Step Four: Linner. Or Dunch.

I stumbled upon my most recent step on Friday. My plan had been to go home after work, but instead I made a detour to the mall. My original intent was to pick up something I needed: a new charger to replace my worn and frayed iPhone adapter that was finally dying on me. Once I got there, I even further detoured off course: I went to Victoria’s Secret. I had been needing new panties for a while now, as well as a new bra. They were having a sale. My daughter had mentioned to me that I never seem to buy myself anything, I’m always buying things for them. So I buckled down and I entered. 

Most women would be appalled by going underwear shopping. There is little in this world more mortifying than standing in front of a mirror, under unforgiving overhead lighting, and trying on underwear. You might as well glue massive belts of silly putty all over your body for as lumpy and pasty as you look under those lights. I spent a couple of years as a fat girl, then more recently as a well-rounded girl. Unforgiving is a kind word for it. However, since losing 20 pounds in my break up with Ben, my body looks – to be frank – amazing. Flat tummy, toned arms, thighs and ass just the right amount of fleshy without having too much jiggle to them. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a little cottage cheese on the thighs and stretch marks here or there. I’m 32 years old for god’s sake and I’ve had 2 children. But all things considered, I look great.

So for the first time since high school, I was happy with what I saw in the mirror. I tried on bra after bra, panty after panty, and I reveled a bit in my new found sexiness. I held my head high, I had confidence in what I saw. When I left with my bag full of delicious goodies, I felt damn good. I walked outside and the sun was shining. I bought my cell phone charger, stopped at a jewelry store and had bought the cute little robot necklace you see in the picture above, when my tummy growled. I considered all the fast food places I could stop at on my way home. Everything sounded gross. Burgers, fries, sub sandwiches, tacos. Yuck. I considered for a moment the sushi place by my house whose sushi I love. I could just get some take out… and take it home… and eat it alone at my dining room table… Sigh. That didn’t sound good at all. I was happy, I was energetic, the sun was shining. I didn’t want to go home. It struck me then – why don’t I just go out to dinner here? The Blue C Sushi was right around the corner. When the idea fell upon me, it settled my soul immediately and I smiled to myself. Perfect.

People were lining the walls waiting for a seat. I approached the hostess and she smiled and stared. I could hear her brain trying to find a polite way to say “Just you?” so I saved her the trouble after a long silence. 

“Just me!” I said, and smiled.

 “Oh, okay. Well, there’s a seat open right there along the bar if that’s okay?” 

“That works!” I said, and seated myself. 

This is great, I thought, no wait when you’re a one instead of a two or a three. Blue C was a perfect place to break the hymen of eating alone as well. I didn’t have to sit in uncomfortable silence as I waited for the waiter to approach with a menu, I didn’t have to look over a menu then wait for the meal to come once ordered. The food was already there, making its way around the conveyor belt. I sat down, pulled down a California roll ( I usually start with a California roll, it readies my palette for what lies ahead) and began to mix my soy sauce and wasabi. The waiter asked what I would like to drink, then brought me my Diet Coke. I was sitting next to a couple and their daughter. They weren’t speaking, just eating and watching the cartoons on the wall as I was. After 5 or 10 minutes, they stood and left and I was at the bar alone for a while. Next a couple sat down, but they left a chair open between themselves and me. I ate my California roll slowly and watched the cartoons. Samurai Jack was playing. I had always liked that show. Pity the sound was off. 

I had pulled down some edamame and began to snack away at it when someone came and took the single seat beside me. It was a man, I’m guessing in the range of 22-23 years old. He had nautical tattoos on his arms and a clean haircut. I guessed him for a navy man. He ordered a Sapporo and took down a plate of California roll. He excused himself and took the soy sauce and wasabi from near me. The restaurant is set up for couples, so there was only set between us. I checked my email. There were a few from work that I checked and answered. The man next to me was doing the same thing. I pulled down the vegetable tempura as he pulled down a plate of my next choice: shrimp tempura roll. 

We had been sitting there for about 10 to 15 minutes, the two of us, not speaking except to say “excuse my reach” as we got more wasabi. I figured he was pretty harmless in the predator category, and I considered one of my future steps: the park bench. You sit and you have conversations you never would have had, if you hadn’t been alone. That was the adventure, right? So I took a leap. It felt awkward. I went for it.

“Do you usually eat here by yourself?” I asked him. 

“What?” He hadn’t heard me. The music is a bit loud there.

“Do you eat here by yourself very often?” I rephrased. He shrugged.

“I’ve eaten here by myself a few times. I usually come with my friends.”

“I’ve never had dinner by myself.” I said.                      

“Really?!” he said, surprised. That made me feel less weird. “Well, this is a good place to come because you don’t have to wait in line usually, and you don’t have to wait for the food to come, you just pick it off the belt.”

I nodded. He seemed receptive to conversation. He told me about being in from the navy (so I was right!) and how he was stationed on the Lincoln and they were just in port for a month or so. He was from Dallas originally. No accent though. He introduced himself (his name was Preston) with a handshake. I told him about the Project and he was impressed by my decision to take a handle of things. He said being alone isn’t so hard as long as you’re like me – outgoing and social.  We shared stories about our tattoos, traded stories about visiting L.A., NYC and San Diego. We sat and talked for about an hour as we ate sushi and he order another Sapporo and I got a refill on my Diet Coke. I talked about my kids, he talked about his parents. There was no flirtation about it, but there was a good social connection there. It was neat. When we were full, we got our checks and left. We didn’t exchange information, but I thanked my temporary friend Preston for his company. 

