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.

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.

Morning Craziness

Every day, I have an hour of being crazy (sometimes more than a few hours). Did I ever mention that before? Nah, probably not.  I try too hard to be better so I tend to pretend the morning crazies don't happen.  Sometimes I even pretend it was something I dreamed up from the night before.

The morning crazies come in two forms -- helpless crying (that's abortion-related these days) and stalking (that is ex boyfriend-related, always). I don't know what I feel worse about. 

Well, since I vowed to be as honest as I could be with this blog, I will admit that it is the boyfriend who makes me feel worse.  I think less of myself for not being able to shake him, for responding to his ridiculously casual emails wherein we both pretend there is nothing left to say.  When you get down to it, the man really didn't love me all that much.  Forget about the pregnancy for a minute and I'd still say that he didn't love me much at all.  I was a pleasant diversion who had funny things to say and a compatible sex drive. So my pride is smashed to bits every time I miss him.

I went out on another blah date last night.  The man was short, shy and not into me.  And I didn't mind at all.  I had a nice time anyway.  Sometimes it's a great relief for me to talk to total strangers.  

Do other people understand their motives for bringing new people into their lives as well as I do mine? Some people have booze.  I turn to strangers. 

I want new people because it's the closest I can get to stop being myself. When I think of myself now this is what I see -- someone who willingly made a fool of herself for a man, who got rid of a baby she loved more than she can ever say because she could not bear the thought of the baby paying the price for her bad judgements. 

The thing about strangers is that if we become friends or lovers, I will go out of my way trying to get them to know me.  So first I want to be no one and then I will want to be myself again. Does that even makes sense?

Wow, if I keep posting these kinds of entries, I will never gain a wide readership. Ha.

There are a few funny things I can share about my life.  It's not been a completely shitty few months.  But whenever I sit down to post, the last thing I want to be is funny.  Go figure.

Walking and Remembering with Lyna

From my apartment in Morningside Heights down Riverside Park, a friend and I walked to Lincoln Center and then back uptown again.  In total, maybe 100 blocks.  The air was soupy and all evening it tried to rain. It was a lovely walk -- Riverside Park is greener when the weather is dismal -- the canopy of leaves on the promenade seems to darken in the humidity.

In February, I was so distraught over being pregnant and the only thing I could think to do was to bundle myself up in a down coat and walk down the promenade.  I lodged my earphones into place and played the music as loud as it would go.  And then I'd walk to nowhere. 

I pointed out to Lyna various sites in the park where I had a memory of something. I told her about the pregnant winter walks and we both laughed. She understand the desperation. She was kind to me and listened. Actually, I think she likes my down moods.  She compares the last seven months of my life to hers.  The only thing we have in common is joblessness but she finds similarities anyway.  

There are times when I am resentful of everyone even when I appreciate them the most.  How can Lyna compare her unrequited fantasy love to my abortion? Then again, why do I think my abortion and eventual relationship fail trumps all sorrow?  Isn't that arrogant?  Who's to say whose loss is greater? A little perceptive is necessary on both our parts maybe.  I need to realize that most people have no empirical knowledge of what has happened, that they have their own sorrows.

We walked to the 68th Street pier and looked out on the Hudson River.  We watched the kayakers paddling against the tide.  I didn't mention to Lyna that was one of the first things the ex and I did when we first started dating. I told her about all the other times I went kayaking instead.

The last time I walked that far south was right before the breakup.  It was just a few weeks after the abortion and I don't remember much of what I was thinking or doing. I didn't know at that time that in a few weeks, I would walk away from that relationship. Run.  Maybe that's a better word for it.  Not without regret or doubt. Not without one unsuccessful last appeal to the ex.  Then I ran and now I wonder how long I'm going to have to keep running.

Who would have thought that four months later, I would walk the same route and end up at the same spot with a different life? Why did I want to do it? 

Another Saturday Night

Here we are again.  

The title of this post and the first line are both song titles.  Can I write a post consisting entirely of lyrics from different songs to convey how I feel?  Probably.  But I'm won't do it.

A month ago, I decided [wait for it, it's cheesy] to say yes to everything. That meant having a flurry of activity day after day.  Dinner dates and lunches, barbeques in New Jersey, nights spent at wine bars drinking too much prosecco.  I'm not complaining. 

I joined an online dating service and I have two dates this weekend. One of the men seems --right.  But how do you know that from emails and chats?  I don't know.  Maybe he will turn out to be all wrong.

I told my friend Anna that I had an abortion.  She was very sympathetic  -- she offered me her house for as long as I needed it, somewhere to get away she said.  Then she told me she'd had an abortion too.  She said it quite blithely.  

Am I ever going to be able to say it that easily?  "Oh yeah, I once had to get all my wisdom teeth pulled in one day." She said it that lightly.

She has twins now, conceived through in vitro.  It helps to be able to have a kind of replacement for what has been lost, I suppose.

My ex is definitely dating that woman.  How did I know?

