up. Alyx arrives a little later and once we’re set we decide to run through this thing all together.
While Alyx is talking Charlie walks in looking delicious in all black. I motion for him to come over and sit in front of where I’m standing. He does, handing me the “before” pictures he took of Jamie and himself yesterday.
“Thank you so much!” I whisper. He hands me my phone also and I smile. I want to touch him, want to feel calm.
Alyx finishes up and I begin talking. I’m nervous, and going at a hundred miles per hour. I’m focused on not saying “um” and “like”. It’s interfering with the information I’m trying to give. Paul is standing by watching us, commending us on our preparation. The four of us are practically sparkling up there, pleased with ourselves.
Charlie turns to face me. “You’re talking way too fast.”
“I know! I always do that when I’m nervous.”
“Just pump the brakes…”
I just want him to feel proud of me. It’s hard right now to remember everything. I’ve never done this before. I feel proud of myself but want it from him too.
It’s hard and easy all at the same time. I know what I want to say but knowing someone is listening, makes me jittery and I start fumbling.
“Just dumb it down Melissa. You’re thinking too much over there.” Annie reminds me. Inhale, exhale, smile and nod. Ok.
Models start filing in. The four of us begin seating and prepping them. I entertain thoughts of running out for more coffee and a snack but stop myself, knowing I’m just starting to freak out a little and it’s ok.
Once everyone is seated, Paul introduces us. I notice most of our educators are sitting up front. I don’t remember this happening before. I’m so happy they’re experiencing this with us.
He turns it over to Blair who begins by thanking everyone for coming. She introduces and explains her pre-dones before turning it over to Annie. She presents her models and turns it over to Alyx who moves to me when she’s finished.
While standing in front of all these wonderful people who have been there this whole time supporting and helping me through this process, personally and professionally I feel completely, totally and utterly…loved. I find the energy I was looking for, beam and say “Goodmorning!” I’m met with smiles and a delicious calm washes over me.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to work with these ladies.” I smiles, catching Annie’s smiling face. “We’ve definitely had a good time putting all of this together.” I laugh.
I introduce Jamie, calmly explaining how I cut her hair, presenting the products I used and why all while maintaining as much eye contact with everyone as possible.
“My second pre-done is the light of my life! This is my Charlie!” Everyone laughs. Tears spring to my eyes unexpectedly. I blink them back as fast as I can and begin speaking before my voice has a chance to crack, explaining his haircut and turning everything back over to Blair.
“Are there any questions?” she asks everyone. The sound that followed the question was one of the best I’ve heard. It was complete silence. Usually, questions float all over the place but after passing out the booklets we made and explaining exactly what each of us did, there was no room for questions.
“Alright, well, we’re going to dismiss our pre-dones and ask our live models to come over and have a seat.” I hear Blair smile without having to look at her.
There is shuffling around and lots of goodbyes as our models exit.
“See you tonight?” Charlie whispers.
I smile and nod.
The four of us work on our live models, explaining in between telling stories what we’re doing at that moment with the various cuts an color. I feel so comfortable, pushing the razor through Shannon’s hair. I even enjoyed the experience on the spot.
As we’re finishing up Paul and Susan tell us this is exactly what they were looking for when they created the teachback agenda. We’re all smiling. I’m bursting I’m so happy. I feel I accomplished what I wanted to. I got out of this whole thing more than I anticipated. I learned that hard work and taking it all one step at a time led to something amazing. It’s not like I didn’t already know this, it’s just that I wanted everything yesterday without willingness to put forth the work and effort it would take to get what I wanted. I suddenly feel like I can do whatever it is I want. I can accomplish and achieve anything I set my heart on. Why did it take so long to “get it”? Why did I treat this project with love, patience and diligence but not anything else I’ve ever done? I’m always in such a hurry but what am I racing against?
Everyone claps when we’re done. We’re met with praise and love as all of us scatter to set up our stations, getting ready for the rest of class. It’s going to be hard to focus on the rest of the day. I’m exhausted.
I have all my models and everyone is wonderful, I’m just brain-dead. Charlie meets us at Rodan, a fabulous little bar down the street from the salon. We all talk, laugh, and drink. While I’m having a good time, I’m desperate to share the rest of my day with him, desperate to tell him about all these feelings that are ranging from Rob to all the wonderful things our educators said to us.
On the walk back, I try. I try to open up, get to that place where I feel safe to speak. Problem is, I’ve never found that place with him. I try. I do. I try a lot. I can feel he’s getting agitated as I’m talking. I eventually stop.
Maybe I need to be enough for me. I think to myself. Maybe I know somewhere in my head that I am but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to share my thoughts with my boyfriend. I need to talk, I need to not bottle things up. I don’t know why I need to talk. I don’t even know what it is I want to say but it’s something, it’s heavy, I’m tired of carrying it, and I want to know he’s ok with hearing it.
I fall asleep feeling lonely. There is a warm body next to me. I want to wrap my arm around his torso and press my face to his chest. Why can’t I just reach out to him? He’s right there…nope. Too scary. I close my eyes and fall asleep.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Teachback Prep...
“So is there anything else you’re interested in doing besides behind the chair work? Are you interested in management or education at all?” Cyndi asks me after briefing me on what Art+Science is all about. It’s my first interview and I’m in Evanston sitting on a couch practically exploding because I have a feeling finally that this is it. This is what I want.
“I want to teach.” I beam.
“Really!” she lights up. “Well, at the end of your time in class, we have you do a teachback where you cut hair in front of the class, so that will be some good practice.”
Teachback? I think to myself. This sounds scary. I decide not to worry about it until that day arrived. Maybe by then I’ll know what I’m doing well enough to do a good job and it won’t be so intimidating…
Over the course of eleven months I’ve seen a few teachbacks. I’ve watched then intently, mentally taking notes on what I wanted to do differently, what else could I bring to the table to be thorough, and prepared, all while seeming perfectly comfortable standing in front of my co-workers and managers as if I did this sort of thing all the time.
I would daydream about who my models would be, what would I say, what cut would I do, and when this would happen. When I met Charlie I had already decided I wanted him there. Part of me was slightly insecure about this idea. I’m not sure I wanted him to see me speak in front of my co-workers. I didn’t know how nervous I would be, and if having him there would exacerbate that nervousness or calm me, because I knew him. He wouldn’t be some random person I pulled off the street.
My co-workers, Annie, Blair and Alyx were doing this with me. In class, I was a little behind them but ahead of a couple other girls. I felt my options were to ask to do mine right now, or wait. I asked, wanting this to be over with. Paul said yes and it was done.
