Two days after J sat me down and told me it was over, I put out a social media post about it and, flat out, lied about the situation. I lied and said that we were having problems and he didn’t feel like we could work them out.

Honestly, I think lying is the wrong word because that was partially true. We were having some issues but I didn’t know how bad they were because we didn’t talk about them. But I was angry despite my saying otherwise. I was angry because, instead of talking about our issues, he went and had an affair with his 22 year old co-worker whom he had been seeing for the past 5 months prior to that day… at least that’s what I could calculate based on the signs that, when I look back on them now, were so apparent and glaring. I described the situation of him cheating like a heart attack; all the signs were there but I didn’t want to attribute them to the catastrophic disease and would make excuses for them. In the social media post, though, I made no mention of it. I seemingly took on half of the blame for really no reason other than I didn’t want to look bad. I didn’t want to look like the bitter and scorned woman.

I was the one who was the bigger person in everything and this was just another way to be the bigger person.

I didn’t realize, though, what a disservice I was doing to myself. By withholding the actual truth, I wasn’t allowing people to look at the whole picture.

Something that some might find surprising is that I take some responsibility for the affair that he had. When I look back on it all, I can see why he would go in that direction. It doesn’t make it right by any means, but I see why. In my mid twenties, I was diagnosed with endometriosis; a condition that can be very painful in a lot of ways. My gynecologist, at the time, put me on a treatment that was, in his words, experimental. Very simply, I was put on continuous, high hormone, birth control. The side effects varied - I gained and held on to weight much faster so I had to be very conscious of my lifestyle (another reason I became a Weight Watchers cult member), I cried at figure skating, and then there was the one big one - I had zero libido. My sex drive was in the tank and this went on for years,

Worse yet, I didn’t know how to talk about it.

I was embarrassed, honestly. He knew about my condition and the treatment, but I was too embarrassed to talk with him about my desires, or lack thereof. This was someone that I had known since I was a teenager; someone I should be comfortable talking to just about everything with but I was so ashamed that I just went on with my day to day. I still craved being touched and held and kissed, but I was too timid to initiate those things. I look back at journal entries where I begged the universe for my desire to come back but it just didn’t. When he sat in our living room that night and told me that we were more like roommates I couldn’t disagree with him. We were. So for that part, I do take some responsibility. I could have tried to express myself more and tried to talk to him about how I was feeling. What I have come to realize, though, is that I didn’t deserve to be cast aside because of it. I meant what I said in that Facebook post that I thought we could work it out, but his sexual needs were more important to him than that. He wasn’t being fulfilled sexually, so he sought it out in another person. I make that distinction because he was fulfilled in other ways and sometimes I feel like he took advantage of my and my family’s kindness. But clearly our priorities were not the same.

I let news about the cheating come out to folks slowly and in person. I never really spoke about it on social media. I didn’t want to be -that- person. As time went on, though, I got increasingly frustrated as friends and family still kept in touch with him calling him “brother” and celebrating his moves despite the truth coming out. It was so hurtful to me that they could still remain close to someone who betrayed my trust the way that he did. But then I would be brought back to reality and remember that I wasn’t completely honest with folks at first so how could they know how it really affected me. It wasn’t until a year later that it really blew up at me.

There was a “fundraising” trend on Facebook years ago where you would choose something outrageous to post from a pre-determined list and whomever responded to the post in the comments would get a private message about some charity of the day. One of these options was “I just found out my husband cheated on me” and one of my cousins thought it would be funny to post this as a status update. The response from our family was immediate - “how dare he,” “I’m so sorry,” “I have a shovel and lye ready.” Everyone jumped at the opportunity to comfort her.

I was stunned.

It didn’t take long for it to come out that it wasn’t true and was meant as a joke that they regretted, but the damage was already done. I was furious but more importantly, heartbroken all over again. Where was this reaction when they found out that I had been cheated on? Where was this solidarity? It was at that point that I realized that no matter what I did, it wouldn’t make a difference. People already made their decision and were sticking by it. It was also especially evident a year later when I would be preparing to sell my family home. As I was clearing out and sorting four generations of possessions, I was begging and pleading for help and none of them stepped up. Not even a note of solidarity or any well wishes. The thing they don’t tell you about getting cheated on is the lingering feeling that you’re not good enough and this just exasperated all that. The feeling of being not good enough extended to people I thought were friends and were supposed to be family.

When I look back on that period of my life I realize that, in a way, my decision to remain quiet about the affair in the beginning was sort of a blessing. It forced me to open my eyes to the people who were there for me and made room for new people to come into my life. It forced me to confront hard things head on and contributed to who I am today. I realized that every event, each domino that would fall, bad or good, has lead me to the place where I am today and I have never been more grateful for it. I have to admit, though, that while I am at peace with what happened, there are a lot of aspects from the fallout that has still haunted me. I am hoping that by finally writing about this I can close that chapter in a way. That said, my door is never fully closed and I still remain that if people want to talk I’ll listen, as I have always done. However, what I will no longer do is continue to defend myself over things that I shouldn’t have to defend myself over or other people’s behavior. I am simply done being the bigger person to make small people feel better and will continue to love the people who love me and just be the best person I can.

I had a full blown panic attack yesterday afternoon.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had one but when it came I wasn’t surprised. Just 5 minutes earlier I was getting bombarded with text messages asking if I was ok. I was in the process of getting ready to go out for the evening when the steady stream of pings came through on my phone. Confused, I responded I was ok and inquired why there might be a reason as to why I shouldn’t be. That is when one of my friends said there was a fire and they wanted to make sure my house, and I by extension, was ok. I went out my front door and saw nothing. I turned around and walked through my house to step out my back door and that is when I saw the flames and felt the heat of a fire raging across the back alley from me. As I ran out repeating “no no no no no no no not again” that’s when the wheezing started and my chest tightened. My essential tremor went into high gear and sent my entire body into convulsions making it that much harder to send a text message to make sure other neighbors were aware and were ok because I knew I wasn’t alone in my reaction. As I was trying to navigate this, another neighbor, whom I don’t know (not uncommon; sad but not uncommon) caught my eye and I immediately tried to explain why I was freaking out because I understood how ridiculous this might appear. “I was here three years ago” was what I remember blurting out and at that moment, I could see the impatience in his face as he told me to “just take a deep breath” and walked away.

I don’t blame him, honestly.

Here is a fire happening, that has not reached my house and has no effect on me other than proximity, and here is this woman having a full blown panic attack steering attention away from what really mattered. If I were him, I might be a little impatient too. But it was happening and, thankfully, as my fellow neighbors who went through the same experience three years ago approached, we hugged each other tight and cried together. All having the same feeling of “not again.”

PTSD is a motherfucker. Not going to sugarcoat it. You try your best to “deal” with it and, just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, it reminds you of its presence. The attack surprised me more than anyone. It had been since the lock downs since I had one like that and I consider myself “stronger,” “more resilient” than that because that’s what I am supposed to be, right? I’m the one who is supposed to be there for everyone else. I’m the one who “figures it out” time and time again. I don’t have time for panic attacks and have a good handle on everything.

Clearly, though, that is not the case sometimes.

Once my nervous system started to regulate and my breathing eventually settled, I did fall naturally into that role - advising everyone around me to practice their own version of self care once the fire was under control and things were wrapping up telling one neighbor to go sit with a glass of wine and another one to devour a chicken box. I then went back into my house, calmed myself down, and pushed myself out the door to go to the show I was getting ready for previously. I was exhausted, but I made it and I was glad I did. It gave me a much needed reset to my nervous system (live music really does soothe the soul).

It got me thinking though… This was the third thing to happen in a string of bullshittery over this past week. One other instance kept coming to mind as I replayed my neighbor’s reaction to my panic attack. It was an incident at my day job that bothered me and my coworkers that occurred just a few days earlier. As a meeting was wrapping up, a male colleague who is at the same management level as me thought it was the right time to inform me that members of his staff are “afraid of me;” that I am “unapproachable and intimidating” and suggested I examine my attitude and work to change it.

…..

There’s a certain visceral reaction that women have to hearing that they are “intimidating” because we hear it so much if we hold any sort of decision making role. Our bluntness and directness get labeled as intimidation. Our show of strength is seen as overbearing. Yet when we show perceived weakness, we are painted as “attention-seekers,” “over dramatic,” and “weak.” It’s exhausting trying to just exist sometimes because we are truly damned if we do and damned if we don’t. I didn’t expect anyone to help me yesterday because I wasn’t the one in serious harm and, quite honestly, I am so accustomed to living this life on my own that I figure out how to get myself back to center each time. But the cumulative events of this week make me realize more than ever that sometimes we truly can’t win with some people. That no matter what we do or how we act their reaction to us will still remain not worthy and what we need to remember is that is their problem. Sure, sometimes I can be dramatic on both sides of the spectrum and I own that in a lot of ways, but we have a society that puts too much onus on everyone else to fix the way the present themselves to the world rather than be focused on how we react to all that because at the end of the day that is what we can control. We control how we feel and react to the world around us, so why not root that in kindness and empathy rather than judgement and slight?

As my neighbors and I hugged each other in the alley as the fire was burning, we were reminded that there is still community and people out there who do lead with kindness. After everything settled, we started to focus on helping out where we could and just merely taking space for those that need it as they try to put their lives back together. Because that is what is going to keep us moving forward. Not judgement but kindness. If you want to see change, start there. You never know who is going to need it.

I was raised on Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood (with a vacation home in the Land of Make Believe). Growing up, Saturdays were spent at the local public library discovering new worlds and learning new skills. Sundays my home was filled with Motown, Soul, and the crooners that the public am radio station would serenade us with. In my teenage years, local public television would be where I first learned about television production and where I would get information about what was going on in my town. Later in life, public radio would be my lifeline during one of the hardest storms of my life (literally), Hurricane Sandy.

Public services and the communities that they served not only provided the foundation of who I would become, but they continue to guide me in the person I continue to want to be today. Public services provide the thread that brings people together and now, more than ever, we need these services to continue to help communities rise and be successful.That’s why this year’s birthday ask is so important.

