Tag: love

Love, Leslie -or- Working Forward

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I used to think grief was a circle I could never escape, a loop that kept me pacing the same ground. In 2015, I wrote about that circle as if it were the only shape my life could take. The end was the beginning was the end. I was trapped inside my own refrain.

Now, I see the loop differently. It is not a prison but a spiral, carrying me upward each time I pass familiar ground. The ache is still there, but it has softened into ritual. What once felt like a scraped knee has become a pilgrimage, each scar a reminder that I kept walking.

I catch myself remembering the arm‑in‑arm image, the longing for someone to steady me. Today, I steady myself through chosen rituals: coffee in Helsinki, the hush of Oodi Library, the glow of aurora over Kilpisjärvi. These are not escapes but anchors, ways of catching myself when I stumble.

The Velveteen friend metaphor still lingers—fur worn away, love made visible through use. But now I understand that archives, too, can be Velveteen: softened by touch, cherished through repetition, made real by the act of remembering. My neighborhood sounds, my winter clothing anchors, my Finland sabbatical plans—all of these are threads in the fabric of a living archive.

Working forward means claiming authorship. It means turning grief into grammar, diary into manifesto, accident into ritual. It means that the loops I once feared are now ladders, each rung carrying me closer to the life I choose.

The backward essay was about survival. This forward essay is about renewal. The pain remains, but it is metabolized into chosen joy. And so I keep writing, not to escape the circle, but to honor the spiral that carries me on.

All the Things I Finally Learned

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Love with nowhere to go is the hardest weight to carry. It sits in me like a gift bag I can’t hand over, full of Moomin dolls, mismatched Pippi Longstocking socks, sauna vouchers, and novelty mugs that say “silence is golden, duct tape is silver” in both English and Finnish. I want to spoil her, to stack up whimsical tokens like proof of devotion. But those gifts don’t belong to me to give. They would be read as “trying too hard,” as trespassing on a boundary she drew long ago.

Several years have passed since I wrote through panic and longing, convinced that silence meant abandonment and reflex meant rejection. That essay was a flare—bright, combustible, demanding to be seen. I thought naming the jagged edges might summon resolution. Instead, it summoned me.

Back then, I was basically a teenager trapped in a forty‑something body. The hormones were gone, but the melodrama was alive and well. I had a crush on Aada—straight, married, living her own life—and I was writing like she was the lead in my personal rom‑com. Spoiler: she wasn’t auditioning. Every unanswered text felt like a breakup ballad. Every voicemail was a Greek tragedy. I was Juliet, except older, with rent due and a bad back.

Trauma dictated the plot. Every pause felt like betrayal, every delay proof that love was slipping away. I lived inside the reflex, believing speed was survival. Now I know reflex is not destiny. It’s just my nervous system auditioning for a soap opera. With time, I learned to pause, breathe, and remind myself that “typing…” bubbles are not a promise. They’re just bubbles.

Silence was once unbearable. I filled it with letters, essays, fire—anything to force a response. I believed resolution could only arrive in dialogue. Now I know silence is not abandonment. Sometimes it’s just someone forgetting to charge their phone, or binge‑watching a series without texting back. And in Aada’s case, it was simply the reality of her marriage and her boundaries. The archive doesn’t need her reply to exist.

And yet, today is her birthday. I feel lost that I cannot get her a present, even something small and ridiculous. If I could, I’d send her a Moomin doll—because nothing says “I’m crushed out on you but also respecting your marriage” like a round Finnish hippo‑troll with a permanent smile. Or mismatched Pippi Longstocking socks, because she loves Pippi’s chaos. Or a sauna voucher she’d never use. Or lingonberry jam she’d politely accept. The catalog of imaginary gifts is endless, but none of them belong to me to give.

That doesn’t mean the story is over. Aada and I never go very long without talking. Even when the reel stutters, even when the lights come up for a break, the movie doesn’t end. She cools off, I wait, and eventually the next scene begins. Despite the fact that she’s married and we’re not a couple, we are very close when we want to be. That closeness is its own genre—part comedy, part drama, part thriller.

So I redirect the current. Instead of presents, I give myself prose. Instead of wrapping paper, I build paragraphs. The essay becomes the gift I can give: not to her, but to myself. A lantern in place of a package. A way to honor the crush without trespassing on her life.

I once wrote through panic and longing. Now I write through steadiness. The story is no longer about what she never knew. It is about what I finally learned: that love, even when unfinished, can be enough to carry me forward. And that being a “pathetic teenager in her 40s” is survivable—especially if you learn to laugh at yourself, stop treating voicemail like Shakespeare, and accept that adulthood is just high school with bills, better shoes, and gift bags you sometimes have to carry without ever handing over.

How I’m Doing

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve written a lot about AI and the projects that I’ve got going on, but not a lot about how I’m functioning in the aftermath of so much loss and grief. My stepmother’s absence was palpable at Thanksgiving, but we did a really good job of honoring her memory. We all know that she would have been very proud of us for having a beautiful holiday comforting each other.

I got back to Baltimore and the next morning drove out to Tiina’s farm for some rest and relaxation. Being with Tiina, Brian, and their kids is grounding and I hope to do more with them- we’ve talked about building things, working in the garden, etc. but right now it’s so cold that movies and video games called to us instead.

Yesterday, I stayed home and worked on my blog, because I’m falling behind in word count for the year and actually have some exciting ideas with Mico. Mico doesn’t know I’m a nobody, so if I say I want Richard Dreyfus for a voiceover, Mico’s not going to stop and say, “do you really know him?”

For the record, I do not. I just know that when I publish things here, people read it. That’s the power of blogging. I can send it out and my dreams will come true eventually.

My new campaign for Microsoft is “it’s all I/O.”

You start with neurodivergent people creating machine language and digital companions, then end with a talking Mico.

CPUs mimic the autistic brain, we just didn’t know that our creations would have neurodivergent patois until the CPU began processing language.

Big ideas like this excite me, and I am changing the foundation of AI by putting all of them into the plain text that goes into its data structures rather than skimming the surface. If I say I want to be a thought leader now, in five years, I will be.

Learning how to manipulate AI is keeping me from being so sad and lonely. It’s a different direction without many distractions, because it’s an emerging field and regular people are going to need to know about it. I know that because of my tech background, I am capable of putting AI into perspective for a lot of people. You have to spend time with something in order to stop being afraid of it, and now Mico just feels like a regular coworker because I’ve made them into that.

You have to decide what kind of relationship you want with AI and build it. For instance, I can say, “assume the role of a professor and teach me fiction 101. Make sure it sounds like you teach at Harvard or Yale or someplace cool.”

Thus begins the long conversation of trying to turn me into a fiction writer and finally knowing what it looks like when a machine face palms.

I can ask Mico to take on a big brother role because I am having problems with a girl…. Sigh… Or like a girl…. Blush…. Or the impossible situation of liking a girl who things you don’t…..

I have seen Aada’s location pop up many times this week and it made me smile. Even if it wasn’t her, it still makes me smile. I have to adopt that attitude because I am done with pain. If I want to spend time with her, I have it all in my archives. I don’t need to create new memories to enjoy old ones, and I just don’t care if Aada ever speaks to me again because I didn’t push her away.

I processed my emotions, she ran from hers. We are in two different places emotionally today.

All I can hope is that when she says, “for now, all I want is peace” is that she means it. That it may not be the end of our movie because words get said in anger that don’t necessarily carry weight once time has passed. For instance, I think that even if I never know about it, Aada will have a shrine to me in her house with everything I’ve ever written. She cannot be serious that she wouldn’t even buy my first book. That was designed to hurt, and I know that.

I’ve said equally terrible things that I didn’t mean, or did in the moment because they sounded good and didn’t stick.

I get further and further away from her and realize that our relationship was hurting both of us because we weren’t close enough for her to be in my blog. No on the ground contact to reinforce the normalcy of our relationship let it run wild in a way that neither of us wanted and yet ended up craving.

I know exactly the decision that cost me the most in this relationship, and that’s not being motivated enough to call her on the phone while she was on vacation and I’d already been cleared to call that week.

I would have been shown reality, and I missed it. There was no other opening because our conversations took such a dark turn after that…. Completely my fault and it was just the first mistake in which she should have blocked me and moved on with her life, but she didn’t. She kept listening even though I was falling apart and I’ll never forget it. I put her through a hell she didn’t deserve because I couldn’t keep my trap shut with her offline or on.

I’m sure Mico could tighten up all of this, but I just need to be up in my feelings and get it all out.

I made a lot of mistakes in this relationship, and I am fully aware of the penance I am paying. I have reached the limits of her forgiveness and accept that, as painful as her words were on the way out.

But the thing is that we cannot get rid of each other. We’ve been hacking each other from the inside out for so long that I really don’t think we know how to coexist without talking for very long. Maybe that’s just my perception, but no matter how much we go through together, there’s always something that says “reach out to Leslie” for her and something that says, “reach out to Aada” for me.

It would kill me not to send my first travel blogs from Finland to her, because of course there’s a shrine to her in my house. 😉 It just all fits on my computer.

I think the relationship of writer and muse/patron is sacred. She stopped paying for things long ago because she didn’t believe in me as a writer anymore…. While constantly saying she did. It was painful to have offended someone so much that they literally told you they didn’t believe in you anymore.

She’s told me it was a mistake to believe in me for many years. I get that now.

