Chicken Soup, Made With Love

I’m doing much better lately. Maybe I’ve cried all I can cry. What can I say, I just don’t have a naturally depressive personality.

My emotional health, robust as it may be, is one thing. My physical health is another: I was hoping the runny nose and sneezing I had yesterday was just allergies (it was raining, and I’ve got a mean mold allergy). But taking Benadryl today only stuffed me up and made my head hurt. Must be a cold.

Every single time I got sick over the past few years (except, come to think of it, the last few months) — be it cold, flu, whatever — my ex made me chicken soup. From SCRATCH. I lapped up the soup, and his care and attention. He joked that I always got better faster after his soup, because he “made it with love” and lots of extra pepper to make my nose run.

I’m not going to get all cliche and say that I miss “the idea” of my ex, or that I miss him for what he used to do for me. That soup was real, and so was the sentiment behind it. And yes, I’ll miss it. And G-d help me if I ever find out some other hoe is eating my soup. But I found out tonight I don’t need it: the pasta I made was just fine. And probably most healing of all, my unprecedented 10pm bedtime will surely work wonders.

It just feels weird now. It’s just weird to go from feeling like there’s someone there that’s going to make sure everything’s okay, to knowing that there isn’t.

Jazzy Education

According to Katia at Pardon Me for Asking, I’m a P.S. 58 “Old Timer.”  I, liker her anonymous commenter, was taught to play Violin and Cello by Mr. Leviton in that public school.  Over the 6 years I was there, he also taught me the Mandolin.

My favorite lesson of all:  syncopation.  “Syn-COOOO-pa,” he’d yell from the front of the room, drumming his fist into his hand to further accentuate the beat.  Can you imagine what patience it takes a grown man to teach rhythm patterns to 3rd graders?

I imagine even the most sanguine would have their nerves shredded by groups of 30+ K-6th graders squeaking on Violins all day.  On those days we weren’t practicing, Leviton would pop in a video; animated Peter and the Wolf was a favorite.  To this day, I can pick out tunes from that Prokofiev piece anywhere.  The sounds of my childhood.

I found the following searching for Jazz on YouTube today, and immediately knew I’d seen it (and several others from the same series) before: in Leviton’s class.  Click play.  It’s good.

So this is where my interest in jazz was originally born. Thank you, Mr. Leviton, for installing these kinds of musical predilections.

My Boulder

My Mom always warned me: ‘First the Universe will drop a pebble on your head.  If you don’t listen, then it will send a stone.  And then a boulder.  Wouldn’t you rather learn from the pebble?’

As I’ve said, I was already beginning to think about what would be next on my horizon.  But I could just never get beyond the dream phase.  I’d get these inklings to find a better apartment or band situation, start volunteering, travel, take classes, learn a language… But I never really got much beyond thinking about all of that stuff.

How could I plan for myself, I’d tell myself, when I didn’t know how things were going to turn out for us?  Why would I pick a new apartment, when we might be living together in less than a year?  Why would I take those evenings for classes when our day-to-day lives seemed rushed as they were?  Why would I devote my time trying to build something that could take me to another state, away from him?

Instead of obsessing about my next move, I obsessed about marriage.  Together, we obsessed about our image and being seen as a junior power couple.  (It wasn’t hard, young turk that he was; I just had to show up looking the part.)

Instead of those classes, I signed up for Mary Kay.  “Yes, I love my job.  But in a few years it could be really nice to just have his babies and do Mary Kay,” I admitted to more than one friend.  Yes, that’s right.  My name is Roar Savage and I had a housewife fantasy.

With all those dreams swimming around up there in my head, I got lost in the day-to-day of our relationship.  It was so comfortable, I hid there.  I loved it.

Two weeks ago, I remember talking with a friend who said, ‘Well at least you still have your band.  That will anchor your week.  At least you know you’re rehearsing every Thursday.’  I nodded, agreeing with her.  It wasn’t much, but it was something to plan around.  And we know how that turned out.

I think it’s safe to say (as my Mom would) that right now, I’m learning from the boulder.  Clearly, the Universe is ready for me to learn how to make my next move, completely independent of anyone or anything else.  It doesn’t seem to matter anymore that I’m not ready to learn that lesson.  There’s just no other option at this point.

So why am I having such trouble moving forward?

I Quit the Band Drama

I told my bandmate about my breakup only a few days after it happened.  This friend knows all about romantic ups and downs:  Only a couple of years older than me, he is in the middle of a divorce and has been seeing his girlfriend for several months.  He’s often hysterical, but one of those people you put up with because most of the time, their heart is in the right place.

On that first phone call, he was adamant that I get onto gchat immediately, “so I can chat with you all day and cheer you up.”

