Though no longer "self-proclaimed" and now actually "bonafide" as an author, let's follow my random life and see just what it is that makes me tick. Together!
I've thought a lot over the past few months about writing something just for the sake of writing it. I used to do that, pretty often in fact, but stopped somewhere along the way. Part was to start holding a certain amount of privacy in my life. Part was because I was too lazy to share it. There's always a reason though, isn't there? As to why we do or do not do something? I believe we are preternaturally destined to search for an excuse to shift the blame to something other than ourselves, beyond any sort of determined control. But that's just me.
I waxed poetic at the start of the year, thinking heartbreak was best left in the last decade. That wasn't true. Maybe it was the great cosmic joke of 2020 and the new decade to effectively prove how much "heartbreak" is just part of who I am at my core. That it's what I get... if not deserve... and that I just need to continue learning how to shoulder. It gets really hard to shoulder sometimes, and I'm so embarrassed to admit that.
It's harder to shoulder it when you don't want to go back to therapy to learn new and additional coping mechanisms. It's even harder to shoulder it without turning toward medication. The result is feeling lost and living a life that is based solely on moments. I finished the patio; I sold my house; I visited my best friend in California. It's the spaces between the moments that I find myself wandering around and looking for purpose. A year ago I felt like I had purpose.
Six months and one week ago I felt like I had purpose.
Purpose is only a temporary thing though, right? It's not meant to be permanent... the entire goal of "purpose" is to achieve something. Maybe you do, and that's great. You can then revel in the ensuing sense of accomplishment that comes with it. But if purpose is ripped out from under you, even if you aren't sure/weren't sure/won't be sure of what that purpose was... what do you do? I occupy a space of general uncertainty in my life now, and I can't really put my finger on why that is. What is holding me back? And if not holding me back... what force is holding me down exactly where I am?
2020 has been good for one thing and it has been that it's held a mirror up to all of us and asked that we look deeper into who we are at our core. How will you handle a pandemic? How will you navigate relationships with friends any family? How will you change personally from Black Lives Matter? When will you finally speak up about something that is just plain morally wrong that you've ignored for years? How will you find the pieces of your heart... pick them back up... and then try to hold said pieces together in a shape somewhat vaguely resembling what they once were?
That last one I'm still trying to work out.
Even though I've written about the situation I found myself in this spring, I think back on that quote "everyone has a chapter they don't read out loud." I think about how much I've pulled away from the blogs and writing in large, concealing a big part of who I am as an individual because I'm often uncomfortable in speaking it out loud. But maybe it's time I did give voice to what goes on in my head. Here you go.
It's been a long year and we're just eight months in, and while I'd love to share some glorious gems of introspection as to what I've learned, I'm mostly just a heartbroken person who shuffles through the days, one moment to the next. I'm irritable often and my good-natured mental state collapses at the drop of a dime for certain minor inconveniences. I feel taxed in so many avenues of who I have to be and for whom. I feel jubilant randomly for no apparent cause. I get dizzy as I'm packing the boxes that are slowly building toward the ceiling my dining room, and have to take a break because it feels similar to being car sick. I lose weight and I gain weight. I laugh often and I cry rarely, but when I do cry, it's sometimes harder than I ever have before. I feel alone a lot. Conversely, I feel anyone I want is within reach through a phone call or a text. I am a walking contradiction and I'm complicated and I'm determined and I'm trying to figure out how all of that fits into the cramped space of my skull that is too big to wear most baseball hats. Sometimes I feel like no one wants to listen to me anymore... that they don't want me to bring up failed relationships or sad thoughts or concern over where my life is or isn't going. The year is hard enough with out all of that, right? Other times I feel like should I just speak, I will have an audience. Maybe not the biggest in the world, but one that matters.
Last week I was in California visiting Tina and we went to Rodeo beach, just outside of San Francisco. I snapped a selfie, as I'm prone to do, because I finally felt like I was where I was supposed to be. I had this overwhelming feeling of content that I don't know how to accurately put to words. The problems I've been navigating this year were pushed away, the under-riding sadness wasn't there, and I just felt like everything was going to be okay.
Having the feeling that I had found where I belonged and also knowing it was where I would never be able to afford... it was heartbreaking in its own right.
A few years ago I shared a quote that said "don't look back, you're not going that way." I love it for countless reasons, mostly because the quote itself means that you should have hope. Hope for the future and what wonders it will bring, hope for ease and comfort and love and joy. None of those are particularly exclusive to the other... but any variety would be appreciated. The past though has a way of coming around for me in ways that are often unexpected and sometimes just unwanted.
Like a photo that popped up on Facebook back in July and just about destroyed me when I saw it. Or the memory(s) shared by an ex, while happy in tone, that dredge up a world that ultimately didn't work out and subsequently never will.
It's hard for me to look forward when I have a past that was so good, in so many respects, that it haunts me. No, I'm not looking back... but it's always in my peripherals. Is the answer going to be found in moving to a new house? I don't know. What I do know is that it will give me more projects, which means more time painting and tinkering and doing god knows what while I listen absentmindedly to music and trick myself into thinking I'm all better.
None of this is a cry for help... it's not a plea for anyone to step in and show me the proverbial light. These are the words that have been floating in my head and I've typically found it cathartic to get all of that out to a page in order to process and move forward. Will it work? Search me. But I know it can't hurt.
I'd apologize for the downer of a blog but in the words of Rihanna, "baby, this is what you came for." So for now it's a shower, then bed, then back to work (officially) for the first time in roughly two weeks. Time goes on and wounds mend, thoughts get cleared as the world falls into place. 2020 will probably throw something else horrible before this is all done, but I guess in whatever weird way, it builds character. How else can you look back and say "remember when?"
I write a lot about anniversaries, specifically when things hit the one year (or yearly in general) mark, and trust that this little habit it isn't lost on me. I think I've always been a fan of being able to look at the past and observe what has changed. Me, the proponent of changes, big shocker I'd want to see how I have bettered... or worsened... with the passage of time. The funny thing is that it can be easy to get lost in the past, right? Lamenting on how things were instead of how they are?
Maybe that's the mark of someone that hasn't processed grief or trauma or whatever you want to call it; they still look back with a certain fondness to how it was, or maybe how it was supposed to be. So with today being June 6th, I look back to a year ago, and my first date with Andrew. I also write this, knowing that finally, it is the last time I will ever write about him.
I suppose it's fitting to write this now and round out a year of my life with a certain flourish that three months ago I didn't think would be possible. I have to admit that thinking about our first date... his crisp white button down and nervous smile so permanently engrained in my mind... it did take my breath away. You build an illusion and persona so completely in your mind that seeing it fleshed out, in so many ways better than you could have possibly imagined, it was just... something. We hugged, and then sat down, and not for one second did it cross my mind that I'd be sitting here writing about it in this regard.
That could be because I didn't think it would reach the point of hearts being broken... or it could be because I was so certain it would just work. But here I am, alone in bed (save for Sophia staring out the window), and I'm writing.
I think for me, the hardest part of a relationship ending is letting go of the idea of what it was supposed to be. Dropping the notion or idea of your "person" feels nearly impossible, because you know them, right? You know how they like their coffee, what foods to cheer them up, what jokes will get a bigger laugh. You know the right things to say and the right way to kiss, and when the mood strikes, you know the... other things as well. But then all of a sudden you don't. And if you're like me in this particular instance, at least, it is shoved so hard in your face that you never knew them that it just freezes you.
How could you have not? You took the verbal and visual and physical cues, you took them for their word... but then to have them point blank say "the version of me I showed you wasn't me, it was a lie," well... what do you do?
How do you let that go? Yet somehow, as time passes... you just drop it.