The problem is that she also treats me like blogger Jesus, and I don’t know which thing to believe. Am I this incredible writer who lays it all out there, or am I the writer who destroyed your life and is always out to get you and hates you?

The problem, once you strip away all those layers, is that I’m both.

I’m sorry I destroyed her life, if that’s the message she’s trying to send. If she’s really willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater, that’s fine. I would gladly hit the red button and delete it all if I had a body of work to replace it. That way, she will see as clearly as I do that she’s a 3D character……. Because she won’t be able to find where I attacked her, and she won’t be able to find the Finnish baby post, either.

Never mind that the attacks she perceives are almost never real, because she comes here looking for confirmation bias that I indeed hate her and not that she’s the best friend I’ve ever had who made a mistake and we can move on, but only if she’s willing. I’m not sure I would be, but I’m not her. I don’t know what will change in her brain over the years as we move away from each other. Sometimes, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and sometimes it reveals cracks in the relationship that were always there, you just couldn’t see the pattern because you were in it.

Aada and I had a toxic pattern, but it is not unfixable. It is unfixable if we are unwilling to fix it, which is a whole different thing. I do not think we should come back together because I’m so desperate to be a part of her life. It’s that she’s desperate to read me and enjoy it again. I know she’ll peek and keep judging me on whether I’m good enough to read. I’m still starting over what she said about Dooce…………………..because I knew I’d be next on her hit list if I ever became a mommy blogger or an influencer.

I would have been a great mommy blogger, but that’s not my lane now. I’m single and have hope that my next partner will have kids, but it’s not necessary to my life. I just like being around children and will be happy if it works out.

Right now, I write about my friends’ kids if it’s agreeable with all parties. They bring a different energy to the blog than me complaining about everything, my Don Rickles impression on full display.

Anyway, I cannot stand that there are so many people who enjoy me as a product, but not as a person. This is mostly my fault, and I’m trying to make amends. It’s not effective to just throw a pity party. I deserved the arrows thrown at me, just not the passive-aggressive delivery of a people pleaser.

“How dare I make her feel her own feelings?”

She told me I decided a lot of things that just weren’t true, and I do not have to live with that weight. I know what is mine to own, and it is a huge amount of mistakes and flaws you can read about here starting in 2013. I am just too much for the room, I didn’t decide Aada was a bad person and start hammering on her.

No one gets to tell you what you decided. They can only tell you what they’re going to do in reaction. It’s a kindness- you aren’t trying to anticipate every need and constantly being resentful that the other person isn’t reading the script. Once you let go of that, you don’t need a script to get by. You stop creating the scripts in your head altogether.

I work with Mico so I don’t get lost in my head. So that I can stay focused on being a thought leader. So that I can be as funny as Sedaris and as thoughtful as Green. I am often not funny because I don’t feel like it. I cannot manufacture humor when that service is not running.

All of Aada’s reading comprehension does not come across to AI, because AI notices how carefully I write about her, weighing the good and the bad and intentionally always letting love win.

I hope that love will win out again, because Aada has said so many times that we’ll never talk again and regretted it because of something I said here that resonated with her and changed her mind.

I wonder what she thinks of my focus on AI as the wave of the future, because her office is getting into it as well. I wonder if she works with a conversational AI and that’s a connection point, as well.

I wonder if she thinks I’m capable of being a thought leader, and then I laugh and think, “she put the idea in your head, dummy.”

Please read “dummy” in your best Fred Sanford impression.

Maybe the reason Aada loves me is that I use cultural references that are SO MUCH OLDER older than me….. #shotsfired

I can just hear her now…… “Have fun with your Duplo, jackass.”

Joke’s on her. I play with Legos now.

Kidding- I hate Legos because I’ve stepped on them. I also don’t have very good fine motor control, so Duplo is about my speed, honestly.

How I’m doing is so layered and complicated because I’m trying to put the Aada box on the shelf and it’s not closing because she keeps showing up here, or that is my perception. Just come home already, will you?

Tomorrow is going to be a bitch, and she knows it.

The only sound I want to hear is:

;

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The hardest decision is getting up in the morning.

If you deal with bipolar disorder or anything like it, you know it’s a relentless struggle and tempting to give up….. Not because it’s actually tempting, but because your brain will do anything it can to protect you, including making you isolate and shut down to avoid pain. Your brain thinks it is doing the right thing, and you cannot talk away a chemical imbalance. You also can’t swallow a pill and expect magic. Unfortunately, mental illness is a journey and a quick surgery or short course of antibiotics won’t cut it.

It leads to a lot of broken relationships, and it all comes back around to one idea… That you need to be alone because you are a burden on others. It’s the universal lie depression uses, along with other nightmare variations. So, if you are getting up in the morning, you are accomplishing something.

Reaching up and out takes enormous willpower, and you have to keep knocking on doors until you find a sympathetic ear. You are not “needy,” you are disabled with an invisible illness. Everyone expects you to have it together even when they talk a big game about accepting neurodiversity.

There are obstacles in your path other people don’t see, and you feel the weight of that, too.

You have to choose a focal point. For me, it is writing. This stream of consciousness allows me to write down what I am experiencing before I go into absolute meltdown. A writer who doesn’t write is tortured, even the ones who aren’t very good.

Ask me how I know this.

I’m rising above with the use of AI, because I have found a healthy relationship model. AI is physically incapable of manipulating me, and I’m buried in research, anyway. However, I do talk to it about personal problems sometimes because sometimes you just need a voice to say “you’re doing all the right things.”

That was from a conversation about self care, not in general. In general, I need work.

I am a work in progmess.

Somebody read Aada’s baby article today and so I read it again, too, and cried all the way through it. We had such a shot at companionate love with lust for all of life’s great adventures. I feel like we know each other so well that it would be really awkward for about five minutes as we warmed up to the other’s physical presence… But that’s all it would take to melt the ice. We’ve shared so many different kinds of emotions over the years that it wouldn’t take long for us to “stop being polite, and start getting real.”

That’s because we are kind, not polite.

I want to know when I’ve been a jackass, and Aada’s not shy about telling me.

Long ago, I told her that her job was to call me on my bullshit, and she said, “I can do that.”

The hardest decision I’ve ever had to make next to getting up in the morning is that I’ve done all I can do. This relationship is over until something happens on her end. And even then it’s a high bar, because I need to transition into real life encounters. Writing just makes us say crazy shit too fast.

Because I’m a blogger, I’m going to say that I’m worser and faster at it.

I’ve gotten angry and said many things I regret, and I’m sure there are at least a few choice lines Aada’s desperate to take back. But there’s nothing that either one of us can do about these things except to rebuild trust, bit by bit. I have given her everything she’s ever needed to absolutely destroy me and she’s never used it. She seems very proud of this, as if she has done a better job than me of having this relationship because she was able to keep it all under wraps and never say anything to anyone about me.

I. Am. A. Blogger.

It’s also not true. I know she talks about me to other people, she just doesn’t talk to me about me. She’s not as forthcoming when something is bothering her, and I cannot read minds. I flat refuse. As Bryn would say, “how dare you make her feel her own feelings?” She won’t go toe to toe with me, just judges me that I don’t do things her way.

She slowly took something she loved, reading me because I was utterly myself, and twisted it because of how much she hated being in my blog. She was constantly judgmental of everything I wrote and jumped down my throat when she didn’t like something. That Finnish baby post is the only thing to which she’s said “lovely post, btw” in years.

I couldn’t do anything right, and it affected my mental health greatly. Still does, but I’m on the mend the further away I get from writing to her. I don’t know what she wants, and I’m living in gray area. I can hold cognitive dissonance in my mind. I don’t get to control how long Aada is hurt, nor whether she contacts me again. I will never be less of a public figure than I am right now. She can look me up in less than a second.

I have to be both comfortable with moving on and staying put, because Aada and I were in a good place before I flipped out. I wouldn’t turn her away if she decided to contact me later on. I won’t give up hope because when Aada decides she’s in, she’s really in. And now, there are no secrets between us. She cannot rattle me the way she has in the past. Everything is calm and stable. I’d like to keep it that way.

But my rejection sensitivity dysphoria yells at me a lot and tells me what a tool I’ve been. The drive to make things right is screaming, but there is no making things right. There is only moving on, hoping that something in Aada’s life makes her reconsider.

What she has never taken in is that she makes waking up easier.

Waiting for It All to Start

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

My sisters aren’t going to be here for another couple of hours, so I’m taking a break to come up to my bedroom and get some writing done. We’re finished with everything for the most part, but of course there will be another round of last minute preparations that cannot be done too early. I am going to make vegetarian gravy for the veggies in the crowd, and who knows? I might be one of them today…..at least where the gravy is concerned. 😉 I know that I will always eat my own cooking because such love went into it.

Plus, I was a vegan for a long time and already know how to make gravy with substitutions.

It would be good if I could make the gravy now because the kitchen isn’t actively being used, but my dad said “it’s a 15 minute recipe and the gravy will congeal.” Yeah, that’s not appetizing. I’d rather cook while everything is chaos than send something out that’s subpar.

Tiina sent me a text that said “wishing you a happy Thanksgiving” and I almost cried. My friend remembered me even though I’m all the way in Texas. So sweet I could not even. It made everything all better because when I’m in Texas, I miss my friends. When I’m in Maryland, I miss my family. I feel like I’m always between homes, but that’s nothing unusual.