So when his chat messages devolved into telling me he had recently had a sexual dream about me, I didn’t think it was anything more than my friend trying to cheer me up, as promised, in his own weird, awkward-but-platonic way.  He mentioned it several times in the last several weeks, and I’d change the subject by calling him a tease – because I knew he wouldn’t elaborate.

But then last week, he sent me this:

Roar
[My girlfriend] saw my gchat to you from earlier today (re: dream and you saying “tease”) and i have hurt her by letting this happen through my flirting with you.  This was really dumb of me.  It was really inappropriate for me to flirt with you the last few weeks and now [my girlfriend] knows and is pretty upset with the situation I’ve put her in.  You and i spend time together on Thursdays for band stuff and that will be it.  I’m going to say right now that I feel extremely uncomfortable with the situation i’ve created and the best thing to do is distance myself from you.

There is no such thing as “innocent” flirting.  It’s cheating.  Emotionally cheating on someone is just as bad as physically cheating.

I want you to know that it was inappropriate for me to flirt with you and lead you on and drag that on for a week and a half.  The sexual flirting was wrong and i have hurt [my girlfriend] and embarrassed myself.  I am NOT attracted to you – at all.  I flirted with you because i was having a rough spot with [my girlfriend] and was craving attention.  You were nothing more than a way to give me attention i needed.  I’m sorry for the blunt honesty but it needed to be said.

I love [my girlfriend] and i have made her feel uncomfortable because I hid things from her.  She and I don’t do that.  We never have and I never want to again.  The basis for my entire relationship with her is the openness and honesty that i violated by talking to you the way I did.  I dont want any more secrets with her and that includes my flirting with you I am done doing this forever.  You and I will continue to have a professional relationship through the band and that’s it.

I’m sorry but when given the choice between risking what I have with [my girlfriend] and playing kid games with you – it’s a no brainer for me.  I dont care that this is a hole I dug for myself, I care about [my girlfriend] more than you and when given the choice between you as an “acquaintance” (we don’t really hang out enough to be friends) and her, i pick her.

I’m ashamed of myself big time on this one.

Take care.

Since when did politely ignoring your friends’ bad behavior make one Belle Whatley?

I didn’t respond for two days.  I waited, weighed my options, didn’t want to say anything mean-spirited.  But when I realized my complete ambivalence about the whole thing, I was able to write back:

Hi [Bandmate],

Thanks for the heads up.  I think professionalism is absolutely the way to go and it sounds like you’re working things out with your girlfriend – I hope things improve for you on that front.

To be clear, I do not feel like I was lead on:  I considered your attentions to be those of a friend trying to make me feel better, not as someone actively trying to cultivate any kind of sexual relationship.  Since long before I met you, I have been (and continue to be) pretty obviously in love with [my ex].

I have never considered you as anything other than a friend.  My gchat responses were always friendly and jestingly meant.  Perhaps I should have said something to that affect sooner, but again, I didn’t take our exchanges that way, and I’ve been completely preoccupied with my own situation.

All that said, I think it’s time to end my tenure with [the band].  It just seems like it’s always something; and I just have to believe that there is something more healthy out there that will afford me a more professional avenue to use my creativity and talent.  I’ve been craving an opportunity to have more creative control, and this seems like the perfect time to go seek that opportunity.

I wish you and the band the best.

Thanks,
Roar

Another relationship over.  2010 really is starting off with a bang.

This Week Kind of Sucks

I drove past Old Ebbitt Grill yesterday, where we were just a few weeks before the breakup, hosting my best friend from high school and her boyfriend who were in from San Francisco. I remembered how we had cuddled at the bar over our crabcakes, how happy I was – how happy I thought he was, too – and just generally how much love I poured into us over the last few years. And I just lost it.

Today is the one-month “anniversary” of our break up. I have more good days than bad at this point, but this is a low point right now. This whole week is filled with milestones that feel more like emotional landmines: Monday was a month from our first break-up-ish conversation, a month ago today it was official, Friday would have been our 3 1/2 year anniversary.

And of course, there’s still no word from him. That’s what hurts the most: after all this time, am I really that easy to ignore, forget, move on from? All those times you said I was your best friend, the best sex you’d ever had — that was all a lie??

Rebound: Pain in the Back

Koryn and I got back to her place by 3am Saturday morning. It had been a long night of dancing, including two salsa clubs and a “regular” club.

I crawled in her bed, but my lower back was completely locked up. I could not get to sleep. At 4:30am, I started googling chiropractors from my blackberry. At 5am, I texted some of my guy friends, who I thought might still be up and might know what to do about a sprained back. At 5:30am, unable to suffer alone any longer, I woke up Koryn.