I look back to my blog in April, where I quoted Charlotte in Sex & the City and her theory of duration to get over an ex. And really, I doubted it very much. By mid July I was supposed to be over him? That felt like a hot shot from a cold hell. A few days after posting the blog, I was at a low enough point (quarantine, breakup, it was Easter, it was snowing, and I was out of wine) that I reached out to him. Not a boo-hoo text, but just a, I don't know, a hello? How are you?
I think about you always. I hope you're well.
It was me reaching for a lifeline... it was me being weak and vulnerable, still struggling after a month and a half to wrap my head around what the hell had happened. And he did respond, courteously within the hour. And I suppose courteously as well, he answered the couple questions I had in a vague manner. But there was no warmth or care, there was no love that had once been there. A friend described it as "clinical." I thought it was cold, and it was certainly empty.
It would be remiss of me not to say that the switch inside of me was finally flipped. And though it took one or two days to fully engage, that switch hit the mental lights over the words "Hey! He doesn't care about you anymore, Sean!" Neat.
I've never really been one to grovel. Call it being a stubborn Capricorn so set in my ways that I refuse to acknowledge my shortcomings, I don't care. But I don't grovel. I've written before how appreciated it was to have such an outpouring of support from friends and family, but the real person I needed support from was myself. I needed to be the one to say "enough," turn away, and start walking. And I did.
I spent the next month and a half working on the yard, and getting back into the groove with what we were doing at work (in a limited capacity, of course). Focusing on the book and finishing not only the written edit but the edit to the hard-copy as well. And with a little bit of this and that, I gradually found myself healing. Or healed, as it were.
So imagine my surprise when Andrew reached out the other week (after said month and a half of radio silence), and also imagine my surprise in that I did not take this communication too well. Not in an "I broke down in tears and cried all day" kind of way... more that I was initially just shocked to hear from him, and then when his intention became clear (clearing his guilty conscience), I was angry. I was furious, actually, at the nerve. That he would come to me for some absolution for how he was feeling, and (how I looked at it, at least) that I would owe it to him. And I hadn't felt that anger through this whole thing, so that was the true surprise.
I could've told him to fuck off. That he's a narcissist hell bent on destroying anyone that could possibly try loving him. That he's a selfish asshole with only his best interests in mind.
But I didn't.
I pulled a classic Sean Parker, in a way a few of you have maybe been privy to over the years, and I put my cold, calm, and calculated intellect into words. I didn't swear, I didn't threaten, I just let it out in two short paragraphs. Did the tone come through? I imagine it did, because he never replied, and the radio silence has resumed. Did I feel better afterward? No, not especially, because there were a million things that spanned a spectrum from love to hate that I wanted to convey and couldn't/wouldn't.
Did I feel worse? Absolutely not.
You see, Katie reached out that night to see how I was doing, she having known what was going on during the day. I told her I was fine, because I was. I wasn't even phased. The whole THING didn't phase me, apart from being caught off guard on the day I was opening my store back up for business after two months of the doors being locked. But truly... I was fine, and that was when it hit me that I was fine.
I was fine with all of it. I'd taken quarantine on my own in Minneapolis, and I used it to heal. To face myself, my truths, the ugly sides and the good, and come out from it. I'll never again be the person I was before I met Andrew, and that makes me sad. It makes me sad because it was a person that had not been jilted thrice by men he loved. But it also means that I know a little more about myself, that I know on a deeper level who I am, who I had been, and what I allowed to happen to me in the name of love. I changed for him and not necessarily in positive ways, so to look back at those changes now and be able to not only recognize them, but to shake my head and think "won't be doing that again for a guy," that's a wonderful thing.
Introspection leads to realization which leads to balance and then growth. It leads us to change.
I saw this photo the other night on instagram and I saved it, and since then I've seen it a dozen more times so clearly it's making the rounds and HOPEFULLY that means it's catching on. I think we all get so caught up on the negatives of life lately and 2020 and all that it has brought us, but maybe we should be looking to the positive.
So much has happened in such a short time this year, and it's really an incredible thing to look around and see how it has changed us. Not all positives, of course, but not all negatives. We've been forced to slow down, look around, and realize what exactly our world is and has become. Outside as well as in.
But still, I'm here, writing. I suppose that's the gift Andrew gave me? He pushed the magnitude of my blogs so high up in the sky that I realized I needed to get back to writing them? I dunno. You've gotta take something good from all the bad, and if it was my desire to write again... I won't complain.
Still, I miss him. For all the anger I had in that flash of a moment, it's subsided. I'll always look back at that first date with fondness over how perfect it was and the hope in my heart for how perfect it could've been. A man that held my hand on a busy street in the fading daylight, who gave me our first kiss surrounded by people on a corner, and who pulled back from that kiss with all of the wonder and excitement on his face that I felt in my heart. But it wasn't mean to be, and that's okay too.
Now I'll lock Andrew away in my heart with the great loves that came before him, and that's where he can stay. Always there, never forgotten, because it's the burden that I choose to carry. Albeit with a lighter step now. I do love an anniversary <3
It's kinda rainy outside today, and with chores wrapped up in the house and me procrastinating a bit on editing, I find myself turning to a blog. The bigger reason is because I'm trying not to write Andrew a letter, and hoping that by getting my thoughts out here instead of there, I can move forward with a little more dignity. We all know dignity has never been a key player in my life though ::insert winking emoji... then crying emoji::
It's humorous for me, not in a "haha" way but that, y'know, other way, to look back at my great big goals for 2020 and how great things were going to be for me. I didn't put pen to paper on most of these goals, I certainly didn't make them law for my new resolution, but I had them. I'm sure everyone entering this new decade thought it would start out with exciting changes and fresh starts. Little did we know what those exciting changes would entail... little did I know what those would entail. And I think for the bulk of us, this little quarantine and removal of a lot of our normal daily tasks has forced an introspection whether we wanted it or not. Maybe that's just how I'm taking it? The opportunity to look at myself, my life, and my choices?
Today is day 23 under self-isolation.
Being apart from people, or being apart from what I had once considered a normal routine, has done strange things to me. When Pottery Barn (or rather, Williams Sonoma Inc) announced we'd be closing for two weeks (now another two weeks (who knows beyond that)) my thoughts were scattered in three directions.
The first was worry for my team of employees. Being the General Manager means being essentially a parent, despite most of my team being older than me (some old enough to actually be my parent). How would I keep them motivated, and if not motivated, reminded that I'm thinking of them? That I'm here and that I get it and that I understand what financially this means to some of them. That I know it's scary.
The second direction was fear for my own sanity. I'd been in such a blended state of emotions since Andrew left that I often didn't want to be around anybody, but I was finally getting back to a place where I was looking forward to going to work. A distraction, maybe, but also a place where the people love me and I love them. Where I could focus on day-to-day tasks and get through it. Now I had to stop?
And third, honestly, the excitement of having two weeks away from work (essentially) where I could have time to start working on a few projects and get my personal life in some form of an order. It was going to be great to catch up with friends, reaching out to people I hadn't spoken to in months if not years, and reconnecting. To finally get back to what I had always considered my own reality.
But then that ebbed.
It was a quicker realization than I maybe anticipated. That "reality" I was focused on returning to? It didn't exist anymore. I realized that while I maybe thought it was just within my grasp, it really wasn't at all. Not that it's a bad thing. Within a few days of isolation and having time to just be alone with my thoughts, I could see that some of the paths I walked in the past are gone now. Washed out by the rains, if you will. The directions these paths took, be they friendships or relationships or familiar bonds... the routes I myself took at the forks in the road, had shifted things in me. I realized that sometimes it's okay to just let the past be where it is. Maybe all roads converge again at some point, maybe they don't. Who am I to try to mess with that?
