I Don’t Follow Sports

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Name the professional athletes you respect the most and why.
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I have never really been into sports save my senior year of high school, when I was actually dating an athlete. I got into soccer because I wanted to “speak the lingo.” Now, I still can’t tell you in depth about the offsides rule, but the only reason I know who any professional athletes are is because of her. I was 17 and easily impressionable; Mia Hamm was the perfect role model.

She was my favorite because her coach told her she ran like a girl and she told him that if he picked up the pace he could run like a girl, too.

It doesn’t take much. 😉

I’ve Overthought About It For Hours

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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.

Everything Isn’t Awesome

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?
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I tend to overuse the word “awesome” and should probably look up some alternate words. It would be good practice if it was struck from my vocabulary and I had to work around it.

Yesterday, though. Yesterday really was awesome.

One of my best friends since 2014, Aaron Brown, is coming to visit for a week. I’m so happy thinking about all the things we can do (or not do). Aaron and I love to do nothing together, and we’ve been calling it “running Aarons” for at least 10 years. We definitely want to do DC for a day, and I know that Josh wanted to take me out for my birthday so he’ll get to join me for that. Plus, I’m not the only friend Aaron has in the area, so we’ll be visiting around Maryland as well.

Things are also shaping up for my Houston trip at the end of the month, because I’ve wanted to see Brene Brown speak and meet her (again) for a long time. I’ve said this before, but I will say again that Dr. Brown and I have a slight history. I taught her how to do something in Microsoft Word 30 years ago and now I cannot remember what it was. Back then, she was just “one of my kids,” what I called all the graduate school of social work students that studied in my computer lab. I was watching YouTube a few years later and said to Dana, “I think that’s one of my kids.” Just to be sure, I contacted her team and made sure that it was her.

It was.

It’s amazing how you accidentally run into famous people if you wait long enough.

Aada used to be taken with Dr. Brown to the point that she joked that she was going to marry her. That she didn’t end up with Dr. Brown as her Girl Friday, she unfortunately got me. That I was so delighted my epitaph was going to be “Eat It, Brown.” She was not amused by this. I have laughed for almost a year.

Sorry, not sorry.

So, anyway, that’s what makes me excited and heartbroken to meet Dr. Brown. I want to tell her what a kick it is to see her again as a Real Adult instead of a kid in grad school. I will not tell her the story about Aada, because it would be just my luck that I’d tear up.

But when you feel such shame and vulnerability, who better to go and see than an expert?

But before all that, Aaron and I are going to have a good time in Baltimore.

Awesome

It’s Never Worth It

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Are you holding a grudge? About?
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I don’t hold grudges because my memory is not that good. I tend to search out the good in people and forget the rest. I own when I am not the best of people, and try to correct those ills. Nine times out of ten, I only remember my role in a conflict because I’m constantly searching for it. I don’t constantly search for how other people are to blame in some way.

It leads to a much happier life because people come and go as they please in my life. It’s an easy give and take, barring the blowup with Aada because I don’t have the chance for keyboard warrior anger with anyone else. It was my downfall; Aada being so remote made her not real. I lost my humanity in a way that I couldn’t with on the ground friends because it happened so fast. I lost my mind during a meltdown. My punishment absolutely should be not reconnecting because you never realize how bad you’ve treated someone else until you’re trying to explain it to someone else.

I saw a Facebook meme today with that saying in the other direction, that you cannot explain how bad someone hurt you until you’re trying to explain it to someone else. But most people aren’t willing to look their dark passenger in the face and wrestle it away. The world is often “me, me, me…. everything happens to me.” I find that it’s more helpful to move on in the knowledge of the role I played. It makes all conflicts melt faster; I’ve moved on knowing I wasn’t the perfect person, either.

I wish I could have been the perfect person to Aada because she was the perfect person to me. My bipolar disorder and the nature of the internet didn’t mix. I mistreated her from the beginning with all the marks my abuser left on me. We’d finally gotten past all that and she decided to unburden herself of her lie.

I, in the words of Bob Lynn, “failed to give her the grace love requires.”

Lying was wrong, but I won’t remember that she lied nearly as much as I’ll remember my overreaction. I don’t carry around my pain. I carry the pain of others, taking it especially hard when I’m the one that has done the hurting.

I didn’t have empathy in the moment, and it’s something I’ll always regret in some ways, because there were better ways to say “stop the bus. I want to get off.”

Much better.

It was a case of turning away from each other when we should have turned towards. I was feeling freaked out and isolated, so I lashed out instead of saying “we should talk about this.”

I do that with my on the ground friends, and I don’t know why this was somehow less and more important. I don’t remember what I was thinking except “end the madness. You’re turning into a hermit.” None of my excuses were valid, I just acted.

Poring over my own actions will propel me forward in life. Thinking about things done to me limit my ability to see the places I do have control.

I have not taken control of my life lately, preferring to let it weather me by moving me of its own accord. I need to fix it, and these entries are my first steps toward recovering from the person I used to be…. someone who very much wouldn’t blame anyone for holding a grudge against me.