First and foremost, if you do not already have one, sign up for a library card at your local library. By doing so, you are showing your support for an institution that is so much more than just books and media - It’s a place that provides career building resources for people looking for work, it provides cooling centers for individuals who are unhoused or in housing that does not have proper air conditioning, and it is a safe place for teens to gather after school and continue their learning on whatever area they choose. These are just a few of the many wonderful things that your local library provides and by simply signing up for a library card, you are adding to their numbers to help secure much needed funding to operate.

Second, if you are able, become sustaining members of your local NPR and PBS stations. Last year, the current administration decided to cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting thus cutting off a vital pool of money for these stations to survive. These are resources that ensure that their communities not only stay informed but also safe as they are often a first line of defense in getting vital information out to individuals during catastrophic storms. By becoming a sustaining member, you are helping these vital resources serve their communities.

Third, and probably most important, start being kinder to each other. We’re all trying our hardest. You don’t have to like every one (and not everyone likes you) but you also don’t need to be unnecessarily nasty to them either. Right now, it’s so easy to be cruel that kindness has become a revolution; One that I am proud to be a soldier in.

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31 years later I think I have kept that promise to my teenage self.

I don’t know how many shows and concerts I have been to in my lifetime, but my list of artists that I have never seen is quite small. BB King, Buddy Guy, David Bowie, Prince, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, U2, The Eagles, ACDC - those are just a very small handful of, what most consider, big name acts whose shows I have experienced in my short time on this earth and what amazing performers they all were and still are. Their large scale concerts were spectacles that engage all your senses.

As much as it is a privilege, though, to be able to see these performers on the larger stage, the best show experiences I have had in my 30+ years of going to shows and concerts are in the small venues; Those little hole in the wall clubs where bands and artists get started. In a world where most people hear new music by praying that their streaming platform algorithm gets it right, small music venues still allow people to discover new music at a pure and unfiltered level. It’s through these experiences that much of my current music tastes have developed - by watching artists share their art with a small room of people who actually appreciate what they are doing and are connected to them in such a way that they feel part of the experience. It’s the type of space where you will very rarely see people’s phones out because they are part of the show in a way, The energy that the crowd gives off directly affects the band on stage. The artist can feel it and use that energy to make that show even better. Unfortunately, conversely, it’s rare to get that same energy in a large stadium setting. Most people who attend stadium shows are folks who rarely go see live music so they are trying to retain as much of it as they can, not with their own eyes, but with the devices in their hands. They are more worried about video recording the song rather than feeling the music and ingesting the energy that it creates,

I’ve been able to witness this first hand with Stephen Wilson, Jr. (SWJ). I discovered SWJ on instagram of all places, The algorithm gods bestowed an acoustic performance of his song “Cuckoo” on me and I was hooked ever since. He’s one of those once in a lifetime artists who surprise you in the best way possible. His talent is so raw and his songwriting is stuff of legends. I saw him for the first time at Sixth & I, a synagogue in Washington DC. The acoustics were so perfect that I was left breathless through most of his performance. There were only a couple hundred of us in the room and all of us (including the drunk guy in the balcony who wouldn’t shut up) knew we were witnessing something special. Phones only came out for a brief moment here and there to capture the random moment but, for the most part, everyone was engaged and the energy in the room was one of community and gratitude. A little less than a year later, I would see him at Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ (an old stomping ground of mine). Starland is what I would call “mid-size.” Not a small venue but not a large theater, It was a former dance club (shout out to Hunka Bunka Ballroom!) with a capacity of around 2000. The crowd was different as he was gaining more popularity from his performance on the CMAs but I would say they were still engaged and had a great energy that filled the room and added to the experience. Six (or so) months later I would see him again at The Fillmore in Silver Spring, MD. While the capacity was roughly the same as the Starland, the vibe was very different. It was the kind of vibe that I feel at larger shows where the crowd is more disconnected - it felt like a lot of people around us had not been to a show in a long time and didn’t realize there are unspoken rules when it comes to shows (the biggest one being “don’t be a dick” which a lot of people seem to forget with every $18 beer they chugged). They were more concerned about their phone than they were what was happening on stage and there was a very different energy in the room. At one point, I turned to my concert cohort and noted that this was probably the last time we would see him - at least like this. The crowd didn’t ruin the experience, but they didn’t enhance it either. While I am thrilled that SWJ has found this amazing success, that community that Sixth & I provided is just kind of lost the larger the venues get. It was so special and amazing and one that I a still grateful to have experienced.

I hate to lump all larger shows into this category but, unfortunately, my experience as of late is that the crowd at larger shows is generally more entitled and unfeeling. This could be because larger shows are much more expensive than small venue shows thanks to Ticketmaster/Live Nation and their stronghold on the industry (that’s a whole other piece entirely) but I think it’s just also because folks don’t see small music shows as worthy unfortunately. They would rather use their $15 cover charge for one beer at that larger venue (if you’re lucky). The only reason they go see live music is because the artist is already popular and their sense of discovery is dwarfed because they are being fed what to like rather than doing the due diligence themselves which is sad. There are so many people out there who don’t know what they are missing. That’s ok in a way, though. It leaves more room for my friends and I to discover the next big thing on our own, dance like no one is watching, and be able to say “we saw them when…” which is flex that is more magical than any big stadium show.

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…but only by its tail.

So here is this mouse, dragging around this wooden trap trying to figure out what to do and it ultimately manages to get itself caught under the oven. Paralyzed by an emotion that wasn’t quite fear, but what we’ll call the “ew ew ew ew,” I waited until I could get help from my neighbors to deal with this as it was looking like it was not going to be a one-person job and by the time I could coordinate with them, the mouse had managed to find its way underneath my refrigerator. The three of us furiously worked together trying to get this mouse, which we realized half way through was still alive, from underneath the fridge using an arsenal of chop sticks and a wire hanger (cue Joan Crawford). After roughly 10 minutes of us poking and prodding, we were finally able to get it out from underneath the fridge… except only the trap came out. The mouse was gone. It had figured out a way in that time to loosen itself from the trap and scurry off without us seeing.

As disappointed as my neighbors were that we didn’t get the mouse, admittedly, I wasn’t mad about it getting away in the house. There’s a big part of me that knows that one of two things will happen: 1 – It will make its way into one of the adjacent row houses or outside or 2 – It’ll find another one of the traps that are set up and not be as lucky.

What I found interesting was that, after this happened, I was taken back to a completely unrelated conversation I had with my friend Nick* a few weeks ago. I’ve known Nick for, literal, decades. We’ve been friends for such a long time that when he was lamenting about dating and telling the group about his preferences now, I wasn’t the least bit surprised. He openly admitted that women our age were too independent; that we really didn’t need someone so that’s why he’s seeking out (much) younger women. He sees them as needing a partner more than someone who has already lived their life. That he can properly care for someone who is younger because he would feel needed (that part I am paraphrasing and using some assumption from the conversation).

The thing that Nick and other men who hold this same opinion miss is that there is no growth in this mindset. By equating chivalry with romance and narrowing the scope of chivalry down to something like a “white knight syndrome” you are taking away a beautiful gesture and fetishizing it. Instead of seeing someone as a person to grow with that is on your level, these folks instead go for comfort of taking care of someone which is just a pattern on repeat. There’s no growth or learning with it; it’s just repeating the same pattern over and over again with different faces forcing themselves to remain stagnant. Instead of becoming the best version that they can be, they insist on remaining mediocre.

I’m not poo-pooing chivalry as a whole. I think it’s beautiful and I am a firm believer in it and it’s something I look for in a partner. Chivalry can happen in many different ways but at it’s core it comes from one principle – support. Showing support for someone in big and small ways which is something we all need. Whether that comes from a partner, a friend, a neighbor, or another loved one it needs to exist. Communities are built and grown on support for each other so when I am told that there are still men out there dismissing older women because they are too independent and, seemingly, don’t need support all I hear is that those men are copping out. They’re not looking for someone to support. I could make assumptions and allude to what these men are ultimately looking for, but I know what they’re not and it’s not to actually support someone. Because if it was, age and level of perceived independence wouldn’t matter. What would matter is just wanting to love someone and support them in whatever they need, big or small.

In this situation with the mouse, I was really thankful to know that I had support within my little community here. That I am surrounded by people who are willing to help not only with the problem solving, but also the “ew ew ew ew” stuff too. I’ll concede that its moments like this where I wish that I did have a partner to help with the little things, because it’s within those moments that we build connection and closeness. For now, though, I am grateful to have neighbors that are incredibly caring and wonderful that I can call on until I find that person who wants to walk with me on this journey by my side rather than trying leading the way.

*Name changed because it’s the right thing to do.

Steven is one of my dearest friends that I have been fortunate to know for a very long time. We’ve known each other since college so this year will mark over twenty-five years that we’ve been friends. Having these types of long-lasting friendships are extremely valuable to me because these are the friends who really KNOW me. They “know where the bodies are buried” and, I’ll admit, there’s not that many people who are in that small circle.

When I first moved to Baltimore, I was very dependent on Steven. He was the only person I knew in the city and provided a gateway into the neighborhood I would call home. To his credit, he stood up to the lofty challenge I thrusted upon him. He “showed me the ropes” of the neighborhood and introduced me to so many people who I still call friends today. In those initial meetings, though, because we were always together, people assumed that we were a romantic couple and would associate us as that for a long time to come no matter how many times we told them otherwise. It was so prevalent that it became a running joke the first few years that everyone just assumed we were married. What I didn’t realize until later was that it would ultimately hinder my ability to move forward as an individual within the neighborhood. As I moved through spaces, Steven would always be in the background, peering into my personal life if not physically than psychologically. That connection I had with him, while it was a great friendship at its foundation, did make it difficult to find a romantic partner at times. While I was very dependent on him those first months of my living here, I grew independent from him fairly quickly. Still, he would keep attaching himself to me as time went by. As I was finding my footing and moving forward, he in contrast grew more dependent on me. He would jokingly call me his “secretary” making comment that he wouldn’t know what was going on in the city if it wasn’t for me constantly telling him about things. I also would assist him with some medical appointments (with him returning the favor now and then) and serve as an emergency contact for him. Over time though, while his attachment to me strengthened, I was finding other resources to assist with a lot of these matters making a conscious effort to find other friends I could rely on. This wasn’t because he wasn’t a reliable friend, but because I could not move through the city without being attached to him in some way. It was getting to the point where folks would inquire about him if he wasn’t there, asking about his whereabouts, often overlooking asking me questions about myself to find out how he was under the assumption that we were together. My response ultimately became, “It’s not my turn to watch him. Maybe you should call him yourself.”

