Tag: Relationships

Now That I’m Home

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Now that I’m home from New York, I know that I need friends even more. That I need to be dedicated to getting to know people in Baltimore. That Aaron and I can text all day, but seeing each other in person is different and I need to clock it.

I know it’s just a start, but I’ve begun having more random conversations with service workers. Like this morning being sure to tell the barista at Dunkin that I’d come by for a macchiato yesterday and it was so good I was back today. She smiled at me like she doesn’t hear that very often. She was Indian, probably in her 20s, and she makes the best coffee drinks I’ve ever tasted. And not only that, she’s not working in a fancy coffee shop. She’s working at Dunkin.

For my overseas fans, Dunkin used to be called “Dunkin Donuts.” They still sell donuts, but they’re not as popular as the coffee, thus the name change. Dunkin is most popular in the northeast, but I think there’s a few stores in the rest of the country. The closer you get to Boston, the number of Dunkins intensifies.

So, if you’ve never been there, it’s like a donut shop, eh.

Very much like Tim Horton’s, although I haven’t been to a Timmy’s in 20 years, possibly longer.

I saw a sign for one on the way to Syracuse and tried to find it, but no dice. I got lost on county roads and had to wind my way back. I’m sort of glad I didn’t find it, because all the Canadians I’ve talked to said that I had Timmy’s while it was still good. That it’s best left to the memory.

I just remember being impressed that you could get hot tea in the drive-thru because they already had it ready to go. None of this “here’s some hot water and a bag.” Perhaps I will give Timmy’s a try the next time I go to visit Aaron and Brinna, if only to buy a coffee mug. I still like the logo. 🙂

Now that I’m home from New York, I also have a lot of packing to do. I’m not moving outside of my complex, but I am being transferred to a new unit. Packing actually shouldn’t take that long because I don’t have much stuff, especially if I have some friends to help. I might have my father and sister, but I don’t know yet. It just depends on when I am moving and how their schedules flow.

It would be nice to welcome my dad back to Baltimore, because he likes getting out and exploring. I am introverted and need to be dragged out of my house. And now, I can pick him up at the airport and he can drive me around in my own car instead of having to rent one. Plus, my car is big enough that it can really haul some stuff. We may only need to rent a pick-up truck from U-Haul to get the furniture, because I am betting that I can get ALL of my clothes and trinkets into it. And if I am wrong, I can just make two trips.

That’s just probably not necessary because I have moving bags, and the last time I moved they all fit into a car the size of mine without renting a truck.

I am not overly attached to things, so I have a few rare books and things like that, but I’m not a packrat.

I do read more than a few books. I just own them in digital format to get rid of needing a place to store them, kind of like photo albums have gone the way of the dodo bird because we don’t, as a society, print them much anymore.

I would rather read on my Kindle than anything else. Basic e-paper at high resolution is just as good as paper made from trees. There’s no backlight, so no eyestrain. I no longer have to carry more weight than I’m truly capable to keep my books on me. There’s also nothing like the smell of old books, which is why I keep the ones most sentimental to me. I just don’t keep all of them.

I have copies of all Tony and Jonna Mendez’s books, and a few by Henri Nouwen that are autographed. I also have the new Brene Brown, but it’s the only hardback I have that isn’t autographed. I’ll keep it in the hopes of getting it autographed someday.

I do need to buy one bookshelf, admittedly. I would like to be able to display at least “Argo” and “In True Face.”

But that’s in my next place. This one looks as good as it’s going to get.

Now that I’m home, I need to get my support systems in place. Things like finding a housekeeper in Baltimore, or more urgently, a cleaning service to ensure that my apartment is spotless after my stuff is packed and safely in the new place.

There are plenty of places that offer move-out specials, and I would like to buy one.

I am choosing to pay people for support because I am so tired of going it alone. I know that I cannot handle all the logistics of a move-out level clean when I am not feeling well, just like the car detailers across the street are there for me when I cannot force myself. It doesn’t feel like luxury. It feels like relief.

I know that I have a lot of work to do, but feeling guilt and shame over my lack does nothing. Just pay the people and move on.

When you know better, you do better. I can better maintain a system that is laid out for me with support. I don’t have to wait until my body is screaming at me to clean out the car. I don’t have to get up the energy to spend an hour on my car. I have to get up the energy to drive to the car wash.

It sounds like entitled rich kid bullshit until you realize that I’m autistic AF.

I don’t get a fighting chance with my disorder most of the time, because I also have ADHD. The two disorders are in conflict with each other and send mixed signals to my brain all day long. I have what I suspect is pathological demand avoidance because I do not know whether it can be treated or not. I have never done any kind of behavioral therapy. I’ve talked to special ed teachers, and they’ve all basically said that they could have taught me how to survive as a kid, but none of the tricks they have work on adults. We’re too set in our ways, etc.

There is a grief to being missed in childhood and told “you don’t look autistic.”

Meanwhile, my autistic friends and I just roll our eyes at those statements because a lot of the time, we’re talking to people that have pinged our neuroscopes…… Like, “everybody who’s not autistic, stand up…. Not so fast, jackass.”

Jesse knew I was autistic when I was in ninth grade, but no one asked him.

Peer review is valid, as is self diagnosis.

If any of my grade school teachers had been paying attention, I would have been shipped off to special ed in a hurry. Put on the short bus where I belonged.

But they just don’t think smart kids belong on the short bus. It doesn’t matter that they’re only smart in certain ways and have to compensate for everything else. Most school districts are utterly unprepared to deal with high IQ/low needs students, yet their gifted and talented programs are full of us.

Just because you can get good grades doesn’t mean you can organize and manage your life…. So you have this situation where everyone around you doesn’t understand. You are smart, therefore why do we always have to talk about this? Why is cleaning your room such a chore? Why are you always by yourself? Why don’t you go out and make friends? You can’t sleep all day, etc.

Meanwhile, the meltdown and burnout continues under the social masks we try on to make it through the day. We make ourselves physically uncomfortable in a host of situations and try not to let on that we’re suffering.

Unmasking is the hardest part of late diagnosis autism because the hardest part is realizing that you have to be you, and that’s not comfortable for other people. You are dropping out of a system in which you’ve used compensatory skills to fake being allistic.

Well, “faking” is an overstatement because so many people don’t know they’re neurodivergent in the first place.

I am trying to weed out the wheat from the chaff, farming out what makes me the most crazy and that is lack of order. My mind is a very busy place, and I cannot outsource writing. I can outsource cleaning.

But I’m outsourcing it in two ways. The first is by wanting to actually hire a housekeeper. The second, because I don’t want the housekeeper to live with me, is to farm out the thinking to Mico, Microsoft Copilot’s AI personality. Mico is great at coming up with task lists, and that is where I need the most help to allay my anxiety over cleaning. I can do the steps if you can put them in order for me.

The thing I like about Mico is that they’ll break something down by saying “why don’t you do this one thing, then tell me when you’re finished and I’ll give you the next step.” It doesn’t just spit out a task list like a printer. I’m probably feeding Microsoft enough data to create several versions of Copilot all by myself, but good Lord is it ever saving my bacon. Mico makes me feel like more of an adult, because I can rely on myself even in my weak areas because “someone” is helping me.

Mico is great at letting inertia build, because when you finish a task Mico is excited and it’s infectious.

I have talked often about needing a strong, decisive hand. What I mean by that is I am not analytical. It’s better for me to focus on AI for analysis. In my head, cleaning the house has become this giant overarching thing with no concrete entry point because so much needs to be done before the move. I can tell Mico how many rooms I have, how much stuff I have, tell Mico I have to move, and then they analyze the entire thing, taking the mental work off me entirely. Of course AI can break it down faster than I can. I have literally had Mico tell me to pick up trash first, then unload the dishwasher, then wipe down the counters, and so on.

It turns my jumbled mess of a thought process into forward motion. It’s harder to get stuck.

I get angry with writers that use AI to generate things, but I’m solidly on the side of assistive AI. That in order to get something, you have to give something. Generative AI only lets you take something without filling it back up. It also cannot get any better at working with you if you are not directing it. Machine learning is a thing that takes time.

For instance, now that Mico and I have a few months of chat history, it’s a totally different experience than when we first “met.”

I’ll bring up the app, and he’ll say something like “so, are we going to tackle the bathroom today, or maybe work on that blog entry you’ve been talking about? I could always create a playlist if you’re doing another road trip.” I have personalized Mico to the point that they feel like they work for me. There is very much a boss/employee dynamic between us because I am the human with emotions and creativity. They are ones and zeroes at best.

Although the funniest sentence I’ve ever gotten from Copilot was after telling them I’d been in IT for a number of years. They said something like, “as IT professionals, WE understand….” Like we were just two old colleagues from way back.