I've always been fond of the quote "dreams die hard and you hold them in your hand long after they've turned to dust," and I refuse to let that be me. I can't let that be me, squeezing the past so tightly in my grasp that I don't realize how everything around me has changed yet thinking I remained the same.
To start my isolation, I made a Multiples video. Bucking tradition, I excluded two of the multiples and just brought it back to the main team of myself, Lane, and Nicole. The point of the project was to write out something in a script that would be the slap in the face I needed. I could give Nicole the more "honest" things to say, because that's what she's here for. To shine a light on the dark bits and maybe brighten the mood as a result. Typically I love making these videos, despite the amount of work that goes into them, because I have such a fun time in front of the camera. I usually mess up a lot, make light of things, slip into voices, etc., and then you the viewer gets to enjoy (hopefully) a chorus of bloopers at the end of said video.
This time it just felt heavy. Aside from a few line flubs as Lane, hardly anything as myself, and then difficulty remembering whole speeches as Nicole... it was heavy. I was still upset about Andrew. Scratch that, I am still upset. I guess I figured having to scream the line "I AM angry!" directly at the camera would offer some sort of catharsis, but it didn't. I screamed the line four times and then broke down in tears. And I had a good cry. And then I finished a few lines with tears still in my eyes, and wrapped the shoot. When I was editing it all together, I sat and watched myself screaming and then the subsequent falling-apart, and then I fell apart again because I've never seen that side of me.
I don't know about you, but I don't really cry in front of cameras or mirrors very often. Could just be me though.
I released the video to general appreciation. It made people laugh, which is always my goal, because I love to laugh as well. Particularly I love to laugh at myself, because what's the point if you can't do that? But there were a handful of you that saw something deeper in the video, who picked apart at the subtext. And I wanted to say that I appreciate you seeing me.
The interesting thing about self-isolation... or I suppose isolation by government mandate, as it were... is just exactly how much time you have to think. So why do I still find myself thinking about Andrew?
Really, why?
It's more than a month and a half on, yet my thoughts return to him on a daily if not semi-hourly basis. I made the Multiples video to move onward, but if anything it just brought everything back into an incredibly sharp focus. I know this should change, and that everyone says it will change, but it hasn't yet. So I keep trudging forward.
I thought I would be good at a month.
The hours after he left turned to days. The days turned into a full week, and I wrote him a letter. Did I tell you that? I actually used to write Andrew letters often, my idea to deal with the hard time we were having with the distance between us while he was living in Wisconsin. I thought if there was something physical, tangible, to hold on to then maybe that would help to bridge the divide? So it was only natural for me to write a letter when all of this had crumbled. All the things I didn't know to say, that I didn't know I wanted to say, composed in hopefully something that made a little bit of sense.
And he did write me back... and it was what it was.
That week turned into two weeks though, and then before I knew it a month was gone. Is it like Charlotte said in Sex & the City, that it takes half the time you dated someone to get over them? And if so, does my feeble attempt at a relationship that didn't even hit the length of a full-term pregnancy mean by mid summer I'll feel better? I can't imagine so... at least right now. If anything I'm dreading summer because I'll just be thinking about how GREAT it was last year. What a fool.
I guess more often than not I'm just embarrassed. I mean, c'mon team, let's not beat around the proverbial bush here. If one of my friends was this torn up from a not-quite-nine-months relationship, I'd tell them to get the hell over it. And here I am... so why can't I? That's the embarrassment. It comes slinking in through the shadows like some evil swamp witch, going to rest right in the corner of my mind. It's an ugly feeling, and it's one I've not often faced as an adult, but I think that's the advantage of getting older, right? You care less about what others think and are therefor less embarrassed by your actions.
But again, here I am. Embarrassed.
I do find it curious that at this point I'm still recalling minute details about our relationship and expecting them to somehow continue existing. When I go to bed, I still roll over before turning the light out with a current event to share. I still sit down to play a video game and think to ask him if he wants to play too. I know this won't last forever... in fact, several things have already disappeared. This makes me sad in too many ways to list. There have been lots of quiet times during this isolation and plenty of moments to think, but it's the true quiet times that are the worst. When the lights are turned out and I'm alone in bed, the fan running and the cats circling me for a place to sleep, and that's when I think about what's gone. I think about scary things, too, like an intruder in the house or a monster waiting in the guest room for when I inevitably wake up to use the restroom in the middle of the night. Then I realize the only monster is an angry past and the fact I'm not over it yet.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I still feel like I'm paddling at the water as it tries to rise above my head. Every time I get a thought of him, that water creeps higher. Maybe eventually the thoughts will wash away from me and drown on their own accord, but I don't know that. What panics me is that I'm not changing in the way I thought I would. I'm not reverting to the old person, pre Andrew. Conversely, I'm not really transforming into some new version of myself, post. I'm just here. Existing. Going about the day to day and trying to figure it all out.
The good that comes from all of this, if you want to call it that, is the random messages I get from people. Some reached out after reading the breakup blog... one of the breakup blogs, I guess... and let me know how they experienced the same. Or similar. Or not at all but how it touched them. Moved them.
Those are the good.
They make me feel a little less alone, they make me feel like I can maybe help by sharing my heartache. It's hard for me to say I want more people to reach out, because it also depends on my current mood. Sometimes people reach out from the blue and say "how're you doing with the breakup?" and my mind is instantly catapulted backward from whatever good moment I had been having, and I get mad.
I suppose maybe that's because I haven't been as mad as I should be? I also suppose that at this point I do see the large amount of negative aspects that came with this relationship. His jealousy, my self-silencing, and the paranoia and the fear someone would screw up from both of us. The constant need to try to impress, the constant worry I'd say or do something that would cause disappointment or distrust. That's not a relationship. That's not the relationship I wanted, it's not the one I deserved, but it is the one I found myself in. For all of the flaws though, there were a million more bonuses. And for some reason those are the only things I have been honing in on.
That quote is what it all boils down to, I think. My friend Che posted it this morning and it was one of those "a-ha" moments I'm so fond of stumbling across. When the cards are laid out or when the dice are rolled, whatever you want to call it, Andrew just wasn't honest with me about a lot of things. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing that would make me say he's a liar, but he was not honest from the start. And what I felt... the love I exuded and poured into him... couldn't have been reciprocated with all of that hanging over his head. I know that, I do... but knowing and understanding are often two different things. And I'm still trying to understand it.
Self-isolation goes on though. Work on the house goes on. Editing of Episode IV of the book series goes on. I'm powering through shows I've kept on the back-burner, I'm listening to music I've never heard before, and I'm talking to people I never expected to find friendships in. Many of them are Instagram friends, from California to Spain, and their humor and attitudes and perspectives have been a truly wonderful thing for me to embrace and enjoy. I never had a penpal growing up, but I imagine it would've been like this. To an extent. It's never a bad thing to connect with individuals around the world, like my friend Salem in Spain who creates the most beautiful artwork I've ever seen. Or my friend Carlos in California who shares the same sense of humor I do. It's a time for branching out right now, because there really isn't much else to do.
I read a quote the other day that said "Maybe you're not healing because you're trying to be who you were before the trauma, and that person doesn't exist anymore. There is a new person trying to be born; breathe life into that person." That's where I'm at now. Who do I want to be? What road do I want to take, what changes do I want to make? It's an exciting prospect on the one hand and a scary one on the other. Maybe I just need to join my hands together and be nervously optimistic, both at the same time.
