Another Year, Another Silence

February is cold in northern Europe. When it's not raining, the sky is so gray you could swear it's about to rain. It all starts in November, when you realize all of your daylight hours are spent inside an office building. Then, if you're lucky, it'll snow in December/January and the sun reflecting off the white streets will make it seem charming instead of bitterly horribly. But about halfway through February you start to wonder: "Why did I give up a job in a warm climate to come here?" But then something amazing happens: as the days slowly grow longer and the sun peeks out from behind the clouds more often, you feel almost giddy with anticipation. It won't be long before people break out the terrace furniture and sit outside with short sleeves in 10 degree weather. So even though it will never get as warm here as it does in some of the more tropical climes of the US, the stark contrast with the cold somehow makes you savor it all the more. One day you'll wake up and realize you hear birds outside. Blink and you'll miss the trees exploding into bloom. It's really quite cool!

If it were socially and financially acceptable for Marco to hibernate, he would. In the winter months, I have to literally push him out of bed with my foot so that he'll get in the shower and face the drab morning. Sometimes he'll walk around the house grumbling about the weather and how he can't wait for it to be spring. He consumes almost twice as much coffee in the months November - February as he does after March 1st. Guess moving to Scandinavia is out of the question! I once asked a Finnish colleague how he did it. Saunas, he said, are key to mental stability during the dark winter months. "The sweat takes away the sadness - the brain disease." Brain disease? I guess that's one way to think about melancholy.

February torments me. It lures me in with the promise of being over quickly - making the winter flow seamlessly and quietly into spring. But the last week of the month is always a yawning gap of time, stretching itself out before me, taunting me. "You can pretend you won't notice, but you will," it reminds me. No, I won't. Not this year. But I always do. It's Raf's birthday at the end of the month. Another year has gone by, reminding me that we really aren't friends anymore. I'm always tempted to write him a Happy Birthday email, but I always resign myself to the same old conclusion: He's made his choice. He doesn't want me in his life. There's no sense in trying.

I don't understand why birthdays and holidays compel me more than ordinary days to get in touch with Raf. I've blogged about it before - how I strongly dislike people who try to capitalize on the sentimentality of momentous occasions to wheedle their way back into your life. Yet I am nonetheless susceptible to/guilty of those temptations myself. What would make Raf respond to a birthday message any more than a regular message? Maybe the idea that I haven't forgotten such a personal detail about him? Or the knowledge that he is still in my thoughts? Then again, he's in my thoughts on many other days as well. Perhaps birthdays have a way of magnifying that interplay of emotions?

It makes me angry that I cannot avoid remembering.

I wonder how long it will take before I forget...?

Revenge is Sweet?

This past semester of grad school has been rough for many reasons, not the least of which was my being part of a highly dysfunctional team with an unhinged leader. Those of you who have been following my Twitter updates (Alice - my most devoted friend - what would I do without you?), you've been aware of the headaches this woman has caused me as they occurred in real time. I won't get into the nitty gritty of this unbalanced lunatic's psychosis, but let me just say that if an entrepreneur ever asks you to write a business plan as part of a team that also includes her boyfriend (a spineless, if attractive, minion who also happens to have confessed his love for you), DO NOT say yes like I did. *Mental headslap*

Sifting through the debris of her abusive wake, I felt an all-too familiar sensation tickle my ego: the desire for vengeance. This was a woman who had publicly humiliated me, tried to have me removed from the team and thus fail the class, called the quality of my work into question, and started an administrative war over a school project. For most of the semester, Lex successfully convinced me that being flexible would be an excellent exercise in management which would prepare me well for the wolverine world of strategy consulting (my chosen career). 9 years as a ballerina and 2 as a gymnast were not enough to prepare me for the back-breaking exercise required to accommodate this woman's volatility and irrationality, but the fear of retribution kept me from pitching my case of unprofessionalism to the administration.