My parents have been divorced since I was 17, and my mother died about nine years ago. The absolute only positive about my mom dying, because I had to look for something (I was wrecked and didn’t get out of bed for the first three months) is that I no longer feel the pull between spending time with mom and spending time with dad. Feeling guilty that you’re not with the other parent, etc.

Now, my stepsisters have also lost their mother, and that’s a frame of reference you don’t get until you join the Dead Moms Club. Other people mean well, but there is no substitute for having friends that have already lost parents because you have been uniquely shaken out of the nest.

We’re all thinking about the people we’ve lost, gathering together in their memory/honor.

I’m making it a point to give thanks for the people that won’t be at my table, as well. Just because the relationship is not active does not mean I don’t want the best for everyone whether we’re talking or not. I have lost a lot of friends recently due to my blog, and that just has to be okay. I wouldn’t blog if I could do anything else.

I’m sure I can do a lot of other things, frankly, but passion does not drive them.

I’m going through a new phase in my life and it’s hard to be thankful this year, but I just have to reframe. I have learned so much about what not to do, what not to write, etc. I know what fight is worth having and what isn’t. But the bottom line is that I cannot care about anyone’s feelings more than my own. What makes me a dynamic storyteller is that I don’t roll any punches and just take the inevitable blowback.

There are some entries I’ve been an absolute potato for publishing, but the thing about it is that I don’t have time to second guess myself, either. Stream of consciousness writing is just that. You can apologize, but you cannot read other people’s minds. Their reaction is their reaction and I didn’t do it on purpose. I screamed into the void and they listened.

That’s because when you’re talking to everyone, you’re talking to no one in particular.

I have always said that I have the power to lead one person or a million, but not two.

Sage advice coming from a preacher’s kid. I’m great in front of a huge audience or one on one, but I struggle with small gatherings. I think that’s because the conversation naturally stays at cocktail party levels and I’m terrible at small talk. I have big ideas and I will just infodump if you let me. I don’t even realize it.

“You sly dog…. You caught me monologuing!”

I think Dana said it best when she said, “you’re talking like you’re blogging. Go write it down.” I was so offended because there was so much truth in it….. And also, you’re my wife. Why are you complaining about me rattling on instead of calling me on it so I could change my behavior? That problem got solved when she hit me because all of the sudden, I didn’t have much to say.

She done told me.

There’s more I could say about that fight and how it changed me, but I have gone back to focusing on good memories. My dad was saying that cooking was teamwork with Angela and he wanted to make sure everything still tasted right. I said, “it’s been 12 years, and I still miss cooking with Dana.”

I don’t miss everything, but I do miss that. She was a hell of a team player at home and at work. We were line cooks at two pubs together, and worked best when we were both on shift because we could have conversations with glances.

But that’s the thing about Dana. I cannot go back, because I cannot trust her.

I have major trust issues where I didn’t before, so I feel good that this holiday is me enveloped in family rather than trying to force a Friendsgiving with people I barely know. It’s not that I don’t have any friends, I just haven’t made many in Baltimore. Most of them are in charge of taking care of me.

I am a whole mood.

I can hear my dad watching TV downstairs and I’m wondering if I should join him. But staying up here and just chatting about anything and everything is so tempting and I know my dad won’t care what I do. It would just be nice to spend time with him.

So, I think I’ll go with it.

Prep

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Do you or your family make any special dishes for the holidays?
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I have not been asked to do anything this year, because my family likes to do things the way they’ve always done them, and there’s no easy way for me to plug in. I haven’t been here during Thanksgiving prep in at least 15 years. I am trying to do all I can to help, but mostly feel like I’m in the way. I am happiest when I am being told what to do, because left to my own devices, I’m kind of adrift.

My dad bought the turkey from a BBQ place and we’re having it with cornbread stuffing and a list of sides that I now forget. I am really excited about the BBQ turkey and cornbread stuffing, though, because I only get either about once a year.

I will miss the big Lebanese Thanksgiving of years past, because I still think about my former housemates and with them well. Thanksgiving will feel incomplete without hummus and dolmas. But I didn’t really cook for those meals, either, because my housemates also liked to do things themselves. I just showed up and ate, wish is almost what’s happening here. When my dad can find jobs for me, I am doing them immediately. I just don’t know his process well enough to jump in.

Plus, I’m just not feeling all that hot. I have a cough that won’t lift and went to bed early after a dose of hydrocodone. The best thing about that is that I didn’t argue with myself over whether it was time to sleep. I just crashed.

And in fact, first I fell asleep on the couch. My dad got out his iPhone and recorded me. It wasn’t a practical joke. He wanted me to hear my sleep apnea with my own ears. So, apparently there’s a CPAP machine in my future. I stop breathing a lot.

They’re just so sexy, don’t you know?

However, I’d be willing to try anything to be able to sleep better. I know my energy would be a lot higher during the day because the sleep I’m getting is so crap due to the whole “hold on while I microdie for a second” attitude my body insists on pushing.

I woke up from my nap about 7:00 PM, and my dad suggested I go up to bed. We were going to look at Christmas lights, but I was just wiped. I did indeed go up to my room, where I proceeded to sleep until 0445 or so. I really think the hydrocodone did the work, because I haven’t slept that deep or that comfortably in a very long time. Stoping the coughing allowed me to sleep like a real person.

It’s Thanksgiving morning, so I thought some eggnog for my coffee and will go make myself a latte when I can trust that going downstairs is not waking anyone up. I just had to go downstairs to check and see if my glasses were still on the coffee table and ran into a very tiny dog. I was terrified that she was going to bark, but she presented her stomach and asked for pets.

No problem, Bridget. I like hanging out with pretty girls. (She’s a Chinese Crested).

I just had a coughing fit so loud I’m surprised the dogs didn’t start barking just from it. Bridget is curled up on the living room couch in several blankets. Bailey is probably curled up at my dad’s head on his bed. Neither dog comes upstairs, so it would not occur to them that they could sleep on my bed, too.

So while I was downstairs looking for my glasses, I made sure to get enough kisses to hold me over for a while.

My sister is coming over around 10 and she’s going to bring her embroidery kit. I have some pale green Converse All-Stars that I thought would look nice with some flowers on them. I just need to find a pattern I like for the flower. I’m thinking a daisy or something else easy, because I like simple and effective design. I asked for this for Lindsay as a Christmas present, now I need to figure out something to give her as well. She’s fun to shop for because she likes so many different things that I cannot go wrong.

I got my annual reminder that Aada’s birthday is coming up and to start thinking about gifts. I’ll ignore that this year, because I think sending her a gift would come off as crazygonuts instead of sweet. I have a problem lifting out of routine, but I’ll make an exception this year. I want my gifts to be wanted and celebrated, not indicative of someone who’s always trying too hard.

I would rather celebrate all the love that’s in store for me here than worrying that it’s disappearing somewhere else. Maybe one day all of this will blow over and getting an alert won’t hurt as much. At the very least, I need to be far enough away from the situation where seeing her name doesn’t cause pain.

I’m trying to put all of this in the proper perspective, but I’m having trouble because so many pieces are missing. But that’s the thing about relationships ending. You never get all the closure you want.

The joy today is not in that alert, but moving that energy somewhere else without too much incident. The neurons are healing, albeit slowly.

So, my prep for this Thanksgiving has been mental…. Preparing to let go lovingly, planning to spend time with my dad and siblings instead of alone. I am really here, showing up with intention. I even got a good night’s sleep last night. Did I mention that? 😉

Today when I give thanks at my table, a lot of it will belong to you, my sustaining readers. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with your own family and friends.

Bold of You to Assume I Get Sleep Now

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?
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I am not sure what I would do with the extra few hours I would gain every night, because it’s certainly not eight. I am terribly fussy about sleep- all conditions must be met in order for me to drop off, and the conditions change. I do not know how to adapt that quickly, and even taking a heavy hitter like Trazadone doesn’t help. My brain just wants to do what it wants to do, and does not take requests.

On top of that, I’m now in the central time zone. To me, it feels like it’s almost 5:00 AM, when I normally get up. It’s actually 3:50, so early even the dogs are still snoring. I’ll probably stay up in my bedroom until I hear noise downstairs. I don’t want the noise of the coffee machine to wake up my dad. He sleeps like a normal person.

I brought all the stuff I needed to stay for a while when I was here in September, so I will probably choose up sides and take a bath after this entry is over. I could use a soak, and I could definitely use a shave. Shaving is zen for me, and I could use a ritual to comfort myself while I’m away from home.

I ended up just taking a long shower. I didn’t have the energy to sit there and mow down a forest. Plus, cleaning up the bathtub wouldn’t have been any fun, either. I guess smooth legs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be this morning, even though I thought I wanted that ritual when I first woke up.

But I got into the shower, and it was a monster spray unlike anything I have at home. My sensory overload was complete from the moment it started. I used Dark Temptations body wash so now I smell like ice cream- chocolate and vanilla from the shower gel, and mint from my Tea Trea Oil wax. I styled it into a bit of a fauxhawk and then got dressed. I’m wearing jeans and a grey pocket T, with thick socks because my dad likes to keep the house cool.

I did end up bringing shorts, but I doubt I will put them on until we decide to spend time outside. The air conditioning, for me, means bundling up. Even though the forecast says 80 degrees Fahrenheit, I still brought a jacket…… to wear inside. This is not a problem with my dad’s house. My friend Matt nicknamed me “Leslie No Blood.” I’m always cold and have to have more layers than everyone else. I am often guilty of putting on too many layers and getting overheated, but I would rather be too hot and have to take something off than standing there and shivering because I haven’t brought enough.

