Monthly Archives: May 2016

The grass is not greener

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Dear Ruth, 

I am so incredibly sorry about your break up with Elise. I know how attached to each other you two are. Plus the fact that you lived together is such pain and now someone has to move out. I am so very proud of you for listening to your gut and going with it this time. It shows growth, it shows self trust. 

I am not sure where in your mourning process you are right now but I wonder how long before the break up you knew it was inevitable and the reasons why it came on. I need details girl. The devil is in the details. 

You definitely need an escape to Los Angeles and I can really use the company because guess what? Trace and I broke up. My pansexual polyamorous ass has joined the forever alone club and I am frustrated and heart broken and destroyed and beyond sadness. I am just sitting in the darkness of my lonely room thinking about the games life plays on me and hating myself for not running on time. 

I have known for at least three weeks that it was over. I knew when I told them that I was in love with them and they confirmed they were not any where near falling in love with me. I mentioned that I was worried that they were with me only buying time to be with someone they could fall in love with. Their response was: “What happens then?”. This was the stab. This confirmed my suspicions. I was a past time until the “real deal” came around or they just got over me. And they did.

We had not had sex in an incredibly long time, and we had been spending less and less time together. I worked so hard to gain their affection. I wanted to believe that sweet words and acts of kindness and good morning texts would do the trick. But no. It was all a figment of my imagination and I am back in square one holding my broken heart and wondering where to put it next to keep it safe. 

I don’t resent them as much as I would want to. I know they cannot force themselves to be in love with someone. And I am trying to forgive myself for letting this person break my heart TWICE. This is our second break up. The conversation I mentioned above happened on May 1st. That was our very first date last year, May 1st. I knew then that if they had known me for one whole year and they were not in love with me, it just was not going to happen. 

If there’s something that does not fail me is my intuition. I mourn things and people before the fall out happens. I see it coming and I want to deny it and I look the other way but oh I know is coming. Sometimes its a tsunami. One giant wave that destroys everything at once. This time it was a storm. A snow storm that slowly, quietly and beautifully burrowed my soul, cut off my power, isolated me and starved me. 

Trace wants to be friends. I said no. They asked why I had stayed friends with other people I dated, like Jayne and they could not. My answer was because I am not in love with my friends. And I stand by that. I want to purge my life of all the places and people and things that remind me of Trace. I don’t want to see or hear their name ever again. They do not get to be my friend. 

Friendship is a powerful force of salvation.

Friendship, in my humble opinion, is the only true love. My friends are my family. I am my best (and my worst) with my friends. Trace does not get to be my friend, they don’t get to keep the best of me after breaking my heart. They don’t get to string me along for a year to then realize it’s really not me. YOU KNEW IT WASN’T ME BITCH WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU START DATING ME AGAIN. Whether they meant to or not it’s beyond the point. I am in pain and they are enjoying their freedom. 

GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY LIFE!

This happened yesterday so the wound is pretty raw. But again, the stab happened weeks ago and I have been patching it up and hiding the blood spill. It’s clearly infected and I am using writing as my antibiotic. Letting all the pus out before my hearts gets gangrene and I need to amputate it. 

I have been making a garden for the fairies in my back yard. Here’s a picture of it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am  sorry I cannot offer more support or more hopeful words. But my own pain is all I have.

One of the fairies has picked up the Ukelele

One of the fairies has picked up the Ukelele

Thank you being a friend.

 

Love,

 

Nora

 

Quietest Hours

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My dear Nora,

I hope you’ll forgive me for not writing. It hasn’t been writer’s block exactly. I’ve almost had too many thoughts and feelings to collect them for you.

Elise and I broke up a few days ago. The month leading up to it was filled with tormented days and nights and discussions and overwhelming fear and desire and thoughts and journaling and phone calls to friends and sisters and tears—all of the tears. It was full of sound and fury, but it was never anything bad. Somehow, in all of that, we still managed to convey how deeply we love and cared about each other. How special we considered the other. How remarkably grateful we were to have shared a path for a time.

