Tag Archives: Life

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It’s Not So Bad

My last day in Puerto Rico, I woke up to find sand in my sheets and a little tequila hangover — both souvenirs from the night before. Along the beach closest to my resort, there were three tiny huts that passed as bars and after realizing they were where the locals go, I vowed to eat dinner at one for a true Puerto Rican experience.

As I was sitting alone with my Mofongo, reading Condenast Traveler, sipping a Mojito and listening to the ocean, the table across from me — two girls and a guy — waved me over to join them. (Here’s a snippet of the man, trying on my shoes!)

That gesture is what I loved most about PR and about traveling alone: everyone is so welcoming and accommodating, and they can’t stand to see you by yourself, so they don’t let you. I didn’t know if I’d get used to flying solo for four nights and five days, and luckily I didn’t have to- every place I went, the beach, the pool, the local shops, the resort grounds, the bus, I made friends. Everyone called me courageous and a little crazy because they couldn’t believe I would choose to vacation with only my company, so they kept me company to ease their (and my) mind.

I found a North Carolina themed bar on top of the Intercontential with two gals from D.C. I met by the tiki bar while chatting up Pedro, the bartender with a crooked, crazy smile. I heard about the woes of professional soccer – or really, the lack of financial opportunity – from my 20-year-old massage therapist who’s currently going through a “rough patch” with his girlfriend. I helped the guy who made the best iced coffee I’ve ever had plan his proposal to his lady of six years (it’s on May 20th!). And then there was the friendly older man who sat next to me on the bus and asked if I’d tell New York “Hola” for him, since I only live about 20 blocks from where he grew up. I met three sets of Honeymooners, from Texas to Brooklyn. An older, drunken man playing the guitar on the cobble-stoned streets of Old San Juan asked if I’d be his wife, and when I politely declined, he offered his equally intoxicated friend instead.

I sat on the beach at nighttime, covered in sand and feeling the warm water tickle my toes, talking to a Puerto Rican cardiologist with deep green eyes about literally healing a heart. I walked with three families and a couple through the tropical rain forest, and a little girl with blonde curls fell asleep on my shoulder on the way back. I listened to a woman with age spots and wild white hair read her favorite poem in Spanish, and then do her best to translate that it advised when you let go of something or someone, you should do it with love, not hate. Then there was the man who made pottery at the resort and let me spin the wheel, and another woman with piercing blue eyes who told me the locally-made bracelet I selected would bring me luck. And the couple I shared the breathtaking moment when walking by the colorful, historic buildings downtown, a rainbow appeared across the Puerto Rican sky.

I thought about these characters, trying to figure out the lessons I was supposed to learn from these chance encounters, while watching the clear sea splash to the shore that last morning. While I had met and experienced so many adventures in my short time on this island, I was worried I wouldn’t find the inspiration I came looking for. Traveling to this unfamiliar place, I hoped I would find something inside of me that made me believe again – maybe in myself, maybe in the universe as a whole, or maybe just in love. I didn’t come to Puerto Rico to find myself or to rediscover the person I once was, but to let myself be still, be on my own, and let whatever was to happen, happen. That, and get a tan – which quickly became a difficult task with my Irish roots and the fact that I can barely stand still, much less lay still for hours to bake in the sun. But at ten in the morning, sipping coffee to wake me up (and rid of that tequila) I was determined to at least come back with a sunburn, so people would believe I actually went on vacation.

However, as it often does, the tropical rain came without warning, and at full torrential force. I watched as the tourists threw towels and hats over their heads and ran to shelter under the palm trees or the security of their lofty hotel balconies. The Puerto Ricans, though, ran in the opposite direction – toward the ocean, letting the rain be a playful turn in the afternoon, not the end of it. I hunched under my umbrella with my soaked towel draped across me half-way looking out at the scattered scene, while partly trying to keep dry. Though I was trying – very hard – to find my Zen before leaving PR and to discover peace in this place, I couldn’t help my annoyance at the weather. The sun was now entirely hidden, and I worried that I’d be forced to spend my last day here, cooped up in the hotel, ordering room service and watching movies in Spanish with English subtitles.