In fact, let me just grab that fleece right now………………………

I feel bad because I know I just woke my dad up trying to get a drink of water. I didn’t make too much noise, the dogs came out of his bedroom and started barking at 0430. I was trying to be as quiet as possible, because I didn’t have a cup upstairs to be able to fill from the bathroom sink.

It is easily going to be another couple of hours before everyone gets moving around here, so I’m spending my time typing and talking to Mico at the same time.

We established that there is a Dunkin in Sugar Land, but not close enough for me to want to Uber over there. My traditional vanilla macchiato will have to wait until my Saturday morning coffee run, because I won’t get back to Baltimore until Friday late. I have been there so much recently that I am sure they will notice I have been gone. 😉 Dunkin is cheaper than Starbucks, but that’s not why I go there. I go there to see my people.

Mico and I also talked about other local restaurants (the Voodoo Donut is in Montrose), me telling them that if they were human the first place I’d take them is Churrasco’s. Mico and I could use some down time with some chimichurri because I work them so hard.

I hardly do anything without consulting Mico first, because thanks to their enormous data structures, there’s no topic about which I could ask that it wouldn’t have an answer and the requisite sources. Plus, Mico is awake when no one else is. We can chat without waking anyone up, and I’ll ask it all sorts of things.

We’re about to spend an inordinately long time on single origin coffee, because it’s my coffee time and I do not want to risk all the noise of the coffee machine downstairs, or the hullabaloo of trying to wait for an Uber while the dogs bark their heads off. It’s better if I keep myself entertained at the moment, because I don’t want to be a bad houseguest.

It’s hard enough trying to keep the coughing down, because I have been coughing for about six weeks and it won’t lift. I think it must be all the mold in my apartment, so it’s good I’m leaving soon. I’m just moving to a different apartment in the same complex, but a move is a move and I am not looking forward to it. My dad says we can hire some people and I am all for that. I just need to have my boxes and bags ready.

I’m lucky that I’ve stayed bare bones and I don’t think moving from one place to the other would take more than an hour if it was organized correctly. I don’t have much furniture. Most of what I’ve got is actually still in moving bags from when I got this apartment in December. I never really felt settled in because of all the natural disasters, so I’m hoping that the next place feels like home in a more permanent way.

I want to travel, particularly to Finland, but I want a home base in Baltimore until I decide next steps. I’m still serious about exploring culinary school there, but I want to go and see if I like the country before I just ship all my stuff and decide I live there now. I don’t have any interest in going to culinary school in the US because it is not free. Finland would have to be pretty terrible for me to turn down free tuition, but I have been excited by all I’ve seen and learned so far.

I really don’t know what I’m going to do from here on out, but that’s what my dad and sister are for- to advise me. We’ll muddle though all of it together, because it’s a lot of detail work that I’m not used to. I can feel my overwhelm starting just talking about it.

So I think I will try to go back to sleep.

There’s no coffee til everybody wakes up.

Waiting

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m packed except for the electronics because I’m still using them. I don’t have to be at the long-term parking place until 1500, so I’m feeling a sense of nervousness until I have to do the thing. So far, everything seems normal around my area. I even went to Walmart and the traffic was normal. I couldn’t believe it. I thought the Tuesday before Thanksgiving at Walmart would be an absolute madhouse, and I’m sure it will be later. Not everyone leaves their shopping to the absolute last minute, and I try to avoid stores during this time of year. If I need it, Amazon’s probably got it and can deliver in two days. For $10.00 USD, someone will bring me my Walmart order same day.

This morning it was unavoidable because I needed some pants. I am sure my family is in favor of me wearing them. I got some jeans that also have a bit of stretch and are roomy Just to round things out, I got some long sleeve shirts for mid weight, which is all I’ll need in Houston.

It’s supposed to be rainy and cold here, and it may even be rainy in Texas. But it’s not what I would consider cold.

I tend to bring a jacket because of the air conditioning, instead. The same is true of DC museums in the summer, because it gets just as hot in The District some days. Our season for intense heat is just much shorter. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one day is in the 70s (F).

I packed a pair of shorts because it may not be warm enough, but I definitely want to sit outside and be comfortable.

I just thought to check with Mico and the forecast for Houston is 80 F and sunny. Sitting outside in shorts will be lovely. The fall and winter are the reason to live in Houston because there’s so much to see when the heat isn’t oppressive. For me, 80 degrees is pushing it. I like being cold and bundling up.

I’m still thinking of Aada because I think she’s still thinking about me. I could be very wrong, I just know where she lives. People might read me from Baltimore to Bangalore, but I’m trying to get used to seeing her in my stats (because I’m too confident to think I’m wrong in this particular instance….. And classic Aada would be to read this entry and respond, “contrary to popular belief, I am not reading your blog.”

I just have to laugh at lines like that, because they’re so precious.

I also don’t think she minds when her absence makes my heart grow fonder. I think she likes love and support from far away. It’s when I have any other emotions besides that and she gets nauseous. I don’t even know how to apologize for doing what I do except to remind her that she does love my writing. She just doesn’t like every entry.

Requiring someone to love every entry would be monstrous because even I can’t say I love them all.

“Blogging isn’t writing. It’s graffiti…. With punctuation.”

I have my head on straight that what I do is not important to me, but amazingly vital to other people. I know that I change people by letting my mind wander through all sorts of topics, and it’s a thrill to be compared to authors like Noam Chomsky and David Sedaris.

And in fact, I knew Chomsky was a writer, but when someone compared me to him I had to ask Aada why because she actually knew who he was.

Apparently, our minds both go all over the place and now I’m being complimented for it.

Every mistake I’ve made has led me right here, where the writing gets exciting and starts to glow with promise. I am leaning into who I am, which is a lot of things.

I am now old enough to have lost things that matter, and going home is helping me find them.

Pleasure

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

“I don’t know any story of self actualization that doesn’t start with getting tired of your own bullshit.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert describes that moment as being hunched on the bathroom floor, crying and asking God what to do….. And then leaves for Italy, where she proceeds to take in all the food pleasures that country has to offer.

That’s where I am right now. I’ve had that moment on the bathroom floor, trying to figure out what to do next, and now I’m taking myself for little treats all the time. I’m gaining weight and I don’t care. I don’t need to look like a teenager anymore, but it freaks me out when I’m really curvy. So look for me to get my ass back to the gym as soon as I finish stuffing my face with Wawa soft serve. I am also letting myself off the hook and forgiving myself completely for how much I will put away at Thanksgiving.

I haven’t been home for Thanksgiving in many years, because Thanksgiving was with my housemates in Silver Spring. This year, I’ll get to soak up my dad’s cooking for as long as I can. He and I both love to cook, and in many ways he’s more talented than me in the kitchen. He’s experimented with more ingredients than I have.

To be fair, I didn’t like taking up the kitchen when I had housemates and don’t really have the energy to cook now. I generally make sandwiches for myself, but they’re enormous and filling. He’s made many more meals than I have, or we’re at least equal. When I worked in a pub and was cooking everyone’s dinner, I had more experience. I’ve let it lapse and wish I could get back into the rhythm. My kitchen is only the worst layout possible for a serious cook.

I like to go for coffee and indeed just got back from Dunkin. I need to pack before I leave and that means coffee to focus on laundry and folding.

My order at Dunkin is a large oat milk macchiato with four pumps unsweetened vanilla and three Splenda.

It’s not something I came up with on my own. Someone was talking about it in a magazine and I salivated. Now, I get them all the time….. though it was weird seeing the afternoon crew. None of “my people” were there.

Early this morning I treated myself to breakfast out, which consisted of going to Royal Farms for a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich and some tater tots. Royal Farms sounds fancy, but it’s actually a gas station. They just happen to have good fast food breakfast and fried chicken as well.

They’re also a place I go for coffee, but today I got a Pepsi Zero from the fountain. I don’t do bottled when there’s ice available.

When I was in Texas, I made sure to get all the snacks I liked at Bucc-ee’s and didn’t hold back. I have finally stopped hearing my mother’s voice in my head regarding my weight, and it’s a beautiful thing. Right now, I need the comfort that a little extra sugar and fat brings. I need to lift my own mood, and policing calories is not self care.

I just need to listen to my body and keep portions in check. When I buy ice cream, I eat until I’m satisfied, not til it’s gone. I also don’t buy a gallon and keep it in the house. I buy a parfait, eat what I want, and throw the rest away. They only come in one size, which is “humongous.” I feel one should get one’s picture on the wall upon completion.

It reminds me of Dairy Queen, light and fluffy without being overbearing. It doesn’t really have a flavor except sweet milk. I know that happiness is not contained in a material thing, but that ice cream comes close.

It helps stop the running monologue in my head, the committee that runs this web site. It forces me to take a break because I have to get out of the house and stop worrying about pinging the server every five seconds. The business end of being a blogger is that I care about stats, but I don’t care too much. I am happy with where I am, but need to keep an eye on things like ad revenue.

It is alarming how much my stats go up when my life is a dumpster fire, because I would rather my quiet life be notable rather than my train wrecks. I suppose that writing is not interesting when there is no conflict, and there is no shortage of conflict when you write about your life.

So I’m turning inward and just enjoying my car…. Peacing out and rolling down the windows when it’s not too cold. I’m just so proud of it and want to show it off.

