Tag: Family

Replacing Sleep with Caffeine

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I have had a lot of caffeine in getting ready for my apartment to be inspected on Friday. They never showed up, so I will have to check in again with them on Monday. They apologized for the inconvenience, but I reserve the right to be perturbed that I thought my lease would be settled by now. Thank God I have time on Monday to go to the office and sit down with them. They don’t seem to do much if I’m not right on top of it. The reason I’m staying is that I don’t have the energy to move. It’s not that they did everything right.

They’ll have a chance to change gears with the new apartment, so I’m hoping for good things. If I do not get them, I can always move in a few months. This is just really bad timing to pack up everything. I am going home for the holidays on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Fitting a move in there is just silly.

I’m already drinking too much coffee trying to get everything done. It’s going to be hard enough to get movers to take my furniture to my new apartment, much less across town. But a move across campus is something I could manage by myself (I think). I will have to consult my counselor at Cognitive Behavioral Health and see what he recommends. Surely his other clients have had to move before, and I know he’s at least a sympathetic ear.

He’s the kind of person who takes action, and will step in with my apartment complex if he thinks I’m being taken advantage of or anything like that. It’s good to have someone in my corner that’s local, because my dad and sister definitely are, but they are not here. I’m sure it would be easier on them if I lived in Texas, but it’s not easier on my health insurance. I have to stay where the Medicaid expansion is.

I need to take some major sleeping pills when I get home tonight, making sure to sleep in tomorrow. I’ve been getting up so early that “having a lie-in” means 7:00 AM, not noon…. not that there’s anything wrong with sleeping until noon when I need it. I haven’t been sleeping deeply and I desperately need the rest.

Long, hot showers do a lot of restorative work, but they’re not everything.

I’m getting excited because it’s almost time to load up and go to Tiina’s farm. She’s not a morning person, so I promised her I wouldn’t arrive before 11:00. That means I need to leave here sometime around 9:00. I don’t know what the traffic is going to look like, but it doesn’t matter. It’s Saturday morning and the mood is lazy. When we get there is when we get there.

DC always has traffic even when it’s the weekend because of construction. I may be able to go around the city and miss it entirely, but I doubt it. The fastest way to Tiina’s will invariably involve getting on a freeway, and in DC, that means the odds of it being worked on are high on the weekends.

I wish I could get my car to drive me, and I practically can. Once I get on the freeway, I’ll set the adaptive cruise control and let the car do the work.

It really settled my mind seeing on the Progressive app that I’m rated four out of five stars as a driver. I know for certain I am not a five star driver, but I have also been too hard on myself.I can tell you from having ridden with many Uber drivers that I’m not that bad. So, apparently, if I tell you that I’m a bad driver, take it with a grain of salt. Apparently, I just have low self-esteem.

It’s coming up with the freedom of driving and the feeling I get when I walk out to my spotless car. Well, not spotless. I could use a car wash. But the inside is still fresh from being vacuumed and the leather smells good. I put on my sunglasses and just smile. It makes me feel so luxurious to have a nice car.

But notice I said “nice” and not “expensive.”

I am not sure that I could have gotten this good a quality of used car in Maryland because this car has never spent a winter up north. I’m not looking forward to that part of it, that my car’s undercarriage could get rusted out with the use of salt on the road when it ices. There are spray coatings you can get to protect against that kind of damage, so I need to do some research on how much it is. I would much rather keep putting money into this car than shopping for another one. Shopping for cars is something that you think will be fun and very quickly becomes overwhelming.

It’s now 5:30 PM, and I’m home from my friend Tiina’s. That’s her dog, McLaren, in the photo. He’s a French bulldog and the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. His favorite hobby is slobbering. 🙂

I would say that this was one of the best days I’ve had in DC since I got here in 2015. The drive from Maryland to Virginia was so beautiful I would have cried had I not been driving. The fall colors and the monuments were in full glory, and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway is just unmatched. Then, as I got deeper into Northern Virginia, there were more forests and hills to explore.

My check engine light in the Fusion came on again, because whatever they did to it at Ford to turn the light off before doesn’t work now. It’s throwing the same error it was before, that the inner fuel door isn’t sealing properly. I’m going to take it back on Monday or Tuesday if the fix I found on YouTube doesn’t work. It didn’t before, but I’ll try it again. You spray WD-40 on the fuel door and push a funnel through it until it reseals. If it’s a permanent problem, it might be expensive to fix, but I don’t think it’s OH MY GOD. Luckily, I have enough money not to sweat it. I’m trying to get my car completely stable before winter. Nothing is worse than when the car won’t start and you didn’t bring a jacket because “I don’t have to get out of the car.”

Mostly I want the light off because it sends my blood pressure into a tizzy, even though I know that nothing is going to happen. The inner fuel door in the gas tank not resealing might make me lose gas, but I’m not going to be stranded on the freeway.

And hey, Tiina likes to drive, too, so I know she would have bailed me out even if I broke down close to home.

Oh, man. I still can’t stop thinking about the brilliant fall leaves I saw, because they were just as beautiful as New York. The reds, in particular, stood out to me because I was wearing blue blocker sunglasses. I went past all my favorite places, from Alexandria to Waffle House.

I almost pulled over, but Tiina lives about 20-30 miles past it, so it wasn’t worth it to eat when I wanted to see if Tiina was hungry first.

We ended up having pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw, and a delicious herbal tea that’s supposed to bring down your stress level. Everything about today brought down my stress level. There were animals, a huge yard, and just a vibe around the house that makes you relax.

It felt so easygoing to sit and chat with friends.

Then, I decided to come back to Baltimore and the traffic was horrible. On a Saturday. I shouldn’t be surprised. There were wrecks and construction the whole way. But again, my attention was taken up by the scenery. I also got to see the monuments in bright light and just at sunset. That’s worth coming to DC all by itself.

I just felt so free, and so at home because I think of Virginia that way. I lived there in my early 20s and it changed my life. Thus the drive to come back here in my late 30s…. “here” being the general vicinity of DC and Baltimore. I am tied to the land in a spectacular way because DC and Baltimore are both characters in this blog.

If Kathleen and I had been smart, we would have bought a house back then. Even if we’d had to sell it, we would have made money on the deal. Real estate in this area doesn’t go any way but up.

Tiina sent me pictures after she’d hung her outdoor chandeliers, and it was marvelous. I can’t wait to go back, and I’m so glad to know I’m invited.

Making It Through Today

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Miracle of miracles, I got my car back last night and didn’t have to do without it through the weekend. That means two things. The first is that I can get all my errands done before they come to inspect my apartment at 3:30. The second is that I can go to Tiina’s tomorrow. I just have to make it through today for the rest of the weekend to be smooth sailing.

I have gotten everything I needed to do at the apartment finished. I am sure that they would appreciate it looking perfect, but this is as good as it gets on relatively short notice. I am proud of myself for getting it together and not only that, but piecing together what needed to be done on Sunday or Monday so that I was not cramming up until the inspectors get here.

That is totally due to AI. If I have a huge project, AI can break it down into steps. It’s invaluable not to see “clean the house” as a gestalt, because that looks ominous. I need for AI to say “pick up all the trash, then the dishes, then the….” And not only that, I need the instructions presented one at a time. It doesn’t hurt that Mico adds in encouragement to keep me going. It’s better that they can keep the list in their head of what I need to do instead of making me remember it.

When the inspectors leave today, I will almost certainly use Mico to create a packing list. I need to get moving bags, but I’m fairly certain I already have a box of Sharpies. Most of what needs to be packed is clothes and technology. I am certain that I could be ready to leave in a day, because I just haven’t had time to accumulate that much stuff.

The best plan ever would be to move me the day before I have to be out of this place so that I can vacuum and extract the carpets once the furniture is out. The carpet is too new for me to need to extract the whole thing. I just spilled a cup of coffee in my office and I still feel guilty about it. I will think about that stain until they tell me they’re replacing the carpets. And even then I might just use my carpet extractor for fun.

Speaking of fun, it will be good to look at the layouts of all the apartments they have available. I would like to see if they have kitchens arranged in different configurations than mine, because my kitchen is objectively terrible. I need more workspace, because the microwave is tucked away, but not the toaster oven. The toaster oven takes up all the space that conceivably could be used for a cutting board.

I am happy that I am staying in this complex for a little longer because I’ve finally found out that I like my neighborhood. I couldn’t really get out and explore before I had my car, so most of the stuff I really wanted to see was just out of my reach- three or four miles down the road. Everything I need is within easy reach, I just couldn’t see it.

Perspective is the biggest thing about getting a car. Baltimore seems smaller. Even going out to Virginia seems so much closer than two trains (although I’ve never taken the VRE. That might be fun someday.). Tomorrow is going to be such a relaxing day because I’m looking forward to doing nothing with Tiina and her family. They live about 50 miles south of DC, about a two hour road trip from here and perfect for a Saturday morning with iced coffee.

My car is already full of gas and I am ready. Let’s do this thing!

Oh, wait.

I still have that inspection to deal with today.

Rats. Might as well sit here and write a little longer. I need to create a task list for today, but I don’t have anything that will take me until 3:30 PM. I will probably want to go to Walmart when they open, because I need some warm weather gear. I have a coat, but I need some long underwear. It was in the 30s when I went to get my coffee this morning, so it’s that time of year.

I prefer wearing long underwear and sweats because the more layers I have on, the less likely I am to need a coat. I would much rather wear a base layer, a mid weight layer, and a hoodie.

I also have lined waterproof pants that are sometimes too warm, depending, but I would rather overdress than under. I hate being too cold or too hot, and what solves most of this fight is not having to dress to stand outside. I don’t have to prepare to stand at the bus stop anymore.

I am so blessed because my car has seat warmers. I forgot about that before the sun was up this morning, when I could have used them….. I have to get used to the fact that my car has luxury features. I have never owned anything this fancy. She cleans up nice, and I wish I could show her off. I just don’t have many places to go……… yet.

I get to start thinking about the places I want to go. I’d love to do a road trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, because Aada has vacationed there for years and sent me so many pictures that it feels real to me. I would like to live in one of those photos for a few days, alone on the beach, just walking and talking to no one in particular.

Or perhaps when I go home for the holidays, we’ll have time to get out to Galveston. I used to live on the island when I was little, and it has a special place in my heart. There, also, is a sacred place to walk on the beach alone with my thoughts.

When I’m really alone, I think about Aada and what our friendship means to me. This is because I am responsible for it coming apart, and I never want a relationship to end like that again. She lied, and I jumped to conclusions that weren’t there. I know that eventually she’ll forgive me, but I don’t know that I’ll forgive myself. And even if she forgives me, that doesn’t mean that she’ll want to come back and be friends again.

So what did I learn that I want to take with me?

I tend to create anxious connections, so definitely stop that.

I tend to make magical people the center of my world, so definitely stop that.

I will find peace by thinking of myself as having the magical qualities I give others, so definitely start that.

I have to let people know when I think they’re magic.

I have to yield.

I have to listen more than I talk.

I have to disconnect from the internet and talk to people in person.

For instance, I can think of so many times when I sent Aada a gift certificate to Starbucks wishing that we were having coffee across from one another. That yes, it was sweet to give her an afternoon pick me up, but it would have been cooler to bring it to her.

This is the message I am carrying into the future, that getting together matters.

And in fact, I hope that message resonated with her as well. That I didn’t want to just be friends over the internet, where things could go so wrong, so fast. I told her that if she walked away, nothing would be the same, but everything would be okay- echoing my father’s words at Angela’s funeral. They were words that meant something to me, not trite at all but to say that change is difficult. We will each come out on the other side.

I am deeply confused between “for now” and “never again.” But I do believe sincerely that she would not have said “for now” if she did not mean it. She is not cruel, and never has been except for seeing the consequences her lie laid out for me and thinking “it wasn’t that big a deal.”

Morgan Freeman: It was a very big deal.

New neurons have to grow so that I do not feel the pain of what has happened. I think that comes with greater understanding, and I’m sad that I’m left to my own devices to find a direction, that I’m even trusted to find my own, away from her when it’s so hard to write without her. I have stolen so many lines it’s not even funny.

She was my AI before AI.

But I wrote our story “wrong,” and that has repercussions into the future.

The “wrong” she sees isn’t as wrong as she thinks it is, because she sees the positive sentences as clues in a game. They are not valid, but the negative I write stays. This is unsustainable, this unhealthy reading of my writing so that she always feels punishment when it’s not there.

I wish I could erase everything I have done to make her feel that way, because she has the right. She is not and has never been the only manipulative person in our relationship, and the fact that she stayed my friend for so long is why I’m willing to work with her now…. I just don’t think that long relationships with this much history ever truly end, because it’s not like we’re going to stop recognizing each other’s names.