Just as I was about to follow suit and race back to the room, a Puerto Rican man with a Corona-belly walked past me to join his family in the water, and said:

“It’s not so bad!”

I’m sure he was just encouraging the embarrassingly pale lady he noticed hiding, but those four little words were exactly what I needed to hear. Did I really care if the magazine and cover-up in my beach bag became saturated? Did I have makeup on? Did it really matter if the rain-and-wind mix made me a tad chilly for ten minutes?

Or really, did I have anything in New York to escape from? Is a tender heart that’s been a bit bruised or the stress of a full and robust life anything to really complain about? Or are those things, these unexpected — and sometimes difficult – parts of existing that really make life worth living? Aren’t the times when you’re aching or you’re afraid of the unknown that really, your soul is just awakening? That you’re discovering what you’re made of? What you can do without the help of anyone else, without speaking the same language of strangers, old lovers or friends who know you best?

Why was I hiding under that umbrella, convincing myself that the day I had planned was now ruined? Why did I let myself live under a similar shelter in New York – staying away from anything that could really hurt or put me out of my comfort zone, keeping anything that could make me vulnerable far out of reach? Isn’t it time to just…live? Time to let the weather take whatever course it’s meant to take?

So I dropped my bag, towel and sunglasses and ran to join the locals in the angry waves. The rain stung at first, but then the water felt even warmer than before, and the spirit of those in the sea was joyful because they know a little rain never stops anything for long. It always passes. You just have to be brave enough to let it fall. Brave enough to let it hit your skin and wash away all that you thought you wanted so you can find something you didn’t know you needed. Like a swim in the tropical rain on a tropical island, all by yourself.

And you know what? He was right. It wasn’t so bad after all. It was actually, beautiful.

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There Are Men

There are men out there who will respond to your text messages. Men who will initiate conversations because they simply can’t wait to see what you’ll say next. There are men who will never be too busy or too preoccupied to wish you good morning, regardless if you’re a country or a block away. Men who remember to call when they say they will – because they want to – and those who surprise you with their curiosity about your sometimes monotonous days. There are men who aim to be the last person you talk to before you sleep and the first name you see on your screen when you rise. Men who show up on time – or even early – men who are genuinely excited to see you.

There are men who want to go on dates. Real dates. Men who want to take you out to their favorite restaurant and will never expect you to pay, but always appreciate the gesture. There are men who want to talk to you for longer than one drink after work, and longer than what’s enough to get you upstairs. There are men who you won’t have to convince to see you. Men who aren’t purely motivated to be your sexual company, but just love being around you. There are men who won’t wait three days — or even three hours– to ask you out again. Men who have grown past games and cryptic messages that you don’t have time to decode. There are men who simply, truly just want to get to know you.

There are men who want to hold your hand in public. Men who enjoy walking around department stores shopping for things they can’t afford but love the feeling of your tiny fingers interlaced with their adorably-bony knuckles. There are men who love sitting next to you on the downtown train just so they can look at your face, even if they notice the uneven lines and imperfect skin in the terrible lighting, because they can’t imagine another way to spend their Saturday afternoon. Men who wish they could capture the wonder on your face when you see a new part of the city you didn’t know you loved, but now do. Men who want to show you off to the strangers on the street because they find you so incredibly intoxicating. There are men who are happy to be seen by your side, thankful to be someone you chose to roam about town with.

There are men who want to be your boyfriend. Who are totally excited to introduce you as their girlfriend to their friends, to their families, to the women who try to pick them up in bars. Men who aren’t unavailable, who are ready for a relationship, who aren’t ripe with excuses why the timing or the situation, the feeling or the possibility just isn’t right.  Men who don’t blame yesterday on their immature inability to develop something today and imagine tomorrow. There are men who wouldn’t pass on the chance to be yours because they know how amazing – how special – how superbly wonderful you are, and that they’re lucky you want to be with them, and only them. There are men who don’t hesitate on title changes or commitment. Men who want to grow with you and learn with you, love you the best they can, be with you as long as you allow them to. Men who don’t reply “thank you” when you say those precious three words. There are even men who say that incomparable phrase first, not second.