When my friend approached me about including him on the wedding invitation, something finally snapped in me. I had realized that, for a long time, I was giving him partner benefits when he only signed up for the friend package. That while I was moving forward with my life, he was remaining stagnant and too reliant on me. As I reflected on this more, I came to realize that this was a pattern that I had with a lot of men that I have friendships with. Some of the men that I consider a friend in this city started off as dating prospects; individuals whom I was interested in romantically but they expressed they were not interested in me and a friendship grew from that. As I thought about it more, many of these friendships were actually a bit one sided as they often called on me to hold the psychological load and space that a partner would hold until they found someone that could fill that role.

Coming of age in the 80s and 90s, the trope of the friend turning into the girlfriend was strong. It was prevalent in tv, music, and movies as a way of achieving finding a partner. John Hughes loved this trope as evidenced in Some Kind of Wonderful (one of my favorites of all time), but it was also evident in music if you listened to, for example, Vanessa Williams’ Save the Best for Last or Skunk Anansie’s Secretly.

All of these things, mind you, I absolutely loved and totally fed into. That romantic sense of, if I can display that I am this great person in this great friend, it could parlay into this great romantic relationship.

And it did work.
Once.

My “ex-husband” J and I were a friends to lovers trope that spanned over 2 ½ decades until it ended with him seeking connection from someone else when he was done with needing everything I had to offer. But it’s also something I hear often within my own circle of friends – how the folks that are coupled up started as friends and it grew into a beautiful relationship. So how could a single woman not be inspired by that and want to be the best person they can be to everyone else?

What they don’t tell you after the movie or when the song is over is that relationships like that are the minority – especially in today’s climate. The difference is that, in those situations, there was a fire that was always there that wasn’t realized or spoken about in the beginning. What I had been experiencing was this pattern of giving men these partner benefits when they didn’t earn them. Was this in hopes that they might suddenly change their minds? In some instances, yes. But in the instance with Steven, I genuinely thought I was being a good friend when in reality I was doing both of us a disservice. While getting those benefits can be valuable, it only stunts your social growth and can breed resentment in some cases.

When all is said and done, I still maintain friendships with many of these folks but I do pull back now. I spent so long giving people access to me that they didn’t earn and I am finally creating boundaries mostly to keep myself a bit saner than I was before. I still remain hopeful and don’t poo-poo the idea of a “friends-to-lovers” situation, but I am also much more aware of how that can spiral out of control for some and now am more mindful to give reminders of what package folks actually signed up for.

*Name changed because it’s the right thing to do.

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I received and invitation for my 30^th high school reunion today.
…actually, I was notified about it in a Facebook post. That’s the same thing these days, right? The thing that struck me was the $75 price tag to attend at a bar/brewery/restaurant adjacent to my hometown. As someone who doesn’t drink and has a few dietary restrictions, I always scoff at these prices because I won’t get much from it in return but I usually suck it up because it’s an event to connect with people and there’s a lot of value in that.

That is definitely not the case here, though.

As I posted on social media, “why would I pay $75 [for the privilege of being in the same room] as people who bullied myself and my friends for years?” Every five years we go through this exercise of my high school class trying to get together and it’s always the same people who go. Needless to say, I’m not going and (truly) hope everyone has a good time. But this got me thinking about something that came to my mind a few weeks ago. This idea of massive group chats and how they are a lot like high school cliques in a way – very tribal, often exclusive, group chats have become a way of getting that nostalgia hit that some had in high school. That sense of belonging to something.

Personally, I hate group chats. Anytime I get invited to one that is more than a few people I try to get out of it. Currently, I am in three – one for Manchester United with my mates from New Jersey which I never look at but also, for some reason, don’t want to leave, one for Liverpool FC (if you follow British Premier League, you know the irony in this) because there is no Manchester United club in my neighborhood so that’s the best I could get (they’re also decent lads [Also, for what it’s worth, there’s Man City and Everton supporters in that chat as well]), and one that keeps popping up trying to schedule brunch. I think my aversion to group chats is my penchant for directness and draw to person-to-person communication which is very similar to when I was in high school. I never really fell into a particular clique. I was always adjacent to a few groups never really breaking through into the circle. I had a lot of friends, but only a few I kept close which, looking back, was really good for me.

It’s interesting how that period in my life mirrors a lot of my circumstances now. In my late forties, I am finding myself adjacent to many social circles, but never really being exclusive in any particular one. I suppose I was always meant to be somewhat independent in a way. For the majority of my life, I never depended on a group to make social decisions for me. I always just went with the flow finding my place in whatever environment I was in. This is one of the many reasons why I am so drawn to small music clubs. Small clubs are such a wonderful space to walk into by yourself and choose your own adventure. You can chat up likeminded people or you can enjoy your own company and just listen to the music. Small music venues really are magical places…

I suppose there’s people out there who would translate this as being adaptable but, while that is true, it’s actually kind of lonely sometimes. Being on the periphery of a lot, I watch things happen without me sometimes longing to be included. Finding out after the fact that it was only communicated within that one chat and that’s why I wasn’t included. It’s a very lonely thing to experience and brings back similar feelings to wanting to belong to something that I had at times back in high school. Am I proud of my independence and ability to move through different situations and scenes with grace and ease? Absolutely. Does the reason why that is kind of suck? Also, yes. Add sobriety to that mix and it becomes even harder at times; having that feeling that you’re not being included because you “aren’t fun anymore” while balancing your own boundaries of staying out of spaces that can be troubling for you.

Maybe it’s perimenopause, maybe it’s the very stressful week at my day job, or even Mercury being in the microwave again but I’ve been finding myself in my feelings about this lately. What does it mean to feel like you belong to something? Can you remain that independent person on the periphery that you’re proud of while also feeling hurt that you’re not a part of the circle? I’m still working out my feelings with all of that but one thing I can say, for certain, is that I know who I don’t want to be and who I don’t want to spend my time with. I celebrate that every chance I get because that is far more important, in my opinion. And the people who are closest to me, who understand this, and help me work through these feelings without (much) judgement, I am grateful to them every day.

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Yes – You read that correctly.
I actually like Valentine’s Day.

Even though I will concede that it is mostly a manufactured holiday to sell more useless junk, I like Valentine’s Day because I like being in love and the idea of it. I like the warm feeling that you get when you are with that person, so to have a day to celebrate it is, honestly, lovely to me.

I think part of this comes from my Dad who never forgot to recognize the day. Every Valentine’s Day morning I would go down to the kitchen and there would be cards to me and my mother from my father accompanied with a Whitman’s sampler box (my Mom’s heart box always being the larger of the 2). It was so simple but the feeling of that gesture always stuck with me - That love can be shown in small, effortless ways and just the act of being remembered is simply enough. This continued through my teen years until he passed away. Each year there would always be a box of Whitman’s waiting for us. After my father’s passing, my Mom picked up the tradition and has been sending cards and candy for those 28 years since.

When I came to the realization about not having someone on this day for as long as I have, admittedly I started to spiral into the reasons why. I’ve had men tell me that I am too intimidating, too overweight (I get that a lot – “You are so amazing, but I’m not attracted to fat girls”), too old, or very simply too much. On the flip side, I had an old friend who told me once that it was my standards that were too high and for a moment, I thought that maybe that was it too. Maybe I was too judgmental. Then I remembered my favorite quote from Clueless which still rings true – “You see how picky I am with shoes, and they only go on my feet!”

Still, I never gave up on love and I still won’t. My heart is too big not to share that love that I have. The difference now is that I am not rushing it for the sake of being in love. The kind of love I want to share is very special. It is quiet and sacred. It’s a lot like how I recently described how I feel when I listen to Nick Drake’s album Pink Moon:

“…it’s like a warm hug. That warm hug from a lover that you’re curled up on the couch with, tangled within each other, fingers intertwined, comfortable in your own silence on the edge of a nap.”

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, I welcome a day where we take a moment to stop and think about the people we love and express how we feel about them. I don’t think there’s enough of that today so I choose to embrace a holiday that promotes that. It doesn’t have to be expensive gifts or dinners or grand gestures, it could just remain what it was intended to be - a day to celebrate love.

I can’t think of a more perfect time to be reminded of that.

“You handled yourself with so much grace but I’m still mad [for you]…”
“Oh, I’m annoyed but there’s other fights that need this energy, right?”

The day after I fell outside of a local Baltimore venue, I was sore, swollen, and annoyed.

Annoyed that the sidewalk still wasn’t repaired or marked, annoyed that the bouncers were more concerned about the exact time to allow folks in and carding me than allowing me inside so I didn’t have to assess the damage to my body in the damp chill of January, and annoyed that I had allowed myself to fall… again.

Growing up I was a clumsy kid. I broke my arms 4 times (twice on each; although, let the record show, the first time wasn’t my fault – my brother put a blanket on my head and left me in on the living room couch at 2 years old which led to me falling off of it and breaking my arm on the marble coffee table). I also sprained various fingers, twisted ankles, developed a frozen shoulder at 11, and suffered the general bumps and bruises us latch key kids were often accustomed to. I was in the hospital ER so often that they kept my file within arm’s reach. I was an active kid who kept busy dancing, roller skating, bike riding, and playing backyard games with other neighborhood kids so falling down and getting hurt was just part of the whole growing up experience. Looking back, though, I can see now that I fell a lot more than the average kid. Whether it was my own equilibrium or the force of someone pushing me, I found myself on the ground a lot more than my peers. I don’t know why I was like this – there wasn’t a larger question beyond, “oh she’s just clumsy” and that I should be wrapped up in bubble wrap. I just was this way. Each time, though, I got right back up. Once in awhile there would be sobs and tears but every time I got back up and walked to safety to check on myself.

