drinking from the firehose
back to the page after a season of WTF
For the past few months, I have found myself overwhelmed with subjects to write about, yet have lacked the capacity to write a single word. Every time I turned my head it felt like there was another storyline beckoning my attention—some of them self-created, others imposed. But when I sat down to write, it was so crowded and noisy in my head that I couldn’t pick out a single thread.
I’m not great at contextualizing my life circumstances as they’re unfolding, and I’m even less great at pacing myself. So it was that I found myself sort of drowning in an emotional stew without my favorite floaty: a blank page and a keyboard.
Perhaps ironically, it was publishing an essay that seemed to initiate this period of authorial stagnation. Specifically the Michael Franti essay, which I posted in the interest of offering solidarity to a woman whose claims around his alleged abuse seemed not to have much public consequence. I knew at the very least that sharing my own experience of MF—and naming him—would likely give her claims more credence. It seemed to work: the day after I published my essay, he canceled the rest of his tour and a holiday fundraiser for his side hustle charity.
The consequences of writing that essay were complex. First, I had to confront the reality of my experience of him, which I had sugar-coated at the time, then left long in the past. Reconsidering our relationship through the lens of my current awareness, I could see that he had used me. This was especially painful because his presence in my life had once been so meaningful. But reexamining that time from a more mature perspective, I could see how costly relating with him had been.
Sharing the essay was equally unpleasant—I was scared he would sue me and felt embarrassed to sound so pathetic and desperate, never mind that it was many years ago. I published the essay anyway, obviously, and then I got to learn why people say to avoid the comments section, and who it is I walk amongst at concerts, malls, and airports. I didn’t anticipate how much it would hurt my heart to learn that people will go out of their way to be shitty (yes, I am that naive, despite the fact of 47).
I also didn’t anticipate that the essay would lead to the loss of a significant friendship. She offered feedback that felt off base and vaguely antagonistic. I said it wasn’t helpful right then because I was already pretty overwhelmed by the blowback. She responded that we were in two different places in our lives, implying the friendship was over. And so it is.
In spite of these realities, sharing that essay was a triumph. I didn’t publish it for any reason related to MF (i.e. I wasn’t seeking to hurt him), but it turned out to be profoundly satisfying to correct the lie of the image he portrays, and to feel like I had some little bit of power after enduring the cruelty of his games over the years. Further, I gained a sense of closure that I didn’t know I needed, and I demonstrated to myself the fierceness of my own courage.
The week after this metaphorical headline, there was a new one: my son had a season-ending football injury at practice one evening.
How bad is it? I asked when his dad called to tell me what happened. I could tell by the reply it was worse than he wanted to let on.
The next morning we set off together to meet a sports medicine doctor at 8AM. By then, Dawson’s knee was so swollen that it lacked any definition. He could not bear any weight. The doctor said he thought it was bad: likely a torn ACL, snapped patellar tendon, and maybe also his meniscus. With every additional harm, I felt myself shrink in fear.
The doctor described the surgery he would need to fix it: They’ll pull the tendon down from where it’s retracted in his quads through a machine like a pasta press to get it long enough to reattach under the knee. It’ll be a 6-9 month recovery. I felt about two inches tall by the time the doctor ordered some X-rays and an MRI and referred us to a surgeon the following week.
Having experienced the loss of my first son to stillbirth in 2010, I know that I don’t experience the relatively normal challenges of parenting, like my kid hurting his knee, the way other parents probably do. All I could think of after we got the actual diagnosis—a dislocated and broken patella and torn (but not severed) tendon—is: why was his bone so weak that it broke?
I was petrified to consider conditions that weaken bones, namely cancer. It took me to a dark place. Just days earlier we had learned that my nephew’s cancer marker was way up despite two stem cell transplants earlier this past spring. My sister said he had been referred for clinical trials.
Working in a hospital, I knew this meant the best lines of treatment had failed. As relieved as I was to find out my son didn’t need surgery after all, it was horrible to consider what my sister and her family were facing. I was wringing my hands and pacing the floor over a simple kneecap. My nephew was in year three of cancer treatments, and declining.
Life had more surprises in store.
A week later, I received an email from a man who is very dear to me, who is my friend and my ex-boyfriend, who—up until that email—had also been my lover for the better part of four years (if you read my book you may recall his appearance—The Mathematician—at the end). The email said…awkwardly, confusingly, even dishonestly…that he thought he should end our sexual relationship because his life was taking him in another direction.