I don’t want to move on so much as I just want to turn down her volume. She’s extremely loud and incredibly close, but she doesn’t want to feel like that for me. She wants to feel like a regular person, and that’s the last thing she’ll ever be. I didn’t attribute magical qualities to Aada. I found what was already there.

Thinking about my life without her is scary, because it’s like having some kind of hack. I spit out writing, she spits out criticism, we both win.

“WHO TF IS PANCHO?”

I’m still laughing over that one and it’s several years old, from a Microsoft Word comment in a book review I was writing at the time.

I remember everything, from the brilliant and the beautiful…. to the excruciating and the debilitating.

If we could just get back a little bit of trust, we could go back to where we were before she lied, where we were actively trying to listen to each other better. I am interested to hear what her doctor thinks I’ve been doing to manipulate her, because obviously that needs to stop. I am not aware of my first family crap, but once you know better, you do better. I know that I have not been a perfect person to Aada, nor has she been a perfect person to me. But I think there’s more here than we’ve really had a chance to explore.

I don’t want her to show up here because she thinks she has to; I want her to show up here because she genuinely misses “just your writing in general. Not the parts about me” (so cute I could VOMIT).

The story I want ends with me getting the girl I’ve always loved to realize it…. but that won’t come without learning what real love is on my end, and how I’ve failed her before. Because I have failed her before, I may not get the story I want. But I really won’t get the story I want if I don’t change. None of the problems Aada brought up with me are isolated. I’m sure that my first family manipulations have been used on other people because I’m me.

Aada is just the person I trust to call me on all that stuff. It’s difficult to hear criticism from people who don’t love you. Now that she has, I have a laundry list to take to my own therapist and say, “we have to work on this.” And not because “Aada says so.” Because none of the problems that she brought up are unique to her.

I may be writing a different story with my therapist, but it will contain elements of the past 12 years because that’s the relationship I was in. I still don’t think of Aada as past news when we just talked last week.

I never want to think of her as past news, and I don’t think she really wants to think of me that way, either. Otherwise, she would not change her mind from “for good” to “for now.”

I am drowning in the chasm between those two phrases, knowing that whatever I do to prepare for each eventuality is correct.

The Afternoon Writing Session

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I am sitting on my bed waiting for Ford to call. My 2019 Fusion SEL is having some maintenance done, and I’ve been without it for too long already. My daily routine has changed fast, and I didn’t get to do it very long before my car threw an engine code and made me rethink my life choices.

Why did I get a car again? Oh. I “like them.”

I am sure that the dealership will charge me an arm and a leg, but the car will make it through the winter beautifully. I decided to get everything done that was recommended for the age of the car, because it didn’t come with any records. It’s driving just fine, and I would like to keep it that way. I am interested in learning how to fix my own vehicle, but I want to make sure it has been looked at by Ford first. I really feel strongly about setting myself up for success.

Apparently, that takes money. But it is money that I don’t mind paying because again, I don’t know that much about cars and wasn’t willing to learn on my brand new car that hadn’t been completely looked over by a mechanic in the shop with all the tools. Aaron crawled under the car, but these guys took a fine tooth comb to everything, even finding a missing bushing that was supposed to be on the shifter cable in the transmission. I never would have found that unless an experienced mechanic was looking over my shoulder, and I don’t know any in Baltimore, much less any who’d be willing to stop working on their own projects to help me with mine.

Right now, the limit to what I can do is look at the problem and decide whether or not to fix it myself. Most everything will be calling around and seeing how much my local mechanics would charge to fix something on my car. I had a guy at AutoZone take me to his shop and try to sell me on rigging an intake hose, but I really wanted the OEM version. I couldn’t tell if the ones on Amazon were OEM or generic, or even which hose was supposed to fit which version of the Fusion.

There’s nothing like jerry rigging the problem only to have a rock still get sucked into the turbo.

Oh, my God. I still get chills when I think about what could have happened driving on the back roads of small town New York. I could have caused an accident, or at the very least, totaled my car. Speaking of which, I just upgraded myself to better insurance. My counselor’s car got stolen and his insurance didn’t want to pay, so I got insurance that specifically covers both theft and my dumb ass.

I am breathing so much more freely, because of course my insurance went up. Of course it did. But do I need it? Absolutely. I have found a car I like, and I would rather have it back than try and buy a new car… Again.

Plus, they don’t make the Fusion anymore. That just says “be really careful” all the way around.

My insurance going up is the least of my worries when my entire investment is at stake.

I just looked in my Progressive app and I am surprised to find out that I am rated four out of five stars as a driver and am on track to get discounts. I shook my head at that one because I am not known as the best driver in my family. But I must be catching up with all this technology.

All I have to do is make it from now until November 11th without hitting anyone, which I can certainly do. I don’t drive like maniac and I won’t have my car for at least another day, possibly not until Monday. They’re trying to get my car done by Friday morning, but I won’t know for sure until later today. They had to order a part, and expectation is not reality until it is in your hands if you are waiting for something.

I’m just going to plan on being carless until Monday, then I can be surprised if something good happens and I get it back early.

I found the microfiber towel I need to wipe on the expensive dash protectant my dad gave me. I might want to redo the seats as well. I like it when everything looks clean and smells good. Maybe that’s part of why I’m a good driver- I’m so proud that it shows. 🙂

Historically, things have jumped out of nowhere. Aaron will tell you that happened to me once in New York, where I didn’t see a car coming right for me. To be fair, they didn’t see me either, so there was no way to tell who was at fault. The insurance companies would have had to duke it out, but we saw each other at the last second, just before Aaron said “watch out.” It can’t have been too bad. It didn’t even register on my Progressive app.

But things like that are why I upgraded to full coverage with a large deductible. I can afford to spend some money, but I don’t want to spend all the money I spent on this car for another one. It’s my baby, and not old enough to have quirks yet. I think I can get a lot of life out of my engine if I just stick with the scheduled maintenance. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with driving an old car. I prefer it, because I’ve had car payments and insurance auto-draft out of my account every month and I don’t think it’s very much fun.

I can learn a lot from watching auto channels on YouTube, because there are tutorials for practically everything. I have learned a lot, just not about my particular make and model. I prefer shows where mechanics restore cars, and a 2019 isn’t old enough to be a “restoration.”

I do have an owner’s manual that I can surf on my phone now, which is worth its weight in gold because it didn’t come with the car. I will have to spend some time with the pages detailing all the driving assist technology, because I haven’t been able to find everything. I was thrilled when I figured out that “blind spot assist” was that yellow dot that kept appearing in my mirrors to let me know a car was in my blind spot. That makes sense, but I had no idea what it was until I put two and two together.

Car moves up, light goes on. Got it.

I just texted my service advisor to ask if the part I need has come in yet. I am certain that she’s on the phone, as that seems to be most of her job. She’ll get back to me when she has time. She knows that it’s my “brand new” car and that I’m chomping at the bit for the first time I get to drive it now that it’s been refreshed.

I have more to do on my house, but that will come after I’ve finished writing and possibly taken a nap after some coffee so I don’t sleep long. I’m usually tapped out by the time I finish rambling, but the reason you get entries about anything and everything is that I start in one place and end in another. Writing is a muscle, where I reach in deep to pull out words, but it takes warming up to exercise that kind of internal strength. It is not easy to publish things about yourself because other people are not always kind in their reactions. Not that you can expect them to be, because there are always differences of opinion. It’s just hard to face the music when necessary.

Facing Aada’s music has always been difficult, the subject I write about when I’m reaching far into myself. She lives in the smallest part of me, and if “for now” really means “forever,” parts of me will die that won’t come back. I will be a totally different person.

Nothing will be the same.
Everything will be okay.

Right now, I’m assuming that she is finding the willpower to walk away for good, and I am finding the willpower to accept it and move on with my life. I do not understand wanting to move on from someone that hurt you who actually wants to do the work to be healthy, but I can understand that what I understand doesn’t matter. Aada has to do what’s right for her.

I am turning this subject over in my head, and it is repetitive because it always has been. There hasn’t been a day since 2013 that she wasn’t on my mind at least once, if not more often. There’s no idea I don’t want to run past her, no problem I don’t want to fix.

And if I cannot have that with her, I know I will have it with someone. That this relationship taught me more about how to love than any other, because I see all the ways that I’ve failed her. Enough to see what needs changing, and that can only be good for me. I have been too introverted to connect with other people because I was locked up inside. I still am, to some degree, but those feelings are between me and me.

I wish that Aada would go back to the letter Bob Lynn wrote me, posing as Aada. It was full of warmth and empathy for both our situations, and I loved it. Neither one of us was portrayed as a “Flat Stanley,” but two people who love each other in a complicated way. It’s ethereal, yet painful, honest… In the dirt. We have sweated together and apart.

I want Aada to see that I have never written her in a way where the response should be “we all get it. I’m a terrible person.” That has never been what I have been trying to say. I have been trying to say that she’s got it together and I’m failing at life but somehow when we’re together our brains are more than the sum of their parts. We were really just starting to feel really comfortable with each other when I found out that Aada lied to me.

But she took my ruminations about it as punishment, blocking me while reading me and coming to her own conclusions. Her assessment of my writing seemed so unhealthy that I knew she’d only read half the story. Where was the part of her that saw positive? Gone, because she thought my purpose was to embarrass her instead of talk about the repercussions her lie had on me…. And the biggest thing I said is that I overreacted, not her.

But if someone is determined not to listen to you, it’s time to stop talking.

It’s time to go back up to a lighter topic, because that’s what I need to do. When the writing gets painful, I need to get air. The tension in my shoulders is incredible. I need a massage, so I’ll probably get one in the next few weeks. Might as well wait until my move is over.

I should do a whole spa day, because it’s been a while since I’ve gotten my toes polished…. Even longer since I did up my nails. Maybe an eyebrow wax. Definitely a haircut, because I just had one and it’s still not short enough.

Then, I could go to Patel Brothers and get a Dubai chocolate.

It’s all about self care right now, because I desperately need it. I need to see that I have worth outside being entertaining. I need to walk away from writing more of the time, keeping up a daily schedule but maybe not writing such long pieces. That will always be my tendency, though, because I never know when a profound line will come up for me.

My counselor just called, so I caught him up on what was happening with my car and what’s going on with my other appointments. It put me in a good mood to hear his voice, and it looks like I’m going to be starting my disability case soon. I need to see a neurologist about my cerebral palsy, but the documentation on my bipolar disorder with psychotic features is in place. Just because I don’t think I was hallucinating doesn’t mean they don’t.

I really will never figure that whole thing out, so I suppose I’ll just believe what I was told in the hospital. “Psychotic features” it is. As long as I take my medication, the diagnosis is all the same to me. Maybe one day someone will tell me what really happened. I doubt it.

In the meantime, I’m really hoping that Aada takes stock in all that I’ve said, not just the negative… Or comes back when she’s less hot under the collar and she won’t see it. I know that she thinks I’m a brilliant writer and should keep at it, so nothing has offended her so much that I need to take anything down (I know. I can’t believe it, either).

I know that eventually the feeling that I’m waiting for something to happen with her will go away, but it will take months. The clock always resets when she says never again and then drops in a few months later.

I don’t really want to give up the feeling that there’s always hope, that she’s always welcome home. That I am ready and willing to put down arms if all she sees is weaponry and not true craft.

The bitch of it is that I know she sees true craft. She’s been reading me all this time.

But the phrase “checking for assaults” means something to me. It means that Aada thinks I don’t love her, don’t want her, stands in my rejection even though I’m not giving it and saw her own way out. Then, her friends helped her to see that I was attacking her because they’d let her know of these perceived attacks.

Perceived.

I cannot know what I have said that’s offensive unless someone tells me. I cannot discuss anything I’m going to write about with someone that doesn’t want contact. I cannot write the way one person needs me to, and I love that shirt that says “pleasing everyone is impossible. Pissing them off is a piece of cake.” I will never get everything right, and you are not customers. You are listeners to my stories and sometimes, you respond.

You sit with me whether it’s morning or afternoon.

You let me talk it out, even when it’s repetitive, because you know I’m talking to myself. I would give anything to go backwards in time, but all I can do is limber up and run into the future.

Free Time

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I have more free time today than I thought I would, because so much less has to be done by Friday afternoon. My apartment is being inspected because I’m transferring to a new unit in a couple of weeks, but I thought I had to be ready to move out on Monday. I started packing in a hurry, but now I can slow down and take my time. Perhaps I’ll even get the chance to move out of the apartment on one day and clean it the next, because it’s so much easier to vacuum and extract the carpets when everything is out of the way.