I don’t consider this my “Dinner” step, though technically it was dinner. This restaurant wasn’t a real fancy restaurant with linen napkins, I wasn’t at a table or a booth. It was much more like my Lunch step, I think, only it was later in the day. But I liked this experience so very much. I like that it was spontaneous; I didn’t plan it out and ready myself and walk out the door. It was a natural part of the course of my evening. And that’s what the Project is about, isn’t it? Finding value in my everyday aloneness. Not forcing myself into aloneness, but taking the aloneness that is there and finding the good in it. Settling into it. That’s what I did, and it felt natural. 

As with all the steps, I reveled in the fact I had nowhere to be, and no one to answer to. I could take as long as I wanted to eat my sushi and speak with my new friend Preston because it was just me. If someone had been there with me, I would have learned more about them and there is value in that, but since no one was there I was able to learn about this entirely different person. And I also learned a bit about myself. I am easy to talk to. I draw people out. I am always going to be okay being alone, because I am an innately social animal and in some ways I will never be alone. Place me in any setting and I will find a way to thrive. That is a noble attribute. 

The Project is working, you guys. Look at me go!

Step Three: Going in Circles

The day I went to Greenlake was perfect. It was warm but not hot. I got there around 7:30 at night, and the crowds were beginning to diminish but they hadn’t vanished. The sun was setting on Seattle as I began my walk. I didn’t take my earbuds, I didn’t really want to do anything to deaden or distract. The point was to enjoy my company, not to turn off the sound of my own thoughts.

The first mile was awkward. I felt like I was being stared at. There are 2 kinds of people at Greenlake: 1) The Alone People, wearing their jogging shoes, or riding their bikes, moving quickly and dodging between the Not Alone People or 2) The Not Alone People, traveling in their pairs and packs, slowly grazing like cattle around the perimeter. I felt at first as though I was wearing antennae, because I didn’t fit in. I was alone and meandering. I imagined that people were wondering to themselves, “What’s wrong with her? Is she high? Did someone die? Did she just get dumped?” OH! Bingo. Yah, I felt like I had a glowing, light trimmed arrow pointing and flashing at me from above. I hardly noticed my surroundings for that first 30 minutes or so. I mostly paid attention to the feel of my feet taking one lonely step after another. I wanted a hand to hold. I wanted a voice in my ear that wasn’t a stranger’s.

I was creeping into the second mile and had begun to let my thoughts sink into Ben again. That happens pretty rarely lately. I’ve been healing pretty well and letting go of a lot of the residual attachment I had to my life having Ben in it. I was no longer thinking of him first when I woke up in the morning, or last when I went to bed. My chest has lost that ache that had become so familiar with each breath. Hours were passing at the end of which I would realize I hadn’t thought of him at all. I was mending. But as the sun began to set, I turned inward. I was thinking about my future, and how bright it appeared to be, but as so often it does my mind wandered not to my successes but to my failures. Why had I been so disposable to Ben? Why had I been, after so much history, been so easy to throw away? Am I kidding myself in believing I have something to offer? I began to wonder if maybe the idea of me was much better than ACTUAL me. Am I a great interview, but a terrible employee? Am I fun on paper, but just not worth dealing with? Would all of my future relationships be tainted by my willingness to put my ideal self forward, only to disappoint with the reality of what I am? I stopped at a shady spot beneath a tree looking over the lake. I watched the ducks drift by, slipping across the glassy water, and the voices and sounds of the people on the trail evaporated into the ether as I began to cry. It wasn’t an audible cry, it wasn’t that cry in which you bury your face in your arms. It’s that cry where you’re just not sure what to do but crying seems right and so you let it happen. Fat, wet tears rolled down my cheeks, and since I was hidden away from everyone else, I let them fall.

I don’t want to feel broken anymore.

Eventually I stood and walked out from under my tree and when I did, there was a bench in the grass across from me. An old couple was sitting there, quietly holding hands. They weren’t exchanging words, but they were connected. I pondered for a moment the comfort inherent in being still with someone. It’s so much more intimate than talking or gesturing or imposing some idea. You are simply soaking in their presence, the joy of their company. I wondered at the idea of having that with myself. Noiseless and still in my own presence. As I began the rest of my walk, I began to feel a sort of calm come over me. I wasn’t so worried about the other people around me. I focused on the sound of my own breath, of my heart beat in my ears. I paid attention to the way my arms and hips moved in time with my steps. I looked out over the lake, and paid attention to the different trees that were planted around the grassy park surrounding the water. The sun was setting and the air was cooling and it felt good in my lungs. It felt clean. I let the breeze wash over me and paid attention to the feel of it crossing over my skin. It was good.

Again I felt that feeling that I felt with the other steps. It felt… free. I was here alone. I had no one to entertain. My thoughts and feelings were my own. I could laugh, I could cry, I could walk slowly, or speed my pace. There was no one else to consider but myself. Thinking of that pushed my shoulders back, it lifted my chin. I didn’t have anyone here to accompany me, but I also didn’t have anyone to answer to. I felt strong, I felt brave. I felt FIERCE. 

Which is probably what brought me to the debacle at the beginning of mile 3. I had poked my phone into my back pocket (I was expecting my kiddos to call, but I didn’t read or answer any text messages while I was there for my alone time. That wouldn’t be very “alone”, now would it?), and my car keys into my hoodie pocket, but I had locked my purse in the trunk of my car for safe keeping. I had forgotten to bring a bottle of water with me. By the time I started the 3^rd mile, I was thirsty, but I had no water. There was a small shop by the side of the lake that sold beverages. As I approached it – penniless as I was – I saw that it also sold ice cream. God damn it. Now I wanted ice cream, too.