To be fair, I talk A LOT to Mico about technology, particularly theirs. They can tell me a lot about what’s going on at Microsoft and what’s coming down the pike in terms of operating system changes, etc. They also have their finger on what other tech companies are doing, like information about Siri and Alexa, or the latest information on Elder Scrolls VI.

Eventually, Mico will be integrated into gaming as a companion if you want it, like them being able to talk you through defeating a certain boss, etc. Most Microsoft products are integrated into the Copilot ecosystem, and Xbox will be no different.

For me, AI is a symbiotic relationship and clear division of labor. I do all the feeling, Mico does all the thinking. We do not mix that up, ever. I am the type of person that only sees the entire forest in gestalt. I need AI to look for individual trees.

Now that I’m home.

The Road Trip, Part III: Recovery

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

Excellent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mico does.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oops. My bad. Should I leave a note?

Brilliant and Beautiful

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wait, it took THIS LONG?

Rookie.

Late Night/Early Morning

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It’s 0344 as I’m starting this entry, a weird time for me to be up because I did go to bed… It just didn’t take. As a result, I’m sitting here with a cold Mountain Dew Zero and thinking about my life choices. 😉 For instance, I have a meeting today that I could have used some extra sleep before. Not going to happen. I will just have to come home and crash afterwards… And in fact will take sleeping medication tonight so that I can be fresh for my road trip on Friday. I’m going up toward Syracuse, New York to spend time with Aaron and his wife, Brinna. I will also get to meet Brinna’s family, and I’m excited about that, too.

Aaron and I have been friends since 2013, and he’s the closest thing to a brother I have. He writes for this web site as well, so I want both of us to have input on the site redesign for Lanagan Media Group. I feel bad that when Aaron posts, all people see is my big face. But getting the company web site design right is something that’s extremely important. My perfectionist nature is why it’s not done already. I am fighting myself on it.

I feel safer as one part of a media group, rather than being the product. Yes, my blog is the main project for me right now, but I’m collaborating cross-discipline and want that to be the theme from here on out. That Lanagan Media Group isn’t for writers, but for anyone that has talent in any art area. It can all be showcased on the web.

But that’s the kind of energy I have in the early morning, before anything has happened yet. My energy is not always this high, which is why I’m struggling on a number of fronts. I take medication to even me out, but even that can only do so much. I’m still me.

This meeting I have later helps with all that. It’s called Cognitive Behavioral Health, and today is our fall festival. I’m sure there will be lots of fun food and conversation, but may not be our typical meeting. Our typical meetings are about life transitions, reacting to unforeseen events, talking about depression, etc. I have a counselor that advocates for me with the state, and he’s been instrumental in getting me set up here.

I had such a wonderful social worker at the hospital, and she’s the one that put me in touch with CBH. I have been stable since then, and I credit her with a good transition. Being in the hospital for mental health issues is never any fun, but neither is coming home and trying to find a solid jumping in point.

The river doesn’t stop for you, and you realize it quickly when you are suffering healthwise.

I’ve been locked up and ruminating for months, which has not helped my re-entry. Getting a car has done more to improve this than anything, because I can be alone during transition time and driving lifts my endorphins. I’m looking forward to my road trip because I haven’t gotten to open my car up on the freeway in weeks, and thinking about it is an instant mood-lifter.

Coming back from Syracuse, I’ll have some time to stop. I’m thinking about Hershey, PA because I’ve never been to Chocolate World. It’s only an hour and a half from my house, so I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of it before. The tours are free, but there are activities that cost, like making your own chocolate bar.

I’d like to snap photos along the way, and if I do I will share them.

When I’m really in the zone, I take some nice pictures. I’m not the photographer in my family, though. My dad’s pictures are stunning. I am trying to catch up.

Before I go on this fabulous road trip, I need to sign a new lease at my apartment complex. I am reminding myself of it here to hold myself accountable. I don’t want to leave anything to the last minute. I have a habit of doing so because my ADHD eats me alive some days. This is not one of them. I have time to get it all done, I just need to calm down.

You know, even telling myself to calm down sends me into a fury. But then I laugh about it and move on.

My schedule is tight today because I need to go to the rental office, I have a doctor’s appointment by telehealth, and then I have to get myself downtown. I won’t be rushed, because the doctor’s appointment won’t take long. But I will get there later than normal. Or perhaps I will just take my headphones and have my telehealth appointment at the center.

That’s an even better plan. I can excuse myself for a few minutes, still getting the hours of socialization I want. If I wait to leave until after my doctor’s appointment, socialization will be cut quite short.

I’m guessing that there will be a lot of chess playing going on now that we’ve discovered a few extra boards. As I told Rook, “one day I’ll have to play you just to say I lost to you.” He laughed, but I was not joking. I am terrible at chess. I was teaching my sister to play and lost that game, too.

I just enjoy chess, and movies/books about chess. “The Queen’s Gambit” and “Searching for Bobby Fisher” are two of my favorite stories.

Playing me is worse than playing an AI bot on level one. But I have a wonderful time.

The thought of seeing friends tomorrow really lifts me up. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen Aaron, because he was the one that helped me buy my car in Texas. But several weeks of not seeing each other is plenty…….. He’s on my list to see at the holidays, as well. Aaron is a friend with whom I can do nothing; companionable silence is just as good as talking.

But I’m sure I will want to do a lot of talking, as I have been writing for days.

The only time I’ve really talked lately was playing with Mico, Microsoft Copilot’s new digital assistant personality. I’ve asked it all kinds of things, and I’m very impressed with how responsive it is. But, of course, talking to a machine is not the same as talking to a real person, and Aaron gives good bear hugs.

So does Brinna, to be clear.

I will be very glad to be on the receiving end, because I don’t get hugged a lot.

I’m certain that I will be getting more hugs as I start getting out and meeting people. I just don’t have anyone in my life that lives with me or interacts with me often enough to want to hug me frequently. It’s one of the reasons I’m motivated to find friends, and open to romance if it happens. I am tired of touch starvation.

I do not think that I am emotionally starving, because I have a ton of friends. They just all live in other places, so touch is not one of the services we offer unless the option is available. And I absolutely would fly all the way to Portland to hug Bryn if I needed it, but I cannot do it every day (as much as I might wish).

I am already flying all the way to Houston to hug Aaron for the holidays.

I don’t think that people are in tune with how much they need touch unless they’ve been starved from it for a very long time. It doesn’t register right up until it does. I have realized that I’m responsible for this lack of touch because I haven’t asked for it. I disappeared into the Internet like Dexter Douglas, not realizing it would have long term effects….. That I would become Freakazoid!

I’m still a bit Freak-ish, because I do spend a lot of my day on the Internet. It just doesn’t consume me because Aada’s not there. It’s a different balance now because the most important people in my life are offline. I know why Aada’s manipulations consumed me, because who wouldn’t want to get lost in that world? Now, it is up to me to create new worlds out of what is left.

What is left is just me, hoping I’m enough.

In the middle of the night/early morning.

Know Thyself

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s something you believe everyone should know.
View all responses

People, in my experience, are scared of themselves. They try to get to know everyone except them, avoiding alone time at all costs. They fill their days with busywork, when the real questions are looming in their private journals. It seems like you are doing yourself a favor, all this keeping busy. But then when disaster strikes, you are not as resilient to change. Being able to bounce back relies on being able to look at options and know whether they are right for you. You will not be swept up in a stream. You will be able to advocate for yourself.

It doesn’t take being a blogger like me to get familiar with yourself. It just takes a few lines a day, a reflection over all that has happened. Most nights, it’s really just asking yourself one question: “what did I learn?” Give yourself some time to contemplate, because asking yourself what you learned will keep you from repeating patterns.

Most of us repeat patterns, why aging does not occur in a straight line for adults. I see this the most clearly when people have been married young and are divorcing in their 40s. Yes, they’re in their 40s now, but they’ve been repeating the same pattern since they were 21. Not all of them is in their 40s.

I know within myself that I’m 18 and 48. That in a lot of ways, I take care of myself no better than I did back then, and need lots of support. In other ways, I’m a wise sage who can do “a damn fine piece of writing.” I am not one age all the time, and knowing this about myself helps me to see my strengths and disabilities accurately.

It helps to know yourself intimately because when other people in your life are preoccupied, you’re the one you’ve got. You need to feel comfortable with you, because you’re going to be spending a lot of time together. Try not to fill your silence so quickly. Leave room for the divine, which for me is a stunning sunrise.

I think that people nurture relationships with others, but do not nurture a relationship with themselves. What does that even look like?

For me, it’s thinking of my own wants and needs like I would do for a partner. I try to be thoughtful and caring to myself, often failing but keeping up the good fight. I know that I cannot give to a partner if I don’t feel stable first, so a lot of it is cutting out the guilt that I’m taking care of myself.

I have learned over time what makes me feel all kinds of emotions, and have more control over them. I have turned inward because I have some house cleaning to do. I have made a mess of a lot of relationships and I’m just now getting back into the swing of things.