I think I am going to be sad about this abortion forever. It makes me feel better to say that, because admitting it also means that I can stop chasing after some kind of panacea to that will remove the stone from my heart.

I will live with this sadness. I'll be okay.

Saturday Night

It is Saturday night, and I've been online searching for post abortion information. 

My ex is probably out having drinks with some woman he met.  The one who looks like me.  I am actually fairly certain of this.  And it's driving me crazy. Why am I the only one who has to mourn and feel guilty and be alone?

I am feeling abandoned again even though I vowed to make peace with him.  So much for being friends.  Sometimes, I get this idea that I should get this blog address to him, anonymously.  He asked me how I was doing via email and I regaled him with stories of the last few months.  Simple things and silly things, some fun and some not.  Not a word about how I cry myself to sleep some nights.  

I don't even know if it's him that I miss or if this is about the abortion. Both, I suppose. I've admitted as much before.  

Today I went to the bookstore where I have started volunteering.  It's a good place for me to be -- friendly but aloof.  Friends sometimes make me feel bad. It's easier to be with strangers because you can pretend to be your best self even though you've got a little bug in your heart. 

Blogging is not fun.  But I keep doing it anyway.  I am at the point now where I don't feel entitled to blabber to my friends, as if enough time has gone by and I should be well on way to being fine.  That's not untrue, exactly.  I am so fine some days that I can almost believe everything is better. But then there are these nights.

Donuts

The activity of blogging is not nearly as satisfying or therapeutic as I imagined it would be.  I don't know what I was expecting exactly.  Perhaps one should always rethink ideas born out of desperation.

Another soggy day in New York City.  

I saw my therapist the other day.  She fussed about at first, irritated that she'd run out of Kleenex in her office.  I said to her, "Maybe I won't need any today." Of course, I was wrong. 

I do wonder why it is that I get to the heart of the matter towards the last 15 minutes of each session. What the hell were the first 30 minutes about? Wasted money? Warm-up?

My therapist's name is Laura.  She is a lovely woman though sometimes I think that she is the wrong therapist for me.  She's soft.  Sometimes she is behind on retouching the gray hair at her temples and I find myself fixating on that quarter inch of white hair. She offers me so much sympathy that I sometimes hate her.  

Sometimes I underestimate my desire and need for kindness.  I like to pretend that I am tougher than I actually am.

After our session, I was walking to Union Square to meet two friends.  I started remembering walking out of the abortion clinic.  Ah, the relief of it all. And the first stirrings of this unnameable feeling. Then the nausea.  Perhaps it was just a reaction to the big dose of antibiotics they give you right after the procedure.  Or maybe the beginnings of grief.  But I think I started grieving the minute I began to suspect I was pregnant. When I found out I was pregnant,  I grieved/fantasized about all the possibilities.  

It was a gray day and the cab driver drove erratically and the road was pot-holed.  I was scared I would start bleeding.  I was waiting for it to hurt.  But nothing.  A little cramping, maybe.  My ex and I went to the drugstore before heading to my apartment. I picked up sanitary pads--the diaper-like sort because I think I was expecting to hemorrhage.  We picked up donuts.  He paid for everything.  

It's stupid to say, but now donuts make me unaccountably sad.  What the fuck, you're probably thinking.  That's what I think too. 

Where do I go from here?

It’s lovely out today – from my north-facing windows in my apartment, I can see the sun.  If you lived in New York City, you would know that most apartments face other buildings, that sometimes all you get is a shaft of light falling between buildings. I haven’t gone out yet and it’s nearly six in the evening.  

After a pretty good, though uneventful day, I started thinking about my abortion a few minutes ago.  I am shocked that I have nowhere to turn now.  There seems to be no support groups, no other friends who can say that they know what I’m talking about.  There are a few online organizations, but I hesitate to contact them because what I want right now is a face to look at when I say that I don’t know what to do with myself now.

If it’s going to be an online communication with total strangers, I may as well write here, write to no one.  Or maybe to someone who will stumble upon this blog and know what I’m talking about. If you're out there, say something. 

Soon after I had the abortion, my boyfriend and I broke up.  Sometimes I think I was too hasty in ending the relationship – maybe he needed more time to process what happened, maybe he would soon tell me how he felt, maybe everything someday. Or maybe nothing.

Something has changed in me that I can’t name. 

I felt more alone when he was in the same room as me.  And I knew that he was happy for me to keep my thoughts to myself. I love him still and wonder why that wasn't enough. Then I think of that pregnancy -- I loved that thing too.  But it wasn't enough because I couldn't give it a willing father. I couldn't risk ruining three lives. 

So two losses – a fetus/baby/lump of cells and a man I had hoped I could share my life with.  Perhaps it's three losses.  What have I done to my future? Will I ever forgive myself for this? Will I ever have the chance to have a child?

When the boyfriend and I came to the end of our relationship, he didn’t argue with me.  He said he was sorry.  Maybe that is the greatest sorrow to me.  That neither I nor that baby was worth enough to fight for.  Maybe I am horrified at myself for not fighting harder.