The Big Show in Songs

I had a bunch of wild and crazy dreams last week, or maybe the week before, or maybe this entire month but haven’t been writing them down or retelling them or keeping track at all. They’re there though. One included having people show me how to get on a box car train. Something about train dreams are always telling for me.

This month has been phenomenal. The beginning of the month going to Hannah and Luis’s eclipse viewing wedding in Erie, PA to kick things off. The total eclipse was special, more surprising than I was expecting. Very cool, worth the trip, the wedding was lovely, reception at the Erie Art Museum. My ex, Josh, from when I was 17 years old took care of me the entire night, two singles at a wedding. I have a lot of love for him and we always have a lot of fun together. He was called up to make a speech that no one had forewarned him about. I can’t stop thinking about that. What a crazy mess up on everyone’s part. I thought he did great considering even though he felt like crap after, he said it was the worst feeling ever and I can’t imagine. I roomed with an old friend from high school who is an ER doctor now and we chatted a LOT and it was nice. The day after I hung overly drove to Cleveland and visited Taylor. I saw the glow of the greenhouses from Canada. I sat on a beach and unwillingly drank beer until nighttime and rains began to blow in. We went back to Taylor and her husband Al’s place that reeked of cigarette smoke and was covered wall to wall with art, signs, books. It was an artists apartment like how things used to be. Had an amazing feel to it. Ate pizza, unwillingly played the seal game, and ended up rooming with a guy I had just met. I was pissed about that for a second because it seemed dangerous in my PTSD mind but once I got over that I was pissed again because I found out he was a honking snorer. I ended up getting enough sleep for the night though, and shamed him in the morning, and to be honest ended up really liking the guy a lot. Hanging in Cleveland felt like travelling to a foreign country. Everything’s the same but a little different. We ended the second night with an Errol Morris documentary and a couple episodes of the original Iron Chef. It was good to see Taylor and also the clay studio right next to her apartment that she’s getting off the ground now. It was also kind of a big deal for me to have done a trip that wasn’t Maine or Pat’s North Carolina family… which have been the only trips I’ve made in the past 6 years. Game changer. Like my trip to Maine last summer though I think it was crucial that I had also made the trip alone. I came home kind of with a renewed zest for life and love.

I guess on that tip is the fact that before that trip I was still pretty heartbroken about Pat. I guess I’m probably still getting over some stuff, but at the end of the day I’m happy we’re separated and I’m also happy for the all the love and fun we had while we were in it. I’m pretty proud of it actually, to have had so much adoration in a relationship even if a lot of aspects of it were unstable and unsustainable. We seem to have hit a healthy stride in our communication and closeness now, and I feel kind of confident about our future friendship.

As far as future dating goes I’d rather hang myself. That’s not true, and on some level I really hope for a big, true, love that could blossom into a lifelong partnership. I think that’s where I’m at and I’m mortally embarrassed for that. It’s cheesy and it’s basic, and I feel dumb for currently being uncompromising about it as if I’m someone who believes in a superstition about virginity or something. But for real!! Not sure I could get turned on for someone who isn’t someone who could be someone. So I have a lot of people around me asking if I’ve rebounded yet and being really weird and sad when I tell them I haven’t. Sex and dating isn’t what it used to be for me, and I think a lot of the people wanting me to be that girl again are just projecting their own dating desires that had their development arrested in their 20s when they found their life partner (it’s always someone married who seems so disappointed I’m not sleeping around). Even when I was with Pat my main desire for freedom wasn’t about sleeping around. I guess a lot of people are just in sexless partnerships. I really erally relaly really rlealyl really realyl don’t want that, no offense to people in sexless partnerships. I was about to enter a sexless marriage with John Henry, I get it, there are other things that make it worthwhile. I wonder if I’ll ever get it all, the sex and the partnership. I get mad sometimes thinking about the emotional instability and alcoholism and coke habit of Pat that if he could’ve just fixed those things we really could’ve had it all. The thing too, is, I’m not sure I can get great sex from a person I’m on fire for and then still have all the partnership stuff alongside it. Do people even come complete like that anymore? Sorry to get Carrie Bradshaw. Like I said, I’m completely embarrassed by all things newly single love life that for the most part all I can think about is dying whenever I think about dating.

I may have actually gone on my first date as a single person, with an old fling, Matt, who has been texting a LOT since my breakup. I’m trying to wean off texting with him because this date wasn’t it, and honestly I’ve known even during the texting it wasn’t going to be it either. Old Hat, and an Old Hat that didn’t even really fit. It’s ok, because, really I do want to spend this year single. It was nice to break the date seal with someone I already know though. How embarrassing , I literally got dressed up and put on makeup. I wanted to die. No makeup and no nice clothes next date I’ll tell you what. I really don’t understand dating culture at all in this era this age this time of both the world and my early 30s and my ignorance has me feeling naked. Maybe I’ll learn a little, but I’m not sure I want to get good at dating the way I’ve seen a lot of people get good at dating. It feels so sad, the whole thing seems like a mess. I think maybe a lot of what’s eating me up too is that I really don’t think I’ve hit a stride in myself recently. I feel like a look awkward, am I doomed to look awkward? Do I need to learn how to dress myself again? What the actual hell?

I need to move on because there’s an intense amount more to cover from this month. I quit my freaking beauty job! It’s sad in a lot of ways because the money could’ve been so good and the knowledge I would’ve gained would’ve been clutch and this, that, the other thing. It could’ve been great! But the boss kept asking for more free labor in this way, and that way, until I realized she was asking that I do the content creation at a level that would be an entire whole ass other job for free. That was one thing but she was always being so … weird and rude in the ways she’d ask. She also told me to stop reading and doing my PT exercises during my downtime which she absolutely does not pay me for downtime that I spend at the shop… hours and hours of no pay, and it’s not like I would do those things in front of clients at all. Also she would do things like send me 10 minute long voice memos of critiques at 10PM on a weekend night on a day off of mine. I don’t even mind the critiques, and honestly if she wasn’t so WEIRD RUDE AND UNPROFESSIONAL I would’ve gladly done corrections, but the asks got a little out of hand and the idea of even talking to her or running into her started to fill me with dread and anxiety. I’m trying to revisit some life philosophies of mine now and I do prioritize honesty and health and she was helping out with NEITHER so, unfortunately for my own sanity and health and morale I had to leave.

I’m leaning on the internet job now for the most part, especially once I finish up my two weeks at the beauty shop. I also just interviewed for a position at an orchard in Maine. If I don’t get that I might hit back up the Wax Center in Maine that I talked to in March. I might move to Maine it’s looking like. I’m really nervous and undecided about it. I guess mostly I’m just nervous, because the indecision is heavily leaning towards the fact that I am likely hauling ass out of this town. I still haven’t talked to my parents about it, or planned exactly the logisitics. Is it forever? Is it for the summer? should I leave the majority of my stuff here? How often will I visit? ETC.

In summation, April has been a pretty hectic month. It’s funny because maybe it was astrology, or the feeling of my life around me, or the trips, but I had fully prepared myself for a hectic month. I think I might do the same for May…