To Be Alone

Yesterday was just plain hard. I have the sense that I have to keep pushing through this discomfort -- showing up to it -- instead of covering it up again. But it sucks. Before I went to sleep last night I just yelled F*#% as loud as I could, which was pretty damn loud, given that I was alone in the house and it's winter so my windows and my neighbors windows are all closed. In fact I yelled it a few times. It just really seemed to perfectly express what I was feeling.

Once again, I woke up to an early morning, internal alarm in the form of the chorus to Take Me to Church playing in my head. And again I felt confusion about the message. So I employed the same frustration routine I'd done just before going to sleep last night, and that helped a little.

I also tried just being as gentle and loving toward myself as I possibly could. And that helped a little bit too, as did dragging my ass out of bed to go to practice this morning.

When I got home, it occurred to me that maybe the message isn't literal - - that it's time for me to go to church -- maybe it's an invitation to find out more about the artist. So I did some poking around, and I found another Hozier song that seems to express what I'm feeling right now:

Never feel too good in crowds,
With folks around, when they're playing
The anthems of rape culture loud,
Crude and proud creatures baying
All I've ever done is hide
From our times when you're near me
Honey, when you kill the lights, and kiss my eyes
I feel like a person for a moment of my life

But you don't know what hell you put me through
To have someone kiss the skin that crawls from you
To feel your weight in arms I'd never use
It's the God that heroin prays to

It feels good, girl, it feels good
It feels good, girl, it feels good
It feels good, girl, it feels good
Oh to be alone with you

There are questions I can't ask
Now at last the worst is over
See the way you hold yourself
Reel against your body's borders
I know that you hate this place
Not a trace of me would argue
Honey, we should run away, oh someday
Our baby and her momma
And the damaged love she makes

But I don't know what else that I would do
Than try to kiss the skin that crawls from you
Than feel your weight in arms I'd never use
It's the God that heroin prays to

It feels good, girl, it feels good
It feels good, girl, it feels good
It feels good, girl, it feels good
Oh to be alone with you

And for now, for better and for worse, I get to be alone with me, and try to do what may be the very hardest thing to do: kiss the skin that crawls from me. It's soooo much easier, for me at least, to attend to those outside of me...

Live and Let Die

Ah, New Year's Eve. An evening that used to necessitate copious amounts of alcohol and almost always end in some form of disappointment. Not this year. This year, I'm all about being with what is.

I started the morning with my kids, and then took them to their Dad's and went off to the gym to go for a run and do some yoga. After that, I went to a coffee shop to do some consulting work and contemplated my options for the evening. Which, in terms of social offerings, were admittedly pretty limited. I'd been invited to a 5:30pm run downtown that ended with beers at a brew pub. But the temperature didn't even reach 10 degrees today, and while I know and like one of the people who was going to be there, it just didn't seem like the thing for me this evening.

I've been wanting to see a couple of movies, and have put the call out to a few friends, not just for tonight but in general -- hey, wanna see a movie -- and I've gotten no takers. I'm not sure how I got here, to this point where I'm feeling pretty socially isolated, but here I am. I know two of my main people moved away in 2013, but it's feeling obvious to me now that I let my circle get too small.

So I took myself to a movie. On New Year's Eve. It took a lot of strength to face seeing people there -- couples, families -- and I knew I would. Madison is a small town and I know a lot of people, even if I don't know a lot of them well. I did my best to channel my dead Nana, who liked to see movies by herself.

Whatever discomfort I was feeling went away when American Hustle started playing. What a phenomenal movie. There was so much to love about it, but most of all, I loved Jennifer Lawrence, and the scene where she sings and dances to this song with her kid watching is absolutely priceless:

When you were young
And your heart was an open book

You used to say, "Live and let live"
(You know you did, you know you did, you know you did)
But if this ever-changing world in which we're livin'
Makes you give in and cry

Say live and let die
Live and let die
Live and let die
Live and let die

What does it matter to ya, when you've got a job to do, you gotta do it well
You gotta give the other fellow Hell

You used to say, "Live and let livin'"
(You know you did, you know you did, you know you did)
But if this ever-changing world in which we're livin'
Makes you give in and cry

Yes, sometimes this ever-changing world in which we live in makes me give in and cry. Quite often, actually. And I think that's ok. What I think needs adjusting in my life is the size of my bubble. It's true that I've been through a lot, and I tend to keep people at bay, except for a select few. And look where it's gotten me -- alone at a movie on NYE.

Thank god for Jennifer Lawrence. She made those two hours some of the most delicious I've ever spent, with or without a companion:

Say, live and let die
Live and let die
Live and let die
Live and let die