Monday; or the day the earth stood still:

How can I deny that the only thing in the world I've ever been really good at is that stupid fucking cafe, the place that has made me cry, sweat, hate, change, love, expand, seen every layer of my onion peeled away so that all that remains is the core of who I am, not the people I thought I should be, the people I wanted to be, instead I've been reduced to the pearl nestled inside all that mess. It's where I spend the little bits of free time I have, it's what I call my home base, it is where I go when everything is wrong. I have said it better and more thoroughly before. Now it could all be different and what terrifies me most is not the stretch of time, the inevitable hard work, the endless opportunities to embarrass myself; it is simply that I would have to, be forced to, grow the fuck up.

As this was happening, as this was being presented to me, I was reeling from the discovery that my hopes for the fire were all empty and without meaning, that any connection I felt was maybe completely one sided, or that absence of proximity had prevailed in completely dousing whatever interest might have once been present. And I was surprised that even though I knew things were dwindling, my interest (due to an endless array of evidence that he was just a cardboard cutout) and my patience (the game is so tiresome), it still took my heart and hollowed it out like a blasted mine. Instant and heavy hollowness fell over me. It was not about the failure, or the loss, it was about the not knowing and hoping and then having it all blown away like nothing. And truly, it can always be construed as nothing, but maybe all that it provided was the lesson that I need a three dimensional man and not a flat beautiful thing to carry around.

And before all that, there was the frustration that no matter how hard I love people, despite their flaws, with a generosity that I deem them worthy of, they disappoint me by not returning that kindness, by holding my every movement and dialogue as evidence of my betrayal (or imminent betrayal) and it is like I am swimming, trying to tread water, in a vastness with no land and he pushed my head under water for no good reason. Of course I am sad that I hurt his feelings, but how many times have I stroked his ego, joined his causes, rallied in his name, and given him the most valuable commodity I have to offer anyone I love: my time?

So I went home, to that shoebox, to that place he drove me to, to that rat infested shithole and I made the calls I'd been putting off all day, the hard calls, the difficult calls, the calls that will propel me out of that place, away from that hate. I am the worst at doing the things I need to do but find difficult, and that was when the gears of the world began to shift, like a giant machine suddenly turned back on, first it was a hum in my ears and then it was a whirring of everything making sense again and the knowing that it was all going to be fine. As usual. Somehow that reassurance that lives for me like a constant pulse point was silent during that half hour.

So I am moving again. For the third time in little over a year. This time it will be the kind of soul assuaging environment I need to thrive again, to unfurl my limbs from the orbit I've been catapulted into. It happened the way everything I've ever been destined to do happened; I succumbed to the sweeping wave of fate and it was like putting a puzzle together, finding that all along I've been holding that last piece upside down and backwards and when I finally stopped and took a closer look, it dawned on me that I'd been making it harder than it had to be all along.

I resisted the urge to be extreme, I wanted to wipe it all away, the tentacles of me that spread and gotten bigger than I expected, started the fire, which died out; that led to the singer, which was an accident anyway, and finally gave me the joyful experience of being gotten by the brain. So instead of pulling in, pulling away, hiding, I sent them both messages that were friendly and open and without expectation. It didn't surprise me that the brain was prompt in his response, for he has nothing to lose and has done this before, showing his expertise again and again. I am enjoying that he is so good at the game, because I need someone right now who can play the game with me. It doesn't hurt that I love love love that brain of his. His vocabulary alone could set ships sailing.

It took the singer a couple days to report back to me, and it may very well be that he is busy with projects (the two buzzwords most oft used to impose distance and disrupt the landslide). I realize at this point there is no one perfect man for me anyhow, and it will certainly not be someone who can't do the work of getting to know me. So rather than let the moments we shared fester in my mind to grow into an apparition that will never match him, I've let it go, let him go, let that urgency sit it out. I find the more I do this the less painful the disappointments are, because I never give too much of me. At least not without some inspiration.

In the end, I don't regret the risks I've taken because I know I would've regretted not taking them. And each disappointment teaches me something new about what I need.