Lucy's Perfect Days

It seems like too much to hope for good times in the midst of all this trouble with CC.  But it happened. 

CC

CC is mad at me.  I am the bearer of bad news, the burster of the bubble, the rain on the parade. She is letting people think she is at Stage 2 because her doctor hasn’t given her an official diagnosis.  I think she is at Stage 3.  Yesterday I told her this. That was a mistake on my part.  Mostly because it made her sad and angry. And also because I don’t really know what I’m talking about. 

I just don’t want her to downplay things and end up not getting the right treatment from the right facility with the best doctors.  It’s not my business and I have promised to keep my mouth shut now. This is about no one but CC. I want to be a good friend to her.  Pissing her off at this point is a bad idea.

Another A
I’ve been seeing a man whose first name starts with A—let’s call him AL. He won the green card lottery a few years ago and has lived in New York for the last six years.  He’s from Dublin.  The accent is cute, but not enough to make communication difficult.  I don’t know how long he will be making an appearance in this blog.  We haven’t seen each other that much.  But so far, it’s fun.  I like him. 

On Saturday night, we went to dinner in SoHo after my bookstore gig ended and after he finished work.  He kissed me in the middle of a bar called Puck Fair. Ah the romance!

Then he got a call from work – end of date, I thought. Apparently not.  He decided not to go back to the office.  Grand Theft Auto would wait till Sunday morning, he said.

Okay, I said, but you’re not getting laid tonight.  He laughed and said he wasn’t really expecting that.

Then we went to his apartment in Brooklyn.  He has more books than I do.  He has a little gizmo that scans all the titles and he has a pretty accurate count of what is in his collection.  Very endearingly nerdy, especially for a girl like me.

I like this guy’s style.  Straightforward.  He makes fun of me a little bit.

No one got laid.  I want to see AL again.

Faith and Central Park
Faith is my ex A’s friend.  When my ex introduced us, I was somewhat put off by her I-am-a-strong-black-woman thing. I liked her immediately, but I am wary of self-labeling as defense mechanism.  To me, it is a too-transparent attempt to justify what has gone wrong.  And it means that a person like this would be easily offended by my mostly good-natured but politically incorrect commentary about life.

Yesterday, Faith and I went to see the last performance of the season at The Delacorte. The play was Euripides’ Bacchae.

I queued up for tickets at 9 a.m., she showed up at noon.  Before she arrived, I lay down on my blanket and listened to Bob Dylan and bits of opera. I almost wished she wouldn’t show up. It was cool and sunny in the park.  I could have stayed there all day. I lay under a canopy of trees, the sunlight drifting down between the leaves and water from the previous night's rain occasionally splattering down.  There were a few hundred people in line with me. 

We got our tickets and wandered around the Upper West Side together, got our nails done, drank wine, ate pizza, talked about her movie, talked about men. We carefully avoided the subject of A.  She is uncomfortable being friends with the both of us.  Understandably.  So I told her that we were fine, friends even. Does anyone ever trust an ex-girlfriend when they say this?

Faith is 40.  She is going a little crazy over a man she went out with once three months ago.  They had a falling out after one date and he called her again last week.  I’m not sure what is going on with that.  But I have to say, it was nice to see her shed that I-am-a-strong-black-woman armor and allow herself to obsess about something as simple as a date that didn’t go the way you would have wanted it to.  And to hope that it still has a chance to turn into something. 

Will Faith and I remain friends or was yesterday a fluke?

The Bacchae was probably pretty good.  To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention till the end.  It was a beautiful night.  Between the moon and the sky and the view, and the top of the turrets of Belvedere Castle that was visible from where Faith and I were sitting – I couldn’t concentrate. And later, raccoons that were supposed to be part of the play escaped their cages and I kept looking under the seats for that flash of red eyes. I kept thinking "this is the end of this lovely awful summer."

How could it be that this year, thus far, has been so bittersweet for me?  I don't think I ever truly knew what that word meant until the last few months.

Toward the end of the play, after Pentheus had died and his mother cradled his severed head, I finally started paying attention. The actress let out a wail that pierced the air and I myself tearing up.  I wish I could remember all those lines. “I love you more in death” or something like that. 

Of course, I was thinking of my baby. But honestly, it wasn’t so bad.  It was a reminder, that’s all.

Everything Reminds Me of Something

“If you like pina coladas and getting’ caught in the rain…”

That line was my first thought when I woke up this morning.