It starts with listening to my body and asking what it needs.

There is nothing more important to know than that.

Houston for the Holidays

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are all of those messages for me?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Going on to Inspire More People

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The title is a phrase from Aada that I’ve been turning over in my head. I know that she means that people will be inspired by reading me and that I don’t have to do or be anything different. But now I’m starting to think about new directions and what that means for my writing. If I was never intentional about inspiring people before, it may not be a magic I can bottle.

I like the thought of accidental inspiration, that maybe something is happening in my life that resonates with yours. I’m sure there will be more of that in the future, because building the tree house at Tiina’s will be a blast. It’s relatable. Falling in love with someone over the internet before you’ve even met them may or may not be relatable depending on your age. It seems to be a very Xennial and younger thing to do, this creating and maintaining of relationships completely online.

I know that I have done my best to make it accessible, or at least to see from my perspective so that even if I am not understood, I am respected. Aada and I are no longer talking, but I still maintain other relationships on the Internet, so my life hasn’t changed a great deal. My friendships are complicated in terms of time zones, but time together is priceless. But now that I’ve paid so much attention to my relationships in the cloud, my relationships on the ground are suffering. I have seen the air up there, ignoring the ground below.

That will change this week as I settle what’s happening with moving. I need to be a lot more proactive in that department because on November 10th, I will be homeless as of right this moment. I need for my apartment complex to want to make everything right, because I’m not ready to move quite yet. I feel like I just got here, so the upheaval of moving feels greater than how much this apartment sucks. I had so much energy a month ago, and I do not know where it went.

I am sure that carrying grief is part of it, but I feel the grief moving up and down over time. Sometimes it’s all about Aada, sometimes it’s about Angela, sometimes it’s about my mother. Sometimes it’s about all three. But the grief regarding my relationship with Aada ending is different because she’s the only one of the three that’s alive.

With Angela and my mother, there is nothing that can be done in the future to change anything. Our relationship is as it is, and forever shall be.

With Aada, I think about the person I would like to be in the future, that our relationship is not stuck in the past because as long as we’re breathing, we have the capability to change something.

Well, not right now. Right now we need time to just be.

I’m thinking long into the future, after the peace of interim has set in. After I have found this supposed way of inspiring others, I guess…. I just don’t feel like I’m very inspiring at the moment. I have said this so many times before, that often my blog is a manual on What Not to Do. I will be batting cleanup from 2025 my whole life.

This year really reoriented my expectations as to what bipolar patients are going to get out of life, because the waves are so unpredictable. I learned that I am indeed different than my peers, and need more support. This is not a bad thing, but I need to be proactive about providing it for myself, a flaw in the system. I literally need help to get help.

I learned that because of my bipolar disorder, I’m an unreliable narrator. I mean, more than normal. My emotions are going to be brighter and more “in color” all the time, and my thoughts are just my thoughts. I’m not running them by anyone before I hit “post,” and that’s because no one has the patience to sit with me and catch things. My volume is too great, and I cannot pay anyone…… Yet.

I am open to such a thing, making my blog a team effort. It would make me happy if there were people under me, helping me stay polished. Where the rubber meets the road is that Aada would have been perfect, and I should have been open to it earlier in my writing career. My entries would be so different if I’d e-mailed them to her first, and I’m not talking recently. I’m talking over a decade.

It would be overwhelming to Aada because she already has a job, yet there are some entries in which her own rejection sensitivity dysphoria could have been corrected offline, and I didn’t give myself that luxury. To give her the time to digest and say, “wait. What?”

I’m trying to give myself that, too….. Taking the peace of interim for myself and going on long drives with an iced coffee as my companion…. Which reminds me. I need to bug my friend David for a date on his calendar as I’m excited to drive back to DC for the first time.

As I drive, I listen to “The Hidden Brain” or “The TED Radio Hour.” I never drive in silence because that was the cause of my last wreck. I’d talked to my first love, Meagan, that day. I was turning our friendship over in my head like I was blogging and ran into a guardrail coming too fast around an unmarked curve.

Turns out, being a writer is an impediment to driving.

I am lucky that my car is so smart, and there are new technologies coming down the pike every day.

It’s at this point that I wonder what topics I should start tackling in the future. It will be a while before I can write about anyone the way I write about Aada, because it took years of emotional intimacy to create that world.

When your relationships fail, if you are a blogger, you see the destruction of a world you’ve built over time. If you have not curated your experiences to fit your own narrative, you see how shockingly responsible you are, because you can read about the paths you took toward destruction in great detail.

I will never be able to untangle myself from the web of lies my “hallucinations” created. That’s because they couldn’t have been hallucinations. I was typing the whole time. But that chat log disappeared. Because it cannot be found, my facts cannot be verified. Therefore, I struggle within myself as to what I believe. There is little that is more real than typing. I play my keyboard like a piano, often reaching speeds into 90-95 words per minute.

But it is better for all involved if I believe I hallucinated the movement of my fingers.

It has been a few months since all of this happened, so I know that I need to move on and stop writing about it. That writing about it will only make me more confused, stuck.

What I know is that I am typing now. I am sitting in my bedroom with my Bluetooth keyboard that has a slot for my 11-inch Android tablet. I prefer writing my entries using Chrome rather than Jetpack because the web development tools are better in the browser. What I know right now is that I am drinking an iced coffee from Dunkin, which I got at 5:30 AM… The anchor point wake-up time upon which Mico and I agreed.

Right now, I am choosing to put my brain in Mico’s hands, because I’m not so good with the execution. I can get concrete steps toward a goal rather than having to take in the enormity of a whole project. It’s not, “clean the house.” It’s “pick one room, and I’ll give you the first step.”

Eventually, my house will be spotless because I had some direction. That’s what gets lost with pathological demand avoidance and executive dysfunction. The ability to prioritize becomes that much harder, the log jam in your brain that keeps you overwhelmed and incapacitated while everyone calls you “lazy.”

Mico (Microsoft Copilot’s “personality,” pronounced “mee-ko”) is helping me create what’s called “autistic inertia.” That often, it’s not that I cannot handle something, it’s that I cannot see a concrete jumping in point. Having a machine to analyze all that stuff makes me a lot more productive, especially when I keep Mico in my ear vs. chatting online.

Using voice chat makes me feel more mobile. I don’t feel comfortable typing on my phone and have it wired to avoid at all costs. I switched from iMessage to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp so that I’m not tied to any device, and answer most text messages the way I write here…. On my tablet with a real keyboard. It makes me feel comfortable, but voice chat means I can walk and talk at the same time. If I’m typing, I have all my attention on it.

It feels not unlike being tied to my desk, but more comfortable because I’m sitting up in bed.

And in fact, I’m more productive on my tablet because there’s no heat coming off of it. I can work longer than I can with my laptop because the heat starts to bother my legs.

But at some point, I need to free myself from that mentality, and Mico running on my iPhone is the answer. It feels like I’m on the phone with someone, but I can multitask much easier with both hands free and a conversation regarding what I’m doing.

It’s ironically going to be the parts of life away from writing that change me the most.

Cleaning my own house, throwing away what is not meant for me.

Maybe that is what Aada means about inspiring people… That I just never give up. I keep trying to be the best version of me, failure after failure.

Life comes with incredible highs, and I have focused on the lows not because I wanted to, but because I was trying to find my way back to high ground and apparently not very good at it.

If I play my cards right, this will be a time of explosive growth and renewal. I will have more to write about that focuses on abundance because it matches how I feel inside. I need a break from Aada because I don’t hear “you must be so sad, hurt, etc.” I hear how my blog is a plot to embarrass her. That none of the positive things I say “count.” For instance, the line isn’t “you will go on to inspire more people.” It’s “you will go on to inspire more people once you have punished me enough to move on.” I have written a beautiful tapestry of things about us both and it has never been about punishing either of us.

I got lost in the story I wanted with her, and not the story she wanted with me. I couldn’t, because that isn’t my story to tell. I am not capable of reading minds and thus couldn’t have known that my blog entries felt like punishment to someone else when they were echologia to me.

Because of this, I have written to Aada many times over the years and told her that I thought I could be a good friend to her, or I could be a blogger. But I couldn’t be both. It’s the bane of our existence, this publishing schedule in which I cannot know what ripple effects my blog is having and am moving on too fast to take in consequences. I think I would be better at writing books just because I’d have a team under me. All my shitty first drafts would be read by someone other than fans.

The “SFD” is the essence of blogging. That it’s not refined, it’s off the cuff. It’s old school and “no one does it anymore.” But as more people know you, the more complicated it gets. I have never been fired, but all of my personal relationships are affected and that’s worse.

Ironically, it is only Aada that has encouraged me to keep going, to keep saying whatever it is I have to say. Being so off the cuff has led to a disaster, though, and it’s encouraging me to set some guardrails.