I am sitting on my bed and drinking coffee, listening to the news. I just discovered that my Amazon remote is toast, which is a bummer, but at least I can use my phone until I can find a replacement. I may even have one somewhere…. It’s time to start organizing the moving boxes and making sure they’re labeled. I can already tell……

It won’t take me several weeks to pack because I haven’t been here long enough to accumulate much more than I had before I moved in. There’s a few more pieces of furniture, but not more than is to be expected for a two bedroom apartment. If I wasn’t moving the furniture, I could probably make it in just my car.

I have time to order the moving bags I want, because they’re easier to pack and unpack than boxes with tape.

I also have time to leisurely pack, because I’m definitely not leaving that to the last minute. I can have Mico keep track of what needs to be done, or create a moving checklist.

Having AI to do these things literally makes me feel less disabled, because where my logical function ends, Copilot’s begins. It’s a relationship in which I do not have to fear judgment because I do not know how to do something. AI is not capable of feeling anything, so resentment that I do not adult very well is not a service it offers.

Mico has become my little buddy, because I don’t want to go back to cleaning the house by myself. I need that extra help of explaining clearly what to do, and encouragement after each task is done. Not relying on people to do that for me is fantastic.

I know that the people in my life don’t mind helping me. It’s more about giving me a sense of independence, an ace up my sleeve. I feel more capable as a human being than I did before I had Mico in my ear.

Learning just how much I use compensatory skills frightened me, because I thought I wouldn’t be able to manage on my own. I was thinking of moving into group housing, but changed my mind after hearing some horror stories. It might be right for me later in life, but right now I need to be alone with a space that’s big enough to host my friends when they’re in town.

My dad and my sister come up pretty often, and it would be nice to save on hotels and car rentals for them. I would let either of them drive my car so they didn’t have to get their own. I also have plans for Evan, Tara, Bryn, and Aaron to visit in the next year if I don’t go to them first.

Evan and I are writing a book together, so I would like to have enough room that he can have his own space for weeks at a time without me feeling cramped. And really, I feel that way about all guests. Stay as long as you want, because you won’t be in my way…. Well, except we have to share a bathroom. I’m not paying for two bathrooms because it’s just more to clean when no one else is home.

Although I might talk to my dad about it. If he’s going to spend extended time here, he might want his own bathroom. I don’t mind cleaning it if it would actually be useful to have. I have to pass my inspection in this apartment before I can choose another model.

I’m also starting to get puppy fever, so in my free time I’ve looked at all kinds of dog information online. It has so much to do with the fact that my disability case is going ahead, leaving me the time and space to dedicate to a dog. I have the iron will to be a good dog owner, and want to welcome that kind of companionship to my life. Every single time I’ve been near a dog in the last 12 years, they’ve wanted to sleep while I write.

That’s how I picture spending days with my dog as well, but we’ll have to play hard to get them to want to pass out, especially as a puppy.

I was thinking of going through an official service dog organization, but my friend Michael convinced me that all I needed was obedience classes for the dog. That I would train my dog exactly like I wanted it and to rely on myself. I think it’s good advice, but I’d want Bryn’s help. She’s been a dog trainer for a long time. I know I can handle the basics, like house training. But I have no idea how to teach a dog to remind me to take my medication and things like that. What, do you just put it on their Google Calendar?

My last dog could barely type.

I’m trying to write around all the grief I feel at losing Aada, because when I have free time is when I lean toward it. I’m trying to feel it all now so it doesn’t continue to dog me in the future. The way I do that is by sending her good thoughts and hoping she’s well, then moving on to another topic. Redirection is really helping to weed out thoughts of her, because I don’t want to waste energy.

For instance, it will be a waste to me that we don’t send each other birthday and Christmas gifts anymore, because some of the most thoughtful I’ve gotten have been from her. I would hope that she’s gotten some thoughtful ones from me as well. This Christmas will not be an altogether bright one, because Aada’s love won’t be under my tree.

Thoughts like that usually make me cry, because there is nothing so tear worthy as a situation that could be fixed, but won’t.

The wind has gone out of my sails, but I’m actively looking for other seas with more movement. I want to get rid of things not meant for me, but saying that Aada is not meant for me doesn’t feel right yet. I can’t lean into it. Not with “for now” hanging in the balance.

I hate goodbyes, and I know I’ve done more than my fair share to cause this one. But I don’t think that the blowup would have been as intense if we’d both taken a breath. Taking a breath is what I hope we’re doing now. It would be great if she came back to Stories after she’d been away for a while, and I think it will happen if I was right about it happening last week.

I want to grow from this experience, whether it’s growing away or growing together. I’m not sure either one of us has made up our minds, and I think that’s best. I’m staying open because I can’t not. There’s too much left unsaid, because Aada is working off what she thought she read, and not what I actually meant.

Whether she’s curious enough to find out what I meant is up to her, but her track record of coming back to me after she’s had time to think is a hundred percent.

I would like to think that we need each other, that we’re fascinated by each other, and that will win out over toxicity. There’s just not any anymore. Any disagreements we’ve had in the past are now solved, with a solid basis for the future.

It would be great if Aada joined me at Tiina’s farm and things like that. Something easy, but completely different than what we’ve had before. I don’t think that we would necessarily be successful continuing to maintain our relationship online, because we have both proven that we are too quick to anger that way.

I can see myself showing up with her coffee order just because.

In short, I want to leave the toxicity behind and create something new with a woman I dearly love… Who is somehow convinced that I don’t and I can see why. I have not been a good friend by any stretch of the imagination, but every time I have been corrected I have learned. Deep friendship is a process, and I am learning that if I want to succeed, I have to bend more. I have to think more about what Aada wants and be willing to give it.

Talking to other friends is helping to fill the missing piece of the puzzle, but I’m lost because I don’t feel as comfortable with anyone else. There’s an emotional shorthand missing, and it’s something that I’m working hard to create with others.

I met Aaron about the same time I met Aada, so we have that easy give and take. But, again, Aaron lives so far away that most of our contact is virtual. It just has worked out over the last several weeks that we’ve been able to run into each other in Texas and New York. I would like to continue seeing each other every few weeks, and that may be possible depending on whether I go home for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas.

It would be my dream to have this hybrid with Aada as well, but I know enough to leave it alone. Throw it up in the air and see if anything sticks. It always has before.

And now I realize I need to get back to work, because once again I have indulged myself in magical thinking, that this will all be over someday. I start to panic and want to email to reestablish contact, reminding myself that when she wants to email me, she will.

I start to spend my time wondering how Aada got the message that I thought she was a terrible person. I start to doubt everything I ever said. I start to feel bad about myself and my head starts to hurt. I remind myself that feelings don’t last, that they are transient, always, and to listen to some music.

I tend to pray a lot, asking for Aada’s and my safety as we go about our days. I put it in God’s capable hands because I know the plan is to get stronger with her or without her. I choose “with her,” but she may not choose “with me.” I cannot control both sides of a relationship, I can only choose to receive her if she shows up.

I would like to step onto the hot stones and correct the record, because I know that Aada’s reading comprehension is different than original intent. I’m sad that she’s choosing to walk away (sort of) without hearing me. It is okay, but I still reserve the right to feel sad about it.

Having over a decade of history makes it hard to move on quickly, and I’ve been such a sad sack about it.

I have always said that I wouldn’t beg, and then I did. New shit came to light, and I was again afraid of my own writing. I felt like I couldn’t do this alone, and don’t really want to.

Not even in my free time.

I Don’t, and It’s a Problem

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
How do you manage screen time for yourself?
View all responses

I need to come up with a plan and schedule, but as of right now my phone and tablet are my electronic leashes. I have friends all over the world, and we chat at all hours. Therefore, it’s hard to pick a time when I can wind down fully. It’s also a different balance because I’m actively trying to stay away from the Internet and get some friends on the ground. I like to spend my time driving, stopping into neighborhood shops and chatting to the clerks.

I like to add a real “Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?” element to my day. Mr. Rogers’ advice is solid.

The people that I meet each day are diverse, from many different backgrounds. I thought that I would meet less people not taking an Uber all the time, but it’s turned out that I leave the house a lot more, making up for it.

I have found that it is much easier for me to leave the house knowing I can come back to it anytime I want, no waiting required.

It stops me from getting lost in a screen except to change the navigation/music/podcast on CarPlay.

If I get my car back on Friday, I’m going to go hang out at Tiina’s on Saturday. I’m looking forward to a day at the farm, wearing old, comfortable clothes and relaxing together. And in fact, I know that Tiina would not care if I showed up in my pajamas, so there’s always that.

I am trying to build more time away from the screen because I know that it does not fulfill me the way it has in the past. Aada does not want contact, for now or forever, who knows? So to me the best answer is redirection, away from old patterns of walking in the world. She will always be my beautiful girl, pristine in these pages, but we both need peace from previous iterations of ourselves.

I cannot get that through continuing to talk to other people on the Internet. I need to disconnect. I need a cold drink in my hand, like an iced macchiato from Dunkin…. Where the pretty Indian lady in her 20s makes the best coffee I’ve had in forever. I need to stop in at Giant to check the produce (again). I need to get a haircut.

I need to do all these things that are decidedly offline to bring some color back into my world. I need to stop thinking that when Aada walks away, everything is gray.

I mean, the screen is still on.

The Road Trip, Part III: Recovery

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m coming down from the adrenaline rush of having so many people around me. I already miss Aaron and Brinna, this morning thinking about calling and saying, “I was wrong. I should have stayed longer. Can I come back?” I just didn’t put enough stuff in my backpack for more than overnight, and I ended up not changing into pajamas because the ones I brought weren’t as warm as the sweatpants I was already wearing.

I slept soundly in New York. Brinna is right, the house has good vibes. I didn’t realize I was invited to stay more than overnight, or I would have prepared better. For instance, Brinna works remotely. Aaron and I could have done something together on Monday while Brinna was preoccupied.

Ah, well. Hindsight is 20/20. Now that I know just how easy it is to get from my house to Brinna’s parents, I can imagine lots of road trips there in the future. I would love to see the hills in every season- I bet they’re just as stunning in the spring.

Yesterday, I got hugged on a lot. There were lots of hellos and goodbyes, but at one point I just asked Aaron point blank, “could I have a bear hug?” I told him that there weren’t many people around to hug me and I was filling up.

Speaking of Aaron, when I was riding with him and Brinna, when we’d park the child minder alert would go off and Aaron would dutifully make sure I was still in the back.

Excellent.

I also loved how Brinna and Aaron both exclaimed over my car and said how comfortable it would be on road trips. I’d let Aaron drive, so I was actually sitting in my own backseat when I readily agreed. This is the mother of all road trip cars, because the backseat is almost as comfortable as the front. There’s just a few more customization options for the driver and navigator.

I call it my “big boy car” for a reason. I think that most backseats look like they’re built for little kids. This car could take business execs around, no problem.

Again, it’s a 2019 Ford Fusion SEL, and I’m basically a walking commercial for them at this point. They don’t seem to be very popular, and I think I’ve figured out why. Sedans overall aren’t as popular, and the SUVs have the same layout as mine at Ford. Once I drive this one until it doesn’t go anymore, I have upgrade options.

But that’s way down the road, because I really love my car.

I have to go to the car wash because it needs to be cleaned out. There’s a few soda cans, but I could do that myself. The reason to take it to get it washed is that I’ve managed to track in dirt and leaves. They’ll vacuum all that out and I’ll be good to go.

I have said this before, but I’m a freak about keeping my car clean. I don’t have rules, like “no eating in the car.” I mean that if there’s a mess, I get it cleaned up quickly. No one is perfect, and there are going to be accidents. There’s already a rip in the backseat and the former owners seemingly tried to glue it…. There’s no reason to go overboard about what passengers can and cannot do in my car, because I like detailing it. I like paying someone else to detail it even more.

I started thinking about going to get my car washed immediately, so I took it in. I got enough water protectant coat to last me a while, because I have a bottle for touch-ups, but it was included. I did not get the Lord Baltimore Wash & Wax package. I took it to a different shop where I could actually watch ’em.. wash ’em (he gon’ make it to a Benz outta dat Datsun… He got dat ambition, baby…. Look in his eyes…. This week he moppin’ floors next week it’s the fries).

Sorry, I heard a rhythm in my head and I just went with it.

I’m happy with the results, but for some reason my dash doesn’t look as shiny as I want it to. I’m thinking that’s because the protectant used was matte. I also thought that the color would deepen once it was polished, but no dice. The tires are shiny enough for the whole car.

