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?!

With Waylon, Willie and the Boys

Heading out to Luckenbach today, which is where Tex and I had at one point thought we'd get married. Perhaps it's that, perhaps it's the gloomy weather, perhaps just the fact that I'm getting tired (a person can only hold out so long), but I feel the sadness leaning in on me again today. I dread going back to the dark place of last week.... It's so oppressive, so consuming. I know that I have to go back there (the only way out is through, as they say), but I'm hesitant to really let it take over again. Not while there are still fun times to be had here with Dad and Kath, who keep me laughing, buy me beers, and adore everything about Austin that I always have loved. It's a bit of optimism and a bit of denial on my part, and maybe just delaying the inevitable. Well, here goes. I'll do my best.

To Be Big

Dad and Kathy are here, and thank goodness for that. They brought buckets of love to pour over me, and lord do I need it. It's good to feel taken care of, and they're being absolutely perfect with Tex, loving but acknowledging that everything isn't "perfect," that she's going through a hard time and may need her space. It's a good balance.

It's rainy in Texas and I can't seem to sleep past 7am anymore, but that's ok. I enjoy these quiet mornings, just the cat and I, til the sun comes up around 8 and the birds start going bezerk. I drink my coffee and I read and I give little wordless prayers to the universe to ease my achin' little heart. Yesterday at work one of my coworkers, an older Mexican woman who has been my Afterschool Mama for two years, took a bracelet off her wrist and put it on mine. It's a stretchy bead thing you can buy at all sorts of places these days, with pictures of Mary and Jesus and various saints on each bead. She told me it'll protect me, and in a weird way, I believe it. I don't want to take it off. The way she just pulled it off of herself and gave it to me... I think only people who come from poverty (she does, oh man does she ever) know how to give that way. This woman has about three teeth and not enough money to replace the glasses she broke, so they're taped together at the corner.... and yet she feeds the homeless on her street and gives her much-better-off coworkers the few trinkets she owns. I feel like there's power in that, and I'm going to keep this bracelet on until I reach the end of this particular road.

Also bolstering me up these days are the kiddos in my program. They made me a bunch of cards yesterday. One reads, "Ms. Caylin, You are like a real teacher to me." Wow! What an honor! Surely not like a REAL teacher?! :) And another says "Dear Mrs. Caitlin, I like you because you are pretty and you are nice and you made Stampede and you let us go out on the playground." (They didn't actually spell all that correctly, but I'm taking editorial license.) And a third wrote, "Good luck to your parents and family," which I find just hilarious. As in, "They have to deal with you now! Good luck!!" The kids hung on me yesterday like monkeys. They all told me they loved me and I hugged them back hard and long. One more day to see their smiling faces, and then I'll be gone, and I simply can't believe that.

Today I picked up Kate Chopin's "The Awakening," which I read for the first time in AP English with Erin, and have read about ten times since. Each round reveals something else in the story that I love. This time, it speaks to me in a whole new way - the dissatisfaction in your life, the need to change, the apparent impossibility of rewriting your own story. Of course, in this novelette, Edna Pontellier drowns herself at the end, because in her world there literally WAS no option for change. So I guess I should feel lucky. I don't have to walk into the swirling Gulf surf, stripped of long skirts and corsets and stockings and all, and let the tide sweep me under - that isn't the only way to reclaim my Self and take possession of my life again. I can get in my car, strike out from Texas, and just go home. I don't have to rest in a dissatisfying partnership, I don't have to accept a way of being that doesn't express all of who I am. I can let my heart love with a great ferocity, with all its stretch and vigor, and push the false limits of my life out into the limitless potential of my existence. I can "be big," as J tells me. I think I'm gonna try.

You Must Change Your Life

Erin told me in an email yesterday that she's been reading this, and using it to show herself that if I can make changes in my life, she can too. Wow. That's really flattering, especially because I feel like I'm stumbling through this with very little grace, and if you saw my face or heard my voice in the past couple of days, I'm not sure you'd call this venture successful. I've been a wreck and a half. Today was the first day I bothered to wear clothes that actually fit into our dresscode at work, and I even put on eyeshadow - which was just too far beyond my capacity as a functioning human for the past week. Is this progress? Is this success? I'm not sure. Still, maybe the point isn't to be good at this... maybe the point is just to DO IT, and survive it. Sometimes it feels like I can't even do that much, but the minutes pass. Then the hours pass. Then suddenly a whole day is gone, and I'm still breathing in and out, and sometimes I even laugh.

