Fragile: Handle with Care

You know that feeling you get when you are so overwhelmed with anticipation and the desire to just stay a little longer...that feeling that makes your stomach have that slightest tinge of wonderment. I think that is what I feel today. Seven days left here. Seven days which will go by too quickly. Where the sound of laughter from those who I have come to know will begin to fade. Seven days where I will know the shortcuts and troubled traffic patterns. Where the friends made over the past few years will wish me well, will be sad to see me go, and who will cheer for me along the way. Seven days left of shared memories - stories or songs or nicknames mixed with laughter from those they mean something to. Leaving LexVegas is not a goodbye, it's just a see ya later...

I am ready to go. I am ready to embrace my future. I am ready for the challenges ahead. I am ready for the fantastic to happen. I am ready to begin again, to try a little harder, to love a little more, and learn how to continue to move forward instead of looking back. For this moment, I have put the brakes on my tears. There is much ahead, there is much in store. Life is too short to be sad. It's true that I am a trainwreck most of the time and maybe a basket case, too. But I am moving forward. As I have said before: I am still learning.

So my peace has come back to me, and the tears are now three days gone. I've had three people and a little too much on my mind, so these are the things I need to say before this chapter closes.

I miss you, dearest friend. I hope you will one day forgive me. I know life has us on diferent paths right now, but I understand a little better than I did before. Especially over the last couple of weeks. Please know that there isn't a day that I don't miss hearing your voice on the other end of the line or the sound of your laughter. I want to tell you that I'm moving next Friday and I want to ask if you would like to go to lunch before I go. It's not that I'm running from you. It's because I can't say your name without crying. It's because the loss of you has profoundly impacted me. It's because I'm scared that all I'll do is cry and beg for your forgiveness. That's why I haven't called. Because leaving you behind hurts like hell.

My Belgian. Thank you for giving me perspective, and for being a true and good (great) friend. For showing me that I can open up my heart, and why that is so important. You have been the one person who has inspired me to follow my dreams, to create my own path, to live again. I don't know why, I don't know how, but I do know that it is because of you. So this is my pledge to you: I promise that I will be here for you and I'm not going to push you away, you are one of the most important people in my life and you will remain so, always. I will be thinking of you on Monday and wishing I were able to be there for you.

These are the words I need you to hear. These are the words I want you to read and understand that they are for you:

the stillness in your eyes,

convinces me that i,

i don't know a thing,

and i've been around the world,

and i've tasted all the wines,

a half a billion times

came sickened to your shores,

you show me what this life is for

i wanna dance with you,

i see a world where people live and die with grace

the karmic ocean dried up and leave no trace

i wanna dance with you,

i see a sky full of the stars that changed our minds,

and lead us back to a world we would not face

in this altered state...in this altered state

full of so much pain and rage,

you know we got to find a way

to let it go

The two of us have shared a long road these last few months. It's been a good journey, a good ride. And one we've gotten through, together. So, thank you for that. And thank you for giving me the ability to look towards the future, towards possibility, towards life...

And finally, to the one who calls me his best friend. I am over it. I am over being second best to everything and everyone. I am over the commitment phobia for even the slightest decision to be made, like buying a plane ticket, helping me pack, going to lunch, or anything else. You are selfish and I have had enough. You don't deserve my friendship anymore. And not because of what you told me. But because I seem to be so easily replaced by you. Guess what, babe, I am irrefuckingplaceable. You were right, something fantastic is going to happen when I move. It will be me, without you. It will be me focusing on me, not on you. It will be filled with more people who give than who take and that will be a welcome change. You have hurt me immensely this week. Perhaps it's just because you don't want to see me go, but guess what. I am not just a convenience. I have been a loyal and loving friend to you. You know that, but you don't give that in return and so there is no room for you any more. Not on this ride. Not this time. Sorry. Find someone else to mind fuck for awhile. Oh wait, you already have.

...And in seven days I will pull away from the apartment, the friends, the job, the life formerly known as mine. I will be reborn into my thirties and I will begin somewhere new, in a place I used to dream about. It's going to be hard. It's going to be scary. It's going to be me going for it, me growing up, me closing the door and taking a leap of faith. It's exciting and it's surreal. It's me becoming me.

Me.

Hmm. I sure like that sound of that.

Soap Box

Is it wrong that what I find so terribly heinous about this country is that with all of the issues we face nationally, let alone the perception of this country internationally, that the most important story our media can find the time to cover is Paris Hilton's impending jail time?

May I state, that I do not care if there are 22-days left until she heads the pokey. May I state, that she spelled "sign" like a 5-year old on her website, pleading her legions of fans to "sihn" a petition for reversing these charges. And we care, why? Can I just say.

OMG.

I AM SOOOOOOO over this.