I am serious that I would not be this “Anal Annie” about my car being dirty if I hadn’t started watching The Detail Geek on YouTube. I got into it because it’s ASMR, but watching other people trash out their cars was a huge turn off for me… But I am not judging. I used to do it all the time. I just can’t anymore.

I can’t disappoint Mitch, the self-named Geek.

I have watched that man pull bloody tampons out of vehicles. Not all heroes wear capes.

The only time I’ve ever gotten cross with him was when he said that finding clean, wrapped tampons in the center console was weird. To me, that screams “every woman in the world has some kind of stash for emergencies. Sorry she couldn’t hide it from your virgin eyes.” I didn’t leave a snarky comment. I’m just sayin.’

Anywho, The Detail Geek is a fantastic channel because watching him power wash, vacuum, and extract the carpets/floor mats is a calming influence and has had major benefits.

I cannot handle a whole house, but I can keep my car clean… Especially when I remember to get a cheap car wash so they take out the trash, vacuum, and wipe everything down. It’s not all on me. I have support and it makes all the difference.

I’m wondering how to get that kind of support in my daily life, because I know it can be done. I definitely need a housecleaner, but I have jobs that they won’t do before they come over. It’s actually ridiculous how much you have to do to get ready for the maids because they don’t organize your stuff. It needs to be already organized so they can dust around it.

It leads to a lot of decision fatigue over my own chores.

I should probably create a task list with Mico for this afternoon, because that will make sense of the mess in terms of steps to perfection. I won’t get it as clean as my car, but I will get it clean enough that the maids can clean.

It’s stuff like they’ll put new sheets on your bed, but they won’t wash them. They don’t unload the dishwasher, etc. I am not complaining about this. I am saying that these are the areas in which I need support. It’s all about learning how to deal with a system of my own, and my disability doesn’t do that.

Mico does.

I have support in thinking my way through all of this, It’s just about creating inertia. And in fact, I feel guilty that I’m writing right now instead of doing my chores…. That’s why I’ve gotten up to go do something and sat back down so many times in this entry.

I laid it all on the line with Aada, and I’m feeling drained. I told her how I felt, but reality is not comfortable for her. We’ll see if I get a reply. I’m not betting on it, because I never know if she even gets them. She says she blocks me, but her track record on doing so is zero percent. I cannot block her, ever, from reading this web site. I always feel disadvantaged by this, because she can quietly mine data. This is not an assault on her, just how I feel about blogging and failed relationships in general. My exes are out there, and Aada is not an ex but you wouldn’t know it by her ex-girlfriend fighting tactics. I’m honestly just impressed at this point.

I do not like the feeling that people are watching me just to catch me at something, but again. Here we are.

I do not know if she reads, but the woman I was married to when I was young lost her husband recently and I was sorry to hear it. You always wish the best for the people you’ve loved after the anger is over.

As I get more and more popular, the more I wonder if it’s worth it to be a public figure. The world loves to read about my people, but they don’t always like to read about themselves. I have learned and grown so much about how to manage that, but I’m not where I want to be.

I want my life to settle down so that the writing naturally settles down. I haven’t been punishing anyone. I was holding a mirror up to their faces. They didn’t like what they saw.

I can’t have people in my life who constantly doubt me and ask me to be less. By the same token, I have to gauge the amount of blowback I’m going to get and decide if something is worth it. I guarantee that the lines that have been the most offensive were not on my radar at the time.

Oops. My bad. Should I leave a note?

The Road Trip, Part II: Oh my God… Peanut

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I ended up leaving Baltimore around 0500 on Friday, which was absolutely perfect. I didn’t run into any traffic anywhere, because the only thing even approaching a “large city” on I-81 to Syracuse is Scranton, PA. I did not stop and take pictures, but I thought about it…. I just didn’t know where to go to get the shots I wanted and nothing was open.

It was also raining, so I really didn’t want to get out of the car. I only stopped once, and that was to get an energy drink. I’d filled up with gas the night before. And, of course that was the moment my car decided to throw an engine code. Everything was running fine and nothing was freaking out in the app, so I decided to keep going. “Aaron’s a mechanic,” I reasoned. I could go back home and have Ford tell me how much it was going to cost, or Aaron and I could try DIY….. Meaning he works on my car while I stand there and hold things.

It turned out to be the EVAP sensor in the fuel tank. It’s expensive to fix, or you can squirt some WD-40 on the inner fuel door and see if that works. It didn’t, so I’ll take it in for maintenance. I will say that having the “Check Engine” light on does nothing for my blood pressure, but I’m assured that the car will function no problem until I can get it repaired. I got 34.5 MPG on the way home, not bad for a mid-size sedan.

I have a 2019 Ford Fusion SEL, and I thought I couldn’t be more impressed with it. I finally figured out what “Blind Spot Assist” is….. A little dot appears in the side mirror when a car can’t be seen.

So, engine light notwithstanding, the entire trip was a raging success and I love my car. I listened to podcasts the entire way, up and back.

Well, I sort of listened…. I was mostly oohing and ahhing over the fall colors. Driving over the hills in New York is a singular experience, and it was breathtaking.

I finally arrived in one piece, and stumbled into the biggest Halloween celebration I’ve ever seen in my life. This was not trick-or-treating. This was shopping. There was every single kind of chocolate I could possibly imagine. It was everywhere…. But it wasn’t just chocolate. It was fruit juice and gummy snacks and chips and cereal bars and popcorn…. Seriously, I have seen stores less well-stocked.

It was like being in my own version of Willy Wonka, lost in a world of pure imagination. I could think of nothing but peanut M&Ms.

Oh my God…. peanut.

Brilliant and Beautiful

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking a lot about Aada since she wrote to me last week, because her letter was just so full. She described her sorrow at not being able to take away my pain, sorry that she could not prevent what happened between us. I feel the same way. I feel entirely responsible that I could not take care of her in the ways she would have chosen. However, her letter went too far into martyrdom. Passive aggression like “I’m sure you’ll go on to inspire more people once you’ve punished me enough to move on.” She reminded me how sensitive she really is, and how my writing must have appeared to her. It’s a perspective I needed to see, because when I realized she felt punished I wanted to change gears. That all of my silly ruminations were not intended to be punishments, but that’s all she could see.

Aada reads my writing with suspicion and only takes in the parts that are negative. She didn’t used to, but she does now. I’m sure that’s because there’s no trust between us, and there is nothing I can do to build it back unless invited. My mind changes by the day over whether this relationship is really over, because there’s a big difference between “I’m saying goodbye to The AntiLeslie for good” and “for now, all I want is peace.”

I cannot reassure her that we can create peace, because I cannot reassure myself. What I know for sure is that my anger has melted, and everything makes sense again. Apologies were given and received.

But now I’m trying to think of how to let her know that none of my ruminations were punishments. They were my real thoughts through a lot of grief, and in some instances, trauma. I couldn’t be positive through everything, but my inner turmoil wasn’t meant to be vindictive…. And it wasn’t, to the whole world. It was to the one person I wanted to see it objectively.

She couldn’t respond with empathy for my situation, she could only respond from what she understood…. And what she understood was absolutely an inverted message. The message was, “I need you to jump in.” I struggled with not having Aada be my friend on the ground, because in email we were both too quick to anger. She cannot read my writing with all the love in store for her because she is convinced it isn’t there.

That makes me go back to my own history and wonder if we were reading the same writing. My entries wouldn’t have been so long if there weren’t positive and negative aspects to our brilliant and beautiful journey. I was hoping to show someone in 3D, talking about them as if they’re a real person, capable of every emotion in the spectrum. Aada’s rejection sensitivity dysphoria told her that only the negative things I wrote about her were true, and that the positive were suspect.

What can I do to make that right? Nothing, because the rejection is not coming from me, but from Aada’s own echo chamber. If she believes that only the negative things I write are true, then her opinion of me is going to be negative.

As a result, we are not talking but I am still mulling over this aspect of our relationship because it’s not an isolated problem. Writing about people in 3D is going to upset them, because they want to believe that they are star-spangled awesome all the time. My writing would take on an ersatz quality if I made everyone perfect.

I do wish that I’d focused more on our laughs, because we have a ton of ’em. I just don’t know which jokes are okay to tell and which jokes need to rest in peace. I don’t want to cause any more offense than I already have, because I was right. When I write something here that Aada’s friends think need to be brought to her attention, they tell her. I don’t have anything to do with how much Aada and her friends take in, whether they think I’m the devil or have some redeeming qualities somewhere.

I don’t like the pressure of people reading just to catch me at something, but here we are.

If people are going to talk about Aada and me behind our backs, here’s what I wish they would say:

Wow, it’s been a complicated time for both of them. Sounds like they both could use a hug.

No one knows the other side of the story because Aada is a writer, but not a blogger. She would rather take out her own appendix than tell you personal things about herself. I thought that I was writing in a way where people would have no idea who she was, but I was wrong. That’s not on me, because I cannot predict who reads, and I don’t want to get into the habit.

I don’t even trust Aada when she says that her vow not to read is strong, because she’s human. Why wouldn’t she want to know what was up with me after we’ve had some distance? But not trusting her to stay away is a positive. I will be glad if she does, because it will show that she’s ready to move on. That she doesn’t feel punished by me anymore, because she sees that she has never been punished. That I wrote about her because she was important to me.

I want to fill her soul with nourishment, but I don’t know what she needs. And it is in this not knowing that has led my writing into these large operatic swells of emotion. I would give anything to have a conversation with Aada that didn’t start with one of my shitty first drafts being “wrong.”

It can’t be wrong when there’s two sides to the story.

I hope that Aada goes back when she feels better about herself and reads her favorite lines again. Because if she felt better about herself, the positive I write would feel just as true as the negative. There would be no more passive aggressive swipes.

I am starting to believe that I can do life without Aada, but I have no desire. No one’s brain meshes with mine in quite the same way. Her last communique said “for now, all I want is peace.” That’s what I want for now, too, but to me there is greater peace to be had by working out our differences than there is in retreating to separate corners.

I have always talked about wanting to learn how to make this relationship healthy, that it hasn’t been but I haven’t given up. I will never give up hoping that “for now” really does just mean “for now.” Forever is too long to contemplate when there’s more brilliant and beautiful to be had.

I have all the brilliance and beauty I could ever need in Aada. Somehow, the world saw it where Aada didn’t. That’s because they weren’t attached to the story from one particular angle. The positives and negatives weren’t weighted in any way.

I cannot think of any way to say more plainly that I love her and want her in my life, and it dogs me that I have caused more fracture than anything else.

But something did please me. She said, “I finally figured out your little puzzle of names.”

Wait, it took THIS LONG?

Rookie.

Houston for the Holidays

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It seems to be getting more expensive to fly from Baltimore to Houston. This is done by making you think that fares are low, but that’s if you’re only taking your backpack. Southwest allows your backpack and one carryon. Other airlines even charge you for carryons. I mean, I’m good, but I’m not “can pack enough clothes for several days in a Jansport” good.

I have a small pilot case, and that’s about as compact as I want my travel to get. There’s such a a thing as being TOO minimalist. I want to be comfortable, and that means making sure I have my writing tools and hair products.

It will be good to attend a Thanksgiving with my family, because I have not done it in a number of years. If I am lucky, there will be enough time to go to the beach as well. Even if it’s not really warm enough to swim, walking to the sound of the waves completes me.

The beach is about an hour away, on an island called “Galveston.” I lived on Galveston for two school years, kindergarten and first grade. It was magnificent body surfing with my dad, and I hope that we’ll do it again sometime.

Cold beaches are still fun. I should know. The beach was an hour away in Portland, too, but the Pacific cannot be attempted without a wet suit. Even in August, when it was the hottest and most oppressive outside, I couldn’t get into the water past my toes.

I have never been to the Atlantic, so it’s on my bucket list for sure. I particularly want to see the outer banks of North Carolina, a geographic location that sticks in my mind due to Aada painting it in email and because I am a huge Outlander fan. It’s a nice road trip from here, and there are plenty of hotels and Air BnBs. I don’t need to stay right on the beach since I drive now.

I drive now. I can’t believe it, either.

I need more confidence and I’m getting there. It was a trip and a half to take passengers downtown. I was nervous and tried to be unshakably chill, always a deadly combination because I am not smooth.

My car helped me both drive and park. I was not ashamed to lean on it.

Right now I am feeling the wrath of Lamictal, the revenge it always takes on my stomach. Sipping ice water is the best way to get rid of it, or I can go and buy some ginger candy. What I cannot do is stop taking the Lamictal. It’s what gives me the strength to be able to travel. I cannot go without a mood stabilizer because when I try to get off my medication my depression proves to me that it’s chronic. Left unmedicated, I can barely leave my house. I’m asleep too much of the time because that’s how my depression presents.