My initial reaction was a harsh cocktail of disappointment, sadness, fear, and rejection. Disappointment because, in addition to appreciating him as a human being and enjoying the time we spent together, our…arrangement…also meant that I didn’t have to be celibate, despite opting not to date. If he became monogamous, I knew this would no longer be the case. I would be celibate, or I would have to slink back to the apps. It’s hard to say which of these I prefer less.
The sadness and fear kind of went hand in hand. I would miss our intimate relationship, and I wondered what would become of our friendship without it. Would his new partner be accepting of me in his life? I knew I’d have to let go on some level, and I didn’t want to (clearly, we’d been stringing things along for more than four years…).
Then there was the most bitter pill: rejection. He was choosing someone else over me. Logically, I knew this was an oversimplification, because in the time we dated, from 2019-2021, he went well out of his way to try and give me what I wanted (Family 2.0) even though all he ever wanted was someone fun to go out, hang out, and sleep with once or twice a week.
His new partner is fundamentally more compatible with him in many ways, and his feelings for her are plainly evident—his whole being lights up when he talks about her. Of course I am happy for him, and them, and fair is fair—I had put a stop to our sexual relationship twice when I opted for monogamous relationships with other men. Both times, he was cool about it. I felt much less cool. What can I say, I am a sensitive creature.
However, it would be misleading not to acknowledge that in the mix of feelings there was also a smidge of relief that a decision had finally been made. Just a few days before I got his email, I mentioned to a friend that I had noticed a creeping ambivalence about our situation. I wondered if I was selling myself short by allowing The Mathematician to occupy such an intimate space in my life when sharing intimacy outside of commitment had begun to feel like a betrayal of myself.
I had also begun to wonder if the fact we were still sleeping together was sending the wrong message to the Universe, indicating that I was preoccupied. Maybe, I figured, if I wanted a committed, long-term relationship, I should set a clear intention and cultivate an open energetic space to support it instead of settling for a short-term solution to my desire for partnership.
All of this took me weeks to unpack, process, and reconcile. But before I remotely had time for any of that, just the day after I received the break up email, life threw another curveball.
It was a Friday in September and Dawson needed a ride home from a birthday party. I very nearly threw on Birkenstocks with my silk dress—I hadn’t changed yet after work—but, somewhat uncharacteristically, I pulled my booties back on to run out. I looked cute. I felt cute. And I was so glad for this moments later when I was standing on the deck talking with the party hosts—a family we know from PEPS when our babies were tiny—and another parent arrived to pick up his daughter.
It is, frankly, not unlike me to be curious about a handsome stranger that is not wearing a wedding ring, but this man was particularly riveting. His intelligence and intensity were evident, and I sensed the attraction was mutual. We both messaged the host later to ask for the other’s contact info.
It seemed fated, as if the relationship that I was struggling to let go of had been removed from my life to make space for a new connection—THIS new connection. The gut punch of the night before was replaced with amusement and curiosity.
That night I woke up in the wee hours with a sense that life was accelerating. For the next five weeks, I continued to wake up every night between 3 and 5AM. I would lay there eulogizing my nephew, who I was afraid was going to die, and wondering about the connection, which made me feel nothing more than alive.
We had a surprising-in-a-good-way coffee date, during which I learned, among other things, that he is a Gemini. A GEMINI, my people, and I am an AQUARIUS! A more harmonious connection there never was. We talk talk talked for close to three hours before parting ways to go do our respective exercise routines (shared interests! strong muscles! mutual commitment to health!). A couple days later he invited me to dinner that Saturday night and said he’d pick me up at 7:20, which I figured meant he’d made a reservation for 7:30.
That’s right, ladies. HE MADE A RESERVATION and said he’d PICK ME UP. Old school. A real, live, grown ass MAN.
(Any married person who is saying to themselves, If you think that is so exceptional then you should just find better men, I implore you to try.)
It was an epic date. I was so engaged by the conversation, and his eye contact, that I barely ate my dinner. After we closed the restaurant and he took me home, we kept we talking in his car, so I suggested we go sit at the beach, where we talked for three hours more.
Sitting on the beach, as night turned to morning, he asked, How do you feel, baby? in a tone of voice that was so tender and sweet it completely dissolved whatever defenses I may have had left. I felt like a human Squishmallow. I feel connected.
He dropped me off half an hour later and I floated inside feeling turned on in all the ways, but also very certain of what I needed to do: shut it down, pronto. Because by then I knew my feelings for him were real, yet he was in that beguiling class of men that is all too common in midlife: separated but not yet divorced after a long marriage.
I was married half as long as he had been and still like my former spouse, so I could only guess at his orientation to life and romance given his circumstances. What I figured was: there is no way this guy is ready for a committed relationship, he probably wants to play the field, and he likely has a limited capacity to perceive me.