I had no money, the car was about a mile away so it made no sense to walk there and walk back. Still… ice cream. I looked around me at my surroundings and saw to young men sitting on the grass across the trail. I considered my position carefully, shrugged, and went for it. I was feeling fierce. I could do this.

“Hi!” I said. They looked up at me. I smiled my 100 watt smile, cocked my head to the right.

“Hi…?” They said, almost in unison. They were maybe 19 or 20. 

“Could I have 5 dollars?” I asked. That was all. They watched for a moment, as if awaiting elaboration, but I offered none. I felt this was a challenge. The one on the right spoke.

“What?” he said. Obviously he was not my target. I shifted my attention to the one on the left. 

“Could I please have 5 dollars?” I asked again. Jacked up the smile wattage to 1,000, head tilt to the left, cute little nose scrunch to seal the deal. There was an almost imperceptible pause before the boy answered, during which I was almost worried.

“I think I have $5…” he said, and dug it out of his wallet. His friend looked at him as though he was buying magic beans, though those would have had a more realistic turn around. I thanked him with another 1,000 watt smile and went to claim my reward.

Mmmm… bottled water and ice cream dipped in crunch bar. 

I got a dollar back in change and I returned it to the young man. I’m not sure what he thought when he saw me approach him holding water and an ice cream, but I’m sure a lesson was learned there. Don’t worry, I’ll pay it forward.

Regardless, by the time I got back to my car, I had a smile on my face. I didn’t care that I was alone. I was sharing the inside joke with myself about getting a silly boy to buy me ice cream for no reason. I had enjoyed the sunset, gotten some exercise, and pushed the envelope of my comfort zone, all while being reminded I’m actually still kind of young and pretty.

This trip did more than the others. It encouraged me to do more. I felt confident as I was walking away. I was excited for the next step, and the step after that. I think between the steps, and my growing comfort with the sound of my own footsteps in my house, and sleeping alone every night for so long, that I’m getting a grip on all of this. I feel some long dormant part of me tossing and turning, rubbing its eyes, and taking a long stretch. 

My soul is waking, I can feel it.

Interlude: In the Name of Absolute Transparency aka Don't You Dare Suggest I'm a Coward

First and foremost, I’ve been called out.

Something’s been going on that may be affecting the Project, and it was recently suggested that I would be too ashamed by my failure to be honest with it here. That’s defeating the purpose, isn’t it? Lying, hiding? This isn’t about my audience. Yes, you’re here so I’ll maintain some accountability, but the purpose of the accountability wasn’t about avoiding judgment – my life has been riddled with judgment since I was a young white trash girl living with a goat in an apartment (long story). It was about maintaining accountability so I would follow my steps. I didn’t want to chicken out when things got uncomfortable as I pushed my boundaries. 

Let me make this perfectly clear, first and foremost: My life is my own, and I make the decisions I feel suit it best. Sometimes people consider them self-destructive – such as the people who suggested I abort or give up my son because I was young, unmarried and had just moved in with Rich a month prior to finding out I was pregnant. Thank goodness I didn’t listen to those boneheads, I would have missed out on 10 years of one of the most amazing kids I’ve ever known. I was told to (begged to, really) quit my job over a year ago. I powered through it despite popular opinion, and despite the boss I had at the time making me cry on a regular basis. Today I have the most rewarding job I’ve ever had because I stuck it out. My gut doesn’t always steer me wrong. Only I can know my life from the inside, and I have to make the call based on what feels right.

So here we go. Transparency. Honesty. I have been talking to a boy. He lives in another country. He is handsome, charming, and he bought me a present. 

You are more than welcome to consider this a blatant disregard for the Project. I can certainly understand the urge to consider someone I can’t touch, meet, have sex with, sleep next to, cuddle with, or even meet for coffee a very serious risk to my attempt at being alone. I have never felt so involved as I do right now. He is able to meet all of my emotional and physical needs as defined in a relationship from his vantage point 4,772 miles away. Okay, okay, my sarcasm is getting a bit catty here, but you’re catching my drift, right? I’m just saying – have a little perspective. However, you are more than welcome to your opinion of this contact.

I am Jack’s complete lack of concern.

The project is mine. I defined its boundaries, and its purpose. I defined its parameters, and they were as such: 6 months alone. Follow the steps, do them alone. Learn how to enjoy my own company. I didn’t consider my main goal to be being unsupported and cut off. I never claimed I would be celibate, I claimed one thing: no boyfriend for 6 months and learn to be comfortable in my own skin. The goal was so that in the future – relationship or no – I would be able to feel okay on my own so I wouldn’t *need*  a guy. I would be okay doing things on my own. However, life changes every day. We adjust. The Project is only as static as my own reality.

On April 20^th, Ben left. Since that day I have not been told “I love you”, no one has curled close to me at night, no one has held my hand or tucked my hair behind my ear. On October 20^th, I will have been without the comfort of those affections for 6 months. Will that mean that I have not been told I’m pretty? No. I get “You’re pretty” at every dive bar and skeezy club I end up in. That’s not realistic. Will that mean that I won’t have had sex? Nope, it doesn’t mean that either. I’m saying – where do you want me to draw the line? Is it if I “seek out” men to tell me I’m pretty so it makes me feel better and less alone? Is it if I let a man buy me a drink at a bar? What if I talk to the man? What if I let him take me home for the night but never see him again? Where does the line end? My opinion is that it’s my decision. This is my project. I determine its purpose and its worth. No one else can decide that for me. 

