Tag Archives: Life

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An Extraordinarily, Ordinary Life

I always wanted to date someone who woke me up with a cup of coffee. I saw it as a nice gesture: knowing how I like my Joe and bringing it to the bedside each morning – plus my dad did it for my mom, so of course, I’ll think it’s sweet. And Mr. Idea did just that: every night we spent together, I’d rise to the smell of coffee brewing and I’d open my eyes in his tiny little studio to see him busily preparing it, smiling over at me from time-to-time to see if I was awake. On the good days, we’d sit outside and watch the sun come over the mountains, listen to Dave Matthews, talk about something or nothing, sip our coffee and welcome in the day. I became convinced that if he ever proposed, that’d be how he’d do it: right there on that patio furniture, as the light filled the open sky, with a cup of coffee in my hand.

I always wanted someone who would come up behind me in the kitchen and wrap their arms around me. Someone who would pick me up and spin me around for no reason, nuzzling my neck and making me laugh with their antics. Mr. Fire did that and a little more. My favorite memory of him is waking up on a Sunday morning after a night out of college boozing, to find him stumbling into his bedroom in his boxers, carrying a popcorn bowl. Still naked, I gave him a confused look and he plopped down to reveal the bowl was actually full of cereal and two spoons. We sat there Indian style with rays of sun tickling our back, laughing and sharing sugary goodness, sneaking in kisses between bites. When we’d cook together, he would find a way to touch me or wrap himself around me, and somehow it felt just like home.

I always wanted to be with someone who when I laid with them, it felt like our various pieces just fit together. I wanted to feel like our body parts were designed for each other, like we had been waiting for this other soul to come and be pressed against us. And Mr. Possibility felt that way. He was strapping and tall and is the only man I’ve been able to fall asleep with with him completely wrapped around me. We were sitting at some bar at some place when we first started to fall for each other and I noticed how similar our hands looked – almost identical. I showed him and he was amazed too. It would become something I’d always look at in bed or when he’d kiss my hand or rub his face against mine. His touch and his closeness always felt right and I could never imagine laying there, just like that, just that easily, with anyone but him.

Recently, as I’ve started getting used to waking up alone – I’ve curled myself into myself, looking out the window, thinking about all the men who I’ve shared a bed with. And my heart with. I’ve always been looking for these odd characteristics, or really these specific characters to fit into these ideas and fantasies I have about what love is supposed to be. I’ve always imagined how it would feel or how it would look, sometimes how it would taste, and especially how long it would last. These beliefs were just that – beliefs. I never saw them as dealbreakers or a “must” – they were just things I really hoped for, and when I thought I found them, I didn’t want to give it up.

But now, a few heart breaks and several life lessons later, I find myself wondering what it is that I really want. Sure, I still have those dreams of what love will look like: moving into an apartment with someone and fixing it up, walking around the city grocery shopping and creating a life with another person. I even see him with curly hair, though I’ve never quite dated someone with locks like that. I can see it in my head and I can illustrate what I think it’ll feel with – but I don’t want to. I don’t want to have these ideas or these lofty expectations. I don’t want to create my entire love life or relationship before I find it or before I meet him.

Sure some guys check boxes, but they are also the men who check out. Because I tried so hard to make them into my definition of perfect or ideal that I ignored who they really were. I saw the sweetness that I was expecting instead of being open and free to be happily surprised by the unexpected. They say you know more about what you want by dating and having relationships that simply don’t work out – but I can’t even tell you what I’m looking for right now. Honestly, I don’t really want much of anything except for one thing:

I want an ordinary life inside of an extraordinary existence.

I want a normal (however relative that it is) man who has his life together, just as I do, who is happy and satisfied but always wants to shoot for more. Someone who wants the home life and a family, as much as he wants to travel and see the world. Someone who is loyal and faithful, who wants to commit, but isn’t so serious that it scares the youth out of me. Someone who wants the finer things in life, just as I do, but is thankful for the little things that often bring the most happiness. Someone who doesn’t need fixing up or solving, but appreciates gentle encouraging and the kindness that I often extend to most anyone. Someone who has goals and dreams that have nothing to do with me, but they somehow seem sweeter if I’m around to witness them, too. Someone who leads this beautiful ordinary life, inside of an extraordinary existence he’s created for himself, just as I have.

I never thought I’d find that the thing I want the most out of a partner is just that – a partner. Not someone who rescues me or romances me. Not someone who says all the right things or brings me coffee in bed or knows how to hold me. Not someone who makes me laugh or is exactly the height that I want. Those things are wonderful and of course, I love them – but what I want the most is just someone who is…

..already a someone, without me.

