Fidelity

Now that I've seen all 10 seasons (!) of Grey's Anatomy, I don't have an automatic go-to when I want to watch a little something on my computer. Lately I've been venturing back over to Netflix, where they now have some pretty awesome flicks on Watch Instantly. This includes one of my real faves from the last few years, Silver Linings Playbook.

What a beautiful movie, and it was so good for me to watch it again and see the difference in where I am from a couple of years ago (see my post after I watched it back in January of 2013). In the movie, the main character is still in love with his wife even after she cheated on him and wanted out of their marriage. The movie is about his heartbreak but also about how he rebuilds himself and falls in love with someone else (someone who it would not be hard to fall in love with, my fave, Jennifer Lawrence). When I saw it the first time, I cried and cried. Watching it again, I remember the sheer agony I felt the winter before last. I also remember the friend I watched it with asking me if I knew why it struck me so hard. As I recall, the best I could come up with was that to see them -- the new lovers -- in a position to embrace their love and not be in that position with my own lover felt so unfair.

Now I understand on a deeper level what those tears were about. Some part of me probably knew then what I can see clearly now -- my boyfriend and I were not the new lovers who found each other at a time in both of their lives where they were open to starting something together that could go on and on -- we were -- or should I say I was -- more like the main character at the start of the movie, still desperately in love with someone who, by his actions, had shown that he wasn't able to embrace a life with me. I didn't want to admit it for so long, that though we had been those lovers in the position to take on the world together, we actually only inhabited that place for a fraction of the time we spent together. Much of the rest of it was me holding on for dear life, clinging to what I believed could be.

That belief was enough for a long time, until I started to heal, and want more for myself. And even then, it took me a few more months to recognize that I couldn't force someone to give me what I wanted, not even by identifying it and mapping out a brilliant plan to bring us to fruition. That didn't work. It didn't work because I can only control myself. I can't control him. Even if he, on some level, wants to do the work. Even if he does love me, and want to be with me. Those things just aren't enough. He would have had to be able to take action, and continue to take action, to move himself and us back in that direction, and he either couldn't or wouldn't.

Sigh. But at least the picture is getting clearer for me. I don't love him any less, but I do love myself more, and that means expecting more out of life than to mire myself in a cycle of ecstasy and frustration from trying to change the man I happen to be crazy about who can't or won't deliver on my basic needs in a romantic partnership.

Pondering all of this, I heard Regina Spektor's song about letting go of a love, and it seemed to be expressing what I was feeling pretty darn perfectly:

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind all this music

And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart

And suppose I never ever met you
Suppose we never fell in love
Suppose I never ever let you kiss me so sweet and so soft
Suppose I never ever saw you
Suppose we never ever called
Suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall
Just to break my fall
Just to break my fall
Break my fall
Break my fall

All my friends say that of course its gonna get better
Gonna get better
Better better better better
Better better better

Yes, my friends, you are right. It's gonna get better. It's already starting to...

How

I love Regina Spektor! Got a girl crush on her on the order of the one I had on Amy Winehouse -- guess I go for the dark-haired ladies with lovely voices (in principle if not in practice)...

Home late last night from dinner with my gay boyfriend at one of our fave new restaurants: Pig in a Fur Coat, I crawled in bed with myself, missed crawling in bed with my man, and stumbled on this little gem:

How can I forget your love?
How can I never see you again?
There’s a time and place
For one more sweet embrace
And there's a time, ooh
when it all, ooh
Went wrong
I guess you know by now
That we will meet again somehow...

I sure hope so.

Since the three of us used to ride and dine together, the missing person was the subject of a fair amount of conversation. My friend, enamored of my new haircut, half-marathoner's bod and fetching ensemble complete with gifted-brand-spanking-new Fly London shoes, said something very sweet to me: "I'm not saying the train has left the station but I'm saying it's not going to be here long with you looking like this!" Which was wonderful to hear, of course, but Regina's a little more up on where I am with that prospect emotionally:

Oh baby
How can I begin again?
How can I try to love someone new?
Someone who isn’t you
How can our love be true?
When I’m not, ooh
I’m not over you

I guess you know by now
That we will meet again somehow

Time can come and take away the pain
But I just want my memories to remain
To hear your voice
To see your face
There’s not one moment I’d erase
You are a guest here now

Love that last verse, but that last line kills me.