I did my best in my adult years to find better footing, doing my best to keep an even keel both physically and mentally. Falling down as I did as a kid, I was often left to heal on my own. I would get the initial help from my parents and doctors, but after I was kind of left to figure it out. I think that’s why, when I fall now, I am adverse to help. When I fell outside that venue recently, one of the bouncers specifically asked me if I needed help getting up and I waved him off – almost instinctively. I’m so accustomed to doing most things on my own that it is a reflex to deny help when offered.

I can always figure it out.

When I think about it, that seems to be the theme of my life. Whenever something bad happens, my mother reminds me every time, “you’ll figure it out. You always do.” But, admittedly, sometimes I don’t want to figure it out and that I am tired of figuring it out by myself. It’s often such a lonely endeavor to figure out how to navigate the conflicts in life alone but what other choice is there? If I don’t figure it out, especially as a single woman, there is no one that is going to do it for me. There is no one that will hold me up and say, “just sit. I’ll take care of it” and so I just figure it out.

I used to think this was a show of strength. That it was a part of being independent when actually, it’s exhausting. But you keep doing it anyway because the perceived burden of asking for help is much worse (“By the time I ask for help and get it, I could have finished it three times over…”; “If I ask for help too many times, people will think I’m a drain on them”; “The few times I asked for help in the past, people didn’t come through for me”; “I should only ask for help when it’s absolutely necessary”). Just “figuring it out” doing it yourself is easier than coming across as needy and more palatable than setting yourself up for possible disappointment when someone doesn’t come through for you.

That’s the programming, though. The coding that was instilled in my brain over the course of many years of taking care of myself and those around me as well. Asking for help shouldn’t feel like it’s a weakness, because it’s not. It is a great show of strength but one that you have to be vulnerable to show.

As I licked my wounds from my fall, I was grateful that I wasn’t more hurt. My left knee bore the brunt of it but all in all I was just sore for a few weeks and my legs looked like a small car ran over them. More than that, though, I was humbled and realized I need to be better at asking for help – something I practiced during this past snowstorm. It was hard and my anxiety spiked just thinking about it, but after I did I was so grateful. It reminded me that I have a community around me that is filled with people who just want to do good for their neighbors. That Mr. Rogers quote that everyone has been using ad nauseum rings true –

“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

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The question, “where have you been?” gets screamed at me more often than not as of late by folks who know full well where I’ve been, or at least not been. It’s a seemingly innocent question. By asking it, the person is showing that you are missed in their own way, right? So why is it that the first feeling I get when asked that question is exhaustion? That trying to answer that question is more daunting than it should be.

Whether folks realize this or not, asking the question almost puts the blame on that person straight away. It makes the relationship appear one-sided and it was their responsibility to show up, not the other way around. If the question had to be asked, then how much did they actually care about where you had been. It almost opens the curtain more to show that those people who ask really didn’t care where you actually have been, just that you haven’t been in the same spaces as them.

A wise person once said (I don’t know who because it’s been tossed around so many times that it’s basically copyrighted under “fair use” now):

You can not heal in the same place that harmed you.

It’s the line I tell many people when they ask me that seemingly innocent question. Growing up with the show Cheers, you couldn’t help but want to belong someplace where everyone knows your name. But what if that place becomes an addiction in itself? That the idea of that kind of community is what floods you with dopamine because once you actually walk through those doors, that high fades away pretty quickly. For me, the idea of community was so intoxicating that I had overlooked that this local Cheers was actually a space that was filled with human versions of leeches sucking away at my energy and not giving any in return. I was the one who started and up-kept the conversations, listened to everyone’s problems, and was rarely shown the same curtesy. Being asked “where have you been” is just another reminder of how one sided those relationships were and still are because if someone has to ask it, then that means that there was likely little effort on their part and they aren’t paying much attention.

I had to stop going to those spaces not just because it was bad for my physical health, but my mental health was taking a huge hit as well. I was being sucked into stories and narratives that weren’t doing me any good. I said in a previous substack that brotherhood and sisterhood ended at the bottom of an empty bottle and I still agree with that sentiment. I’ll go one further though – Mark Manson did a piece earlier this year where he talked about that when he quit drinking one of the biggest struggles he faced was boredom. When you drink, there’s a sense of excitement that is added to the experience but excitement doesn’t equate to fun. Without the booze, those experiences that were once thought of as fun are really dull and, sometimes, excruciating to be in. In this case, it’s exciting to be known at this place but once the booze was gone, the sheen dulled as well. The fun was replaced with impatience and a sprinkle of anxiety thrown in.

When I made the decision to walk away, something else started to happen as well. I came to realize that the sense of “family” that was created, which was so addictive, was just me all along. Everyone else was feeding off the love and care that I was giving them. That showing up and giving folks an ear and a bit of love was actually fulfilling for a bit. I don’t regret the years I sat on that barstool, but I don’t need the dopamine hit that the addiction of going there gave to me anymore.

The love continues to be within me all along.

“Nooooo. Well, not that that’s been regular, well, ever. I’m just REALLY c*nty lately.”

It was about a month ago that I started noticing this. Admittedly, as we all know, I am a pretty impatient person. I’ve noted this numerous times in my writing about dating and have come to terms with being an impatient person long before I became a “woman of a certain age.”  Lately, though, my impatience and subsequent irritability has seemingly reached a new height.

It has reached “I don’t really give a f—k anymore” levels.

I have to say, there is a part of me that’s kind of proud of this. It’s that part of me who feels like I’ve earned this for the years I’ve spent in the trenches being the bigger person; For apologizing when I shouldn’t have for the betterment of everyone else; For being small so others could shine brighter. That time is now over!

I am in my F- IT era and everyone can just get out of my way!!!

Let’s be real, though. That is far from who I am and who I want to be regardless of how loudly I scream at traffic or get antsy when the person in front of me in the checkout line is taking longer than I think they should.

Kindness matters and I preach that to anyone who will hear me. I do my best to give people the benefit of the doubt and treat others how I would want to be treated. So why is this sudden irritability taking attention away from all that?

This past spring, I was on a call with an organizer of a speaking event that I had signed up to do. As she was wrangling the phone in her car, fitting me in for the four minutes she appeared to have for me, she started our conversation with the following declaration:

“You’ll have to excuse me. I’m in peri menopause and so if I seem off or overly moody, that’s why.”

This made me take pause for a couple reasons. Besides the topic in itself not being one that, at that time, I would bring up to a complete stranger, I don’t think it even crossed her mind that I was going through a similar experience as a “woman of a certain age.” What I would later come to realize in my interactions with her, was that she, basically, used it as an excuse to have a bad attitude. Any interaction I had with her was met with disdain and I felt like her stating she had peri menopause gave her license to basically be a bi*ch to myself and a few others (Note: I could see she had the ability to be pleasant as she interacted with a couple folks in a very professional and courteous manner at the event). Now, did she have something against me or the others I witnessed her being short with? I have no idea. All I know is the way she interacted with me was kind of nasty and it was done with peri menopause as a crutch. That stating right away that she was going through this she didn’t have to better herself or figure out why she was short with those around her. This was the reason and everyone will just roll with it.

Was she right though? The experience does give me pause as I am noticing my own irritability bubble up. Is it my hormones that are all over the place or is my true form of being a cold-hearted bi*ch finally taking form? Am I right to be irritable because of the state of the world? Is it everyone else who needs to change? There’s so many questions right now, but no real answers as to why I am all of a sudden this way. I just know that I don’t like this about myself and it’s something I need to stay aware of.

I had an incident at my day job this week that wasn’t my best moment where my irritability bit me in the bum. In a moment where I was overwhelmed with my job duties at the time, I snapped at someone in a moment of weakness. Unfortunately, instead of just approaching me on it and giving me an opportunity to own my gaff, it was raised to levels that it shouldn’t have and a larger headache was born from it. It ended up getting resolved, but the damage is done. Admittedly, it was my fault and there’s a part of me that if given the opportunity to go back and fix it I would. But then there’s another part of me that’s kind of glad it happened. It not only opened my eyes to what this person is capable of, but of what I was capable of as well. That maybe irritability can be a super power if used (sparingly) in the right way. It can be a warning system to others to not walk over people whom are the helpers. The ones who are usually there for you and will be there if you ask them to.

Whether it’s the peri menopause, the state of things in general, or just alien transformation, I think we all have our moments where we can be outright c**ts. It’s a part of being human after all. But what really matters is the grace we are willing to extend ourselves and others in that moment. Elvis Costello sang “What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love, and understanding” back in 1979 and maybe we should ask ourselves that question again. Maybe we all just need a little bit more patience and understanding to get through the day sometimes.

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And when I say drunk, I mean really embarrassingly drunk.

When the hangover started to set in, something that was a recurring joke between my friends and I suddenly wasn’t so funny anymore. That it went far beyond “being too old for this shit” and into “I might have a problem” territory.

At this point, I’ll admit that I had been cutting back my alcohol consumption and thought I was on my way to what the health experts call “moderate drinking.” But it would be that previous night’s festivities that would show me that I wasn’t capable of “moderate consumption;” that I was unable to just have  one or two, I had to have 5 or 6. I didn’t need to drink, but once I started I needed to continue.

It took me a long time to admit this out loud to myself. When I made this similar post on my social media 6 months ago, I downplayed this as a “lifestyle decision” and not admitting to myself the real reason why I had to do this. Sure, there’s a lot of other reasons that I have been somewhat vocal about, but at the end of the day I didn’t start actually getting better until I admitted to myself and accepted that I had a problem. I’ll admit, It’s still hard to say that because there’s still a small part of me that feels like I failed. That it was yet another thing in my life that I couldn’t make work. I know in my heart that I wasn’t a failure, but that feeling is something that I have to move through as part of the process. I think It was also part of the reason why it took me a long time to use the word “sober” to describe this part of my life. That saying “I’m sober” admitted defeat when in reality, it’s the complete opposite. I made the conscious decision to choose myself and my life. Not what others thought I should do or act.

So today, I am proud to say I’m one year sober. It hasn’t been easy no matter how calm and collected I am about it. There’s days where it’s really lonely and isolating. But the good news is that those days are far less now than a year ago and there’s more days where it feels so much better than what was at the bottom of that empty bottle.