I’ve been singing this song non-stop, sometimes out loud but mostly in my head, for the last five days.  I went out with a man who wrote to me about it, then my ex mentioned it, then my friend Heather mentioned it. This song makes me wistful (in a good way). Wanting to escape and not recognizing that what you want has been there all along. Missed connections.

Reminds me of that New Yorker cover a few years back where a boy and a girl are looking at one another while they sit in different subway cars, reading the same book but separated by a subway platform. I remember trying to figure out which book they were reading and concluding that it was Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night.

And it reminds me of that Bob Dylan song “why wait a little longer for the one you love/when he’s standing in front of you.”

I’m a hopeless romantic idiot.  I often wonder why it is that we miss the most obvious things. Is it an inherent human characteristic to reject what seems too easy? Are we wired to make our lives more difficult than it needs to be?

One of these days, I will write about my own big missed connection.

Some good news about my friend CC – the cancer has been downgraded from Stage 4 to Stage 2 or 3.  I hope this latest bit of news is not inaccurate.  I don’t understand how she can be at Stage 2 when there is metastasis.  Let’s hope I’m being overly cautious and totally wrong.

What has CC been thinking of these last few days?  I cannot even imagine. When she first received the diagnosis, she told me she thought of my pregnancy and eventual abortion.  I guess it’s to do with having to face monumental, unwanted life changes.  And when you get down to it, to being alone with your dilemma. Can you even compare the two? 

When C found out she had cancer, no matter what her boyfriend said or did, what anyone says, it is only C who had cancer, the only who might die or lose her hair.

When I found out I was pregnant, I was the only one who was going to make that big decision and live with what came after.

So maybe the similarity is that both situations woke us up to the realization of how we are trapped in ourselves no matter what kinds of connections we manage to make with one another. And that no matter what happens afterward, you will not be the same person you were before finding out.

Tomorrow, I’m going to the ‘burbs to keep her mother company while she undergoes more tests. What is that going to be like?

Last night, I spent the night with my ex.  We went to the biergarten in Astoria, drank too much, talked, got caught in the rain.  (The song obsession was in place before last night, just to be clear.)

Before we went to sleep, I told him I love him.  It’s easy for me to say that, and without rancor, I accept that we are no longer possible.

Will I contradict myself in a few days?  So far, have I? Somewhere, someone is laughing at me.  Maybe I’m the one who’s laughing?

Lucy Writes

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.          – E.M. Forster

Maybe I’ll start calling myself Lucy in honor of Miss Honeychurch, E.M. Forster’s heroine in A Room With a View.  This could be the Reticent Diarist’s pseudonym.  Reticent is not so catchy, is it?

I’m writing almost every day.  This is unusual for me but maybe not that surprising given the workless days. It occurred to me that I might write about things that happen that have nothing to do with heartache --is that even possible?  I toy with the idea of dividing each entry into sections: FUCKING SAD and NOT SO BAD and GREAT.

FUCKING SAD would have to be a major category because there is a lot of that in my life right now. But I don’t want to be a drip or seem like I sit around collecting sad stories.  I do believe that it is in the misery where our characters are formed. But in the midst of all that there is fun and hope and dirty jokes and weird/stupid stories that make a lot of things worthwhile.

Personally, I’m willing to put myself through an unusual degree of weirdness in the hopes of finding the good. I think this is a good character trait. It also shows that there is a part of me that is a gambler. And all gamblers are stupid. That is not a criticism, exactly.

But when I write to you, dear reader (well, when I write to myself), I find I turn away from what is almost happy.  Guilt perhaps?  There’s no perhaps – it is guilt, pure and simple. And fear. 

FUCKING SAD

•  My abortion
  
•  My dear friend has cancer
  
•  Ex/impregnator fell in love with my less cute doppelganger in a matter of weeks post break-up, causing me to question how much/how little he valued our relationship
•  My mother is nuts and regretful about her entire life
•  I am hung up on my ex even though I know it ain’t happening anymore
•  I had sex with a beautiful man who had the smallest penis I have ever met (and I’ve met a few)
  
•  Dating too much with little success
• Loneliness
• Having sex with my ex (the one now in love with the ugly version of me—I realize this is mean, but give me a break.)
  
• Not having money due to unemployment
  
•  DID I MENTION MY DEAD FETUS and my broken heart?  This occupies five bullet points each, just so I’m clear. FUCKING SUCKS.  I miss my A like a missing limb; I’ll miss my baby forever.