I told my kids yesterday that I'm leaving. The entire cafeteria, full of 120 K-6th graders, erupted in yells of "noooooo!!" They're really affected. Of course, kids are always affected when their routine changes, and I'm sure my staff will have some residual chaos to deal with when I'm gone... but these youngun's came up and hugged me, begged me not to go, told me they'll miss me, tried to make me smile. I had tears in my eyes. They're such amazing little souls. We're a family here in afterschool, we see each other every day, we share our triumphs and our failures, we get angry and then we fix it, we apologize, we grow. I'm going to miss them way down in the deepest depths of my heart.

Today is easier, though. First of all, I slept, with a little help from my good friend Tylenol PM. Secondly, Tex wasn't screaming obscenities at me today, so that's an improvement. Thirdly, my Dad and step-mom are coming into town tonight. I need them here so badly... I need the unconditional love, the support, I need someone to take care of me a little bit. I need to laugh as hard as they make me laugh. Parents!! Hah. Then my mom comes next Wednesday, then I drive home. Holy cow. The time is flying.

Well, this just goes to show you: you really can reach down deep into your life and pull it up by the roots. You can listen to whatever calling is pulling you - toward a career change (Meg!), a relationship change (Erin!), a locale change (Lara!)... you can do it all at once. You can leave yourself totally groundless, terrified, insecure, out of control, grieving, exhausted, and in pain... and the days still pass, and you do okay. You keep eating, hopefully... you feed your cat, you wash your dishes, occasionally you take a shower... you see the sun rise and the sun set, you do some laundry... and sometimes you even have good days. It's amazing what you can live without (your partner, your apartment, your job, your sanity) that feels so vital to Being Alive, but actually isn't. You can take all of that away and you'd still be standing there, your essential Self would still exist.

So, why not? You want a better, different way of being? Listen to some distant voice telling you, like Rilke's Apollo, "You must change you life."

a matter of survival

Ever have songs in your life that you love, but in their content they don't really specifically point to your life in any way, and then suddenly one day, they do? And you're like, "Oh my god, that song was singing about this point in my life years ago, and I only know it now."

While I was living in Tel Aviv, I made a CD of songs that seemed sort of fierce and strong to me, and made copies and sent them to all of my friends. We were all fresh out of college at that time, struggling with our first steps into true independence (is it still true independence if I'm moving home to my mother's house?? eesh), and I thought these songs expressed something in me that battled to be realized. They made me feel brave when in fact I was cowering in a corner.

I guess they still do that. But I pulled the CD out today and it occured to me that all of these songs sing to me NOW. So perfectly, I almost wonder if, three years ago, I was struggling with this same decision.

First there's the part of me that just wants to break away, that feels the calling to leave, the part that thinks, Since you left, I'm feeling better - that's what you get when you stay together too long. And the part of me that aches to just GO sings wouldn't it be good if we could hop a flight to anywhere - so long to this life.

It could be worse, I could've missed my calling.

There's the part of me that is just fierce and wild and wants to kick and thrash against the pain. This part of me isn't very big and doesn't overpower the rest of me, but it's there. It sings, I'm not gonna lie, not gonna make up my mind tonight - I'm not gonna pretend, I cleared outta town so I could clear my head - I'm not gonna smile, all the shit that's happened's gonna take awhile... That part of me is the wild-woman part who flexes my muscles and keeps me moving when I think I just can't face another day of this. It says, I'm not gonna think about all the shit you want me to think - I'm not gonna say who I spent my time with yesterday - and I'm not gonna choose, cuz in the end either way I'd still lose - and I'm not gonna wait - I was thinking about drinking my way through today....

And then the part of me that just wants to be HOME. It aches for the comfort of it: I think I'd like to go back home and take it easy - there's a woman that I'd like to get to know living there - everybody seems to wonder what it's like down here - gotta get away from this day-to-day running around - everybody knows, this is nowhere.

Got any songs that I should listen to, that will get me through the next 2 weeks? Please share them. I will put them in my ipod and listen to them on repeat until my car crosses into Arkansas and I can start to put this chapter behind me.