The plan for the stylists is to find two models that we have pre-done to present, and one live that we cut in front of the class. The colorists need the same. Charlie agreed to be a pre-done, my friend Shannon agreed to come in from Atlanta to be my live model and a friend of a co-worker could be my other pre-done. I’m set, so why am I freaking out?
Personally, I want this to be perfect. I want to be so organized and put together that our audience is blown away. I want to appear polished, calm, and comfortable no matter what.
Then there’s the technical aspect of it. I’m not strong in men’s work right now and will need guidance with Charlie’s hair. I haven’t met my other pre-done, Jamie, but I know what I’d like to do on her, I just don’t know how to execute it, and Shannon? Her haircut works out in my head but how do I cut her in front of an audience? What if my idea doesn’t work? I take a mannequin head home to practice.
Days go by. The four of us meet up for coffee before class one Monday and toss around ideas. We agree on putting together booklets that explain each model, and add a little bio about ourselves. We want to put together a slide show to play while people are coming in that morning, and decide to bring in donuts and coffee. We also decide to meet at the Wicker Park salon the day before and get all of our pre-done models completed.
I ask Patrick, our Lincoln Park manager, to come in and help Annie and me with our models. Despite the Vikings game being on, and the fact that it’s his day off as well as the rest of us, he agrees.
Meanwhile, life is still happening. The four of us are still following our usual assistant schedules on top of prepping for this thing while maintaining something that could resemble a social life.
The day after Rob’s birthday I call Annie. I’m a hot mess. It’s freezing outside and I’m choosing to walk home from work, trying to feel better.
“Let it out mama. What is it?” she asks.
“Girl, I don’t know. I’m looping my feelings about Rob and him being gone into this teachback. The last time I spoke in front of people it was his funeral. When I think about who I was at that moment, standing up there talking, it makes me so happy. I want to be that girl again when this whole thing happens. I can’t explain it really. I don’t completely understand it.”
She quietly listens. For whatever reason my brain has chosen her to lay all my grief on. I don’t share much else with her but this. I don’t share much about Rob at all to anyone since moving. It’s created this island that I swim to sometimes when I get sad. I go out there and sit on this island alone. I walk around, look around, kick through the sand, scream, stare at the sun, and the stars. I wonder what if, then when I’ve had enough I go back to the world again. Only problem is, the world doesn’t know I’ve gone. It wants me to go to work, and pay the bills. It wants me to talk to it, clean it, go out in it, experience it. It doesn’t understand the grief any more than I do and now it wants me to give a presentation? What? Now?
The subject moves to what we’ve done to get ready before going in and doing our pre-done models.
“Have you done your headsheets yet?” she asks. The headsheets are diagrams of how we cut each model.
“Hell no. I tried the other day. I read over my notes and tried to come up with something but then I thought, if I wanted to change something then I’d have to change the headsheet.”
“I know! Ok. Let’s just do all of this on Sunday after everyone is finished.” she suggests.
“Deal.”
“Call me if you need me.”
“Will do. Same to you.” I smile.
We get off the phone and I walk the rest of the way home.
Sunday arrived with fluffy white clouds and sunshine. Charlie and I got up and went to Alliance bakery for coffee and breakfast. I went here every day shortly after moving to Chicago. I now can’t remember the last time I went.
The silence is deafening as Charlie surfs the internet and I eat a bagel waiting for his mini laptop to load the yahoo web page. I feel my heart begin to speed up and I desperately want to run a marathon right now. I could run straight to California and not feel a thing. I can’t sit still another minute. I glance at the time after finishing the bagel. I need to leave in a few minutes but can’t sit still another second.
“I have to go.” I whisper to Charlie.
“Ok. What time are you walking up to the salon?”
“Ten thirty.”
“Meet at Division and Milwaukee?” he asks.
“Yup.” I reach for my purse.
“Can you hang on for five minutes? I’ll walk with you.” he says and shuts down his computer.
I nod and minutes later we’re out the door headed for our apartments.
I quickly shower, get dressed and pull together all my work things. Charlie meets me at my place because I’m running a little late.
“Ready?” I exhale grabbing my bag when I think there is nothing left for me to do or bring along.
“Yup.” he stands from the couch and we’re off.
I haven’t told Charlie all my feelings that are cropping up about this whole thing. It crosses my mind to say something on our walk to the salon but I don’t. My conscious self is anxious about the unknown parts of this situation. It’s worried I‘ll cut Charlie‘s hair too short, that I’ll slip up and get my words jumbled while talking tomorrow about him, that Jamie won’t be into the idea I have for her hair and I’ll be back at square one, that I won’t be able to answer a question that could be thrown at me, the list goes on.
There’s this other side though that is extinguishing all those negative thoughts. It feels like it’s something bigger than me. It’s calming warmth is reminding me that I’ll find the words I need, I have the help I asked for, and I need to relax because Monday isn’t here yet but when it comes, I’ll know what to say and do. For now, it reminds me, I have to do today.
“I owe you my life for doing this for me.” I grin at Charlie. We’re halfway into his haircut. The dermatitis on my left hand is screaming and my brain feels a little scrambled but other than that, everything is good.
He’s quiet as I steal Annie’s clippers and get Patrick.
“This clipper action isn’t a strong point for me.” I tell him.
“It’s ok. Just make sure you….” he goes on to explain how I should hold the device. “Just go in like this.’ he demonstrates on the right side of Charlie’s head. “Here.” he hands the clippers to me.
I gingerly take them, turn them on and press them to Charlie’s skin. I try to mimic what he did but pulled away too fast causing a line to appear just below Charlie’s occipital bone. I move to the next section and end up doing the same thing.
“Patrick!” I exclaim, feeling my skin heat up.
“What’s up?” he walks over.
“Look at this. This is what continues to happen.” I point to the trouble.
“That’s nothing. We’re not even worried about that yet. I need you to only pay attention to this part.” he takes the clippers from me and shows me again what I’m to do. I do it and this time I cut it too short.
“I hate this.” I growl to Charlie.
“You’re doing fine.” he says.
“I continue to have the same problem. I hear what I’m being told, I’m just unable to make my hands do what I need them to.”
“You are fine.” he says again.
I shake my head, still feeling my skin radiate heat.
“Patrick?” I call over to him.
He walks over and stands next to me, both of us surveying Charlie’s head.
“What’s this?” I point to right behind Charlie’s left ear.