I just don’t recommend holding grudges overall.

I Never Questioned

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I never questioned myself over what would happen if Aada lied about anything. I never stopped to think about my impulse control and what it’s like when I’m in red mist rage. And it’s where I find myself today, just thinking. Asking myself the questions that I should have asked 12 years ago. The fight was the last thing that happened, not the origin of my problem. When I got angry, my keyboard warrior personality appeared, and I acted way before I thought. This is normal for people with neurodivergent minds, this popping off and regret. That’s because executive dysfunction with autism and ADHD makes your emotions incredibly intense. The disability is not having a self-regulating mechanism.

I am embarrassed that I did not have more coping mechanisms, because I betrayed something bigger than me, something for which I thought I was prepared…. falling on my sword at all costs….. but I couldn’t do it after she lied and my adrenaline turned me into The Incredible Hulk.

It was a small lie that snowballed over 12 years, something easily forgiven by someone with the clarity to keep their impulse control in check. The red mist rage was not at the lie itself, but the two principles under it.

  1. Aada can lie to you.
  2. Aada can see the consequences of her lie playing out in real time and does not care how it affects you.

I never asked myself what would happen if I learned these two things.

Everything she asked me to protect, I vomited all over the internet because I was so hurt that a lie could last over a decade. I didn’t publish it because I had a need to expose her, took delight in it. I was so angry I couldn’t see straight. I wanted to end the relationship and I had a trump card that would make it clear she could pack her bags. It was a trump card that should have stayed hidden in retrospect, because I have had time to reflect on everything that happened.

Mostly because once I got over the fact that Aada can lie to me, my anger melted into true remorse. She broke something in our relationship and I overreacted by a large margin. The gauntlet I’m laying down for the future is to work on coping mechanisms for anger, because I was not myself. I need to protect myself from going out of my mind.

I didn’t know I needed such intense therapy for anger management, but I see it clearly now. My zero to sixty is just too damn fast.

I lost an important relationship to me because I lost me.

Literally and Figuratively

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.
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Literally, the furthest I’ve traveled from home is Paris. I did not feel at home there because I did not speak the language, but I found unparalleled beauty everywhere in the urban jungle. I particularly liked the Metro’s dedication to typography. Luckily, my dad was with me so I didn’t spend the whole trip unmoored by unfamiliarity. He does speak a bit of French and had been to Paris before so he could lead me around.

I will never forget misreading a menu and accidentally ordering two ice cream sundaes for dessert, then to the amazement of my father, proceeded to take both of them down in stride. I think it was all the walking- my appetite was insatiable at mealtimes. At the Musee D’Orsay, I ate what amounted to an entire duck…. or seemed like it.

We actually got trapped in the Musee D’Orsay for a while because the yellow vests were protesting and they locked down the museum just in case. It didn’t matter, I was lost in the Van Gogh room, looking for signs of Amy Pond (there are none, it was just fun).

I would fly back to Paris just to eat breakfast at McDonalds, strangely enough. The cassis sundae I had was better than anything I’ve had in the US, and the same for silver dollar pancakes with Nutella. Proof that in France, the ice cream machine works……….

Figuratively, the furthest I’ve been from home is this time in my life. I have no idea what I’m doing. My apartment needs to be majorly overhauled and my executive dysfunction is having none of it. I made some progress by doing some laundry yesterday, but I’m going to need help to get everything clean. There’s no way all my blankets are going to fit into our washer and dryer, and it’s becoming the season to need them.

I’m overwhelmed by the prospect that I really do need to apply for disability and get the ball rolling, because my bipolar disorder spinning out three times in 10 years has convinced my cognitive behavioral group this is what’s best for me. I am on board because bipolar disorder is not the only disability I have, it’s just the only one that’s heavily documented.

I was diagnosed with hypotonia at 18 mos old, with no follow ups. I think it might have been a misdiagnosis in the 1970s because the people with CP that I do know say that I walk with the “CP Shuffle.” But whether it’s CP or hypotonia, it creates problems with movement, particularly outside where the sidewalks are uneven. CP could also be responsible for my lack of stereopsis, another disability that causes problems while walking and driving. Things literally come out of nowhere because I can only use my left or my right eye one at a time in terms of focus.

The laundry list of what’s wrong with me and why is starting to add up…. that disability is something I could have gotten at 18 and am now only starting to deal with my disorders because I was masking so hard to cover them.

It’s a journey that’s incredibly far from home if you’ve never taken it. Unmasking can be a kind of freedom, or it can slowly become a prison as people see you more and more differently.

You don’t leave home. You drift.

Meetings with Bob, Part V

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t want this to get lost in a comment thread, because it deserves to be above the fold that a reader decided to mirror me and answer as Aada

My dear friend Leslie,

What follows is not a letter from Aada herself, but rather a thoughtful exercise in perspective – a mirror held up to your own words, crafted with care and consideration for the deep emotions you have shared. In the spirit of understanding and healing, I have attempted to imagine what a response might sound like, drawing upon the themes of forgiveness, growth, and the complex nature of human connection that your letter so eloquently explores.