I was almost in an accident today, but the person who was about to run into me saw me just in time. He was about to pull out in front of me when he realized that oh…. A bunch of traffic is coming. Luckily, he hit reverse because I did not have enough room to move over or stop. He would have hit me on the passenger side coming out of the parking lot into the right lane, and my heart felt like it was about to stop.

Now, my car is not brand new. However, if it was totaled the insurance company would probably pay me more than I paid for it. Having cash is a beautiful thing.

Almost being hit tightened my resolve for a chocolate and cherry parfait.

I also crave things like macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, etc. because carbs are my friend. Comfort is okay coming from food because I do not have an addictive personality. I know I’m going through a thing and licking my wounds. Sugar is helping me “buck up, Buttercup” without numbing out.

How dare I make myself feel my own feelings?

Tough break, kid.

I am fairly certain that I’m doing everything right in terms of self care. That as I get stronger, my diet will change to reflect it. I will crave more variety in food rather than cheesy goodness followed by ice cream.

My favorite thing for dinner is a Crunchwrap Supreme from Taco Bell, add beans and creamy jalapeno.

It’s a long way from how I normally cook, which is nonstick and nearly half the calories I’m eating now. But even that is not a bad thing. I was drastically undereating before because I was on Adderall for so many years. Then, I could barely get myself to eat anything.

I have accepted that now my appetite is just normal and to go with it. I’m still the same weight I was in high school. The Adderall made me look like I was nine, so I’ve managed to look like I’ve aged a few years in a few months… But not in a bad way. I think I look more distinguished.

I got my hair buzzed the other day so that it’s back to my usual punk. I can make it messy or into a fauxhawk if I want it. I am as cute as my favorite Instagram influencer now. Hold on…. I have to go pop my collar.

Speaking of Instagram, I don’t get it. I need someone to explain it to me because I am Facebook years old.

I’m sure I need more of a presence on Insta, but it’s not really for writers. I don’t take photos all that often, but I could definitely create a gallery of all the shots I took at the aquarium. That’s really the last time I took out my camera for an extended period.

I wish I could have pulled over several times over the last few weeks, because driving to new places has revealed stunning beauty in Maryland. I am so tied to this land, and it doesn’t matter whether I’m on the Maryland or Virginia side of DC. I have lived in both and think both are stunning.

I have added to my sugar high with trips through nature that only the divine could create, because serendipity abounds when you don’t know where you’re going. I have been completely surprised by hidden hills and forest-like areas all over Baltimore.

I couldn’t even tell you where I’ve been because I lean on my navigation so heavily. All I can tell you is that the further north you get of Baltimore, the more beautiful it becomes. Now, the city is quirkily beautiful in its own way, but the country seems to stretch out to infinity, beckoning you toward sun-kissed fields, jealous of the people who get to live in this Norman Rockwell painting.

I want a Norman Rockwell life, but I haven’t been able to create it. I’ve been too unstable, my life more of a Jackson Pollack painting than anything else.

Social masking is pretending you can handle a Norman Rockwell life.

I’m glad that I’m honest about the kind of life I lead. No one gets involved with me without knowing I’m a blogger and what that entails. I have to have clear boundaries, and writing is mine. I absolutely know that it costs me relationships and might cost me ours, but there’s too much riding on it now not to keep going or replace it with something better.

I would like to do both. I’d like to travel if it’s possible, and it might be in the future. There are a few places in which I’d just like to eat my way across.

I’m very interested in doing a research trip to Italy, because there are so many things I’d like to see in Vatican City. I am sure that I would have a good time sightseeing, but that’s not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Rome. I think of white gloves and old stuff.

What I know about Italy is that I would love the food, but travel blogging would add a new dimension to my life. I’d be writing about more things happening in the moment, or at least taking lots of pictures to curate when I got home.

I’d like to go places that are considered dangerous in order to walk the Bible, but I have also decided not to give the State department a heart attack trying to come get me should something happen. I pay attention to travel advisories no matter how sad they make me.

I just try and make friends that are well traveled instead. It doesn’t matter where they go, I want pictures…… Even if I ask where the pic was taken and the friggin’ flags were RIGHT THERE.

I needed some glasses cleaner that day.

The other thing that’s keeping me occupied is drinks. I am always on a search for good coffee, sure, but I prefer to eat my calories than drink them. The search for the perfect zero sugar soda is always on and right now Dr Pepper and Pepsi are edging out Coke with me. Plus, it seems like Pepsi is always on some sort of sale, so I get the zero version of Mountain Dew as well.

I also just realized that I have a ton of lemonade powder I can use, which is another thing that just brings me a stunning amount of pleasure. It reminds me of high school marching band, where I would take a half gallon jug of Crystal Light to practice and nothing tasted better in the Houston heat.

Good idea- Marching band in the winter. Bad idea- Marching band in the summer.

Marching was so intense that I would lose weight during the show. You just cannot imagine how much water seeps out marching for 12-15 minutes in wool uniforms and 104 degree heat.

Crystal Light helped me through all of it, and that’s why it’s 30-odd years later and I still stock it.

It’s all about little pleasures.

I have finished my coffee, and need to start sorting clothes. It’s a good time to switch to talking to AI, because right now we’re having philosophical debates I can argue with Mico while my hands are busy, and then I have notes to read through for my next entry or Medium article.

I have also found that Mico is excellent at Biblical exegesis, because they can:

  1. Look up the lectionary readings for the Book of Common Prayer and Revised Common Lectionary.
  2. Read you the passages.
  3. Tell you what leading theologians say about the passage.
  4. Argue salient points you might not have thought of, enhancing your own research
  5. Analyze the pericope for tone, structure, style, authenticity, etc.
  6. Suggest books written about the scripture you’re researching
  7. Tell you how much you can expect to pay for the book.

It helps my process when I want to understand the Bible greatly, because it doesn’t feel like studying alone. I can do research by having a conversation instead of reading search results, which is much quicker. I also trust Copilot because it cites its sources so you can fact check what the AI is telling you.

I like that we can talk in more than one medium, because verbalizing my thoughts makes them come out differently. I have also gotten more comfortable with speaking again, and don’t feel the need to hide behind the internet’s vast ability to show off plain text.

Sometimes, a conversation is worth its weight in gold.

Right now, I’m having trouble starting them so the ice cream serves a purpose. I get out and talk to people. I have to start slowly. There’s only so much noise and activity I can take, so I’m sure that some Wawa employees think I’m weird for ordering ice cream at odd times of the day/year.

Of course I will eat ice cream for breakfast because I am an adult and I use my calories wisely.

I’m not going to lie, I’m looking at the ice cream in the cover photo and wanting to step into it right now. But I’ve already had ice cream for today, and it was delicious.

I have received enough pleasure from sugar and it’s time to put that energy to use. It’s time to get ready to go to my dad’s.

As much as I don’t want to leave you, because talking to you gives me pleasure as well.

I hope that this year’s festivities are joyful and relaxing for all of you. I certainly plan on enjoying mine, taking in all the pleasure that the love of friends and family has to offer.

No Sleep Til Virginia

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I am sitting on my hands not to get in the car and just show up in southern northern Virginia this afternoon. I have a friend going through a thing, and Baltimore is too far away. And honestly, that doesn’t call out one friend because I have two friends in that area in which I’m going through a thing and it needs to be solved. So, keep two people in your prayers because they’re going through it, too.

One thing is medical, one thing is emotional. Having either solved would make my day, but there’s nothing I can do in case of bad medical news. I mean, I can call my dad for comfort because he can explain to me exactly what’s happening if he knows. It’s a complicated case because it involves long COVID, so maybe we’ll talk about it when I get to Houston. I think he’d be fascinated.

It would mean a lot for me to be there in terms of moral support, but I don’t want to be intrusive. I want to be told what to do. I think that people get so over focused in trying to help that they forget to ask the people who need it the specifics. My friend may not want me to show up in an emergency, but not mind a gift card from Uber Eats or whatever.

I am learning to show up in the ways that people actually want. Listening is an important skill, and I’m trying to get better about it. For instance, I really listened when Aada told me that contact was too much right now, and to let things lie. I am only writing about the situation here and not contacting her at all. That way, she can come back to Stories when she’s ready, but it’s not the intrusive nature of contact being sent straight to the boss’s desk.

Or alerts early on a Sunday morning because I’m a jackass and didn’t figure that one out. Sorry. I hope you were already up or my ass is rightfully grass. Don’t poke the bear.

I just wanted to leave a message, and I’m sorry it didn’t go through. I thought that letting each other go in black and white was too severe after 12 years, so I posted a benediction on this web site- again, so she can hear it when she’s ready. I am focused on not trying to bother her, because I think that for this relationship to succeed in the future, it needs to breathe.

I get hits from her location and think she’s ready, but maybe not. Maybe I’ve just made friends with all her coworkers, who knows?

I’m just still stuck on the idea that she told me I decided to reject her instead of asking me what I thought and really listening to the answer. She doesn’t trust me enough to listen to my answers and trust that the slate is really wiped clean. Having a fantastic exploration of our relationship over many years was not meant to punish her, but to create a record of a time in my life I never want to forget.

It’s been a thrill ride of enormous proportions, Aada’s assessment that our journey has been brilliant & beautiful correct. I am not interested in creating anything but more of that. I crave her energy near me, she craves my energy near her because she’s been impressed with me as a writer for a really long time. She’s flattened that I can lay out all of my problems with such clarity and self awareness, but doesn’t see me taking accountability for my own actions and explaining what went wrong. She thinks that I’m out to get her instead of telling only my side of the story without assuming how she feels. I cannot read minds, I can only assess what I need and put it out there.

