The short version:

Jak and I have split up.

I'm moving out as soon as I can find an apartment. In the meantime, I'm staying with some absolutely wonderful friends. there are a few reasons for this, which I may or may not elaborate on in the future.

For the present: it's 5am, and their kids will be up in about two hours (less?). I have tomorrow off, but I have to drive one of my hosts to work in the morning, look at an apartment, drive him back home, and then take his wife out for a girls' night. And today consisted of breakfast/playing (8am), zoo (9:30am), playground (11:30am), lunch, nap, and then working 5-close (so got back to the house around 4:15am). I'm exhausted and stressed about moving--really, finding an apartment, then dealing with the packing/transport/etc etc etc--and thank God I've got some people in my life, from my mom to co-workers to friends both in and out of town, who actually give a shit and are doing far more than is strictly required to ease this transition. IE: I will be calling my mom tomorrow to ask her if she'll still come downstate on her birthday--not to go to the baseball game we'd planned, but to help me organize and pack. She will, without question. And that's the same give that's been startlingly evident over the last week. Whether it's a text making sure I'm okay (I am; this is a really good thing), an offer of a couch to sleep on, help moving, or just company at the bar, after work, before work, or a second set of eyes to look at a new place: that's what a friend is. I'm going to owe a huge karmic debt after this month, but the thing is that I've always taken it on the chin, every time in everything. I'm the one who thinks my emotional health is secondary to the well-being of everyone else in my life, so if someone has to get hurt it's always going to be me. That's the way it goes, and that's more or less the way I've lived. I'd rather go through pain and trauma myself than see anyone I care about go through it. I know my own resilience and not what anyone else can do, so yeah, I'll get through anything.

Over the years, there have been a surprising number of times that I've been the "bad girl" in a dynamic (friends, lovers, etc) but that's because it's what seemed best. I'll take the abuse and the hurt. But at the end of the day, it's weeks like this that made all that pain completely worthwhile. It's the best payoff (but that isn't even the right term!)


however, this was supposed to be the short version and I've been writing for fifteen minutes and the boys will be awake in an hour, so sleep--especially given that I have to meet a potential landlord at 9:45am--seems crucial, so I'll save my exhausted rambling for another night or naptime or whenever the boys decide that I'm not the Coolest Ever. (I don't mind this: hugs from small boys who have tiny tiny English accents are an amazing way to start, middle, and end a day.)

Sleep. yes.

Simon and Garfunkel at 5AM

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Don't talk of love,
But I've heard the words before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.



Obviously, I'm not a rock nor am I an island. I love my life. The joy and the pain... they balance. Experiencing one gives me context for experiencing the other and that is life!

I'm trying not to completely withdraw from my life right now. I'm trying not to shut everything out. But the song is speaking to me on a very basic level right now: the place that I spent most of my teens and half of my twenties in is exactly what's described. It's comforting to think that I could go back there and hide and never let anyone come close. It worked before. I came out of it, and it kept me from pain for ten years or more.

But then I remember the joy and the horror and the life that I've had over the last few years. I realize that I've made friends and had relationships and developed more as a person than I had in that decade of isolation. It took a wake-up call from my best friend to snap me out of it. It worked. And I'm back, baby. Expect more from me.

(Sidenote: I went to my mom's house for an impromptu overnight last night. It was great, except for the part where we went outside at 11:30pm, each a bottle of wine in, and managed to lock ourselves out of the house. Mom lives in a second-home neighborhood, so guess what? No one was home for about a mile in any direction. Our shoes, keys, phones, everything were locked inside. She has a key-safe on the front door and couldn't remember the combination. I couldn't get into my car. And none of her windows are less than ten feet off the ground. So we spent a solid hour beating the front door window with a large rock until both panes of safety glass gave way. My arm is sore as hell and I'm pretty sure there are still tiny pieces of glass under my skin. My shin is scraped and bruised from climbing through the window after it gave way. Adventures? Apparently.)