Note: You can read more about this year’s journey in my previous article here: https://roxydallen.substack.com/p/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall

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Growing up, although my Dad and I didn’t see eye to eye most of the time, one of the things that always stuck with me was how he treated my mother. Better put, how he loved my mother. There were things in their relationship that I didn’t agree with (for example, he would have loved for her to stay home 100% of the time, but my mother was never the “housewife type” and enjoyed her various careers) but overall, he treated her with respect – he listened to her, apologized when he was wrong, bought her flowers often, expressed his love daily, and tried to be a good partner. I have no doubt that my mother would have a similar opinion about their marriage, but also has her spin with various conflicts they went through.

When I think back on memories of my father, I can’t help but admit that watching how he moved through the world inspired my “no bullshit” way of life, even if it took me awhile to get here. When it comes to dating, though, I often give people way too many chances and way too much benefit of the doubt. Case in point with my ex, Frank*. Frank and I were together for a short spell but I’ll admit, it left an impression on me. At the time, his divorce was still really fresh and I was ready to find someone for the long haul – a combination that rarely works and didn’t in this case. We had fallen into a good relationship pretty quickly, so when he decided he wasn’t sure about us and (I would find out later) that he had been seeing someone else at the same time as me, it was a little bit of a shock. When he was trying to end things, it was like something was gnawing at him to keep me around. He kept saying “I don’t know what to do here” so I just kept on with my drumbeat of “I am not going to wait for you to figure it out” and finally just let the relationship end. In the three years since, he has had this tendency to pop up every few months or so and we settle back into that great rapport that we always fall into. After a few days or weeks of conversation, he disappears again without a trace. (I believe this is what the experts call “zombie-ing.”[1] I talked about how exhausting this in my last piece and how it’s just plain mean.) When he popped back up a little over a month ago, I wasn’t surprised at all. In that conversation though, I broached the subject of him ghosting me and implored him to stop doing it because it was hurtful and I thought he was better than that. He seemed to take that to heart and after that, our conversations were getting really deep again to the point where I thought that things might have changed. That it felt like we were on our way to building a good connection without expectation of what that connection looked like. But then he said something interesting. In a conversation about the “Grosse Point Blank Rule,”[2] he noted: “…always remember that silence is your friend. When in doubt… stay silent.”

Stay silent.

Now, I understand that there’s a lot of ways to interpret that and in some cases, it is best to stay silent. In this instance, though, coming off the heels of our previous conversation about how ghosting is hurtful, I took it pretty personally. I know that’s not how he would have interpreted that in that moment, but it’s how I did. In a lot of cases, staying silent only delays the reaction and can actually hurt more. It’s cowardly because it’s the only thing that folks feel they have left when they know they are in the wrong. It’s easier to stay silent than say I’m sorry or admit that you made a mistake or that you’ve changed your mind.

If I ignore it, it will go away. If I ignore it long enough, (hopefully) they’ll forget.

So when Frank disappeared again a few days later, after asking to make plans with me, needless to say I wasn’t really surprised.

Unfortunately, he’s not the only one this has come up with recently. I connected with Mike* on one of the dating apps and we had been chatting for some time. We were at the point where we had already had a few phone conversations under our belt and things were, seemingly, going well. We had reached a point where it was time to set up a time to meet which had been difficult up until that point due to some timing and distance issues. Two weeks ago, I reached out with a place and dates (going way above and beyond in my opinion but I wanted to move things along) that would work for both of us and asked that he get back to me before he turned in for that night.

Sadly, I am still waiting for an answer.

Did he change his mind? Meet someone else? I know he’s still alive because he posts on social media (we follow each other - calm down) so what is so bad that couldn’t be said outright?

Why was silence a better reaction than the truth?

In this case I don’t know if I’ll get the answer and I’m not sure that I care much about one. What I do know is that my father would be disappointed that these men, who have daughters themselves, thought that silence was the respectful way to treat someone. I have to think that they find that silence is a respectful alternative because if they believe it’s not, then they must not think that highly of me. My only hope is that they don’t treat other people in their lives this way because it’s truly awful. You don’t do that if you’re a good person.

Frank was kind of right in one way, silence can be your friend, but not the kind of friend you keep around. It’s not reliable. It’s not that friend who will have your back at the end of the day. Silence is the friend that will show you a good time and abandon you when things get hard.

Truth is the friend who will always be there to see you through.

*Name changed not to protect innocence but because it’s the right thing to do.

[1] A lot of folks ask me why I haven’t just blocked him and it’s as simple as I don’t really block anyone except the most heinous of offenders. It takes a lot for me to fully cut someone off.

[2] Always know who is in the room and if anyone is trying to kill you and always carry a pen.

Straight away, I think we can all agree that ghosting is a terrible thing to do to someone. Not only is it rude and cowardly, it’s just plain mean. Yes, full disclosure, I have ghosted people for various reasons in the past myself, and I know that wasn’t right. I know how it feels and I hate that I may have made anyone else feel that way which is why, even on dating apps, I do my best to thank people for their time and let them know I am not interested. I didn’t realize, though, that there would be something almost worse than ghosting and that is submarining. At least with ghosting the person just leaves without a trace and the hurt is somewhat temporary. Once you figure out that, no, they aren’t in the hospital (or worse) and that they are fine, you can move on to heal from the rejection that was in the silence (because remember - not responding IS a response). Submarining plays with your emotions in such a way that it’s more detrimental to your mental health because that rejection keeps happening. A dear friend who is one of the few that is privy to all of my stories (poor thing – she deserves a medal quite honestly) once asked me how did I do it? “How did I process being repeatedly rejected and still go back in for more?” I didn’t have an answer for her.
…well at least not one that didn’t involve insanity.

Submarining has this way of forcing people to relive rejection over and over again; You think that someone has ghosted you only for them to come back long enough to give you a sense of hope before they disappear again restarting that cycle of feeling rejected. So why do we put up with it? Why do we allow people to come in and out of our lives like that? I’ve been asking myself these questions recently as I have had a couple former romantic partners reappear after disappearing for weeks, some times months at a time, even a year. Every time this happens a scene from Say Anything plays in my mind. Diane has just found out about her father’s illegal doings (oops spoiler!) and runs back to Lloyd whom she rejected just days earlier. Crying she pleads with him that she needs him. He takes a breath and asks:

“Are you here ‘cause you need someone or ‘cause you need me?”

And while I wish for the outcome that they have, I find that I am often wandering around like that John Travolta Gif from Pulp Fiction wondering where this guy went again every time they disappear. This leads me to feel like I am not the one they need, rather just a warm body to fill the time until another option comes along. I understand how harsh this sounds, but it’s unfortunately happened time and time again – whether it be romantic relationships or friendships, I have served as a seat filler of sorts until the main actress is cast.

Well-meaning friends ask me why I just don’t block these people and the answer to that is because that’s not me. It takes a lot of me to outright block someone from my life (I think it’s related to how I feel about ghosting). That said, the question remains – why do I allow them into my life over and over again?

I honestly don’t have the answer to it.
At least I don’t have an answer yet.
I think it goes back to the question my friend posed to me about rejection and how do I process it and go back for more? For starters, I’ll admit that I am still a hopeless romantic at heart. One that is still waiting for my Lloyd Daubler to be outside of my house playing Peter Gabriel on a boom box he’s holding over his head. I’m also a sucker for second chances. I believe that, yes, people can change if they want to and I’m a sucker for a good redemption story. Every once in awhile I’ll think, well what if they have changed? Don’t they deserve another chance?

To the specific question of why? I think the answer is a lot more simple than any of that:

It’s hope.

Hope that one day I will find someone who wants to stick around to learn about me and my life and I can do the same for theirs. Someone who is open and communicative.

Someone who says that they need ME.

*If you would like to dive deeper into these terms, here is a great reddit post on the subject.

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After having a good evening, you log into one of the platforms and there’s another group of friends having fun without you at an outing you weren’t invited to. And no matter how much of a good time you JUST had with these other people, whom you also care about, that FOMO monster rears it’s ugly green head to tell you that you weren’t invited to the “real fun.”

…or was it?

Was it fun? It certainly looked like it through the perspective of the perfect photo enhanced with the perfect filters. That one moment that was captured out of hundreds of minutes. Was that the “real fun?”
More importantly, would it have actually been fun for YOU?

It’s no secret that social media has created a world where only the perfect moments get filtered through. Even the sad moments are shared under an artificial lens that is rarely 100% genuine. It is carefully curated to give the world the version of our lives that we want to share and not necessarily the whole truth of what is going on. This is not news to anyone, so why do we still give it the weight and time in our consciousness that it doesn’t deserve? What exactly are we chasing?

Now more than ever, we crave connection and a sense of community. That we belong. Again, not a new concept, but one that often gets pushed to the side. That, while not always physically present, just the feeling that we are part of something puts us more at ease so when we see our community doing something without us, there is a sense of rejection and a feeling like we are almost not good enough.

Why didn’t they reach out to me?
Why was I the odd one out?

I’ll ask this though…
Did YOU reach out to them?
When was the last time you did?
When was the last time you made the effort?

I’ll often ask myself these questions when I start to get into my head about things like this. When was the last time I made the effort and reached out? More often than not I have to admit that it had been quite some time and remind myself that I am not very good at initiating plans. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown so accustomed to doing most things on my own over the years, but the fact still stands I don’t have that skill in my tool box. Those folks in the photo - they talk to each other on the regular so of course they are going to make plans to do things together… just like I do with the groups I see regularly and am in contact with. Yes, it stings, but it can also be a reminder of how much of the investing we are actually doing in our relationships.

I had a friend confront me once that I “don’t hang anymore” and suggested that I didn’t care about them or that group of people. That I didn’t care wasn’t the case. I did and still do very much. But they were correct that I wasn’t as connected as I had been in the past when I would hang out in the same spaces. I took the opportunity to explain that they were right, I did not spend time in that environment anymore, but it wasn’t because of THEM. It was because it wasn’t good for my mental or physical health. I was then challenged that I didn’t reach out to any of them anymore and when I mentioned that neither did they, I was met with defensiveness; suggesting that our disconnect was my fault, which is partially correct because I took myself out of that environment. I did try to keep up with things and invite them to functions that I would have, but unfortunately I was ignored and so I just stopped trying. I’ve always said my door is open if they choose to walk through it, but only a few have. It’s something I have come to accept and understand as I move through this next phase of my life. It still stings to see photos of them at events that I wasn’t invited to, but then I remember that I don’t include them much anymore and so I give them the grace I hope to receive. My not reaching out has nothing to do with them as people, but more so because I’ve moved on from the pass times they choose to come together for.