So baby
How can I forget your love?
How can I never see you again?

I'm not even ready for those questions. I may never be ready for those questions. I may not ever need to be ready for those questions.

The questions I'm dealing with are more along the lines of how am I going to crawl in bed without you again tonight? How am I going to wake up without you? How am I going to have another kidless Sunday without you? How am I going to deal with you saying you'll call and then not calling?

How indeed. I'll tell you how: I'm going to crawl in bed with my computer, find amazing songs like this, shed a few tears, and then fall asleep. I'm going to wake up early, meet up with a friend, run 13 miles and then go to a yoga class. I'm going to take a 3 hour nap in the middle of the day, wake up, make myself dinner and sit on the couch and watch a chick flick on Netflix with our bunny. I'm going to feel a little hurt and a little let down and then I'm going to talk to a friend instead.

That's how I'm going to deal with the only questions I have to deal with today, and that's how I'm going to get through this, one day at a time, answering only the questions that present themselves...

You've Got Time

When my internet was down last week, I missed it for two reasons:

1) I missed writing this blog, which is more important to me when I'm dealing with something hard than when everything's going smoothly. I guess all, or at least most, art is like that. It's as if being raw fuels it in a way that being happy just doesn't.

2) I was 12 episodes into Orange is the New Black, the new Netflix original series, and I really wanted to watch the last one. Luckily, my smartphone will do in a pinch for watching Netflix, so I got to see the hot lesbian scenes, only smaller. Phew.

Since I've been watching the show, the theme song has been running through my head on and off:

The animals, the animals
Trapped, trapped, trapped 'till the cage is full
The cage is full
Stay awake
In the dark, count mistakes
The light was off but now it's on
Searching the ground for a bitter song
The sun is out, the day is new
And everyone is waiting, waiting on you
And you've got time
And you've got time

Think of all the roads
Think of all their crossings
Taking steps is easy
Standing still is hard
Remember all their faces
Remember all their voices
Everything is different
The second time around

The lyrics that stay with me, playing on repeat over and over again, are these:

Taking steps is easy, standing still is hard

And they make me think of my recently departed lover. I do think he finds taking steps easier than standing still. I suppose a lot of us do, maybe even all of us, just to different degrees. I'm continuing to get lots of exercise, and I chopped my hair off -- both of which are at least somewhat related to the desire to take steps when standing still feels particularly hard. Have I mentioned it's feeling hard?

Last week I went to a yin yoga class -- a first for me -- which was also all about standing still and working through your shit. Releasing it. Holding poses for at least three minutes, and up to ten minutes. We were in one pose, and I was really hating it even though it is one I practice all the time with much shorter holds, and she said "When you get to the point where you can't stand it anymore -- that's when the pose starts." Hmmm.

I reckon I'll go back to that class this week. It feels like what I need. Maybe to balance out all the running, maybe to release my lover from my hips, my bones, my nether region, even if, or maybe especially because, that's the last thing I want to do:

Taking steps is easy, standing still is hard.

Yep. And when I got home today, I felt so crappy that I had to fight the urge to just crawl into bed at 6pm. Acutally, I didn't fight the urge to crawl into bed, I did, and I read a bunch of my book, and then I fought the urge to stay there. 

Instead, I got up, I fired up a yin yoga class on youtube, and I forced myself to practice. And I had some intense releases.

Alas, I still feel like I'm going through the motions tonight. I made dinner, a really tasty, summer pasta dinner with fresh veggies, and I started watching a new series, this one on youtube, called Susanna. TV is my friend in these dark times. I try as hard as I can to deal with this loss consciously, but at a certain point, I really need an escape...