How do you relax?
Now, the pendulum has swung so far in favor of alone time that when I want to relax I call a friend and try to get out. My answer would have been different if I’d been going out lately. I’m naturally an introvert and need huge swaths of alone time to both recharge and create.
By alone time, I mean absolute quiet. My apartment is currently too loud with the dehumidifiers going for my purposes. Normally I like it to just be the sound of the clacking keys interrupting the madness of my mind.
Writing is relaxing because I can take a puzzle I’m considering and mull it over from all sides. That being said, when I don’t get out and about I tend to navel gaze about why I tend to blow up all my relationships. It made me feel better to learn that this is a neurodivergent lifelong trait and that even though it’s sad, it’s not uncommon. I have to have a support system so I’m trying to get into some kind of housing arrangement that provides it. I would probably be living in Baltimore county somewhere with not a lot of privacy, but it is something to consider vs. being alone all the time.
I waffle on what it is I can truly handle, not what I want.
I have truly big questions on my mind (it is a very busy place), so Aaron’s visit is expertly timed in terms of needing to get out of my head and stop spending so much time alone.
And in fact, it’s my birthday the day before he arrives, so I know that we’ll want to celebrate together, as well as all the birthdays of his I’ve missed over the last few years. I just don’t know what celebrating means to either one of us, yet.
I hope the weather is nice because I’d like to take him to places I find relaxing, like the Inner Harbor and Fell’s Point. And in fact, it would be good if he’d take me around to find a place to live, so if he doesn’t mind I might rent a car for us. However, I respect a man with an itinerary and everything he wants to do in DC sounds like something I want to do, too. I will suggest going to the African American History Museum as I want Aaron to see it before there are any drastic changes to the truth. Plus, I haven’t gotten to see Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther suit yet.
Going to museums and book talks are relaxing to me because they generally aren’t as overwhelming for me as say, a grocery store. People tend to quietly look at things- save opening day of the spy museum. That was nuts.
Plus, school has started and we can go to the museums while the tourists have cleared out. This is the perfect time to visit DC, in my humble opinion, because I lived there for over a decade (and may move back to the Maryland suburbs eventually). DC is better without tourist season if you’re neurodivergent and cannot handle crowds easily. If you don’t mind tourist season, the cherry blossom blooms are incredible in the spring.
I find that I am more relaxed when the weather is as well- therefore, fall and spring are my two favorite times of the year. The temperature is not to either extreme and I can wear hoodies, my favorite cozy and relaxed feeling.
And now it’s time to call in my last relaxed feeling- a clean home. My friend Josh hooked me up with the number of a housekeeper and I’m finally ready to address both the mess created by me, a bachelor in a female body, and the enormous task of washing everything that got wet. I had to get over my executive dysfunction enough to admit that I needed help.
Mostly because I’ve been navel-gazing, and now it’s time to look a little further ahead. Before, I didn’t have a timeline on how long I would sit with grief, unable to move.
I folded into myself when I forced Aada out of my life, because it was such an impulsive decision that had disastrous consequences for us both. I can’t say that I didn’t mean to hurt her, because at the peak of my rage, I absolutely did. I wanted her to hurt the way I did, because the consequences of her lie had gotten into the fabric of my other relationships and it hadn’t gone great.
So relaxing is not high on my to-do list when I am afraid to look myself in the mirror and admit that red mist rage overtook the rest of my senses and I could not think straight. I also cannot go back to that moment in time and undo anything, anymore than I can go back to the point at which we went wrong originally.
I can only accept that my rage didn’t help anyone, and try to pick up the pieces in a constructive way. I don’t want to forget the moments in which I failed to give Aada grace. I need the reminder not to be so quick to anger.
Scar tissue is stronger than it was before, but the memory of the injury stays. I have a ton of them on the outside from being a cook, but the internal ones are what tend to plague me and stop me from thinking that I deserve more than an apartment who actively seems to hate me.
It’s the second flood since December.
