My Journey

Sunday, October 22, 2006

the first time that i met her i was throwing up in a ladies room stall.
she asked me if i needed anything
i said i think i spilled my drink.
and that's how it started.
(or so i'd like to believe)
she took me to her mother's house outside of town
where the stars hang down.
she said she'd never seen someone so lost.
i said i'd never felt so found.
and then i kissed her on the cheek.
and so she kissed me on the mouth.
oh oh oh oh.
spring was popping daises around rusted trucks and busted lawn chairs.
we moved into a studio in council bluffs to save a couple of bucks.
where the mice came out at night.
neighbors were screaming all the time.
we'd make love in the afternoon to chelsea girls and bachelor number 2.
i'd play for her some songs i wrote she'd joke and say i'm shooting through the roof.
i'd say they're all for you dear.
i'll write the album of the year.
and i know she'd love me then.
i swear to god she did.
because the way she'd bite my lower lip and push her hips against my hips.
and dig her nails so deep into my skin.
the first time that i met her i was convinced that i had finally found the one.
she was convinced i was under the influence of all those drunken romantics.
i was reading Fanté at the time.
i had Bukowski on my mind.
she got a job at jacob's serving cocktails to all the local drunks.
against her will i fit the billi perched down at the end of the bar.
she says space is not just a place for stars.
i give you an inch you want a house with a yard.
and i know she loved me once.
but now those days are gone.
she used to call me every dayfrom a payphone on her break for lunch just to say she can't wait to come home.
the last time that i saw her she was picking thorugh which records were hers.
her clothes were packed in boxes with some pots and pans and books and a toaster.
just then a mouse scurried across the floor.
we started laughin till it didn't hurt.
The Good Life

And then what? It's over and you've moved on (sort of) and together you can look back at the good and the bad times and laugh at all of the life that you shared even though things like songs and movies and food and smells make you ache for what used to be...
What about when you realize the stuff you hated like the Vikings and sitting forever at restaurants you now miss and you wonder if maybe, just maybe, you were lucky to have found each other so early only you weren't ready - mistakes that you had to make to become who you were supposed to become drove you apart and you miss him and life as it used to be but there's no turning back because you decided.
To leave.
And you find that other people and places and songs and moments and lives are not good enough because they are not him and who you were together but again, it doesn't matter because it was your decision and now...it's just...gone.
Isn't it?

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Burnt

I took the day off today.
In 8 weeks I haven't done that.
I'm living my dream and feeling so...burnt.
By life here, by my school, by the Bronx, by the 'hood', by the culture of violence and noise that surrounds me and my kids EVERY DAY, but mostly by the power of my own expectations and the overwhelming sense of failure that comes from not meeting them.
My ears ring everyday for 15 minutes when I get home.
People around me are quitting. Nearly 10 out of 30 people in my special ed grad class are gone.
Moved...quit....this experience is breaking us and I don't know if I want to be broken for 2 years.
How do I experience this without walking away broken?
Today I requested a transfer to Minneapolis.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

He finally realized what I'd known all along...that in my heart there is a lot of love for someone that isn't him.
That someone's phone calls and company and opinions take priority over his....that he was not the one that I called at the end of a bad day and that he probably never would be.
I realized that I really didn't like being introduced as his girlfriend or having to make time to see him when I didn't want to and that at the bottom of all of this is someone searching for a home in a place where, even on the good days, she constantly misses the life she had.
Today at our grad classes I talked with people as homesick as I was. Someone from Michigan was talking about how everyone she knows from Minnesota is really missing it - that there must be something incredible about it.
It was meant to be a compliment.
It almost made me cry.
My heart is seriously trying to tell me something my mind doesn't want to hear.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Leavin On A Jet Plane

For Thanksgiving with the boy...the old boy, who still is really the only boy in spite of the new one.
Today ended the 3 day/many hours over the phone ticket search (since my internet wasn't working).
Thursday - Sunday. 4 days to relax and reconnect and just be in a place where I'm accepted and appreciated for who I am by someone who knows each and every one of my faults.
Is anyone going to be in the cities???!!!