Id happens

It’s difficult to come back to blogging after a long absence.   The thought of writing about the past month is so daunting — which is silly, I guess, when everyone is doing their year-in-review.  What’s one little month, right? Still. Too much has happened. More than just a change of dates.

I’ve fallen into a horrible slump. It’s a struggle, but I’m trying to focus on new beginnings and not think too much about how the year ended or the possibility that I wasted three years of my life.  The relationship I had with Ex feels like an interruption. It’s hard to believe I was 18 when we started dating and now I’m 21.  But I realize it’s impossible to move forward without at least summarizing the month of December.  I’ll try to keep it short and sweet — or if not sweet, not too bitter.

So, where was I?

It was officially winter and they were clearing away the autumn leaves in the park.  Some of fiery leaves had gathered over the drain at the bottom of our neglected stairwell.  Rain started falling steadily for over a day and moving like a slow waterfall down the steps. The bedroom flooded. It was nearly midnight. As we sopped up the huge puddle spreading across the marble tiles of the bedroom, I couldn’t help imagining what would happen if we slept through the flood, never noticing. Ex and I had continued to share a room and we had been sleeping in separate beds. An inflatable mattress was now taking up one wall of the room. What if that air mattress had been carried away into an impromptu jungle, like in Where the Wild Things Are? Wouldn’t it have been nice if in the night a jungle grew and I could have sailed away? I had no idea just how nice…

The next day, about two weeks before Christmas and in the middle of the afternoon, our apartment was broken into.  I was at MoMa, excitedly clutching my timed-entry pass to see Van Gogh’s Starry Night.  I had just left my I.D. at the desk and walked away with my audio device when my phone rang. It was my house-mate letting me know that the back door of the apartment had been kicked in and some fiend had walked away with my laptop.  I left without seeing the exhibit (for the third week in a row). The Break In a long story that involves casual superheroes, amateur detectives, undercover cops and no resolution. It was actually comical, though, and at some point I’ll write all about it.  For now, suffice to say, it happened and I’m still miserable over it. I cried for hours until I found my USB key under the bed and I cried again, but for relief, because at least I had my novels and a few short stories.  Unfortunately, relief was fleeting.  At that point, my income was based entirely on freelance work.  The laptop was essential.  It was my life. My rent. My groceries.

Meanwhile, things were deteriorating with Ex. Maybe not so much deteriorating as festering. It was weird. He continued telling people we were dating. I didn’t know what to make of it. We were just living together, not even sleeping together. He did nothing to indicate a desire to reconcile, but he kept our break up private. I still don’t understand why.

I stopped recognizing him as someone I’d been in love with. I hated who I was when I was around him. He made me feel worthless, shriveled, empty, mean.  I’d entrusted my innermost emotions and confidences to him and he betrayed that trust and used all my secrets and weaknesses against me. He was suddenly so ugly and distorted and cruel. His statements were lewd and below the belt. I couldn’t believe it. He hurt me. I, undoubtedly, hurt him too. Things turned vicious. I moved out. I’m a fool for not doing it sooner, I know. It’s just…I guess I was too hopeful or I thought that in leaving I was giving up. Brooklyn blinded me a little bit. I was so in love with the city, I didn’t see the real issue.

My flight left that week and here I am, at the other side of the country, trying to put my life back together. Still stunned. I feel like I never really knew the person I was dating and that bothers me.  My life, it seems, is in a perpetual state of destruction and reconstruction.

A few good things happened in the past month. I volunteered at the Williamsburg Senior Center, registered for an art appreciation class online (before my laptop was stolen), had a temporary job wrapping bottles of wine, went to Rockefeller Center and MoMa, read an entire book at the airport, saw Jesus Christ Superstar (3rd row, center) starring Ted Neeley, and I was asked on a date (a much-needed confidence boost).

The good stuff is nestled in the shadow of the bad stuff, though, and I wonder if it will always be a little tainted just because of where it sits on my timeline.

I don’t know whether to try to figure out what happened — everything, even my feelings about all this are still a mystery to me — or simply work on forgetting.

“There are people who insist we’re made of bone and flesh and muscle, but I say instead that we’re made of memories. Cherish them but don’t live in them . . . or they’ll destroy all the bridges to your future.”