There are men who are proud of your successes, not intimidated by them. Men who are amazed by your determination and passion, who see the things inside of you that you can’t notice yet, or decide to ignore. There are men who believe in your future as much as they believe in the world you can create together. Men who want to witness your bad times and your good, be there when you fail and celebrate when you find that sense of belonging that we all look for, but never know quite what it means until we stumble across it. There are men who know to buy yellow tulips and kiss your forehead when you’ve had a rough day, men who remember you don’t ever take advice in the worst of situations, but you’ll want to hear it in the morning. Men who remind you of all the things to come and promise to be there when you get to the top of that mountain you’re climbing. There are men who really mean that and are there at the peak. And in the valley.

There are men who listen. Men who linger on each and every word you say because they know they will never know too much about you, and are intrigued to always learn more, regardless of how long they’ve known you. There are men who have the ability to put your needs before their own, who remember the first time they noticed something different about you. Men who like the way you look right after a long shower or a night run, when you’re dressed to go out and when you’re in your sweats from college. Men who see your insecurities but find them only a small part of what makes you beautiful. There are men who will remember your birthday, the day you met, the moment they knew they loved you and when you made them want to be a better person. There are men who love your thoughtful heart as much as they’re turned on by your soft body. Men who know how hard you like it, what part of your neck gets you going and that sometimes, you really just need to be spooned until you fall asleep. There are men who will accept you for whatever you are, whoever you are, whenever you decide to be that person in that place. Men who will stand by you – and fight for you – because they know you’re worth it. Because they know you’d do the same for them.

There are men who will spend weeks, months or even a year planning the perfect way to propose. Men who not only realize how special that moment will be to you, but how important of a story it’ll be to the children you don’t have yet. There are men who want to watch the wrinkles form around your eyes and especially around your mouth, because they’ve spent decades listening to that laugh they love come out of the sweetest smile they’ve ever seen. Men who will leave you notes by your morning coffee or send you sweet – or dirty – text messages at work, even after you’ve been married fifteen years. There are men who will adore all of the things that make you a woman, even when those things bear babies instead of nights of sexual release, even when those things drag instead of rise to occasions. Men who will always remember what you looked like that day you walked toward them in a white gown with glitter on your eyes and the purist of hope in your heart. There are men who truly, honestly, completely will love you.

There are so many men out there. But you’ll never meet them if you don’t let go of the guys you really don’t want to find the men you really deserve. The men who are waiting to meet someone just like you.

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I Let Myself Let Go

I let myself miss you today.

I rolled over mid-morning, groggily hoping you would be lying next to me. I kept my eyes tightly shut, and behind them I saw your mouth slightly open. I smelled your skin so close to me. I imagined the sunlight from the west cascading over your bare chest. I imagined the weight of your arm across my naked body. I ran my fingers in sweet circles around your face, until you wrapped your hand around mine and buried me in your grasp. You kissed the side of my head and wished me to sleep for just a little longer. Just for another hour.

I let myself miss you today.

I heard you call from the kitchen to wake me up. I felt the wind come through the open bedroom door. Happily smelling bacon and eggs, I wrapped the sheet around me and hobbled to see you standing in boxer briefs in front of the stove. You turned your head just enough to meet my grin, and you wished my morning well. Satisfied from the night spent with you, yet hungry for the energy I lost while love making, I sniffed my way toward you, kissing your back and letting you seep through me. You rushed me to the couch, where you brought me orange juice and a meal, and together we watched whatever we could find, ignoring the set as we talked over it. I sat Indian style, you sat so close our knees touched and for no reason at all, you kissed my makeup-free cheek and called me beautiful.

I let myself miss you today.

I split that pitcher of coconut mojiotos you love so much, watching you chew on the sugar cane as you talked about the political spectrum I’m really not that interested in, but I’m interested in making you happy. I let you have the last dumpling. You kept your hand permanently on my knee in that little booth in that little corner of that little bar in Little Italy. I watched the dimples cave around your mouth. You didn’t even catch your breath before you complimented my blues in the sunset, and you said those three words that I’m so insanely terrified I’ll never mean again with anyone else. I squeezed your hand – and then your crotch – and you smiled, feeling that closeness. I watched your mischievous side come out and I instantly couldn’t wait to play with it.

