I am not doing anything this evening because I didn’t plan for it. No one has said that they want to take me anyplace on a Wednesday. But Aaron is coming over this weekend and I’m going to visit my family at the end of the month. My birthday celebrations are planned, just not on my official day.
That seems to be the way every year as adults are busy during the week. I have spent my birthdays as an adult alone most years, with parties planned for the surrounding weekends. The best I got today was a free drink from Starbucks, which I ended up paying for because I was locked out of the app and couldn’t get it to work to claim my birthday drink. I’ll fiddle with it and go to Starbucks again this afternoon.
I’m hoping that I get some Starbucks birthday money, because that’s how I fund my coffee the rest of the year. 😛 Bags of beans are quite economical as birthday presents, and I usually get a mug to commemorate the day. It makes me happy to buy something tangible because the beans will get used quickly. I like Komodo Dragon almost as much as Cafe Bustelo.
The drink I got, in case you’re curious, was a venti no whip mocha frapp with two shots of espresso. It was the perfect pick-me-up for all I have to do today. This mostly involves putting on the gangsta rap and getting it handled, and by that I mean laundry.
I think someone who has so many red flags of their own has no room to say what red flags they will or will not accept. I hurt one of my best friends because I was angry in a moment, and have regretted hurting her ever since. My red flag is impulse control, because I was not the loving friend I needed to be at the moment she needed it. The feelings of regret this has stirred has made me reticent to say that there’s anything about anyone that I don’t like in other people because people have to tolerate so many red flags with me that I cannot predict.
I’m not going to sit here and pick apart others when my energy is best served by thinking about what kind of person I want to be, developing coping mechanisms for anger so that lack of impulse control isn’t dangerous.
That’s the thing about red flags…… you can’t change a single one unless it’s yours.
In order to fit me, my ideal week would still have long swaths of writing time built into it. I wouldn’t heighten it by going out in a way that interrupts my flow. I like being introspective and contemplative, because it makes my days monastic. I prefer pure signal vs. noise, and I will go to great lengths to get it.
On Monday, I’d walk to a coffee shop to load up on caffeine, then sweat at the gym. It’s an ideal week, so not only do I remember to do this on Monday, but every morning. In fact, it’s almost 0700 and I think a trip to the gym sounds nice.
Lanagan, it’s Tuesday.
Better late than never.
Because of course now that I’m thinking about what my ideal week looks like, I’m trying to create it. I really don’t think I will have an ideal week in this apartment, because yesterday was filled with service maintenance workers filing in and out all day. Luckily, everyone was nice to me, but I just felt in the way. So maybe this didn’t start out as the ideal week, but tomorrow is my birthday.
So far, I don’t have any plans except being at home. My birthday party is really dinner with my family when I go to Texas. I don’t leave for that until the 27th. So my actual birthday will likely be quiet. I should go to Starbucks and make sure I get my birthday drink, but other than that I’m good.
It really doesn’t take much to make things ideal for me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My mother had already named me Amanda Jane. She called me AJ for months until she went to a church service and the organist was listed as “Leslie Diane.” All this AJ business was done for her. Now that I know I was called AJ and missed that chance, I like its nonbinary nature, but I do not like the name Amanda. So, things worked out the way I needed them to work out. I wouldn’t want a lifetime of saying that AJ doesn’t stand for anything, not having any proclivities toward Jane, either.
I’m named after a complete stranger, so there’s no cute story of my namesake except that it just looked pretty in print.
I like my name ok, because Leslie is a nonbinary choice. There are plenty of men named Leslie in the UK, so I don’t feel like I need to change my name to something else. It already has both male and female characteristics.
I have heard mixed reviews on what it means. Some say it means “quiet spirit,” some say it means “one from the grey fortress.” Judging from the way my spirit jumps around when I’m alone, I’m leaning toward my namesakes being warriors somewhere in Scotland, because Leslie is actually a surname there.
I am lucky in that I have a Scottish tartan for my first name and and Irish tartan for my last name.
Lanagan is distinctly Irish and I get it from my father’s side. There’s Scottish blood on my mother’s side somewhere, but I don’t remember who is kin to who over there. My grandfathers were both into genealogy, but I’m not. I remember a few stories from my father’s father about how we came to this country, but my other grandfather was not quite as forthcoming because he was not a writer. My father’s father published a book in several volumes called “The Lanagan Century” that cemented those stories in my mind in a way that my other grandfather couldn’t.
It was my grandfather’s version of a blog, in retrospect.
So maybe even though my name was a fluke, I certainly ended up in the right family.
Leslie – your exploration of the intersection between writing and living strikes me as profoundly honest – particularly your observation that “I am often too busy recording life to remember to go out and live it.” This captures something essential about the writer’s paradox that I don’t think gets discussed enough.
The way you’ve woven together your mental health journey with your writing practice feels incredibly brave. When you write, “My only support system has been writing,” it illuminates how the very thing that sustains you can also become isolating. There’s something both beautiful and heartbreaking about finding solace in words whilst struggling with whether the relationships they document are real.
Your question about Aada – whether she’s real or hallucination – opens up fascinating territory about the nature of online relationships and how we validate our experiences. “I just wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t hallucinating… because I had someone to talk to who could empathise” speaks to a very human need for connection and verification of our reality.
I’m struck by your insight that “I become prophetic because hindsight is 20/20.” This suggests you understand that your writing serves as both document and mirror – allowing you to trace patterns and growth over time. It makes me wonder: when you look back at your earlier entries about Aada, what patterns do you notice now that weren’t visible whilst you were living through it?
Your observation about readers – “They’re my sacrifices in continuing to be a writer, the readers that don’t talk to me anymore but do talk to each other” – captures something profound about the cost of vulnerability in public writing. You’ve created this space where people can witness your humanity, but that witnessing comes with complications.