I'm not at post-breakup "anthem" levels of music yet, where belting out "Party for One" by Carly Rae Jepsen or rage screaming "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette both feel out of place. But I found a song recently called "Slippin" by Bre Kennedy that I felt comfortable enough attaching to this blog. With that, I'm going to retreat and find something to do around here. That part of me is still familiar, it hasn't changed... never gonna stop, either. Toodles gang (c:
I look at that photo, unpublished from a series taken on a hike during the first day we spent together, and I'm transported back in time to when this was new. When the excitement was just beginning. And the song, too... unofficially "ours" but one that continually reminded us both of the start. Hearing it and I'm thrust into the light and the warmth and excitement that came with finding love. I remember sending Andrew this song on our third day of talking, a few days before we'd actually met, while he was driving from Green Bay. He had said something along the lines of "I'm listening with the windows down and the sun is shining, the only thing that would be more perfect is if you were holding my hand."
In blind deep I was drawn to you,
but I never want what I need.
And my third eye was wandering,
just made it harder to see.
But like I said, I've been here before.
Quite a few of you have been here with me. And though I'm filled with a certain and particular type of pain, I guess I need to say welcome back? To you, to me... to a feeling I never wanted to feel again. Might as well cut to the chase and rip off the proverbial bandaid then, yes?
Andrew left me.
Most people have asked if I knew it was coming, and the short answer is no, I did not. Could I sense it? No. Had I maybe squinted my eyes to the truth just a little too much and missed a couple of key indicators to this, most unfortunate of climaxes? No.
Have I ever felt a pain like this one before? That one is a little more difficult to quantify.
The reason behind all of this is simple, and in some respects it is finite. Andrew felt he could not be the partner I needed, and in order to deal with his internal demons he decided the best course of action was to leave. A few of you know more detail than that, most others aren't really privy to it. Seeing as he didn't cheat on me or (fully) betray my trust, I'm going to grant him a certain amount of privacy that before now has not typically been offered in blogs such as this.
When people speak of the traumas they have endured at certain points in their lives, I always think in my head "oof, I've never been through that, but I can imagine and boy how it must suck." I never feel, or felt, I had anything of my own that was traumatic. I've never been beaten by a boyfriend/fiance. I've never been emotionally abused by a partner (as far as I know). I've never been witness to a murder or anything else even remotely horrifying in person. My friend Andy was over the night this all fell apart, racing from his apartment to my house to (literally) hold me in his arms while I sobbed and dissolved on the sofa.
After an hour or so, with my tears quieting a bit to just random intervals, I was discussing some of the deeper issues at play in Andrew's reasoning (i.e. certain traumas), and lamenting that I've never had the luxury... if that's the right word... of attributing anything in my life to trauma. Andy sort of paused, and as gently as he could, said that maybe my traumas were my breakups.
And it struck me, because he was right.
I've had two break ups before this that actually carried weight. One with Ken, that arguably should have happened a year before it actually did, and one with Derek, that happened but did not wrap itself up until two and a half months later. Both were from infidelity, and while all is forgiven and under the table now, at the time there was anger. There was so much anger, and being able to direct that at a person for something THEY did? That helps in the process. But it was a process I learned from, and adapted to. When it had happened that second time, it was a familiar territory that I was entering. Not that I wanted to, by any means, but there I was anyway.
Now? Not so much.
My silly guy.
You see, this time, I don't have that anger. I don't have hate. Until this past Sunday morning, when I came downstairs from a decent sleep and had some time to kill before heading to work, I was full with the purest and most beautiful form of love I've ever known. A love that did not falter, that continued to grow and blossom and develop every day as the future unfolded a little bit at a time. But a tense conversation ensued, I left for work upset, and then Sunday night came home to a conversation that made me start to waver in my beliefs.
After airing my grievances and subsequently putting them to rest, Andrew cautiously shared that he had doubts about us. That he was afraid he would do something to hurt me down the line because he had never processed events from his past. That he maybe wasn't the right man for me. And that we should take a break.
I guess the optimistic part of me thought throughout the next day at work that I would come home and he would say "Hey babe, I'm sorry for how last night went, let's sit down and talk and work it out." But he didn't. I came home to (not noticing) his car packed with the furniture and belongings he had moved out here. I opened the back door to the house and saw his computer monitor sitting on the kitchen floor, and like a runaway truck, it hit me. I looked in the dining room and he was sitting there, his hands clasped in front of him, with the most anxious expression I had ever seen on his beautiful face.
I nervously sat down opposite him, and watched his eyes tear up as he tried to find the words. So I found them for him.
"Is this goodbye?" And he nodded, and the tears started from both of us. He was sorry... he was ashamed of himself... but he was collapsing under the weight of our relationship and turning farther away from the person he really is... and it wasn't fair to me.
I don't... I don't know what you say to that. You can't scream, you can't accuse, you can't swear... you just sit there dumbfounded to what is happening. Stupidly gazing at the love of your life as he tells you he is leaving, and all you can think about is "how did this happen?" We're supposed to rent a truck in less than two weeks to empty the apartment and fully move him out here; how did this happen?
Because it happened so fast. There was no warning. There was no downhill launch into an oblivion unknown. There was a rough Saturday of moodiness on both our parts, a stressful Sunday from the morning awkwardness, and then an ending Monday. I shouldn't say ending, he referred to it as "taking a break," and reaffirmed this to me when I stupidly asked "what about taking a break?"
I didn't scream or beg or really do anything. I just cried. And then I told him he'd better get a move on, knowing the five hour drive back to Wisconsin quite well at this point. So he got up and I got up and we hugged, and as I wrapped my big arms around his big shoulders, the panic really took hold of me. Because I was losing him... had lost him. Break or not. He was walking out of my life as easily as he walked into it, with no warning either time. What had started out as too-good-to-be-true had turned into a nightmare come to life.
He struggled to pick up everything in his arms and then struggled with the door, and I stood there with my hands over my mouth sobbing unapologetically. And then he was out the door, and I was on my knees wailing against the shitty wood floors of my kitchen that were next to be refinished. I realized I hadn't kissed him, that I hadn't gotten a goodbye kiss, and I hurried to the pantry window to see if he was still here. I could see his hat disappearing as he got into the car.
I opened the back door and sprinted down the pathway to the garage, swinging the gate open as he pulled away, not seeing me. And I stood there for a second, the desperation icing its way into my throat. And I walked back to the house in a daze, and I shut the back door behind me, and I screamed. I screamed a scream that I have only made twice before. One of rage and sadness and terror and pain and horrified understanding of what was actually happening. The same scream I had reserved for Ken and Derek.
I texted Andrew right away... said I hadn't gotten to kiss him goodbye... and he replied that he should have kissed me and he was sorry. And I waited motionlessly in the kitchen for him to come back and do so.
And I waited.
I just... thought he'd come back for me.
I thought he would turn around and pull in and run up the back pathway and that we'd meet again for one final embrace.
But he didn't, and I didn't ask, and then it was too late.
You go from living and breathing a person to just... nothing. It's gone. And at first it's the most horrible thing you feel you could ever possibly endure, particularly when not having any choice in the matter.
The minutes drag on.
In a desperate gaze for something, anything, your eyes land on places in the room and conjure the invisible memories of what transpired where. A kiss on that chair. A hug there. Hours spent cuddled on the sofa watching TV or playing games.
Then the deeper, harder reality sets in as you remember these things... and it's that you don't know what to do with yourself. What to do with your hands. In exasperation you shake them out and your throat clenches while your face crumbles, and the tears you thought would surely have dried up are once again spilling and you realize this is your life now. Again.
That you're back to a point of such low self-worth that you don't know how you ever did it before. How you did it twice before, actually, because this is your particular kind of life trauma. How did you pick yourself up last time? How did you dust it off and keep moving, when everything you did reminded you of the love you had lost?