Tell me more about how we should be driving Hybrid cars. Or reducing our overall consumption of our natural resources. Tell me how I can realistically pay $4.00 a gallon for gas this summer, or if there are companies expanding the use of bio-fuel to combat this problem. Please tell me how we manage to impeach a president for his personal, not professional, actions but do nothing about a president who basically tells this nation to F off on a daily basis by acting soley on his own agenda and not that of the millions of Americans who pay his salary. I wonder if the parents of the soldiers in Iraq have a problem with the fact that their sons and daughters are over there fighting, seeing unimaginable things, and all we have to talk about is a freaking socialite's driving on a suspended license. Where are our priorities? When did we stop being civic minded, and start getting so caught up on total crap. It's mindless fodder. It's trash.

And although I love me some celebrity gossip, there is a time and a place where it belongs. Contained to 30-minutes during Extra. 6 blog pages at a time on perezhilton.com. But not on the front page of the newspaper. Not on CNN, MSNBC, or even that blasphemous FOX News. There is so much happening in this country, in this world that is so much more worthy of our time and attention than how poor Miss Paris will fare, or not fare, in the slammer.

Somehow there are no words

I keep trying to write, something. But I can't. I can't find the words. Or formulate a logical thought. I've been second guessing a lot. And crying over everything. I am so overwhelmed by emotion, both happy and sad that it just feels like everyone is talking and nothing makes sense anymore. I feel an incredible amount of loss this past week and a few days. I have lost all things familiar, all that is no longer mine.

I lost my best friend, because of words that were too easily said and not heartfelt when they counted the most. I lost the contentment I had comfortably held from a distance, the hope, the dream, no longer to be shared. Today, trusted my instinct and learned that after a year and a half the one who calls me his best friend, still holds my friendship at an awkward distance. I silently recounted an anniversary, that should have six years later meant something more. Walked away from the job that felt more like home to me than anything else in this town. Opened the door to a bright future. Threw away pictures from my wedding, honeymoon, from the first love, from the old friends whose faces I no longer knew. I threw away my wedding dress, veil, shoes, and everything else associated with it (sorry, mom). I held higher expectations than I should have.

From. Everyone. Who. Meant. Anything. To. Me.

If ever there were time for a change to happen, I am convinced that right now is that time. As scared as I am to go, I almost feel a sense of relief. It is as if I am being smothered by every mistake, every ounce of trust, every memory good and bad, day in and day out. Bittersweet, it seems I have never felt more alive and more alone than I do right now. And for the relationship side of this I have no one but myself to blame. I have trusted and believed longer and more than I should have. I have opened my heart and re-opened old wounds. I have not been a friend to the one person I never wanted to lose, hurt, or let go of. I cry all the time, as if to say to myself: Enough.

And so I wait for the days to wash over me and the solace to once again come. I dream of the day where life begins again and the hurt and the sadness goes away as quickly as it came. I forgive myself for my mistakes, and I try coming to terms with those who I must let go of, and I know that there is much ahead...and that comforts me. But I still can't help but wonder how I have landed in such a time of change or why everything that has been anything to me is coming to an end, within days of each other. I still can't help but wonder what kind of restitution I am being forced to pay or if the person I thought I was, isn't really me at all. There must be some kind of explanation. There must be some bigger reason why the one person I want to see me off on my journey won't be there to say goodbye. Some reason that the dream I used to believe in wasn't quite real enough to stay in. There must be some reason that he still can't be honest with me. There must be some validity in my decision to move forward. So much so, that it was easy for me to say "time to go." I keep waiting for the epiphany to come. I keep looking within, trying to find the answer to the question I keep asking myself: What is it about me, that makes me, so easy to let go of...

Because it seems everyone, including me...is.

Though It's Not Easy To Tell You Goodbye...

I resigned this morning from the company I have called home for the last five and a half years. I'm moving to Reston, Virginia at the end of the month.

Breaking away.

Finally.

On to new challenges. New faces. New hopes, fears, and dreams. Far from the memory of the people I have loved, lost, hurt, and those who have hurt me. Far from the memory of the husband formerly known as mine and the life I settled for. Away from countless people who have become my friends over the last 14-years in LexVegas. A hard place to leave, but to a new world of possibility ahead.

For the first time I'm doing something significant and taking control over my future - and knowingly doing so. Acting, instead of talking. Taking charge instead of it taking charge of me. This is a good thing. And I'm ready to go...

I'm ready to move forward with my own life instead of the lives of others. I'm ready to forget the ghosts of the past, the daily reminders of the men who have broken my heart, and those who broke my spirit. Ready to break away from the memories of those who almost loved me enough...

Tomorrow would have been 6 years to the day that I married the husband formerly known as mine. To say that the journey has been long is an understatement. But it's gotten me here.

And here, I go.