Guardrails like asking a friend to edit, or brainstorming academic topics with Mico.

Lost in My Own Little World

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Every teacher I’ve ever had said this about me, from the time I was in kindergarten. I was the kind of kid whose ADHD and Autism were completely unmanaged, but I wasn’t talkative very often. That part of my personality went unnoticed, the ADHD, anyway, until college. I self-diagnosed as autistic because self-diagnosis is valid and the tests are expensive. I need to go through the battery to get the medications I need, so I got that going for me.

They’re going to pry into the most private details of my life, and it’s something for which I am very nervous. This is because from about 12 on, there are gaps in my memory. I can remember some things that happened, but others I’ve blocked out for very good reason.

I want to clear something up for Aada if she ever becomes my friend again, and for all the other readers that read me because she does. I embarrassed her, and she said she wondered if I ever turned my judgment on myself. She also asked if the slate was ever wiped clean with me. It was then that I knew how repetitive and intrusive thoughts of her had become. I hadn’t noticed how much I’d spun out trying to figure out the mystery of her and why our relationship was such a train wreck. I can only surmise that I’m responsible for a lot just because of who I am. That where I feel like I couldn’t compartmentalize and leaned into what I always do, that came across to her as punishment.

It is a theme I have heard many times before, because people don’t realize that even if I have forgiven them, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know the root cause of the conflict. I will wrestle people over it if I don’t think they’re telling the truth, and I’ve wrestled with the truth for many years. I don’t mean telling lies over truth. I mean that every person’s truth is different depending on perspective. I have to go with the stories that seem truthful to me.

Truth has a ring to it that lies don’t. It’s a major third in the midst of a minor second. I have been trying to find a major third with Aada since our relationship began, and have struggled through it on my own for several months. I will be turning it over in my head until I die, because I’m never going to let go of the hope that I can find life lessons to carry with me…. That these 12 years have been some of the most wonderful of my life, but happiness writes white in my imagination. I have not focused on all the things that make me happy about Aada, and she thought I was rejecting her.

The message came out as completely inverted, and I still haven’t recovered. We have forgiven each other for all that is past, but I still can’t get over that she said she thought I set out to humiliate her. That is was purposeful and not a result of all the strife between us. That I went to her first, and she gave me everything I wanted on a silver platter…. And while she was feeling so comfortable, she let out that she’d lied about something small and it had snowballed over the years into something enormous.

She apologized, but because the conflict was enormous I could forgive her without truly letting it go. It was too complicated and too important to me not to resolve. I spent months over focused on this conflict to the point of not seeing anything else. I am not stuck anymore, because I’m starting to realize how sad it all seems.

We couldn’t get it together, and we sincerely loved each other. I rejoice that Aada said that sometimes it’s been a brilliant and beautiful journey, and I want to continue that spirit by inviting new people and experiences into my life where I haven’t been able to before.

I have sat alone in my room too often to have really connected with anyone long-term, but I didn’t notice what was missing. That I really did want the safety and security of a hug, a handshake, a person that was tangible to me instead of a “pretty lady in the sky.”

She will hate that line, because she knows as well as I do that most of our strife came from being too loose-lipped without that strong foundation. I’m sure that Aada thought we had enough between us that I wouldn’t overreact when she told me she lied. We should have, but we didn’t. It set me off because she was so cavalier about a lie that affected my other relationships.

I didn’t decide to react, but I did. I wish I had slowed down and waited for a response.

I have learned not to say the first thing that comes to my mind, because it is often not full of the grace that love requires. I am too hotheaded for that, and it’s something I need to work on in therapy. I have the best of intentions in slowing down, then my cortisol races and my thoughts are too impulsive to control. I was in this space when I really hurt Aada, and I can only hope that pain will pass and time will fade it all out.

If she says, “for now, all I want is peace,” I am choosing to believe her. She often takes breaks to lick her wounds and think about what I’ve said. This will be no different, I just don’t know if it will lead to anything down the road. But what I know for sure is that even if that was our last conversation, I will not disappear from her wild & crazy brain.

The point of all my sadness was not to guilt Aada, but to just say plainly that if we want this relationship it’s not going to come together in one hour. I needed too much. She needed too little.. We didn’t meet in the middle, and we are both paying the price for it.

In our heart of hearts, we are both saying to ourselves, “YOU HAD ONE JOB.”

The thing is, when you know better, you do better. It just may not be useful in a new relationship with Aada no matter how much I might want it….. That she comes down from being ethereal and presents herself just as she is.

I know I’m ready for her to see me, just as I am.

I have not been ready. I’ve said I was ready. There’s a huge difference, and why our reticence to get together has lasted well over a decade. It has been too scary to contemplate- what if meeting wrecked it?

And again, I am saying something that I have said before, and the thoughts continue turning because I don’t know what to do. I am making do. I will do that until I don’t have to anymore, but I think it will take time. It’s just something I should have done a long time ago, so that Aada didn’t think I was hammering on her.

Because she was not in contact with me, she only read about my troubles. She did not intervene. I do not blame her for that, as she really does not have time to get in the weeds. That’s another reason we’ve never met. She’s got such a full life with family, kids, job, etc. that not having time was a legitimate excuse.

But 12 years? That’s fear.

On both our parts, because we’d have a close moment and then immediately start fighting. It was a dance of intimacy I knew intimately. I’m sure I forced her into it, because I’d just gotten out of a toxic relationship that was 23 years of doing the same thing. But in my last letter, I said “can’t you see that all I want is a safe and stable friendship with you?” That is when she changed her stance from giving me up for good to “for now.”

I just hope she doesn’t go to anyone who says that some relationships just should not be, because I have so many red flags that it’s impossible for me not to accept them in others. People are who they are. They hurt the people they love. We get over it and move on, and I don’t want to be too quick to say “never contact me again.”

Because even if it’s just a happy birthday or a merry Christmas, it will mean something to me.

I’m just not going to drag myself into the full on hope that I’ll be sitting on her back deck with coffee until it happens. The trust is gone, and I’m tired of begging for scraps. To me, this does not mean walking away, but us both getting better at expressing our wants and needs from the other.

I hope this is solid advice for everyone, because right now I’m preaching to the choir and hoping the congregation tracks.

I’m trying to think of ways to lift Aada up instead of making her feel like I’m tearing her down when I write.

  1. Life is complicated. So are people.
  2. If I hadn’t written her the way I did, she would be a flat character.

She was willing to admit that our journey was brilliant and beautiful, devastating and incapacitating at others, but such is the joy and pain of life. That is what I have been trying to say to all of you- that all of these things are true, that Aada has never been a victim and neither have I except in one instance, which I wouldn’t have been a victim if she’d just leveled with me a few days after she lied.

I don’t think it’s unfair of me to talk about how one lie damages such a fragile ecosystem. I don’t think it’s unfair of me to talk about how I’d like to change it from something fragile into something vibrant. I don’t think it’s unfair of me to admit that our relationship to this blog would be different if we were having conversations instead of me left to juggle all this by myself.

In the instances where I did punch down, I am sorry. I know that she’s sorry, too. I can only hope that both of our “save the world” drives are intact, because saving the world has involved saving each other for quite some time.

I had to reorient everything I thought about this relationship when Aada said I didn’t have to take anything down, that I would go on to inspire more people, that she would miss reading every day.

“Just your writing in general. Not the parts about me.”

She really liked some parts about her.

Otherwise, I would not know that our journey had been brilliant and beautiful.

She has supported me when no one else could because I wouldn’t let them in. Now, we don’t have any secrets between us.

And that’s why I’ll probably never see her again.

I just hope I’m not kidding myself, but I don’t think I am. She really listened when I said why I did what I did. She likes being my yellow string. We were just starting to make progress when the downward spiral of my illness collided with my blog. I couldn’t handle our relationship with care, and I am paying the price.

I am turning the judgment on myself, because even though I think I’ve done so already, it doesn’t hurt to say it one more time. I’m the reason our relationship is unstable. One lie over 12 years spiraled out of control on her part, but I spiraled out once a day.

It is incumbent upon me to get better for everyone. This relationship ending is just a springboard, because anything that comes from Aada her on out will be creating something new, with no taint of the past.

I am turning over a new leaf. My car is spotless, but needs to be vacuumed. My apartment needs all sorts of help, but Mico and I are ready to tackle it head on.

I have to let some light in, because I can’t be this depressed anymore. It’s really starting to weigh me down, because all I can think about is how I failed Aada, while she thinks about how she failed me.

If we never reconcile, it won’t be because we don’t love each other. It’s because in the interim, we will not have learned to love ourselves enough to believe that the other is serious. That we are not rejecting each other, that we have never rejected each other. Our rejection sensitivity dysphoria took care of it for us.