Social media is a great way to stay connected in each other’s lives. I’ve seen great things happen through social media but I also know that the not so good will always out weigh those good things. Mostly because it’s all a facade – it’s the version of ourselves we want others to see us as, not our actual authentic selves and that’s ok in a way. Our true selves are precious that only a select few should have full access to that. We shouldn’t be sharing our entire lives with everyone who has a subscription. That only dilutes our relationships and thins our connection with each other.

Strong connections are built on trust – the trust that what we are showing people is ourselves, not a version that we would give away for the most amount of likes.

The pictures that we see, aren’t necessarily reality.

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I wrote the preceding statement in a survey I received last fall after visiting one of the many specialists that I have to go to. This one in particular was a vascular surgeon that I was seeing for an ultra-sound on my leg because I have a varicose vein that looks like I’ve been driving rusty nails through it. He was young, likely in his early 30s, definitely early residency, and likely has never had an ounce of fat on his body ever in his entire life. Exactly the type of person I love to hear the words “your best (and only option) is to lose weight” from. It wasn’t so much the obvious advice, it was the feeling of superiority that I felt like he was exuding. That he was looking down on me for being overweight.

This is not an unfamiliar feeling. My entire life I have either been called fat and/or been treated like a lesser person because of my weight. No matter what size I was, I always felt not good enough. At a very young age one of my older brothers would tease and bully me incessantly calling me an “ugly dog” and constantly telling me I was fat. That extended to a couple neighborhood bullies who would keep repeating that chorus throughout my entire childhood only to be met with “oh they’re just showing that they have a crush on you” when I would complain about it - which is a hell of a thing to teach a young adolescent girl, by the way. Onward to elementary school where I was an outcast and told I was too fat to play on the playground and always picked last for whatever thing we were doing in gym class.

From an early age I was exposed to dieting and aerobics thanks to the 80s diet culture and having a mother who was constantly on a diet. My extended family had many people who were overweight and considered obese. Looking back, I didn’t live in a world where body acceptance was an option. It was actually a constant struggle to be “thin” – put in quotes because I didn’t have an actual definition of thin.
I just knew that it was something I was not.

Here’s the thing, though – I wasn’t fat.
I never was growing up. I was larger for my age because I was tall and had pretty dense muscles. I was a little overweight, but never fat. Even though I wasn’t good at running or sports, I was still really active. I roller skated, played backyard games, danced… I danced A LOT (I wanted to be a fly girl). But because I wasn’t good at traditional school gym exercise and didn’t excel at the President’s Fitness Challenge, it just exasperated the myth that I was fat and fed into that rhetoric. I’ll also admit, it didn’t help that my diet growing up didn’t have many fruits or vegetables. Not that my parents didn’t try - they did - but I was the youngest child and I think on the list of battles to choose from, getting me to eat more vegetables wasn’t very high. I was a latch key kid who, more often than not, fended for myself most afternoons so my snacks consisted of things like mozzarella sticks (a new-ish snack at the time if you can believe it) and chicken nuggets.

It was the dawn of convenience and my household was its biggest subscriber.

It wasn’t until Jr. High School and then High School when the fat rhetoric calmed down a bit. It was still there, but it wasn’t at the forefront of the insults I received. Loser and d*ke had taken the top spots then but I had better friends to surround myself with. I found my tribe through theater and music and mostly tried to my focus on that. The times I couldn’t focus on that I spent in the guidance counselor’s office trying to navigate my feelings of not wanting to be there. It was the first time I thought about the option of taking myself out of the world. The good news is, those thoughts didn’t last very long and I was able to work my way through the noise.

Fast forward to my mid-twenties where I experienced my first heart palpitations. At this point I was very overweight and not living anything remotely close to a healthy lifestyle. My boyfriend at the time, also overweight, and I were content to live through life in a mostly sedentary lifestyle. At this point I had a general practitioner who was amazing and listened to my concerns. After running some tests, I found out I had been living my entire life with a heart defect and changes would need to be made. No one had to tell me this. I already knew. My doctor, Dr. T, also knew that I knew and asked what I wanted to do. She re-assured me that I was ok and that I was living this long with it, but that changes would need to be made. I was smoking at the time, so that was out, and I would have to change my diet. Eager to make the changes, I went on Chantix and started a diet…

…and after 3 weeks I failed miserably and went back to my old ways.

Looking back there were a few things that contributed to my demise. First, I quit smoking and went on a diet at the same time. My 2 favorite things in the world, food and cigarettes, were being taken away. I was asking my body and my brain to take on too much at once. Additionally, the Chantix made me looney. I went more OCD than I usually am and it scared the crap out of me so I had to get off that. The other thing was I didn’t have support from my partner at the time. While I was eating a Lean Cuisine, he would be across from me eating a meatball parm sub. I didn’t ask him to make any changes mind you, he definitely wasn’t ready to do that, but I think I expected more empathy for what I was doing. It would be less than a year later that I would make the split from him after I realized that I would be constantly taking care of him for the rest of his life and that was the last thing that I wanted to do.

It wouldn’t be another few years until I made another attempt at it. The next time, though, I was determined and actually carved out steps to get me to my goal. I joined Weight Watchers and focused on the weight first. I was still smoking but that was ok for that time as I wanted to lose the weight first.
…and I did. I ended up losing 80 pounds in about 9 months and I was thinner than I had ever been. So thin I had family members now telling me I was too thin.

I couldn’t win.

But I was still being celebrated. I was finally “good enough” in everyone’s eyes. After I lost weight, I joined a support group to help me quit smoking and I did for a good amount of time. I was doing so good that I went on to be featured in Weight Watchers magazine, was a survivor ambassador for the American Heart Association, and became a yoga teacher on my inevitable mission to become a life coach (inevitable because isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you have “bettered yourself?”). I was doing great – I had a partner (whom we’ll call “J”) who was supportive (and also lost a bunch of weight because I was doing all the cooking at home), I was doing talks about healthy living, I had great friends and a great life…

My WW Magazine Article from the May/June 2009 Issue

Why, then, was I so miserable?

To be honest, I didn’t act miserable so no one knew that I was. I became a person that I thought I should be and I was seemingly happy for a bit. I was finally thin and teaching others how to be thin. How to reach their goals to be their “best selves,” completely ignoring how they were already their best selves. I fought so hard to be this person, but, at the end of the day, it wasn’t who I actually was. Deep down, I missed the seemingly reckless lifestyle I once lead. I missed not inventorying every bite of food I was eating, not weighing myself twice a day, not accounting for every single calorie I was consuming or burning off, and eating pizza and not feeling dread afterwards.

I went from one extreme to another. A lifestyle of unhealthy living through food and being sedentary to this om-shanti-healthy-living-calorie-counting guru. It wasn’t until a few months after my partner J had left me (and learning about his affair) that I realized just how unhappy I was. I wasn’t finding balance and was still doing what everyone else thought I should do.

After J left, I was finally able to start crafting the life I wanted to live.
I was finally living the life that was best for me, not what others thought was best. I was so caught up in my 15 minutes of fame from the magazine and other media exposure that I didn’t realize that the person that was featured wasn’t actually me, it was what others thought I should be; That you have to be thin to be respected and for people to listen to you. I was repeating that same idea through example because the only reason I finally had a platform was because of the way I looked and not because of who I actually was.

My body came first in people’s eyes; who I actually was as a person came second.

Fast forward to present day, I am overweight again but I am happy and actually proud of what this body has been through (and it has been through A LOT). I concede that it needs work and I am making small changes again to make my body better, but the focus is not on being thin. It’s not even to be this version of “healthy” as a lot of folks will try to preach.

It’s just, simply, to be better than I was yesterday.

Every day I move, hydrate, meditate, and make sure I eat my fruits and veggies. Today’s doctors don’t want to know about that because those results aren’t quantifiable. They want to see the results on the scale and in how many inches you lost on your body. I suppose I understand as those are the easiest metrics to gauge success, but it shouldn’t be the default. I get it – today’s doctors don’t have a lot of time to see patients and general health of Americans today is in the tank. I get physicians are exhausted, but that doesn’t excuse them from having a 5-minute conversation to ask questions and maybe show some empathy. When the “fat conversation” comes up, a lot of folks ask what physicians are supposed to suggest. That losing weight is the main prescription for a lot of ailments, which I agree with. My answer, though, is that it’s not as simple as that and it’s very personal to each person. Telling a fat person to lose weight is annoying, full stop. They have heard that before. Asking a fat person what they ate that day in a non-judgmental way and then maybe suggesting an alternative, or asking how they are moving their bodies and encouraging them to stretch and take short walks – those are more productive conversations and will yield better results and create a better doctor-patient team. I often wonder why some doctors got into the field of medicine in the first place because most of them shouldn’t be.

It’s a shame you can’t teach empathy because the world would be a much different place if they could.

So, what happens when someone who has this belief is dating someone who sees texting almost as a burden? That’s what I found out over the course of a few months while dating Chet* whom I met over one of the dating apps. This was a bit different for me because this was a long-distance situation. While the distance was manageable, it was still such that connection had to be built mostly over our phones as we didn’t have the luxury of seeing each other for a quick get together like we would if we were living in the same city. Admittedly, there were a lot of orange flags with Chet, but at the end of the day the things that we did align on out weighed them and I was really excited to see where this was going to go.

I was very excited about the possibility of what this could be.