About two weeks ago, my team finally completed this hellish project and pitched our business plan to a panel of 14 judges, 13 of which agreed to fund our venture. This, of course, was a great success, but not one which Psycho Bitch was prepared to attribute in any fashion to the mountain of hard work and 15 hour days I had put into the project. Le sigh.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I have a nasty talent for inflicting verbal and mental pain on people. This is something with which I tended to lash out when I was younger but have since learned to keep in check in an effort to be a kinder, more compassionate person. Most of the time that strategy works, but ooooooohhhh this woman got under my skin and was flirting with my bad girl ways. Vengeance was knocking and my ego had to be straightjacketed so as not to answer in kind.

There were several options, of course: academic destruction, professional destruction, or personal destruction. All three had their potential benefits. Academic destruction was the trickiest because it required the most proof of wrongdoing, whereas professional and personal destruction could largely be based on rumors and circumstantial evidence. Most people in the program had a long-standing distaste for Psycho Bitch based on their own interactions with her, so Doors 1-3 all had the potential for large scale damage.

As I contemplated these evil thoughts brought on by the impatience and childish pride of a former self, my father called. In despair I confessed my struggle and asked him for advice. He laughed at the recognition of our shared personality traits and relied on one of my mother's adages for advice: "You can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow". "But I don't want to tell her off" I exclaimed, "I want to hurt her. I want her to see you can't fuck with me without there being consequences!!!" My father sighed and said: "San, when you were just 17 years old you taught me a valuable lesson in life." I nodded. I knew the story well...

My freshman year in college I had failed one of my work-intensive classes because my mother had cancer. When I asked my academic adviser for help, he had recommended I drop out of school, noting that the "Ivy League required something more than such excuses to make the cut." I was stunned. When my father suggested that year that I take up my F in Calculus with the Academic Review Board, I told him that a student trying to battle against an entire institution would be a waste of time. Instead, I said, I wanted to focus on how I could move forward and still accomplish my goal of graduating with a respectable GPA and getting into grad school. He disagreed with my decision but let me have the last word in my own academic career. I ended up graduating Magna Cum Laude and got into grad school with a scholarship. He would tell me later that that was one of the most important lessons I'd ever taught him: know when to cut your losses and move forward without looking back.

I sighed again. I knew what his next sentence would be: "Cut your losses. Move on." I thanked him for his advice, chatted for a bit longer and then hung up with a guilty conscience. Why was I being so petty? There were so many bigger issues in my life (some of them reasons for this blog, par example) - why was I worried about some no-name, 30-something bully with a chip on her shoulder, an infernal temper, and an inferiority complex? Her existence in my life as of the end of this project was terminated. She had no impact on my job prospects, my relationship, my family life, or my future in general. There was no reason to give her even one more nanosecond of my attention, even if it was in plotting her demise.

Later that day I got to thinking: giving up my pipe dream of pride-inspired revenge had proved relatively easy when pushed by sound logic. But what about the desire for vindication I feel on a regular basis when I think about Raf? He, too, had removed himself from my life and expressed the desire to stay out of it completely. For all intents and purposes he was the same as Psycho Bitch - irrelevant to my future. Then it dawned on me: the key was in the past. Raf is essential to the person I've become, and no matter how hard I try to purge his influence on me, I am - as of yet - unable to. How can I feel compassion for someone who has none in return? It continues to baffle me every time I write about, think about, feel, remember, mourn, blame, dream about, try to forgive, or - worst of all - pretend to hate him.

As I'm writing this post, my phone buzzes. Although I haven't yet forgiven my Blackberry for its surprise assault on my emotions a few weeks ago and thus still cringe at every notification sound it makes, I walk over to my dresser and pick it up. It's a text message from Lex: "Finally going to bed. Miss you and love you. You're a really great person. Don't forget."

With friends like that, the back burner seems like the right place for vindication....for tonight.

Merry Christmas Raf. I miss you.

I Get By With a Little Help

This weekend I jetted off to see Marco in his timezone and was reminded that United Airlines is the devil.