In this image, I am the gazelle.

To say that I went through the emotional wringer last night is putting it lightly. More like the emotional torture rack. The emotional monster truck rally. The emotional lion-tearing-at-the-gazelle's-carcass.

I'm far from innocent in this drama. I'm not going to make excuses for myself, or even tell you here what's happening, but I sort of feel like it's beyond the point. No break-up is without a deep tearing pain and unfortunately, this is ours. It's sort of my fault; it's sort of inevitable. I'm not leaving with grace, as I'd hoped I could, and I'll always be sorry for that, and I hope that someday Tex will forgive me for all the ways I've hurt her. I hope she doesn't remember me this way.

Went to sleep around 12:30 or 1am last night, woke up, as is becoming my habit, at 5:25. Keep in mind that in Austin, the sun doesn't rise until 7:50. So that's two and a half hours of pitch-black dark left to sleep in, and my body just throws that away like so much pocket change. "Sleep?" it asks. "Me??? I don't need no stinking sleep." And it squirms around under the blankets until I finally just give up and turn the light on.

Thank the heavens above that my father and step-mom are coming tomorrow! I don't know if Tex is going to be able to take it. I don't blame her one bit if she can't. Her pain right now is even bigger and fiercer than mine. I just need to laugh and have a few beers and admire this town one last time, and they're going to do that with me, for me. But after that, I don't know if I'll make it all the way through to the 24th, which was my original plan. The need to get outta here is growing steadily stronger.

Well, to cleaning my house. In the middle of all this, I have so much to do at work and home that I shouldn't even be sitting here writing this right now. Well. We all do what we have to do to get by.

7:30am and It's Still Dark Out in Texas!!!!

"If you will hold my hand, then I will hold my breath and cast my fate in the direction of my heart. I will put on hold my lesser dreams and reach for what is truly mine.
Say you will, and I will buy a ticket for this ride. It will not be cheap, nor always smooth. But I don't care. I don't care. It has finally come to that....."

Someone told me to buy this book (Enchanted Love by Marianne Williamson) a few weeks ago, surely not understanding the extent to which it would (very literally) change my life. But I keep repeating this passage to myself. "Cast my fate in the direction of my heart" indeed.

Some people think this decision of mine is foolish. But I have never been called to something as strongly as I'm being called to this. So, I hold my breath and cast my fate. "It has finally come to that...."

From Transcending Union Always Forward

Yesterday was one of the hardest days, but in a totally new way. First of all, I'd only slept 4-5 hours and then had to work for 12 hours, which in itself was fairly hellish. But at work I sent an email to the whole campus telling them that I'm leaving in two weeks. The result was the equivalent of standing in a receiving line at a wake all freakin' day. I got a dozen emails from people telling me how much they've appreciated me and the work I've done, which would have been flattering if I weren't so damned depressed. All day long people were stopping by my office, hugging me, crying, telling me how sorry they are, that they'll miss me, that they hope I'm okay. I told them each that I'm sad to go, that I wouldn't do it unless I had to, that no, I'm not okay, but I will be. It was freakin' exhausting. By the end of the day I didn't have energy left to smile at the kids. I took them outside and asked them to play kickball by themselves - so not like me!

This is maybe one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I'm amazed that it still feels RIGHT. For all the pain it's causing - in myself as well as in Tex (and that pain, the shadow I see in her eyes, the way she looks at me with an expression of begging and pleading and how-can-you-do-this-to-me, is sort of worse than my own) - it feels like I'm finally stepping into who I really am, what I really need, what I really want. It's like part of me has been severed for a long time, and I'm now being stitched back together. Of course, it involves severing something else - this relationship, this life. But as I close this chapter of my history and move into the future, I feel like... well, I feel like one of those tiny capsules that you put in water and watch it grow into a dinosaur-shaped sponge, or a little mini strong man, or rubbery lizard or something. Like this experience, this decision, is freeing me to grow out into who I really am.

And I pray that the same happens for Tex. She may not forgive me for awhile... she may come to hate me for a bit... either way, neither of us will be Okay for quite some time. But I pray, and pray hard, that she comes through this... that she grows into her fullest Self... that she forgives me as she takes possession of her own strength. Sigh. I love her still, and I have to hurt her, and that SUCKS.