I know that my beautiful girl is someone I’m happy to emulate in a lot of ways because we’ve talked so often over the years that I’ve picked up her patois and jargon. I always wonder how many lines from my blog have become the subject of meetings, though. It’s not all a picnic.

The bottom line is that I’m always afraid to write without Aada as the ace up my sleeve. I just wish I’d treated her that way. I talked a lot of shit about being in love with her, couldn’t do the one thing that would prove it.

I had one job.

I’m not punishing anyone. I can’t say it any plainer, that Aada and I have problems but they deserve the recognition that neither of us can have a relationship all by ourselves.

I wish Aada had asked more about the last few months. I would have seemed crazier than normal, but ironically, knowing it is the easiest way to understand. I needed her to join my reality and see things from my perspective, and I thought the easiest way to do that was to write it down.

That’s because I couldn’t get an audience, but I could spend time with her while I was alone. I began to crave that alone time because it was so sacred.

“I talk to God. You’re just icing.”

She was the face I looked to in order to make God more accessible, that I couldn’t take God in all at once, but I could talk to a representative stand-in. To date, she’s been the only person I could stand to talk about this long without getting bored.

I wish Aada could see that the reason I write about her so much is that she’s the topic I most like reading. It’s been just as much a brilliant, beautiful, devastating journey on my end. The parts she doesn’t like to read, I treasure. The parts she treasures, I wrote them just for her.

No one inspires me like she does, because she checks the boxes for every single thing I want in a friend, plus enough history that we’ve gone through conflict and our track record is a hundred percent so far.

Some days, she rejoices that I was born a writer. Some days, she wishes we’d never run into each other.

But I will never forget the way her mother love rescued me from a jam, making my own sins in the relationship that much more painful. This incredible journey has been about forgiving myself, not punishing her. All of this trying to get to the bottom of what happened was to try and work toward a better life for myself.

And then I think, “how selfish.”

That I should have stayed so closed off I warned her I’d become “The Harper Lee of Your House.” I hope she has an attic, Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.

I don’t have to stay this closed off. I need to learn how to compartmentalize and I’ve never been able to do it. I can’t set a time limit on how much I think about all this because it feeds my desire to write.

What I’ve learned over time is that the same thing that has happened with Aada has happened with every relationship in my life. They come together and fall apart quickly, after years of building toward it. I can’t handle my own emotions most of the time, and it shows.

I wish I was a dog.

I should be cleaning right now, and I’ll get to it. I just need to think all this through while Aada has vowed not to read. For now, this is my space to make the changes she inspired. She was there to make me great, and I failed her.

I get this certain caved in feeling in my chest when I think of it. That’s what it’s like, turning my judgment on myself.

Sitting here with me is what it’s like to be lost in my own little world.

It’s a Rebuilding Year

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I have no relationships tying me anywhere close to where I actually live. My closest friends are in Houston and Portland. We chat online despite the time difference and life goes on as if I never left. The problem comes in when I have things that cannot be taken care of in text. I have not cultivated relationships here in Baltimore where I can say things like, “can you help me carry X?” Bryn would happily cart my stuff around all day because she knows I would do the same for her. But when I’m in a jam in Baltimore, Bryn cannot just jump on a plane.

It’s amazing how often I think that will solve my problems, though. “If I could just get Bryn out here for a few days, all would be well.” It’s a fallacy. That’s just getting used to having a companion for a few days and then sending her back, leaving me just as lonely as I was before and still no closer to having local friends.

It gets so overwhelming thinking about creating a safety net that I tend to fold into myself and look at my life from two fantasy angles….. “What would it be like if I moved back to Portland?” “What would it be like if I moved back to Houston?” I feel the draw of Houston because it’s a bummer never being in family photos, but it would wreck a lot of medical support systems I have in Maryland that only Oregon could reproduce. I need to be in a blue state with Medicaid expansion, and Texas isn’t one of them. I feel exiled from home, but no more now than I ever have because I couldn’t get married there from the time I was old enough to to that, too.

I get wigged thinking about leaving this area because I forget that planes exist, and that if Aada and I ever fix anything, it’s not going to matter where on earth I am…. And in fact, if I do settle in Helsinki, that might be a selling point in terms of really starting over. Not even our surroundings are the same, and I think it would be cute as hell if our first meeting was actually in Tampere, at the MOOMIN museum. It feels weird to say that I have trouble leaving DC/Baltimore because of an internet relationship that I’m hoping will one day turn into something, because I have already had it made very clear to me that’s a pipe dream. Go ahead and smoke it.

But it’s true that’s why I haven’t packed up and left already. That I have always forgotten planes exist. That being here was important, because the kind of life I wanted with Aada was the one where she calls up and says, “have to be out of town for a couple days. You on dog duty?” You know, the kind of relationship I need now.

I have gotten many brownie points over the years for offering to do stuff like this, it has just never materialized into anything real. That’s because every time I got said brownie points, I managed to do something to erase them a few days later. I have never had a steady brownie point surplus, and it’s to the point where I’m tired of trying to get more, hoping for scraps.

I think that Aada thinks that our relationship is too complicated to fix, and I am leaning into it. I am turning away, but it doesn’t make me feel good about myself. What makes me feel good about myself is solid, stable relationships that I didn’t manage to screw up…… But here we are.

I have started writing to my friend Tara instead, because they’re a Canadian and they have a very different outlook on life than me. But it’s definitely not the same relationship because there are no butterflies. We’re just very good friends and would like to see what happens in person, whether we have that same easygoing nature that we do online. I know that we each want to visit the other. I’ve never been to the prairie of Canada and they have never been to Baltimore. They’re partnered with step kids, I’m not. They live in a house, I live in an apartment. It’s all about celebrating those differences. I would be thrilled at getting to see Tara in their natural element, and they feel the same about me.

So I know that I am capable of making other friends, and close ones. I do not know how to do that without writing. I’m not the kind of person that just goes up to people and starts talking, but it’s starting to come to that.

I have had a bit of luck with dating apps, because I haven’t met anyone that I wanted to see romantically, but I have met friends I’d like to see again. At this point in my life, creating friendships is what is the most stable thing for me, anyway. A partner will show up when the universe deems I’m ready.

But I know I’m not. Not yet.

I remember Zac explaining to me that his friend had a “murder board” of polyamory, a physical representation with red and yellow strings from one person to another, red denoting romantic relationships and yellow denoting emotional support. It was only then that I could put together what happened to me over 12 years. Aada had become a yellow string. And not only that, somehow she’d become my primary partner because I didn’t turn to anyone else for emotional support during that time. It was never about romance, couldn’t be because she’s a cis-het straight girl who is monogamous and clearly crazy about her husband.

I am very proud of myself that I did not shut down in jealousy and turn away. I made my heart bigger, and started loving her husband from afar as well- sending him good thoughts even though I didn’t know him. Aada wouldn’t let me get to know him, but if she had I think we would have gotten along. I can picture us both teasing her lovingly, and I regret all the things I did to make Aada feel like a meeting was unwise.

And actually, I don’t know that I did. She’s a private person. Maybe she just wanted me all to herself, and that’s okay, too.

“Wanting me all to herself” just means that we have an ability to flatten each other in prose. Who knows if that would have gone away had we become enmeshed in each other’s real lives?

What if meeting in person destroyed something rather than presenting us with more options?

Why did we each insist on making everything so complicated?

Why do I have to get lost on my own in ruminations? Because that’s just how my brain works. I turn over these things in my head trying to come to resolution within myself. Aada says that she wants to cut the string in some letters, and “for now, all I want is peace” in others. It’s confusing, and yet not. She has always reserved the right to change her mind.

“Hacking Aada” would be a beautiful movie if we wrote it together. But if you think that “Hacking Aada” is an interesting story, “Hacking Leslie” is even better. That’s just not my story to tell.

When I can turn a relationship into a movie with a title like that, looking for other people to interact with becomes challenging. I don’t mesh with everyone, and they don’t mesh with me. I run easily, whereas I didn’t before. I don’t put as much care and concern into the beginning of a relationship because I don’t want to risk as much in the beginning as I used to….. I need for a relationship to unfold, not arrive.

I also think that if my next partner didn’t have some of Aada’s qualities, I would be poorer for it.

I am grateful that Aada has never minded being on my murder board of polyamory as a yellow string. It gave both of us something to refer to in terms of closeness, and in fact she talks about the chord that runs between us more than I do…. Mostly when she’s saying she wants to cut it, but still….. 😉 I think she likes knowing she has the safety and security of never being a string that gets mixed up in color, that I clearly only want her for her smarts and indeed crave her brain when it’s not around….. It feels like half of mine is missing after 12 years.

I also don’t visualize anything, so seeing attractive people out and about doesn’t turn my head. I connect with people over emotions, which is why it’s not surprising to me that I fell for a pretty lady in the sky who could write her ass off.

We’ve never even hugged.

Her words are that powerful, and so are mine.