I was sitting on a 200-seat plane only 30% full and when I attempted to sit in the exit row to give the mom and her kid next to me some space, the flight attendant reminded me that the exit row was reserved for people who paid $39 to sit there. I looked at him incredulously and patiently attempted to explain the economics behind customer retention in a case like this (i.e. why does it matter if I sit here? I'm not robbing anyone of a seat and a little customer service in a case like this might make me use United again), but to no avail. He sent me back to my seat. So there I was, crammed in with two other people when there were 140 other seats open.

It seems to me that United's business model looks a little bit like this:

Zero knowledge of basic economics + Lack of employee empowerment + Underpaid flight attendants = Sucky Airline

Not to mention that getting in and out of airports like Hartsfield, LAX, Newark, and O'Hare is basically a lost cause 93% of the time. (Don't even get me started on Philadelphia or Denver).

Ok, end of United rant.

So...as I was saying, I went to see Marco this weekend. People tend to complain a lot about long distance relationships, and some of those gripes are certainly warranted. On the other hand, I tend to find that it has its positive effects as well. For one, you're always super excited to see the other person on the weekends. Secondly, you tend to find out pretty quickly whether or not you want to be together, since nothing is easier than to just stop calling. It's the perfect out for commitment-phobes. No confrontation. No guilt. No seeing the other person all over town. Just silence. (Pretty shitty, I know. I'm not condoning this as a method, but it's a possibility.)

Since the beginnings of our relationship, Marco and I have gone through various phases: same-city dating, love-nesting, mini-long distance, mid-long distance, and super-long distance. Maybe next year we'll both move back to Europe and find a nice apartment together in a big bustling city so we can take a crack at a life together, but for now we're still flying and time-zone hopping.

I always wonder how it is possible for me to be so happy with Marco and simultaneously feel such grief over Raf. Now, mind you, Marco has known about Raf from the beginning. I'm always very up-front with the person with whom I'm in a relationship in that respect. However, I'm also smart enough to know that sitting around all day complaining about how I miss Raf and feel betrayed is not that great for my relationship. Since the feelings come and go in phases I just tend to let them wash over me and then move on with them properly stowed away.

Raf wrote to me a week before his wedding: "I think about you often - every day, really - and most days I get a lump in my throat." That pretty much sums up how I feel as well. But it's never a lump that prevents me from living my life - it just confuses me enough to blog about it! You must be wondering whether all I do is sit around all day and pine. Luckily that is not the case, although I do have days when I feel like everything I do is marked by Raf's memory. In that sense it's a lot like the death of a loved one - at least that's how it usually feels to me since I have no contact with him and basically zero hope of ever seeing him again.

On the phone with Lex last night, I wondered if losing Raf would've hurt less if I hadn't, well, lost him. If we had just remained friends but faded out of each others' lives over the next 20 years, would it feel the same? Lex posited that it would not - that I would come to terms with it on my own and eventually no longer wake up every day thinking about it. I agree to a certain extent - Raf's departure was made worse by its emotional violence, but that doesn't mean it would have been any better had he still married Ingrid and I'd had to live with her insecurity and control issues (which Alice and Lyla sagely pointed out) for the rest of my life. So, what's better? I guess I'll never know. All I can deal with is the present.

I was standing in the shower with Marco on Sunday, shampooing my hair, when I suddenly felt the water move from just over my head to exactly the right spot on top of it. Then I felt a kiss on my neck. When I opened my eyes, Marco was soaping himself as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Without me saying anything, he had seen that I had been standing far forward in the tub to rinse my hair and had subtly realigned the shower head to make it easier for me. It was such a simple thing to do, yet so emblematic of who he is as a person. Later that day, we drove to the airport:

SaN: I hate leaving you. It always feels so permanent.
Marco: I know - I hate it, too.
SaN: But at least we have a lot more weekends together, right?
Marco: ....and hopefully an entire life.
SaN: *Blush*