“Ok, that’s a little shorter but it’s not big deal. Use your shears to even it out and detail this section.” he tells me pointing to the middle of Charlie’s head.
Shannon arrived and so did Jamie as I was working on the top of Charlie’s head. It took me two hours to finish him. It took another hour and a half to finish Jamie. I carefully listened to Patrick’s instructions and carefully followed them as I worked quietly on Jamie’s pretty, curly hair. Once I was done and satisfied, I brought Shannon over to discuss with Patrick how I was going to do this. In the end, I’m still not entirely clear on it but the feeling that everything will be fine has enveloped me and I’m ok with it.
Shannon leaves and I go into the office with Blair, Annie, Alyx to continue discussing and outlining how we’re going to execute this, who is going to say what and when, and what we need to wear, bring and set up. This takes an hour.
When I’m finally done, packed up and walking out the door my head is spinning. I’m trying to calm down as I make my way downtown to meet Shannon for dinner. It feels good to sit down and breathe for a moment.
After saying goodbye at her hotel, I take a walk in search of the train. I’m only vaguely familiar with the area and eventually find the red line and go to Charlie’s. My stress about this situation has manifested itself in the spreading my dermatitis from my hands to my arms and the feeling I need to snap at everything he says.
“Stop it.” I tell myself. “He’s done nothing. It’s not his fault you can’t speak. It’s not his fault you’re stressed…”
He wants to watch a movie but it’s already 10:30. I want to be up early to go for a run in the morning. It isn’t long before we’ve climbed into bed, the idea of a movie set aside for now and quietly gone to sleep.
“I want to teach.” I beam.
“Really!” she lights up. “Well, at the end of your time in class, we have you do a teachback where you cut hair in front of the class, so that will be some good practice.”
Teachback? I think to myself. This sounds scary. I decide not to worry about it until that day arrived. Maybe by then I’ll know what I’m doing well enough to do a good job and it won’t be so intimidating…
Over the course of eleven months I’ve seen a few teachbacks. I’ve watched then intently, mentally taking notes on what I wanted to do differently, what else could I bring to the table to be thorough, and prepared, all while seeming perfectly comfortable standing in front of my co-workers and managers as if I did this sort of thing all the time.
I would daydream about who my models would be, what would I say, what cut would I do, and when this would happen. When I met Charlie I had already decided I wanted him there. Part of me was slightly insecure about this idea. I’m not sure I wanted him to see me speak in front of my co-workers. I didn’t know how nervous I would be, and if having him there would exacerbate that nervousness or calm me, because I knew him. He wouldn’t be some random person I pulled off the street.
My co-workers, Annie, Blair and Alyx were doing this with me. In class, I was a little behind them but ahead of a couple other girls. I felt my options were to ask to do mine right now, or wait. I asked, wanting this to be over with. Paul said yes and it was done.
The plan for the stylists is to find two models that we have pre-done to present, and one live that we cut in front of the class. The colorists need the same. Charlie agreed to be a pre-done, my friend Shannon agreed to come in from Atlanta to be my live model and a friend of a co-worker could be my other pre-done. I’m set, so why am I freaking out?
Personally, I want this to be perfect. I want to be so organized and put together that our audience is blown away. I want to appear polished, calm, and comfortable no matter what.
Then there’s the technical aspect of it. I’m not strong in men’s work right now and will need guidance with Charlie’s hair. I haven’t met my other pre-done, Jamie, but I know what I’d like to do on her, I just don’t know how to execute it, and Shannon? Her haircut works out in my head but how do I cut her in front of an audience? What if my idea doesn’t work? I take a mannequin head home to practice.
Days go by. The four of us meet up for coffee before class one Monday and toss around ideas. We agree on putting together booklets that explain each model, and add a little bio about ourselves. We want to put together a slide show to play while people are coming in that morning, and decide to bring in donuts and coffee. We also decide to meet at the Wicker Park salon the day before and get all of our pre-done models completed.
I ask Patrick, our Lincoln Park manager, to come in and help Annie and me with our models. Despite the Vikings game being on, and the fact that it’s his day off as well as the rest of us, he agrees.
Meanwhile, life is still happening. The four of us are still following our usual assistant schedules on top of prepping for this thing while maintaining something that could resemble a social life.
The day after Rob’s birthday I call Annie. I’m a hot mess. It’s freezing outside and I’m choosing to walk home from work, trying to feel better.
“Let it out mama. What is it?” she asks.
“Girl, I don’t know. I’m looping my feelings about Rob and him being gone into this teachback. The last time I spoke in front of people it was his funeral. When I think about who I was at that moment, standing up there talking, it makes me so happy. I want to be that girl again when this whole thing happens. I can’t explain it really. I don’t completely understand it.”
She quietly listens. For whatever reason my brain has chosen her to lay all my grief on. I don’t share much else with her but this. I don’t share much about Rob at all to anyone since moving. It’s created this island that I swim to sometimes when I get sad. I go out there and sit on this island alone. I walk around, look around, kick through the sand, scream, stare at the sun, and the stars. I wonder what if, then when I’ve had enough I go back to the world again. Only problem is, the world doesn’t know I’ve gone. It wants me to go to work, and pay the bills. It wants me to talk to it, clean it, go out in it, experience it. It doesn’t understand the grief any more than I do and now it wants me to give a presentation? What? Now?
The subject moves to what we’ve done to get ready before going in and doing our pre-done models.
“Have you done your headsheets yet?” she asks. The headsheets are diagrams of how we cut each model.
“Hell no. I tried the other day. I read over my notes and tried to come up with something but then I thought, if I wanted to change something then I’d have to change the headsheet.”
“I know! Ok. Let’s just do all of this on Sunday after everyone is finished.” she suggests.
“Deal.”
“Call me if you need me.”
“Will do. Same to you.” I smile.
We get off the phone and I walk the rest of the way home.
Sunday arrived with fluffy white clouds and sunshine. Charlie and I got up and went to Alliance bakery for coffee and breakfast. I went here every day shortly after moving to Chicago. I now can’t remember the last time I went.
The silence is deafening as Charlie surfs the internet and I eat a bagel waiting for his mini laptop to load the yahoo web page. I feel my heart begin to speed up and I desperately want to run a marathon right now. I could run straight to California and not feel a thing. I can’t sit still another minute. I glance at the time after finishing the bagel. I need to leave in a few minutes but can’t sit still another second.
“I have to go.” I whisper to Charlie.
“Ok. What time are you walking up to the salon?”