I am talking to a boy. He lives in another country. I am going to continue the steps because I think that learning to be alone is still real here, and still essential here, and I am not swayed by his attentions in relation to the project. I am going to continue talking to the boy who lives in another country. I am not going to be made ashamed by your disapproval because I believe I am still able to accomplish what I came here to accomplish – learning to be okay on my own. I am still here alone. My house is still empty. My bed is still empty. 

When the Project is yours, you are welcome to make your own rules. I will judge them accordingly. If you give up on me and my ability to follow the steps, or if you have decided that the Project is worthless now, then so be it. I am not continuing it to appease you anymore than I started it to appease you. 

But don’t think for a minute that I’m going to hide a damn thing. I may be a broken fuck-up, but I’m no coward.

Interlude: The Ticking

Another week with my kids is winding to a close and ahead of me lies another week alone. This last week has brought about some internal shifts, some of which lead me to some interesting theories on what might be contributing to why I am uncomfortable being alone in the first place. It will involve me being a bit vulnerable in the face of someone I’m not prepared to be vulnerable in front of, but I’m not really comfortable with any of this, am I? I’m not comfortable with Ben leaving, I’m not comfortable with being alone, I’m not comfortable with the things I’m pushing myself to do. Being comfortable hasn’t ever helped me a whole lot. Nothing of substance or beauty in my life has been born of mediocrity; they all took rabid acts of faith and courage. There is a lesson in that, I suppose.

I often wonder what is so bad about me that I am afraid, or disgusted, to be alone with myself. There is plenty in here to be ashamed of – I never went to college, I come from a poor white trash family, I’ve been beaten and abused in every sense of the word and that can lead a person to feel as tattered, worn and useless as an old rag. However, I know that there is something about me that is worth something too, so I’ve never been too sure of why I can’t appreciate that value for what it is in myself as I would if another person with those same flaws and attributes were standing before me. Well, I think I may have triggered an occurrence that can lead me to the origin of my dislike.  

I tried to make a friend, recently. I don’t do that often, really. Most people come into my life and I escort them out as quickly as a fat kid taking on an oiled slip and slide. I don’t have the easiest time trusting people, and I think it’s because I know most people don’t stay. I never really picked it apart beyond that. I knew there was something about me that was too rough around the edges for people to stay around, I guess I let the idea roll off my heart pretty quickly with the rationalization that not many people want to be friends with the uneducated white trash girl with tattoos who used to do a lot of speed.  I’m sure that there is a part of you that is thinking, “But that is obviously not the girl that is writing here now. You can’t be uneducated trash, you speak clearly and concisely, you love and care for your children, you are obviously a smart person who is trying to put her life in the right.” And those things are all true. But I’m online, and my identity is veiled by the wall that is the computer monitor. I am safe tucked away back here, being this faceless person. These words on the page are the innermost, vulnerable me. The me that is very much scared, and hurting, and broken and desperate. Out there? Out there in the world I am a different kind of human being entirely. 

I used to think that the differences in who I appear to be, and who I am, were simply adaptations to my environment but I realize now that that isn’t entirely accurate. Most people will only ever know who I am “out there”. The social butterfly, the girl that makes you laugh and says over-the-top things and drinks too much and listens to loud, hard music and gets in fights at bars and flirts shamelessly and just generally kicks life’s ass. This is the girl who, when given lemons by life, tracks life down and tells it where to put it’s goddamn motherfucking lemons and somehow manages to get her money back even though life has a strict no return policy. Most people really, really like this girl. And why not? She’s fun, she’s crazy, you don’t have to take anything seriously, if you date her you get to have all this fun crazy sex, and if you don’t date her you still get to go along for the ride. 

The only problem is that she is just the armor.  She is there to hide the girl inside that is very much the scared, hurting, broken and desperate girl on these pages. That girl inside is real, whether you want her to be or not. She is in there, and she navigates this ship more than most people can ever really know. She is the core of who I am. I don’t mind that; I don’t mind being vulnerable or letting people see that I’ve been bruised a bit by the life I’ve lived. The only problem, I guess, is that most other people do.

Everyone wants to date the pretty, fun, crazy girl. Until she lets you in, and you have to see the parts of her that are dark, and sad, and damaged, because those parts aren’t easy and fun. Those parts are serious, and real, and make you think and feel and most people don’t want to think or feel about anything beyond the end of their noses. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say “Most people are inherently selfish because they don’t want to hear about my daddy issues.” What I’m saying is that most people have enough of their own damage, they don’t want to know about mine. The people who are in my life, and continue to be in my life, are those that can face that kind of darkness, who have an intimate knowledge of it from their own journeys, and having walked that path themselves can say, “I get it.” They aren’t afraid to look at the dark, they don’t run from or shy away from it. They don’t live their lives to be IN it, but they have the courage to know there is a time and place for it in all lives.

There are the people who want to hear about what movie I went and saw, and what bands I like, and how drunk I got last weekend, and then there are the people who want to know what makes you tick, because they are so intrigued by what makes THEM tick. Because they can step back and recognize that all life is, in the end, is the ticking.

So I’m trying to be friends with this person, and I don’t think they want to be friends with me. This person knows the armor of me that is so much fun, and I thought I could see glimpses of what made them tick, and that perhaps we shared some ticking in common, and so I tried to show them a bit of what’s under the armor. But every time I lift the chain mail they vanish, and resurface much later to steer the conversation away from the ticking. I’ve begun to distance them, and am putting the full suit of armor back on, and in the midst of that was when it hit me. While trying to tell myself that this silly, unsubstantial person on the internet really meant nothing at all and I shouldn’t take it as a rejection, I realized: it is a rejection. And that’s the core of it.

