Gray Monday

Yesterday, the fog never lifted. It was beautiful. It was reminiscent of January 2006 when we were getting heavy into the no sunshine for weeks phase.

It was appropriate.

My week started off with an intervention for my dying neighbor. I’ve been doing my best to help her with meds, groceries, cooking, cleaning, etc., but she’s been continuously deteriorating. Knowing I’ve got travel on the horizon, I went to the owners.

“I need help. I’m getting in over my head here.”

It ended up being this amazing morning of lucid, intimate conversation, just the three of us women. The owner and I realized rather quickly that we’re were going to have to be vulnerable and share ourselves in order to get the old lady to open up to the fact that she needs some professional help.

It was emotionally draining.

Then around four, a call came in from a lesbian friend of mine. We’ll call her Fremont (neighborhood she lives in). A quick history of Fremont and I: we share mutual friends from Florida and met thru them. The second time I met Fremont, was summer of 06 when I was deep in the trenches. I was ragingly pissed off and depressed and I was looking into finding a way out of the U.S. for a couple of years.

She also dances with depression from time to time and has an admitted drinking problem.

That second meeting was at the Saloon, a pub in Pioneer Square. We ranted and bitched over five, count em’ five, pitchers. Ouch. I got lost trying to find my way home that night. (Navigating the trek from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill is not exactly rocket science.) Finally finding Belmont Ave., Adam was kind enough to not harass me and even fed me. I passed out -- hard.

For the record, this is why I do my best to not socialize with alcoholics. The inner-saboteur, bloody pissed off budding revolutionary likes to come out and play, and she doesn’t get to steer anymore.

We’ve hung out a few times since then under the guise of, “hey let’s get together and drink less then we did that one time.”

The last time we hung out we were both in bright, positive places and we had a remarkably good time. She had just started dating someone new and had the whole “new infatuation” thing going on: can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t do anything but think about the next time you’re going to see the person again, checking your email every 25 minutes to see if the new object of desire has sent anything..

That place is such an intoxicating place to be. I sat back and allowed her to gush.

Back to yesterday’s call.

“Hey, what’re you up to? I’m in Capitol Hill. Wanna meet for a couple pitchers?”

God, did I.

“I really can’t. Rough day and as much as I’d love to wash it down, methinks that isn’t the best course of action for me at the moment. Everything okay?”

“Girlfriend cheated on me Friday night. I finally decide to start dating again after 4ish years and, right outta the gates, man.”

“I’m so sorry.”

When they started dating, New Girlfriend told Fremont that she was dating other people and that she was, in no way, willing to explore exclusivity. It was an open relationship.

“Wait a second. Did you say she cheated on you? I thought she was upfront about the fact that she was already seeing other people?”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“But what?”

Silence.

“You fell in love with her and wanted her for yourself.”

“I thought I could handle it, but it’s really hard.”

“I know. You also knew from the start that she was a game player and loved being the center of attention. You identified the fact that this girl was likely gonna hurt you.”

I know this place. I used to be attracted to only the guys that would hurt me. I think it was spun out of my need to take care of/save/rescue others, which stemmed from me doing a hefty amount of the raising of my younger brother.

The brother and I were comrades. He’s hearing impaired and I was always so over-protective of him. Both parents were alcoholics. Both parents were always with abusive partners. I had my work cut out for me. He ended up being a wildly popular and quite talented basketball player.

He’s currently finishing up grad school and married a stunningly beautiful and bright girl in August of 2005. At the reception, my uncle (and Godfather) and my Grandfather both took the time to let me know what a good job I had done raising him.

I’d never sought out any thanks; he was my brother, of course I was gonna look out for him. But it was a really loving gesture they both made on that day.

I lost a good couple of years in my late teens to a lost soul that I was trying to rescue. He was older and took me for a pretty bad ride. Restraining orders were involved.

Then in college, I paired up for awhile with a drummer who was a loud mouth and liked to be the entertaining heart of every party. I knew from the get go that he was going to hurt me, but I didn’t care. I was really into him, far more than he was ever into me.

He was hilarious and he was angry and he was the extrovert party favor that I was at the time.

He told me from the very beginning that he was never gonna “let me in.” Our relationship was never gonna be anything more than just-for-fun.

I fell in love.

That Christmas I flew up to Minnesota and drove my car back down to Florida. He was with his family in Missouri and I stopped in for what was supposed to be a few days.

We met up with two of his friends (boys) that night and started bar hopping. I was 18 and had a not-so-convincing fake i.d. We landed at a stip club and, no shit, all these strippers excitedly made their ways over to greet him.

I turned to one of his friends, “Oh, it’s like that.”

“Yup.”

His two friends were really cool, much nicer than he was, so I decided that I was gonna hang out with them more so than the boyfriend.

Boyfriend caught on and ordered me a lap dance.

“You’re not into this, are you honey?” asked the over-sized DD cups.

“Sorry. Fake tits just don’t do it for me.”

She dismounted and strutted away. I smiled, thinking, “I always wanted to say that to a stripper.”

We changed up venues and continued to drink our way across town. I eventually got thrown out for the fake i.d.

Back at his parent’s house, he had passed out somewhere and the two friends and I were scavenging for food.

One of them glided his hand down my arm.

“So, Boyfriend said that he’s cool sharing you with us.”

“He said WHAT? Where is he?”

I started packing my things. They apologized, halted my departure and talked me into sobering up first.

The next day, his mother told me that she thought I was too nice for him.

Boyfriend and I got the house to ourselves and I proceeded to tie him up to a bed. That was during my “I like to tie up boys phase.” My intent was simple: disrobe, tie, excite, and leave.

Somewhere between excite and leave, I decided that maybe I could leave a couple hours later. I knew this was likely going to be our last time together.

Returning back in Florida three days early, my stranger-than-fiction roommate asked why I was back so soon.

“I realized Boyfriend is a complete and total asshole.”

“You JUST realized that?”

Then I thought I was pregnant (from Boyfriend). I told him. He was honorable enough to go to the doctor with me: false alarm -- we were not pregnant.

He never spoke to me again.

Shortly afterwards, I totaled out my car in a drunk driving accident.

Then I met Adam and was introduced into the pot-smoking art crowd. Thank fucking God.

Adam and I are now going on nine years. Nine years. That blows my mind. We were damn kids when we got married, had no idea what we were in for. And, I think, as we’ve grown, if we were both single, we would possibly not entertain the idea of marriage. Marriage creates obvious boundaries and borders. I can see how this could come off as ironical, but we’re both big fans of not closing ourselves off to others…

Life is all about relationships, sharing lessons & laughter with others.

Several years back, I was the one who was really pushing for us to open ourselves up to others, and I was the one that struggled with the jealousy at first.

In 2005 & 2006, when we were working & living together 24/7, it got pretty insufferable. We noticed that everybody started to referring to us as a singular entity. I remember correcting somebody on it one time.

“We are actually separate individuals, you know.”

“Well, yeah, you are, but it’s also kinda like you’re not, you know?”

Back to Fremont: I apologized for not meeting for drinks and told her to take some time with the situation.

“Let’s reconvene next week and have a pint or two instead of a pitcher or two.”

I hung up and got outside for some air. Turning the corner, I ran into a guy who was sobbing. A friend approached him from the opposite side of the street.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” the friend inquired.

“Grey fucking Monday,” was the response.

“I couldn’t agree more,” I offered.

Can I just say how great it is to be in a place in life where I don’t allow myself to get entangled with people who (I know) are gonna hurt me?