It's moments like those two that make me realize that if I hadn't been through all of this bullshit with Raf, I may have never met Marco in the first place. And so, whenever I'm feeling a wee bit too sorry for myself and cursing Raf for breaking my heart, I look up at this wonderful man who takes the time to know how I like my eggs, to tell me the truth about what I look good in, to know what all my little body language cues mean, to indulge my handbag addiction just enough (but still steer me away from the $1,000 Gucci bags in Milan), to figure out how he can get me to like fish, and to adjust the shower head when my face is full of soap. And then I realize how lucky I am - not just to have him, but also to have friends like Cian and Lex who know the difference between a moment of anguish and senseless wallowing and have the kindness to tell me when I've crossed the line between the two.

When I think about these things, a small "thank you" goes up to whatever force compels our universe to keep existing and I know that I will eventually make peace with this storm in my head.

In the meantime, I'll have Raf's photos to remind me of all that was good between us until one day I am able to forgive him.

October Is The Cruellest Month

When you grieve, you're supposed to go through stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Theoretically, when you hit Acceptance you're over most of your anguish and have found some sort of closure and inner peace. With Raf I tend to feel like I bounce around those stages like a pinball in a machine.

Denial -Anger - Anger -Anger - Depression - Anger -Angerangerangerangeranger - Denial - Barbarbarbargaining - Depression - AngerDenial - Extra ball! - Anger - Denial - Denial - Ddddenial.....Bonus! Start again!

On the way home from work two months ago I discovered a rusty silo by the side of the highway on which someone had spray-painted the words "4give YoSelf." The first time I saw that graffiti I started crying while driving at 70 miles per hour. I called Lex and tearfully stammered that I couldn't do it, that I couldn't move on, that I couldn't forgive Raf (much less myself) for all the emotional crimes committed over the last 10 years. I remember weaving through traffic, the picture of hysteria but utterly devoid of energy inside, sobbing "I can't.....I can't.....I can't..." until finally Lex calmed me down.

Today I read another blog - Diary of a Dessert Lover - and Des struck me with the following:

I realize, there comes a time when you have to give up the fight. I think that time comes when the other person has already given up – or expects you to want the relationship to work more than them. Both are bad, in my books.

But I can't do it. I can't let go. Does that make me pathetic or just stubborn? Is there another stage of grief where I will finally be released from this pinball hell into a bittersweet "Game Over"?

Even the city moves on. About two weeks ago I drove by the silo, pretending not to see it but peeking at it in my peripheral vision. The owner had painted right over that bright blue mantra. This time, I straightened up in my seat, called Lex and told him what had happened. Then I surprised myself by saying "you know what, maybe it's time to forgive myself." But Lex was busy at work and the conversation had to be aborted (bless his heart). The next day I fought back tears as I passed the silo.

I am an idiot.

Cian, one of my best friends, once said to me in his terse Irish way: "he's an arse, and you'd never let anyone else treat ya this way. What, has he got magical powers or somthin'?" I couldn't help but laugh. Cian is one of those guys who is hopelessly blunt and cynical yet so unexpectedly warm when you need it most. I've really come to value his friendship as well as his ability to tell me to "stop yer whinin'" over the last two years. Cian's long-term girlfriend left him right before he went to get his PhD only to shack up with one of his best friends, so he's got some valuable experience in the grief stages department. More importantly, for all of his cynical blather and "he's an arse" comments, he knows what it feels like to carry the dismal knowledge that you will never stop loving someone no matter how hard you try or how much time passes.

I often ask myself (as I did above) if I can't give up on Raf simply because I'm delusional or because I'm just plain stubborn. Maybe it's because I can't believe that someone who loved me so passionately for almost a decade now no longer wants to speak to me. Maybe it's the fact that he has always told me the woman to whom he is married was not his first choice. Maybe it's the fact that he once told me "you are the light in my photography." I don't know - or maybe I don't want to know. Like I said, I'm a pinball. I just find it so hard to deal with the fact that I may never speak to him again...