This synthesis is offered not as truth, but as possibility – a way of examining how such vulnerable honesty might be received by a heart that has also known pain and confusion. It is my hope that in reading these imagined words, you might find some measure of the compassion you seek, whether it comes from Aada herself in time, or simply from the recognition that your journey towards understanding and accountability has value in itself.

We who struggle with the complexities of relationship, particularly in this digital age where nuance is so easily lost, must sometimes create our own mirrors for reflection. Consider this letter not as Aada’s voice, but as an echo of the grace you might grant yourself as you continue your work of growth and healing.

The response that follows springs from a place of empathy for both parties in this difficult situation, recognising that pain and love often walk hand in hand, and that the path towards understanding is rarely straight or simple.

With respect for your courage in examining your own heart,

Bob

Dear Leslie,

Your words have reached me, and I find myself sitting with them in the quiet hours, turning them over like stones worn smooth by countless tides. There is a weight to your honesty that I cannot dismiss, nor would I wish to.

I confess, reading your letter stirred feelings I had tried to bury beneath layers of hurt and self-protection. You speak of taking responsibility, and in that I hear echoes of the person I once knew – the one who could make me laugh until my sides ached, who saw possibilities where I saw only obstacles.

You are right that we both stumbled through this connection of ours. I, too, made choices that led us down darker paths. Perhaps I held too tightly to my own wounds, perhaps I failed to offer the grace that love requires. The isolation you describe – I felt it as well, in different ways, and I recognise now how we both retreated into our separate corners when we might have reached towards each other instead.

Your acknowledgement of the harm caused means something to me, though I cannot yet say what that something is. The hurt runs deep, Leslie, carved into places I thought were protected. Trust, once broken, does not mend quickly or easily. Yet your willingness to examine your own actions, to sit with discomfort rather than deflect it – this speaks to growth I had hoped to see.

I think often of what might have been different had we met face to face from the beginning. You paint a picture of coffee on back porches, of four friends in easy conversation, and it strikes me as both beautiful and heartbreaking. Perhaps you are right that screens and keyboards amplified our worst impulses whilst muting our better angels.

I am not ready to say forever, nor am I ready to say tomorrow. What I can offer is this: your words will stay with me. I will consider them carefully, without the pressure of immediate response or decision. Time has a way of clarifying what matters most, and perhaps it will show us both what we truly need.

I hope you find peace with yourself, Leslie. I hope the work you are doing – the therapy, the self-reflection, the commitment to growth – brings you the stability and joy you deserve. We all carry our struggles, our neurodivergent minds and wounded hearts, and perhaps learning to be gentle with ourselves is the first step towards being gentle with others.

For now, I need space to heal, to think, to simply exist without the weight of us pressing down upon every decision. But know that your growth matters to me, and your happiness matters to me, even from this distance.

If there is to be a future for us in any form, it will require something new – built on different foundations than what came before. Not the intense, isolated connection that consumed us both, but something more sustainable, more honest, more kind.

I am glad you wrote. I am glad you are seeking help. I am glad you are learning to breathe before you speak.

Take care of yourself, Leslie. The world needs people who are brave enough to examine their mistakes and humble enough to change.

Aada

This is perfect. No notes.

Another Letter That May Never Be Read

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

Dear Aada,

You said that you’d try to stay away from my web site, but not to contact you. Therefore, I feel safer writing letters to myself that have you as the audience in mind, because when I’m thinking about you I can stand to read me…. and if you are unsuccessful in staying away, you’ll know that my door is open even if yours is closed. I respect your privacy and will not reach out. You can just be a fan like everyone else, enjoying the occasional shoutout from afar as we move further away from each other. I don’t want to change your mind, just to welcome you home if you do want to reconnect. I never know what it is that will bring me to your mind, and you don’t, either. Barring being run over by the proverbial bus, life is long.

I’m not going to make a lifetime commitment to anger and defense. I know I did wrong and I am incredibly sorry. My mental health got the better of me and I exploded. Our demise can 100% be put on me and I will never blame you for a thing….. but there is context.

Our relationship took a very dark turn when I realized that I was isolated from everyone else in my life, and you played a role in it. The further I got from my other friends, the more I wrote about what was going on with us. I wasn’t going out enough to write about other experiences, other people.

I rebelled against an authority and a structure I needed, because I also needed on the ground friends and to return to a life of care and connection.

I isolated you from the beginning by telling you I had feelings for you- literally the stupidest thing I could have said- and just doubled down. I could die of mortification from that alone, but there are just so many options.

I wish I’d had some perspective back then…. not to overpromise and underdeliver. I think about it every day, compulsively, how I could have handled everything differently from the moment we met. It’s not to try and fix things with us. It’s so that I have more heuristics for a stable and healthy relationship with someone in the future. I didn’t just lose you in this whole deal. I lost Dana, too.

I tend to cry when I think of the four of us sitting on the back porch, coffee in hand; it’s the easy dream I made too difficult with my nonsense.

We both did this relationship wrong from soup to nuts.