Three aspirin and some biofreeze later, I camped myself out on her floor. Unbelievably, it was more comfortable than her very soft bed. Up all night, I woke up at noon to get the text responses from my guy friends. Phil’s was best: “What were you doing at 5am to sprain your back?” Hardy-har-har.

I spent the rest of the day on Saturday and all day Sunday horizontal. With the help of a thermapack, I was able to loosen up long enough to go perform with my band on Saturday night, but went home again right after.

I’ve been worried all weekend: Is this rebound regime too strenuous for me?

Yo No Se Mañana

When Luis Enrique’s single was released earlier this year, it instantly became one of my favorite songs.  It helped me put things in perspective.  And really, thank G-d.

At the time, this past Summer, I saw the upcoming hurdles, and was already getting tired of how hard it was to make things ‘gel.’  All of the sudden, I could really relate to the sentiment in the song: ‘I don’t know what tomorrow holds.’

I had always thought that I was waiting for the other shoe to drop with us. For him to decide that he was completely sold on me. Instead, I began to think, ‘He doesn’t know how things will work out?  Yeah, me neither.’

Instead of being scary, it was a freeing feeling.  It let me start thinking about other possibilities besides trying to make things work with him.  Maybe I’ll leave.  Maybe I’ll move. Maybe I’ll meet someone else.  Maybe…

The breakup was really tough (just click through the archives and see).  But immediately after, part of me got excited, too: Now I can start playing out some of these maybes that I have rattling around in my head.

So, that’s the plan.

Back to the Club

I ended up back at Citron last night, dancing on the bar like old times. I only needed minor coaxing. My friends seem to be just as serious about enabling me to relive my old hey day as I am eager to relive it.

Ashley is one of my old Citron buds. Our old manager – he’s at another spot now – met up with us some time around midnight, and then drove us back to our old stomping grounds. It was a treat to see him: he’s always acted like my older, Italian big brother. He’s just really good people.

At his bar on New Years, he took me aside before I could even make my way down the carpeted steps just inside the entrance.

“Are you okay?  Was it you or him?”

“Him.”

“Good riddance.  Never forget who you are again.”

“I know.  I did.”

“We all do it.  Be glad it was only as long as it was.  Now go have fun.”

And I did. It was a long-overdue night of debauchery, complete with (at the end) chugging from the champagne bottle he gave us. (The girls I was with were slowing down.  Never. Leave. Champagne. Behind.)

Last night, he clarified a bit more:  “You got all white picket fence on us.  Ridiculous.  Someone should want to hang out with your friends.”

I didn’t get into it then, but to be fair, it’s not that my ex didn’t like my friends, he just said he didn’t like “the scene.” And I never pushed it. You’re supposed to get all domestic in a long-term relationship, right? Right?

Later, on our way from Chi Cha to Citron, my pseudo-Bro announced to the carful:  “This girl, you have no idea.  So much fun.  I’m so glad you’re back!  Guys, I used to have to ask the guys that came in to leave these two alone, like, ‘excuse me sir, can you let them do their jobs, please?’  It’s been too long, Roar!”

It felt so good to be back last night in the bosom of the people that had my back so loyally back then. Who, it seems, had been waiting for my return all along, without any resentment whatsoever.

Intimacy may be a confusing bitch, but I can (still) do club girl pretty easily.  It may not be sustainable, but I’m okay with that for right now.

Reclaiming Old Territory

Four weeks ago, the night before his birthday, he called me from outside this bar to tell me that he would be drinking with his friends until at least midnight, to bring in the new year right.  No, he said, he didn’t want me there, even though he was with a co-ed group of friends.

“It’s different when you’re out with me.  I have to be attentive to you.  I just want to be with my friends tonight.”  Ouch.

But Chi Cha was mine long before he had ever even heard of it. Back then, my roommate and I would hang out there on off nights with our Cafe Citron kin.  We sucked on our favorite sangria, and shouted requests to Boris, who would always play salsa and traditional Bolivian music for me whenever I asked.

So when Ashley reminded me this week that the musicians she hangs out with have a regular Wednesday night event there, and invited me (for the umpteenth time!) to join, there was no reason to say no.  In fact, I’m actually really excited.

Tonight I’ll kill two birds with one stone:  relive my 23-year-old single self, and begin to dispell the ghosts all over town – places that still have our mojo. One bar down, several more to go.

Whole

I just had the lightest, most relaxed days I’ve had in a while. I realized while driving home today:  I just feel WHOLE.

Perhaps that doesn’t sound like an incredible revelation, but after walking around for weeks with what felt like a part of my chest gnawed out, this is BIG.

I was nervous to go back to my job Monday, sure that it would remind me of my pre-December self:  his girlfriend.

Instead, it felt empowering.  This is where mama makes the big bucks. There was even a bit of a swagger to my step – the old Roar returning.

It feels good.