The room is empty and quiet. I’m sitting on my bed, listening to the hum of the air conditioner and the rhythm of my fingers on my loud ass keyboard. It’s mechanical and my fingers fly over it like speed demons possessed, but other people hear it and think it’s the most annoying sound in the world.

I should probably charge my extra BT keyboard so that the noise from this one doesn’t set my family off at Thanksgiving. I prefer the sound because I came up on a mechanical keyboard. I need to hear the clack out loud. It’s got a certain feel and any serious writer will tell you that tools matter. This keyboard is perfect and I love it to the tune of 90 words a minute.

It has two other features that are notable besides the mechanical feel. The first is that it has a dial for the BT controller so that I can use more than one device with it. The second is that it runs on AAA batteries, so if they run out I can just replace them on the go. I don’t have to have a wall charger and several hours.

The batteries last about six months before they need changing, which is incredible due to the number of words I type on it every single day.

It’s a Logitech K480, and I know they still make them. I should probably buy a second one just in case this one breaks, because every typist knows that when you find the keyboard you like, you stick with it.

I’m starting to plan my day, like noticing how messy the patio is. I need to clean it up. None of it is my mess, though. People throw their trash down into my patio while they’re walking, and there’s a ton of leaves that need to be bagged and vines that need to be cut. I also wish I had a power washer, but that’s neither here nor there. The apartment complex can power wash the concrete after I’m gone if they deem it necessary.

I also need to pick up the living room and sort the wash. All of these domestic things that require attention but don’t have a set schedule to be accomplished except I know when I leave town.

I also didn’t get any souvenirs the last time I was in Houston, so I want to look at the airport on my way home. It’s been a while since I had a new Dynamo or Dash anything. I’m sure that I could get a better deal at Academy (sportswear outlet in the US), but the convenience factor of grabbing it and putting it in my backpack as I run through Hudson’s is appealing.

Thinking about all I have to do is refocusing my energy into things I can control. I cannot control anyone else’s radio silence and wishing does no good. I am reaping what I sow for having a public opinion, and that just has to be okay. I am not a victim in any way, shape, or form. The fact that I am lonely now is because I’ve written about my life for so many years that people get tired of being characters.

Adoration and praise for my writing is cyclical depending on their view of how I write about them, because the writing itself is always stunning according to them. That’s not where the disagreement arises. The disagreement happens when I cannot capture a story as it lives in someone else’s head.

I have to be willing to stand up to that kind of pressure in order to keep writing, and it is not always easy. I don’t want to be lonely, and I could solve a lot by shutting this whole thing down…. But I’ve done that before, too, and the same people who disagreed with me so vehemently to begin with wondered why I don’t write anymore, because it was always so beautiful.

I cannot win, so I have to base my decisions on blogging as to whether I like it or not. The stakes are quite high given that I am just as at-risk as Dooce with our similar mental health issues. I don’t always love that our stories are so closely aligned, frankly. She held a mirror up to my illness and showed me how bad it could really get.

I have resisted the temptation to become sort of lifestyle blogger because the subject matter would carry less of an emotional punch, but it would feel like selling out. I like that no one pays attention to me in the grand scheme of things, so I am not beholden to advertisers. No one is telling me how and what to write, and I would buckle under that kind of structure. My writing is good because it’s not trying to be anything it’s not. I’m stream of consciousness, and you’re invited.

I’m trying to think of all the gifts I’ll be giving and receiving this year, instead of the people I want to buy gifts for and cannot, because it would be intrusive.

I still can’t believe that Sam doesn’t want to be in my life at all, because that’s not how I would have reacted. I am still wrapping my brain around the fact that not everyone reacts the way I think they should and to get over it. I realize that we had conflict, but I am always in favor of resolution. I wouldn’t have turned her away if she’d been genuinely remorseful and just wanted to be pals, because I can never have enough friends.

It’s a bummer, truly, because we had enough in common to talk every day and never mention dating ever again, because I wouldn’t have wanted to do so. I don’t make it a habit of letting people hurt me that deeply twice. I just missed her energy and I’m disappointed that a simple cup of coffee is too much.

It is not her responsibility to care that I feel disappointed, either.

All I can do is be glad that I am not the sort of person that holds onto grudges, and handle future relationships with more care. I was so angry that Sam broke up with me that I can see why she wouldn’t want to be my friend now. But I do not know what is so offensive about me that the ban has to be lifelong.