And now I feel as though I’ve just stepped off of a boat and I’m still swaying with the feel of the water as I step onto dry land. And my legs are wobbly. And I can still smell the sea.

I wanted it to be her, Nora. I truly did, in my heart of hearts. And she wanted it to be me. That’s what made it all so tormented. We were both fighting it in our own way, while something inside us both was telling us we weren’t the best fit for the long term. But the moment it ended, something inside me confirmed that was the right thing, and I believe the same thing happened for her. That sense of peace is what’s sheltered my heart the past few days from the waves of pain that are sure to follow.

Coincidence that Elise bought this book 2 days before we broke up? I think not.

Coincidence that Elise bought this book 2 days before we broke up? I think not. Signs from the universe.

I hope more than anything we will find a way to hold on to each other in life in some capacity. I think we’re still in the shock zone at the moment, figuring out logistics and crap. And also, today is her birthday. Our breakup was mutual, but I still feel like a grade-A asshole for giving her a broken heart for her birthday.

WHAT IS THIS LIFE, NORA?

Thank you for continuing to write me in spite of my radio silence. I’m sure I will tell you more about it all in the coming months. Maybe I am due for an LA getaway and we can just hang out in the park and the California sunshine and play with Toby.

I’ve been reading in the quiet moments, the solemn hours, where everything goes on buzzing around me, exactly the same and completely different at the same time. It feels strange to me, and numb, and like a deafening quiet. I’m reading Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet”:

Keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your whole development; you couldn’t disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to questions that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer.

and also:

“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked in rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

I am proud of something, Nora. That I did listen to myself, I did not ignore my gut on this. Even though it broke my own heart. And I don’t understand it yet or have the answers, but I am following my innermost feeling, and maybe living my way into the answers. And in the deepest mud of all the pain, there is a seed of something really good.

Now, about you, my dear. I’m so sorry I’ve neglected you, when you have so much going on. The medical school application process does sound incredibly rigged and infuriating. I want this to be one of those against-all-odds stories like a movie, and you are the underdog protagonist and we are all cheering for you. I am cheering for you. And I’m glad you’re not ready to give up. I want to hear about why you want to be a doctor. What type of medicine do you want to practice?

I’m going to write you a separate letter to discuss numbers 2-4. I have so many thoughts and feelings and questions for you. My schedule is also freeing up so I will have time to write you much sooner than my delayed responses of late. I love this space Nora, having this tiny little corner of internet to talk to you and maybe to others also. It’s nice to know someone is listening. I am always listening, even if I don’t respond for a while, just know that. <3

Love, Ruth

P.S. Congrats on A) NEW JOB! B) NEW APARTMENT! C) NEW HAIRCUT (you look adorable!). Write that personal statement lady, I know you’ve got it in you, put your heart on the page—you are a brilliant writer.

P.P.S. Please re-upload the photo from you letter (titled “dog nut”). I need to see it!

Major Writer’s Block

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Dear Ruth, 

You insist on being MIA and I just don’t know what to do with myself. I am starting to think that your letter got lost in the mail. The wires got crossed and it landed in Antarctica or anywhere that’s not here. I can wait for you to respond but I rather much not. Especially since I sat here all set up to write my personal statement for admission to graduate school and so far I got nothing. 

Therefore, I will write to you and vent about a few things that have been on my mind:

1.Medical School:

This application process is freaking terrible. I applied once and I failed. The following year I could not apply because I had some immigration issues going on. So this is my last chance to apply without re-taking the MCAT and I am freaking out.  I am competing with a bunch of privileged people whose job so far has been to get good grades. A lot of them live and breathe to become competitive applicants. That has not been my life. I am alone, I had to work, I had to pay rent. 

I could not just volunteer a thousand hours in a lab or a clinic. I could not just study away as I would have liked to. A part me knows I don’t have the numbers to chase this dream and that as an immigrant this is aiming pretty high. But the fact of the matter is that I don’t see myself doing anything else, so I am going to keep trying until I get into medical school or become so disillusioned with this dream that it’d wither away on its own. 