 NOT SO BAD

• I had sex with a beautiful man who had the smallest penis I have ever met (sic)
  
• Dating
  
•  Trying to be friends with my ex
  
• My attempts at dating have been met with little success -- but really, am I capable of having an honest relationship at this point?
• Unemployment
  
•  Having sex with my ex – it’s good for my ego
• Drinking
• Loneliness

GREAT

• Writing 
• A man in Boston who I might never meet who tries to help me with every dilemma I throw at him, including finding a person at Memorial Sloan Kettering who would be able to help my friend CC get better treatment
  
•  Interesting men that I’ve met who I'll never see again
•  The man with the small penis also came too fast. He could do it multiple times, each sex session lasting all of three minutes or so -- sorry for not being more accurate as I did not think to set a stopwatch before each encounter. After Round 2, I observed that he was quite sweaty and he replied, “It comes very fast.”  I died laughing, but I was the only one who got the joke.
• Meeting Michael, who I thought might turn out to be the greatest rebound boyfriend of all time. But it turned out all I wanted was to be his best friend and he wasn’t so pleased about that (this last bit makes this bullet point an eligible entry for FUCKING SAD but I have bigger fish to fry).
•  Making new friends in desperate attempt to distract myself from misery
•  Reconnecting with Jon in real life and remembering how much I love him – I have my doubts as to whether or not this would have happened if events in the FUCKING SAD category did not occur  
•  My ex and I stalking each other on OKCupid and sending each other stupid notes
•  Stealing the apartment/sex analogy from my friend DY and taking it to a whole new level of absurd with his sister LY. I will write about this later.
•  Making a kick ass apple pie for my sad sick friend – it is a stupid thing to do, but it was what she wanted and what I could give
•  Re-finding another Michael, my reluctant male friend.  He gives me rides on his motorcycle and drives us over the Brooklyn Bridge
•  Going to the beach with CC
• New York in the summer
• Loneliness
  

So does the categorization work?  Probably not.  Too pretentious.  A too-self conscious attempt to be funny.

But I'm keeping Lucy.

I'm going to gamble.

On My Mind -- Honesty

Nothing to write.  I'm starting to treat this blog the way I treated my journal. I am disappointed at how repetitive I am.  M told me this a few weeks ago, to watch out for redundance.  He was referring to other things I write but I see how this problem bleeds into other things in my life.

I've been talking to A about this blog. He asks me for the address and I tell him I don't want him to find it.  That is mostly true. I am afraid the loss of anonymity will make me self-conscious and I will end up lying.  I think I keep enough to myself as it is. I've said a few things out of sheer desperation that might be hurtful.  

But if you do find this, A, tell me. It's only fair.

I don't feel like talking about the abortion much these days. Last night, after the evening conversation with A, I thought about it. I lay in bed and concentrated, willing something to come to me.  Tears, rage, something. I want to feel it all when it is gone. And when I'm feeling it, I want it gone. I find relief in crying about it, solace in the pain. Is that grief or punishment?

In moving forward, I feel guilty. Like I'm leaving my little baby further behind with every step. Will I someday reread this and look back and think myself crazy for not wanting to leave this? You don't owe the past your future. Or maybe you owe it to the past to look for a better future.

Not sure what I mean by saying that.  But what good is it to that dead fetus if I waste my life mourning it?  It's not as if it's floating around somewhere watching my actions, cheering me on or chastising me. Dead is dead.  I still believe that. 

But I find myself working it into conversations with people I've told.  My dead fetus something or other.  When I was pregnant blah blah blah. That must come in part from my regret that I couldn't have met him/her.  Wishing it the life I could not give it.

When I think that I decided whether or not that baby should live, I am overwhelmed by the enormity of that decision and the responsibility I had. How did I decide?  Love and selfishness and idealism, I suppose. And principle.  I always said I would not have a baby under those circumstances. I guess I meant what I said.

Am I horrible person for feeling a little smug in knowing that I have stood by my words?

I don't tell A this.  I am only half honest.  How honest is he with me? Maybe more so, maybe less. I won't ever know. I imagine him out of my life because of this -- how is a genuine friendship possible between two people who have to set put up so many rules?  Forget about the sex because I imagine that will go away eventually. What of the old emotions?

Where do I stand in those five stages of grief that everyone talks about and why is it so important for me to know where I am? 

Summer is almost over. Being unemployed and half crazy is strange -- the hours are slow but the days go fast. 

Life is short. Am I wasting mine? 

Babies and Maybes

When I first started this blog, I imagined it would be an elegant meditation on grief. It didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t care about eloquence, that I would pass up opportunities to write about beautiful things. That I would have so much to say about other people, that other people would have reasons to grieve at the same time that I did. That it is possible to feel bad about so many different things at once and to find comfort from the very same people who have hurt you.