She said, “I forgive you and wish you a fine life, but I cannot be part of it.”

Ouch.

I had no business reaching out to Sam because I knew how it would turn out in my heart of hearts. I just wanted to see someone familiar in this city after months of being so lonely I couldn’t cope. I wasn’t trying to romance her, and would have welcomed meeting whomever makes her heart sing….. Because then that’s not having one friend in Baltimore, that’s two.

It really informs a lot of how I treat old girlfriends to watch how they treat me. I learn what I will and won’t do to other people. Giving them a lifelong ban is not how I work. I need time to get over things, and then we can talk. Maybe we can even be friendly after we’ve taken some space.

I waited three years before I went out on a limb and apologized to Sam for all the things I said I when I was hurt. She accused me of not being able to move on, and if that’s her story and she needs it, so be it. Just because someone thinks something doesn’t make it true.

I apologized because it was the right thing to do to make amends. That is not the same as “cannot move on.” What we had is a failure to communicate, and I’m strong enough to let her wrong ass opinion stand. 😉

I am not strong enough to let Aada’s wrong ass opinion stand, however. She crushed me. Absolutely crushed me. She was so angry she told me she wouldn’t even buy my first book.

I am absolutely certain that is bullshit just meant to hurt me, but I’m sure I deserved that one if she needed to blow off some steam. Having an author love you so much is exhausting.

Having a muse is energizing.

Therein lies the rub. She only likes being written about when I talk about how sweet and amazing she is. Of the entries where I get angry, she says “the flaying of my skin is something for which I never could have prepared.”

See? I told you she was a better writer than me.

The problem is that she thinks I did it on purpose instead of an in-depth character study over many years. She’s an angel and a demon in these pages, just like me.

We are both angels and assholes, The Holy and the Moly.

We reverse roles constantly, but right now she sees me as the villain in her story. She can have that if she wants to as I constantly try to prove that it’s not true. To lift her up in these pages so that she sees I absolutely was furious at her, but all relationships have conflict and you work through them.

I have reached the limit of what Aada is willing to work through right now. I am on my own and it is lonely as fuck. She’s been a part of my daily life for over 12 years and in the summer it will be 13. She is the heart and soul of this blog because again, writing to her was training for the big gyms. There are authors I could be introduced to that I’ve been waiting to meet for literal years, particularly the one who used to tool around on his motorcycle high as hell on hashish when he was a student at U of Cairo.

And if you know who that is, you’ve really been paying attention.

He’s not Michelle Obama, for Chrissakes, but he impresses me.

I wrote Aada’s story in such detail because I thought it was necessary and important work for my future. I could not create a dynamic platonic love story without exploring Aada’s journey toward wholeness as well. That depiction cost me, because she didn’t see me as using my own life as a teaching tool, but trying to take her down, embarrass her, etc…… unless I was glowing about her.

She treasures the lines that glow about her in her heart, but does not love that I also talk about our problems. Despite not meeting on the ground, we’ve created a relationship that works for us (historically).

I am not sure I have it in me to go another round with Aada because so far she’s not willing to meet me on the ground. She says she is and gets the shakes. To be fair, I do too…. It’s just that someone had to put on their big boy pants and be brave. It was me, and I’m still not sure how our relationship would have changed.

I know I would have written about her a lot less, because our relationship would be lighter and more fun. I’d feel like I just talked to her, so there was no need to explore anything here. We go months without talking while she leaves me to my own devices, which lets the story we’re telling ourselves drift too much to be useful.

We are at opposite ends of the spectrum, with me focusing on all the positive because I mean them so much, and her focusing on the negative because it suits how she feels about me at the current moment. She is not being rejected. She is telling me that I decided to reject her, which is completely different and unfair.

I have a thing about things being unfair.

No one gets to tell me what I “decided.”

I shouldn’t have to take all her passive-aggressive comments because they don’t help anything. She can be snarky toward me all she wants and I will sit there and take it until Jesus comes, but she’s the one that’s cutting off her nose to spite her face.

There are things she could fix with a phone call, but she doesn’t see things from my point of view. I intentionally tried to take her down, so she’s not going to go out on a limb for me any time soon.

It hurts so much because there’s nothing I can say to get her to open up and actually talk to me about the problem. She cannot take in that I write about my life and she was “over the line, Smokey. Mark it zero.” That it took time for me to decide next steps and how I really felt. That I was angry and you can see it melt over time, me returning to glowing about her as much as I always did. It is the cyclical nature of friendship. Things go wrong, especially with an author and a muse. The relationship is mercurial.