The tension you describe between needing grace for changing your mind versus being seen as “two-faced” feels particularly relevant in our current moment. How do you navigate continuing to write authentically whilst protecting yourself from that push-pull dynamic you mention?
Your closing line – “Because remember when I used to write so beautifully?” – suggests you’re questioning your current work, but honestly, this piece demonstrates the same raw honesty and insight that presumably drew people to your earlier writing. Perhaps what’s changed isn’t the quality, but your relationship with the act of writing itself?
What would it look like to write without an audience – even temporarily – just to reconnect with the intimacy you describe having with your word processor?
Bob
This comment is so far-reaching that I’m not sure what to say in response. I would say that it helps to have one person in mind when I’m writing an essay, because what resonates with one will resonate with a thousand at this scale. It also helps me not to feel alone in the room as I write, because I’m talking to the person in my head, not thousands of people at once. When I am not thinking of my audience, my emotions fall flat. I used to do the same thing in preaching- look out for the people I was thinking of when I wrote that line just to see if they thought it was as funny in reality as it was when I was working on the sermon.
You don’t connect with an audience. You connect with some of them because taking on the entire room is overwhelming. You just need touchstones.
Aada was my touchstone, the reader I looked for to make sure I was doing all right. I didn’t care what anyone else thought because her opinion was enough. I pushed her away, so she won’t be doing that anymore. I regret it, but there’s no way to go back and undo what I’ve done.
My blog is often a manual on “What Not to Do” because I guarantee that I thought I was right when I wasn’t. Now that time has passed, I see that I was a self-centered jerk. Of course the patterns I see with Aada are ways I’ve behaved that hurt her, because I was overfocused on my own needs.
She didn’t make me feel safe, so I wouldn’t return the favor. I should have, but I didn’t. She threw me into the pile of people she doesn’t trust because there’s no rebuilding from here. My emotions got in the way of my logic, and I didn’t do the right thing.
Neither did she.
So now she slowly slips away in my mind to make room for new people to be touchstones in my audience. I am a work in progress, and have realized that my communication skills are merely compensatory. I work best in reaction to someone else. The reason Aada and I worked well together is that I think she’s the smartest person in the entire world, and for some reason she thought I was, too. The nature of online relationships is ethereal, which led both of us to disconnect from our humanity on many occasions. Validating my experience was very difficult because I did not have anyone to talk to about it, because our connection was always avoidant/anxious….. with me being the anxious one.
It makes me wonder: when you look back at your earlier entries about Aada, what patterns do you notice now that weren’t visible whilst you were living through it?
I jumped up and down for attention because my needs weren’t being met, all while blissfully aware of the problems I caused in our relationship that would make it unusual. I really messed up, and I’ll never forgive myself. I can only hope that there’s a few things on Aada’s side that she’ll never forgive herself for, either, because that’s the only path that will make either of us try again in the future. After all, if she lied to impress me, I know I impressed her at least once.
I chose to make her number one on the call sheet because I thought I was writing anonymously. That no one could make the leap between Aada and “Her Real Name Here.” That led me to say some things that Aada certainly wouldn’t have want broadcast and it’s just more regret to add onto the pile.
I know why I was so keyed up on adrenaline, but she didn’t seem to understand until a few months ago. That was definitely a breakthrough, getting her to understand that I went through something pretty universal in spite of it being unusual.
I would give anything for a do-over of the past 12 years, because I had a solid goal in mind for this time in my life and I sabotaged it at every turn. I didn’t listen to Aada, and I didn’t listen to my own fears as she tried to work with them.
Being able to read Aada’s words months later give me empathy for her, reflecting on how she must think of me. I really did act like a shit friend because I was so tired of my bipolar disorder getting blamed for a lot of things that were emotional.
She blamed me for being emotional.
It’s no wonder that I thought I wouldn’t be enough in person. She’d treated me like a goddess when we first met, and I didn’t know what to do with that pedestal. I just returned the favor, a complete mutual admiration society. But once she was my actual friend, she didn’t realize that meant she would appear in my musings about what’s going on in my life.
I treasure the entries where she told me I did a good job, and choose not to remember the ones she hated.
She was always halfway out the door, so I decided to close it.
Again, I regret doing so because I cut off a future. I just didn’t see the future going better than the past. I will never know what would have happened if I’d relaxed. Maybe those baby steps would have materialized into something. She just had to get a lie off her chest first, and I imploded.
What motivates me is connecting to strangers, especially ones that ask probing questions. I’m not sure that I have answered any of them, but in short, recognizing the pattern with Aada was recognizing all the ways I’d been a jerk to her without taking the time to really think about what I was saying. I was too quick, always. It didn’t matter the reaction, it was too fast to take in.
This is what it looks like when I have switched the audience to Bob.
I tend to remember movies by good quotes, so here are my 10 movies with the quote that got them here:
Raising Arizona….. “Sometimes I get the menstrual cramps real hard.”
Trading Places…. “It ain’t cool to be no jive turkey this close to Thanksgiving.”
Argo…. “I should have brought some books for prison.” “Oh, they’ll kill you long before prison.”
Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail…. “It’s only a model.”
Rounders… “Life is on the line. The rest is just waiting.”
The Three Amigos…. “We could go on a walk and you could kiss me on the veranda.” “Lips would be fine.”
Monty Python’s Life of Brian… “I should know whether he’s the Messiah. I’ve followed quite a few.”
The Bourne Supremacy….. “you look tired, Pam.”
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle…. “just talk to her once and it won’t be weird anymore.”
Deadpool- too many to name because I quote it like I quoted Grail in high school. The most frequent is “he had the right idea. He wore the brown pants.”
Stories That Are All True 