Caitlin: A Retrospective

Things that I have found while cleaning out the closet in my childhood bedroom:

1. A box containing Barbie clothes and a Barbie tent and camping set.
2. A set of big wings, made of real feathers, that I wore for Halloween 8 years ago.
3. Shit-kicking platform knee-high black boots from my "goth" phase (cringe).
4. A sweater belonging to the guy I dated when I was 16.
5. 6 issues of "New Moon" - the magazine for feminist preteens. My mom started getting these for me when I got my first period. Why I put them in a sealed plastic container and stuffed them in the back of my closet, I have no idea.
6. Two fimo lightbulbs with stars and moons and rainbow peace signs on them. Holy 6th Grade Batman.
7. Softball cleats. :( Go Gryphs!
8. Black lingerie - ohhh, SLC Coming Out Dance! How we miss you. Sort of. Except not really at all.
9. Pink mittens that I wore to elementary school.
10. A slew of fisherman-style hats from my Hat Phase, freshman year of high school. I actually thought they were cool. But it was 1997, so who knows, maybe it WAS cool.

It's like a freakin' time capsule in here.

Everything Old is New Again

When I started this blog I imagined taking nights in my hotel rooms on my way across the country to write in here. I pictured myself processing my transition from Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia.... But that didn't happen. In fact, I drove more than 10 hours each day and kept my mind at a healthy remove from the distance growing each minute between myself and my old life. Now here I am in Massachusetts, and I've hardly given myself the space to think about it. It was very much a matter of survival, I think. Easier to put one foot in front of the other when you don't think too much about where you're going.

Leaving Tex was the single hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I forced myself to walk into my car. I forced myself to turn it on, to back away. It felt like wrapping my hand around my heart, gritting my teeth, squeezing my eyes shut, and yanking. I've never done anything more difficult than that. Nothing.

But once I was gone, it got easier. More pain is waiting for me, I'm sure - you don't heal w/ time or distance, but with processing, and that's only begun.... But once I'd said goodbye and actually left, I felt some peace. My last two weeks in Texas were hard as hell. The anger, the pain, the fighting, all of it. So once I was gone, I could sit with my decision and know that it's right.

Now, get this, everyone: three hours after I left Tex, she got a call from the midwifery school in Portland that she'd been waitlisted for. They told her that she got in, and she had a week to get there before classes started. So at this moment, our apartment is empty. She's in Dallas. Moving to Oregon today, actually. This increases the mind-fuck portion of our programming 150%. I'm ridiculously happy for her, and my god it feels like it's meant to be this way. But there's a whole new level of processing that needs to happen now.

So, it's a rainy day. Again. Erin is coming over to help me unpack and set up my "new" digs. I'm living in my mother's house, in a boring suburban town that holds my entire history. I'll write more about my journey later. For now, all there is to do is make coffee and stare straight ahead, dumbfounded.

Let It Be Hard.

The sadness came crashing in today. I'm finishing up at work and I realized that I only have a few hours - HOURS - left to be with Tex. That makes my heart race, my stomach drop out, my head spin. How am I going to get in my car and drive away? How on earth is that going to be possible??? Despite all that's gone on between her and I these past two weeks, it will still be the equivalent of wrapping my hand around my bloody heart and ripping it out by the roots.

Lord, I can be dramatic, can't I? Well, this is how it feels. It says something to me that I still believe this is the right decision, even though the pain is so deep. I can hear a voice calling me far away, drawing me in a new direction. There's a lot to lose, though. My horoscope last week said, "You are starting to see that the thing you wanted is going to take more energy to get than you realized. There are more sacrifices to make, and you are ready." I like that it says "AND you are ready," not "BUT you are ready." I don't know why, but that makes it seem like, "Yes, yes, sacrifices - there are always sacrifices - the point is, YOU'RE READY."

I told Annika this hurts. She said, "Let it be hard. It's supposed to be." So I'm going to stand here and take it in as best as I can.

Right now, I have to go say goodbye to 120 kids who I adore with all my heart. Oooooooff.

Packing

The past two days have been both two of the hardest and the sweetest of my life. Tex, my sweet girl, is trying so hard to be present to me and how she feels for me, and I'm doing the same with her. We've been able to block out a lot of circumstantials, a lot of ego, and just go through this process together. She has helped me pack and done so with vigor, energy, humor, and generosity, and I'm completely blown away with the size of her heart in that. She is giving me s nsuch a huge gift by putting away the hurts and being open to this experience with me, this saying goodbye. We're doing it TOGETHER. So in that sense, my heart is breaking wide open and feeling every ounce of what it's sacrificing in order to make this change... and so grateful for everything it's receiving. We're at our best these days, making each other laugh, holding each other tight, romantic and almost gooey. When we cry, we cry together. How can anyone ask for a better Goodbye? There's no other way I'd want to leave than with my eyes locked on hers, our fingertips touching, slipping away, each of us knowing what we've had and what we're losing, thanking each other for it, and then closing the door.

Our apartment now is ravaged and bare. It looks exactly like someone started to move out, then suddenly stopped. Rooms are half-bare, half-echoing. We're both exhausted, worn out to the nth degree. So, though it's only 8:30, we're climbing into bed together, to pray that sleep overtakes us, and holds us close for a few hours. Tomorrow is my last day at work. Tuesday morning I leave. It's happening so fast - I'm holding on tight. I know Tex and I will both be ok... I'm endlessly grateful that it's been this gentle as I go.