But here’s where I fail…………..

This is friendship, not ‘Nam. There are rules.

I thought I was being fair and balanced because I did not let myself off the hook and flayed my own skin. I was so focused on beating myself up that it would never occur to me that I was specifically guilting someone else. I was taking responsibility for my own actions, because they hurt both of us. I was crying and shaking while I was writing, she was crying and shaking while she was reading (I surmise by her reaction).

We have both done a number on each other and I don’t think the only way is out. I think it’s through. At almost 13 years, we’re never going to not know each other anymore. We’ll always come across each other’s wild and crazy brains, whether it’s thinking about pain or joy.

I know what I don’t want to take in. I’m not going to sit here in pain anymore because all I am doing is sending peace. I’m not conflicted anymore and there’s nothing I can do to change anything. It’s time to rest and relax if only I can make myself do it.

I need to sit here in the quiet and not write, just thinking about Aada’s impression of me and how it got to be so negative when the story I was telling myself is that I needed to write it out. She told me she wasn’t going to read and then chastised me for all she read. She couldn’t have it both ways, and tortured herself.

Because I was writing toward reconciliation, and she was reading towards separation. The message was completely inverted because of the lens in which it was being read. The negative things I wrote were all true and the positives were just “gotchas.”

MEANWHILE

I am not feeling any of this and being told what my decisions are based on someone that’s feeling rejection sensitivity dysphoria when rejection is the absolute last thing on my mind.

I have literally begged her to reconsider, and she says that her decision is her decision and I don’t have to like it.

What I’m trying to prevent is saying we’re done while Aada feels the need to call me on my bullshit, dropping in whenever she wants to tell me how horrible I am for publishing X or Y because it doesn’t match the story in her head.

According to her, she’s been wonderful and I’ve been terrible. In a lot of ways, this story is true. But the things I see as wonderful and terrible are not the same things she does because she thinks I’m focused on telling her what a bad friend she is.

It’s not true. I have thought about her every day, loved her every day, been disappointed when she erred, and have gone through the forgiveness process all while writing it out. I’m in a different place than she is because I’m not holding on to anything and punishing her for it. She sees punishment because of the way she feels about herself.

I am embarrassed at my depth of feeling for her while she is very busy and dedicated to thinking I hate her.

I told her I’d do some shady shit for a hug.

Sam finally got back to me and told me that she hoped I could move on because she couldn’t be a part of my life. Now, I’m not waiting on a response and I absolutely can. I don’t know why I thought Sam would want to be my friend after all this time, but it was worth a shot. I sowed a lot of chaos with her and I can fully understand why she wouldn’t want to revisit that time in our lives. I don’t have to like it, though.

I think it’s ironic that she told me she hoped I could move on when I have been radio silent for three years and just wanted to catch up. I literally haven’t thought about her except when her address popped up on my phone when I was driving around town. But we’d have to have more of a conversation for her to understand that, and neither one of us wants more of a conversation now that I know where she stands.

I don’t have to go six rounds over “why?” I’m too old and I don’t care.

Progress has been made with Aada. She told me she had no idea why my email was deferred and everything is A-ok between us. Let’s just let things lie. I got all the clarification and closure I’ll ever need, keeping our connection pure if we ever want to pick it back up where we left off. The peace of interim is a beautiful thing and it was great to talk to her even for a bit.

I sent her the blurb from Copilot and told her I couldn’t have done it without her and she’d turned me into a beautiful writer.

It’s true. If you have a relationship on the internet for 12 years, you’ve got to be doing something right in the writing department. Writing to her was training ground for the big gyms, because she was a writing major in college and I…………………… wasn’t.

Writing to Aada is a whole mood.

I sowed chaos with Aada as well. That’s why we’re not #friendshipgoals either, but there’s a better chance it will happen with Aada than it will with Sam and that’s the way I like it.

In fact, when Sam broke up with me the first time, Aada metaphysically kissed my boo-boos and gave me a lollipop. She is always kind when someone breaks my heart and offers to break their kneecaps. There’s no need, but I appreciate having a pet monster on a fraying leash.

I hate reaping what I sow, and I am paying for writing about her publicly, I know it. But I pay for the fact that I write about my life all day, every day. If I’m not going to be shy and have a public opinion, that means being able to take the arrows that inevitably come with it.