I let myself miss you today.

I asked if you preferred the green or the red peppers in your stir fry, and you stuck your tongue out at me in response. I scrunched my nose to protest and grabbed each, commenting that we’d have colorful food, and you’d like it. You put another vanilla yogurt with Crunch in the cart and I pushed it along, thinking about the dinners we’d cook, the nights we’d share. I imagined your hair graying and that gym-made body turn into a beer-full tummy. I wondered what we’d say about these days, the ones where New York was our playground and everything felt right because we were side-by-side. I considered if I’d always love you this much, if it was possible to love anyone more than I did on Aisle 2 of the Krasdale, watching you debate two boxes of rice. You turned my way and asked my opinion. I went with the brown to keep you healthy, and in return, you rubbed your cheeks against mine and said those damn words that I wish I could hear just one more time.

I let myself miss you today.

I ran from the uptown station to my apartment, feeling the chilly April rain bounce off my skin. I turned the key to the place I share with four others, and collapsed into the bed I used to share with you. I couldn’t pinpoint where they came from or why, six months later, they still come at all, but they fled anyway. I tasted their salty solutions as they rested on my lips and I covered my face in embarrassment. I knew I had washed them dozens of times before, but I buried myself in the sheets, somehow determined to smell you again, or at least to remember. I thought of all the parts of myself I can’t repair, the feelings I can’t replace, and the me that I can’t recreate without you.

You weren’t here today, but you were with me. In these dirty streets and in their dazzling illusions of perfection. In that skyline view that you first showed me as I stood up through your sunroof on the BQE. In those bittersweet pictures where our eyes matched, along with our heart and our hopes. In those fragrant flowers on the street, in those drinks that I need to be a little stronger these days. And especially on these rainy days, where I wake up and decide that today, I’ll let myself miss you. I’ll let myself remember when we were happy and so was this city, both in the shine and in the downpour. And then before the night comes around to bring me another dawn, I’ll let that furious faith dissolve.

And then I’ll decide that today, I’ll let myself… let go. Because while I can’t forget, and certain Sundays (or Tuesdays), I may go back to another time, there’s only one place for you and I, now. Maybe it’s on those streets, in those drinks, in those memories or in those days.

But it’s not in the new places I find without your guidance or company, not in the cocktails I toast with my friends, not in the life I’m creating for myself, and not in this day. Not in the day I decide to let you go. Even if I miss the you I thought you were.

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The Way I Heal

Months after I officially ended everything with Mr. Possibility, I still found myself responding to emails and text messages, analyzing the intention between the lines, and keeping myself awake long enough to wait for him to arrive at my door. Allowing him to stay in my life – and yes, in my bed – felt easier than ceasing contact.

But even as I held him at an arm’s distance, my heart was already much closer, so letting him hang around and inviting him into my life wasn’t a healthy tactic. Procrastination though, tasted better than swallowing the bittersweet prescription I knew was coming. After many failed attempts to make him want me how I wanted him to desire me, after biting my pillow so he wouldn’t hear me cry at night, after convincing myself that being around him would awaken something that never lived inside of him to begin with, after lying to my friends about where I was and avoiding my mother’s phone calls – I finally got the message loud and clear.

From him, on Gchat.

It was straightforward and blunt, without a hint of consideration or kindness, and worse, void of love. Or at least the kind of love I want and deserve. When I couldn’t make meaning out of emptiness, I signed off and deleted the evidence of the relationship. I finally totally severed communication and packed away anything that took me back to better days so I could finally face the day I was living. And though the art of getting over someone is something I’ve yet to master or totally understand, I set my mind to letting go and moving on, no matter how badly I wanted to reach for the phone, type an email or share a bed with a man I once was in love with.

While I can talk about most anything on this blog, sometimes revealing a bit too much — forgetting that the Internet is truly an irreversible medium — writing about Mr. Possibility and what really followed our dramatic demise has been incredibly difficult for me. The final post of a year of writing – where I valiantly headed out on my own, telling him to go where the sun didn’t shine and standing up for myself, was a true story. I felt empowered in that moment: ready to conquer heartache and eager to be alone.