“Ten thirty.”
“Meet at Division and Milwaukee?” he asks.
“Yup.” I reach for my purse.
“Can you hang on for five minutes? I’ll walk with you.” he says and shuts down his computer.
I nod and minutes later we’re out the door headed for our apartments.
I quickly shower, get dressed and pull together all my work things. Charlie meets me at my place because I’m running a little late.
“Ready?” I exhale grabbing my bag when I think there is nothing left for me to do or bring along.
“Yup.” he stands from the couch and we’re off.
I haven’t told Charlie all my feelings that are cropping up about this whole thing. It crosses my mind to say something on our walk to the salon but I don’t. My conscious self is anxious about the unknown parts of this situation. It’s worried I‘ll cut Charlie‘s hair too short, that I’ll slip up and get my words jumbled while talking tomorrow about him, that Jamie won’t be into the idea I have for her hair and I’ll be back at square one, that I won’t be able to answer a question that could be thrown at me, the list goes on.
There’s this other side though that is extinguishing all those negative thoughts. It feels like it’s something bigger than me. It’s calming warmth is reminding me that I’ll find the words I need, I have the help I asked for, and I need to relax because Monday isn’t here yet but when it comes, I’ll know what to say and do. For now, it reminds me, I have to do today.
“I owe you my life for doing this for me.” I grin at Charlie. We’re halfway into his haircut. The dermatitis on my left hand is screaming and my brain feels a little scrambled but other than that, everything is good.
He’s quiet as I steal Annie’s clippers and get Patrick.
“This clipper action isn’t a strong point for me.” I tell him.
“It’s ok. Just make sure you….” he goes on to explain how I should hold the device. “Just go in like this.’ he demonstrates on the right side of Charlie’s head. “Here.” he hands the clippers to me.
I gingerly take them, turn them on and press them to Charlie’s skin. I try to mimic what he did but pulled away too fast causing a line to appear just below Charlie’s occipital bone. I move to the next section and end up doing the same thing.
“Patrick!” I exclaim, feeling my skin heat up.
“What’s up?” he walks over.
“Look at this. This is what continues to happen.” I point to the trouble.
“That’s nothing. We’re not even worried about that yet. I need you to only pay attention to this part.” he takes the clippers from me and shows me again what I’m to do. I do it and this time I cut it too short.
“I hate this.” I growl to Charlie.
“You’re doing fine.” he says.
“I continue to have the same problem. I hear what I’m being told, I’m just unable to make my hands do what I need them to.”
“You are fine.” he says again.
I shake my head, still feeling my skin radiate heat.
“Patrick?” I call over to him.
He walks over and stands next to me, both of us surveying Charlie’s head.
“What’s this?” I point to right behind Charlie’s left ear.
“Ok, that’s a little shorter but it’s not big deal. Use your shears to even it out and detail this section.” he tells me pointing to the middle of Charlie’s head.
Shannon arrived and so did Jamie as I was working on the top of Charlie’s head. It took me two hours to finish him. It took another hour and a half to finish Jamie. I carefully listened to Patrick’s instructions and carefully followed them as I worked quietly on Jamie’s pretty, curly hair. Once I was done and satisfied, I brought Shannon over to discuss with Patrick how I was going to do this. In the end, I’m still not entirely clear on it but the feeling that everything will be fine has enveloped me and I’m ok with it.
Shannon leaves and I go into the office with Blair, Annie, Alyx to continue discussing and outlining how we’re going to execute this, who is going to say what and when, and what we need to wear, bring and set up. This takes an hour.
When I’m finally done, packed up and walking out the door my head is spinning. I’m trying to calm down as I make my way downtown to meet Shannon for dinner. It feels good to sit down and breathe for a moment.
After saying goodbye at her hotel, I take a walk in search of the train. I’m only vaguely familiar with the area and eventually find the red line and go to Charlie’s. My stress about this situation has manifested itself in the spreading my dermatitis from my hands to my arms and the feeling I need to snap at everything he says.
“Stop it.” I tell myself. “He’s done nothing. It’s not his fault you can’t speak. It’s not his fault you’re stressed…”
He wants to watch a movie but it’s already 10:30. I want to be up early to go for a run in the morning. It isn’t long before we’ve climbed into bed, the idea of a movie set aside for now and quietly gone to sleep.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Eighteen Months....
I open my eyes, still half asleep to see the light on in Charlie’s bathroom. My eyes squint to read the clock. It’s 3:50am. He’s leaving soon for the airport. In my sleepy state I can barely hear him moving around. My mind begins to entertain thoughts of being in the same state on Monday mornings when Rob would be getting ready to leave for South Carolina in the middle of the night. I hated waking up without him next to me, almost feeling like his being there was a dream in the first place.
I exhale, and drift off on a wave of sadness before my eyes close again and I fall back into sleep.
It’s 7:00am when my eyes are suddenly wide open, my heart is racing, and my mind is full of anxiety. I jump out of bed and get dressed. I’m moving as if I’m trying to run away from the uncomfortable feelings of being here without Rob, without Charlie, scrambling to find something to fill the void.
“Dishes.” I think to myself. I said I’d do the dishes before locking up his place and getting on with the day.
I try to move slowly, try to calm down but I can’t seem to get out from under the pressure I feel I’m pinned beneath. As I leave, I can’t decide whether or not I’m going to write in my journal or run. Once I’m outside, I decide coffee will cheer me up faster and if there’s time, then I’ll run.
I try to write. I suck down my Americano without tasting it. I’m fighting tears, fighting sadness, trying not to drown in it out of fear I won’t climb back out. Tomorrow will be eighteen months since Rob died. His birthday is Friday. What do I do with all of this?
Once the coffee is gone, I pick up some ice cream at a local grocery store. I’m already feeling the regret as I hand over the cash to pay for it. I haven’t done this in a while. I can’t believe I just forked over my hard earned money to hurt myself. What sense does that make? This ice cream…. Won’t bring Rob back, won’t ease the work stress, won’t make anything go away.
On my walk home I tell myself that I can throw it away. I don’t have to keep it, I don’t have to give in, but once I’m in the safe comfort of my apartment, I open it and sink into it’s cold, delicious flavored texture. It’s like scratching an itch. There’s relief at first then the itch wants more. Needs more pressure to relieve it. I keep scratching, feeling my brain spark with delight, wanting more and more. The scratching continues until what started out as relieving a simple little itch, has now turned into tearing into a gaping hole. It hurts, it’s screams and now, I’m stuck with it, waiting for it to heal.