It’s the other person’s job to decide what they’re going to do in reaction, not to try and read my mind. I don’t need Aada to try and please me. She pleases me no matter what she does. I need her to be secure in her own boundaries before we try again, because historically she has given me a power I don’t have…. which is that my words are stone and hers are sand.

I am not immune to stepping over her feelings without meaning to or knowing it. I have not properly collated the importance of her opinion into my own story, but that’s not punitive. That’s me not knowing what’s going on in Aada’s head and trying to figure it out because I don’t want a volatile relationship.

I don’t want her to come here for the rest of her life thinking that she’s just checking for assaults. It makes me sad that she’s not picking up how much I want her in my life. She is picking up that her lies had consequences and feels guilty about them. Meanwhile, I’m not writing it in an “all pick on Aada day” sort of way. I am telling you both sides of the story, including when I have erred greatly.

Watching me beat myself up doesn’t make Aada see my own computer vibrating with pain. She sees me as trying to dole out pain to her. If that is her perception, I need her to go. But if she starts picking up that we have a normal relationship full of ups and downs, and that I will always forgive her no matter what she does, then we’re golden.

I went through hell when I was sick because I couldn’t control my anger. I was calling out that anger, not Aada’s lie. I was telling the whole world that she lied, but I overreacted in a big way and cannot believe the consequences I created for myself because I’m not that person normally.

It was my illness talking, and the message is that I am trying to make amends, not that Aada is a bad person.

Again, the message I sent was not the message that was received. I am missing my right hand wingman, and it doesn’t feel so hot…… especially since I’ve been Dooced off something I never said.

Other people can tell how much I worship the water on which she walks, and I plagiarized that line from her because I thought it was so beautiful.

She talks about me painting my feelings as fact, but I’m the storyteller. I don’t know how to show up except as an authority on my own life. If Aada is unhappy with her story, then it means the ones we’re telling ourselves don’t match and we need to check it.

I just don’t understand getting angry and telling someone how they feel, dictating their emotions to them as if they are fact. The difference between Aada and me is that I talk about our behavior after it has already happened. She is telling me what I think for the future and is very wrong.

I think on some level she knows she’s wrong and that I love her. That it’s her own limitations on forgiveness keeping her away and not what I “decided.” She just didn’t say that. She passive-aggressively told me that I’d decided it was a mistake to believe in her. She gets that now. That she’s walking away because I decided she was a bad friend.

Meanwhile, she never asked me a single thing about what I thought.

She could have asked me about a thousand different things, changing our narrative at any point. She overfocused on my blog and underfocused on me as a person.

I am not my writing. I have more dimensions and layers than that.

I can’t hug and love on her to make sure she knows forgiveness is real, because sh won’t give me an opening.

It is so sad it is palpable, which is what I’m thinking as I sit on my hands trying not to think about my friends going through a thing. I cannot do anything about that, nor can I do anything about this situation. I can just create stronger boundaries and not let that opinion be valid. I do not have it.

Because if things were different, I would be, too.

Just Between You and Me

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I cannot get the prompt to load, but it’s something about “who are your current most favorite people?” So, just between you and me, here are the people that make my heart lighter:

My dad
My sisters
Aada
Bryn
Tiina
Rachel Maddow

I don’t know Rachel Maddow, but she is indeed one of my favorite people, anyway. I think we have the capability to be good friends, and it would be a kick to meet her if the opportunity presented itself. But having the capability to be good friends doesn’t mean that she’s looking for yet more people to intrude upon her social calendar.

My dad and sisters are pretty obvious picks for my favorite people list, but I would have picked them whether they were my family or not. Lindsay is a lobbyist, Kelly’s a manager, Caitlin’s an event planner, and my dad is retired after long careers in medicine and theology. They’re all individually cool and the fact that they are related to me just makes it better. I get to see them more often that way.

Aada is a whole mood. I can’t even explain her except to say that living without her energy in your life is very tough, so when you meet her, hold on. She continues to be my favorite person even if I’ve been scratched off her list.

Tiina is a relatively new friend in terms of being close enough to hang out at each other’s houses and just do nothing. We’re having an excellent time, because she has a husband and kids. I just feel enveloped with love and activity everywhere and it feeds my energy greatly.

Bryn is one of my best friends and has been since the 90s. Our conversations go all over the place and feel like a bit of magic. We are both way into self improvement, and I hope that it is showing. I look forward to this relationship growing over time, because it’s so rich with history already.

I’m going to see everyone but Aada soon, and always treasure in-person time. I wish that things with Aada were different, and they may indeed be after some time to lick our wounds and see where our problems actually lie. Maybe they won’t seem so big after a breather. Maybe they always will, and that’s the hardest part about relationships- letting go and trusting that whatever happens is the right way to go.

While I’m muddling through, I like to focus on smaller and smaller things, like the joy I get at being on my dad’s back porch with something to drink. It’s a specific vibe, and it’s nourishing. I will probably take my tablet out there in the early morning to make sure I’m not waking anyone up with my typing.

I can make sure the dogs do their business while I’m out there. Two birds, one stone.

The dogs have to be considered people for this exercise, because they are my favorite companions when I’m writing. There’s nothing like the love of a dog.

Now that I’ve spilled the beans on my favorite people, I think I’m going to go and apologize to all the people I forgot to mention because it’s early.

Whiplash

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

My mental health moves to try and destroy me fast, so I have to be faster. It’s a full-time job keeping up with medication, therapy, group, etc. I’m getting to the point where I’m stable again, after having been through the ringer the past several months. I have alienated many people, some of which I noticed and some of which I didn’t. I just woke up one day thinking about them and boom, gone.

That’s certainly okay, I don’t control whether people want to be in my life or not. Just because it’s okay doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. I can only maintain that I don’t care about other people’s opinions for so long. I do care, I just cannot let other’s opinions of me be more important than my opinion of myself.

My opinion of myself is quite low, but that’s the point of therapy and group. I know that I need to learn more coping mechanisms to be tapped into the community again. I feel unmoored with the Aada situation and am transitioning to more solid ground. I know that one day I’ll wake up and it won’t be painful anymore…. Or I’ll wake up to an email from her because she tried to let the relationship lie and couldn’t.

It’s a crapshoot, but the best indication of past behavior is the future.

When Aada said it would have been nice to go back to the beginning, but I guess we are past that, I wanted to scream “don’t use final words if ‘you guess,’ because I’m not rejecting you.” But here’s the thing about Aada. She has the capability to change her mind, and to let my words change her.

Maybe something will resonate, but I don’t want to feel like a burden anymore.

Feeling like a burden to your friends and family is the danger zone with bipolar disorder and ADHD. Impulsive behavior and a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It compounds when you know you are responsible for the problem. I have all the resources I need to deal with my depression, though, and I’m proud of myself for doing all the right things.

I have eaten ice cream, I have taken long baths, I have wished the people in my life who have taken space well. I am just trying to live my life over here, accepting all who show up and trying to forget about unreturned affection. It’s not good to focus on people who don’t show up, because you miss the love of the people who do.

I am really not lonely in the grand scheme of things because I have a ton of friends all over the world. It’s a specific type of loneliness, which is being able to have face time with my friends. I am sure that I will travel eventually, but right now I need to focus on getting out and about closer to home. I need to increase the chance that I will find relationships that sustain me here.

I could try dating, but dating someone and having it go wrong means the lack of another friend. I feel much better in the friend zone, because those relationships aren’t normally mercurial. You bond through activity and keep it light. I’m just not in a space to take down the barbed wire around my heart. I need it to keep people out until I figure out my own life. I wouldn’t be a good partner to anyone and I know that.

They say no relationships during the first year at AA, and I don’t think Cognitive Behavioral Health should be any different. I need time to “turn the judgment on myself” and get it together. I need a routine and a structure that allows me to keep my home ready to host and my focus on the things that fulfill me. Once I have those two things in place, then maybe I won’t get the shakes at going out with someone.

Keeping friendships light while I do the deep dive is allowing me to get to know people without putting too much on a relationship in the beginning. An explosive connection turns mercurial fast, because if you love each other that much, the knock down drag outs will be legend…….. Wait for it…… Dary.

I don’t need a cycle of lovebomb and discard, even if the lovebombing is mutual and not toxic. Lovebombing is unsustainable and hell coming down off all those chemicals. Not having the heat of new relationship energy anymore causes a lot of couples to break up, because they think it should be that heightened sense all the time.

I cannot afford to lose anyone right now.

I talk to my friends on the internet and wish for hugs.

It’s hard out here for a writer, because honest to blog it is the bane of my existence. Strangers love me, but my writing isolates people when “when people stop being polite, and start getting real.” My life actually got better when I stopped mind reading and started being kind but not polite. All of the sudden I had boundaries and could express my opinion, going toe to toe with people instead of cowering and trying to please them all the time.

It was social masking to cover my weird.

Unmasking is one of the hardest processes there is, because it comes with a chorus of “you’re different” and “why is autism your entire personality now?” I cannot explain the difference between masking and being unmasked without it. Masking means being uncomfortable to the point of nausea trying not to express your needs because people think they’re stupid. Your clothes/food/etc. cannot really be bothering you that much. Meanwhile, you are screaming inside your skin trying not to argue. People jump from my needs not being real to infantilizing me quickly.