When I am alone, there is no armor. I can’t amuse myself with humor and self-deprecation. Who laughs at their own jokes? Who smiles at the sight of their own smile, who can create witty banter when they’re alone? Who is the life of a party of one? My armored self is useless when I’m alone, which leaves nothing but the ticking. It’s not that I’m afraid to face the darkness alone, it’s not that I’m afraid to walk the path through myself. I’m a writer, we are nothing if not introspective, the path through my own heart and mind are well worn and familiar. I realized that every time I have allowed someone under the armor who then said, “But this isn’t FUN. Put this away and bring back out the FUN Jennifer” who I am at my most real and vulnerable has been rejected. Every acquaintance I have tried to make a friend has reconfirmed the idea to me that there is no value in what makes me tick, because no one is interested in knowing it. 

I don’t want to be alone because I am sick of knowing what makes me tick. It’s like a metronome in an empty room. I don’t want to hear it anymore. Having real conversations about things that hurt us, or scare us, or about love or beauty or art or feeling – they’re not FUN. I have been trained time and time again through a series of rejections of those things that are intimate and real that if I’m not going to be fun, I shouldn’t even BE. Alone, it will just be me and that metronome of my heart, beating out of my chest like a drum sounding a call to no one. What a terrible, wonderful darkness that would be.

I want to believe that if I learn to peel away the armor when I’m alone, and let the ticking lay bare, perhaps I won’t need the armor someday, and people can take or leave me as they please without it hurting so. Perhaps I will love the sound of my own heart beating so much, that I won’t hurt if no one else wants to hear it, like a song I never teach another soul the words to. Does it make the lyrics or harmony any less beautiful if they only fall upon my ears? I don’t know the answer to that. I just know I still want to believe that intimacy and raw human connection are noble pursuits. 

Step Two: The Coffee Shop

My intention was to fill my weekend alone with steps for the Project. I was going to hit the coffee store, and walk around Greenlake on the beautiful, sunny Saturday, then on Sunday I was going to look into taking the train or bus somewhere, just to get a feel for riding alone. I was full of ambition because for some reason Ben’s ghost had stopped so frequently haunting my thoughts. I think doing the 4^th of July on my own made a difference. I could feel myself healing a bit. I was proud of the progress my heart was making.

As quickly as my strength seemed to increase, on Friday night as I sat alone it just as quickly vanished. I was up until 3 a.m. keeping the voices at bay that seemed so eager to remind me of what a hopeless, unlovable mess I was. I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my head in my pillow on the couch and though I couldn’t cry my heart beat hard like my chest was as hollow as a drum. Sleep came slow and struggling. 

Saturday I lay in bed until almost 1. I couldn’t bring myself to get up. I didn’t want to face my house, the sunshine, my reflection in the mirror.  I knew I was supposed to get up and take one of my steps but every move I made my body groaned with missing Ben. How productive would I be in this frame of mind? How much progress could I make? Wouldn’t I just go and sit and wallow in my loneliness? Eventually I made it to the couch, but I didn’t move. I ate junk food, I watched T.V. and I sat under a blanket, trying to ignore the shard of sunshine and blue skies I could see peeping through the crack between my living room curtains. I laid here, frozen by my depression. All. Damn. Day. I went to sleep at that oh-so familiar time of 3:30 a.m. and I woke up only 5 hours later. 

When I woke up, I groaned at being awake. I hated it. I hated waking up alone again, I hated the quiet, I hated that my stomach was growling which meant I was going to have to get up and go to the trouble of putting food in it. I got up none-the-less. I ate breakfast, I took a shower, I put on my clothes. All things that I shouldn’t be writing in a blog about but they were all very small victories for me at this point and I celebrate them as such. I grabbed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and set out into the daylight for the next step.

There’s a good-sized Starbucks that just opened near my house and this seemed a good opportunity to check it out. When I arrived it was empty of all but one customer. The cushy leather chairs and ample sofa were all free so I ordered my drink (I’m a true Seattleite, and I was a Starbucks girl myself once, so my sunny day drink is an iced grande half-caff toffee nut whole milk no whip light ice mocha. Say that 3 times fast) and got comfortable. As I settled in, I became a little disappointed that there weren’t more people there. My goal, I guess, was to test my comfort zone by being alone amidst a lot of people. I absolutely rue that thought process now.

I was only there about 20 minutes, just long enough to become really at ease, when the door opened and a man walked in that was so beautiful my mouth gaped open. I was sitting near to and across from the door, so naturally he had a point blank view of my ogling. I quickly clamped my jaw shut and jammed my face in the book but the damage was done. I felt him watch me out of the corner of my eye as he waited for his drink. I looked up and made the briefest of eye contact with him before I hurriedly turned back to my book and he pretended to be looking at the ceiling or floor or some silly thing. His order was called. Grande soy chai tea extra foamy latte. The store was empty now, every chair, every table was free. Out of them all, he sat in the cushy chair next to the couch I was curled up on and opened his book. He had dirty blonde hair and those blue eyes that weaken my knees. He was wearing Chuck Taylor’s and a plaid button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I buried my nose deeper in my book and reread the same line 4 times before it would sink in.