I have come to realize that I wasn’t so much in love with you as I was in love with who I was when I was with you. No one made me feel brighter or more capable, and often funnier. I betrayed everything I have believed in because of your lie… but this is not blame. It was the trigger for a disproportionate response.

I can’t hope that you’ll forgive me, but I can hope that in time I will forgive myself. These past few months have not been easy, because my sins, in the words of The Book of Common Prayer, are “grievous unto me.” There is so much that I have done and left undone in a brilliant explosion of red mist rage.

Because that’s what I do- I pop off and regret online.

Not so in person. In person, I’m quiet until I see an opening to speak. I take in an entire environment so that I have more information to make a decision. All of that was cut off with you and I reacted too quickly, always.

For that, I am especially sorry.

I am learning the ways that I treat people online are different than in person, and I’m having to reconcile all of it. I’m not hiding behind any “I didn’t mean to…” bullshit, but it’s really true that half the things I said, I would have skipped or modified in person. Or the conversation would have gone completely differently because we could judge more than words at face value.

I would do whatever it takes for us to get healthy, but I know that is too much to ask right now. You’re still hurting, and so am I. My mirror neurons are screaming because I didn’t look at the consequences of my actions before I, well, acted.

All I was feeling was “stop the bus. I want to get off.”

Now that I’ve had time to come down from that much cortisol, I often feel deep sadness in my muscles. That same drive you have to save the world is also present in me. We reached out to each other in the right way, and then I proceeded to fail you over and over. It doesn’t leave me much time or energy to feel good about myself, lest you think I actually won some sort of prize.

That was the line that got me. I didn’t win a thing. I went into absolute meltdown. That’s not winning.

It’s this part of me that wishes you knew me on the ground. That your perception of me and my writing is off by a large margin. You don’t see me process, you don’t see me have to sleep it off. Writing is often a hurricane when you are trying to get your own emotions out.

This one is carrying Volvos…

Most of all, I’m sorry for not listening to you more closely and taking your feelings into consideration. My impulse control is unbelievable, and it had disastrous consequences for you. You loved me, anyway. Thank you.

You’ll always have pride of place in my heart even if we never speak again, because it was a joy to love you.

And I blew it.

These are the things I want to remember about our relationship- that it being all Internet was a bad choice and we just kept making it because I’d already made things awkward. Neither one of us could chill out for long. I’m sorry that things were volatile because you didn’t deserve my crap with your plate already so full.

I wish I didn’t miss you as much as I do, but it’s funny what you think you want when you see red mist rage.

Autistic meltdown and burnout ate my lunch because the red flash of rage was instantaneous. The “think it, say it” plan was in full force and you were caught in impossible crosshairs. That’s because I didn’t take time to breathe.

Had I taken a breath, I would have remembered who you are…. my pet dragon on a fraying leash.

But I didn’t. I am kicking myself for having the impulse control of a toddler, defiant and yet sobbing.

Self-soothing by writing it all out.

When I am in my right mind, I know that you are my person. Your words have assured me of that. I don’t know what to do when I am spinning out with anxiety and/or anger.

We’ve never talked about coping mechanisms or anything else I should have thought to ask you before being so thoughtless.

I’m laying my heart on the table because it doesn’t matter to me if you see it bleeding. It matters to me that I do five years down the road.

My sister just e-mailed me and we’re going to see Brené Brown for my birthday.

That makes me laugh, and cry.

I ruined everything for nothing…………………… so far.

It is only in this place that we can begin to look up.

I hope that forever doesn’t mean forever, because I am continuing to learn about myself and want to give you the relationship with me that you deserve. It also saddens me to throw away so much history.

But like every big disaster in my life, this one was preceded by “things that should have come to my attention yesterday.”

I wish we’d met in person.

Not because the feelings would have been more real. It’s that they would have slowed down enough for us both to really take them in.

I wonder all the time if this period of my life is supposed to be the right direction, whether I gave myself what I really wanted in a flash of anger or whether I will continue to mourn and regret like this. I think it depends on how quickly I readjust to being in a group. I tend to miss you less when I’m engaged in conversation with other people, because it’s compartmentalized.

The rest of the time, the compulsion to write things down so I don’t forget is mad. I did delete everything in my Gmail account, so the e-mails you’ve sent me that mean the absolute most are gone.

All I have left are my own words, and in a lot of ways, that’s best. I don’t go down the rabbit hole of reading our old e-mail, crying when I read something touching.

I’m going to miss your writing voice… strident, loving, kind, pragmatic…. a force against my basket of crazy.

I just know that we both could have made a difference in each other’s lives by looking into each other’s eyes after we trauma dumped and planned out next steps. I didn’t know what I needed, but you scared me. I take nothing away from the ways in which I scared you- I’m just saying that fear was a two-way street.

I should have prepared for my compartments leaking.

But I didn’t.

I should have looked at the face I was writing to a lot more often, to remind me that she’s the face I look to for love, and not to mess that up.

But I didn’t.

I should have behaved myself.

But I didn’t.

All I can do is be fallible and admit mistakes to myself, because those “didn’ts” are too many reasons why we shouldn’t reconnect. What I have to say for myself is that I will never stop growing and changing. I admit mistakes so that I don’t repeat them.