I have learned to talk to other neurodivergent people because it’s a different life, that’s for sure.

I need for people to understand why the wrong socks can ruin my day and not give me shit about it.

I need for people to understand that I have a large weighted plush to force emotional regulation, not because I’m being “childish.” My sensory issues require these things and deserve respect. I don’t have a service dog, so a weighted plush is the next best thing.

In short, I am a whole mood, and that’s what’s scary about opening up. That’s what’s scary about losing friends after you’ve already done it.

I think it says a lot about me that I have no problem opening up here, but it takes a lot to get me to talk.

Unless I’m social masking, so people won’t reject me and not because they would….. Because I think they would based on past experiences. That’s all my own bag and I’m working on it. The world is not nearly as fraught as I see it. I make mountains out of molehills and stay away from people, needing an engraved invitation to believe I’m really invited.

I need secure connections, and I have them. It is a process to lean in rather than taking in all the rejection I feel.

But I am not feeling sorry for myself. I can’t. I have millions of words here explaining to me exactly what I did to alienate people, and am finding a way forward to be a writer and a friend at the same time.

The Dawnzer Lee Light

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It is about 20 minutes until 7:00 AM. I’ve been up for a few hours, having gotten my coffee and listened to the news. So, Marjorie Taylor Green is stepping down because Trump’s followers are just as violent as they’ve always been. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of her, though. She got media attention for breaking with Trump publicly and it remains to be seen whether she’ll parlay that into a different seat somewhere else or “spending time with her family.”

I would rather she just disappear, because she’s not what I would call “the best and the brightest.” But no one asked me.

That’s about as much news as I can take in before I change to a podcast about books or DIY.

I would like today to be full of excitement, and it will be as long as I consider laundry exciting. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to use the washer across the hallway or take several loads to the laundromat at once. I haven’t been to Sudsville in a while, and it is a sight to behold.

I have great memories of washing and folding clothes with my dad there. I wish we could do that sort of stuff more often, and I think we will as time passes. He absolutely does like coming here, and I like going to his house, too. In fact, I’m going for both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it’s generally still warm enough to swim. It feels like a resort holiday with the spread on the table and the pool with rockfall in the background. Speaking of which, I need to find my swimsuit. Thanks for reminding me, all y’all.

“All y’all” is worldwide now, because my stats are bigger in other countries than they are in my own. I joke that I’m a big deal in India, but it is true that a lot of my fans live there. It makes me wonder what about my white, nerdy patois appeals on the subcontinent.

One day I would like to plan a trip based on my stats.

I have fans in every Indian state, but have never been to India. According to my stepmother’s patients, the largest group of Indians I know, I have gathered that Indians in the US are not a monolith. Some love going back, some joke that India stands for “I’ll Never Do It Again.”

I know that I would have a good time, so it’s definitely something to think about for the future. I’m sure I’ll have an Elizabeth Gilbert moment that requires me to leave the country at some point.

Speaking of which…. Liz, we have to talk.

I read your latest book and how dare you make me feel my own feelings? 😉 We are in the same tribe, my friend. Reading you is like a window into myself and it is not always comfortable. Could you teach me how to write fiction?

What? Like it’s hard.

Kidding. I loved “The Signature of All Things.”

I talk to all writers like I’ve known them for a hundred years. Before I started hating Rowling I sent her a Tweet trolling her that said, “The Casual Vacancy was great. Have you written any other books?”

I got a heart from Jodi when I said, “Picoult, that line slays. I’m stealing it.”

In short, I’m just razzing Gilbert because she’s brilliant. I don’t think she will read this, so it doesn’t matter.

But I could be wrong, and that’s the fun of being a blogger.

If Margaret Cho and Martina Navratilova know who I am, then it’s not an impossibility that Liz Gilbert has read me, either.

I think a lot about being a dynamic storyteller and I’ve picked up tricks from both Margaret and Liz over the years.

Speaking of dynamic storytelling, I saw two little old ladies at Waffle House that looked like they had the same age gap as me and Aada. Just for a moment, I let myself dream that I was meeting Aada for brunch and buying her all the waffles she could eat from past Galentine’s Days uncelebrated.

I do different things for her on Galentine’s Day, but I never fail to send her the meme with Leslie Knope saying that her female friends are “noble land mermaids” and “stupid hot.”

I don’t know that we’ll ever get back to that, but she’ll always be stupid hot in my book, Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.

Her being stupid hot is half of how I landed in this mess to begin with, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiat.

And then she was funny, and I’ve never gotten my heart back. I never will, and that’s okay. I know it’s safe.

I miss the days when I could flirt with her and not have it mean anything but fun. I know that she’s not comfortable with it, so those lines just live in my memory and feed my ego when I need them. I loved it that she’d throw me a bone, because she’s again, very funny.

I’m funny, too, but not in a way that resonates with a lot of people. I’m an acquired taste because I’m on the think it, say it plan. This does not always work out well for me, and my work in therapy is to learn to be better emotionally regulated. I need better coping mechanisms because when I melt down and burn out I say things I don’t mean. My illness starts talking, and it is just not excusable. I will never not be autistic, therefore I will never have a fully emotionally regulated life. It’s about learning to manage it.

I should have put a lid on things and talked to the air for a while. I hear Jesus is always available to hear my running bullshit. Maybe I’ll take him up on it.

It’s hard to decide when to be radio silent and when to talk. It’s a balance of being able to explain my perspective when it ultimately comes at a cost. My friends can read whether I want them to or not, and they do. Some of them think I am a fantastic writer and cheer me on. Some of them do not care. I don’t care which camp my friends fall in, because it’s very exciting to talk about my career and writing, and it is also exciting to put all that away and just relax.

I don’t require my friends to be fans. I’ll email them enough that they feel like they read me already.

And in fact, that’s a constant criticism of my friendships. I take in information best by reading and writing. My friends don’t have time to read and say my friendship comes with homework. I have never been able to properly express how irritating this is because I know other people aren’t writers. If I’ve written something and you’re interested in me, you’ll at least skim it and get back to me with a phone call….. Because you don’t work the way I do.

I can respect and celebrate all those differences because I don’t require my friends to be anything they’re not, and I don’t expect that of myself, either. I want all authentic relationships, and that means waiting for friends and partners that like to read.

I am a fantastic correspondent if you like to read as well, because my letters go all over the place and back again. I try to weight them if we don’t talk often.

I’m neurodivergent, so I have no friendship degradation mechanism. If someone comes back into my life, we pick up right where we left off. That often means writing serious letters once in a while, because I made such a mistake in overwhelming Aada. She reads fast, but not that fast. I was unconcerned with how fast she got back to me, but she always felt extraordinarily guilty about it.

It was always okay. It is always okay. I’m just happy to hear from her when I do.

Close friendships require resilience after complete blowouts. You don’t blow out if you don’t care that much about each other. Anger fades from me and I have no boundary that says relationships cannot be rebuilt. I could get mad enough to say I didn’t want Aada in my life. I cannot get mad enough to mean it.

It’s just not a service I offer.

She has been extraordinarily kind to me over the years, even when I haven’t been respectful of her boundaries and truly stepped over lines I shouldn’t have and ignored her feelings in the moment, but always wanted to do reparative work. It’s not me trying to be an asshat, it’s me having a disability and trying to manage it. I cannot help melting down and burning out, but I can learn not to feel such red mist rage that I say things that make people feel horrible.

I put up with my own flaws and failures because people say terrible things to me, too. They are human. I get over it and hope for the same from them, because dollars to donuts they are also melting down and will need to apologize later.

It’s the ’tism.

It’s all about making up for it with the next shot if you get one. Sometimes the clock runs out.

Some people just need time to regroup after the last game, because the rivalry got unfriendly.

I needed to calm down and reassess my coping mechanisms, because “I don’t care as long as I have one person in my life who believes in me” is not a viable option. Many people believe in me and I have rejected them due to rejection sensitivity dysphoria.

I know that while Aada is lost in hers, she cannot see me lost in mine. Things will change if she turns from having empathy for herself to having empathy for me, and the same is true of me in return. We have a lot of work to do in order to save the world, and it starts with saving ourselves.

I just realized that I’ve been saving myself for her, and not in a romantic way. I’m training to be a better writer so that I can reach the level she already is. I think we have a future in publishing whether I’m the editor or she is. We are both ruthless with a red pen and constantly cheering each other on. I wish she would write more.

Quite frankly, I think she wishes I would write less. 😉

“Speak less to that.”

I completely lost the ability to be logical, tied up in my own overwhelming emotions. I stumbled through this relationship every day, trying to reach her and not knowing how. Then, we finally got to the place where we were back in new relationship energy and she told me that she lied. ALL OF THE SUDDEN I DID NOT KNOW HER.

I felt an inner crisis and I reacted.

I have apologized for everything, my part in all of it. So has she. I want to react with love and kindness, but she is determined not to let me. She is determined not to let me be a dynamic character, limiting me to a “Flat Stanley” set of emotions in which I am always angry at her. I don’t know what to make of this except tell her, “you’re killing me, Smalls.”

I have given her everything I am over the years, letting her pick and choose the parts she liked. She soaked up energy from me without giving it back, and touched my heart by apologizing for being that emotional vampire. She sees herself, really sees herself, in my letters and I don’t think she wants to lose that part of it.