I come out of my food induced high with the same sadness I woke up with plus anger as explosive as a bomb.
“Dammit.” I toss the container into the trash and go into my room to pull on my running clothes.
“What the hell was that?” I ask myself as the wind tears at my face while my feet pound the pavement. “What did that accomplish?”
I have no answers. I finish my run, and get dressed for work. My anger is still there and I’m hiding behind it to keep the sadness away. I feel an insatiable need to take care of myself, to stop giving in when food wants attention, I just don’t know how to climb out again. I think I’m just going to have sit down here and let all this wash over me. I’ll try it again. I’ll try to let the sadness come through, feel it, address it, and take one more step forward. I didn’t get to this point over night. Eighteen months didn’t happen in twenty four hours…
I exhale, and drift off on a wave of sadness before my eyes close again and I fall back into sleep.
It’s 7:00am when my eyes are suddenly wide open, my heart is racing, and my mind is full of anxiety. I jump out of bed and get dressed. I’m moving as if I’m trying to run away from the uncomfortable feelings of being here without Rob, without Charlie, scrambling to find something to fill the void.
“Dishes.” I think to myself. I said I’d do the dishes before locking up his place and getting on with the day.
I try to move slowly, try to calm down but I can’t seem to get out from under the pressure I feel I’m pinned beneath. As I leave, I can’t decide whether or not I’m going to write in my journal or run. Once I’m outside, I decide coffee will cheer me up faster and if there’s time, then I’ll run.
I try to write. I suck down my Americano without tasting it. I’m fighting tears, fighting sadness, trying not to drown in it out of fear I won’t climb back out. Tomorrow will be eighteen months since Rob died. His birthday is Friday. What do I do with all of this?
Once the coffee is gone, I pick up some ice cream at a local grocery store. I’m already feeling the regret as I hand over the cash to pay for it. I haven’t done this in a while. I can’t believe I just forked over my hard earned money to hurt myself. What sense does that make? This ice cream…. Won’t bring Rob back, won’t ease the work stress, won’t make anything go away.
On my walk home I tell myself that I can throw it away. I don’t have to keep it, I don’t have to give in, but once I’m in the safe comfort of my apartment, I open it and sink into it’s cold, delicious flavored texture. It’s like scratching an itch. There’s relief at first then the itch wants more. Needs more pressure to relieve it. I keep scratching, feeling my brain spark with delight, wanting more and more. The scratching continues until what started out as relieving a simple little itch, has now turned into tearing into a gaping hole. It hurts, it’s screams and now, I’m stuck with it, waiting for it to heal.
I come out of my food induced high with the same sadness I woke up with plus anger as explosive as a bomb.
“Dammit.” I toss the container into the trash and go into my room to pull on my running clothes.
“What the hell was that?” I ask myself as the wind tears at my face while my feet pound the pavement. “What did that accomplish?”
I have no answers. I finish my run, and get dressed for work. My anger is still there and I’m hiding behind it to keep the sadness away. I feel an insatiable need to take care of myself, to stop giving in when food wants attention, I just don’t know how to climb out again. I think I’m just going to have sit down here and let all this wash over me. I’ll try it again. I’ll try to let the sadness come through, feel it, address it, and take one more step forward. I didn’t get to this point over night. Eighteen months didn’t happen in twenty four hours…
Monday, October 19, 2009
Promotion...
Lately, I’ve felt everything has been on fast forward. I looked up from the tedious day-in and day-out details of my life to see that six months has gone by since I’ve so much as glanced at my little space out here in the middle of the internet. I must say I haven’t been really inspired to write but today I felt the mood strike and decided to, in a familiar, almost reluctant way, sit still and do one of the things I love most. Why I withhold writing from myself with my long list of excuses and distractions, I’ll never know…
I’m happy to say that I still live in the precious apartment I first moved into when I moved to Chicago. I’ve collected a small group of wonderful friends and am happy in my relationship with Charlie. We’ve just celebrated eight fabulous months. While we agree neither of us have a clue as to what to do with each other provided this relationship thing is new to both of us, I’ve managed to slip from my quiet little existence by myself and fall ridiculously in love with someone who has managed to (unbeknownst to him) compliment and enhance my life in ways I never thought possible or could imagine. It isn’t the brand new, timid, fumbling spring chicken kind of love I had in high school, or the rabid, insatiable, profoundly intense love I shared with Rob but a secure, mature love running deeper than I ever thought possible. It makes me happier is ways I never expected.
It’s been nearly a year since I started work at Art+Science salon. I’m starting to finish up with class, which means moving up from assisting to being a stylist, which means time is closing in around the decision that will be made as to which salon I’ll be placed at. Currently, as an assistant, I bounce from location to location. There are three salons, one in Wicker Park (where I live) one in Lincoln Park and one outside the city in Evanston.
Wicker Park is my first choice along with everyone else. It’s closest to my house and all around fabulous. Since my first day though, I’ve had a feeling I’d be placed in Evanston, much to my dismay. The salon reminds me of Van Michael. It’s huge, loud, busy and far from where I live. I don’t want to repeat that time in my life. In Atlanta, Buckhead raped my soul, made me an angry, compulsive eating, personality disordered wreck and I refuse to go back to being that person. Ultimately, I have little control over where I’m going to be placed. This has made me nervous as I’m reaching for muffins and sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear where I’ll make my new professional home. The only thing I can do is voice my opinion and wait.
So I do. I meet with several managers and explain my concerns. I feel as if they’re listening and understanding which is all I really want but I still have a nagging feeling that Wicker Park isn’t in the cards for me and I’m going to have to be ok with that. Even as I prayed, and talked to Rob about it I feel like I’m being told something…something I don’t want to hear but would ultimately be a blessing in disguise.
I had just put my things down and clocked in at Lincoln Park when I saw I had missed a call from our education director, Paul. His voicemail was short, asking me to call him back. I dial the number and wait.
“Hello?” He picked up quickly.
“Hey Paul! It’s Melissa. How are you?” I smile and rake my fingers through my hair.
“I’m good! How are you?”
“Good.” I’m still smiling out of fear of what will happen if I stop. This is really about to happen. Eleven months after working here, I’m about to find out where I’m going to be placed. Right? There’s no other reason for him to call…
“So I’m calling to tell you that we’ve come to a decision about where you’ll be placed.” he begins.