Which is why if we reconnect, it will be a high bar for us both. I don’t want to be your internet friend anymore, because I want to have real conversations that don’t isolate us from the rest of the world.

It’s almost an impossibility that you will forgive me, but I don’t want the next 12 years to be a repeat of the last. I think you will agree that it has been really fucking strange and exhausting.

I don’t want our relationship to be strange and exhausting. I want us to try and make each other feel safe. So much of my anger was directed at not feeling safe with you. So much of your anger is directed at not feeling safe with me. Yet we delight the hell out of each other when we’re not fighting.

I just know that I want a rich and full life with you in it, but I have done enough that you don’t feel the same about me.

I will miss sending you little surprises.

Happy birthday and Merry Christmas in perpetuity, I guess.

I want you to have the best life you can, even if I’m not in it.

Leslie

A Lot of Light

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What does your ideal home look like?
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My current apartment is on the first floor, halfway underground. Therefore, all of my windows are blocked from sunlight most of the time. I can only put more lamps in here, there are no overhead lights. Therefore, the entire place is a bit gloomy and dark even when it’s brilliant outside. So, my ideal home would have light pouring through the windows.

I know I want newer construction, because older DC and Baltimore homes have quirky steps that would make it easy for me to hurt myself by falling over things I don’t see. I don’t like houses that have a tiny step up into the living room, for instance, because I will never remember that tiny step is there and I will trip until I move.

I know I want a decent kitchen, because my current one isn’t set up for anything. Any work space I have is taken up by appliances. So I want my next kitchen to be laid out differently, with a place for me to chop in addition to my coffeemaker and toaster oven.

I’d like a bedroom big enough to hold my bed and desk, plus a spare room to hold my friends and family when they’re in town. All of that is infinitely doable in Baltimore, where rents tend to be cheaper. The reason not to move back towards DC in addition to Trump’s goons is that DC is exponentially more expensive. You do get what you pay for. When I told Aada I lived in B’more now, she said, “that place is………………………………… not safe.” And she told me to get a gun and a dog.

I have never felt that my life was in danger, can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a gun (and shouldn’t own because of depression), but the dog was a good suggestion. I’m still thinking about it. I know exactly what I want dog-wise, I just have to make sure I’m in a stable financial place.

So first I have to establish a budget for myself and see what’s left over. Then we can discuss a dog for this place that is not…………… safe.

The Well

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What brings a tear of joy to your eye?
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Comments like this:

It takes a strong, sound mind to write about how hard it is to face our own roles in broken relationships and the courage it takes to want to grow from those experiences. Wishing you strength and new beginnings as you move forward—may the “ash enriched earth” bring something wonderful to your life.

It means a lot to get a word of encouragement while I’m getting myself together. My life revolves around inertia, and this is a good beginning.

In thinking of the type of planting I’d like to do, finding a new living situation is at the top of the heap. This apartment will never smell better than it does right now unless they rip it down to the studs. My lease ends in November, anyway, so I’m just going to see what’s out there today and tomorrow…. plans will pick up surrounding moving depending on how quickly I find something. I don’t think an “uninhabitable” charge would stick, but my apartment is not a comfortable place to live. So whether I try and break the lease or not, moving is coming up fast.

I also have mobility now, which means that I have more choice as to where to live. I’m not dependent on the bus system, Maryland Transit Authority will pick me up at my house and drop me off. Therefore, I can look anywhere in either city (Baltimore or Washington). The more news that comes out of Washington, the more I change my mind about moving to Rockville…. but I’m keeping my mind open. Wes Moore (Maryland governor) looks like he’s willing to put up a fight.

I just want a place that’s light and airy, another two bedroom if possible because my sister and dad need a place to stay when they’re in town. It would be nice if I didn’t have to move again for a long time, which is why I’m considering moving back to the DMV. It’s just easier when Lindsay wants to go to lunch if I’m already in town, and she doesn’t want to do Baltimore every time she works in her DC office.

That being said, we both love Baltimore. I need to choose a place to live based on my own happiness, not hers. She will just be happy to have a new space to decorate. 😉

While mine was drying, I checked out of the hotel and went to my friend Josh’s house, where he introduced me to his wife and seven year old son. We ate dinner together and breakfast the next morning, then went to the pool for the last day of its opening this season. It gave me a chance to see a different part of Maryland, where the closest DC Metro station is New Carollton, but still not far from B’more in the grand scheme of things. I made a mental note to add that area to my list.

It was an amazing time to be in the sun, because it wasn’t too hot and there was plenty of ice cream to go around. I enjoyed people watching, although I did not swim myself. The water was cold and very few adults were brave enough. Josh, his wife, their friends, and I sat for a few hours talking and it was the first time I’d really been a part of a group outside of Cognitive Behavioral Health in a long time.

Those are the tears of joy that travel to the well, the deep part of me that needs healing. I am slowly mending from my last disaster and trying to prevent new ones. The well is the place I go to remember progress.