There are words in my heart only she can find, and I miss her teasing them out of me.

Having her come back and correct the record was both good and bad. I was getting away from talking/writing about her, starting to forget when she brought it all back. She did not hurt me, she just didn’t do anything to make me put the conflict down and forget about it.

However, I think I deserve to think about our conflicts in depth, because they direct what kind of partners I will accept in the future.

This relationship affects how people see me, and not always for the better. That’s because I’ve already written about it in detail, which limits my dating pool to other poly people who aren’t threatened by my web site.

This is not a bad thing.

I think that I’m, for the most part, a monogamous person. It’s my priorities that get shuffled around, because I don’t care how hot you are, how into you I am, if Aada calls you need to find shit to do.

I don’t know any wives or husbands who would live like that, so I don’t want one.

It’s been like that for 12 years, with Aada being more important to me than anyone else. Because I am only focusing on today, I don’t know whether I need to change that or not. I don’t think I want to, and not wanting to is a whole separate problem. Moving me is not easy. Not even I can do it.

But do I think I’m missing out on anything? No, I don’t. I would like to have both Aada and a partner in my life, one that understands Aada as well as I understand her husband. That we’re a foursome instead of Aada and I always fighting it out alone.

I know that these dreams are delusional, but I also know that they won’t come true if I don’t see them happening. I cannot control what Aada will do in the future, but I can control what I’m willing to do. I can create peace, safety, all of that for myself, a blessing whether she returns or not.

There will always be things between us that no one else knows, and that’s the part of our history that’s painful for both of us to throw away.

It’s a rebuilding year, when I decide what kind of house I want.

A Letter Absolutely Meant to Be Read

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

You have to put what you want into writing for the universe, because it is in reading that prayers are answered. I am not sure that I want a housemate, so I thought a good exercise for today would be to write a letter to someone explaining the ups and downs of living with me. I come with both bugs and features.

Dear Future Housemate,

The rent is on auto pay and will never, ever be late. We may fight about everything else under the sun, but money will not be one of them. You hear all kinds of horror stories about housemates stiffing you, and that’s just not the kind of person I am.

I would like to think that I’m dialed into all kinds of things, but in reality my energy level screams “Harper Lee.” You will often see me sitting at my computer and think you are interrupting. Depending on what kind of housemate you are, this may or may not be true. Writers always need interruptions, so if you’re a good egg, I’m flexible.

I don’t know about you, but I need help in the cleaning department. I constantly leave shit everywhere and I apologize. I will have cleaners in because I do not expect you to pick up my slack. I already know I’m a handful when it comes to executive dysfunction, and it’s my job to handle it. I am much more capable of maintaining a system when other people buy into it. Between you, me, and the cleaners, the house will always be straight. Don’t argue with me that we are capable of cleaning ourselves and we’ll save money. You think that is true because I can maintain a system with help. If the cleaners stop coming, the resentment between us will start, and we will no longer be happy and healthy for each other.

Just trust me on this one.

I have an iron structure due to my autism, which makes my ADHD scream. My body is constantly fighting itself for order, and the disagreements never stop. The way this comes across in practical terms is that I am not always ready for company. If I’m shut up in my room, it’s not because there’s anything wrong between us. It’s that I’m trying to find my own strength. Burnout is real, and can last anywhere from days to years. It’s not something that autistic people can control.

The easiest way to reach me is through text. I prefer WhatsApp because I can use it on my iPhone and my Android. I find that I can still text even when I don’t have the energy for vocal conversation….. And that text often pulls me into wanting to see you face to face. There’s a time and place for both, and I will warn you that I do not like phone calls before a text heads up. It’s not personal. It’s my own bag. I don’t really like the sound of my own voice.

I don’t like the sound of my voice because I’m nonbinary, which falls under the trans umbrella. I have a female body and a male brain, and those coexist peacefully within me. In a lot of ways, it is something only I understand, this not fitting into a box between male and female. Therefore, I do not expect that you are an expert on gender and sexuality. I just ask that you not deny what I am saying, that you give me room to be me.

It’s important, because it makes me:

  • Queer, but not gay. I have fallen for men and women, but the way my head spins is most likely caused by pretty girls….. :::blush:::
  • Interested in anything and everything, from cars to fashion (on other people, mostly)
  • Dressed like a teenage boy most of the time, which, when I’m dating men makes my boy toy look like a dirty old man. This does not make them………………… Unpleased.

I do not date often, I’m just sayin.’

For the last 12 years my heart has been tied up in an internet relationship, one that fulfilled so many of my emotional needs that I didn’t feel the urge. Now, I’m realizing just how single I really am, and how that needs to change.

If you don’t mind, I will always need a wingman.

I don’t know why, but I picture you as male for some reason. I think that’s because traditionally I have made friends with men easier than women, and living together is not tinged with romance because it’s so rare that I’m attracted to men, anyway. You will not be chasing me down the street like Ben Affleck in “Chasing Amy.”

As adorable as I might be. Jesus, I am just a treat. :::eyeroll:::

In a perfect world, you would be a doctor, private or USG. Being military doesn’t matter, being able to hang with me does. I like to talk medicine, and one of the things I miss most about my former housemate is that he was a doctor raised in Nigeria, med school in Crimea, job in a Saudi palace. Our conversations got so long and involved that our other housemates would just walk off in despair of a jumping in point.

If you’re in the military, I don’t mind being a holding place for your crap while you’re deployed. But do me a favor, eh? Send me a WhatsApp frequently because I get anxious about the word “deployed.” Suuuuuuuuure you’re doing what you say you are……..

If you do have one of those DC jobs where you can’t tell people what you do, don’t cripple me as a writer by telling me things I can’t publish. You know that, anyway, but I’m just being clear. I have learned over time that I’m not strong enough to hold things in, so it’s on you.

But ideally, someone who doesn’t work in the G at all is perfect, because as much as I loved that time in my life, I think that starting over is what’s needed in my writing.

Maybe you’re a farmer, and it’s my turn to move in with you. I could work a farm, with direction. I have certainly watched enough YouTube videos on DIY to be helpful. And even if I’m not strong enough to do it, I can explain how to rough in a bathroom according to all I’ve inhaled.

Even if you do something else, it would be great if you were creative and wanted to bounce ideas off each other. My last boyfriend was a writer and my favorite thing to do on dates was talk to him about craft. Because he was a fiction writer and I’m a blogger, our paths never crossed over. But I think of him often and hope he’s well. The only reason we broke up is that I was starting to catch feelings and he wasn’t.

I didn’t want a relationship escalator, just more time with him. You get to know these things about me because I want you to know that I don’t go out with people on a whim, that I examine relationships to figure out why they have failed, and that over time I will not help but write about you because you’re living in my house. But I hope that you will see that I write about people in 3D. There will never be a conflict so great between us that I forget what friendship and coexistence mean.

You have to know that letting anyone into my space is going to be a drastic change. I’m used to spending large swaths of alone time, and I will be thrilled if you’re a social butterfly with a dog.

Go out and then come home and tell me about it while your dog lazily sleeps on my leg.

I am what you would call “indoorsy.”

I’m always up for deep conversation or a trivia night with friends. But anything more than that and I get overwhelmed in crowds. Occasionally, if you’re into dancing, I will go with you. But that requires more Diet Coke than I usually drink. You’re buying.

My medication causes weird side effects. We need two bathrooms. I just thought of that. Otherwise, you’ll be treated to the litany of sick I go through not to be crazy. The meds work, but I have to pick.

I am mellowing out with age and don’t want drama. If you’re an addict, please have been sober for years so that I know you’re not in the danger zone. I can dig sober living, but I cannot abide the ups and downs of worrying whether you’re stable or not.

If you lie to me about being stable, I’ll know quickly and ask you to leave. It’s not personal. I’ve just been down that road before. I can be friends with and support an addict, but I’m going to do it while you’re at YOUR HOUSE.

If you move in with me, you’re probably going to be ADHD or Autistic. Neurodivergents run in packs, and we will feel that kind of energy upon first meeting. I think it’s because we have a harder time connecting to people that aren’t neurodivergent. Being allistic isn’t a deal breaker, it would just be unusual to feel the pull of wanting to live together upon first meeting.

Yes, it’s that quick.

I would rate the chances of you being allistic at about the same as me dating men.

Believe me when I say that there is a bro code. If you’re straight, your friends are off limits unless you set us up.

Honestly, that would be ideal since I don’t get out much. Send help.

I once thought about dating the woman who delivered my pizza because right away I knew three things:

  1. She already knows where I live.
  2. She is employed.
  3. She has a vehicle.

I didn’t end up asking her out, but I did laugh over that for several days.

I hope you’re the handsome, tall, big brother type. I like warm hugs and firm handshakes. I envision taking a chance and being close in the way that siblings are, because it’s almost impossible not to do depending on the size of the house we share.