The last two days have been draining – the friend with cancer, my sister, my depressed mother, my aborted fetus, my own ongoing non-relationship issues. All of these people occupy discrete spaces somewhere in me, each of them a kind of sorrow.

But here I sit in the middle of a crowded restaurant in the East Village, looking forward to a nice evening. My stomach is in knots--because I am hungry and because I am nervous.

I am not unhappy, exactly. How is that possible? Maybe what I am is a liar.

I don’t know what I am looking forward to. The future seems so bleak. My mother is aging faster than I imagined she would. She gets sadder every time I talk to her. The older she gets, the more she finds to regret.

My friend has cancer and no one knows how this will shake out yet. I fear the worst. It’s my nature. What will her life be like in one week? I think of that and her, and my eyes cloud over a bit. I want to cry for her, but we're nowhere near that yet. It could be nothing. And tears are the last thing she needs to see from her friends.

I am still alone and fumbling in a world of men who don’t quite see me. I am still involved with my ex. We communicate almost every day, we have slept together twice. What do we want from each other? It would be so easy to label this something, that we have become sleazy together. How much truth is in that statement?

I suspect I am being weak even as I tell myself I am strong. What am I doing?

I will be alone for a long time I think. This is not what I want to happen, but something in me resists leaving the last few months behind. Is it the aborted fetus? Do I love A so much that I am willing to take whatever I can from him? Does he love me so much that he is willing to risk new love for old me? Fucking me can't be that much fun. How did I knowingly allow myself to turn out to be his bit on the side? Or are we just unprepared and/or unwilling to live with the decisions we’ve made?

Are we tied to one another more than other old lovers because we made a baby together? No one gets medals for making babies, especially when they turn out to be mistakes.

I just called my baby a mistake.

This afternoon I talked to A for two hours. We talked about everything and still it wasn’t enough time. What are we supposed to catch up on and what are we doing? It seems always to come down to babies and maybes. He blames himself, that if I hadn’t gotten pregnant, we would still be together. That’s probably true. But how badly did he want us to stay together and how badly did I want us to stay together?

How long would I have stayed knowing that all I would ever have with him is movies and breakfast and dating for all the time we are together? I am in love with someone who wants to be Peter Pan. And I want to be a grown-up.

Why isn’t that enough reason to stop loving someone?

How Life Changes in a Split Second

My friend was diagnosed with cancer on Wednesday. She is calm, funny and too crass, then sobbing. 

On Friday afternoon, I cried at Madison and Vine when we were having a glass of wine. She demanded I stop so I did. Earlier that afternoon, I touched the side of her breast, saw the bandage from where the needle was inserted for the biopsy, saw the bruising.  It looked like a bruised boob.  It could have been anyone's boob.  But it happened to belong to my friend.  

She's waiting for more tests to get the prognosis.  I fear the worst -- I don't know why. Because I am an alarmist.

 

Questions of Morality

My friend asked me today if I felt bad sleeping with my ex knowing that there was a current girlfriend. I am now seething at her even though I reacted rather mildly when she asked the question.  Not that what I did was right.  In fact, I am the first the say that what I did was wrong. But I don't feel that bad.  I know it was wrong, but I don't feel that bad.

But I guess I was hoping she would keep her mouth shut.  That she would trust that I recognize my actions and live with whatever consequences need to be dealt with.

With another boyfriend, years ago, we were talking about our personal limits.  Morality, you might say.  I remember saying to him that there were things I hoped I'd never have to do, but that I knew I would do what I needed to do for myself, to survive, to keep myself sane and safe; that I would step on who was in my way.  In the last few years, I've thought about this conversation over and over again. And wondered if I had changed. 

The truth is that I have not changed much.  I aborted a baby I loved because I didn't think the circumstances were right.  I slept with someone else's boyfriend (he used to be my boyfriend but that doesn't matter much anymore unless used for context). I am not looking hard for a job.  I fill my evenings and my days with meetings and activities I don't always want to participate in just to keep myself occupied.  

So what is my point?  That I've made decisions that I knew would be hard to live with, to some extent, that went against my morals.  But I did it all with my eyes open, eyes trained toward the murky future.  

Does this make me a bad person? I don't mean to hurt anyone.  Does that excuse bad behavior if you say you meant no harm?  I know a few people who would forgive themselves with this excuse in mind.  