I now know what it means to sacrifice for my writing. People are starting to self select whether they want to be in my life because they know that anything they say might be remembered years down the road. That even if they aren’t in my life, they will appear here as memories.

I am learning that there’s a lot of truth to the phrase, “I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m someone’s shot of tequila.”

It’s hard to pick yourself up from nothing, which is why I have no close friends in Baltimore. In fact, my nearest local friend is in Stafford, Virginia. I have had more fun than the law should allow gaping at the fall foliage between my house and Tiina’s. So much so that I look forward to her taking days off because that means hanging out in our pajamas watching anime or playing video games is a viable option.

Picking myself up from nothing means that I have acquaintances in Baltimore and haven’t lived here long enough for it to graduate into friendship. It would have been nice if Sam had wanted to reconnect, but I made her uncomfortable. That’s the last thing I wanted to do, so I won’t be reaching out to her again.

Hearing that you are forgiven, but that doesn’t mean things are good again is always hard no matter the situation. In this case, my heart was not tied up in romance. I had already been through the wringer once with Sam and wasn’t eager to participate in it again. But we had such fun that I thought keeping it light and going for coffee was advisable.

The queer community in Baltimore is small. You don’t want to have beef with anyone, being scared to run into them at events. Every person in which you’re interested was somebody else’s partner before you, which among women creates territorial high drama. I am not interested in high drama. I am interested in coffee.

I know within myself that I thought reaching out to Sam was a shortcut to making more friends in the city. That if she wasn’t angry anymore, she’d introduce me around and it wouldn’t be long before I had a network again. I don’t know why that isn’t possible, but I don’t ask these questions. That is her story, and she hasn’t allowed me to read it.

The thing is, though, I met Sam through Facebook dating. There is nothing stopping me from getting back on Facebook dating and seeing who might be interesting around here, and, this is important…. ACTUALLY CONTACTING THEM. I swear to Christ, Leslie…. stop with the attitude that the perfect partner is going to drop into your lap without any effort at all.

My standards are extraordinarily high.

I ghosted one woman who said she didn’t like British people because she couldn’t understand them.

You’re welcome, Britain. I’m sure you’re very grateful.

I run quick because I compare everyone to Aada, Mummo, and Heytch.

All aliases, all people I have never dated and way out of my league. I could have had lifelong friendships with all of them, but one by one they all fell away as I became too obnoxious for some and too weird for others.

They’re not wrong. I get it.

But they’re the gold standard. I know what I want, and I seek it out. They all had the capability to bend my mind like a pretzel and I blew it in favor of fuckboi jackass antics. I’m the kind of person that if I was weird to you once, I’ll think about it for 20 years. I am MORTIFIED every time I think of what happened and it was 12 years ago…. but Aada came back to me because our relationship was so much deeper and richer than the others. I am so glad that she did not run away from me, but carefully turned me into someone she could tolerate. 😉

I’m so much older now and realizing that I should have taken more care with the network I had. I obliterated it at my own hand because I was shooting my mouth off on the internet.

I am much more relaxed and focused now than I was. I honestly and truly believe that my life was a shit show, so my behavior became erratic and unpredictable. It isn’t rocket science. I was overwhelmed in every direction and covering it up with bravado. I acted like a typical man and I deserved it when we separated.

It feels like I’ll never get over it because I’m not tapped into something large enough to replace it and I never will be.

This is one of those days where I just don’t feel so good about myself and I’m glad that I already have a built in plan for getting out of the house and going to my cognitive behavioral health group.

Speaking of which….. time to take a shower.

I realized that I didn’t feel strongly one way or the other about Sam romantically, but that I wanted her to participate in my life on some level if she was open to it. I thought a handwritten note would be the best way to show apology, but I didn’t want her kids to read it before she did and receive intel.

So, I just put my name, address, and phone number plus a short note saying I’d love to see her if she was interested. No hearts.

But I meant them.

That is all love- realizing that someone was so dynamic in your life that you’re over the hurt that a breakup caused and just want their energy around you. We only dated for three weeks before Sam flipped out and dumped me. Yet her personality had such an impact on me that it was worth forgiving her for it.

I’ve thought about reaching out to her since i got here in December, but I hadn’t had the confidence to drop something in her mailbox until today.

I think that has a lot to do with being tired of being lonely on every level. I don’t even have a buddy to go do things with, and Sam would be a great one. She’s tapped into every musical outlet in the city. She’s a social butterfly, going to concerts often. What worked well was that an extrovert was willing to drag me out of my house. That’s how introverts manage.