“Yeah?” I inhale and suddenly my brain is reeling backward to a time where I was standing on a train platform after my first interview, Rob’s voice in my ear congratulating me on setting up my second interview with Art+Science. That image is replaced with him telling me over the phone again the night before that interview, to be myself, have fun and they’ll hire me on the spot. After being questioned by eleven people I was hired right then. I’ll never be able to describe what it felt like that day in front of them. I don’t recognize that girl when I look back. She was on the edge of her seat, animated, laughing, honest, unafraid of what questions she may have to answer. She felt they would accept her if she let her guard down. So she stepped out of her comfy little box and let them see her…
I felt so much love I could barely comprehend it. I have no idea where it came from. These people didn’t know me, Rob was still in South Carolina but it was like he was sitting there with me through all of it.
Fast forward through eleven months of climbing back in the box, bouncing from salon to salon, racing from client to client, rinsing color, blowdrying, sweeping hair, feeding parking meters, hauling out the trash, long days, short days, scrambling to find models, rain, snow, sunshine, watching my hands and sanity disintegrate, pushing through it when I wanted to sink until I drowned, sometimes crawling through the day just to reach the end. I have finally reached a light at the end of a long tunnel.
Paul’s sentences become fragments as I struggle to comprehend his words while replaying the past.
“We really wanted you… no room… you would do well anywhere…”
I’m nodding until I hear it.
“Evanston.” he says and I exhale.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I hear him smile. “You’re going to do great.”
We hang up shortly after and I look around the break room trying to identify my feelings. I don’t know yet. I feel my heart begin to race. My head is swimming. It’s plotting out the upcoming work I’ll have to put in to bringing in new clients, asking myself how am I going to set myself apart? How am I going to be creative in bringing in these new people? I think about my commute, how I’ll handle days where it’s minus whatever outside, or ninety, I imagine my clientele and what they’ll be like, what I’ll learn from them, and what I’ll give back to them.
All these thoughts happen in thirty seconds before I pick up the phone and call Charlie. I can’t sit still with it right now.
“Hi!” I exclaim when he picks up. “I have something to tell you.”
“Oh really?”
“I just (inhale, exhale) got a call from Paul. I’ve been placed in Evanston.”
“How do you feel about it?” he asks.
“I’m ok. I’m not surprised or anything.”
“You’re gonna be making actual money!” I hear him smile.
“You’re right!” I laugh.
“Are you going to move up there? he asks.
“Hell no! Are you kidding? I have everything I want where I live. There’s no way I’m moving.”
We’re quiet for a second before I continue. “I can’t believe this is happening. It’s actually here.”
“You’re gonna do just fine up there.” he reminds me.
We get off the phone shortly after and I go to fold towels. My head is still swimming wondering how life would be if Rob were still here, what he would say to my news. He sees a bigger picture now. I think it’s why I’m not freaking out. I know he’s here with me and wouldn’t steer me in a wrong direction. I can almost feel him, can almost touch him if only I knew which direction to reach out in…
I’m happy to say that I still live in the precious apartment I first moved into when I moved to Chicago. I’ve collected a small group of wonderful friends and am happy in my relationship with Charlie. We’ve just celebrated eight fabulous months. While we agree neither of us have a clue as to what to do with each other provided this relationship thing is new to both of us, I’ve managed to slip from my quiet little existence by myself and fall ridiculously in love with someone who has managed to (unbeknownst to him) compliment and enhance my life in ways I never thought possible or could imagine. It isn’t the brand new, timid, fumbling spring chicken kind of love I had in high school, or the rabid, insatiable, profoundly intense love I shared with Rob but a secure, mature love running deeper than I ever thought possible. It makes me happier is ways I never expected.
It’s been nearly a year since I started work at Art+Science salon. I’m starting to finish up with class, which means moving up from assisting to being a stylist, which means time is closing in around the decision that will be made as to which salon I’ll be placed at. Currently, as an assistant, I bounce from location to location. There are three salons, one in Wicker Park (where I live) one in Lincoln Park and one outside the city in Evanston.
Wicker Park is my first choice along with everyone else. It’s closest to my house and all around fabulous. Since my first day though, I’ve had a feeling I’d be placed in Evanston, much to my dismay. The salon reminds me of Van Michael. It’s huge, loud, busy and far from where I live. I don’t want to repeat that time in my life. In Atlanta, Buckhead raped my soul, made me an angry, compulsive eating, personality disordered wreck and I refuse to go back to being that person. Ultimately, I have little control over where I’m going to be placed. This has made me nervous as I’m reaching for muffins and sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear where I’ll make my new professional home. The only thing I can do is voice my opinion and wait.
So I do. I meet with several managers and explain my concerns. I feel as if they’re listening and understanding which is all I really want but I still have a nagging feeling that Wicker Park isn’t in the cards for me and I’m going to have to be ok with that. Even as I prayed, and talked to Rob about it I feel like I’m being told something…something I don’t want to hear but would ultimately be a blessing in disguise.
I had just put my things down and clocked in at Lincoln Park when I saw I had missed a call from our education director, Paul. His voicemail was short, asking me to call him back. I dial the number and wait.
“Hello?” He picked up quickly.
“Hey Paul! It’s Melissa. How are you?” I smile and rake my fingers through my hair.
“I’m good! How are you?”
“Good.” I’m still smiling out of fear of what will happen if I stop. This is really about to happen. Eleven months after working here, I’m about to find out where I’m going to be placed. Right? There’s no other reason for him to call…
“So I’m calling to tell you that we’ve come to a decision about where you’ll be placed.” he begins.
“Yeah?” I inhale and suddenly my brain is reeling backward to a time where I was standing on a train platform after my first interview, Rob’s voice in my ear congratulating me on setting up my second interview with Art+Science. That image is replaced with him telling me over the phone again the night before that interview, to be myself, have fun and they’ll hire me on the spot. After being questioned by eleven people I was hired right then. I’ll never be able to describe what it felt like that day in front of them. I don’t recognize that girl when I look back. She was on the edge of her seat, animated, laughing, honest, unafraid of what questions she may have to answer. She felt they would accept her if she let her guard down. So she stepped out of her comfy little box and let them see her…
I felt so much love I could barely comprehend it. I have no idea where it came from. These people didn’t know me, Rob was still in South Carolina but it was like he was sitting there with me through all of it.
Fast forward through eleven months of climbing back in the box, bouncing from salon to salon, racing from client to client, rinsing color, blowdrying, sweeping hair, feeding parking meters, hauling out the trash, long days, short days, scrambling to find models, rain, snow, sunshine, watching my hands and sanity disintegrate, pushing through it when I wanted to sink until I drowned, sometimes crawling through the day just to reach the end. I have finally reached a light at the end of a long tunnel.