So yesterday began the long string of goodbyes to my LIFE here. It's been a good life. I think I've done some good work at my program. One of the teachers there told me that she's been at the school for 9 years and she's seen a lot of teachers come and go, but she thinks I'm the biggest loss the school has ever had. I cried at that. Shit. At least I know I've made a difference, and leave behind me a strong program, and teachers who support afterschool, and hopefully - I pray - some kids who will survive their difficult lives, taking with them some of the love and strength that my staff and I have tried to impart.

Fuck, this is hard.

Have I told any of you how much I love my cat? He sits on my desk beside me, breathing slow and purring, watching my words appear on the screen as if he has any clue what they mean. Trust me, he can't read - the boy can hardly figure out how to keep his pee inside the litter box - but he's absolutely my favorite animal on the earth. He's coming with me on the long ride home. Jessica reminded me not to let him steer. Good advice like this is always welcome, friends. Pass it along. :)

Here we go into another difficult day. "From night into day, from transcending union / always forward into difficult day," as Galway Kinnel writes. Always forward.

Retail Therapy

I bought myself some Break Up Shoes today. Overly-expensive black and silver fashion sneakers. I was going to take a picture of them to share, but have you ever tried taking a picture of your own foot from an angle other than Up? It's hard. So, you'll have to use your imagination until you see them on me. These are the shoes I'm running from my life in, hah! No, but seriously.

Mapped the route from Austin to Northborough today. It's about 2,000 miles, or 31 hours of driving. There are also very few hotels that will let Finn stay with me, so it's going to be a lot of Holiday Inn Time for me and the cat.

I've got new shoes... let the adventure begin!!

A Rambling Bit of Thought

Did you ever see that movie with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson, Something's Gotta Give? I own it and watch it over and over again, partly because her life writing in that house by the ocean is my absolute dream, but also because there's something very true and funny about the way they depict her heartbreak. Shelley and I always laugh about the crying montage, in which Diane Keaton cries, wails, stomps her feet... falls asleep and wakes up, opens her eyes for a moment, and immediately begins sobbing again. That's how I handle heartbreak, with wild abandon - throwing myself into it, letting it consume me. Well, I guess that's how I handle most emotions.

So even though this split from Tex is my decision, I've been fully wracked by grief and sadness. Whatever it is calling me home - besides my parents, who most definitely have been calling for years now - doesn't make it any easier to leave this sweet woman who I've shared my life with for so long. From New York to Paris to Dublin to Israel to Boston to New Zealand to Texas.... shit, we've covered a lot of ground. We've stepped forward into our adulthoods together. We've been at the heights of happiness together. When you build your life around another person, the deconstruction of that life is a painstaking process. It uncovers all your old wounds, all your weaknesses, all your neurotic tendencies. It involves inspecting every single damn thing in your life (today, for instance, I'm going through our CDs and separating them... and also going through the memories of our life together and analyzing them in terms of my inability to express myself in an honest way and my insecurity in the world by myself... two very different kinds of sorting, through both the literal STUFF and the emotional "stuff").

I personally think that breaking-up, while proverbially hard to do, is one of the greatest growing experiences anyone can ever have. It seems, now, to not be a major coincedence that as 2008 turned to 2009, I decided to challenge myself, and poured on the projects. First, I decided to write a novel (which has stalled at around 210 pages, but is hopefully not dead). Second, I put a few dozen hours into my friend Jackie's year-long coaching course, helping her to put together documents and write some copy (this sounds simple, but it was simultaneously time-consuming and life-altering, for various reasons I won't get into). Then, I decided to train for a half-marathon (I got up to 2.5 miles and sprained my ankle, so I'm back at square one, which, considering that I'm not a runner, is VERY square one). Those challenges feel GOOD. They're pushing me in interesting ways. Then, in the midst of examining and experiencing those challenges, I realized that the relationship in my life isn't serving me the way I need... it's not pushing me toward a higher way of being in the world... it's not doing, essentially, what the novel and the half-marathon and the work with Jackie have been doing for me. And when your relationship affects you less than getting yourself in shape... maybe it's time to change.