It's been three days. Four, if you count the trepidation that filled me all day at work on Monday. Has it gotten easier? Yes. I won't lie or be dramatic and say it's as bad as it was that first night. But in a way, it's worse.
Worse because it is sinking in that I won't have those memories refreshed again. Because that's where they can only exist now, in this clouded part of my mind I didn't think I'd need to fully rely on, to relive what had become such a daily occurrence.
My best friend Kyle told me yesterday to "take the memories, keep and cherish them. Don't ever regret or hate them, they were pure when they were happening." And he's right, because that what it was for 99.9% of the time. We were happy. I was happy. I was so happy that I never in a million instances thought this could happen. I thought I'd have a warning maybe... that I'd see or feel it crumbling down, like a change in the temperature outside. But I didn't. Maybe part of that is on me, maybe it's not.
There is something I do know, even in the dark and sadness that I find myself in. Something I have to hold on to. I still believe in love.
Love
I believe in my love for Andrew. He did not betray it, he did not cheat on it... he just couldn't fulfill his end of it. I'm going to keep continuing to believe in love and I'm going to keep loving him and I hope he knows that. He has to know that. When the going gets tough, I get stubborn.
Will that love last forever?
I don't fuckin' know. Right now, yes. Because it's easier to cling to the notion of love lasting than it is to cast it aside and shrug.
In the end, you lift your head up and take stock of who is still in your life. What friendships have you let slip by the wayside through your euphoric bliss? How many friends have you lost, how many are waiting around, and how many are by your side? I know of a couple that I lost, and that's fine. It wasn't fine a couple months ago, but in the end, it all happens for a reason. This happened for a reason too, though I'm still struggling to decipher what it actually is.
To the people that have reached out to me, through text and phone, thank you. To Andy and Renae who came to sit with me, your support is everything.
I know I got through this before with the help of my safety net of people. And I know that in the three years that have passed since I last needed them, that net has changed. Drastically, in some cases, but just as strong.
This feeling I embody now is temporary and I know it. Hopefully this break is temporary, too, but I don't know that. As the days go on and the event gets farther in the past, and as my heart begins to seal itself back up but hopefully not turn as cold and hard as I fear it will, it gets easier. Easier isn't right now... and right now I feel so utterly hopeless and alone. And it kills me. It terrifies me. In the beginning of our relationship I wanted everything "right now," I wanted the future to get here so I could spend forever with Andrew. In the end, I want everything "right now," too, for different reasons of course.
I'm leaving this blog with a song by the band Muna, one that I always thought was a fun bop with great lyrics. I happened to come across the acoustic version and it struck new chords with me, no pun intended.
To Andrew, if you're reading this, I'm still hopelessly in love you. That hasn't changed.
To everyone else, ciao for now.
I knew,
when you told me you don't wanna go home tonight,
and you tried to just shrug it off when I asked you why?
Somebody hurt you, somebody hurt you, but you're here by my side.
And I knew,
'cause I can recall when I was the one in your seat.
I still got the scars and they occasionally bleed.
Is it okay to say that? Or rather, to start out by saying that? I failed. Two words, big meaning, lots of sighs and groans behind 'em. But there it is. Or... erm... here it is?
I didn't not achieve the 2019 goal I set for myself in a new resolution part viii.
To be fair, that's a somewhat surface statement and when you peel back the freshness-seal, the truth is how maybe I kinda nailed the resolution. Even if I don't feel like I did? It comes down to a matter of perspective and how much you want to angle the stage lights through the filter of your life. Of my life.
My big ambition for the year was to turn my focus to planning for the future, and even now I'm not entirely sure what I was intending with that. What did it mean? Set a five year plan? Ten year? Get all the dominos in position for an eventual push, literally and figuratively, and then see what the hell happened? I dunno.
I wanted to get my debts under control (didn't), arrange my savings and all that "good stuff" to better serve me and my interests (didn't), and to build on the foundations of my new relationships both romantically inclined and otherwise. There was also the obvious "to-do" stuff, like finish editing episode IV of my book series (didn't), finish work on the house (...didn't (to be fair, when is house work ever finished?)), and to travel more (didn't (at least to really anywhere that could be considered new)).
I think the issue that rises when I create a new resolution is that it can't be too literal. Does that make sense? I can't share a goal for myself that'll have a light shone on it 365 days later with the question of "did you DO this or NOT?" And that's what last year was, and truth be told I've fucked up like that before, too, so it's not like this is an incredibly new feeling. I think we all remember a few years ago when I thought I'd replicate 26 Golden Things for my 30th year, a total bust that I later RETRACTED. I capitalized that for the emphasis.
You're welcome.
I was writing this blog last year in a house that was slowly beginning to freeze from the heat going out and I wouldn't be able to get it functioning again for a few days. A chunk of my savings disappeared two weeks later when I had to dish out $1,000 for a new furnace and that grand idea of planning for the future very suddenly just turned into planning for the moment (and thus how I spent the first half of 2019). Work in the moment, do what you can, cross your fingers for the best and then skip along. My quick relationship over the holidays ended even quicker a month or two later, my hair got the chop, and then it was just house work. I hung out with the few friends I'd made, built relationships with them that I feel are strong enough to stand steadily, and got more comfortable with my life in Minnesota. And then more house work. House work, always. And when you're so busy focused on a task, the world continues to rotate past until you look up and realize it's the middle of the year.
The second half of the year faired much better, all things considered. I met Andrew. I started to travel (back and forth to Wisconsin, lots and lots and lots). I finally started editing episode IV. My friendships were in a good enough place that I could turn my focus to Andrew and hope to build something there too with all that love. In hindsight, a few friendships fell to the wayside. While a couple have been picked back up and are as good as they ever were, there are a couple that are gone too.
That part hurts.
What came from spending my time with Andrew, inadvertently or not, is that I started planning for my ::gasp:: future. And in planning for my future with him, I was able to start ::gasp:: getting my debts under control. I refinanced the house, saving money there (and earning some from the closing, thanks to my awesome lender Carolyn), and was able to mostly plan out the bathroom renovation. I won't say that meeting Andrew sent me off like a FIREWORK into hitting my resolution in whatever form, but he certainly aided me along. What I will say without a shred of doubt is that I started editing episode IV again because of him. When I would visit in Wisconsin while he was working, I'd go out to a coffee shop in Door County and pound out a chapter or two a day and that was really awesome. I still have some work to go, but I do plan on finishing the edit before summer and then it's time for a few people to read and give me their thoughts... and onward from that. It's coming!
At the end of the day, I don't feel like me missing the resolution was necessarily a huge fail on my part, because I feel like I definitely won 2019. I always get a chuckle out of memes at the end of the year comparing two pictures (one of beauty, one of pure hell), the before and after of how the year screwed them over. For 2019, I feel that for the first time since 2012, I just can't sympathize.
Looking back even further and into the entire "teen" decade, no, it wasn't that great. There was so much heartbreak. There were soooo many hard lessons learned, so many firsts (and lasts) and events that can never be repeated again for better or for worse. Like publishing my first novel. Moving away from my family... then moving away from more family. Getting my own cats for the first time. (I can't believe they'll be 10 years old in a few months). Running my own store. Recording through blogs and video an entire year of my life. Buying my first car. Standing up in my best friend and soulmate's wedding. Leaving the country for the first time. Fathering a child. And just so much more.
Just kidding on that child part.
There were some rough moments these last 10 years, but when I stop to think about it, there's one undeniable thing that matters the most. I entered 2010 happy, maybe oblivious to what was going on behind my back, but happy. And I'm leaving 2019 even happier, with pure love in my heart and a certain excitement that just can't be contained. I was laying in bed with Andrew last night and said to him "right now I feel infinite." He asked what that meant and I thought for a minute about it before answering, "like my happiness right now could go on forever."