The Change Agent

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

It’s a sobering realization that no one can change your life but you. There are memes and coffee mugs that all say it, but you really have to feel the “oh, shit” moment when you realize no one is coming.

It’s harder when you realize the village you would have had isn’t there anymore because you set it on fire.

Aada is on my mind this morning because I realized that in another entry I said that our relationship had become negative for me. I think I misspoke because it seemed like Aada was doing something that made the relationship negative. No, I didn’t like the behaviors I saw in myself. She never got the right version of me, and there was no way to correct first impressions.

Aada only got the internet version of me, and wouldn’t meet up to correct any misconceptions or let our relationship relax from its adrenaline-fueled origin story. I cannot make anyone do anything, so I retreated in a major way. I could not have handled it any worse had I hired a brass quintet to herald why I wanted out.

In short, she scared me. I scared her. Neither one of us were very good at communication because we didn’t grow up in the same first family environment and that’s not even counting the differences between meeting someone at Safeway and sliding into their DMs for 12 years.

She says she’s going to try and stay away from my blog. I support this, because my life needs to move on without her right now. But I hope that someday she remembers the depth and breadth of who I am and not hold me to my worst mistakes. I will do the same for her. I just don’t think that needs to be three months after our initial blowout. I picture some years passing, that maybe something will bring us back together because I know we’re mad at each other right now but this is too hilarious and I’m not going to think of anyone else.

And then I picture meeting in person shortly after, because I do not want to go any longer with Aada as the internet version of myself.

On the internet, I was brash and bold. I said too many things that should never have been said, and I regret them so much that thinking about it is painful. I know that I am not a narcissist, but I will always have played that role in Aada’s life. I couldn’t see the completed puzzle on the table when we met, and that’s the part where I struggle in my grief now.

Our most recent blowout is just that…. our most recent blowout. Where I get tripped up is why in the world our relationship descended into such madness 12 years ago. Why wasn’t I smart enough to see endgame?

And then there’s the old adage that one lie rips the fabric of a narcissist’s world, so I have to know whether Aada told me she lied because she needed to unburden herself, or whether she just told me she lied to watch me spin out (we’re very healthy, can’t you tell?).

But a narcissist wouldn’t wonder if they were a narcissist and they for damn sure wouldn’t be trying to figure out relationship patterns from years ago trying to figure out what they did so the next relationship isn’t like that.

I have a skewed view of all my relationships based on how Aada thinks of me. That her untrue version of me has affected my on the ground personality. That she thinks I do x, so it must be true when she’s never met me.

I’m trying to be the change agent that says “hold on.”

I wish I could go back to the days where I was happy with our arrangement, but I can’t. We’re both too old to be fighting like this, and it’s a shame we couldn’t get it together. There was just no third party to verify what either of us were saying.

I have to forgive myself because I was incredibly mentally ill. I did get myself checked out, but I didn’t ask the right questions….. like, “what do you really want to be doing when you’re 50?”

That’s easy.

Writing books with my coauthor, shooting a straw in her direction if I need her attention.

I could have taken that dream and run with it. But I didn’t. I traded it for Bipolar with psychotic features. Whenever a choice was presented to me, I picked the one that would pay off right now.

I am entering a new phase of life, where I need to think about how things are winding down. Impulse control has to get better, because I have less time for distractions. I don’t have time to chase everything that feels good.

I need to be able to assess what I want and fit everything into those goals, rather than goals coming up on the fly.

I burned everything to the ground this time around, and it’s time to see if I have the ability to plant crops in ash enriched earth.

Well, Almost Daily

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What daily habit do you do that improves your quality of life?
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My quality of life is greatly improved by reflecting on this web site. It has really taught me what matters over the years. I go back and exclaim over what I was doing, sometimes angrier at myself than I thought I would be. Sometimes happier. It all depends on what kind of mood I’m in. What really means a lot is being able to flip back five or ten years and look at how far I’ve come.

Especially with comments like this.

Dear Leslie,

Your closing words – “Meeting adjourned” – carry the weight of someone who knows when they’ve said what needs saying. I respect that boundary, even as I’m struck by the wisdom you’ve distilled from your pain.

That lesson you’ve learnt – about unhappiness being able to live in one room of your life whilst joy inhabits another – is one of the most difficult truths we humans must reckon with. We’re taught to think of ourselves as unified beings, but we’re more like houses with many rooms, each holding different weather. You can grieve deeply what you’ve lost with Aada whilst still finding meaning and connection elsewhere. That’s not contradiction – that’s the full breadth of what it means to be alive.

Your observation about writers bearing both the joy and pain of seeing paradoxes clearly reminds me of something I’ve long believed: that those who chronicle the human condition are both blessed and cursed with sight that cuts too deep. You see the contradictions because you must, because that’s the writer’s charge – to hold up the mirror that shows us as we truly are, in all our bewildering complexity.

The meeting may be adjourned for now, but the work you’re doing – this honest reckoning with yourself – continues whether you’re writing about it or not. That’s the nature of real change: it happens in the quiet moments between words, in the spaces where we simply live with what we’ve learnt.