Paul’s sentences become fragments as I struggle to comprehend his words while replaying the past.
“We really wanted you… no room… you would do well anywhere…”
I’m nodding until I hear it.
“Evanston.” he says and I exhale.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I hear him smile. “You’re going to do great.”
We hang up shortly after and I look around the break room trying to identify my feelings. I don’t know yet. I feel my heart begin to race. My head is swimming. It’s plotting out the upcoming work I’ll have to put in to bringing in new clients, asking myself how am I going to set myself apart? How am I going to be creative in bringing in these new people? I think about my commute, how I’ll handle days where it’s minus whatever outside, or ninety, I imagine my clientele and what they’ll be like, what I’ll learn from them, and what I’ll give back to them.
All these thoughts happen in thirty seconds before I pick up the phone and call Charlie. I can’t sit still with it right now.
“Hi!” I exclaim when he picks up. “I have something to tell you.”
“Oh really?”
“I just (inhale, exhale) got a call from Paul. I’ve been placed in Evanston.”
“How do you feel about it?” he asks.
“I’m ok. I’m not surprised or anything.”
“You’re gonna be making actual money!” I hear him smile.
“You’re right!” I laugh.
“Are you going to move up there? he asks.
“Hell no! Are you kidding? I have everything I want where I live. There’s no way I’m moving.”
We’re quiet for a second before I continue. “I can’t believe this is happening. It’s actually here.”
“You’re gonna do just fine up there.” he reminds me.
We get off the phone shortly after and I go to fold towels. My head is still swimming wondering how life would be if Rob were still here, what he would say to my news. He sees a bigger picture now. I think it’s why I’m not freaking out. I know he’s here with me and wouldn’t steer me in a wrong direction. I can almost feel him, can almost touch him if only I knew which direction to reach out in…
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Twelve months...
It’s raining outside when I wake up. I somehow managed to sleep until 9am. I get out of bed not wanting to acknowledge that it’s April 20th and Rob has been gone a full year. At about this time last year, the sun was up and he was leaving my place for work. The last thing I said to him was “I love you”, and he was gone.
Hours later I was on the phone with my dad saying “Daddy, I’m never going to see him again, never going to touch him again, never going to hear him again…” over and over. I wanted him to fix it, change it, tell me it was a mistake but instead he said nothing.
This morning, I eat breakfast and go to the coffee shop I frequented when I first moved here. I set up my computer in a small room in the back and write. I don’t cry, acknowledge anyone, or look up really from what I’m doing. I drinking a soy latte in Rob’s memory, remembering the day we met. I was standing behind him in line at Starbucks, not realizing he was who he was and I watched him order a soy latte thinking that was interesting. After trying his one day a few weeks after meeting him that day, I was hooked.
A couple hours later when I couldn’t sit still anymore, I leave the coffee shop and walk through the drizzly rain home. Tears find me on the street, but I don’t let them fall. I don’t know what this is. Right after Rob died all I wanted to do was talk and not crying wasn’t an option. It wasn’t like me to do all of that so openly but it felt so good that eventually I started this whole blog action.
At home I pull out my journal from last spring and read about the events of April 20th. I was angry at Rob but didn’t know why. I wanted his attention but he was so focused on getting to Robby’s that I remained angry, feeling like an afterthought. Yes, I had to work as well but I wanted him to stop for a minute and quit worrying. The whole time I was with Rob I had this feeling that I should tell him absolutely everything always. I felt that there wasn’t enough time ever, that I was trying to squeeze everything in. I’m assuming he didn’t feel this way. I thought my feelings were stemming from my impending move to Chicago. I never imagined what actually happened.
The morning he left my house I cried and cried but not understanding why. I eventually got dressed and went to work, still feeling a bit “off”. That feeling was replaced with the most profound hurt I’ve ever experienced when my dad called that afternoon.
I shut the journal, unable to read the conversation I had with Daddy and put on my gym clothes. I leave and walk to the train, my eyes avoiding contact with anyone on the street. Rage is bubbling under my skin. I don’t know where to pin point it or what to do with it but it isn’t going away. I don’t know how to comprehend Rob’s year long absence. He was just here. I was just waiting for him on a Friday night, he was just making me laugh, I was just telling him a story, we were just accumulating atrocious phone bills, he was just saying “I love you.” No matter where I go, who I talk to, what I see…no matter how many words I type, he’s not coming back and it’s enough to make me insane so to ward off the straightjacket, I’ll just be mad until I can think of a better idea.
I push dumbbells over my head. Again, tears want to make an appearance and again I blink them back. I’m suddenly afraid of being vulnerable. I want nothing to do with anyone. I’m terrified of appearing unstable. I’ve been so focused lately on being the “perfect” employee, the “perfect” girlfriend, the “perfect” friend that I seem to have lost sight of that fact that I’m a human with many more emotions other than “happy” and right now, I’m not willing to accept it. Somewhere in my mind, I seem to believe that acceptance means this really did happen, Rob really is gone, and this…right now, is my life as I now know it and that is too much to take in. I sometimes feel I’m re-living someone else’s life when I go back and think of Rob and experience the memories I have of him. It is such a rude awakening when I’m forced to see that this is all real, and it all happened.
When I’m finished at the gym I go home to drop my bag off and head out again for a run. It feels like any other day, running up Milwaukee Ave., looking at the shops, dodging people, and singing along with my iPOD in my head. I’m simply refusing to think about anything else.
At home again thoughts of Rob start creeping back into my head. I wonder how he would want me to spend today. Am I doing ok so far? If everything were reversed, how would I want him to spend his day if I were gone? I think to myself that I would want him to do whatever he wanted that made him happy. I took a shower and went to the coffee shop I met Charlie in.
I tried to write some more but it’s too hard. I keep staring out the window. Mom has called twice. It’s not that I don’t want to talk, I’m unable (or maybe I’m unwilling) to do so. I find that I’ve wanted to push away the people I’m closest to while reaching out to the people I’m sorta-kinda close with and tell them everything. Whatever “everything” may mean…
Instead I reach out to no one, still afraid I am unable to handle what might come out of me, and unable to handle another person’s response. I try to write some more but eventually give up and go home, but not before stopping for a pint of ice cream which I promptly consume to it’s entirety while continuing to write on my laptop. I know this won’t solve any problems, it just will numb me for a moment so I can not be here.