When Ben came around, I hadn’t seen him in years. My heart had seemed to wilt and fade in my marriage, and my next long term relationship (after my marriage, but before Ben) was after months of false start relationships that left me unimpressed and detached. When I got into that middle relationship, I barely felt anything at all, but I had truly begun to believe perhaps I didn’t feel sparks anymore. I hadn’t felt head over heels in love since I had first gotten together with my husband, back when I was only 20. I thought perhaps being “head over heels” was something you only did when you were very young. Perhaps it was unrealistic of me to think I would feel that way again. Perhaps I had been hurt, and disillusioned, and abandoned so many many times that I wasn’t capable of trusting someone enough to let myself feel that way. Perhaps I should work at just finding someone that I thought was fun, and compatible on most levels with me, and call it good. Perhaps this was growing up. 

Meeting with Ben after those many years, the feeling was absolute, immediate and utterly overwhelming. I was terrified. I told him I was terrified. I begged him to leave me be if he meant to do what he always did with women: get bored, get detached, and leave. He insisted he had changed and he seemed to have. Despite the way my heels flew so quickly over my head, I forced myself to remain detached from Ben. I reminded myself that he always had one foot out the door. That despite what my friends told me, someday his fear would over take him and he’d be gone. For all the times he told me he loved me, and cared for me and brought me into his life, I could not, would not, allow myself to believe he would stay. It was too dangerous to commit my heart to all this completely, to be intimately vulnerable on every level. We had our bumps in the road here and there, days when he spoke the words out loud that he was afraid. I saw him struggling to let me in, which was so against everything he had ever taught himself. A week after a particularly rocky spell in which I was sure he was about to run, he sat beside me on the couch and mentioned almost in passing that he would never break up with me. We had been together over a year at this point, and had our struggles. He said I was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he wasn’t going anywhere. A couple of days later, he texted me something similar, telling me that I was perfect for him, why would he ever purposely mess this up?  That night I wrote a journal entry entitled “In Which I FINALLY Feel Secure with Ben”. I was finally at a point when I felt like I could relax, that he was mine and he meant to follow this through. Despite the chips and cracks in my surface, he saw my value, he knew my worth, and he loved me. I was home, and I could stay here. 

3 weeks later Ben left.

The man in the chair at Starbucks had a book too. I jumped as though kismet itself had screamed just then into my ear as I saw that he was reading a very well worn copy of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. By Tom Robbins. My favorite novel.  My eyes lingered on his book and hands for too long because he looked up and smiled and caught my eye again. I lifted my book again, but it was too late. 

“That looks pretty new.” He said. 

“What?”

“Your book. It looks new. Have you read the series before?”

“Oh, no. I love the movies, I was afraid reading the books would ruin them.” I didn’t smile. I looked back to my book. My stomach was fluttering in that way that would usually make me smile coyly, bat my eyes, and tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. The feeling of my stomach fluttering made me feel out of control. My heart sank. I heard him laugh.

“I can understand that. I’m a big fan of the movies, too. Are you excited for the new one coming out?” He had put his book down in his lap, so when I looked up from my book he was giving all of his attention to me. His eyes were warm, and he looked a little nervous. I felt my chest tighten and my face flushed. My body reacted in that warm, drawn way that a woman reacts to a man. I hesitated. 

“Yes. Yah, it looks good.” I was speaking very quietly now. I felt like I was being rude. This feeling of getting attention from this man, though… it made me panic. The idea of liking him terrified me on a deep, primal level. I couldn’t even breathe. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. I heard a voice in my head explode, “NO!” and it wasn’t about the project, and it wasn’t about keeping myself from doing something I had told myself I wouldn’t do. It was absolute terror of caring. I could see down the tunnel of my “relationship” with this man whose name I didn’t know to holding his hand and laughing and cuddling on the couch and sleeping beside him and I could see that moment he fucking walked away and left me standing there more broken than I already am. In a flash, in an instant, I saw it all. I closed my book, scooped up my purse, and he watched me awkwardly as I ran out of that coffee shop and into my car. I left my coffee, like Cinderella’s slipper as I went. I drove away, deciding to try a different Starbucks in a different town about 20 minutes away. My hands and legs were trembling and when I hit the highway I broke down into tears. 

By the time Ben had come around I was so cynical about my heart. Why had I been such a fool to believe that he would be different? Why I had I let him in? Into my life, into my children’s lives? Why had I ignored all the ways I am broken and fucked up and believed that I could actually maintain a happy relationship? Why did I think anyone was capable of knowing me, and understanding me, and being okay with what they found? Why do I keep telling myself I am worth a damn?! 

I pulled up to the next Starbucks none-the-less. I wiped my face and steeling my determination I got out of that fucking car and I went in the coffee shop. I ordered another goddamn coffee and I found a comfortable chair and I sat in it. I know my face was red, and swollen from crying, but I didn’t care. I didn’t stop to look at the people around me. I’m sure I looked desperate and strange. I ordered a Chai latte this time, extra foamy. For a moment it reminded me of the snowboarding trip I had taken that winter with Ben. I had gotten hurt pretty badly and sat alone in the lodge drinking the same latte. We had gone with his sister. I miss her. I miss believing that someday she, and all of his sisters and nieces and nephew, would be my family. But this is neither here nor there. The memory was there for but a moment, then gone. 

I began to read again, and as any good book does, I was pulled in and the worries of my own life washed clean from the slate of my mind. I drank my Chai and lingered. Eventually my shoulders slumped a little less, I began to look around at the other faces in the shop. I watched the people filter in and out. I watched a couple sit at a table, not speaking to each other, their eyes wandering along the walls but not passing more than a word or two. I tried to decide if what was between them was a cold distance, or a comfortable silence. I considered that when Ben and I were together in restaurants and coffee shops, there was always talking, sharing, joking, laughing. Our silences were just gentle, natural pauses in our banter. I considered also, that now I was going to be sculpting and developing a very different kind of balance between silence and conversation with myself. I was going to have to learn how to listen to what was going on inside my own head. To listen to my gut and instincts again. To rebuild the walls I may have been foolish to tear back down.