I will do anything and everything that needs to be done to get myself through this.  It's that simple.   Sure I feel bad.  But I have bigger fish to fry.

I've had a lovely few days.  Yesterday the beach.  Really it was a lame beach -- more like a lake with still water and an almost muddy bottom. My friends and I got into a seaweed fight with some strangers.  

And today, I went to Columbus Circle and came upon a few kids playing in the fountains.  I couldn't resist -- I slipped off my sandals and stepped into the shallow pool.  Those children made me so happy I didn't know what to do with myself.  I almost wished my friend would call and cancel on me so I could sit there for the rest of the night.  I watched those children for a long time.  It occurred to me later that I wasn't looking at those children and thinking of my fetus.  I was looking at those children and thinking how nice it would be if I had one of my own, not about how I lost one.  

Is that progress?  

I didn't not feel loss.  It was that the loss was separate from the desire. I wasn't replacing or fantasizing about was is gone; I was looking toward a future with hope that someday I might have a kid of my own.

How much of the weird/crazy am I willing to put myself through in the hopes of finding something good?

Goodbye to All That?

My ex showed up on Friday night carrying a bunch of flowers.  When I saw him, it was as if no time at all had passed and I put my arms around him.  But his body felt different, leaner and harder and not quite right next to mine.

I wrote a letter to the dead fetus.  He wrote a letter to the dead fetus. Then we went to dinner and A playfully grabbed at the sleeve of my sweater, where my hand would be if I were wearing the sweater properly (I had slung it over my shoulders). 

We went to the church, two atheists starting at the imposing doors, church closed to us. We walked to the park, my first time there at night. We walked towards the water and I cried. Oh did I cry.  I don't know how long we stayed there.  I don't know what I was feeling when I wasn't crying.

I wrote a letter to the baby I chose not to have.  I will never see that letter again and maybe it's just as well. 

I don't know how A was feeling. 

We went back to my apartment and he told me about his new girl.  I told him about my little dates, my infatuation with Michael and how quickly it passed.  Then we went to bed and at first we only held each other. I couldn't stand the feel of clothes separating us so I peeled off my shirt and we had sex and we slept and woke up and had breakfast and said goodbye.

I don't know what happens now. I haven't cried at all since.

What I'm Doing on My Summer Vacation

I talked to A again last night. He came up with this: that we should go to my therapist together and that we should have a ceremony for our baby (I keep wanting to call it aborted fetus but it is hard for me to say that these days).

With some reservation but no hesitation, I agreed to the ceremony. Does it mean I have to say goodbye to my baby? To A? That's what it feels like is what will happen. Isn't that what funerals are for?

I don't know if I'm ready to say goodbye to my baby. I want to say I'm sorry. That I can't deny. But goodbye? Holy shit. To leave it twice?

So A and I are doing it this Friday. I don't know what will happen or how we are going to do it. I don't know if it's just an excuse for me to see A. Maybe it doesn't matter. I have to cancel my Friday plans.

There's something nagging at me, that I am cancelling a stupid pseudo date so I can see my ex so the two of us can be sad about our aborted baby. This translates to me turning my back on a possible new thing that could be part of my future for a man who has quite clearly stated that he is part of my past.

How many points do I get if I talk about love? That I made a baby with him and that means something to me?

It is not likely that A and I will go to see my shrink together. That offer, he told me, was just for me. It was nice gesture on his part, but that seems wrong to me. You go to therapy together to fix things and clearly we are trying to walk away from each other.

Maybe we'll go to Riverside Park. I want to do it there but haven't told A. Selfishly, I wonder what happens after we have our little ceremony -- will I forever associate the park with my saying goodbye to my little baby and my love and never want to go back? Or will I keep going back revisiting my memories? None of these are appealing options.

Am I ready to say goodbye to my baby? Which baby am I talking about? Will A hate me if I am not? Will A and I become friends? I think we already are, in a way.

I am having a hard time looking at myself right now - too maudlin.

Seven Months from Now

When I reread the things I have written in the blog seven months from now, what will I think? What will I say?

Will I be surprised at the depth of my sadness or will I still be in the middle of it?  Will I want to look away from myself? 

Just wondering.

A Poem (not written by me)

POEM

In a U-Haul North of Damascus

BY DAVID BOTTOMS

1

Lord, what are the sins

I have tried to leave behind me? The bad checks,

the workless days, the scotch bottles thrown across the fence

and into the woods, the cruelty of silence,

the cruelty of lies, the jealousy,

the indifference?