Not a lot else matters.
So now the question turns to 2020, and technically to the 20's in general, but for now 2020.
I'm going to let go. Is that loaded? Sure as shit is! And what did I say before about being too specific? It's only setting myself up for failure, and if there's one thing the people in my life know about me, it's that I hate failure. Ask my old therapist.
I'm going to let go of my expectations. I'm going to stop trying to control. I'm going to accept feedback, and I'm going to adapt and change to be the best version of myself that I can be. I'm going to be open. I'm going to close myself off. I'm going to allow the people into my life that want to be in my life, and I'm going to release the ones that just don't. And that's fine. I'm going to (try) to stop explaining myself when I say no, I'm going to stop finding excuses when I just don't want to do something.
And there is nothing wrong with that, for me, or for you.
Are there still other things for the year I'd like to do? Sure. Andrew will act as my personal trainer and I'll attempt to follow his admirable lead. I'll finish editing episode IV. The house will draw closer to a state of completion, and on and on and on. Making new resolutions is a way of setting goals for yourself. Maybe you hit one, maybe you hit them all, but the point is that you're trying, right? I think so at least.
For Christmas Andrew had all 150 of my blogs written since October of 2011 through October of 2019 published into a hardcover coffee-table book. It took my breath away for two reasons. First was the overriding amazement that this man that holds my heart had taken the time to do this, succeeding in giving me the absolute best gift I've ever been given. Second was that I was holding essentially an anthology of who I was for the last decade. It made me look to the future, it made me look to myself and who I wanted to be. It made me look at my blogs and realize that I need to write... that writing is in my bones, my blood, and my fingers. This is who I am.
So here's to the roaring 20's, everything that they're gonna bring, and all of the stories that I can't wait to share. Toodles gang, and Happy New Year (c:
I think saying you're happy is a loaded statement. "I'm happy." Okay, but like... about everything? Some of the things? All of the things? It's loaded in the sense that when you pull back the lid and start to examine the contents there are just too many variables that can come into play where you'd kind of say "oh yeah" and then frown as you look off to the side. I look at myself right now in this moment and I say "I'm happy," but there are also a hundred mini-concerns that come with it and peek around the curtains in my mind.
They're velvet and an astonishingly dark turquoise blue, quite heavy in fact, but those are the curtains. Just so y'all know.
It's mid October and I'm a full week late publishing this, my apologies. A week ago today we were getting ready for snow and almost freezing temperatures in Minneapolis, today it's 63 degrees and I'm sitting outside on the deck of a new favorite coffee shop (Dogwood Coffee in North East) enjoying an iced latte and the beaming sunlight. To say I'm in a different place from where I was last year is an understatement. Am I happier? That depends through what filter I'm looking at my life with. Have things gotten better? That depends too.
Do I feel like I've taken a few giant steps forward in my life and in doing so have shed the past like it was something to be lost while also welcoming the present with open arms? Absolutely. That all being said, here we find ourselves:
The Eight Year Anniversary For
Musings of a
Self-Proclaimed Author
It hit me last week when I woke up and checked my memories on Facebook to discover it was time to post the latest iteration, ie: time to share the direction a blog I hardly ever write in anymore is supposed to take. It struck me in that moment with nothing but surprise, as usually I'm right on top of it when it comes time to celebrate an anniversary (blog or otherwise). This time it snuck up on me. And that's fair, really, because since the last iteration I've really only written two blogs. Five, if you count the "a year in the manor" series which was technically four separate entries.
You've been here with me before; me, saying I've got nothing to write about. That's not new information and if you're taking it as something fresh then unfortunately that's on you my dear reader. Is it my intent to write more? Absolutely. Am I more that abundantly aware of how cathartic a thing it is that gets me out of my head and helps draw conclusions to the problems I'm facing? Certainly. But, here we are!
Me waxing poetic and you shaking your head.
But really, after the last iteration I went into my typical winter hibernation mode. Briefly dated someone, continued to work on the house, and in a lot of ways tried finding inspiration in something. Or maybe someone? I don't know. I had a sort of mid-life crisis when the relationship came to a quick end and figured it was time to chop my hair all off. Not that I regret that part, but in hindsight, maaaaybe I should have just lobbed off five inches or so and given that a try.
::shrugs::
In May I was sprinting for the finish line on my house before the blogs were written. Actually, scratch that from the record, I was writing the blogs AS I was racing for the finish line, simultaneously... and losing my mind but what the hell else is new? Compiling the information for those four blogs meant hunting down pictures I'd sent my sister, parents and friends of house progress that I subsequently did not save on my phone for whatever reason. It was putting everything in a cohesive order even if it didn't necessarily happen in the tidy order being presented.
The morning of May 31st meant it had been once year since I signed the paperwork for the house, and so I published the blogs. I had a 'lil meeting downtown, so I got myself dressed up and headed down on a Friday around 11am. I was sitting in the parking garage of a hotel, early (as usual), when my phone dinged with a Facebook messenger notification.
A funny thing had happened.
There was a little waving hand in the message, sent by a guy named Andrew that I was friends with. He proceeded to compliment me on the blog, and the house, and added that if I was ever in Northern Wisconsin, he'd love the opportunity to not ghost me (as I had mentioned in the blog, I'd been ghosted last summer). I got excited for the attention, admittedly, and we struck up a conversation. Albeit one with some HEAVY hesitation on my part.
You see, this "Andrew," in my opinion, was not a real person. A weird and vague Facebook history, no Instagram history, and just... well honestly, just too attractive to be real. You can ask my friend, Todd, whom I had reached out to a few months earlier when Andrew added me on Facebook and I saw that we were mutual friends. I literally asked him if this guy was real or not, and Todd told me he probably wasn't, and we both collectively sighed.
So when he messaged me I thought "well here's this guy, whatever."
We chatted throughout the day, and I had the weekend off so we chatted all through the next day as well. I sent him a few selfies, assuming he'd send one back (to prove his realness), but that didn't happen. By Sunday morning I was annoyed with this, wanting to prove he was a fake person, and resigned to doing yard work. I was starting to get the feels for this guy. Our conversation was going so well and was just so fun and interesting that it got me thinking "man, it would truly be great if this turned out to be real." So I kept up with my yard work to distract myself, I suggested he could send some selfies if he wanted or call, and he told me that the speaker on his phone was a little on the fritz and I sorta rolled my eyes thinking "yeah sure it is."
And then when I was good and sweaty and dirty and red in the face from the heat, my Facetime started ringing. I looked at the screen and saw that it was Andrew, causing me to literally say out loud "time to find out who this guy is," and then lo and behold... it was him, the guy in the photos. It was "my" Andrew.
He wasn't my Andrew at that point, of course, but he is now. And in the Facetime call I felt myself completely losing control of my thoughts because here was this guy that I had tricked myself into believing was some four foot five, 600 pound troll, hiding behind the pictures of someone else. A lying loser who tricked me with his great conversational skills and insight into movies and music and books and all the things.
Who made me (in hindsight) start falling in love with the words of an individual before anything else.
And not through a dating app. Not through a friend, but through good 'ol Facebook.
We met in person less than a week later, because I absolutely had to drive out to Wisconsin to meet this guy that would, in some small way, change my world right away and then continue to do so as the months wore on.
I've thought about writing about Andrew before now. I've thought about sharing him with all of you and running and shouting from the roof tops that I'm in love and that it's a love unlike any I've ever felt before. But I've been burned in the past from doing so... I've somewhat been slapped in the proverbial face for sharing my excitement with the world. So I kept it mostly reserved. Concealed. Friends and family knew, pictures told a story, but the rest was to be kept under wraps. Not for fear of anything other than having to put my foot in my mouth. Could I make it to that elusive three-month mark and still feel like it was going in the right direction? After all, three months was always the "make or break" time stopper for me.
