auld lang syne

i measure our years by seasons

the autumn we made love.

the autumn you left.

the summer at pete's.

the spring, summer, fall of nyc.

and in 2009

i know we did not see another near enough.

and i know out of 365 nights we spent 6 of them together in entirety

2 of those we were mad about nonsense

that had to do with others.

because those people matter so much in our lives.

so we didn't make love and it was cold in the room

and you went away inside.

you wanted me to leave.

what if i had.

would you have asked me to come back or finally breathed.

i hated that night. would like to erase it completely.

could also skip the 'it had to be you' part

and the soap i bought you that i threw on the train track

--the same one that took you home.

but the ribs were good. you've always kept me full

or at least somewhat distracted.

i loved the making up at the franklin cafe and the knome beer.

knome beer can go either way for me.

i liked the grace hotel and i liked the gem.

water pressure just so so but we were clean.

but the cologne smell it stayed

it was enough to keep me awake long after you left.

my curse is being blessed with a memory

that often things i'd rather forget

come back.

trunks in my cerebral attic.

i move them around.

they become a hand to hold on some nights.

for as long as i live i think i will always hold a picture of you

in my minds eye seeing you

through a hotel peep hole magnified and distorted.

ding dong

and always always with some sort of heavy knapsack.

often i wonder how many dead bodies can one carry in such a small bag.

i loved the belgium bar.

it's noisy and it is our only place.

before

it felt like we owned the beaches or at least the waterfront.

now it is a table

and moons. i think we own all the moons and their phases.

someone has to. it should be us.

our lunar child.

so much pain in our lives and we carry it secretly.

i still for the life of me will never truly understand your leaving.

acceptance and understanding are different colors.

i liked jackson browne. at least the beginning, the middle, and the end.

overall someone had to let go--it might as well have been me.

the pretender.

thank your lucky stars i didn't declare my love for you in the middle of prospect park.

that would have beat by far any sickness that came later

or any episode at a the orange line last May

you don't take a lot of pictures anymore.

i meant to say that to you. you used to all the time.

see something and snap.

is there not anything anymore that you care to remember.

what pains have i brought to you in this year that you've never said?

i am so sorry if i have.

it is the way of lovers. passion, agony, and doorways.

once i read a poem about that.

long forgotten i can only remember those 4 words.

but i like the way they look together.

our schizophrenic existence.

i love you .

pain. pleasure. parting. and finding each other again.

you are a part of my years now.

how funny and strange and terribly sad all at once.

mr tamborine man.

play a song for me.

happy new year.

Beacon Hill

It's raining. Inside and outside.  Last night I fell asleep with a very broken heart.  Why do we continue to put ourselves in situations where the end result is pain. How can it be that we can overlove people who don't deserve it.  Today I awoke and thought that today would be the ideal day to walk away from this madness of a half of a life.  I finally have a sound enough reason to end things it's just finding the strength to do so.  I could not answer the phone, pager,email, facebook, or smoke signal.  

I could live my life without you because that is really what i do most of the time.  

I give half of my attention to those around me so that you can have a life and a half.  

The thought of living without you--this scares me to death.

The thought of staying and going through this one more time does too.

Bagels

I made a bagel tonight which in and of itself is not a big deal.  As I cut the bagel in half I remembered my old friend telling me once that he thought it was the number 1 reason people cut themselves; that is cutting the bagel.  The thought isn't that earth shattering but the content surrounding the thought process is.  Why is it that every time I cut a bagel that same thought goes through my mind which then triggers the thought that missing people is terrible and that one moment you can believe that life will not get any better and the next you are standing in the kitchen cutting a bagel wondering how life got to this point. 

People we love do not go away.  They remain in some art form, some recurrent word or thought.  They settle themselves in these corners of our hearts and become the OCD component of our souls.  We can find comfort in the reminder of the past or we can grieve for what is not to be.  Most times I think I settle somewhere in between.  

In my life I've seldom said goodbye to anyone i've truly loved.

Today while cutting a bagel I realize not much has changed over the years.