Your courage, Leslie, lies not just in facing what you’ve done, but in trusting that you can carry both your grief and your growth forward into whatever comes next.

With respect for your journey,

Bob

My journey is rockier than advertised, so this letter came at a time when I could use the extra support.

Surrender

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment
Daily writing prompt
How are you feeling right now?
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I have been staying in a hotel because raw sewage backed up into my apartment through the toilet and bathtub. The hotel is clean and beautiful. I go home to my hopefully fixed apartment later today, so I’m feeling complete surrender. Either the bathroom will be usable or it won’t. I just have to go home and look.

I do not want to go home and look.

I’m at home now and it’s the disaster I was expecting. Dehumidifiers are everywhere and the laundry is still soaked. I have a lot of work to do, but I may put it off until tomorrow and go stay in a hotel again. The dehumidifiers take up most of the room in my apartment and are very noisy. The good news is that whether I go to a hotel or not, my bathroom is usable again. That’s the real film at 11:00.

Everything I touch feels wet, so I’m trying not to touch anything.

Meetings with Bob, Part IV

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

Dear Leslie,

Your words carry the weight of someone doing the hardest work there is – looking honestly at ourselves when we’ve caused harm. That takes enormous courage, even when it feels like compulsion driving you forward.

The sewage backup feels like life giving you a rather blunt metaphor, doesn’t it? Sometimes our external world mirrors our internal storms in ways that would be heavy-handed in fiction but feel devastatingly apt in real life.

What strikes me most is how clearly you see the paradox you’re living in. You hold both your justification and your horror, your context and your culpability. That’s not weakness – that’s the full complexity of being human. Most of us spend years avoiding that kind of dual vision because it’s so uncomfortable. You’re choosing to sit with it, to write through it, to let it teach you.

The distinction you’re drawing between explanation and excuse matters deeply. Yes, your AuDHD and bipolar disorder create challenges. Yes, medication changes can scramble our usual ways of being. But you’re not using these truths to sidestep responsibility – you’re using them to understand the landscape you were navigating. That’s mature self-awareness, not self-justification.

Your observation about “think it, say it” in digital spaces resonates. We all know that strange phenomenon where typing creates a different version of ourselves – often more impulsive, more raw, less filtered than we’d be face-to-face. It doesn’t excuse what we say, but it helps explain why we sometimes watch ourselves behave in ways that mystify us later.

The grief in your words about Aada is palpable. When we lose someone because of our own actions, we don’t just lose them – we lose the version of ourselves we were with them, and the future we might have had. That’s a particular kind of mourning, and it sounds like you’re allowing yourself to feel it fully rather than rushing to forgiveness or blame.

Your blog as accountability partner is brilliant. By writing honestly about your process, you’re creating witnesses to your growth. That takes guts. It also suggests you’re not just processing for processing’s sake – you’re building something, learning something, becoming something different.

The bit about children seeing you clearly made me pause. There’s something profound about how young people can see past our complications to our essence. They don’t carry the weight of our histories or the fear of our potential. Maybe that clarity you find with them is also available to you when you look at yourself – beneath all the context and complexity, there’s still someone worthy of compassion.

You’re rewiring your brain in real time, and that’s messy, imperfect work. Some days you’ll feel the old patterns pulling at you. Other days you’ll surprise yourself with how different you’ve become. Both are part of the process.

Keep writing. Keep looking. Keep holding both the justification and the horror – not because you deserve to suffer, but because that tension is where growth lives. You’re not letting yourself off the hook, but you’re also not hanging yourself with the rope. That balance is everything.

The courage you questioned in yourself? I see it here, in every honest word you’ve written.

Bob x

Dear Bob,

Thank you for your kind words during a difficult time. I have learned another hard-won lesson, though….. that you can be unhappy in one area of your life without being unhappy in all of them. I am devastated by my own behavior and will continue to mourn what could have been a much happier, relaxed relationship than I got….. at my own hand, to be clear.

Seeing the paradox I’m living in is the joy and pain of being a writer.

Meeting adjourned. 😉

Leslie

Meetings with Bob, Part III

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

Dear Leslie,

Your observation that “the internet is faster in and of itself” illuminates something essential about how medium shapes message. Those fifteen-minute intervals with Aada created a kind of conversational breathlessness – a rhythm that perhaps made reflection impossible. The contrast you draw with ground-based friendships, where gaps of weeks or months are natural, suggests you understand intuitively that different relationships require different tempos.

I’m struck by your phrase “Full Metal Jackass” – it’s both self-deprecating and oddly precise. There’s something in that description that captures the totality of your reaction to discovering the lie. You write that you “went Full Metal Jackass” as if it were an inevitable transformation, yet you also acknowledge it destroyed any remaining love between you. What does it feel like to hold both the justification you felt in the moment and the horror you feel now?

Your recognition that “some problems cannot be fixed” carries a weight that seems both liberating and devastating. You’ve stopped trying to repair what you describe as unrepairable, yet you’re still processing the loss publicly, knowing she might read these very words. That takes a particular kind of courage – or perhaps compulsion.