What are these on the scale of sin

or failure

that they should follow me through the streets of Columbus,

the moon-streaked fields between Benevolence

and Cuthbert where dwarfed cotton sparkles like pearls

on the shoulders of the road. What are these

that they should find me half-lost,

sick and sleepless

behind the wheel of this U-Haul truck parked in a field

            on Georgia 45

a few miles north of Damascus,

some makeshift rest stop for eighteen wheelers

where the long white arms of oaks slap across trailers

and headlights glare all night through a wall of pines?

2

What was I thinking, Lord?

That for once I'd be in the driver's seat, a firm grip

on direction?

So the jon boat muscled up the ramp,

the Johnson outboard, the bent frame of the wrecked Harley

chained for so long to the back fence,

the scarred desk, the bookcases and books,

the mattress and box springs,

a broken turntable, a Pioneer amp, a pair

of three-way speakers, everything mine

I intended to keep. Everything else abandon.

But on the road from one state

to another, what is left behind nags back through the distance,

a last word rising to a scream, a salad bowl

shattering against a kitchen cabinet, china barbs

spiking my heel, blood trailed across the cream linoleum

like the bedsheet that morning long ago

just before I watched the future miscarried.

Jesus, could the irony be

that suffering forms a stronger bond than love?

3

Now the sun

streaks the windshield with yellow and orange, heavy beads

of light drawing highways in the dew-cover.

I roll down the window and breathe the pine-air,

the after-scent of rain, and the far-off smell

of asphalt and diesel fumes.

But mostly pine and rain

as though the world really could be clean again.

Somewhere behind me,

miles behind me on a two-lane that streaks across

west Georgia, light is falling

through the windows of my half-empty house.

Lord, why am I thinking about this? And why should I care

so long after everything has fallen

to pain that the woman sleeping there should be sleeping alone?

Could I be just another sinner who needs to be blinded

before he can see? Lord, is it possible to fall

toward grace? Could I be moved

to believe in new beginnings? Could I be moved?

Five Months

Today is it five months since the abortion. I don't know if I ever said when I did it. Maybe I lied before, made it seem like more time has passed.

Sometimes, I'm not so consistent. I don't mean to lie.  

This morning, I told my ex A (via email) that I was sick over the weekend. He called me in a panic wanting to know if I had a fever, what my temperature was, if I was going to see a doctor, if I had food, etc.  Nice boyfriend stuff from my very nice and definitely EX boyfriend.  It was lovely to be thought of and now I feel awful about it.

See, I did it on purpose. I was being manipulative. I wanted to hear his voice today. It's funny that I didn't even realize what I was doing until I heard the phone ring.  We talked for ten minutes. I told him I was fine.  I never mentioned the abortion at all.

I want to talk about how hard it is to know that two people love each other but have to separate.  That seems like the most logical paragraph to compose.  And I do think about that.  I also think a lot about how he didn't love me enough. Is that true?  I don't know.

Five months -- I can hardly stand it.  

Oh Baby

Every few days, I find myself rereading all my posts.  There haven't been that many, so it doesn't take much time. It seems narcissistic do keep reading yourself, but I'm not looking for signs of brilliance. Only progress. I'd like a little hard evidence that I'm getting better.  

I suppose I have to admit that I have made progress. The problem is that the grief has not lessened in intensity. Nope, not less intense. But the bouts come less often so I become convinced that I am almost done with it. 

Finding a job would probably help me more than I am willing to admit.  I look half-heartedly. When I think of what I am doing, I see this ridiculous picture of myself sewing. A Pieta-like triptych, only I am not holding some grown man but some other version of myself in tatters. And there's never any angel.  Just a third version of myself watching. Everything I do now is an effort to put myself back together.

My ex, my first love (not to be confused with the newest ex), randomly emailed me yesterday.  It was a cold email.  I wondered why he sent it at all.  My memory of the end of our relationship is not good.  I think he hated me a little by then.  And I desperately wanted him gone. 

He taught me about buildings.  Every time I walk into the Guggenheim, I think of him even though we never went there together.  

So back to the present -- I emailed A (the current ex) and requested a talk.  So talk we did.  It was nice. Sad, loving, funny. It helped in a way.  I remembered what it was that made us good. That makes us still good. He does not mourn the loss of the fetus as I do. But A is a good man.  I wish I could say something else about him, something mean. But I don't think I'm made that way. And neither is he.

So it occurred to me that I blog without having any idea how this all works.  I write key words in "Labels" but I don't know how they help.  I'm not very tech-savvy.