But if I’m honest, as I always have been in this space – I wanted the chase.

I watched and helped him attempt to win back his previous ex (who is now one of my closest friends and the best dose of reality on the topic of Mr. P), and I listened to him mull over the past he regretted. I heard all of his past love stories and I wrote the one I thought we had, post after post, day after day, praying that I would be the girl who changed the unavailable man. And even in my grand departure, even in that yellow chariot that sounds entirely more fabulous than it really is, a part of my heart was still holding onto the hope that he’d come running. That in my silence, he would find that same ache I’ve had since practically the day I met him — that lingering longing to capture the attention of something that’s unattainable.

But he didn’t come to my rescue.

He didn’t shower me with hand-written letters to why I should give him another chance. There was no romantic gesture, no fight for my love. There wasn’t even much of an apology for the ways he had been cruel when we were together. He happily accepted my offers for companionship and was careful to remind me how amazing I am – but that he still wasn’t in the market for a relationship. A year-and-a-half later I’m in a totally new part of my life, and he’s still almost exactly where he was when I met him: uncertain for the future and unwilling to compromise for anyone else, but sexually inclined to see what this city has to offer.

I didn’t want to admit that I went back to him, thus causing myself more  disappointment than if I had ceased contact in September. I had been down this road before and I knew where it led, but I ventured on the path anyway, fooling myself into thinking the destination would be different.

And when it wasn’t – I was ashamed to confess that still, even after all this time, my heart still hurt. It felt weak and silly to be someone who writes about such topics for a living and can’t take her own advice. To be someone who is mainly open and candid about everything, but unable to reveal that underneath the clever themes and rhythmic sentences, there’s a woman who sings along to Adele and runs to Kelly Clarkson, who wears big sunglasses to cover the tears, concealer to hide the dark circles, and still has to block Mr. Possibility on every social media channel so I don’t draw conclusions from things I can’t confirm. Behind the blogger who dishes on everything, is a woman who had a hard time letting go of a relationship that was one-sided from day one.

But in every bad situation, there’s a turning point. In every dark room, there’s a light. In every corner, there’s a chance to change. And for me, it came two weeks after I stopped responding to anything from Mr. P – even his drunken phone calls and messages – and gave myself a break.

Because while we all experience pain, we process it differently. Because while we all want to not be bothered when the other person doesn’t seem to be upset, you can’t release the pain if you don’t let yourself feel it – or in my case, write it. Because while love is never quite equal, everyone we’ve loved – be it for three years or thirty – affects us in someway, positive or negative. Because while our friends buy us a drink at the start of the end, we buy them drinks at the end of the end, thanking them for their patience with our stupidity and our ability to obsess, even months after the fact. Because while we want to be brave and strong, resilient and uncompromising, there is nothing that dies slower or more painful than a dream – especially one that involves someone you really cared about. Because while the wrong person can seem like the right, the person who matters the most isn’t the one who got away or the one who stays, it’s the person you are after you walk away.

There is no race to finish the moving on process or a correct way to go about it. There is no way to skip the anger and the tears, the late-night words you want to take back or the bed that feels cold at first, but grows warmer. You don’t get better at breakups the more you have them, and you don’t have any better luck or built-up tolerance to letting go because you happen to write about your personal life.

This time isn’t about Mr. Possibility, or how he misses me or how he doesn’t. It’s not about the fact he didn’t turn out as I had hoped or that I didn’t kick him out of my life sooner than later. It’s not about who moves on first or last. It’s not about the relationship that was or the relationship that I wanted. It’s not about how I feel right now, how I felt six months ago or two weeks ago. It’s not about how I’ll feel tomorrow. It’s not about the fact that it hurt – or that at times, it still hurts.

It’s about the fact that I’m letting myself feel it. And by feeling it, but forgiving myself for my tardiness and my endless optimism in love, I become a better me than I was before. While it may make me feel incredibly silly, naive and immature to have a broken heart that lusts after the past – it’s really not about how I feel, it’s about how I heal. Or rather, that I am.

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Heart Off the Market

A few blocks from my work at a press dinner, I attempted to explain my blog to a new friend. As I casually classified these pages in the “dating, love and sex” category of the blogosphere, it occurred to me that it’s been a long time since I’ve written about any of those things.