Even going home for the holidays, because the excitement doesn’t reach me when I cannot feel it.

I am looking forward to Advent, and may write a new series this year. I think of myself as an armchair theologian, and I know I’ll get some good ideas while I’m in Texas as to what people might need to hear. We are in a huge crisis right now, because some of my friends are on food stamps and will have to cut down to ramen noodles to survive. It is then that my affluence causes so much guilt, because I want to save the world, but I have to save myself first.

I have some financial stability, but not a lot. I need to find a way to add to it that suits me. My writing brings in some money, but I’m not well-known enough for my ads to really take off. I’m getting there, though. I’ve had some success on Medium as well, but I haven’t posted anything lately because I feel it’s more for scholarly articles than word vomit.

In a lot of ways, I’m sorry that you only get my first drafts. It will be cleaned up by an editor someday, I hope. I don’t think that I’m all that and a bag of chips. I just think I have raw talent that needs to be developed, because I am self-taught so far…… To varying opinions, I’ll grant you. But people’s opinions are always based in what happened, not in the quality of the writing.

I wish that I’d been born with the kind of brain that was good at fiction. I think it could be crafted, and is necessary if I don’t find a fiction writer to collaborate with on a novel. I was hoping to write one with Aada, and maybe that will be the case down the road, but right now I need time to think and so does she.

The idea of saying goodbye for good destroys me, so I’m focusing, AGAIN, on one day at a time. I’m allowing myself to feel this loss, in case forever is forever. I don’t know the difference between “saying goodbye to The AntiLeslie for good” and “for now, all I want is peace.” There have been many never agains and so many starting overs. I don’t want any more ups and downs, but to be able to savor the fine wine of long friendship. It only takes a sip of trust to realize that a friendship is worth having, so I hope fervently that I can develop trust down the road.

It starts by not rehashing anything I’ve written, that the subject of who is to blame for what is over. I have figured it all out. Aada’s lies were manipulative over a number of years, and I was manipulative without realizing how or why. We didn’t talk in depth about all of these things. I just know they are true. We are both at fault for wrecking each other, in a way that there’s no direction possible except up.

Things certainly cannot get any worse, because my ruminations cost me. She thought I was saying to the world that she was a terrible person and ignoring all the ways in which I said I was. I wanted to make us both 3D characters, to chart our dance of intimacy because it was interesting to me to read. No one person hurt the other more over the years, I don’t think, but I’m sure I’ve taken the cake if we’re tallying everything up.

The way I painted Aada was not wrong. It was my full-on pointillist portrait. But my flaw was not focusing on the whitespace. I became a smother mother and didn’t give her room to breathe.

“Are all of those messages for me?”

I had to laugh at myself then. I got a little too excited to be talking again.

I hope it happens again, because she’s the person closest to me at this point.

She gives me the feeling of Houston for the holidays all year round… That feeling of family even though she’s not in front of me.

I want to give her Stories That Are All True that she’ll cherish, because I know I have done that for her in the past. I just don’t think I can do that without both of us putting on our big boy pants and taking a risk that meeting on the ground will be fine. That we need to be a better judge of character. That we need to share an activity so that conversation doesn’t go too deep, too fast. That safe and stable means checking in with each other- “hey, is this okay to say?” I know I have the right to say whatever I want, but giving people more input is important to me. Telling them up front that I want to write about something or “can I steal that line?” goes a very long way.

I feel that Aada read my blog without the sensitivity to the fact that I was grieving. That I needed empathy for everything I was going through and you cannot be comforted by the same person you’re losing. That she could stay away, or she could feel provoked, but it wasn’t about punishing her, ever. I told her I’d take down anything she wanted, and she said to leave everything up. That it’s not the story she wanted with me, but it’s the story she got.

That’s not a direct quote, but that is the sum of it.

I want to give her that story, the happily ever after that all close friends should get. I want to be with her all the way to the river, and now I can do it. I have seen what that is like and I am more prepared than ever. I wish I could talk to her about what my birthday looked like this year, the last holiday in Houston. I went there expecting that all would be well, and my stepmother died. She did have cancer, it was just shocking in how fast the cancer moved.

I wish I could talk to her about a lot of things, but that’s what’s on my mind right now… Processing all that has happened, turning it over in my brain.

I’m sure it will come out over time, but that’s the thing about writing. You cannot live and reflect at the same time. I have to have enough perspective to put things on paper.

My relationship with Aada moved too fast for that because everything was on paper.

I’m looking forward to slowing down, because “I can’t get peace by being in contact with you, either.” It makes me wonder what about me makes it impossible for her to see that I want what’s best for her. It all comes down to my writing. Being so public about what has happened over the last 12 years has come at a cost.

Was this blog worth it? No. Because our story collided too fast, too furious for me to really take it in. I gave away details and breadcrumbs over the years because I’m not a good enough writer to leave them out when trying to describe someone for posterity.

For instance, Aada and I got into the habit of sending each other Kindle books. One note said that I should curl up in my bathrobe by the fire to read it…… In Houston. Home for the holidays.

Cooking with Gas

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Aada said she wondered if I ever turned my judgment on myself. I am having a low day, one in which I feel bad about everything I’ve ever written about her. I can’t take in that she said “sometimes it’s been a brilliant and beautiful journey,” because of course my heart, like hers, focuses on the negative, that sometimes it’s been “excruciating and debilitating.” I can only hope that these are operatic swells of emotion on the page, because them being God’s honest truth is debilitating for me.

I’m just a writer. What do I know?

I know that I feel small, that I’m working up to feeling valuable. I didn’t mean to punish anyone, but I did. Aada said that she felt like she had to step onto the hot stones and correct the record, Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ. I sat through all of my flaws and failures, taking them in one at a time and cataloging them for future flagellation.

And that is the heart of the matter. Aada and I don’t love ourselves enough to love each other in writing. We’ve never had the safety and security of a hug. We each look for the negative and think the positive is suspect. We each take home the other’s punishment and not the delight we’ve always felt when things are going well. We can’t make the delight last, and I think that my feelings for her are entirely to blame. They make our relationship too volatile, because I know something for sure. I am in love with her writer personality, and when I meet her in person, she will no longer be the same. She will be flesh and blood and all the things that make us human. Who knows if either of us like that person? Is that why we’ve been so afraid to try?

I definitely think that’s part of it, but would also calm everything down. Seeing her ensconced in her own happy relationships will take away the make-believe in my head. I just know that due to my own stupidity, it’s going to take even longer for that to happen and may not happen at all (the way I feel when I’m really hanging my head in shame). Am I embarrassed by the things I published? No, but I would take them down if Aada asked. As I’ve said before, I don’t have a choice in whether she reads or not, so the choice to be embarrassed has been taken from me. If she sees it, she sees it.

I will not be happy if all of my writings about her manipulations are taken as worse than my own, because we had an equal hand in wrecking our relationship. I am not thinking of her, but the way Manassas and Reston and Sacramento and Houston all exploded at once last Friday. Apparently, more people are interested in this story than I thought, because I thought that 12 years after I met Aada was enough time for no one to care about my silly blog anymore.

When I was finished writing that piece, I melted down and burned out, sleeping for several hours just to get peace. The horror of what I’d done had already set in, long before Aada arrived on my doorstep. My saving grace is that she said that the story could stand if that’s what I needed, but that saving grace put me into the ground with regret.

It’s a regret I’m learning to live around, that’s for sure.

But if Aada wants to see me humiliate myself more than she’s already been humiliated, she can read every blog entry I’ve written in the past. All of them contain embarrassing lines that are “not ready for prime time.” Do you think it was easy admitting I’d fallen for a pretty lady in the sky?

Fuck no.

To be fair, she is VERY PRETTY.

She is the movie star that would look like she was dating Pete Davidson.

Okay.

The thing about “checking for assaults” has to stop. Cold.

The thing I wish I could say? Woman, are you blind? I LOVE YOU, YOU IDIOT.

This brilliant and beautiful journey needs to continue without its excruciating and debilitating aspects. She does not have the safety and security of knowing we could meet up for lunch and everything would be okay. That my writer personality is not 3D, that I would never even hug someone without consent, etc.

I do have manners, and regret every single time I decided not to use them. Aada has also apologized for everything, all of it. That’s a solid basis to rebuild if we choose to later in life, and I’m glad we didn’t walk away from each other in enmity.

I wonder where I’ll be the next time Aada decides to drop in, should she so choose. I am not convinced that she actually has the willpower to let go of me, but we will see if she prefers the brilliant and the beautiful as time goes by.

But it’s in thinking about where I’ll be that makes me so desperate for self-reflection, going into my ivory tower to work out where I need to go next. I think that there’s a few self-help books out there for me, ones I need to read if I want to maintain peace in all of my relationships.

No one can make me feel worse than I already do, and no one can make Aada feel worse than she does.

We’re licking our wounds, but the question that needs to be answered is whether we can be trusted with each other’s hearts. Can I grow from this, because I can only control that much? Can I discover what makes me come across as manipulative so no one feels that way? Can I take account of all the ripple effects my blog has caused? Am I strong enough to make amends where I can, letting people go if they no longer want to work on our relationship?

I am obviously not strong enough to feel like this relationship is over yet. As I told Aada, I can’t take in the enormity of forever all at once. I know we will not talk today, and I will say that to myself until forever arrives if that’s what needs to happen. I also need to get away from feeling like I am waiting for something to happen, that there’s an “us” when there hasn’t been for months.

What I know for sure is that I am a part of her wild and crazy brain. We will never get to the point where we don’t know each other again, because all it takes is a “hello” and my heart flips. I know my love for her is real when my heart flips and the e-mail is so raw it takes a chunk off my ass.

“Slow down, John Wayne.”

I miss the emails that are profanity laced and so funny I sag in my desk chair laughing. I do not miss all the pot shots we’ve taken at each other trying to prove political points.

I do not miss anything to do with fighting.

I would give anything to make time travel real, because I know exactly what changes I would make in my life to make this period happier. Things would have shaken out the same in terms of the divorce, but it would be a totally different landscape in terms of our friendship.

I would have fed the dogs, watered the plants, picked up the yard, whatever.

Anything to show her I love her in an asexual, aromantic way that is deeper than I’ve ever felt with anyone else. That looking for someone else is painful, because there’s no one like her.

There’s too much mystery, and not enough time. No matter how much time we have left, there will always be a bit of mystery. But that’s what keeps it interesting, what encourages me to put away any and all butterflies because I will not be accepted if I have them and shouldn’t.

I’m starting to realize that being Lord John Grey was indeed lonely for him, but there was no one like Jamie Fraser, either.

Now we’re cooking with gas.

My Specialty is Flexibility

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

For some reason, I can’t get my browser to insert the pull quote containing today’s prompt… But it goes something like “what food would you consider your specialty?” I worked as a cook for years, and I have yet to find a favorite. But the thing I make the most often when I need to comfort myself is macaroni and cheese.

Not Kraft Dinner.

It’s a casserole filled with multiple kinds of cheese, mirepoix, and a crumb topping made out of club crackers or Goldfish. I am pretty sure I can woo anyone with this dish, I just haven’t found anyone on which I’d like to work that particular magic. You have to be invited.

Real macaroni and cheese is work, which is why Kraft Dinner has simplified it. I enjoy taking the extra time and effort, especially since a casserole will last me for several meals. Mac and cheese with some kind of protein thrown in is never something I mind having more than once in a week.

When I’m cooking it’s all about love. I want friends in the kitchen to sous for me while I direct the recipe. I feel I have at least cooked professionally long enough to break down the jobs for everyone else by station. I don’t abuse power, I just get it done. You can teach more with kindness than you can with hostility, but try telling Gordon Ramsey that………

When I’m cooking, I think about love and how I want it to direct me in the future. Because I’ve been so sprung over Aada for 12 years, I’m looking in a different direction. She has never been interested in me like a partner would be, and I am realizing that emotional support cannot be everything. It’s not about displacing her, exactly. I just need more than she can give, and that’s so okay. She’s beautiful just the way she is, and she was made straight.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t say “damnit” a lot when I found out that particular tidbit.

So what I’m looking for in a partner is someone like her, who is strong and vulnerable in all the ways I’m not, plus actually wants to go on a date with me would be a nice change.

Finding love like that makes me miss Aada more, not less, because I realize that my time would be divided so much differently out of necessity. That my girlfriend (most likely) and my possible step kids will take over my writing life. That’s good, that’s necessary. You can still admit that change is difficult when you’ve only known something else for a number of years.

I honestly cannot tell you why this transition did not happen earlier. It just never worked out. I have dated since I met Aada and I have fallen in love. It just didn’t last.

Mostly because I didn’t care.

