I changed her name in my phone. It was a lot easier after I took my wedding ring off.

Goodbye, Naganalanad. May our relationship rest in peace.

My house is 1565 square feet. The lot is 8,000. I am just one person, rattling around in this huge house that looks like it’s been torn apart in an investigation. There’s dust everywhere. The whole house looks like it needs CPR. It got that way from both of us being too depressed to really take care of a house like this. The yard is a nightmare, so we’re doing what you do in Houston when you’ve gotten yourselves fucked with lawn care….. call in the Mexicans (YAY MEXICO!!!! I got my jersey.). Dana likes it when I’m here when we have Spanish speakers, because even though mine is a bit broken, I can usually get my point across. Dana does not even watch Dora the Explorer. When she was moving out, I told her to get on Duolingo and learn some fucking Spanish, because in this neighborhood, life is SO MUCH EASIER. Dana’s neighborhood is the same, so I believe it is essential. When we go to taquerias, she just lets me order unless there’s numbers. 🙂

I am not knocking Dana in the slightest. I recommend that if you’re going to live in a Hispanic neighborhood, learn the language. Stop it with your “in America, we speak English” bullshit. You have no idea what would happen if all the migrant workers were deported. Enjoy your eight dollars a pound tomatoes, dumbass. Strain your brain- Spanish is easier than English by a MILE. All the verbs have five conjugations, everything is spelled like it sounds, and Hispanics fall over when they realize that I can comprende. I know I’ve told this story before, but it’s apt here. I was in line at Fiesta and these women in front of me were making fun of my short hair, baseball cap, etc. I turned around and said, “soy blanca, no soy sordo.” That means, “I am a white girl, I am not deaf.” Their mouths dropped and I didn’t hear a peep out of them. Serves them right. Apparently the girl that looks like a boy has your number, bitches.

So, to get back on topic, this house needs tias all over the place, because three tias and a prima will use Fabuloso, and as Ralphie May says, “it gets out third world dirt.” Yes. Yes, it does. I like the purple stuff. In fact, I mopped the kitchen floor with it before I sat down to write this. Maybe that’s why I’m writing about it. I need to explain why I am so overwhelmed with the state of the house, because Dana did not clean a thing before she left, nor did she mow the yard. Now I am slowly getting to all of these things, but I am hoping that wisdom prevails. I can clean the hell out of a house. I am scared of lawn mowers. I have a very good reason for this. My grandfather ran over his foot once. I am the biggest motherfucking klutz in the entire world. That is the kind of thing that would happen to me. I would like to avoid it at all costs.

However, I am not lazy. I will do it if I have to. I just don’t want to. There’s a difference. Mostly because Dana has been saying that she was going to mow and every time she has time, it has been pouring down rain. Our lawn looks terrible for a somewhat valid reason, but I am getting tired of waiting for it to be done, and there are several things that intimidate me. First of all, weeds have taken over. I don’t know what to do. Do I mow them down or dig them out? We got the house because Dana likes to do this shit and I don’t. I am envious beyond belief that she has a tiny apartment that looks easy to take care of with no lawn maintenance whatsoever.

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I gave up. I just called Dana in my most anxious, smallest place and said, “where are we with the lawn people? I need help. I cannot do ALL THIS on my own.” She promised to come over tomorrow and help. It feels nice to know that she just didn’t have time to clean and she’s coming back.  I am sobbing as I write this, because I have just realized how empty my house feels. My entire world lives ten minutes away and I feel so alone, even though I’m not.

Actually, in a sense, I AM all alone. There is no one that can work their way out of this mess but me.  I will be so glad when all of the work on the house is done, because then I won’t constantly be plagued by the anxiety that comes with dust bunnies on the floor and Diet Coke cans I’ve opened and put down somewhere and forgotten. This morning I found a sip of whiskey on the coffee table… I’d asked Dana for some of her Rebecca Creek, which she gladly gave me about 3/4 of a shot, because that’s all I asked for. I just wanted a taste…… apparently, because I put it down and forgot about it, too. I am the classic creative personality. Someone should just follow me around picking up all the things I put down, because I promise I will not remember where I put it even five seconds later.

Based on this, I have no idea where anything is. The Danabase moved out. I am going to have to create my own systems of organization, which as a Virgo makes my skin buzz with excitement. Cut to three weeks later. What system? Unfortunately for Dana, I think it made her want to stay around longer than she should’ve. I put so much on her because I literally couldn’t do it for myself. I slid so far that she would have to bring me stuff to eat, because if she didn’t, I just wouldn’t. Too busy, too consumed. Not an eating disorder. A thinking disorder. If I take time out to eat, what am I missing? Ditto for sleeping occasionally, although I have medication for that.

I just realized that I have anti-anxiety medication. Maybe that should be my first move. Feeling a little bit short of breath, which is a sign that I need to take something before I get into attack mode. When I get panic attacks, the hyperventilation is pretty fucking impressive. I don’t want to live there.

But in this type situation, I am not sure that it’s avoidable.