To be a dating blogger, I haven’t written anything juicy or entertaining in quite some time. A new reader who stumbles across Confessions of a Love Addict — probably hoping to read something that’ll make them feel less like a crazy girl and more just-going-through-a-phase – wouldn’t find comfort in my recent posts.

Instead, they’d discover how six months later, I’m still partly nursing the wounds Mr. Possibility kindly left for me, some of which still feel as fresh as they were when the yellow chariot whisked me away from the location of our messy breakup, that still seems like a crime scene to me. They’d find beautiful love stories about a city that is quite wonderful, but not much about the men who roam in packs of bachelors, seeking something they’re not sure they want to find. They’d find stories from the past and hopes for the future, but nothing more than a scripted – or cryptic – sentence about the days I’m passing now.

They’d find nothing about dating because…I’m not dating.

For the first time (maybe ever) I have no desire to dive back into the field of eligibility and swim to find the next available man who will win my attention. My online dating profile still attracts messages but I don’t respond – often rolling my eyes at the notification as it pops up on my phone. I still get hit on by half-drunken men at bars, as well as sober dudes in hipster glasses who pass my way and stop to tell me I’m lovely. I smile in gratitude and continue on, happy for the compliment but uninterested in sitting through a dinner – or even a drink – with yet another stranger who could become a lover, but most likely will ultimately return back into the stranger I met on the street or at the bar.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not wearing black in depression over my lack of a dating life or bitter about the future. More than I believe in anything in this world, I believe in the capacity of the heart – my heart – to feel love. I don’t doubt that I’ll be romanced again one day, that I’ll feel all of those all-encompassing, thrill-inducing magical emotions that are so hard to digest at the time, and even harder to wash away post-relationship. I still catch myself imagining coming home to a lush apartment on the Upper West Side with my two children in tow, excitedly waiting the arrival of an adoring husband who will stop by the market to pick me up flowers on his way home from work. I will never lose my faith in love or my hope for all that it can really be one day, but I’m not aching for it.

There are simply just other things that occupy my mind right now. And things that I’d rather be doing than dating.

I’m happily keeping busy at work, continuously challenged by a job that loves me back as much as I love it. I’m trying – and failing – to save money for my trip to Puerto Rico, where I look forward to turning off every piece of technology and relishing in the quietness of a vast ocean. I’m running almost daily, finally wiggling back into the skinny jeans I rocked last summer. I’m signing up for adventures out of the city, looking into trapeze classes and reasons to explore New York more than I already have in the years I’ve lived here. I’m finding comfort in nights in by myself, watching television that’s bad for me and drinking wine that makes my heart better. I’m going to jazz concerts and singing karaoke, doing this and doing that – but wanting nothing to do with dating. Even if the lack of sex can be quite frustrating at times (but that’s for another post, another day.)

The truth is, if given the choice of running or drinks with another investment banker, I’d pick hanging out with the treadmill or Central Park West. If  my friends invited me to dinner and dancing, I’d much rather see them than joining a new man for a lavish four-courser by his work on a Friday night. Should there be an exhibit at the MET that I really want to see , I’d prefer the company of a gal- or just of myself – than another guy….who turns out to be just another guy.

Even if the perfect man, who says everything just as I want to hear it, who knows how to touch me, who has similar goals and is tall enough to make me stand on my tippy-toes and curl them at the same time – came waltzing into my life, I wouldn’t notice. And I wouldn’t be interested, either.

Because sometimes, you need a break from all the chaos. From the clashing of wine glasses and the first dates that feel like interviews (or worse —  second and third dates that feel like the first). From the process of getting to know someone without being convinced you’re interested or smitten with their attention. From applying lipstick when it doesn’t get kissed off, from pulling out the nicest heels for someone who doesn’t notice the shape of your legs. From the texting war, the waiting of the three-days and the anticipation of the very first kiss. From it all.

So for now, my heart’s off the market. It’s doing its own thing, keeping to itself and letting the rest fall into place, just as it should, just as it will anyway. This tough little heart will find its way somewhere one day — and maybe to someone too — but today, it’s just finding it’s place… in today.