…and yes, I do realize that is where I made my first mistake.
In constantly focusing on the possibility, I ignored a lot of what was in front of me. One of those things being his communication style. To his credit, Chet told me straight away that he was a bad texter; that he was the type of person who would just have his phone in the other room and just not look at it all day. Admittedly as someone who wears a smart watch AND keeps their phone in their pocket at all hours, this was a foreign concept to me. I was willing to be patient, though, because I really wanted to see where this would go. At the time, I recalled a “dating coach” on Instagram (whose name I forget because, honestly, I find her annoying and really insulting at the end of the day) who said “get comfortable in your discomfort.” So I tried that…

…and in doing so it made my anxiety spike and my mind race.
I was far from comfortable sitting in this kind of uneasiness because I believe that not responding to someone is a form of disrespect regardless of the type of relationship that you’re in. I hope that you’ll not misunderstand me in thinking that I am saying you have to have extended conversations all the time or you have to jump every time the phone notification goes off. That is not the case. What I am trying to say is that if they wanted to, they would figure out a way to get back to you as soon as they are able to. Often times, I myself am without my phone for hours at a time during the day, but you better believe that when I do have my phone back and am able to return calls and texts, I do so as quickly as I can because that is respectful to the other person. Yes, there are a lot of nuances, but there is no excuse to not extend curtesy to someone.

With Chet, I would send a quick “Hey! Hope your day is going well” and receive nothing for hours at a time. During this time, though, I would see that he’s posting on social media and responding to other things and I would grow frustrated as time went on. “But Roxy! Maybe he just doesn’t have time or the bandwidth to get into a conversation” I would tell myself and try to let it go and practice the patience I said I would. Admittedly, though, it would just gnaw at me and I would focus on not understanding why he wouldn’t want to, at least, respond to say a simple hello straight away.

As time went on, the delay in responses would get longer and longer and eventually I would feel like I was pulling teeth just to get some sort of connection from him. The last 3 weeks of dating I found myself initiating every conversation and also came to realize I initiated every date we had over those few months with me always asking “hey – are we getting together?”

I eventually called Chet on it and said that I had not felt very connected to him; that I was starting to feel like the annoying one. He called and tried to explain to me that the level of communication from him wouldn’t change. I recalled a piece of advice a friend gave to me over a decade ago that has stuck with me and I mentioned it to him. That “if they wanted to, they would” and I noticed that it sounded like he didn’t want to.

“You’re right. I don’t want to.”

So we said good-bye.

When we hung up the phone, I was really disappointed. Not that the relationship ended but that he was so quick to just let it go. It never dawned on me that the person I was with wouldn’t at least try to continue to be as patient with me and I like to think that I would never have acted that way towards him. That if the tables were turned and he said he needed a bit of space and more understanding that he wasn’t in the right space to communicate as often as I would like to, that I would have tried to be patient with him and work on it – not say “I don’t want to” flat out.

At the end of the day. it was more than just the texting or lack thereof. It was more about respect and balance and being willing to compromise for the sake of the other person. I felt that I was compromising and being patient and he, plainly, just wasn’t. Sure, he made an effort by driving 85 miles to see me more than I did for him, but that is where most of the effort and compromise ended. Things are never going to go your way 100% of the time and we all have to be able to compromise in someway if we are going to have fulfilling relationships, but if you are not willing to bend, even a little, for your partner who is bending for you it’s not going to work.

There’s a scene in “He’s Just Not That Into You” where Alex is telling Gigi that if a guy “doesn’t want to call, he won’t. It’s that easy.” Gigi goes on to ask what if she is the exception and Alex bluntly says to her, “If a guy is treating you like he doesn’t give a shit, he genuinely doesn’t give a shit.”
Do I think that Chet didn’t give a shit? No, I don’t. I think that he did for a while but I do think that, over time, he gave less of a shit and I’m thankful that he was willing to be honest with me about it.

I deserve to be the exception, but I’ll just have to wait a little longer for that to happen.

*Name changed because it’s the decent thing to do. Also because he asked that if I ever wrote about him that I refer to him as Chet.

No one warned me that when I made the decision to go sober I would be a mirror to everyone else’s habits. That telling folks I don’t drink anymore would illicit so many inquiries and anecdotes. When people ask me about my experience or reasoning for going sober, I am often met with their stories, or more their justifications, of why they still drink - but not that much, of course, because they too are cutting back…

…but they still had that hangover in the morning because of hanging out with certain people who, you know, you just get in their zone and then there’s shots and you can’t say no…

…right?

I don’t mind the stories. More often than not, I actually welcome them and am happy that there are still people who are comfortable with me and are open to sharing our lives with each other. It’s that inherent need to fit in, though, that I think people often get themselves tripped up. Some try to make you feel comfortable that not drinking is ok (which it is – there’s nothing to justify there) or they themselves don’t want to feel like they are the odd one out by continuing to drink and do so, often, in excess. I didn’t go sober to try to fit in. To be frank, I decided to stop drinking because I didn’t want to die like my friends recently did. I saw this path of darkness that if I had stayed on it, it would not have ended well for me… and I was REALLY good at hiding it from everyone.

Including myself.

It took my friends dying (yes plural), and a community’s reaction before their passings, to make me take a good, long, hard look at myself and my life. That the fact that I couldn’t just have one drink, I had to have 3 or 5, wasn’t said jokingly anymore - it was a sad fact. What was sadder is that I was actually excommunicated from certain communities in a way because I stopped drinking. The activity of it is so ingrained that when someone steps away from it or even calls it out, people don’t know what to do with that so they retreat.

If we’re being honest, if popularity and the need to be liked were important to me and I wanted to stay with the “in crowd” I would still be going to that same bar every night, doing shots, drinking straight bourbon, and numbing myself from the pains of that day. Instead, I took myself out of that environment because, as someone much wiser than me put it, I “couldn’t heal in the same environment that had harmed me.”

I was getting ready to type out this whole thing about how I just left one day, really without any warning, giving those people a pass for treating me how they have been these past couple years, but I had to stop myself because, as I am sitting here typing this, I remember that I actually did give them fair warning. Looking back on it, I don’t think a lot of them took me seriously. I think most thought I was just another person cutting back, or doing something like dry-January, and I would come back around eventually. I think that was because I didn’t just decide one day to completely stop drinking and change my social habits. It was a slow withdrawal that started the previous year because I was starting to see that community’s true colors where, after a few major events in my own life, I started to see that the only real connection that existed was the booze. Take that away and there wasn’t much there that was of substance. To be fair, I am making a generalization of that community as a whole. There are individuals from that community that I am still in contact with and remain close friends with to this day. It’s the ones that stopped reaching out to me because I no longer showed up in those spaces that I am really referring to here. These same folks that preached “Family first” and yet were the first to turn their back on me in those moments I asked them for help. At the end of the day, my initial withdrawal wasn’t just about me working on my sobriety, it was also about not giving my energy to people who didn’t offer theirs back. The ones that I was there to help when they asked, but didn’t when I had asked. I constantly listened to their stories and offered my shoulder for them to lean on, but when I asked them for the same, they turned away – physically and metaphorically.

Brotherhood and Sisterhood ended at the bottom of an empty bottle.

I was warned that sobriety could be lonely or even isolating at times. I think most people think that would be the case because you are no longer involved in an activity that was so ingrained in your personal culture. It goes much deeper than that, though. Part of it is the unfortunate realization that, when you take the booze out of the equation, sometimes those things are no longer as much fun as you had remembered. That the glitter and gold was actually just the sheen of liquor that coated the experience. Those activities that you once thought of as “the best time ever” are actually vapid and unfulfilling. Let’s not forget, too, that your patience for the inebriated is far more thin than before and you’ve become a sort of mirror to everyone and suddenly you are no longer “fun.”

That now your very presence could be a reminder of what people really shouldn’t be doing.

I think that’s one of the many reasons why I am grateful for the spaces that do make not drinking alcohol easier not only with the choices that they offer but also the environment that they cultivate. I was once told by a bar owner that they didn’t serve a lot of NA beers because they were a bar and people came to drink alcohol so that’s what he was focusing on. That having those options were a waste of time and money. He wasn’t wrong. It was disappointing to hear, yes, but he wasn’t wrong. But his message was made clear to me so, for that and other reasons, I choose not to go there anymore. I don’t think that bar and venue owners really understand the value of having those NA options available sometimes. Those of us who don’t drink alcohol appreciate a small variety of options not because we want to replicate the experience but because we want to contribute to their business and not feel like a burden for being the sober person in a bar. To be treated like just another patron and not the sober person who will only drink water because there is nothing else available that doesn’t have sugar or caffeine in it. That we still want to be a part of a community because of who we are. Not because of an altered state of mind.

When I look in the mirror now, I see a future filled with adventure and love. Love for myself and those that are along for the ride. It is not my responsibility to hold up the mirror to others, but if they see one when they look at me I hope they see their own potential rather than their shortcomings. I hope that they see where they can improve in their lives because they want to, not because they are trying to fit into some bubble they have to feel like they are in when they are around me. At the end of the day, while I appreciate that my friends care enough about me to ask if they need to alter their behavior around me, I love them enough to not feel like they need to. That they are perfect the way that they are. That when they look in the mirror, they don’t see things they feel like they have to make excuses for. That they see themselves as simply good humans trying their best in this crazy world.

I was addicted to dating coaches.

I know. Random, right?
Shocking though?
If you know me, not really.

It all started a few weeks ago when Mark Manson, whom I’ve been following for years since I read his book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” (which if you have not read it, I highly recommend), posted a video regarding uncertainty and how it relates to anxiety. In it he states that the “most important skill of the 21st century is to [be able to] sit comfortably with uncertainty.”

“You can get used to it, or fall behind.”

A seemingly simple concept however, for me, it’s more layered than that. Often times I have described the way that I think is like playing chess – that I am constantly thinking 5 moves ahead and sometimes can be the physical representation of an if/then statement. I’ve tried to be that “go with the flow” person, but as someone who has 4 different calendars and 3 notebooks filled with various to do lists sometimes going with the flow can be difficult. I think that one of the main reasons for this is that, as the years have passed, I have maintained that our most valuable currency is time – if you offer someone your time, you are offering them a valuable part of you. So, because of that, I don’t like the be put in a situation where my time is wasted and this gets translated to everything – work, friendships, family, romantic relationships, personal time – I have grown so protective over my time that I sometimes see it as a sign of disrespect when someone uses it carelessly. The people who know me best know that I have only a few “deal-breakers” - don’t lie to me and don’t waste my time are the top two on that list.