I decide to take a break from writing and email a friend of mine who had a similar experience several years ago. She’s now happily married and we’ve talked a little bit about our grief and how we each have handled it shortly after Rob died. (she lives in Atlanta) I wanted to know about her current relationship with her husband and how they both handled her experience, plus I wanted to know what she felt after her first love had been gone a year.
She writes me back quickly saying she doesn’t really remember the first year and time really does make things better although the sadness never goes away. She goes on to tell me about her husband and how he’s so different from the boyfriend she lost that it’s impossible to make comparisons. She also says that she doesn’t talk a lot about it because he’s never had anything like this happen to him before and it’s hard for him to hear about or see her hurt.
I feel this way about Charlie. He’s so completely different but still just as wonderful as Rob. Sometimes though, at the most random times I feel like I need to talk though. Half the time I don’t know how or what to say really, it’s just this urge to get something out.
I shut the computer down, unable to do anything or think about anything else. When I walk into my room, I change into my pajamas unable to look at the pictures of Rob’s smiling face on my bookshelf and fall into bed hoping sleep comes fast.
Hours later I was on the phone with my dad saying “Daddy, I’m never going to see him again, never going to touch him again, never going to hear him again…” over and over. I wanted him to fix it, change it, tell me it was a mistake but instead he said nothing.
This morning, I eat breakfast and go to the coffee shop I frequented when I first moved here. I set up my computer in a small room in the back and write. I don’t cry, acknowledge anyone, or look up really from what I’m doing. I drinking a soy latte in Rob’s memory, remembering the day we met. I was standing behind him in line at Starbucks, not realizing he was who he was and I watched him order a soy latte thinking that was interesting. After trying his one day a few weeks after meeting him that day, I was hooked.
A couple hours later when I couldn’t sit still anymore, I leave the coffee shop and walk through the drizzly rain home. Tears find me on the street, but I don’t let them fall. I don’t know what this is. Right after Rob died all I wanted to do was talk and not crying wasn’t an option. It wasn’t like me to do all of that so openly but it felt so good that eventually I started this whole blog action.
At home I pull out my journal from last spring and read about the events of April 20th. I was angry at Rob but didn’t know why. I wanted his attention but he was so focused on getting to Robby’s that I remained angry, feeling like an afterthought. Yes, I had to work as well but I wanted him to stop for a minute and quit worrying. The whole time I was with Rob I had this feeling that I should tell him absolutely everything always. I felt that there wasn’t enough time ever, that I was trying to squeeze everything in. I’m assuming he didn’t feel this way. I thought my feelings were stemming from my impending move to Chicago. I never imagined what actually happened.
The morning he left my house I cried and cried but not understanding why. I eventually got dressed and went to work, still feeling a bit “off”. That feeling was replaced with the most profound hurt I’ve ever experienced when my dad called that afternoon.
I shut the journal, unable to read the conversation I had with Daddy and put on my gym clothes. I leave and walk to the train, my eyes avoiding contact with anyone on the street. Rage is bubbling under my skin. I don’t know where to pin point it or what to do with it but it isn’t going away. I don’t know how to comprehend Rob’s year long absence. He was just here. I was just waiting for him on a Friday night, he was just making me laugh, I was just telling him a story, we were just accumulating atrocious phone bills, he was just saying “I love you.” No matter where I go, who I talk to, what I see…no matter how many words I type, he’s not coming back and it’s enough to make me insane so to ward off the straightjacket, I’ll just be mad until I can think of a better idea.
I push dumbbells over my head. Again, tears want to make an appearance and again I blink them back. I’m suddenly afraid of being vulnerable. I want nothing to do with anyone. I’m terrified of appearing unstable. I’ve been so focused lately on being the “perfect” employee, the “perfect” girlfriend, the “perfect” friend that I seem to have lost sight of that fact that I’m a human with many more emotions other than “happy” and right now, I’m not willing to accept it. Somewhere in my mind, I seem to believe that acceptance means this really did happen, Rob really is gone, and this…right now, is my life as I now know it and that is too much to take in. I sometimes feel I’m re-living someone else’s life when I go back and think of Rob and experience the memories I have of him. It is such a rude awakening when I’m forced to see that this is all real, and it all happened.
When I’m finished at the gym I go home to drop my bag off and head out again for a run. It feels like any other day, running up Milwaukee Ave., looking at the shops, dodging people, and singing along with my iPOD in my head. I’m simply refusing to think about anything else.
At home again thoughts of Rob start creeping back into my head. I wonder how he would want me to spend today. Am I doing ok so far? If everything were reversed, how would I want him to spend his day if I were gone? I think to myself that I would want him to do whatever he wanted that made him happy. I took a shower and went to the coffee shop I met Charlie in.
I tried to write some more but it’s too hard. I keep staring out the window. Mom has called twice. It’s not that I don’t want to talk, I’m unable (or maybe I’m unwilling) to do so. I find that I’ve wanted to push away the people I’m closest to while reaching out to the people I’m sorta-kinda close with and tell them everything. Whatever “everything” may mean…
Instead I reach out to no one, still afraid I am unable to handle what might come out of me, and unable to handle another person’s response. I try to write some more but eventually give up and go home, but not before stopping for a pint of ice cream which I promptly consume to it’s entirety while continuing to write on my laptop. I know this won’t solve any problems, it just will numb me for a moment so I can not be here.
I decide to take a break from writing and email a friend of mine who had a similar experience several years ago. She’s now happily married and we’ve talked a little bit about our grief and how we each have handled it shortly after Rob died. (she lives in Atlanta) I wanted to know about her current relationship with her husband and how they both handled her experience, plus I wanted to know what she felt after her first love had been gone a year.
She writes me back quickly saying she doesn’t really remember the first year and time really does make things better although the sadness never goes away. She goes on to tell me about her husband and how he’s so different from the boyfriend she lost that it’s impossible to make comparisons. She also says that she doesn’t talk a lot about it because he’s never had anything like this happen to him before and it’s hard for him to hear about or see her hurt.
I feel this way about Charlie. He’s so completely different but still just as wonderful as Rob. Sometimes though, at the most random times I feel like I need to talk though. Half the time I don’t know how or what to say really, it’s just this urge to get something out.
I shut the computer down, unable to do anything or think about anything else. When I walk into my room, I change into my pajamas unable to look at the pictures of Rob’s smiling face on my bookshelf and fall into bed hoping sleep comes fast.
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