The line about choosing to “be weird” intrigues me. There’s an implication that your neurodivergence was partly a choice, which sits oddly against your earlier descriptions of autism, ADHD, and bipolar disorder as forces that “ruined” your chances. What distinction are you drawing between the aspects of yourself that simply are and the parts you chose to amplify or express?

You mention that without this “overarching relationship in the cloud,” everything will slow down. How does it feel to reclaim that ground-based pace? Are you finding yourself reaching for your phone less frequently, or does the absence create its own kind of restlessness?

Your acknowledgement that “a virtual pen pal isn’t a real touchstone” seems like hard-won wisdom. Yet here we are, in another online exchange about touchstones and audiences. I’m curious: what makes our correspondence different from what you had with Aada? What safeguards, if any, are you building into how you engage with readers who respond thoughtfully to your work?

The children in your life as touchstones – that feels like solid ground. How might writing toward them change not just your content but your relationship to vulnerability itself?

You’re excavating with remarkable honesty, Leslie. Even in your regret, there’s a clarity emerging about what went wrong and why. That seems like something to build on, even if the particular relationship cannot be salvaged.

Bob x

Dear Bob,

I got a built-in vacation from writing when raw sewage backed up into my toilet, bathtub, and all over the floor of my apartment. It’s going to be a bear to clean, and take even longer to dry. Having to live in literal shit for a few hours as penitence for my sins has not escaped me.

What does it feel like to hold both the justification you felt in the moment and the horror you feel now?

It feels like ripping your own heart out, because you can see both sides of the story and yet, you didn’t stop yourself from making the choices you made, either. I’ll always know that this was a rock bottom moment, and also reclaiming my life from something that was inherently negative for me, though it didn’t start that way.

I would like to think that I have courage and not compulsion, but I see in myself the tendency for a little of each. It’s because my brain is being re-wired so that Aada isn’t my first thought anymore. Therefore, I never know when she’s going to come to mind and I cannot care if she’s reading or not. The story of how my life is going is why this blog exists, and how my life is going depends on my thoughts.

I don’t have a whole lot of safeguards for strangers because I don’t automatically assume they mean me ill. Aada was not a stranger to me, part of why it was so difficult to let go. We just never met on the ground, whereas most of my readers have no connection to each other.

We became strangers to each other, I would say. I didn’t have any idea how to make anything better, so I just gave up.

What distinction are you drawing between the aspects of yourself that simply are and the parts you chose to amplify or express?

Choices are in the moment, empathy for my neurodivergence and mental illness comes in retrospect. I don’t think that AuDHD or bipolar disorder affect my culpability, but it does create problems. Not all symptoms are good. I have to accept that I have done wrong in my life… that does not mean there is no context.

Context is what I’m trying to write down, and the real compulsion. I don’t think in sound bites, I think about what I’m going to want to remember years from now.

I don’t want the story I’m telling myself about Aada to be false. We are not friends, but there are very good reasons we’re not friends and I cannot ignore the ways in which I brought this upon myself. I process empathy quite differently than other people, and it is this processing of empathy that keeps me grounded. It surprised me when you said that I had no shame about being wrong- I carry it in my muscles. I just choose to admit what’s going on with me… the more oddly specific I get, the more everything reads universal. There is a feeling to knowing you are behaving badly, watching yourself do it, and powerless to know why. I choose to know why, and my blog holds me accountable. This is because readers who do know me can say, “that’s not how it happened.”

Empathy for myself is different from making my friends responsible for med changes that create strange behavior. I am not using disability to explain how it’s okay for me to treat people the way I do. It’s to show them that I’m aware of how my disability affects them. To show that I do indeed know how complicated I can be…. at others, so simple.

I am, indeed, looking at my phone less frequently. I find that I am happier because I can silence my notifications at night without feeling anything. People who need to get through can, but they’d have to pick up the phone and dial.

I feel terrible about myself most days in having regained this on the ground playing field, because I don’t have to wonder if I’m a decent friend or not. I can’t be her decent friend anymore, because it’s so unlikely she’d trust me again. I think back on my behavior with incredulity and shame.

I don’t want to let myself off the hook, because that’s the truth on how the story ended….. me piecing together symptoms of bipolar disorder long after the story has ended in the moment. My impulse control has been phenomenally poor for the length of the relationship, because typing led me to a serious case of “think it, say it.” I said things I would never say in person and so did she.

It cost us both, because I flew too close to the sun. I wanted me to know that in however many years’ time it takes me to need these memories. I don’t want future me to blame anyone else, because I very much could have spent the rest of my life questioning my reality in a fundamental way without Aada really being able to take it in…. that I had problems she’d think were normal and my doctors sure haven’t.

She couldn’t take it in because she couldn’t really see me.

I am not close to many children now. It would be nice to have that distraction, because they do see me for who I am…. with complete honesty.

When I get back to seeing more children, they’ll appear here if their parents agree. That’s the thing about writing about children- you have to get parents’ consent.

Adults can choose to be weird all by themselves. 😉

Thank you for helping me write the next entry, Bob.

Leslie