Compliments

Today at work as I sat there a secretary came up to me and asked me if i wanted a nice green apple which i declined.  Several minutes later a hospital coordinator told me she was running to the cafeteria and asked if i would like anything brought back.  It was really nice and though it doesn't sound like a big deal it reminds me how many times do we do things in our day and not take a minute to see the rest of the world around us.  I read about 2 college students at Purdue who stand on campus for 2 hours a week and should nothing but compliments.  Despite them gaining some degree of publicity they started out with no other intention except to say nice things.

Purdue 'Compliment Guys' spread cheer across campus

I think it is much easier to say something bad as opposed to something good.  I don't know why and I think it may make us even more uncomfortable to think about.  Tomorrow I think instead of letting the bad stuff out maybe i will work on the good stuff.

It's a melancholy weekend or is it just that i have a melancholy soul?  I didn't feel good yesterday but I think that half of it was my insides.  Sometimes I miss people beyond what I think is normal and nothing is worse than missing someone.  Relationships with narcissists are always fucked up. I don't think i can say more than that right now.  

I shut my lights out for 'earth hour' .  In that hour i sadly didn't think once about global warming and wasn't that the whole point--some sort of heightened awareness?

Here is what i did during my hour:

*facebooked my friends

*watched Bill O'Reilly

*struggled with the cat for space in the chair.

*thought about eating a brownie but i was thinking if i opened the fridge and the light came on  than for years people would suspect I was singularly responsible for the ice melt.  I have enough paranoia in my life without worrying about that.

So frankly I am glad earth hour is over.  

I posted a link to a blog on a young woman who suicided in January.  Saying this I am not a person who sits and thinks about suicide except in that sense of what would it be like if I left this planet and who would miss me.  What mark would I have left and all that. . .a very egotistical sort of viewpoint I know.  But it is funny that in my blog search the very first two blogs i came across deal with the pain and torture of mental illness.

In any case this woman Clio Chafee seems to be the sort who left footprints.  I recall reading that  a person had been hit by a train on the day of her death and had that very basic 'oh that's too bad' sort of thought.  It was days later when I read her obit which bravely stated that she 'chose to end her life'.  I became I admit somewhat fascinated by this wording which led me on a sort of voyeuristic curious journey.  Clio's family is a prominent New England family and it is more than likely she was brought up lacking nothing.  She truly it would seem had it all. . .including demons which must have slowly pushed her to the train track.  I find the tributes to her beautiful and her leaving this planet so sad.   I never ever met this woman but i think she was that type of person it would be hard to say goodbye to.

Passing Time

Age is a funny thing. I find myself now looking at women differently than I did before. I think when you are in your 20's you have no concept of time you live your life in measured minutes of either wonderful bliss that are mixed with moments of wondering when you will get on with your life.  In your 20's you feel your life has not quite started yet.  I do not know what one does in their 30's I don't think we are really paying attention as we are establishing ourselves as grown ups and starting the business of maturity.  Your 40's sneak up on you slowly like weight gain.  I recall the first time I realized that weight was actually going to become an issue and no longer could I look at someone overweight and think 'all they need to do is eat right and exercise'.  The same can be said of depression.  I always thought all people needed to do to snap out of depression was snap out of depression.  Depression is paralyzing.  I never know that until I got there myself.  I can say that I had a summer when I could hardly speak a word.  It hurt to talk and the sound of 'how are you' or 'are you okay' could bring me to tears.  I recall standing in a bathroom at a hospital and looking in a mirror while tears fell and i wondered: how did i get here ?  Depression is so not a snap out of it sort of thing.  In the movie "Sex and The City" there is this scene where Carrie has to be fed her food by her friend.  I wept through that scene.  I had so been in Carrie's skin.

Poetry

The first time I read poetry was when i was too young to understand really what anything meant.  I certainly had no concept of adult heartache and pain.  I remember picking up Rod McKuen when I was still a teenager and all his words felt like someday they would mean something to me.  Later when I was in my early 20's i read Merritt Malloy.  For those of you who have ever had a joyful moment of love overshadowed by the pain of loss you will find a kindred spirit.  I often wonder what happened to her.  It is like she just fell off the earth.  Over the years i've tried to locate new material and come up with nothing.  I found it interesting when my daughter who is 19 picked up Merritt Malloy when she was 16.  Perhaps the broken heart starts younger nowadays.