Because of all that, it is often times difficult for me to sit in uncertainty. As someone who tries to live their life under the ethos of “you can’t manage stress, you can only manage your reaction to it” I often find that I put myself in situations where there is as little stress as possible to manage a reaction to. That if I think 5 moves ahead, I can prepare myself for whatever outcome there is. That I am ready to respond to whatever might be thrown at me. So, when I am in a situation where I am unable to think 5 moves ahead, my brain has a very hard time reconciling it because it feels like it’s not prepared.

This is where the aforementioned former addiction to dating coaches comes into play.

Dating coaches aren’t new, but the amount of them has swelled over the past few years as the industry has become more and more lucrative. “Life coaches” are becoming dating experts and vice versa and the market is flooded with people who have their opinion on how dating should work. For someone like me who has a difficult time with navigating dating as a 40-something woman, those individuals became a Rosetta stone, of sorts, in helping to work through a lor of the uncertainty that dating presented. It would act as a temporary salve because it, seemingly, gave insight into how the human mind worked and doled out advice for a lot of hard to navigate scenarios. But what I have learned over the past decade (yes – you read that right – DECADE) is that none of them truly know what the f*ck they are talking about. That most of them are projecting their own biases/experiences and will change their messaging if it means more followers/money/etc. Now I will concede, there are some really good nuggets of information out there that can help folks navigate the chaos that is dating in your adult years however most of what is out there now is contradictory, especially when it’s presented by the same individual.

IT. IS. EXHAUSTING.

It is exhausting to anyone like me who has a difficult time navigating spaces of uncertainty because all of the so-called advice is now rife with contradiction (my favorite being that you need to be your authentic self… while texting these exact statements, that you can purchase for just $9.99, to get that person to like you). It puts you in a situation that when you’re done trying to figure out what to do, you’ve turned into an inauthentic version of yourself which is unfair to the other person because then they don’t get to see the wonderful human you actually are. Worse yet, it might cause you to miss out on an opportunity that could be filled with that magic you’re looking for because it didn’t happen the way that “the experts” thought it should.

At the end of the day, it’s all about balance, right?
Trying to find balance between the uncertainty and trying to plan for your future and protecting yourself, in a way. None of us want to get hurt and we are just trying to walk through this life minimizing the experiences that may hurt us because, in the end, our time is our most valuable commodity and our hearts can only take so much. The “experts” are just folks trying to get through life themselves and they don’t know any better than you. Follow them because they might have a good idea for you once in a while, but make sure that you are still being yourself and doing what is best for you regardless of what they or anyone else might think.

It’s your life and we only get one chance at it.

xkcd.com

I was introduced to grief at a very young age. Coming from a large family, funerals and wakes were one of the things you attended to see the family. They weren’t so much about the departed, but those that were still alive. The Aunts and Uncles who were from my grandmother’s generation. We always had to go because it could always be the “last time” we would see them. In that regard, I guess you could say that death always was kind of a looming thing in my life. We were trying to hang on to those extra moments before it was seemingly too late.

I was 16 when my grandmother passed away. I only had one grandparent, technically, since my mother’s parents had passed way before I and my brothers were glimmers in my parents’ eyes and my paternal grandfather passed when my father was 9 years old. During those services, I spent a lot of time sitting in smokey parlors and staring at her coffin not knowing what else to do with myself. As the youngest cousin of that generation, I didn’t have many people I could relate to. My cousins were more emotional than I was, to be honest, and I found myself answering tedious questions like if I had a boyfriend yet and how school was going between drags of cigarettes and tears. It wasn’t that I wasn’t sad that my grandmother was gone, I think I was already kind of numb to the process of it all. It was the 1-2-1 as we would call it: one evening wake, then an afternoon and evening wake the following day with a 2 hour break usually spent at someone’s house for dinner, then the funeral on the third day with another large meal at a relative’s house. While most people would stop by for one of the wakes for a bit to pay their respects, my family went to everything and sat for the entire time. It was an exhausting and boring tradition done in the vein of “that’s just what you do.” I know, to some degree, those closest with the departed appreciated the support, but as someone who was put in that position of “the closest” later in life, I found it a bit burdensome. You’re taking up space that could be used for another friend or relative to grieve and show their support. I also wondered, is this really the best way to support? Is it the best way to use our time? Then again, a lot of these folks didn’t have another way of showing support. That by being present for everything satisfied their need to do something – even if the ones that were closest needed it or not.

I finally did allow myself to get emotional during her actual funeral service. Between everyone crying and the eulogies, I finally could let myself feel the grief I needed to. Little did I know that this would set a pattern for the future. Funerals, regardless of who they are for, always tug at me. One reason is I can’t stand to see someone cry. If they start crying, chances are I will too. I’m also an emotional person when presented with a good story. I’ll admit, I’m the type of person who will cry watching a commercial or even figure skating. I like to blame peri-menopause on this, but honestly, I’ve been this way my entire life. There’s something about a funeral, though, that will get to me. It might be the sense of finality of it. All that’s left after it is a burial. It’s the final act of that person’s life. Yes, I concede that there are opportunities for other acts of remembrances however a funeral really does symbolize the finality of it all.

When it came time for my own father’s services, I found myself consoling everyone else as the pomp and circumstance of the services were like old hat to me. I was 20 years old when he had passed from a short bout with a cancer that ended up wrecking his entire body at the end. Dano-carcinoma: Cancer without a primary source. They didn’t know where it started and so they didn’t know where it would go. He was sick for only 4 months before he passed and I was there for it all; the hospital for his treatments, when we had to move him to a room downstairs when he was too weak to climb upstairs, and then we he had passed away. October 14, 1998 my mother called at 5am to tell us to get to the hospital because it was time. I found it a bit spooky because the night before, not only had my mother chosen to stay at the hospital (the only time she ever did during his illness) but I also had a conversation with whatever was going to listen to me. We all knew what was about to happen, it was just a matter of when at that point. I begged whatever would be listening that if they were going to take my father that they do it that night or wait 2 days because my mother’s birthday was approaching and I would not forgive him passing on HER day. So when my mother’s call came through to say I was taken aback was an understatement.

My brothers, their partners, my mother, and I were all in the room when he took his last breath. I felt so bad because I knew he didn’t want to go. I could see him looking at us knowing how much he would miss out on and he so badly wanted to be there for it all. Unfortunately, his body had other plans. As he took his last breath, the sun was rising in the distance almost as if it were lifting all of us up with it. We would have a short time to sit in the silence before chaos descended.

Minutes after, his sisters – all 7 of them – descended on the hospital room one by one. This was the first sibling to pass away and, being the only male, they depended on him so much. Not only were they grieving the loss of their brother, but also their champion. The image that never leaves me is my Aunt Gloria rubbing his feet as she would do so many times before, with tears in her eyes and lips quivering. I had to leave the room because of how overwhelming it all was. Sitting in the waiting area, I remember people talking to me but I don’t remember what was said. I do remember this feeling of needing to be strong and stoic.

I got 15 minutes to grieve and now I would have to put on a brave face for what was about to happen.

Whenever someone passes, I always recommend to people wanting to help that the best time to do so is 2 weeks after the services are over. Many people are so quick to jump into action during that first week but it’s later that’s actually more important. The meals and hugs during those first few days are so appreciated, but with so much going on you’re almost in a daze and don’t have the emotional room to properly grieve at that point. For me, I was helping my mother entertain, well, everyone. The services were up the street from our house so this made it easier to manage. We hosted the meals in between the wakes (we ended up doing a 2-2-1 because of the sheer number of people expected) as well as small gatherings here and there. I spent the majority of the time outside and chain smoking. As friends would walk in, I would be holding their hand as they walked up to my father’s casket. I was much more content outside despite my extended family’s disapproval.

My father was buried in upstate NY which posed another logistical miracle as we had to bus the entire family up there and host them after. Instead of grieving for the loss of my father, we were playing cruise director making sure everyone else had what they needed. In a way this served as a distraction, but it was the climax of a very grueling and stressful time for my family. We entertained around 50 people (it may have been more) making sure that they had enough to eat and pointing out the best places to hide on the property to smoke their joints – something that annoyed me to no end given my father was a former police officer and they knew my mother wouldn’t put up with that nonsense. It was a way for them to be occupied in something else that didn’t involve me, though, so in a way I was also happy to oblige. The good news was, they didn’t stay overnight and we arranged for the bus to drive them back down the same day. That night the quiet was deafening as we had endured 5 days of loud insanity prior. The next day we went home and a week later I was back in school.

While I appreciated the hugs and meals during that first week where things were insane, it was the little things that came about later that I appreciated more. The grace my professors showed me the rest of the semester, my close friends checking in on me with a simple “you aight?” and getting me out of the house, my mother’s brother’s popping by as they usually did but now with more regularity just to chat.. Those little things in the weeks after made the process of grieving a bit lighter for us. I was finally able to release my grief about 3 months later when I moved to Pennsylvania for college knowing that this would be the first of many things I would not be able to share with my father.

Over the next 25 years I have attended far too may more funerals than anyone should, and I have seen an influx these past 5 with most of them being people from my generation. It’s one thing to have to memorialize one of your elders, it’s a far different experience when it’s someone who is your age, or even younger, as it’s been this past year. The “grief foundation” from my childhood helped me in getting through all the pomp and circumstance of the formalities, but, as I said in a previous piece, I still find myself grieving alone. Sometimes I think that I do it to myself because I don’t want to burden others with something so… obvious. That the person who is there to hug everyone else and make sure that they eat and hydrates does not expect that from others. It’s the other side of “you just do” – you help others and then deal with your own in “peace.” I’ve always maintained that I actually prefer this, but some days I know I’m just blowing smoke up people’s asses when I say this. Truth is, it’s getting harder with each person that leaves because it’s another reminder that time is going by faster than I would like it to. That the longing for more time that I saw in my father’s eyes I would see in too many of my friends and family.

While I am still processing what I need to grieve and move forward in this new reality, I maintain the same basic principles that tend to get pushed aside for one reason or another:

Our time on this floating blue marble is short.
Do the thing you’ve always wanted to and stop doubting yourself.
Hug often and as tight as you can muster.
Love with every ounce of your being and tell people that you love them (make it weird if you need to).
Limit as much of the bullshit from your life as you can.
Support and lift people up. Stop tearing them down.

But most important…
Be a good human.