I've been reading a great book by an author who Jackie suggested to me, Daphne King Rosma - "Coming Apart." It talks about why relationships end and what processes we go through when they do. She says that relationships are humanity's way of developing... that at a certain point in our lives we reach the top of our personal ladder and need to be in a relationship with someone to push us farther. I have some discomfort with this concept, which I won't get into now, but at the same time I realize that it's exactly this idea that has lead me to end my relationship. It hasn't PUSHED me in a long time. It hasn't brought me closer into the center of my Self. And there is SOMETHING, some inner voice, some universal force, telling me that the next step of my growth is going to be in Massachusetts, not with Tex.

Anyway, so the grief is overwhelming, but today was the first day that I didn't wake up sobbing. In fact, it's 1:01pm and I officially haven't cried yet today! Score! I don't doubt that there's more agony awaiting me, but it occured to me this morning that, Crap, my dad and Kathy are coming to visit in FOUR DAYS! And in those four days I have to wrap up my job, which is going to be more work than I can possibly conceive of right now. So I'm vaccuuming, and dusting, and straightening, and scrubbing my bathtub, and a host of other activities that have little to nothing to do with letting go of my relationship. The busy work feels really good. Later I'm gonna go buy me some shoes. Because, seriously, considering the state I've been in lately, spending money on shoes is probably the least destructive of all potential recklessness I could throw myself into.

Still, I'm thinking on what this process entails as a whole. I'm imagining what it will be like to drive away from this house in two weeks. The thought makes me pretty nauseous and shaky. Then I think of what's waiting for me in MA. And that thought is a tiny bit exciting. All you northeasterners, prepare to catch me as I come hurtling up I-95, ok?? I'm gonna be a bit of a mess, but your Caitlin is coming home....

A Beginning

You've connected to my new blog. I'm not sure how people start these things, and something about writing a blog feels awfully self-congratulatory... like, who wants to hear about my life enough to actually read this stuff? But then I figure, if I was going through what I'm going through (and I am, after all), I'd like to stumble upon someone else's description of their own journey. I'd find comfort in that.

And then, it's not as if I'm going to strap anyone down to their computer and force them to read about my tragedies, heartache, and unanswered questions. If you're reading this and you're curious and you connect to something in it, either because you know me or because you've gone through some similar experience of loss and recovery, then thank you. If you're bored already, no one is forcing you to read this, so feel free to close the browser and move along.

I'm writing this blog because I'm embarking on an adventure that is not altogether exciting. After four years - almost five - of loving and caring for and living with my partner, Catherine (hereby referred to as "Tex"), and two years of doing so in Austin, TX, I'm quitting my job, packing my car, and moving back home to Massachusetts.

This decision seems to have come fast, but it's agonizing nonetheless. I have a job here, one that doesn't pay particularly well but that challenges me and that I'm good at. I have a little house that I adore, though I don't own it: a two-bedroom place with hardwood floors and big windows and a little garden out back, full of the things that Tex and I have acquired since graduating college/grad school (respectively). I have friends, I have an intimate knowledge of where the TCBYs are in this city and where to get my margaritas (Chuy's are the best, El Arroyo's are the cheapest), a favorite cafe (Cherrywood Coffeehouse on 38 1/2), a favorite place for breakfast tacos (Guadalajara on N. Lamar). I have a woman I've loved deeply and commitedly for years.... I have a whole life. It's a life that has been very intentionally formed over the past two years. And now I'm leaving it.

The details of that decision, its reasons and repercussions, are the topic of this blog. Tex and I are parting amicably, for the most part - she has a sweet, compassionate heart and understands that this is something I "just have to do." We're in the midst of trying to say a beautiful goodbye, as I tie up the loose ends and move away from everything I know. This is perhaps the hardest thing I've ever done, including when I left to live in Israel alone for a year. It's hard because I'm giving up a life I love in response to what feels like a call to come home. I have no idea what's there hollering out that call, yoddling into the night for me to return. But I'm trying to trust it - and in the process, trusting the waves of grief and pain that wash over me. I feel them with amazing clarity, and they all but knock me over.

In two weeks I'll drive away from this neighborhood, this life, this woman, forever. This is an invitation for you to come with me. If you want to know the intricacies of my grief, and whatever adventures ensue in this bizarre situation, please tag along. I could use some company.