Cafe Hitch-hike

2022-07-12

Someday I'll get the right combination.

I tried to be cheerful this morning as I got ready and picked a colorful skirt and matching cardigan. I had my coffee, ready-to-eat bagel, and headed to work. I played music I liked, some classic soul. It was from a playlist I sent Huck last year; they were songs I liked and I thought he would, too. He did and said some of them were new to him. As the music played on, I felt myself get pulled into it as I drove to work, and by the time I got to the parking ramp, I sat in and wept for a few minutes before I entered my building.

Oh, great. A colleague got out of her car at the same time. I donned my shades and gushed about the chicken marsala I made last night. I watched Huck make it, he was a very good cook and I made it just the way it was supposed to come out. The colleague and I had a talk about sauces and vinegars. My mother wondered and kind of laughed about me having a lot of vinegars (she never cooked with it). The colleague and I walked to our offices, and I promptly closed my door, putting a sign on it so people knew I was there.

The colleague came to my office a few minutes later to show an amusing card her son and daughter-in-law sent for her wedding anniversary. The colleague added, "I figured you could use the laugh." Ok, so my attempts to appear tear-free didn't work as hoped. It was nice for the colleague to try to make me smile.

It was just over a year ago today when my version of a big lie was finally exposed to me. This makes me think of places in the world where burial spots are reused by family members. A year and one day after someone dies, the remains of the person gets scraped to the far edge of the plot where it will join the remains of previous family who were placed there. The family has a year to grieve, and then a day later, it can be used to accommodate the next common or early visit of a guest known as death (kind of like nowadays). I guess a similar scraping is happening in that spot where I put the remains of past loves, so it's natural for me to feel this way.

It's a whole year and then some, and it lingers. There's nothing more I need to hear or see about this. I don't need to see for real that Huck was a pathological liar, he deeply loved me (or lusted for me, it's likely the same), or whatever else I suspected was in his psyche. I had enough instances where I returned to someone where it confirmed certain things, if not rubbed them in like salt on a wound. I can be spared that, but then again, I almost never seem to learn shit or move on until I get a third-degree burn.

I'm already a difficult enough person to partner with. I've had more than my share of loneliness. The emotional gaps in my early or family life don't entitle me to a damn thing, I get to try and strive like everyone else. I know I'm not alone as I've met many people from around the world who suffered many forms of abandonment (intentional or not) or emotional losses too early.

On top of it, I must admit being coupled usually did not or does not feel natural to me, but gee, it sure did with Huck. Part of his appeal was I thought the distance would be perfect for me except I never anticipated we'd fall for each other the way we did. When I put all that together, I don't know what else to do but say 'it is what it is.'

The last time I saw my mentor, we talked about love. He said when it happens, it happens, like a baby about to be born. It happens when it happens, he said. When he said it, I saw it as something that once it's in motion, nothing stops it and it goes it course. Yep, I'd say he was 100% correct. It's definitely a force of its own.

I've tried all I could. I can just sit in the parking ramp or any other place, hear the music that provided more to our emotional backdrop, and to cry about it until the source is dry for tears, and just carry on.

I've done it again and again, and I'll keep at it.

Count blessing, count blessings. I am grateful I'm not where I was 30 years ago. I'm grateful for what I've been able to accomplish on my own, and with the assistance of Uncle Joe and others. I am very grateful for the pretty little home I have known as the Patio Lounge. I know I have friends who love and care for me deeply despite distance and sometimes time, they have been wonderful to me. I can hold on to those things and let them make my anchor, but something in me still cries when I think of that loss and I just can't help it.

I want to move on so badly, I know I shouldn't or can't hold on. I try to talk to it and assure it we are strong, can move on, and we've done it before. I have enough projects at work and at home to keep me busy. I've had wonderful dreams that I'm back in school in a new place and am content (it's even autumn, I have a sweet little girl as my neighbor, and I'm donning the canvas barn jacket I loved). Many things are moving forward (even if my fucking metabolism and thyroid are not), but that piece stays stuck.

There's many things to do get unstuck. Someday I'll get the right combination.

downwind | upstream