Jump Ship and Swim

There's nothing like a little high-school-era Ani sung at the top of your lungs for catharsis. I pulled out my old CDs today and blasted them while I bounced around my apartment, cleaning and straightening. I'm trying not to think about how much I'll miss it here. Sigh. A lot of this week has been a case of Mind Over Matter. If I can fully deny the reality that in one week I'll be on the road somewhere between here and Little Rock, Arkansas, I can get through the day without crying. If I can forget that my relationship of four-and-a-half years has crumbled and blows in the wind like so much dust, then I can eat and sleep like a normal person. The literal reality of this moment - freshly showered, in my home, with the cat, waiting for Max and Kath to get back from San Antonio - is just, ya know. Whatever. But the emotional reality of this moment is the equivalent of a rabid pekingese dog, thrashing and foaming at the mouth, absolutely dying to sink its sharp little teeth into my neck. I hold it at arm's length. When it's over there, three-feet-plus away from my face, I can for the most part pretend it doesn't exist. Occasionally the thrashing and foaming gets irritating. But I just turn away.

I have a vision of what it will be like when I actually get in my car and pull away from this little house on Maplewood Ave. Waving to Tex in the window, I will realize the weight of my decision and the fact that, driving away, I can't ever come back again. As I watch my life disappear in the rearview mirror, I just might hyperventilate. Hmmmm. Maybe I'll leave extra-early so that I can have an hour to park my car around the corner and collect myself.

Well, isn't this depressing! Jesus. I'm actually feeling okay today. Go figure.

In lieu of anything cheerful to say here today, I'm going to give you some of the things I've been wailing out. My goodness. How lame of me. Still, here it comes. Sing with me, ladies!
--
I've had a lack of inhibition, I've had a loss of perspective
I've had a little bit to drink and it's making me think
that I can jump ship and swim
that the ocean will hold me
that there's got to be more than this boat I'm in
- -
I don't care if they eat me alive
I've got better things to do than survive
I've got the memory of your warm skin in my hands
and I've got a vision of the sky and dry land
--
A little bird told me that jumping is easy
that falling is fun
right up til you hit the sidewalk
shivering and stunned

they can call me crazy if I fail
all the chance that I need is one in a million
and they can call me brilliant
if I succeed
Gravity is nothing to me
moving at the speed of sound
I'm gonna get my feet wet until I drown
--

And now I'm going to go sit in the sun and tan. Huzzah!

The Spring of the Flattened Armadilla

If there's anyone out there still reading this thing, you've been a trooper. You deserve a laugh. So, as a small thank-you present, here are some ridiculous pictures of me on top of a longhorn steer.

In central Texas, tucked in the hill country, lies a little place called Luckenbach. I don't think it's changed much over the last 150 years - there's a post office/gift store/bar, and a couple of stages for live country music. There's a dance hall and a barbeque pit. And that's about it, really - Texas charm, good music, cold beer, a few armadillos.

I brought Max and Kath there yesterday. All the country greats got their start in Luckenbach - Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, etc - so it's kind of a legend. And on this day in Luckenbach, there was a trained longhorn steer. And you better believe I sat on that steer. And I took pictures. Oh yes I did.

I'd like to point out the grace of said steer. It looks at the camera and stands very still as New England tourists climb up on its furry back and strike ridiculous poses. I'm still questioning if maybe it's actually a mechanical device, and there's a man inside there, pulling some cords and pushing some buttons, like some antics you'd see on Rescue Rangers or something. Well, either way, I got in some steer ridin' while in Texas, so all in all, my two years here haven't been wasted.

Beyond the Why

Tex and I tried to talk this morning and it didn't go very far. She's stuck on wanting to know WHY I'm leaving, and the only Why I have to tell her isn't satisfying. She knows what I'm saying when I tell her that I feel my life pulling me home and out of our relationship, but she thinks that I've commited to her, and that my commitment requires me to "Work it out." I understand that she thinks there should be a bigger reason, a better one, if I'm going to give up on this commitment and leave. But I just don't have anything else to say. I feel that our relationship has run its course, and she disagrees. It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy on my part - my decision that our relationhip has run its course means that I can't put anything else into it - and therefore, as I can't put more into it, it HAS run its course. I guess that's fuzzy logic. But it sort of feels like the whole thing was inevitable from the moment I thought to myself, "Please break up with me, I want to go home." In that instant, everything changed for me. The desire to be out of this relationship was stronger than the desire to be in it.

Is there blame in a situation like this? I don't really know. I mentally left the relationship with very little notice to her, and the suddenness with which it happened was sort of... unfair. I wish I'd seen it coming more clearly, but would that have mattered? She wants me to stay, to work it out, to go to therapy or something... to find out WHY I want to leave so badly, and fix that. But it's not something I want to fix. I think she feels betrayed by that. I can't blame her - I'm leaving her, of course she's angry and hurt and confused. But I just honestly feel like I can't do anything else. I don't know how to explain it.

I only hope that at some point she can move beyond the Why. I don't think she's ever going to hear an answer that makes her feel better. Even if I had the clearest reason in the world (what that would even be, I'm not sure - to be with someone else? that I fell out of love?? neither are true), would that make her feel better? Would she then say, "Okay, you're right, you should go - godspeed, peace be with you, thank you for loving me while you could, no hard feelings, take care!" Not a chance. The pain of this rupture is too huge on both sides. There's nothing either of us can say that would make this not hurt.

Love is really f'ing confusing, don't you think?!