2. Emotionally unavailable people:

I have come to realize that I have been in love mutually only once and that was with my ex. I was in love with her and she was in love with me. This exhilarating experienced clouded my judgement and lead me to make crazy decisions.Some of them good, like coming out of the closet and committing to a relationship. Some of them bad, like moving in together too soon and moving to another state. 

I have the terrible habit of falling in love with emotionally unavailable people. This is a painful measure of self protection but it’s killing me. Trace and I are in such different places emotionally, I know they don’t feel about me as strongly as I feel about them and honestly, I doubt they want to. Here’s the catch though: they treat me well. They are honest, they don’t give me shit or drama for anything. We have a pretty chill relationship and I have been happy so far. 

My love and I

My love and I

But then my brain turns on, and starts thinking. Thinking is DA WORST. I realized that although they love me they’re not in love with me and this imbalance hurts. It pains me that their heart does not jump like mine, like they don’t yearn for me, that they are not fulfilled with me the way they have with other partners in the past. It makes me insecure. It makes me jealous of ghosts, of people in their past that have had what I want: Trace’s devotion. I have seriously considered ending it but I literally do not have a reason other than “They’re not in love with me” I cannot punish them (and myself) for something that is outta of our control. It’s stupid. 

The only thing more painful that the emotional imbalance would be to not have them in my life at all. I am trying to live the moment, I am trying to tell myself that maybe one day they’ll wake up and realize I am FUCKING WONDERFUL. That day may or may not come, maybe some other bitch shows up and they think SHE’s fucking wonderful. I actually brought this up, and their reaction was “What happens then?” UGH instead of “What are the chances of that?” They’re not the best at reassuring me TBH. 

3. Vicious Cycles

I am seeing seeing someone this summer that I’ll refer to as Blondie. Blondie is the person I cheated on my partner with. I have feelings for her STILL. TWO YEARS LATER. It is one of those situations in which we did not get a chance to be together because I moved to California so I keep wondering what would have happened if…I know the answer though: It’d be a fucking disaster. We are too different. She’s semi closeted, monogamous, privileged, seven years younger, her family hates me because I “turned her gay” (ha, ha not sorry I am hot). 

But I hold on to this illusions, one day…It’s part of what I was saying before: Going for emotionally unavailable people. How do I stop?

4. Commitment

I love Trace. I want to be with them for a while. But there’s life and reality and medical school and distances. I realize that i don’t want to fully commit to anyone since my ex because I find that I do not have healthy boundaries. I am impulsive and extremist I don’t measure myself out. I jump. I don’t want to do that anymore. 

I resent my ex extremely for making me move here. Moving here has delayed my dreams, it created issues financially and professionally for me. That’s not even mentioning the decay of my mental health and surviving without a support system. I no longer dwell on this though, I have made the best of my time in California. But the resentment is still there. 

I am taking my time with relationship commitment. Focusing of getting into school and then, once I know where I will be the next four years of my life I can commit to a place and a person, hopefully Trace. There’s residency to worry about but that’s way too far away in the future. 

5. Personal statement

Why wont this just write itself?

I really hope you are doing well and you are just busy with life and your wife. I appreciate having this space to vent and communicate with you and whoever else has been reading this letters. Makes me feel like my voice is heard. 

My schedule is freeing up. The last few months I have been working full time, shadowing a doctor, volunteering downtown and volunteering in research. Had to take a leave of absence from my virtual crisis volunteering. I am returning to that in June, or as soon as I can write this personal statement thing. I am done doing volunteer research and shadowing. So things are winding down. 

I start a new job next week that I am extremely excited about. Between the new job, the new apartment and some plans to travel this summer I am really really grateful to the Universe for all the gifts it has granted me this year. 

I hope you don’t have a writer’s block as big as mine. 

Love, 

Nora

 

Dognut

Dognut