I don’t want to live in squalor, but my brain tries to tell me I don’t deserve more. That it’s okay my house looks the way it does because I’m the type of person that would screw over her best friend in a blaze of glory, then realize the consequences. I have absolutely treated myself like shit, and I’m writing it down because this is also part of my growth and development.
I went down the internet rabbit hole and started living like Comic Book Guy. That’s why I don’t want to be Aada’s internet friend ever again. It led me to a very dark place, and she participated.
It’s a tall order to even get her to e-mail me again, much less meet up. Just because she’s mad doesn’t mean I don’t have wants and needs, and the biggest one ever is for the next 12 years not to be a repeat of the last. My life has just been a disaster in terms of my mental health and I’m going to blame some of it on this relationship, because Aada had a bigger and better dark passenger than me.
I am trying to have empathy for both parties when I say that things were never fair or easy.
Not always relaxing, because relaxing together lived in my daydreams and not the daily reality.
What I would find relaxing with Aada is going to a coffee shop as early as she can stand it. I’m a morning person, she is………….. not.
There’s just something about the early morning that brings its own special brand of conversation, and I’d like to look into her eyes when I tell her that I’m sorry things didn’t go better the first time around.
But I know that she thinks that all of this is a grand manipulation, so coffee is just one of the things I think to myself to make me happy in remembrance. It’s a relaxing thought, not something that will happen in the future- as much as I wish it would.
It is relaxing to me to think of better times, because I cannot explain the last few months without my friends saying I need to go back to the doctor. My consequences in this whole thing are more than I can say to anyone but Aada, a time when I really need her to listen closely, and I pushed her away.
But not entirely.
At coffee, I would hope that she was affectionate and warm as we planned out next steps…. if there is one. What if we meet in person and all the love we thought we had was our writing voices? I don’t want there to be pressure on this one coffee to have anything else happen after it. I would like to just be, taking in this person’s facial expressions for the first time, despite knowing each other for over 10 years.
I found writing to her relaxing, so I know that the tone takes on letters to her quite frequently. And sometimes I just say it flat out. There are things I miss about being in that headspace.
She frequently went long periods without replying, me not really noticing because I was entertaining myself. But there was something about my e-mails that made her feel like I was searching for more closeness, and I was. It just didn’t have anything to do with writing to each other.
She felt no shame in explaining my family dynamics to her, yet castigated me when I’d respond in kind. It was a one-way street, a brick wall, that had just started to come down when she lied. That’s the saddest part of all. I was starting to see all the wealth our friendship had to offer and I didn’t breathe.
I didn’t relax when I should have, because at every turn during this internet relationship I haven’t made the choice to relax.
I finally have, but it has come at a cost.
My brain doesn’t work the same way, and I miss that part of it. I know I’ll always “be a part of her wild and crazy brain,” too….
It’s just a shame that we didn’t become real to each other before she admitted her lie. To let me have my first human reaction with her alone.
For instance, my second e-mail to the person also affecting this lie suggests they should talk to each other. I didn’t win a prize, I batted cleanup on Aada’s behalf.
She had a very real way of imposing on my life without being able to see the consequences of how it played on the ground, despite my color commentary.
Like her misreading the situation with whom she called my “bellwether friend” completely wrong. That’s a time in which I needed her to turn toward me instead of away from me because I was out of my mind with worry. Those consequences didn’t turn out the way she thought they would, either.
She cannot read social cues over the internet any better than I can, and we both developed hair-trigger tempers. The thing that used to relax me became a melting pot of toxicity that I spent a very long time trying to clean up, and then she admitted something to me that she thought was innocuous.
It really, really wasn’t over 12 years…… and really isn’t, now.
It was easier to break my own heart than to let her do it.
My overreaction will cost me not being given grace when I wouldn’t give her mine. But if I was able to start over, I would…. relaxing over a cup of coffee.
Where I would just listen.
I have talked quite enough for me.
Stories That Are All True 