And if you read anything into ink color, I was a dumbass and wrote everything in pink. I am not ready for *anything* having to do with pink letters. Sam actually hurt me pretty bad, and it took longer than three weeks to get over it, which was definitely not amusing.

Bryn said it best. “You’re not really angry with her. You’re angry she busted your fairy tale.” She was right. Anger at Sam faded quickly compared to the loss I felt that I was not going to be a girlfriend and have her kids around me.

Now, I am immune to fairy tales, but maybe one day I’ll be able to enjoy them again.

It was another instance in which I am humbled after popping off and I’d like to make amends for it. Just because my heart was broken doesn’t make my words okay, and I am also humbled that Aada said them to me long ago. It’s a message that resonates with me today because Aada reads and writes fairy tales. I am guilty of busting my own with her and constantly asking to be forgiven for things I said when I was in many kinds of moods.

I put her through a hell she didn’t deserve, and I know that because again, I don’t have to remember what I did that was so awful I drove her away. I wrote it all down. There’s 12 years of history of us getting close and blowing out, the pattern that needs to stop.

Recognizing that pattern is the first step to creating healthy relationships in the future. Secure connections require being careful with what you say and even more careful with what you do. Your actions and your words have to line up. You cannot lie in any way, shape, or form. Covering up the real issue because it’s hard for you to get the words out only leads to more and more trouble down the road. You can read all about it starting in June of 2013.

So, I am choosing to be healthy with Sam and be as sincere as I can, not letting her in too fast and being diligent about it because I let her in too quickly before and our relationship turned mercurial fast. I am done with mercurial relationships because I’m too old for it. Aada and all our drama was too much for both of us. We both need to redirect our attention into relationships that feed us and stop hating on each other.

Just because I was hurt doesn’t make my words okay. It doesn’t matter that they were directed at an audience and not at her. It made her feel bad because she could not trust that the loving things I said about her were also true.

My friends on the ground will always know that I love them because they have more to go on, and I believe in that fact. I’m now trying to nurture it where I didn’t before. I thought of Aada as some kind of authority in my life and she is, puffing herself up and being really hard on me (historically. This time being hard on me was justified.), sometimes scaring me into a type of submission because I was all of the sudden afraid to bring up issues.

She explodes when you bring them up, and distances herself while she licks her wounds in private without realizing that you get more accomplished by increasing communication and understanding after conflict so that it doesn’t bubble up again. You have a solid shot at changing a pattern the more you understand each other.

I am starting to get tired of these toxic relationships, and it takes two to tango. I can only realize I’m the common denominator, and establish more self-respect. Learning more about how to de-escalate a conflict than I already do, because to some people the way I do it is pedantic. I need to know what it is about me that makes so many people understand me to an enormous degree, while others fight me in defense. Maybe that’s just my win/lose rate.

Where I got tripped up was making Aada so high on the totem pole that no other priority mattered, and she didn’t have that much energy for me. I was lost in a world of rumination because as a writer, she lit my brain on fire.

I am looking for that kind of chemistry, and Sam sets my brain on fire for music. I think we’d work well together as long as we weren’t competing with each other for anything (she’s a mezzo, I’m a lyric……. eye roll…. how did we not know this wouldn’t work out? It’s not like there weren’t signs. Plus, I’m a trumpet player. Between my diva status and my lead trumpet background, she joked that my ego wouldn’t fit through the door.

It doesn’t, but that’s all social masking and trying to have a good time despite the fact that I’d rather be home reading… I cover up how I really feel about myself in person because in person, that person doesn’t have time to hear me like they have 10 minutes to read an entry.

That’s led to my detriment in a lot of ways. Because people read me, they hear my voice in their heads regularly. Therefore, they think they talk to me a lot more often than they actually do. Our communication suffers.

Other people see me suffering and think it’s not a good idea to intrude. It’s always a good idea to intrude, because I might need the interruption. I’m trying to interrupt myself frequently and take breaks, walking away from the Internet entirely and going out into the world.

I felt bad that my handwriting was SO TERRIBLE. Yet, I wanted to approach Sam with the least amount of investment on her part. That I wasn’t putting her on the spot to say yes or no. She’s got my number. If I hear from her, great. If I don’t, it will be sad, but I will have my answer and that’s worth celebrating all on its own.

I want to start a new chapter, but this time, it has to be a nonfiction.