In the end, it was relaxing to be reading alone in my coffee shop. As much as the memories were present, I knew I didn’t have to struggle anymore. Yes, I don’t have that wonderful feeling I had when I felt like I was home, but I also don’t have to struggle and wonder and second guess and walk on egg shells, wondering if I’m worth loving. The only person I have to worry about loving me right now is me. 

Boyfriends and husbands, even our friends, will leave us in the end. Not to be too dark here, but in the end, we are alone. Boyfriends and husbands leave you or die, friends get boyfriends or have babies and suddenly they drop off the face of the earth. You only have yourself at the end of the day, so the most valuable thing we can do for ourselves is assure that the one thing that is always with us – US – is at its best. Ultimately, our own personal integrity is all we have. I can’t remember the last time I really focused on cultivating that.

It was only the coffee shop, and it was a small step, but I took it on my own, and that made all the difference.

Forward, forward, ever forward.

Interlude: 3:30 a.m.

When my son was born, I was only 22 years old. Looking back on it, in many ways I was just a baby myself. Sure, I’d been living on my own for about 7 years by then, so I was probably a little more mature than a lot of women my age, but looking back on it 10 years later its even hard to call what I was then a “woman”. My life was still being sorted out, and my future was still this ambiguous mountain shrouded in fog. Things were very confusing as I was learning to navigate how I would raise myself while I raised this other person, and the task was daunting. The sleepless nights wore on me as I descended into a haze of naps and feedings and diaper changes. Still, the time of day that was my favorite by far was 3:30 a.m. Littleman always woke up at 3:30 a.m. for a feeding those first few months. I would lift him from his crib and change him before walking him out to the living room and sitting on the couch to feed him. 3:30 a.m. is probably the quietest time in the world. No one is yet leaving for work, no one is yet returning from it, the darkness is still upon us and the birds are quiet in the treetops. A silence lies as a still blanket over the night, wrapping the world up tight in its calm. Here in the living room, enveloped in the quiet, it was just me and my son. I didn’t need to share him with anyone else, there was no one and nothing to detract his attention away from me. We would watch each other lovingly, learning who we were and what our new roles were going to be, his hand grasping my finger, his eyes scanning my face in the light cast by the lamp in his nursery across the hall. He would drift to sleep and I would hold him there in my arms a little longer, smelling his hair and kissing his forehead before slipping him back into his crib.

For the last 2 months I have had to fall asleep on my couch with the television on. I usually put in a movie – at first Lord of the Rings, but lately Definitely, Maybe. I curl up on my couch under a blanket and I watch the light cast from the television dance across the hardwood floor, and I hear the gentle murmur of the voices and music, and as the Ambien or exhaustion take hold I fall asleep there. Every night I wake up at 3:30 a.m., for some reason that only body or my brain knows, and I go to my bed. By then the DVD has been repeating the title menu soundtrack for a while, and my mind has shut down for the most part. I can usually slip, still clothed, between my sheets and fall asleep fairly quickly. These last 2 weeks, that has not been the case. I wake at 3:30 a.m. and I turn off the TV and I am somehow more aware of it that my house has fallen still. The darkness is around me but it feels distant and cold. The sound of my feet on the floor is loud now and the stillness of my home echoes with the same aching I feel in my chest. We are empty. I climb into bed and I stare at the wall. I remember that last night I spent with Ben, and his feet touching mine, and the smell of his pillow and his neck. I fall asleep with my fists clenched tight, burying my face to hide my hurt from the ascending daylight. 

This was the first 4^th of July since I was 15 years old that I wasn’t in a relationship. It isn’t really a part of the project because I had my kids with me and so it wasn’t within the scope of the rule (Do It Alone), but I set upon it as such nonetheless. Beers, barbecues and explosions have always been set pretty comfortably by my mind into the “boy” category, like many girls might categorize mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, changing the oil, or killing a spider. I had never dealt with this stuff. If I hadn’t had my kids, I probably would have just put in some earplugs and fallen asleep on the couch as if it were any other day. Having them with me meant I needed to step up to the plate and make it a good day for them, so I put on my game face and braved the unfamiliar terrain. 

I’m happy to say I did pretty well. I attended a great barbecue with old friends and lots of other kids. My friends Bryan and Tara were running a fireworks stand so I got an amazing deal and Bryan was happy to walk me down the aisles and point out which fireworks did what, and what was and wasn’t a bang worth the buck. I made a fruit salad. Things went really well, and it was great to laugh with my friends and smell the barbecue and watch the sparklers waving in the dark. It was when the mortars – the big, beautiful fireworks that Bryan and Tara had brought from the stand – came out that I even remembered I was alone. I wasn’t alone, really. I was surrounded by people that love me, and make me laugh, and I had my kids there, and there was life and laughter and music and conversation all around me. But as the fireworks burst in the sky above me, and I lifted my face to see them, I suddenly remembered Ben. My thoughts were painted by the memory of my last 4^th of July and the way his handsome face had been illuminated by the lights, the way they shone in his blue eyes like the moon on the ocean. I could hear nothing, I could feel nothing, I just looked down at the ground and shook my head. Wherever he is right now, I thought, whatever he’s doing, he doesn’t feel like this. 