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Taking the Higher Road

After my first post break-up kiss with a near stranger, I scurried home close to 1 a.m. on Saturday night, prepared to sleep in super late to catch up on lost shut-eye. You can guess my blighted hope when I got up, finally, after an hour or so of tossing and turning, around 8 a.m. Tired of wrestling with my thoughts and sheets, I decided to be productive and clean everything in my apartment I could reach.

After scrubbing the bathroom nearly from top to bottom, vacuuming my room with a nifty sucker for hardwood floors (who knew?), I showered in a hurry, dressed in a rush and headed out the door to meet R and M for brunch at one of our favorite places. Deciding the subway was too cramped and the weather was too nice to pass up, I decided to walk nearly 30 blocks in my fall wedges. But even the bright blue sky and cotton-like fresh air couldn’t lift me high enough to rise above the anger boiling inside of me.

I’ve tried – I really have. I’ve made lists of things I have to be happy about, I’ve declared my newly adopted Zen attitude toward my life to anyone who will listen. I’ve refrained from contacting Mr. P, I’ve tried to take a higher road instead of saying what it is I really feel. But all these efforts have kept me from…well, saying what I feel. Or really experiencing the motions, the stages, the terrible aftermath of a love that turned into a not-so-beautiful disaster (sorry, Kelly).

I didn’t fool my friends though. After a few sangrias and some bra shopping at Vickie’s, R settled into my apartment to escape an unexpected downpour. Proudly playing some empowering music, R sweetly looked at me and asked: “Aren’t you sad though, Linds? Aren’t you disappointed? It’s okay to cry about it. You don’t have to be so strong. We’ll all understand.” Then today, after book club with A, M and K, M asked about how I was dealing on the train back home.

My face flushed and I quickly gave a short speech that after second thought, sounded rather rehearsed and scripted: “There are good days and bad days, times where I’m alright and times where I’m not. But I’m fine, really.” She turned her head sideways and questioned me (she’s good at that): “But I think you’re sad because you think you should be, and then you’re ‘Zen’ because you think should be. The only thing you should be is how you feel – whatever that is.” Again, I brushed off her words as carelessly as I did R’s and changed the subject to hiring interns.

The truth is I don’t know how I feel. R’s right, I’m disappointed and M’s right too, I try to be mature and collected, not let it affect me too much, but that isn’t always what I personally express in privacy. Part of it is my own pride – I don’t want to let a heartache get under my skin because I envision Mr. P as actually fine and coping easier than I am. I see him finally having the freedom he seemed to so badly desire while we were together, when he would eye other women, and that’s what I imagine him doing just so: picking up chicks for the sake of picking up women, without any regard to how his heart feels. That is, if his heart is suffering at all in comparison to mine.

But it’s not a competition. I shouldn’t compare breaking up notes – especially when I can’t see his, considering we aren’t speaking. Rationally, I realize my ridiculousness, and I think that’s partly my problem: I understand that eventually I’ll feel less disposable and more dignified. I know that I’ll validate my own self-worth instead of wondering when he’s going to send the “I’m so sorry” email or I’ll run into him the same way I ran into Mr. Fire and he told me I was the one who got away. I know I’ll be moved on and happy, settled into my life – single or taken – and Mr. P will finally realize what he had, when at some point, he had me.

Then again – maybe he won’t. Our ending wasn’t what I expected, and there is no guarantee of the days, the months, the years to come. Relationships don’t always end with a pat on the back, a wish of good-luck and fortune and then placed on the shelf, categorized alphabetically. Two people don’t always feel the same way about one another, some feel different levels of love than most, and some people, sadly, don’t love themselves enough to ever give someone else the love he/she deserves. It’s a sad and awful truth, but one that so many lie to themselves about to be comforted. There may be another Lindsay to step into Mr. P’s life and be that same saving grace I was for nearly a year – but he may never value the place I held in a way that I think pays tribute to what we had. I can’t match our perceptions of the relationship we shared, and I shouldn’t need him to apologize to validate what I felt. Or to make the relationship, the love, seem as real in his eyes as it did in mine.

But I feel like I do. I want him to want me even though I don’t want him, just to feel wanted. That’s about as honest as I can put it into words. I could break out into song singing “Cry” by Faith Hill – but I do refuse to go that backwards into my Southern roots. At least for the time being, anyway.