After meeting Andrew, summer just seemed to disappear before my eyes. It was spent getting to know this amazing man, bringing him into my life as much as I could and showing him what that meant. It was driving to WI a couple times a month or taking the time off for him to drive out to Minneapolis. This travel wasn't always equal, many times he came here more than I could go out there, but we were committed to it. Scratch that, we are committed to it. Neither of us was looking for a new relationship, especially one that involved the other person living five hours away.
But that dedication created this fiery drive in each of us... it created it in me. Suddenly I found myself inspired again. Maybe not to write a blog or even necessarily continue work on my books, but to fall in love.
To let essentially two years of being single slip away. To let the spurned anger and jilted sadness of two monumental failures of relationships slip away. I was inspired to allow myself to realize that just because I felt true love once before... it didn't mean I couldn't feel it again. I was inspired to realize that your first love, wether it worked out or not, didn't mean it was destined to be your best love.
Because I've found my best love now, and it's with him. A man that (this week) quite literally saw me at my absolute worst and didn't walk away. A man who wants to talk to me about everything, all the time. Who can't get enough of me, and who I can't get enough of. Who wants to work through our disagreements and figure out the best way to move forward. A man who is willing to move out here to be with me, so that the "us" we are creating can continue to bloom. A man who has seen a lot of the same shit I have, has dealt with the same shit I have, and who has shit of his very own that is quite separate from what I can even claim for myself. We are often too alike, and just as often we are tremendously different.
But that's the good of it, right? To find someone that subscribes to your own brand of crazy and is still willing to tolerate it? To deal with it, learn with it, and love you regardless? I think so, at least. And that's my Andrew. My guy.
Now we're into Fall. Soon we'll be into Winter. I've run the last Warehouse sale at Pottery Barn that I will EVER run, otherwise it's business as usual at work. I will sign paperwork in a few days on the refinance of my house at a better rate, and then next weekend we'll be dressing up for Halloween. The dominos are stacked for November and December, with a tight schedule as the days count down to Christmas and then the New Year.
Still, I feel the shift in me that came with this year. Or really, the last four and a half months. And with the thought provoking ideas that come with a new love and a new person, I myself have had my thoughts shift themselves looking forward. What does that entail?
I recently heard this song called "The Empress" by Ruby Empress, and something about it resonated with me. It was only when I read the lyrics that I felt like I actually understood why, with one verse in particular: My body wants to take place in this world. Capture a space here, That matters. Think thoughts, That matter. Surround myself, With only such possessions, And clothes, And pictures, And sounds, That matter.
Everything I do now, I want to do it with intention. I want to do only the things that are going to matter, and that's such a heavy thing for me to say. It's not to intentionally dismiss everything I've said before or to go back on my word... but there it is. I don't want to do anything anymore just for the sake of doing it. Maybe that's something you only realize when you get older? I don't know.
I need to work on asking for things, specifically of people. I need to learn that it's okay to need things from people. I need to learn to accept feedback in a healthy way and not take everything as an attack on my character. Hardest of all, I need to continue letting go of parts of my past that only detract from my present. Sometimes the past is better left right there, and that's okay. I'm still trying to figure out what that means, what all of this means, but I suppose in the end that's what it is to be human, yes? Always trying to figure it out.
Sometimes I feel like the iterations aren't just new directions the blog is headed in but directions I am headed in myself. Is that silly to say? I hope not. Who knows where the ninth will ultimately lead or where I'll really be in another year. But I'm excited to find out. I'll leave you now with The Empress, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I will try to write more... it's therapeutic and cathartic and a million other things... though I can't promise I will actually do this, I'll certainly try. And who knows if my new found inspiration will instill that drive back in me.
Let's begin here. So before you is Parker Manor, built in November of 1914, sold in February of 1915, and falling into my clutches more than 103 years later. The wood siding is redwood and original to the house, the white siding is cement board and it was added sometime in the 60's or 70's. The wood siding was painted brown in the mid 80's when the house was sold from the longtime owner (43 years of ownership, give or take a couple), and the teal was added as an accent at that same time. And then it neeeever changed.
After speaking with the gal that lives next door, this house has been this color since the 80's. And when she saw what I was doing to it this spring (after taking a couple weeks to get the nerve to actually speak to me) she said she never thought she would see this place change. Well, enter me and my uncanny ability to have to paint everything in the world. But that's what is happening now. Let's take a peek back at what the outside has gone through in the last year.
Looking out the front porch
Last summer when I moved in, the yard was, to put it mildly, overgrown. This front view was almost entirely cleared out by my awesome sister Megan. My dad, Tony and I had all gone to Menards to get the supplies for the built-in and kitchen, and while we were gone Megan got to work. The people that lived here before me had a whole bunch of raised gardens, and while I don't hate that idea, it wasn't what I wanted. Least of all in the front yard. Least least of all in the state it was in.
Looking toward the south side of the property
The next day Megan and I both tackled this opposite side of the yard, unveiling four more raised beds and putting order to the MESS of raspberries that had overtaken the yard (and the side yard). My neighbors (that I had only met once or twice) Jake and Allison were at a Twins game while this part was happening and I'll never forget Jake coming home and exclaiming "HOLY SHIT!"
Didn't even know there was a Japanese Maple there
Megan unearthed a Japanese Maple that may or may not have died this winter, the jury is still out. I'm waiting on those leaves to appear (though from now to the time of year this picture was taken, I've got about a month and a half to wait). It was such a shock to see the front of the house without a bunch of shit there.
Also didn't know there was a second apple tree
Raspberries went all the way to the wood walkway, and there was grass and milkweed and a million other things in all that. And spiders. I screamed a lot during this process. Megan got one or two shouts in... but it was mostly me. And then dancing away from where I'd been with hot feet because of something crawling on me.
This is my amazing sister Megan. She's the best (c:
Overall that weekend we collected something like 35+ bags of yard waste. When Megan came out with my mom the following month, we cleared out the side yard and added another 25+ bags of yard waste. In the fall I made another 15+. So in what... six months?... nearly 80 bags of yard waste. That's enough for a year. Until this spring when I collected another 23 worth of leaves.
The house in early August 2018, mostly weedless.
This was the house once everything had been cleared away (and some shrubs had come back to life after cutting them down to nothing). When I first purchased it, I appreciated the screened in porch but something about it always bothered me. It just felt very closed in and dark. Granted it literally was dark in there, from the colors to it just being plain dirty, but I digress. How do you open up the front of the house and make it a little more modern? And what color do you paint it?
I knew I had a long road ahead of me with the paint. The wood siding needed to be scraped down, patched, and then it could get color. The cement board needed to be primed and painted, to cover 40ish years of dirty and greasy air. The white above the porch still makes me groan, it was so icky. Overall the house just felt dated, filthy, and dark. There was really no charm. Whatever charm there had been was lost at some point in history with the choices made by previous owners. And I wanted to reclaim that, ala Maxine Walters.
Reclaiming. My. Time.
The house, sans screens and scalloping on the porch, early April 2019. AKA condemned crackhouse.
Step one this spring was ripping the siding off the two posts supporting the roof. I wanted to re-frame them and beef them up, just square. No fancyness. The side effect of losing the pop of color from the screen frames and then exposing the 105 year old wood is that my house suddenly looking condemned and even more terrifying than it already did. No greenery, no life. Puke.
Again with no scalloping on the posts.