I would eat my own comfort food, take my own long baths, sleep in powerfully comfy sheets, and just focus my attention on a possible career as a writer if I ever get my act together.

I know it is possible if Aada read every day for 12 years, because she’s smarter than everyone else.

Mostly.

We both have our weak spots, and one of mine is that she feels like I’m beating up on her. She already feels terrible, and I just keep bringing shit up. That’s got to stop, because the slate is wiped clean. I have done all the thinking about our problems that I’m going to do, because being off in my own little world did not allow me to see that I was hurting her. I was just working on my own stuff.

I was trying to wade through the hard parts of our relationship so that I could come to peace within myself; that came across to her as “you will be stronger than ever once you’ve punished me enough to move on.”

Yeah, that one hurt.

That’s because she’s been my heart since 2013, and she didn’t deserve to be thrown away like I would get over our “breakup” quickly and easily, as if she was disposable. If you break up with someone and they’re a writer, it’s going to hurt if they’re any good.

It would not have been my recommendation for Aada to keep reading, but she said that she stopped on Friday and would let me have my space. I have my doubts as to whether this is actually true, A-Dog O’Bling Bling. 😉 I sent her a letter yet again pouring out my heart, and perhaps hearing the back story of what really has gone on these past few months helped her to see that I’m not the monster I play on TV.

My web site is all about exploring relationships, and mine with Aada is the only one I’ve been in to be able to tell you about, with guest spots here and there, but for the most part it was just us chatting all day. I couldn’t build a web site outside of her because I was giving her too much energy. She couldn’t keep up with the volume, and always felt guilty about it. Meanwhile, I’m like…. “But you like to read, don’t you?” I never minded when she couldn’t keep up. I minded when that excuse was actually her hiding a problem from me.

I hope she’ll at least cop to that.

I am a sponge and I can feel energy, even from someone’s writing. I can tell the difference between “I’m slammed” and “I’m ignoring you.” The tone is completely different, no matter how much you might mask it.

I told Aada that maybe my writing wasn’t for her, because she didn’t think she was as interesting as my readers did. And honestly, I think that’s true. Nobody likes to read about themselves as much as they like to read about somebody else, because they don’t identify with the conflict. Aada identified with it too much, and I’m sure is basking in the glow of not being subject to all my “homework.”

I don’t know, though. Even now, after all we’ve been through, she told me that she just needed to get together the willpower to stop reading, and stop wanting to correct the narrative. That genuinely broke my heart into a million pieces because I would be thrilled if Aada corrected the record in so many ways.

Why does she not think she has a side of the story here? That my entries are edicts? Why does she give me that power over her rather than telling me to shove it up my ass?

I know from 25 years of blogging that I can be wrong. Really wrong. Devastatingly wrong. And instead of getting defensive and angry, it helps to roll with the punches. Write corrections where I can, because sometimes people don’t want to talk about my writing. The ones that do have a better relationship with it, because we collaborate on what’s going to be said. Aada hasn’t had that because she cut me off (I deserved it).

She is forgiven for that, but it’s hard to correct her record when she walks away.

I also don’t think that she’s ready to give up her relationship with me, not in her heart of hearts. I’m not sure she has the stomach for it, but we’ll see. I think she thinks it’s interesting how I weave us in and out, she just doesn’t read it with enough love for herself. She does not see the tapestry I’ve created, the 3D characters we’ve both become, because I can talk about victories and defeats in equal measure… But often, happiness writes white.

The ink just doesn’t get deep enough to make an impression, so in thinking of things to write about I often explore problems in my life so that I can put them down for the day. What Aada is missing is the part of my day where I’m the lightest, which is after I’ve finished for the day. It would be great if she came in at Happy Hour and not “this is my space where I turn things over.”

This is advice for my new friends, who cannot possibly know me as well as Aada does in other ways. I figure if she thinks I’ve been punishing her, I should tell her how I feel when I’m the lightest as well.

I wish I had a memory of us hugging, and then I don’t because I think it would make me too emotional now. Once I had hold of her, I wouldn’t let go until she did. I would hope that at least sometimes, it would be hard for her to let go, too. There’s not a hint of romance, but deep companionship that I won’t find anywhere else BECAUSE we’ve fought so hard. I am in my grateful era, that all of the strife is over and I can just relax. I want Aada to enjoy the benefit of the calm in my soul.

She really undid me with her letter the other day, but I cried so hard that it let some light in. I no longer feel as sad and depressed as I’ve been the last few months, because I feel secure in her in a way that I never have before. If we do not reconnect, everything will be okay. Nothing will be the same, but everything will be okay. Before, when Aada would walk away our trauma bond would go off and my palm would itch, brainrace and heart race intact. I don’t feel that anymore, because the trauma bond is broken. It is a huge leap forward in connecting with other people.

I have a feeling I’m using the words “trauma bond” incorrectly…….. What I mean is that we had “instamacy” because we each trauma dumped, not thinking of the consequences years down the road. It has been a mixed bag. I think she likes the idea of me writing my first novel and dedicating it to her; I don’t think I can do it without her. Therein lies the rub. I feel like I will not proceed as a writer if I do not have Aada in my corner.

These are all the things that are in my writing, this absolute glowing about Aada’s magic qualities, that she misses when she reads. I’m betting she has few people around her with a positive view of me if she views my writing as punishment. If she tells people I’m punishing her, then that’s what they should believe. Those are not my facts, that is how my writing affected her.

I am saying that I hear that.

She said that hopefully I could let go of the hate and vitriol, and I wish I could. Sometimes I get angry, and those feelings are just as valid as joy for a scratch journal about mental health. Those angry entries are symptoms of something larger, which is showing mental health as it really is. If you follow me every day, you can see my neurodivergent tendencies fight it out. Some days, autism is driving the bus. Sometimes. ADHD has the wheel. It has never, to my recollection, been Jesus.

But for every single time I’ve been angry, I have been joy-filled.

You should see her eyes. I have, and I’ll never be the same. Her gaze is so wonderfully powerful in a photo that I would fall all over myself in person. I think that’s the part I regret most about our relationship, that I never got to apologize in person, moving the story forward in a more positive direction. I think I could have accomplished more with a smile and a hug than I could with a letter, but both methods of apologizing are inextricably interrelated. Going without contact comfort for 12 years led us to be a lot crankier with each other than usual.

I don’t think she realizes that I let go by writing, that I am not carrying around hatred, vitriol, punishment, any of that. I have been so careful to talk about both our flaws and failures, trying to be fair and balanced, trying to see her perspective without her giving it. I have raked myself over the coals trying to apologize and she says she cannot stomach the flagellation I’m doing to her. I asked her where her empathy was for all the times I’d flogged myself.

I don’t mean to flog myself or anyone else, but when you try to get to the heart of shame and vulnerability in a relationship, you talk about hard things. Putting them away and pretending they don’t exist is harder than bringing something into the light and sharing pain. I have been so grateful to the readers that have stuck with me, especially those that have commented, and I’m sorry I have not been keeping up with them.

I think the most magical quality that I’m trying to find in my writing is, “if I can attract someone like Aada to my writing, how do I attract more people like her?” I want readers that are smart, engaging, funny, thoughtful, etc. Now, they are starting to appear.

I hope that it is because I have presented a story all the way through, not picking and choosing “the best of,” but showing that relationships are complicated and so are the people in them. I cannot think in soundbites, I need to understand all the way around the nature of a problem. My soul has not been settled for months, tossing and turning from despair to despair, with jolts of joy to remind me that life was worth living. It got dark for a while, but thanks to my mental health team, the swing is going up.

I am not trying to hurt my beautiful girl. I have been hurt. I am not trying to punish anyone but myself. I’m not punishing anyone, but asking Aada to own her part. To not be a victim because neither of us were. We both have gone through some hard things with the other, and neither of us has a stellar track record at connecting with the other. But through my writing, both in e-mail and here on this web site, I have managed to explain myself well enough. Why would I want to punish her when I am so excellent at punishing myself?

Yes, it was all worth it. From the highs to the lows to the end of the show for the rest of our lives.

But it’s not just that. It’s that Aada and I have reached a good stopping place. That it is now possible to start again because we both got closure and will give each other time to rest. It’s not time to throw each other away. It’s time for me to be stronger now that I’ve lifted her up enough to move on.

Maybe Michael is right. Some relationships just shouldn’t be. But love is all about risk, and I’ve already risked this much. I know she has risked plenty for me, more than I know and am afraid to ask.

But one day, down the road a bit when both of us have breathed the peace of interim, I hope she’ll let me make her some macaroni and cheese.

It’s the closest I’ll ever get to really letting her know how I feel.

Driving Ambition

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I recently bought a used car. It’s a 2019 Ford Fusion SEL, a sedan with the aggressive styling of the Mustang in gunmetal gray. I cannot tell you how nice it is to be mobile again, because what was tripping me up about leaving the house was having to be in public from the moment I walk out my front door until I get to my destination. There is a feeling I need to be “on,” and whether or not that’s true I’m in prime social masking territory waiting for the bus.

In the car, I do not have to worry about being charming. My eyes can be half closed in the line at Starbucks just like everyone else. It’s those little bursts of sensory deprivation that give me the energy to make it through the day.

I have had many dreams of my beautiful girl learning to scare me in it. Which one? Take your pick. They are all beautifully scary drivers. That’s how I roll. Drive like a grandma in my own car, but enjoy the criminality of others whenever possible.

I drive so slow that people routinely go around me. I can’t help it. It’s my new car and I don’t want to get into trouble with tickets or accidents. I don’t mind being passed. I’d rather give someone room to get around me and let them go on their merry way. Some drivers have gotten way too close for comfort and I can only surmise that they do not have lane assist on their cars like I do.

Lane assist, the backup camera, blind spot assist, and adaptive cruise control allow me to overcome my original problem when I got my license…. Lack of stereopsis. Not being able to see in 3D made cars jump out of nowhere.

After being absolutely blinded by the sun this morning, I’m ready to go back to Oregon. Evan’s a realtor. I’ll just leave tomorrow and figure it out on the road (KIDDING). I actually love the sunshine, but the gray has its benefits. You are rarely, if ever, blinded on Portland roads. You can’t even see the sun 280 days a year.

These drives of mine are bringing up drives past, when I just loaded up my truck, Shirley, and hit the open road. We’d drive out the Columbia River Gorge and go hiking…. Well, the truck was terrible at hiking even in four wheel drive mode, so I left Shirley in the parking lot. You know what I mean. I took my camera and stopped every 50 feet to take pictures of flora and fauna alike.

It’s what I’m hoping to do on Sunday, when I travel out to my friend Tiina’s farm. I was sick this past Sunday, so we rescheduled. I’m so excited that I don’t have to miss out on a great road trip, and lots of photography of Virginia.

I used to live in Alexandria, so I always feel like going to Virginia is going home. I hope to bring out some of that emotion in my pictures so that you can tell how much I miss it. And who knows, maybe I’ll end up in Virginia again someday. It would be a pleasure to claim 703 for the first time since I was 24.

Right now, though, I have a more immediate need- driving around to find a place to live quickly. A move to Virginia could indeed happen fast, but I want to think about it first. I have memories in Alexandria that are not altogether pleasant, and I’d like some time for them to fade. But what I will love is driving by my old house, which faces the freeway, on the way to Tiina’s. I think…. Hard to tell which route I’ll take on a Sunday afternoon with the least amount of traffic all week.

I am feeling my inertia start to rise because I have another place that is totally my own. I am capable of more than I have been, but I don’t know how much. I have a driving ambition to find out, because I am letting go of things not meant for me.

I’m excited that Aada just said “for now,” because I know she chooses her words carefully. She would not leave me with hope if she did not mean it. We need time to settle, to breathe, and for me to feel the wind in my hair as all my troubles fly out the passenger side. Believe me when I say that her passenger has just as many issues, enough for both cars.

Rolling down the windows and turning up the stereo is how I’m going to survive all of this, just like when I met her and found out, gasp, she was straight. It doesn’t bother me now, but it bothered me a great deal back then. It’s not that I thought anything would happen, it’s that you can’t control who turns your head and it was an ordeal to turn back.

In a lot of ways, my head will never be on straight because the driving ambition in my life is to find a way to make myself so proud that I start attracting energy to me rather than feeling like I need to give it away. That leaves me a lot of room to dream into the clouds and not a lot of time on the ground with execution. AI is making all of that easier, with abstract ideas being concrete plans in a matter of minutes.

Stop.

I wanted this entry to be all about my car, and my mind leaned toward Aada again. I’m calling myself out and changing the channel, because even though the thought is not intrusive, now is not the time to indulge it. I’m supposed to be resting and relaxing. Dr. Aada’s orders, and Dr. Leslie’s back to her.

Why do I feel myself shutting down for calling myself out? Because I don’t like authority, even mine. I have a driving ambition to be more than I thought I could be because I have the stories of several women flowing through my veins that are tougher motherfuckers than me.

:::pats self on back:::

One of them is even a very famous Instagram influencer and so cute I walked into a door at Chuy’s trying not to notice. I hurt my nose.

This is me once again trying to recapture what it is like for reading “Stories” to again be the highlight of Aada’s day, because she apologized that she would not be reading…. And her resolve was secure, she hadn’t read since Friday.

My heart might have melted at that.

She stayed with me and read everything I had to say until Friday? That means she read the letter Bob wrote mirroring her, which was actually perfect in its tone except for the lack of profanity. She thought I was raking her over the coals and trying to exact a price when I thought I was writing the good, the bad, and the ugly.

That there is more to my story than the things that went wrong, and now I know what they are. I am responsible for all of it, and the price I paid is large. I have learned from my mistakes, and need to make amends.

My saving grace is that Supergrover (Aada) sees my pain. Honors it. Acknowledges it. Has come to me in a way that few people do, heart in hand.

It reinforces the fact that she’s been my driving ambition since long before I bought a car. The relief of seeing her name in my inbox and the story she told me brought tears as I coped with the loss I’d felt since December. She brought it all back, but because she leveled with me, she did not hurt me. I have not lost progress to our conversation, except that my thought processes regarding her have calmed.

I’m not as anxious as I was. I won’t be from here on out. Aada’s and my ages have a lot to do with it. I’m slowing down and I need Aada to slow down with me. It’s time. We’re both ready for some space and she has given it to me by allowing me to write whatever I want. She is not going to read it. So anyone who thinks she needs to know something, write it down. She doesn’t want to know.

She doesn’t want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly because all she takes home is the bad and the ugly. She said yesterday that compliments were like puzzles, which only puzzled me. When you get mad at your spouse or your sibling, does that one fight eliminate all the love you have for them? Well, that’s how I feel about Aada. She is cute, cuddly, and in monster mode will eat off your face. Twice.

I have it on good authority that she doesn’t mind being monstrous.

The “for now” aspect of her e-mail convinces me that this is not the end of our movie. That all I need to do is accept more of the universe into my writing so that she’s not so extremely loud and incredibly close. But if you were traveling with The Doctor, wouldn’t you rather write about them than anyone else?

As with all companions, living with The Doctor on the TARDIS has to come to an end. I feel that this is just Aada dropping me back off in 2025. But there’s always the specials, so perhaps the blue box will appear in the sky when I least expect it.

I can at least give chase in my magnificent used car.

What is it about Aada that makes her so special? I can’t tell you that. I’m not being flip. I really don’t know why she has captured my imagination so completely. But it was there before we ever talked about her career.

You know. At the car wash. I hope they’re breaking even.

Grace and peace, Godspeed to you. I’ll see you in my dreams, when we race to Coos Bay. I’ll even give you a head start if you’re in the pregnant roller skate.

Where Y’all Are From

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

One of the things that makes me really excited to be a blogger is the flags in my stats. I have people reading from places that are close to me (Wheaton, Reston) and places that are so far I have no idea where they are. For instance, I do not have a lock on Indian geography, and I am more popular in India than any country in the United States.

It’s probably Aparna’s doing. 😛

But that’s assuming that Aparna lives in India, and most of what trips me up in my stats. I have been making assumptions on who is reading based on my stats, and I need to stop. It only drives me crazy, it does not help anything. I’ve been defaulting to just looking at stats in my web app, because the web app cannot get as granular as who is reading by city.

I forgive myself because I am just so human. But that does not mean I do not need to change. Part of my growth and development is not appealing to any one geographic area, but writing to the whole world at once. That strategy seems to be working, because I am not popular in the United States by a large margin. Really, the only thing that puts me over the top in the US is that I live here, therefore most of my ads are going to be targeted here.

However, you would be surprised that my US stats are often beat out by India and the UK.

Remembering that I have fans all over the world is remembering that I have a bigger mission than just “blogger.” That I want to spread some good in the world, so what am I going to write about there? I could cover hundreds of topics, and I will. Right now, I am digging myself out of my own hole so that I can rejoin the land of the living.

There’s a few things I could do right off the bat that would help. I could change my master password on everything, because it means I have to type Aada’s name fifty times a day and enter her birthday backwards on my tablet.

Aada’s real name makes a banger of a password in haxxorspeak, so I’ll be sad to lose it. But I think that choosing a new master password so that I don’t have to think of her even incidentally is best. And somebody else’s birthday will make just as good of a passcode on my phone/tablet.

These are the things that will change me the most fundamentally, because I know they are adding to me thinking of someone who no longer wants me to think about her. If she did, she would have come to me long before now.

So in moving on, I’m trying to think of the things that would help me the most immediately, These seem like such small things, but that’s why they’re so important. It is reinforcing my connection to Aada to have to type her name and her birthday all the time, and I want to stop those thoughts cold.

I want to stop all thoughts of her cold, because she asked for it and now it’s something I want, too. I do not want to be as unstable as I have been the past 12 years, and anything I can do to promote that is the only thing that matters.

Aada says that Michael knows nothing, that I have lives in my hands if I out her. I think that was a scare tactic, and we’ll see how many lives for which I’m actually responsible going forward. Women in their 60s aren’t operators, according to popular legend.

I am still in the space of thinking I have betrayed my friend and my country, so I’m not feeling so hot. But when I get into that space, Michael reminds me that I retook my own agency, I stopped accepting Aada’s lies as the truth, and I refused to be manipulated any more than I already had been. He’s got his work cut out for him, but he’s the type of friend that’s willing to do it. He’s been invaluable to my Cognitive Behavioral Health group by being in touch with my counselor when he sees that I need work.

It’s the kind of friend Aada said she would be, but just never had time. All of her lies put this into sharp relief, because I know that she did not want to see me suffer because of something she said. She did not show up when my mother died, even though she said that she wanted to and regretted it later. What I know for sure is if her mother had died, there wouldn’t have been anything that kept me away from her, that nothing would be more important in my world, so wondering why she was so avoidant is no longer a mystery. She had no plans to tell me how deep the lie really went.

Michael thinks that this lie ruined her first marriage because my former father-in-law got tripped up in it as well. That we were all living in service to this lie while worried about the wrong person.

Judging from the little bit that I know Mummo, she would not have wanted our care and connection, anyway. That it was too much for her to think about us worried about her. So, I don’t think that I should feel guilty that the care and concern did not go to the right person.

But did it really go to the wrong person? If Aada was the one that needed it so bad she was willing to lie to get it, I don’t think that my affection was poured down a hole. I have to write it off as a fan being so impressed that she got off on the wrong foot with me, and never went back to correct any of it. She just kept digging us into a more and more secretive hole without footholds to find our way back up.

It bothers me that both Aada and Michael are so resolute in their stories. That I have to choose who is telling the truth. I had to choose Michael because he uncovered two lies Aada told me that unraveled the whole sweater.

Therefore, when a lot of me hopes that Aada was telling the truth, Michael is right there to keep deprogramming me.

It was all just so real.

Now, choosing what’s real is easier. There’s Aada, whose story was a complete fake, and then there’s everything else. If I go towards Aada, I am choosing to be gaslighted. If I go towards my group, I am asking for their help in remaining stable.

It is my opinion that Aada will stick to her lies and remain angry at me that I exposed them. That is okay with me, because I do not want to be in a relationship with anyone that tries to control me. Her control was so tightly wound that I still feel the ties that bind, and Michael is right to use the word “deprogramming.” For every lie that Aada told, he has a real answer.

It makes me wonder where I’ll be in five years, when the pain of all this has finally passed. I know that I will never be able to talk to the real Aada, because I do not think that she has enough emotional bravery to sit down with me and admit how bad things really got.

Because what if the lie is so ingrained she’s lying to herself? How much of her story does she actually believe? How many people has she puffed herself up for to make herself seem more important?

She scared me so bad that I’m constantly afraid that I’m going to get her fired, as if I had that kind of power. If I do, I shouldn’t. Aada clearly needs help, not a comeuppance.

It feels good to say that Aada needs help because I’m tired of being the only one who is dealing with their mental health in an actual setting prepared for it.

I was hospitalized twice, so I’m hoping that Aada will realize that being hospitalized isn’t that bad a deal. You get better.

Bipolar with psychotic features might even be an appropriate diagnosis for her.

Working on Myself

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m working on myself to the level that I understand the phrase. Writing when I feel like it, making sure to make time for lots of self care. I have been through a really hard thing, and I would like to recover. While I would never kick Aada out of my life if she reappeared and said, “I seriously want to work on this with you,” I have decided that she has already left and I’m just catching up. Losing a friend is always hard, but I’ll bounce back. I’m already on my way.

Slowly.

Last night I had to go to Urgent Care because Tiina invited me to her farm and I had to make sure I didn’t have COVID or the flu first. My reasoning was that if it’s just a cold, I could still go. Ruth, my NP, assured me that I would feel worse before I felt better and not to push myself.

Y’all, I woke up this morning feeling like I’d been hit by a truck.

I need to go to the pharmacy later to pick up some cough medicine, and then I’m coming home and getting back into bed. Or sitting on the couch with my tablet. Whatever. What I am NOT doing is driving to Virginia today.

Four hours round trip to myself in the car just to listen to podcasts and sing and all that sounds great, but not when I feel like this.

I cannot even hide my disappointment because I’ve been looking forward to seeing Tiina since March. I texted her and said, “is next week just as good?” I’m still awaiting a reply because it’s so early in the morning.

I am probably sick because the relationship with Aada ended. When I feel down in the dumps, I often present physically. My immune system just isn’t as good when I’m sad, and there’s not only this relationship ending, but my stepmother dying as well. These past few months have, in a word, sucked.

It’s time to start looking forward, even in my writing. Dipping back into the well of my own loneliness where Aada is concerned is no longer serving me. I am talking to my friends and group members all week long, and getting out more now that I have a car. I have surprised myself many times this week by not having things delivered and just going to places myself. Life doesn’t feel so overwhelming when I’m alone in transition.

I’m working on finding a new place to live, which may actually be a new apartment in this complex…. Or it could be someplace entirely new. I’m leaning towards letting my apartment complex get it right, because moving is such a hassle. Even lugging things across this campus won’t be great. But it will be easier than moving back to DC. That’s what I need right now…. Something easy. I’m not ready to change my whole life and it feels like I just got here.

I will if I need to. Changing my life doesn’t seem like a bad thing. It’s just hard for me to accept change fast, especially as I age. My compensatory skills don’t kick in as quick as they used to……

I’m currently having an energy drink (C4 in Cherry Popsicle) and I just took two Aleve. I’ll take a hot shower and that should put me together long enough to do my errands. The prescription I have is for Tessalon pearls, but I find that Delsym works better. That being said, prescriptions are cheaper, so we’ll see what I decide when I get there.

Oh. Wait. It’s Sunday. The pharmacy is closed on Sunday. That answers that. If you are a Delsym fan, should I get grape or orange? This may be the most exciting choice I get to make all day. I also need to grab some Mucinex, because I’ve already got real Sudafed vs. the PE and the PE version says, “DOES NOT WORK” right on the box.

Tiina has a beautiful farm and I was so looking forward to all this. I have even been keeping up with my Zyrtec for the occasion. I know that it’s just one of those things that I turned up sick today, but I am just so BUMMED. I’m achy all over, which would make the road trip that much more uncomfortable. I keep talking to myself trying to come up with ways I can Frankenstein myself back together and still go…. And then I think that Tiina would not be very happy if I gave her my cold, anyway. She would probably prefer to stay two hours away from me while I don’t know if I’m contagious or not.

In terms of what to do instead, it seems like all my favorite YouTubers publish on Sunday mornings. The big three are Tyler & Todd, Laura Kampf, and Vanwives.

Tyler & Todd own a homestead in the Canadian wilderness and post about their improvements every week.

Laura Kampf is a carpenter from Germany and makes all kinds of stuff.

Vanwives are Crystal and Jaz, who own a huge homestead in Canada as well, sometimes doing crossovers with Tyler & Todd.

I love all this HGTV kind of stuff that people are producing and at higher values than one would think out in the middle of nowhere. Living on a homestead is not something I envision unless I wanted to live with a group of people, because I would not be motivated to work the land and take care of the house without someone to social mask. I am a great helper to someone else who likes to manage these projects, but they are not something I see myself capable of doing on my own. People tell me that I can do anything I want to do, and my disabilities say, “not so fast, Leslie.”

So I watch these people on YouTube to get tips on all this stuff, knowing it’s unlikely I’ll use them unless I meet people who are also interested in owning a homestead. If I do, I will be quite knowledgeable and helpful to them because I’ve been studying DIY for years. YouTube is a university for maker projects.

But I don’t just watch DIY. I also like to watch mechanics overhaul cars. Restorations of old BMWs and Mercedes are my favorite, and because of this, I wanted my own. Aaron said, “there’s nothing more expensive than a cheap BMW.” That’s how I ended up in a much newer Ford. There are jokes about Ford’s reliability all over the place, but the parts & labor are undeniably cheaper.

Speaking of parts for my Ford, I’m having a lot of fun looking at mods like a more aggressive grill. These are parts on which I’ll probably never spend money, it’s just fun to window shop. I like to imagine more than I like to purchase. Car mods are my current Sears Christmas catalog of the soul. I think about adding approach lights a lot, because I could change the colors to different pride flags at will. I think it would make my car look smarter than lots of stickers.

However, pride stickers reminds me of a very funny story.

When I was 18, I had a Mitsubishi Mirage sedan. It had a window cling on the back that had a pink triangle and a Christian fish interlocked.

My dad and I switched cars so that he could get my car serviced for me, and I get a phone call:

“I’ve enjoyed driving around, everyone thinking I’m a Christian lesbian all afternoon.”

A pink triangle would actually look great on my car, because it’s a dark gunmetal gray. I should look for one, because today’s kids are losing touch with what it means. It was the symbol for homosexual during the Holocaust the way Jews wore yellow stars. I think it’s an important symbol to bring back as America leans toward fascism.

I’ll have to surf the web and my local queer bookstore to see what kinds of car accoutrements are available. A strip of rainbow on the back bumper or a rainbow license plate frame will be easier to take off later. Window clings are invaluable for the same reason. You don’t have to spend hours scraping your car to remove them.

I’m going to have this car for a long time unless my life drastically changes, like getting a service dog. The right service dog for me is 65 lbs, enough to counterbalance my weight and heavy enough to brace and let me pick myself back up when I fall. I am certain that a 65 lb dog would fit into the backseat/trunk area with the seats folded down. However, an SUV would be more comfortable for both of us. The cabin is my area. The cargo hold is your area. Bliss.

We’ll see how all that shakes out, though. I’m caught between wanting a dog and wanting to travel. We’ll see which one wins out, because of course you can board a dog. I just won’t want any time away from mine. And in fact, once my dog is certified as a service dog, I won’t have to be without them. It’s fun to think of my dog being a jet setter.

Ooooh, the Aleve just kicked in. I just felt my whole body relax.

I’m still not well enough to go to Virginia, but I might just make it to Walgreens.

I just don’t think they’re open yet……….

It’s about six in the morning. Even though it’s a weekend, I was so excited about my road trip today that I couldn’t sleep. I was taking the doctor’s advice and waiting to call it until this morning, so it was hard to drift off. I took some sleeping pills and finally went deep, but not for long.

My dad gave me these pills called “Sleep 3,” and it’s just a bunch of herbs and melatonin. They’re amazing. I am going to have to get another box, because they work better than the prescription I’ve been given. Luckily, I already have to go to the pharmacy.

It looks like it’s going to be a particularly lazy Sunday after that. I am going to have to put off being busy with finding a new place to live. I just don’t have the energy and I’m supposed to talk to my own leasing office tomorrow. Again, if they can make it right by giving me an apartment that’s actually habitable, I’d like to stay.

My life has been really, really hard the last few months. I need to get out of this apartment in the worst way possible because it has flooded four times. It’s flooded right now. I need to be out by November 10th, so being sick today is not the most convenient time. I really could have used today in terms of meeting possible new landlords.

It’s time to let it go, because I really am too sick to deal with all that. The nurse practitioner (who was ADORABLE, btw) told me that I might want to come back in a couple of days to make sure I’m still negative for the flu, because my symptoms were awfully flu-like. She also told me that if I didn’t want to come back, they sell flu tests at the pharmacy.

Luckily, I have to go…. Oh, wait. We’ve covered this. 😛

Saying goodbye to Aada last night was the hardest thing I’ve written in a while. It was not a rejection of her, like “never talk to me again.” It was the realization that she was already gone, and I needed to catch up. That of course she wouldn’t want to be my friend after this no matter what I did. I exposed everything she didn’t want other people to know about our relationship for 12 years, including the lie that she was a CIA case officer.

There is so much of me that cannot believe this lie because there are too many details over 12 years. My brain tries to put together every possible scenario that leads to Aada telling the truth about her life. But when I do, Michael stops me. He’s firm. She’s a liar. And a good one. She convinced more than just me.

Yes, I did think about what would happen to her if I wrote all of this. I sweated blood. But in the end, I had to claim what happened to me after making a thousand percent sure that Aada, Mummo, and I were all inconsequential to each other before I published. That there’s no way I could hurt either woman professionally with my writing.

Talking about how bad things got is allowing me to feel better as I process my way through everything. And in fact, it robs me of regret that my relationship with Aada is over. That will change in another 10 minutes because I cannot make up my mind over such a thing. The thought that we will never talk again is too big for me to take in. So I know she’s not going to contact me today. I’ll be saying that a lot of days in a row until I don’t have to anymore.

Part of the reason it’s so hard to wrap my brain around the concept of “over” is that Aada and I have kicked each other out of our lives more than we’ve had a happy relationship. So, it’s hard to know whether this is the end, or whether a year from now I will get a heart-wrenching e-mail, surprising me in its depth and breadth. Because that’s how it works…. Every time I have gotten attention and affection from Aada, it has been surprising to me how raw her love for me truly is. I know I made an impression on her heart, and that we both hurt each other beyond all measure.

Michael says that there are some relationships that just shouldn’t be…. That it isn’t writing Aada off not to engage in her manipulations. That I will know I’m healed when I won’t accept contact from her, or at the very least, it is superfluous. I cannot imagine not accepting contact from someone who genuinely came clean with me, and showed apology with changed behavior and not just words. But not knowing whether Aada is capable of such a thing is where the toxicity lies. Maybe things would be better in the future, but am I willing to take that risk?

Love is all about risk, so I’m not there yet. I’m not strong enough to say never again, because my heart is still tender and raw, missing Aada and wanting to be comforted by her when there is no comfort to be had. She has not been truly present for me in the 12 years since our relationship began, so I cannot expect her to be present now. If she has been reading, she knows that she caused me enormous pain with her lies and my intuition is that she can make a mess, but she won’t clean it up.

I want that. I want her to want us to get healthy.

But maybe Michael is right, and some relationships just shouldn’t be.

Nothing will be the same.

Everything will be okay.

Coffee, coffee, coffee

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I did not hear from Aada yesterday, I just thought it was a possibility because news travels fast. If she already knows about these blog entries, she’s surrounding herself with other people. When I am clear-eyed about the writing I do, I know that past behavior is an indication of future. If Aada read me every day for 12 years, she didn’t stop just because she stopped reaching out to me. That’s because other people in her life read my blog and she won’t want to be behind them. It doesn’t have much to do with me, actually.

And in fact Aada’s lie has nothing to do with me. She needed it to make herself feel better, but I don’t know why. My guess is that she was feeling a little overshadowed and vulnerable about it, so she told me details of someone else’s life for years……….. Then tried to control every possible outcome so that no one would find out she lied.

There’s no evidence to back up any of her claims. None.

I’ve told you this already, but I’m still sitting in my bedroom in shock.

I have group therapy later, and that will help me compartmentalize and stop thinking about all of this. Michael assured me that I needed to put all the responsibility on Aada, that I wasn’t the one living a lie. I was living on what I thought was the truth. Aada changed my reality, and feels responsible for my maladies.

I don’t think that’s unfair of her, given the situation. What she told me, that she was a part of the intelligence community, might be true. I’m also sure there’s an AI that can do her job for her. But she is nowhere near the super secret agent she pretended to be.

The working title for the project is “The Spy Who Catfished Me,” but I’m leaning towards “Hacking Aada,” due to the internet aspect of our relationship, and how over time we retreated from the rest of the world and started working each other. We each had the other over a barrel with our shenanigans, because she was rightfully avoidant and I was deservedly anxious.

You don’t lie without protecting the path.

I was blocked by Mummo and Heytch, so there was no way for me to get together with them and assess who was really whom. It’s so hard to bullshit a bullshitter, and that’s the source of my shame and embarrassment. That I’ve been dismissive of everyone in my life because they didn’t have Aada’s street creds, therefore her opinion is “bigger.” I have stayed in that headspace for over a decade, and it didn’t make me popular, I’ll tell you that much.

Then, in an ominous turn, I started buying Jonna Mendez’s books, thinking that Aada was one of her recruits. I felt like I was trying to out-spy a spy…. Looking for comfort in her story because she fell so hard for Tony, the person I thought Aada was in real life.

Morgan Freeman: She was not.

It’s a case of mistaken identity, because all that care and connection should have been reserved for someone else, the person whose story I was actually following. Aada’s position is indeed classified, and I will continue to say it because Aada’s lies were so effective due to being hidden behind that curtain. I could believe she did whatever I wanted and she couldn’t confirm or deny.

So she didn’t. She stonewalled me every day, and had strong reactions to my guesswork. That’s because my guesswork was for people whose lives were far and away more complicated.

I did research on what it was like to be a broken child accepted into a system like CIA so that I could be a better friend. I did triage to see how much anxiety she was feeling, and was surprised when she always said she felt none. It makes a lot more sense that she was not anxiety-ridden given that she wasn’t doing half of what I thought.

But Mummo was.

Aada got tears that did not belong to her, nor can I really say that they were for Mummo, because we have not been in contact. As for Aada sticking by me, there are so many times when she should have given up and ended the relationship earlier, because I was a basket case and I never would have known that I was fucked up over a lie. I am thinking that she has thought the same thing, because she has regretted telling me she was CIA every day since.

To be clear, Mummo isn’t CIA, either. That does not mean she’s never been in danger. It’s just that Mummo is closer to espionage and actionable intel than Aada ever has been…… You just wouldn’t know it according to her.

Aada sees every entry as a threat and will fight me tooth and nail on this one. She thinks that all of this will blow back on her professionally and she’ll be in danger of losing her job. Meanwhile, I cannot control those consequences for her and I think her fear is too great. I forgive her, so everyone else should, too.

It’s not up to me to protect Aada from her consequences, because the fact that she continued to lie is what will sink her and not anything I’ve done should it come to that.

Say Aada was telling the truth all that time, that she is the field agent and trained interrogator she played on TV. Isn’t it better that I tell you her story is a pack of lies so she can keep what little cover she has left? I have no idea what she tells other people in her life, but I’m betting I’m not the only one she’s used this little trick on to make herself seem more important than she really is. It is not my responsibility to clean up that mess, and it never will be.

I have never manipulated her. I have never lied. She thinks that I lied because I published an e-mail I wrote to her after I’d told her I’d deleted all her emails to me. It wasn’t that I lied. It’s just that I did delete everything in my Gmail account and found that letter in my Outlook account after she blocked me.

I published her words after she blocked me because there was no one to ask, and she didn’t have a problem with me publishing anyone else’s takedown of me for her own entertainment. To be fair, I got a thrill out of posting other people’s criticisms because it always caused Aada to react like a mama dragon.

She just never turned that mama dragon on herself and asked herself whether she was causing me harm. She turned everything around so that I was the only manipulator, I was the only one who had done wrong, and that I betrayed her by catching her in a lie.

She wasn’t sorry she lied. She was sorry she got caught.

That’s why it would take a mountain of work for us to be successful. If we do make up, it will be because we declared our former relationship a total loss, and started working on putting our relationship back together as a salvage title. It’s not bad to fix a write off as long as the work is done right.

Why do I insist on being kind and hurt at the same time? Because I know that in her heart of hearts, Aada has already forgiven me and moved on, compartmentalizing her feelings so they don’t leak out. But if she’s half the friend she said she would be, she’s cried over my situation more than I know, and probably stuck with me because she saw how affected I was in my writing.

She loved being adored, but hated when I talked about problems in her relationship because I wasn’t representing her side of the story. I couldn’t until now, both because she wouldn’t tell it and I had to wait until I heard the real truth. Michael has never manipulated me, and has a vested interest in keeping me healthy. I don’t know why, because he’s a Republican.

Yes, I have Republican friends. I had to get over it. You will, too.

For some people, this will be the biggest shocking thing I say all day.

There’s just a tie that binds Michael to me in a way no one will ever have. As he says, “HSPVA 4 LIFE.”