Maybe it gets more difficult to suffer the older we get, or maybe we just choose to suffer in privacy. Maybe we still have those emotional outbursts that are unfounded and out of control, but we scream into our pillows instead of into the phone. Maybe instead of sending hate e-mail to exes, we send it to our friends so it’s read, but safe in their inbox where it can’t come back to hurt us again. Maybe we still eat far more calories than we burn, but it’s done carefully by nibbling at a single cookie at book club or accepting an offer of M&M’s at work from a co-worker. Maybe we still feel all those painful and tiring stages of releasing someone who once felt vital in the intricate design of our existence – but we don’t share them because it feels too personal to display such grief. Maybe we still harbor resentment and bitterness, but we know better than to let it get the best of us if we ever want to rise above.

But maybe we don’t really rise above much in terms of love. Maybe instead, that’s just called growing up and moving on because we realize there are so many more important things in life than the end of a relationship that was never meant to be, anyway.

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The Best is Yet to Come

I finally caught that yellow chariot.

It whisked me away through Central Park, glittering past glowing street lamps and weaving through semi-windy roads. I sat alone, my purse laid by my side, listening to the cabbie mutter to himself. His stammering made me feel better about my tears at nearly two in the morning. He probably thought I was just another wounded drunk girl coming in from a Saturday night out where I spilled my beer and kissed a faceless boy at a bar.

But no, I was sober. And now, I was single. I mean, I am single.

It’s funny, I thought, once we reached Amsterdam and my heart released the anxiety that always comes from trusting a stranger to take you where you tell them to. A year ago, on this very day, I was crying in the bathtub, depressed over my birthday party where I didn’t get asked to dance, where I didn’t feel very pretty, where I was so sick of being single that I was an absolute mess. I hysterically cried and then made up my mind — I wasn’t going to feel this way anymore.

Am I right back where I started? Really Lindsay? I rolled my eyes at myself, glanced down at my silent Blackberry and felt the freshly Autumn air hit my cheeks. Here I was again, even with all this daily hard work for the past year, crying over some guy. At least it isn’t in that disgusting bathtub, huh? I thought and grinned. I also wasn’t an emotional wreck or crying because I hated being single. This time, they were movie-star tears that glistened through mascara eyelashes, and I wasn’t upset because I feared being alone but because I wanted to be.

That was the final straw, Linds. You really had no other choice but to walk away. You’d be selling yourself short and giving away yourself if you stayed, I reassured myself to gain enough courage to brave the face of the cabbie to pay him. My birthday had brought the next season, and with it, I was moving on to the next chapter. As much love as there is, as connected to my heart and my New York life as he was, Mr. Possibility didn’t turn back into Mr. Unavailable or grow into the only possibility, he just became impossible.

Maybe if you just gave him some more time or ignored him for a week or two, then he’d come around. Then he’d see you were worth it, the other side opposed as I turned the chunky silver key, allowing access into my safe haven, my home. I knew I could have stayed longer, I could have played the manipulation card as fiercely as he did – but there is a difference between being able to do something and wanting to do it. That was, after all, at the crux of our relationship: he may have wanted to give me what I needed but he couldn’t, and I could have stayed but that isn’t the type of love I want. It’s not what I deserve.

I deserve so much more.

Because I’m not that distraught girl anymore. I’m no longer afraid of being alone, but afraid of being alone in a relationship. There are worse things than being single, and unrequited love is one of them. There are worse things than having to go through the emotional warfare of a breakup, and settling for less, I can assure you, is much more painful. You’ve really come so far and you did the right thing, the rational voice came back with easy clarity. It hurts to essentially give up on Mr. Possibility but he needs to go through the 12-step program more than I do now. He has to love himself before he can ever love me, or anyone else, in any way that matters. I can’t love him enough to change him, and he can’t love me enough to change my mind.

So here ya are, Linds. You’re back to being single again and the blog is over, I thought as I looked out the window of my room, watching the lights flicker with the arrival of the morning. I couldn’t sleep, too much thinking going on. Too much aching for something I never quite had but know I’ll find one day. I’m different from I was a year ago. I’m much stronger, more settled. I’ve loved someone in New York and I’ve loved myself enough to walk away. If that isn’t progress, I don’t know what is, I sat up and felt my heart sink back into the bed. Sometimes the hard thing and the right thing are the same, and sadly, also the adult thing to do. Mr. Possibility isn’t a bad guy – he’s actually quite the opposite. He’s a wonderful man with so many possibilities but the past isn’t allowing him to have a future, and we’re in such different places that nothing between us makes sense anymore. It’s not worth fighting with someone you love, it’s better to love them enough to calm the fight by leaving.