I have realized over the past few months that I can be an incredible narcissist… but let’s focus on the “can be.” Anything I have learned in the way of narcissism is a way of self-preservation, because I do not have the safety and security of knowing that you’re actually going to keep up your end of the bargain…. that you’re actually going to love me as much as you say, that I can relax and rest in it. I am going to be on the receiving end of love.

This is because I have so many abandonment issues that I cannot even. I am slowly working on them, because it is my journey into wholeness. I treated Argo like crap because I needed her to pull away and I all but ensured it. The closer we got to figuring each other out, the more I realized that I was in a world of uh-oh. This is NOT supposed to happen. I am NOT going to fall for a straight girl because that is an impossible situation that will only drag me through the mud and I am not secure enough to tell Argo that I do not love her, I am in love with her, and the only solution is for you to disappear while I get my shit together, because this is untenable for me. Dana is freaking the fuck out.

I’d already broken her heart once before, so I couldn’t just do it again. It would have killed me inside. So I started an enormous fight so she wouldn’t want to talk to me, anyway. It shouldn’t ever have happened. I should have “manned up” and gotten the confidence to tell her that we needed to separate because my wife thinks that I’m already out the door, and that is CLEARLY not the case. I can’t breathe without thinking of her on the inhale and the exhale. I cannot let a threat in, even though the only threat was me. It was easier to pretend that although Argo was never going to be in love with my body, she was in love with my mind, as well.

On the Internet, as every chathead knows, sexuality and gender fly out the window. In the first few minutes of chat, I was hooked. Absolutely hooked. THE FIRST DAY. To the point where I said straight out, on the FIRST DAY, “intimacy on the Internet is relative. We are pouring emotions into each other. Let’s not let this get out from under us, ok?” I wasn’t necessarily saying it for her benefit………………

Because exactly what I thought would happen did. Emotions turned to love quickly, because we weren’t dealing with practical jokes and gin. I’d hoped we’d get to that point eventually, but I think our “stranger on a train” was exactly that….. stranger than anything I’d been a part of, certainly. It was an unusual kinship. We didn’t relate to each other with our senses, except visually because there were so many words between us. We didn’t even meet, and I will regret it wholeheartedly for a very long time. I think that a lot of our problems had to do with my being Argo’s “stranger on a train,” and after we went deep, the thought of creating a relationship in real life was way too damn scary to contemplate. What would we be like in real life? Would our intimacy translate into nights lying on the couch watching Netflix with wine and popcorn?

It did not.

I can’t speak for the future, but the past is a tapestry. Neither of us want to look in each other’s eyes, because we don’t want to see the feelings that lay beyond them. For me, I could not meet her without wanting to step off a plane and run into her arms.

As a straight girl, I can see how this might be………… intimidating. I am working on concentrating on how she feels. I need to get my ego out of the way, because I was only lost in me and what I felt and how my marriage was coming apart and I didn’t notice until it was WAY too late. Nothing Argo did caused this. I mentioned earlier that she said she didn’t want to be the reason that I didn’t work it out with Dana. I need to speak more to this. I did not EVER think that Argo loved me in a way that was equal to my level of emotion. That conversation did not have to do with romance. That conversation was based on “we’ve been tight for two years, and Dana and I are both horrible to each other at times. You know it. If we got back together, could you accept her? Because what friend would ever advocate for getting back into a bad relationship? I needed her opinion, and I do not think she saw my point, because I asked her the question without the tremendous context. It was not intentional. It was my brain moving too fast for my fingers. Or maybe it was intentional. I cannot decide. What I know is that even though it is neither, it is both.

Dana and I bought our rings at an event called “Festival of the Last Minute” in Portland at Saturday Market. It’s the last drive before Christmas, and it is a ton of fun. We found no end to the humor that two ADD people bought commitment rings at a ceremony with the title, but hey. We were young (no we weren’t) and stupid (actually, not so much). I remember that day so fondly, because we took a picture of our hands with our rings on and everyone thought we’d gotten married, and it was just the first set of rings we’d ever worn. I think we’d been living together for a few years at that point. Yes, we had our legal documentation saying we were domestic partners, but had never gone through a wedding. We’ve been planning it since that night we won trivia and figured out we didn’t love each other. We were in love with each other. But somehow, that did not translate into ring shopping. Again, two ADD people. Festival of the Last Minute.

Hundreds of comments poured in, and I felt so blessed and supported in my decision to marry Dana when everyone said it wouldn’t work. Who said it didn’t work? Seven years is enough time to really know someone, to really know what love is.

Love is when Dana has hives.

Love is when I am ash-white and sweating because my brain chemicals aren’t right.

Love is knowing that Dana and I would both step in front of a bus for the other one.

Love is accidentally forgetting we’re not married anymore, because my drive to protect her is fiercely engaged.

I realized it when I was walking out to my car at Aaron’s, that I cannot forget we aren’t married anymore. It’s just not possible for me, because I will as long as I let myself. I’m amazing like that. If it hurts once, why not let it hurt a thousand times?

I slipped off my ring and dropped it somewhere in the grass…. walked a few feet…. and then I couldn’t see it anymore. I panicked because I couldn’t see it and thought, BUT THAT IS THE POINT.

……and slowly kept walking.