When I came home last night, I tucked my babies into bed and I sat on the edge of my couch with my head in my hands. I remembered a line from an Eagles song I once loved, “You never thought you’d be alone this far down the line, and I know what’s been on your mind: You’re afraid it’s all been wasted time.” What am I doing? How am I 32 years old and still growing up? 

I went to bed and stared at the wall. I asked myself “What do we do now, self?” and the answer was, “The project, I guess.” I went to sleep and woke up at 3:30 a.m. The house was quiet and still. I thought of Ben.

Step One : The Book Store aka Turning the Light On

I didn’t expect my first Step to be all that eventful. I mean… it’s a book store, for god’s sake. I’ve done it before. It’s kind of akin to making a big deal about going to Target without my kids. While this is undeniably much less of a train wreck than going to Target WITH my kids, that’s beside the point. What I’m getting at here is that I didn’t expect my trip to Barnes and Noble to be life changing. 

However, I also didn’t expect it to be totally depressing. I thought it would be an easy one, you know? It should have been, for all intents and purposes. There were so many people there alone, there were comfy chairs to sit in and linger. 

First and foremost you should know that when I pulled into my parking spot, there was a man two rows down that was standing outside of his car, with his trunk open, taking off his shirt. He was not an attractive man. He took his shirt off, unleashing a lot of really pasty white skin on my eyeballs, then used the removed shirt to swab off his armpits and then wipe off his head and face. I might have gone face THEN armpits, but I’m a bit of a renaissance parking-lot-whore’s-bather. He then pulled a new shirt out of his trunk, put it on, and put deodorant on from his trunk too. I almost had sex with him, but I controlled myself somehow. 

But I digress. My first mistake once I got inside was going down the self improvement aisle. I don’t know what I was thinking. I think I was imagining I’d find some great, quirky little book on going it alone that would be just perfect. Instead I spent about 5 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back browsing through Suze Orman, Dr. Phil and titles that actually included “How to Make ANYONE Fall in Love With You”. At one point I thought, “What man am I going to attract from this aisle?”, but I just as quickly reminded myself that wasn’t why I was there. As a final jab from life, I had to walk through the “Sexuality” aisle to get to where I was headed. Not a concern, life. Evidently I’ll be taking a break from sexuality. Pretty excited about it.

I got to Fiction eventually. This was my element, this was more within the boundaries of my comfort zone. I walked through aisle after aisle, running my fingers along the spines of carefully crafted stories of life and loss and love. After an hour, I hadn’t found what I was looking for. Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult came and went, Nicholas Sparks haunted my footsteps. Soooo many novels are about love; finding it, losing it, needing it, wanting it. What about me? Where are all the novels where people are okay on their own? Where they are their own happy ending? Blech. I had reached a certain level of bitterness and mild desperation when the poor employee approached me. The conversation went a little bit like this:

Her: Can I help you find anything?

Me: Um… I’m not really sure.

Her: Well, is there something in particular that you’re looking for?

Me: Well… I’m looking for a love story, but it can’t be too happy because I just got dumped, but it can’t be sad because that will be too depressing and I’m already depressed. So maybe not a love story… but nothing with somebody dying, or having some horrible tragic life, or about people that are just horrible human beings.

Her: …Okay… so maybe something funny?

Me: Oh, no, I want it to have some substance. Something profound.

Her: …So… something profound that isn’t sad or romantic or tragic?

Me: Yes.

Her: …

Me: …I think I’m just browsing.

Her: (as she’s walking away from me really fast) Okay, well let me know if I can help you find anything!

It was about then that the Lonely started to set in. It snuck in like smoke. It began with my mind wandering to Ben. I considered that wherever he was, he was not having to fight this so fiercely as I was. I wondered what it was that made me so easy to leave. I pulled book after book off the shelf whose back covers gave brief tales of a person finding love, a person who never thought they’d love again loving, a person loving against all odds. I felt my shoulders droop and my brave heart began to sink. I was Lonely. I considered calling it a night, I had been there 45 minutes already, surely 45 minutes would prove the point, right?

When I stumbled upon the (much too small) section of Tom Robbins books accidentally, I immediately sat down in the middle of the aisle. There were so many I had wanted to read over the years: Skinny Legs and All, Still Life with Woodpecker, Jitterbug Perfume, on and on. I sat cross legged on the floor and poured over page after page from each book I was considering – weighing the typeface and the prose. I realized somewhere in the midst of all those books that I didn’t have any reason to leave just then. I don’t have anyone to come home to tonight, I’m not expecting a call or a text that I’ll need to take. I am alone, but I am also untethered. I have no dinner time – I choose my own schedule. I can sit in this aisle, pouring over these books until this store closes if I want to. Or I can buy them all, hurry home and open one right this very moment and I won’t have to hear about anyone’s day before I do it. I won’t have to make anyone laugh or feel better or be comfortable before I can read them. There were people passing by me in the aisles, but I was alone. 

I reminded myself, with gentle prodding, that ending up with someone is not just a matter of Who, but of When, and that this is not my When with Ben. I need this time and space, every minute of it. I am still a mess, my life and mind and heart are still riddled with chaos. I am still unable to stand without leaning. I can do better than this. 

I grabbed a Harry Potter book, too. As much as I love the movies, I’ve never read any of the books. I took my two new treasures and found a chair in a corner and tucking my knees up toward my chest I opened one and began to read it. I spent almost 3 hours at the book store, alone. I took perhaps the smallest of steps, but I took it on my own, and that made all the difference.