And the fighting had been too much. We were starting to destroy what we had, the friendly foundation was turning into resentment. I couldn’t put my heart on hold or allow someone to love me with only half of their heart, and he couldn’t be there for me in a way that was constant and dependable. And so, on the corner of 12th and Third, I gave him one last opportunity to make amends, to step up to the plate, to prove his committment. But he passed and I turned the corner, only to look back and see him catch a cab in the opposite direction.

Well, looks like there’s no game of cat-and-mouse here, huh? I crumpled to the side of a building, wishing I hadn’t worn heels and covered my face, preparing for the flood. My friend M braced my back and promised me he was only the beginning of New York love, not the end. But the devastation didn’t come. Instead, I felt just a little bit of fear and longing, but mostly, I felt relief. Now I could be happy, he could find his happiness, and the happiness we had won’t be overshadowed by the disaster of the last month. After all, what I’ve wanted for him from the beginning was just to be happy, and now I see that I wasn’t helping him to happiness, I was just keeping him from really trying out those wings and learning to love himself as I have learned. I miss him, I will miss him but his brightest years are still ahead of him, just as mine are. We just won’t be sharing them together.

So does this blog end with the end of Mr. Possibility and I? Have I really completed the 12 steps because I found enough security in myself to not have to lean on a man for support? To not stay in a dead-end relationship because I couldn’t stand the thought of being single while all my Southern friends got married? How do you end something that’s been part of your life for the past year? How do you put that into words?

You don’t. So I’m not.

I won’t write every single day anymore, but I’m still going to write. Confessions of a Love Addict isn’t ending, it’s just changing. It’s going back to Step 1 to repair myself through the five-moods of a grief over impossibility. To learn how to put back together the pieces I lost of myself in the relationship, even if this time, they aren’t as scattered or jagged.

I wanted to blog for 365 days and I have – so now it’s not about meeting my own deadline. Now, it’s just about writing as I feel, sharing what I want, and starting the journey all over again. Really, the process of accepting and loving who you are is never-ending. Because just like the New York skyline is always changing, so are people, and so is time. Stages come and go, love grows and then it hurts. Friends go their different ways, luck comes around ever now-and-then. Sometimes you get what you want, but mostly you get what you need.

And I still need this blog. Because now, a whole new journey is about to unfold, and if the last year is any indication of the thrills ahead of me, I couldn’t be more excited. Especially since now I’ve traded that bathtub for a cab, those tears for a red dress, and that fear of being alone for the option of having something extraordinary. And that hatred for the word “single” into a thankfulness that through it all, I still have just what I’ve always needed:

Myself.

And of course, a bottle of champagne, some great friends, a heart that’s still beating and believing, and the faith that the best is yet to come. Stay tuned.

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Every Day a Post, Every Day a Lesson

In coffee shops, uptown a few blocks and here. On my bed, at my desk, on my friend’s phone. At my computer, on Mr. P’s laptop, in Penn Station waiting on a train. Sitting in the airport days before Christmas. In my living room, on the couch, at the kitchen table. In Bryant Park at night, at Columbia University, sitting cross-legged on the cold hardwood floors.

Wrapped up in blankets as the snow came down, while looking out dirty windows at some cafe in Williamsburg as I watched Mr.P concentrate with his tongue out across from me. In a rush, with days to spare, when it was way too rainy to set foot outside. Lounging naked in front of my air conditioner, rushing in after a busy day to beat the clock, standing in the corner on one leg so I could have enough signal in the back of a Southern-themed bar on the Upper West Side.

For the last 364 days, I’ve published this blog from dozens of places.

The ideas and the fodder have been just as diverse. From conversations with friends and family to experiences I’ve had with Mr. P and all the others. While trying to sort through emotions, while watching people in love, people falling apart, people being messy and complicated, as people often are. In dark instances where the world seemed too big, in bright, sunny days that gave me Louie Armstrong memories and made me feel like the world was actually quite small. During times I couldn’t understand and through days where I felt like I had it all figured out. While feeling my heart expand to welcome a possible love in and then while feeling it shrink when feelings weren’t mutual. Through months of feeling lost and uncertain, questioning everything I ever knew, and throughout the hours where everything felt so right that it was scary. When inspired by people I meet or books I read, or places I’ve been or things I’ve seen, but also when nothing at all made me want to write other than knowing I’d regret it at 12:01 a.m.

