It is late and I am ending my day as I began, with anger, grief, hope, and joy. Those four feelings will be my elements in thinking about Dana and whether the resurrection takes. For me, the resurrection can go two ways. Either we go back to being friends without incident, or we will fall madly in love again and recreate a second act better than the first. Either way, we’re planning on living happily ever after.
I went over to Dana’s new apartment after all the moving was over, just to see how it looks. To get a sense of where she is when she says she’s in the living room. Settings matter in phone calls. I want to picture her talking from wherever she is. As she puttered around, I sat on her bed and listened while she chattered on about anything and everything. It was nice, adding to that friend normalizing behavior. But then she said, “I’m going to soak my feet. My sister does it every night and I think it would be good to start.” When she said that, I thought, “this moment is too intimate for me. I cannot stand here and watch this happen.” Everything within me was telling me to leave, but I went to her as she sat on the edge of the bathtub and kissed the back of her neck. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe that we could date each other? I don’t know. Too soon. What I know is that I needed to kiss the back of her neck, work up to her cheek, and let the tears flow. I just kept sobbing, “I’m sorry….. I’m sorry……”
Dana finished washing and turned around to kiss me in my grief, saying, “I know…… I know……” Finally, I said, “are you in a place where you can’t say “I forgive you?” She said, “I don’t know myself well enough to know what I did, so I can’t know what you did, either.” It was the best answer anyone has ever given in the history of anything. God, I love her. I picked the one person in the world that COULD handle this….. and I stole that line from Argo. She believes in both of us more than we deserve, and yet, we never really bonded that way as a group. Dana and Argo never really put shoe leather into their relationship, so it was this constant feeling for me of in-laws fighting over my attention, which they both deserved but could not settle on a visitation agreement, mostly because Dana, right or wrong, thought of Argo as a threat.
When I was finished crying, Dana did say that she forgave me, and I got the overwhelming sense that it was time to go home. I did not want to be exclusive with Dana, and I realized that if I stayed one minute longer, it was perpetuating the idea that we were just going to be married in two different houses. That is not reality, and I know it. Now that I’m in my bubble with just my thoughts and no one else’s, I have decided I like it here. I do not need distraction from it. I am driven to succeed, and I believe that is the first time I’ve ever said that in my entire life. Before, my attitude was, “everything’s going to turn to shit, anyway, so why even try?” I am such a perfectionist that if something isn’t perfect, I will throw it in the garbage. I am slow and intentional as not to make mistakes. Not with this blog, of course. If you want to see my real style, you’ll have to buy my books. This is my stream of consciousness. This is not what I slave over. I slave over ideas bigger than I’ve ever had before. Because of Argo and my blog, I see that I have the power to reach millions of people, so why not do it? Why not say yes to the possibility that because I am asking, the universe will answer?
Argo was 100% right when she said, “why do you think it’s everyone else’s job to fix you?” You do not have any self-preservation when you’re as fucked up as I have been. You don’t ask for things. You wither away into nothing, because that is what you feel you are. You just wander around, trying to latch on to things that will propel you because you do not have the ability to propel yourself. You’ve already given yourself away. There’s nothing left for you. Like I said earlier, I got an A on Meag’s senior paper and a C on mine. But you know what? When people come to look for my qualifications, I doubt they’re going to give me credit for her work with her name at the top.
The funniest exchange of this whole saga was that I sent Argo a note that said, “could you please send me a 12 page report with graphs and pictures on how much you like dick? It would help. Thanks.” I got desperate. Dana, please don’t push Argo away I need her get with the program please I am changing please please………….. on and on and on and on…… a never ending ostinato (is there any other kind?). When we got to the two year mark, I decided I’d had enough from both of them. I am too much of an introvert to be happy with giving all my energy to people who don’t like each other and have me in a tug of war whether I liked it or not.
I did not.
I finally called bullshit. Nothing could convince Dana that I wasn’t going anywhere. That I was so much of an introvert that she was always going to get the majority of my time. She worries when i get lost in the cloud. I will never say that I have not earned this level of scrutiny, and at the same time, nothing went to Argo that Dana didn’t see. She read every word, including the e-mails where it was CLEAR how bad I was struggling.
I can only hope that I did something right by trying to explain my intimacy with Argo. That I’d, in a sense, married her based on confidentiality, loyalty, and the fact that I thought we’d be eating cheesecake like Dorothy and Rose until we died. But she will die first because she is SO MUCH OLDER (I love you. You complete me. [You cannot imagine the hole I’ve just dug, I assure you. It’s good that lives a thousand miles from here, otherwise I would be on the receiving end of some kind of noogie 😛 ]). If I could predict what she would reply to that, it would probably be something along the lines of, “have fun with your Garanimals, jackass.”
I love my silence. I love my inner world. I love that Argo saw it and called it good. I love that Dana has forgiven me for letting Argo live there. Even when I know that neither of them can be with me in physical proximity, they sit at my shoulders like angels ready to jump in when I need them. I had that realization when it got weird and I went home. I do not want to be Dana’s first in her new bed in her new house. I have been grieving this loss for quite some time, because I could see it happening minute by minute, hour by hour. I need separation from both of them, time with my headphones and my keyboard.
It’s Lent all over the place, and I’m doing it right. Sitting alone. Reflecting. Repenting. Counting on what Bill Lupfer at Trinity Wall Street calls “islands of mercy.” That is because in the Bible, there are 40 days, but on the calendar, it is 46. That is because you don’t count the Sundays. Sundays are the Mardi Gras of Lent. You can enjoy everything you’ve given up.
My Sundays are spent trying to enjoy Dana and Argo in my head as the magnificent women we are supposed to be, together, instead of the broke-ass pattern we have now. I’m exhausted. I feel like Jesus on the cross, because during crucifixion, you can breathe in, but you lack the ability to let air out. This version of me is ready to die. I have this vision of being new by Easter.
If Jesus can do it, why can’t I take my shot?
Stories That Are All True 