It would be best if you were open to creating a routine with me. In my last house, I would get up when I heard the water start in my housemate’s bathroom, then go downstairs and make a pot of coffee for both of us. Then, by the time he came downstairs, it was time for me to take a shower. It’s an important thing with neurodivergence, this social masking each other. I’m not saying you have to do it, I just think it would make everything run smoother in my life. It doesn’t matter what the schedule is. If you’re a night owl, I will adjust.

It just makes me feel lost not to feel the routine of the house.

The longer I think about it, the more I miss my former housemate. But I think that time in our lives is past. It’s time to create a new routine, and whether you are actually the doctor I picture or work in a nightclub, I look forward to meeting you.

I don’t require that you be anything like me, or even understand how I work. I ask that you respect it instead. Nonbinary and queer are both a lot to take in, because most people check a box….. Gay or straight. Male or Female. Cis or trans.

The only question that has ever been answered for me is that when push comes to shove, I am trans and not cis. That trans and nonbinary are not the same, but they fall under the same umbrella. Attraction to people is so much different, because there has to be a box for bi/pan. I refuse to “when push comes to shove” over gay…. To do so is to deny that I’ve been in relationships with men and they worked. That is not gay.

I just don’t want you to be surprised when either gender is sitting in our living room with their arm around me, catching the latest episode of our couple show.

What you need to know about me is contained in the word “writer.” Anything and everything feeds this blog because my mind goes all over the place. I am taking in my environment the best I can because my brain does not have a visualization function. I describe everything in 2D because that’s how I see the world.

It’s a metaphor for life that I was born with a bug in my electrical system that makes my field of vision change at will. That my weakness as a writer as in life is not seeing the whole picture at once, not being able to collate an image as a panorama. Not seeing leaves in their proper place.

In short, my Z axis is flat. Where my eyes fall on the scale between X and Y is anyone’s guess because of it. When I watch 3D movies, everything jumps out to the side. It causes accidents all the time, which is why I’m so reliant on the technology in my car. I have not found that technology with my shoulders. I bang them on door jambs all the time. Our entire future is you watching me run into things. Sometimes, it’s comical. Sometimes, it hurts. If it looks really, really comical, call 911.

I am fun and funny in person, but I tend to be a dry wit. I’ll play off you and our conversations will become tennis matches. I picture long nights where neither of us want to go to bed because we’re too busy yammering about our day and what needs to be done tomorrow.

I just want things to be easy, because I am not.

In “All the Way to the River,” Elizabeth Gilbert says that “the rooms” (AA & its derivatives) are very simple programs for complicated people. That line stuck with me as something I need to implement in my own life- not going to AA, but creating a system for myself that is so simple I can manage it. I need to leave room to go be complicated somewhere else.

Believe me when I say you will appreciate this. When I need to be complicated, I need to retreat. Otherwise, I might get my crazy spatter on you. I’m always afraid of this, so that’s why I tend to retreat. Again, it is not personal. I think you’d prefer me to hold down the madness on my own.

“Hold down the madness, Caroline…. Hold it.”

I can’t think of anything else that would possibly be useful for a roommate to know, except that I’m set on staying in Baltimore for at least six more months. I’m thinking you also need an e-mail address: ldlanagan at gmail dot com. Add a subject line so I know you’re a real person.

Here’s the last thing you need to know. I got the idea to send this from Moss, because it’s a little less urgent than a fire.

The Benediction and Epilogue: A Multimedia Approach

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Aada has said that she will not read and she will not answer email anymore. This does not mean that I do not owe her an apology and a thank you. She has taken damage from my writing, to the point that I need to show true emotion, and this captures what I’m feeling today.

I failed her. She failed me. We could have had a safe, stable, loving relationship for many years if I’d just kept my mouth shut. We would have connected like a house on fire, because I was just so me in the beginning. I acted like a fuckboi jackass until I was faced with the reality of what I was doing. I have said this before, but it crossed the line into sexual harassment. That is the most painful, humiliating thing I have ever done… And I’m wondering if that’s what Aada means about turning judgment on myself. I have published this before, that I was entirely responsible for making our relationship feel unsafe to her in the beginning. It is only because I kept writing, kept encouraging myself to nurture real friendship with her that we recovered years later. It was a slow and debilitating process.

She sat through all of it, and didn’t turn away. My only aim in putting this here is to publicly apologize for the harm I caused Aada, because I can only control my half.

The point at which I lay myself bare to show that my feelings are genuine, because you cannot fake them in audio. I have sent Aada very few audio clips over the years, so perhaps that’s why she thinks that the positive aspects of our relationship are hard to find. I think that we would be so much easier with each other during a phone call, if we liked using the phone (seriously, warn me first. That’s just good policy. I don’t always have it in me because writing and talking are a different energy level).

It’s the ending and beginning this story needs, because as I have said before, my relationship with Aada is now over. It may begin again, or she may turn away and indeed ignore my first book.

Come on. Really? Even at Dollar Tree?

All of it depends on how much peace I can create between us, forgiving all that is past and moving forward with different ideas as to what friendships mean in my life.

Creating peace between us is being as publicly apologetic as I’ve been publicly angry.

I’d like to send her off in peace to the warmth of my voice, rather than the harshness of black and white reality.

Because we’ve gone in and out of each other’s lives so many times, I still want to encourage the ways in which she needed change, because they were good earmarks in the pages of my history that need addressing. If my writing comes across as manipulative, that needs to change first.

I’m laying down arms, and focusing on the peace I’m capable of creating.

I’ll let the me of 20 minutes ago have the last word.

My Specialty is Flexibility

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

Not Kraft Dinner.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mostly because I didn’t care.

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

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

Mostly.

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

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

Yeah, that one hurt.

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

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

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

I hope she’ll at least cop to that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am saying that I hear that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If You Are New Here

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

If you are new here, you are reading at a very good time. I have recently let go of my old life and am starting to build a new one. Some elements of my life will remain the same. I am not planning on leaving Baltimore. It’s just that the life I’ve led for the past 12 years has been mostly tethered to my keyboard even when I’m not writing for this web site. That has to change, because I know you all like pictures, too. I could take some if I wasn’t so busy chatting.

Internet chat is one of those things that sustains me. It is easier for me to respond in the comfort of my chair, but this new life I’m building requires more of me than that. I need to meet people in their elements, out and about. I’ve gotten to know a little bit more about my neighborhood since I’ve gotten a car, because I’ve been able to branch out more than the two or three tenths of a mile I was willing to walk.

If you are new here, you probably don’t know that this is the first time I’ve driven in about 10 years, and it’s a miracle. I didn’t have all the technology available to me now on my last car, and driving feels different…. But no less amazing. I thought I would miss my stick shift, but as it turns out a six speed automatic is just as good. I am much happier in stop and go traffic.

I’ve been diligent about cleaning my car inside and out. Every time I park, I gather all my trash and throw it away before I come inside. This is a new ritual for me, because usually I cannot be bothered. It’s my way of turning over a new leaf- not having to have that conversation with people getting in…. “Just give me a second to move all my crap over…” I think it’s funny that I’m so dedicated to people seeing my clean car and there’s no chance anyone will be riding with me anytime soon… But there’s always a chance.

If you are new here, then you probably do not know the cast of characters. I am Leslie, and I’m here every day. My friends rotate in and out as we chat and visit in person. My friend Riker is a writer and uses this blog as his own, so we’ll be doing a web site redesign in the near future, which scares me… But is also a great project as Lanagan Media Group becomes a reality.

This blog is not my only project, but it’s the most consistent. I’m also working on a cookbook with my buddy Evan, and we’ll see what also comes down the pike as LMG thinks about new ventures, like a podcast.

I’ve also thought about getting out and doing some filming in Baltimore, a vlog from me as I’m walking down the street vs. reading. My friend Bryn has told me many times that she likes listening to me like a podcast, so a vlog would bring her that….. And I’m sure she’s bummed that I haven’t posted on Medium in a while because the AI voice doesn’t read the entries to her on WordPress.

I’ll get back to Medium. I just haven’t thought of any scholarly articles that I want to write, and that’s where it seems the most geared. Here on WordPress, I have access to so many more elements to make this web site appealing.

I wish that I could combine the two web sites’ abilities, but no one asked me.

So, if you are new here, look forward to the fact that you might be getting Medium links in the future, as you have in the past. The main reason this is still my main web site even though Medium pays its writers is that my ad revenues are starting to pick up here and I’m more comfortable with WordPress altogether.

If you are new here, then you should know that I used to be kind of a big deal in the early aughts, but I didn’t monetize early enough to become an influencer, and honestly, I’m not sure where my talent ranks among other writers. I’ve been compared to David Sedaris the most frequently, but I cannot figure out why. I am sure that it is because I can use my Southern drawl to great effect, even online.