When I was on the phone with Jake the other day, I tried explaining this feeling to him in two segments. I'll try the same thing here, and maybe someone will understand me. First, I feel like I ran out of time. Second, I feel like our last memories of each other are unfairly skewed.

What I mean by this is the following. When Raf and I were younger, we never talked about the possibility of having a relationship together but it was always palpable in the tension between us. As he and I met other people, the hope for that relationship gradually waned but never disappeared. We lived more than 4,000 miles away from each other and were both students trying to finish up our education - first high school, then university, then graduate school. There was an understanding between us that even if we were to be together in the future, nothing would be possible until both of us were (semi)adults with degrees and financial independence.

Right before my third year of university I got a call from Raf. He wanted time to think about his relationship with his girlfriend, Ingrid, but this would mean not talking to me for a while so that he could sort out his feelings for her. I swallowed hard, cleared my throat, and with all of the willpower I possessed I told him I would always be his friend and that he should take whatever time he needed. When he figured it out, I said, I would be here to support whatever decision he made.

The months went by and I headed off to Europe for a year and a half abroad. While I was in the UK I got an email: "Ingrid and I are engaged!" I smiled. Then I cried. Then I smiled again. Raf sounded ecstatic, and I had been blissfully happy with Marco for about 5 months in the meantime. I went through all of the possible "don't do it!" letters in my mind and then sat down over three days to compose a reply. It was short but sweet: "I'm very happy for you. If this is what makes your life complete then I feel at peace. Congratulations!"

Over the next few months I tried to put it out of my head and focus on how happy I was with Marco, but my heart felt confused sometimes. It wasn't until I met Cian that I was able to get my head screwed on straight and sorted out again. "If you love him, you have to let him live his life." Cian was right. I took comfort in having chosen the high road. I would finish my degree, get into graduate school, and start my Masters degree.

Raf and I could be friends - we always had been, and we would be able to navigate whatever new complexities his marriage would bring one day at a time. I would do my utmost to respect Ingrid, who seemed like she just absolutely adored Raf and took very good care of him, even if his feelings for her weren't always of equal strength. I would be an adult and take responsibility for my actions. After all, if I had wanted Raf I should have told him so more definitively, right? You couldn't blame the man for trying to find love with Ingrid.

Around September 2007 things started to go downhill. I got an email from Raf that said "Ingrid and I have broken up. I told her the truth for once. I feel dead inside." Turns out boy genius had never told his lovely wife about me and she had discovered that he sends me quite a lot of emails. She's furious, calling for a divorce, he's begging her to stay. Then he emails me.

I tell him to give her some space and explain the situation to her when she's calmed down. "Whatever you do, do NOT make it sound like she was the backup plan. She is your wife, and she is the most important woman in your life now. You do not throw away a marriage over one argument." I cringed as I hit "send" but felt content about how I handled the situation. After all, I had already resigned myself to Planet Platonic and I wasn't about to let all my hard work stuffing away my emotions go to waste. Plus, I now had almost 2 years going with Marco, who was looking more and more like super gorgeous, knee-weakening, emotionally stable, serenely kind, want-to-have-your-children permanent material.

Ingrid returns, they make up, and Raf emails me a happy "all is well." The next day I send him a text message: "Glad all is well. Love, SaN" Another day after that I get an email in my Inbox from Raf's address. It's from Ingrid. This is great! Now she knows that I'm not a threat - maybe I can even go visit them sometime! Boy am I wrong. Ingrid's email alternates between pleading with me to understand her "situation" and spewing bile and venom like a pro. Half threat, half entreaty, she basically tells me to go to hell but to be sure to empathize with her on the way down there. I'm baffled. What has Raf told her???

I will never get the chance to find out. October 2007 holds the last day of our friendship. On that day, I read Raf's last email to me again and again through a blur of angry tears: "That text message was completely inappropriate.....can't you see your role in bringing this about?......This has to end now.........I am not doing this in anger......." Then it hits me. Over and over again, like a shower of bullets. The rat-tat-tat of his last line spitfires at me:

I do not want to be friends with you anymore.