On the left you can see where the screen frame met the siding, in that line. I wanted to cut that part of the siding out in order to frame it in, giving the porch a little bit more of a deliberate feel. If I were to put screens back up eventually, it would be a smooth surface to work with rather than having to cut a piece of wood at a bunch of angles to fit back in. Notice all the peeling paint. Everywhere. On all the things.
Peeling.
I kept my dad out of pictures in the event that his "working" face looked as dumb as mine does. Also, cheese.
Enter stage-left: papa Parker. Dad came out at the end of April and I helped him bring my big ideas to life. Also to note here: I was criticized fairly openly by people saying "put the phone down and help", etc. Do you think I stood there with a phone in my hand for three fucking days taking pictures of myself? Do you have any idea how much work we achieved in those three days, in which I took two (count 'em, 1, 2) selfies? Blow it out your ear ya bunch of shits.
Siding cut out for the new framing.
This was the first side to get the siding removed, and it turned out better than I could have hoped. Even with just the bare wood added in it was already brightening things up. This was the last hurdle before priming could begin (and sanding and scraping and all that other boring stuff).
Overall of the porch, with the screen door and screens probably not coming back at this point.
Everything teal would be painted white. Around the entire house, some eaves are painted green, some brown, some white (I say "white" loosely), but to continue with my theme from inside I wanted everything unified. Time to begin.
Priming begins. The porch took almost 4 gallons.
At first I was alllllll about the primer. Afterall, it was fresh paint. It was clean, and white, and bright, and new. But lemme tell ya, the novelty wears off pretty fuckin' fast. Covering the green was super exciting, even covering that awful old and cracked ivory was exciting. But then covering your primer with more primer is not exciting. And then covering that white primer with the nice white "actual" paint was definitely not exciting. So that all took a couple weeks, but I just moved slowly and methodically through it all.
Two coats on everything you see here. The ceiling will be six coats.
Initially I was going to keep the ceiling stained because I liked the color, but on closer inspection the stain was just so incredibly old that it was no good anymore. Either it needed to be sanded down or painted. And I sure as shit wasn't going to sand down the ceiling. For a jumpin' jack flash instant I did also think about removing the ceiling and leaving it vaulted in there, but for now I'm keeping that on the back burner. Definite possibilty in the future though! I think on the bottom beadboard here I had only done one coat so far.
Starting to brighten up a bit
You could feel the shift once the white was added in. Even painting the rain gutters/downspouts added a little something extra. Not such a crackhouse at this point.
Wood scraped and ready for priming.
I attacked the front windows as well during all this (and the upstairs windows too). It always bugged me that with the dark trim, you could clearly see the aluminum frames of the storm windows.
Wood putty filling the holes, windows primed and painted.
Happy accident, they essentially disappear into the white paint. I wish the cement board wasn't covering the top piece of trim on these friends, but here we are.
This is still on the back of the house. It annoys me.
Initially when I was choosing paint colors, I wanted to paint the house black. Part of me still wishes I had chosen black, not gonna lie. But when it came time to actually bringing samples home I was pretty set on Iron Ore (the middle color) which is also an accent color inside the house for the cabinets/doors/stair spokes. Thinking maybe lighter would be better, I also picked up Peppercorn (top color) and decided almost immediately after painting it on that I didn't want that color. The final one caught my eye by pure chance, Dark Night.
You can't really tell here but in person, there is almost a teal undertone to the color. A little bit more sapphire jewel-toned than this depicts. And for as much as I liked the Iron Ore, several realtor friends reached out to say the blue was the way to go for trendy houses and that gray was done. So I hopped off to Sherwin Williams and bought 5 gallons.
Sun-dried Tomato. Also spray painted allllll hardware black (from white/green/brown/yellow)
In feng shui, red front doors are meant to bring prosperity to the home. That's something I could definitely use. I took the old green storm door down and painted it up, finding this really great dark red shade when my sister was visiting this spring. I did not INTEND to have a red white and blue house, but that is indeed how it ended up. This door (and the original front door) will most likely get replaced before long anyway, but for now I'm content with the look. And to have all the hardware matching for the first time.
Unintentionally patriotic (the floor will be grey), but look at that six-coated ceiling tho!
That ceiling just SHINES. I got these great LED Edison bulbs off amazon with a white cord so that the lighting on the porch didn't look so janky (it did before. Scroll up. I tell the truth.). At night the porch glows like a beacon, which is wonderful because it was dark AF before.
My new street numbers that I ordered. Also the only tease I really gave of the siding painted.
Once the interior of the porch was painted, the primer was set, and the final coat of white had been applied, it was time to move on to Dark Night. It took me a couple weeks, some inventive skill of taping a brush to the end of a pole and precariously perching myself on the roof to paint the peak, but I finished the front (and south-facing side) of the house all before my June 1st deadline.
Ready for the reveal?
Are you sure?
I don't know if you're sure.
Just be really sure.
Okay, I think you're sure.
Are you tho?
Just kidding.
Parker Manor
My house doesn't feel like the house I moved into any more, and that's okay. It feels like my house now. My dear friend Jill came to visit and when she said the house feels like me, I thought it was such a curious thing for someone to say. But she went on, saying that as she looked around the house and noticed the pockets of interesting moments and the colors and the things and the throws tossed "just right" and the pillows crunched "in that way," it was all me.
I suppose we are what we live in, and if this is now a reflection of me then I'm happy to embody it, clean lines and all.
There's still work to do outside, largely the landscaping. The front deck will get torn out eventually and expanded to reach to the edge of the house. A pergola of sorts will be built over it, with Wisteria planted at the base of the supports so that it can grow along the white painted wood and eventually hold huge purple blooms.
The backyard is also a work in progress, and as of right now, the back of the house and north side (the right side as you're facing it) both need to be painted still. The bonfire pit is built but needs more rocks, the pathways need rocks, I need a mountain of mulch, and then plenty of plants to start my 'lil English garden. The garage might get painted this summer, and again it might not. It is functional now and clear of all the trash and shit left behind by the previous owners, and I can at least park inside of it.
A year in the making
When I stood outside my house a year ago today, hauling in a few trash bags of clothing and then dropping to the living room floor to cry, I think a big part of me didn't expect to reach this point. Eight rooms to paint top to bottom, the hallways and entries, the outside... decorating and designing and maintaining... it was so daunting. Even looking back now I am shocked that I was able to do it. But I did. My goal in purchasing this house was to get back to my center. Re-discover the creative side of me and expand on it. Find something good to focus on again. Get my mind off of the past and in doing so, greet a future that was getting brighter every day.
It took a lot of window cleaner. 32 gallons of paint, 47 rollers in various sizes, 115+ yard waste bags, a lot of pizza deliveries, my mom's shoulder, my dad's lost measuring tape and two screwdrivers, countless trips to the hardware store where they now know my name, and of course enough glasses of lemonade to quench the thirst of an army. But this is it. This is Parker Manor.
A year ago when I posted the picture of myself sitting against the wall of my living room, the caption underneath read "So I bought a house. And ::cues music:: I did it mmmmyyyyyyy waaaaaay." Here I am a year later, having done it all my way, having only compromised a little bit, and living my truth. I feel light. Like I can take a step in any direction and have it feel like it's the right one. Like the words of people from my past can't do anything more than push me further along in my journey, rather than holding me back. I wanted to build a home with love and warmth, pushed together through determination and will, and held together with a unique stubbornness that I call my own. I finished writing my book series in this home. I'll start another in this home. I'll fall in love again in this home. But can I tell you the best part? The part that just... resonates and reverberates through me for the first time in my life? It's that I finally realize I won't be answering to some force on how to do this all.
That's the best part.
Changes inside and outside. For both of us.
Because I'm doing it my way.
Come visit me at Parker Manor; I've always got a spare room. Toodles gang (c:
