Expecting the accepted

It's the said, and the unsaid.

It's in the eyes that follow you, and what they scream.

It's in the smoulder.

It's in what you shouldn't have done, but what you did.

It's in what you feel the next day.

It's in the quiet realization, the quiet compliance, the quiet acceptance.

Of yourself.

In the eye of the beholder

If I ever had doubts about my ability to be a good mother to a baby, the piercing skepticism in this child's eyes certainly brings my insecurity to a head.

A guide

I feel I can say this because I have been on the receiving end of a broken heart myself.

And I can honestly say that while yes I did indeed resort to eating ice cream directly from the tub, I did get ridiculously, falling-down, embarrassingly drunk, I did call my girlfriends in the middle of the night, bawling, I did listen to David Gray and cried until my face hurt, I did max out a credit card and I did call in sick to work.

I joined a gym; I joined a new gym. I worked at a gym.

I took a yoga class, I oil painted. I took a feminist literature class, I cut my hair, I grew it out again, and I resorted to all the other token, get-over-him tactics that any girl in the depths of despair would turn to when her world feels as though it has been shattered and her heart feels like it’s been put through a meat grinder and then strained, just for good measure.

But for the love of God.

I didn’t continue to text message him with little notes that read *hugs* every week. (Isn’t it painfully obvious that when someone decides to take leave of your relationship that they likely don’t want you hugging them anymore? And what are we, 13?)

I didn’t send a barrage of e-mails.

Nor did I elect to attach copies of my political science essays to those e-mails in the hopes of impressing him with my witty (wordy?) examinations of social democracy.

I didn’t call at 2:30 in the morning, two weeks after the fact, asking if we could 'talk.'

I didn’t send birthday cards and I sure as hell didn’t send flowers.

So P.S.

You shouldn’t either.

Missing the boat

I think this is kind of neat.

http://montreal.craigslist.org/mis/

Grey's epitome

It seems an irony of the cruelest proportions.

On my 26th birthday, in the locker room of my gym, I happen to look into the mirror above the sink while washing my hands, only to be nearly blinded by the light glaring off of it.

A grey hair.

Sigh.

Required reading

Are men necessary? by Maureen Dowd.

And when you're finished with that, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

This life

It can be hard, sometimes. It can shake your faith, sometimes. The faith that there is some sort of plan. Some sort of big, general idea. Something bigger than you that says, 'this is how it will be.'

She was a woman full of grace, a woman full of of love. A woman full of life.

This life loved you, Angela.

And this life will miss you.

Bigger than this

It’s 7:30 and your alarm is screaming. You open your eyes and think 'you have GOT to be kidding.'

But you force your feet to slide to the floor and into a pair of slippers and pad your way down the hall. You toss a piece of whole wheat bread into your toaster and pour a glass of skim milk. You drag out a yoga mat and yawn your way through a series of crunches.

You eat, shower, try to do something that could be considered acceptable with your freaking wreck of hair. You go into the office. You drink coffee and chat with your co-workers. You drink more coffee.

You check your e-mail, arrange an interview for the story you’re writing, you check your e-mail again. You do some writing, slash some red pen marks through other people’s writing, you go home.

You change into a pair of jogging pants and drag yourself to the gym. You suffer through a 45-minute workout. You go back home.

You set your alarm to time the fifteen minutes you have to soak in a bath. You dry off, get dressed and head off to a board meeting.

You drink more coffee. You give a little presentation about the financial status of the women’s shelter project you’re working on. Two and a half hours later, you get back in your car and drive home.

You open the textbook for the economics class you’re taking and force yourself to study for a half an hour. A measly 30 minutes. 28 minutes pass. You figure this is enough.

You turn on your computer. You open the file and wait for inspiration to come. You decide it will likely come along with the handful of mixed nuts that are calling out to you from the kitchen. Definitely the next handful. You contemplate the right combination of words that will impress the review committee of the grad school program you’re applying to. You work on this for an hour and when your eyes feel like they’re going to bleed or roll out of your head or both, you shut off your computer, wash your face, smear an antioxidant you paid way too much for all over it and climb into bed wishing you never had to get up again.

You lie down, and just as you’re about to close your eyes you notice that the light on your phone is blinking furiously. You know you won’t be able to sleep until you’ve listened to that message. You dial the number and wait.

Her voice comes through the phone and with only the words, ‘Hi Heath,’ you immediately know that everything in her life has changed, for good, forever.

Her baby is born, although there is no more ‘her,’ no more ‘his,’ it’s ‘theirs,’ it’s ‘ours.’ A little girl, a little person, a little life.

Suddenly, your eight hours, your static hair, the flatness or complete and utter lack thereof of your abdominals, the illiteracy story you’re working on, the shelter, the economics class, the applications, they all seem very, very small. You feel very, very small. Like no matter what you do, no matter how hard you work, how little you sleep, how much you study, it will never be big. It will never be bigger than this.

Breaking up is hard to do

It's hard when you know that across town, in a cozy little apartment, there is a man, a really good man, with curly hair and a smile to melt your heart, who is crying himself to sleep over you.

It's even harder to realize that you cannot quite, although you really, really try, muster up the same sort of qualifying sadness that prevents unwelcome thoughts such as 'if I eat this banana at 11 o'clock, will I have nightmares?' and, 'is it cold enough to wear socks to bed?' from creeping into your mind.

Breaking up is hard to do. But I think the knowledge that you're going to be fine, that you're going to be better, is even harder.