In one year I would have been done with my education. An adult. Independent. Across the ocean. The finish line was in sight - at long last I would finally be at a point where I would be able to make the biggest decisions of my life. I would be able to see him for the first time in 7 years. We would reminisce and laugh, I would meet Ingrid and all would be well. Eventually, when I got married, he would be there to support me, too. Maybe even photograph the wedding like I'd always hoped.

I felt betrayed and furious. I forwarded the email to Cian and started trembling with rage. FUCK HIM. FUCK HIM!

I had done everything right - I had supported him when he got engaged and when he needed time to think, coached him to prevent his divorce, told him I was happy for him and compartmentalized all of my feelings for him so that they wouldn't interfere with his happiness. Doing all this for him had been the ultimate sacrifice - the utmost test of whether or not my love for Raf was selfless enough to support him as we both grew into our lives.

Now he was telling me that I was expendable? That our friendship meant nothing to him? I couldn't believe this was happening. My thoughts spiraled out of control and I bolted from my apartment and started running. When I stopped, I didn't know where I was. I felt overwhelmed with confusion and rage. This wasn't supposed to happen. I felt dizzy and sat down on the sidewalk. I put my head between my legs and tried to slow my breathing. "This too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass....." I tried to repeat in my head, but to no avail. I retched. Nothing. I yelped in anguish. No tears. Raf had emptied me of all my emotions and salted the earth left behind with just one email.

My biggest regret of the way things ended will forever be that Raf gets to remember me as the woman who adored him, admired him, and always missed him. My last memory of him, however, will be the grenade he launched on the piece of my soul that harbored him. He will always be able to tell himself that this was "what needed to be done", whereas I will live out my days wondering what error I committed to merit such a unilateral and vicious demotion.

I've tried to hate him, but I cannot.
I've tried to forget him, but I cannot.
I've tried to give up the fight, but I cannot.
I've tried to forgive him, but I cannot.
I've tried to forgive myself, but I cannot.

Part of me is thus indefinitely in repair while the rest of me navigates my perfect life with my perfect job, my perfect degrees, my perfect family, and my perfect boyfriend with ease.

I am somehow defective.

I am drowning.

Help...

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

I dreamt about Raf last night. This is not unusual, as I tend to dream about him quite frequently, but most of the time I don't realize it's a dream until I wake up disappointed. This time I spent most of my REM cycle racing around, telling people I was in a dream until one of them said "Fine - WAKE UP!" and I did.

Maybe the dream was spurred on by the talk I had a few days ago with Jake, another camp figure.

Jake is one of those guys that every girl from age 5 to age 50+ has a secret crush on - and the girls and women at camp were no different. The female directors loved him, counselors were enamored by his flippant trans-Atlantic accent, and little girls went giddy trying to sign up for the activity which he would be leading. I distinctly remember sitting on a bus with other girls heading towards our 2 weeks of summer bliss, gossiping about whether or not he would be there and swapping stories about how cute he was.

Jake has this way of complimenting you that makes you feel like he's been studying you for ages, only to come up with the kind of relevant and generous compliment of which you can only hope to experience a sequel. Many hearts were broken when he got engaged and then married - the only consolation was that his wife was at least as beautiful and as kind as he was. We had emailed back and forth over the years, but as we are both notoriously bad at keeping in touch, it had been at least 7 years since I had had verbal contact with this Thoreau-quoting, French-speaking, motorcycle-riding import. Naturally, I went with impulse (nostalgia) rather than reason and picked the most convenient time I could think of to call him: while I was at the grocery store. (D'oh!)

As I stood balancing my 24 cans of Coke Zero perilously on the Cheese Nips shelf with my knee, cradling my cell phone between my ear and my shoulder, sweating profusely and wondering how stupid I sounded relaying my Raf story to Jake, I realized how I had idolized this conversation in my head. For a long time, I had thought of Jake as the end-all, be-all guru who would understand my history with Raf and comfort me by saying things like "Of course he still loves you" and "There will come a day when he'll regret what he said." But the more I talked to Jake the more I realized that when it comes to this Raf business, I truly am alone. I suppose that's another reason for this blog - communal empathy, right? There's got to be someone out there who has shared a similar experience and knows what I'm talking about.