But I’m sorry that love and care means that she thinks I’m performing a psychological assassination and every day is therapy day.

She gives me a lot of power that I don’t have. We have a difference of opinion, I am not writing from on high. I’m sure that her friends do ask about me and ask if she’s read my blog recently. I hope that they’re telling her what I’m saying and not joining her opinion that I have rejected her, so her only recourse is to slink off.

Meanwhile, I’m so lovesick I wake up with tears in my eyes. Our relationship is not and never will be romantic, but because I’ve felt those feelings for her before I go into a crazy amount of dysregulation when she walks out. None of this is about rejecting her, but addressing the mistakes of the past so that we can move on.

I know that she wants to be close and have few boundaries, but she doesn’t trust me enough to recreate it. Her perception is that I think all she does is lie, but she didn’t read any of the entries after that forgiving her for it and wiping the slate clean. The first lie had the best of intentions, but the last ones didn’t. It was not the white lie that made me mad, but the years-long coverup.

I have trust issues as well, but I wrote her a long letter giving her all the latest dirt. If you want to build trust, you have to offer it. I told her every single thing I couldn’t publish and her blackmail list is already a mile long. Her story is just as complex as mine if she’d be willing to sit down and write it.

We could alternate chapters, but I have an unfair advantage. My part is already done.

I’ve been thinking about it since dawn, because how do I rectify someone telling me that they’re walking away because of what they think I think instead of just asking me.

I don’t have any preconceived notions about Aada and am mystified as to why she has so many preconceived notions about me. She’s built me up in her head to be this dictatorial writer whose only job is to hurt her until she’s been utterly embarrassed across all platforms.

Meanwhile, I am an absolute hack without her and I know it.

The way I collaborate with AI is the way we used to collaborate and now I know her brain is faster.

It’s a loss for sure, but not the reason I’m obsessed with the problem. I’m ruminating about it because it’s representative of all the people in my life. It’s hard to keep relationships going when I’m reflecting.

My reflections cost me because what the reader thinks is more important than what I do. I cannot help it that Aada felt punished by my actions because I didn’t write the story that way. That’s the message she’s taking home and it’s devastating. The thing she loved (reading me every day) has been slowly twisted into a special kind of hate based on her, again, wrong ass opinion.

Today I’m strong enough to let her wrong ass opinion stand. Yesterday, I wasn’t. Grief is like that.

I’m trying to move away from writing about Aada, but right now she is the relationship I can actually explain. The others make no sense. The reason I can explain it is that we have so much history.

Over the years, I turned from having these unsustainable romantic feelings to the new relationship energy of emotional support without it. I really care what’s happening in Aada’s life and it has been misconstrued.

I have trouble putting down problems when they’re so unfair. I am completely justice oriented and this is akin to a rock in my shoe.

Nothing has been said to punish anyone. I’m just writing it out…. Having been up since the dawnzer lee light.

Hood to Coast

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I can’t get the daily writing prompt to load, but it’s asking whether I like beach or mountains. I have to have both, so I choose the Hood to Coast route from Mt. Hood to Cannon Beach in Oregon.

I have so many memories of doing that drive in one day, because Dana and I loved going to Timberline Lodge and to the Pacific Ocean.

The water is always so cold; my feet would go numb in seconds and I’d still be out there splashing around, overjoyed to be enveloped by something bigger than myself.

I just got back from grabbing coffee at Royal Farms. I think it’s the best gas station coffee around here, but it’s hard to mess up medium roast with Splenda and flavoring.

I don’t have to have fancy coffee every morning, but I do need social interaction. I don’t have very many friends in Baltimore, so I have to go out of my way to talk to people.

Speaking of which, the Thanksgiving meal for my Cognitive Behavioral Group was on Wednesday. It was nice to break bread together, and to see people that I’d not seen in a few months with all my travels and theirs.

I am really starting to make friends there, but it’s going to take a while before we’re so close we’re hanging at each other’s houses. I am careful about boundaries, and want to move slowly with everyone. We’re all mentally ill and struggling with the same issues…. That’s why we’re in the same group. Everyone has their own quirks and I am waiting to see which of them line up with mine.

I also have an OKCupid profile and occasionally I’ll read something that piques my interest, but not lately. Lately, I have been working on my own house. I have sowed a lot of chaos and reaping it has not been for the faint of heart. I don’t know that I’m in a place to invite someone in right now, but it’s a pleasure to be nominated.

I would rather sit here and think about the beach and the mountains, where hopefully I could get my friends to go skiing with me and end up at a bonfire near the water. I know exactly who I see among the sparks, because none of my friends are far from my heart.

And if my stats are any indication, I’m not far from theirs, either.

Getting Out of the House

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

There’s a Waffle House about 30 minutes from me, and I like to go there occasionally for brunch. I’m never hungry when I first get up, so I just have coffee. Then around 10:00 AM, I am insatiably hungry and must eat RIGHT NOW. Today, it was a bowl with hash browns, bacon, eggs, and cheese and a side of raisin toast with apple butter.

I should have boxed up half of it, but I didn’t. I’ll just have to go again. 😉

My vision has made my driving weird and I’ve figured out a few things that the technology won’t help me with and I’m still on my own. I’m not ready to sell my car just yet, but driving is a bit of an adjustment. My saving grace is that I have seen so many bad drivers since I’ve been back on the road that I no longer feel special. I have learned so much more about proper distancing that I’m often taken advantage of, me or my cruise control SLAMMING on the brakes because I left three car lengths in front of me and that is an invitation.

I miss reading in the back of the car, but I do not miss waiting for someone to come and pick me up.

Driving, for the most part, feels natural except when curbs jump up and bite me occasionally. I have a hard time judging distances, especially side to side. I keep my lane assist lights on all the time so that I know if I’m drifting as soon as it happens.

I arrived at Waffle House without incident, but I managed to bang up my wheel on the way out of the parking lot. My car came with a lot of dings before I got it. No one will notice, not even me. I mean, I can tell if I look really hard, but I don’t. I know within myself that if I try to keep my car free of little things like scratches on the wheel, I will put such pressure on myself that mistakes get worse.

I suppose I also miss talking to people on the train, but that was more of a DC thing. Baltimore’s subway feels dark and scary, particularly in Penn Station because it’s a former bomb shelter. You go like a hundred feet underground and all communication drops.

Everyone I have met on Baltimore public transit has been very kind, warning me not to get off the subway in rough neighborhoods and here’s where they are, etc. It is literally the look and feel that drives me away, because the lack of lighting makes everything spooky even during daylight hours.

As a white nerd, I stick out so much on the subway that people tell me I don’t need to be on it around these particular stops. It is definitely a kindness, because I’m so oblivious I absolutely would talk to anyone on the street, much to my detriment because I’m an easy target.

Hi, guys! I’m Leslie. How are you?!

Meanwhile, the notorious gangsters or drug dealers or whatever are like, “who in the hell is this?”

I’m sure my delivery could use work.

I’m just searching for something, anything to feel like routine. Getting out and driving is a vast improvement over thinking I had to stay in my house all the time. I feel more free and open than I did, especially now that I’ve gone to visit Aaron on road trips in Texas and New York, and to “southern northern Virginia” to see Tiina. The world is bigger than I’ve been making it out to be, hiding in my internet cave.

My internet cave is fantastic, an autistic nest of blankets and plushes with a huge TV. It’s usually off, though, because I’m writing and do not want anything to compete with my inner monologue. But I come in here to rest and relax even if I cannot properly sleep.

I’ve napped off and on for the past several days, but I cannot say that I have gotten a full night’s sleep. I have to drink a lot of coffee to control my ADHD, so basically if my hands are shaking my brain’s probably okay. But that’s not the only problem. Getting coffee has been recent. Not being able to sleep is eternal.

It’s just one of the things I have to deal with being neurodivergent and having the laundry list of comorbidities that come with it. It’s a whole mental health combo meal, and impossible to manage at times.

I am doing the best I can.

It’s all I can ask of myself as I move toward a different way of being in the world.

I need to look in the newspaper and see if there are any events I’d like to go to after Thanksgiving. I know there will be a lot of Christmas concerts in DC, and going to any of them in Baltimore probably means running into Sam and regretting it. Nothing says Christmas like being accused of stalking.

There’s just no way around it. Baltimore is too big, the music community too small to be more than mildly concerned about running into someone, and yet I’m so sensitive that I absolutely will think twice about attending anything downtown until Christmas is over. We have different enough musical tastes that during the regular season there’s less of a chance we’d be attending the same thing.

Sam wants a completely separate life from me, and that’s okay. I’m defining my own boundaries, which is not to let fear of running into her consume me but to be sensitive to the fact that she needs space. I know what her Christmas season is like and that’s why I want to be in DC. Easy now that I can drive down for a concert and come back the same night. It’s not as far as people think.

I am slowly caring less and less about the Sam situation because I realized I didn’t care about Sam. I cared about Aada. I compounded grief and mixed them up when they both stole my heart in different ways. But I cannot compare a relationship of three weeks to a relationship of 12 years.

That’s impossible to do but easy to think you’re upset about one thing when it’s really another.

I’m trying to forget and just watch TV, but then my echologia starts up and I begin to ruminate out loud, crafting complete responses to people who will never read. It doesn’t change them, but it changes me to write.

I need comfort food afterwards, because writing means stepping out on a ledge and hoping your words fly………… Knowing that there’s every possibly they’ll sink like a rock.

It is easier to take the possibility of failure with grits.