We were existing in very different states of availability. I KNEW THIS. But could I keep myself from falling for him? Clearly, I could not.
Within a couple days I started to feel decidedly not peaceful about the connection (i.e. over my skis). I told him as much. He acknowledged that was scary for him to hear (of course). We agreed to be friends. A couple weeks later we went on the funnest bike ride ever—another epic (not) date.
He seemed to have serious potential to (eventually?) be the exceedingly rare man I mentioned in this post, and I remained vastly curious to spend more time with him. Even if all we could be was friends, I was down. I loved how I felt around him and what he did to my brain and I did not want that to end.
So I started relating to him like I do with other friends (who I have known a lot longer than a few weeks). But he was not relating to me the same way. He was a man emerging from a long, unhappy marriage who did not work in the field of relationship, as I did, who likely didn’t have many female friends or much of a framework for what friendship with the opposite sex could look like. He was also likely dating other women who had the good sense and/or natural inclination to play it cool.
Two months after we met, I finally accepted what it meant that he was not reaching out to make plans, or accepting my invitations, or when there was radio silence after I sent him a playlist I thought we both knew had no intended subtext (I know, I know…if this thing had a facepalm emoji, I’d insert it here).
Not wanting to be as powerless as I felt, I messaged him a sort of acknowledgment/apology and said I was open to him reaching out when/if he ever wanted to resume the conversation. He did not respond.
My people, I know it was only three dates, but I took it HARD.
As bummed as I was about not getting to know him, what really laid me out was feeling like I had royally fked it up, resulting in a serious shame spiral and subsequent panic that maybe all the work I’ve done to heal my relationship with myself amounted to essentially nothing. Had I really changed? Had I really healed?
It’s taken a lot to climb out of that hole. To be honest, writing this brings it all up again. I feel the same urgency to explain:
I’m not unhinged, just available and sincere…
I’ve had a lot of experience dating, so I’m very clear on what I want…
Things have been weird lately…
I’ve been grieving…
I’m a chaplain and relating deeply is what I do…
Oh wait. Work! That’s right, I haven’t even mentioned work.
Right, well, in the midst of all of this—still not sleeping thorough the night—a role I’d been hopeful about and waiting months for was finally posted. The job, working for the same hospital system I had been, is to create and manage a program called LifeTalks, which is meant to reduce loneliness among seniors. If there was ever a dream job for me, this was it. So even though I’d only been in my role as a hospital chaplain for a year, and even though I am a natural at that work, and even though it was a deeply grievous thing to step back from it, of course I was going to apply.
My interview was the same day as my first son’s birthday, October 3. Strangely, instead of sad and morose, I felt buoyant and hopeful. I wondered if I was receiving some kind of celestial assistance.
Two days later, on the evening of October 5, my nephew died from complications of cancer.
I still can’t believe this is real.
But the season of upheaval was still not finished. Two weeks after he passed, I had the opportunity to join a three-day women’s ayahuasca retreat with my sister, which was profound and restorative for us both. Shortly after that, I had one of the most significant spiritual experiences of my life. I am most definitely still integrating the learnings…
I started my job November 10th and things are looking up. I am starting to feel normalish again. My new boss is rad, and so are the people I work with, and I can’t begin to summarize how much easier this job is than running to codes, doing reiki next to open wounds or rectal tubes, or sitting with people who are imminently dying. I got a raise, I work from home, and I can take my son to school every day. Pinch me.
I am begrudgingly celibate, and I suppose I will learn what it has to teach. Not that I didn’t try…while all of the above was unfolding, sure enough, I slinked back to the apps. I have since made—and deleted—three dating profiles. I have had six first dates, and zero second dates.
For the past few weeks I have felt like I’m living in a state of exhale—a long, hearty, exhausted, relieved, triumphant exhale. I made it through this difficult season. I am still soft, and more faithful to myself than ever.
Recently, a girlfriend texted that she was proud of me re: my new job. I replied that I was proud of me, too, and that I was happy life would be easier for awhile.
I paused and looked hard at that phrase, for awhile.
And that is when I decided that I was done for good with the belief that I have to prove my strength to be worthy.
I deleted the phrase, and wrote instead: I’ll be happy to enjoy an easier time of life now. Less intensity and struggle, more ease and fun and joy.
One gift of this recent season has been lessons around creating my reality, and that life will meet me on the same terms I meet it. Struggle is a frequency, and so is play, and so is delight.
I’m ready for my play era. May it (finally) be so.