Chalk another one up to the remembering of frigid days.

Surfing on line, I came upon one of my ex-boyfriends' blogs. (came upon, googled, same difference) It was interesting and well written, and it kept referring to two years of tragedy and heart break and how before that his life was relatively trauma free. It fucking pissed me off. Looking at the dates I couldn't figure out if he considered breaking up with me part of that trauma, or part of that trauma free life. Was it after he left me that his life started to go down hill, or does he count our relationship as the descent into hell?

I read through as many entries as I could, looking for some hint, some reference to what happened between us. His first entry was only one or two months after we broke up, but it wasn't there, it was blank, gone.

I was in love with him. He said he'd been in love with me. I was searching and searching for some reason, some mention that he'd done something he regretted. Some sort of apology.

Isn't it wierd how we hold on to these things?

I've totally moved on from this guy, I've dated and had sex and flirted with men and had intense spiritual connections, I've even had relationships that could be called boyfriend/girlfriend but I have not been in love since him.

In a way, I think the heartache from that break up really did defeat me-- for a time, anyway. It made me not believe. It made me not trust, when I had worked so hard to be able to trust. But at the same time, I wouldn't have wanted to stay with the guy. I loved him, but he made me doubt myself. He told me all the things I wasn't and all the ways I sucked, all the reasons why he couldn't be with me, and I knew at the time there was something wrong with that, it seemed as if he was trying to convince himself of something, but I was too much in love, too willing to put up with his indecision because I loved him. It wasn't until after he broke up with me, after "you are the most important relationship of my adult life, and I still want to know you," (yeah, right) that I began to think about all those things he said I wasn't enough of.

Maybe somewhere in me, I actually thought those things, too. That I was boring, sedate, too set in my ways, not adventurous enough, or cool enough, or sexual enough, or wild enough. I was just a teacher, not a rock star, and my exboyfriend was a rockstar.

When he broke up with me, I thought about those things, and it was almost as if I checked off a list. Am I boring? Nope. Sedate? Nope. Unsexy? Nope. Uncool? Nope. Nope. Nope. Having this guy be the external voice of my inner insecurities made me able to tell him to fuck off. And the insecurities, too.

Two and a half years later, I can write a poem behind the bar, dressed in skimpy black because it's hot back there (and cleavage makes for better tips), I can tell the bar patrons that, no, they don't get a kiss, or I can lean across the bar and give it to them. I can them show my art book that I am so proud of and have been working on for four months. I can take the compliment when a world class curator says that I am going to be a great artist. I can have intellectual discussions about god or politics or art or The Simpsons, or I can just nod and smile and joke about nothing. I can edit my article for Block Magazine or read a Glamour magazine. I am a rock star, but I don't have to be. I can just be me, and glory in that.

Somebody at the bar said that he thought the reason we were put on this earth was to suffer, and that was what life was about. But if you think that then you're missing the real thing-- maybe we do suffer, but we're here to learn from our suffering, to take the lessons and move forward, get bigger, see farther, open our hearts despite fear, and get beyond our insecurities so that we can take on those real challenges, the ones that we really care about, the ones that give meaning to our lives.

Oh, yeah, we're also here to live in the moment, and exist here, breathe in the air and feel the sun on our faces, or the cold in our lungs. Screw the worries the fears from the past, as long as you're obsessing on those, you really CAN'T live now. It's not that the past goes away, but we don't have to be imprisoned by it.

I look back at 2003 and it has been huge in my life. It hasn't all been easy. Half of the year was about letting go of my heart hold on my students and my job as a high school teacher. It was really hard to leave them behind, but the best part of the year was about leaving behind those fears that always kept me back, always had me saying "no,no,no" to the things I REALLY wanted.

I started over. It's extremely hard. I cut out all the things that weren't working, and that's not as easy as it sounds. I've left behind a lot of people who just didn't fit in the life I wanted to live. I've also been trying to pick back up with other people who dropped out of my life, like my sister. You really don't want to leave your sister behind. I've been trying to find people that are in the same place in life as me. I don't really know what that means or how to do it, but I'm open to it.

My life isn't perfect. I don't really want to be a waitress/bartender, but I do want to be a writer and an artist, and that is what I am doing. I may not actually be in love right now, but I have been more open to relationships and men and possibility than at any time in my life. And what that means is anything could happen. I have to remember that during those moments when I get impatient at my life not moving as fast as I'd like it too. But it's not as if you can put in an order for your life and then expect to have that order come through at the next window. I could ask for a big mac and get a burrito, or popcorn, or a pinwheel. Is there something wrong with a pinwheel just because you asked for a big mac? I didn't "get" my exboyfriend, couldn't have him, even though I thought I wanted him. I did though, get something better.
I got me.