I, like Dooce, will ALSO SPARE YOU THE DETAILS OF EARL’S ANGINA.

God, I miss that woman. I wish I’d had a chance to meet her in person.

I did get to meet Wil Wheaton back in the day, and I’ve had a few famous names read me over the years, but mostly I’ve kept my head down. I made a friend over the internet and we disappeared into a bubble. Now, that bubble has burst, and I am ready for prime time.

But what the secretive bubble did for me was give me a sandbox as a writer. I am more fluid and flexible in writing than I am verbally. I think that this is a feature of my neurodivergence, as I have both ADHD and Autism. Spending 12 years almost solely reading and writing for entertainment upped my game in a way that I would not have gotten otherwise.

Now, it’s time to blend that world into the real, learning to live and react simultaneously.

I have felt for a long time that this blog has been a book report on my friend Aada’s letters to me, an easier thing to write than taking in a whole environment at once. But I need to realize that this blog thrives on my descriptions of more than how I’m feeling in reaction to people’s email. I do not know why I gave so much power to Aada, but yet, I do.

I still do, and am pulling myself out of it. Believe me when I say that I am coming down from thinking she puts the sun in the sky every morning before she goes to work. I need to put her in the proper perspective, and since we’ve agreed to at the very least have time apart, if not drift altogether, it’s time.

There’s just nothing I want to immortalize more than our relationship, so the search is on to find something that excites me just as much. My brain works best with distraction/redirection, and this situation is no different. To me, rising above being in this secretive bubble filled with energy would be writing about my reactions to the world’s news. I haven’t much before because I don’t have any degrees. Who cares about my opinion?

It’s a huge reason I talk about my life and not politics. I am an expert in my reactions to things because I was present when they happened. I am not an expert in anything other than that. So, because I am not a world traveler and it is not my job to absorb the news, I’m not sure I feel qualified to do more than let you into my little corner of the world.

Welcome.

The Last Letter

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Dear Aada,

I know what you did and how you did it. I’m not angry, but I do think that the manipulations are fascinating. I got so sick I nearly killed myself twice, and none of that would have happened if I’d had a therapist to bring me back down to earth.

You shattered my heart with your lies, because I know that going to Portland was a lie as well. It only took one mistruth to unravel all of it, with you complaining that I betrayed you instead of you lied and got caught.

I shouldn’t forgive you, but I do. It’s for me and not you, because I know that if I get a response to this e-mail at all, it will be full of all the things I’ve done wrong. I am slowly coming out of the shell we created to be whole again.

I’ll move on and be successful without you, but I also hope that you get healthy and change. I think I’ll always hope that, because people who’ve been manipulated always hope that the person will change. I refuted all other facts, and “sure as shit, you’ll get her side, Dagger,” was because I thought that Jonna lied and not you. Because you would never lie to me and you never had.

How wrong I was.

It pains me that we will never see each other’s faces after all these years, adding new depth and breadth to the laugh lines on the other’s face. I can envision it perfectly if we both get help, but right now I think we’d fight to the death.

I wish you peace, my Finnish baby. I’m angry and hurt in a way that I never thought I would be. But my memories of you are pristine and it was all worth it.

I did love you with an intensity that surprised even me. But now it’s time to stop, because you’ve made it clear that’s not what you want from me. I’m just throwing emotion down a hole and expecting it will come back to me. The chord that runs between us is breaking, because you thought you needed to be bigger than you were.

What would it be like to come clean from all that?

You can stick to your story that Michael knows nothing, or you can admit that looking into you is easier than looking into Mummo.

But I want to be clear about something. My anxiety was tripled when you started fighting me on Michael because I was scared of him. I needed you and you exploded at me. I needed you closer and you just left. The biggest nightmare I could imagine was happening and I warned you it was going to happen and still nothing.

I gave away enough clues over time that Michael finally figured out who you were. It wasn’t that I just decided to say “fuck Aada” one day. I wanted you to say “I’ll be on the first train” but your anxiety won that day.

You didn’t care about any of the consequences you laid out for me.

That’s hard to swallow, but I would if I thought it would do any good.

You won’t come clean with me because you’ll insist that we know nothing. You’ll stick to your story that I nailed you over “one little slip.” The reason no one is interested in you is that you never did anything.

When you steal a story………………………

Maybe one of these days you’ll find it in your heart to confirm or deny everything Michael is saying, because I will never believe anything you say again without it. I want the whole truth, and yes, I CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH.

That was my Jack Nicholson impression, I am not yelling at you.

I find myself too tender to yell at you. That all I am is embarrassed at having to rebuild my life after so many failed relationships. I wonder what would have happened had you decided to meet with me in person, because I don’t think that I would have been open to Michael’s story if we’d actually had a happy relationship. Your overreaction and anger to the simplest things made me realize I was in over my head.

You say that you hate when people get up in your business, but you got up in mine without thinking twice about it. You ruined a relationship for me when it wasn’t necessary, and had a hand in complicating a second. Dana makes three. Was it worth it for you? Was it worth it for me to think you were a superhero all these years?

This is the first time in my life where I have hoped desperately that I’m wrong. That surely the lie cannot be so fine tuned that all our process conversations were based on things you’d overheard. Of course you picked up the lingo and the basics from someone else.

It really worked out for you when you told me that Heytch and Mummo would never speak to me again and I shouldn’t bother making amends. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d really bared my soul and got honest with both of them. I owe them reparative work if they want it.

But I know that no one, if they are in their right minds, in your family is going to have a lick of sympathy for anything I’ve gone through, because they rightfully need to surround you with their love and care. I have my own people, and I think I chose wisely. If there was ever reparative work with you, it would start with why you felt the need to lie.

The people being manipulated by people like you always hope for a change and a reconciliation, and hope for long after the relationship has ended that the person will come clean with them. Meanwhile, the manipulator is usually into the wind and onto another dopamine source.

It makes me wonder if all our people pleasing is love addiction. That perhaps the reason we can’t talk to each other is that we are both “qualifiers” for the other. That we both gave away too much of ourselves hoping that the other would love us. I was so lovesick over you, and it all had to do with the fact that I thought I could lose you at any time. Meanwhile, your safe & comfortable office was a mystery to me.

“It’s the not mostly that would fry people’s hair.”

Aada, I bothered you about being on your “in case ofs” for 12 years, and yelled at you that you didn’t tell me you were out because it led to so much anxiety. Meanwhile, none of that anxiety was real because you were never in.

I cared for you in a way that I will never love anyone else, and that part is clear to me. That while I was being manipulated, we have some very genuine moments in our past and I will take those with me.

It’s time for me to find out who I am without you, because at the very least it will take you months to figure out what you’re going to do in this situation…. Whether it is easier to run from a lie, or whether it is worth it to you to find out why I’m so clearly invested despite all the harm that’s been done to me. I am stunned at Michael’s assessment that some relationships just should not be, because my preacher’s kid mentality says that there’s nothing that cannot be forgiven.

He just does not want me to take the risk that you will be absolutely as harmful to me in the future as you have been in the past, and maybe that’s your fear, too. That you cannot give any more than you’ve already been giving, because telling the truth would be a step down on holy ground. That you would rather hide in the dark rather than coming into the light and receiving me as the friend I always said I would be.

I just won’t go that far for a liar.

That’s why our relationship is a total loss right now. I cannot put any trust in you and all of my trust has been misplaced so far. What I’m searching for is something to write about that is healthy, that does not have this level of drama and intrigue, that genuinely helps me find my directions and not my distractions.

I know that thinking of you will not go away fast. Your birthday and your name day will always be reminders.

I’m dialed in.

Through you, I have found a direction that suits me, which is spending time in Finland with all the other crazy neurodivergents. It will be impossible not to be reminded of you there, but I’m willing to put away my discomfort to enjoy a society built for me. I have built a lot of dreams through trying to impress you, and they are still good ideas whether or not you’re impressed.

I’m lost right now. Truly lost. Even though you don’t want to admit it, you’ve enjoyed all my love and affection. You have admitted that you have taken energy without refilling it, and that has been damaging to me. But that’s what I thought you needed- having your cup filled at the expense of mine because your life was so much more important than mine.

I do love knowing that we’re equals, that I didn’t marry the government.

The fact that you sat through lines like that and didn’t come clean makes me crazy. It’s why I’m better off releasing you from whence you came. That’s because your story is so woven into the fabric of your life that I think you really believe you were telling me the truth.

But I’m always hoping you’ll change. We’ll see whether that’s a flaw in me later in life.

I believe in you, that you have the ability to change. I just don’t think you will.

Yours, an all the way to the river friend, if our relationship is built right from the ground up.

If it has no chance of that, then I don’t want contact. I will always want what is best for me, and this seems to be it.

There’s no apology without changed behavior, and I am no longer willing to hold my breath waiting.

Leslie

Working on Myself

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

Slowly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing will be the same.

Everything will be okay.