On a separate note, Sparsely Kate left a really nice comment on my blog, telling me that she liked the flashback portion of it. Thanks for being my first supporter! Please check out her blog if you get the chance - she's lovely.


Ready for another Flashback? I thought so.


It's the Fourth of July. I'm riding a pretty Paint named Lexington through the hillside just beyond camp. Two of the girls with whom I share my cabin are trotting along beside me. I can feel the gelding twitch under the saddle - he knows we're heading for home. It's been a long day, and the merciless sun coupled with little to no shade has made the trail ride almost unbearable for the horses. Lexington is annoyed by the flies that bite his flanks but has been behaving himself so far. (Pretty impressive for an animal that spends his days being kicked and pulled at by inexperienced riders.)

Our riding instructor and trail guide, Seth, is a total hottie. One of my cabin mates and I exchange wry smiles - the other girl we're riding with hooked up with him last week in the outhouse and is gunning for a repeat performance tonight while the fireworks go off and the director's attention is diverted.

I start into a slow canter, hoping to entice someone into a race toward the stables. Seth responds, kicking his large Bay into an instant gallop, catching up to me and passing me. Lexington's competitiveness goes into overdrive, and he juts his head forward begging for the slack to transition to a gallop. I finally let him go and he blasts off after the Bay, thundering along the field and through the trees. I'm still laughing at the little alpha male underneath me as I pass Seth and make the final turn toward the stables.

Later, as I'm washing Lexington and putting him up for the night, the girl of outhouse-romp-fame comes up to me and firmly plants herself in front of the door through which I'm attempting to exit. "You're not planning on hooking up with him, are you?" I chuckle, trying to contain my hilarity, but to no avail. The tickle in my throat turns into giant, snort-filled laughs. Seth is in his 30s, and I couldn't be less interested. The girl storms off. I sigh. Women are so complicated.

My mockery of the May-December romance between my cabin-mate and Seth earns me few brownie points with the rest of our roommates, and I spend the rest of the evening being ignored. That night, I climb onto the hill overlooking the lake to watch the fireworks. As I'm trying to swat away a particularly insistent mosquito, I smell rain. Raf sits down next to me. He's been working out on the lake all day, and I'm glad he can't see me blush in the darkness when I think about how I've been watching him swim in the mornings.

We sit in silence, as usual. The fireworks start and he notices my face. "Are ya worried about somethin'?" I confess that I'm concerned for the horses. The stables are across the lake, and I'm tempted to head out there to calm them down. The loud bangs from the fireworks must be scaring them by now. Raf looks at me and says: "well, it's probably best you're not over with the horses and all that." He puzzles me. Why would it matter to him? " 'Coz I'd rather have ya here with me."

*Gulp*

I carefully lean into him and he takes my hand so that nobody else can see it. As he traces amoebas in my palm with his index finger, I feel at peace.

All of the Inevitable "Whys"

Why blog?

Catharsis, mostly. Writing allows to you to reach out and tickle the dark and twisty parts inside you that you thought you'd neatly packed away and forgotten about. Since they have a nasty habit of jumping out to scare you at the most inopportune times, I figured I'd saddle up and confront them mano a mano.


Why the title?

Two of the things that best demarcate the line between my projected image and my thought space are highlighted in the title. They're also two of my biggest vices - things which I spend way too much time and energy hunting down and examining, only to return a week later swearing up and down that "this time it will be different."


Why Anonymity?

(It's a beautiful thing)

To protect the privacy of those I care for and to write more uninhibitedly. (Should be obvious)


Why now?

Because I didn't do it a decade ago like I should have.


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See you on the flip side...and thanks for your audience.