And now, as I write this, knowing that tomorrow will come and go, that the final post that I’ve yet to write will go live and then the day will pass, I can’t decide if I feel sad or thoroughly impressed with myself. To be honest, it’s probably a bit of both.

My intentions changed as the blog continued, as I progressed and I noticed loyal readers like Larry who comments nearly every day, and girls who remind me of myself, like Katie, Christina and Suzie. Or some beautiful soul who lives where it rains all the time, drinking coffee and giving superb, heartfelt advice. And then there’s the ladies from Tel Aviv and Ms. Lexamantis from South Africa. Or Jenny from Philly who is quite tweety, and Moose Michaels who inspired one of my most well-trafficked blogs. And Dear Ex-Girlfriend who provides cheeky, sarcastic advice from a real dude’s point of view. Or my San Fran gal who is talented and ever-so-kind, even sending me a real-life Valentine. And Kacey, Marlee and Stephanie who update Facebook regularly with cute pictures that remind me of my life in New York. And Lovephool from London and Cat from this city, and Divorcing Mr. Wrong who’s red dress I’d love to borrow. I couldn’t even begin to explain how many more there are, too.

This blog has been my personal journey, but it’s also been the journey of so many people. Most of which, I’ll never meet. But somehow, there is something about being open and honest, allowing my raw emotions and candid thoughts to have an open forum and space for people to relate…that has made LoveAddictNYC.com what it is. It’s the first domain name I’ve ever bought, and it was worth every penny.

I’ve grown so much over the past year, through each of those 12 steps, through all of the changes that have made my current life what it is, and I’m so thankful that others could find comfort in what I wrote. I can now promise without any doubt whatsoever that anything you’ve felt, anything you’ve wondered, anything that’s caused you tremendous pain or any worry you thought was ridiculous about love or about how you look or about being a 20-something…someone else has had too. And someone will again.

Nothing I’ve said on these pages is original or unique, they are just my struggles and my achievements, my analysis of the wonder and the bewilderment that love often brings. They don’t give insight into a true addict’s nature, just into the obsessive and scary dangers of being someone who tries for love, who tries to be their own greatest fan, who tries to be all that they can, and sometimes fails. Without those moments of crazy, we could never have those visions of clarity.

Thank you all for being there with me, for your honesty and your advice. For sharing my work with others, for helping me land my dream job (yes, this blog was part of it!), for sending me Tweets and emails, liking me on Facebook and liking me in real life. For being my friend, even though we may be oceans away. For helping me learn a lesson with ever post I wrote. This journey may be coming to a close in a matter of hours, but you will all forever be part of my journey.

And tomorrow, come back for your final daily visit at 2 p.m. EST.

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With Loving Eyes

I stood wearing my only pair of expensive heels, a silky scarf from Urban I snagged during a fabulous sale for $10, a lacy black dress belted at the waist and my Longchamp dangling from my wrist. The ring I picked for the day was actual ruby, the necklace a diamond from Mr. P back when we were happy, and I was hanging out by his side as he chatted with a chairman.

We were in the VIP section of an Oktoberfest, wearing fancy bracelets that gave us free beer and grub. We even had a slightly fancier port-a-potty than everyone else. Girls in skimpy German outfits (even in the chilly weather, God bless ’em – they’re practicing for Halloween) served us bite-sized German-themed appetizers and we were part of an interesting, powerful group – ambassadors, diplomats, prestigious journalists, a dude from Beard Wars, and I even met a song writer.

Mr. P was going on about something with his friend and I started to drift away in my thoughts. I was still slightly hungover from my birthday party the night before but beer seemed to make the headache nearly existent. From the fun times had last night, I had nearly lost my voice, so even if I wanted to be part of their conversation, I sounded like a frog. I let him do his thing while I did mine; still thinking and analyzing our relationship. Or really, our lack of anything that looks like a relationship. I mean, we didn’t even last my birthday without having some sort of a tiff. I know it’s about as unhealthy as the amount of carbs I consumed but resisting is always easier when it’s something we really don’t want, in terms of food and especially in terms of love.

His hand was wrapped around my belt and I became distracted by a family within sight. The father was handsome and tall with glasses, his 3-year-old son looked about the same. The mother was shorter and tanner, their daughter an adorable little blond. The kids were dressed up in traditional German clothes, suspenders and braids and all. They were running around and giggling, making funny noises and genuinely having a good time. There was no alcohol involved, they didn’t need it to loosen up because they were simply that happy.

As the children played together, the wife walked over and I caught a glimpse of the husband’s eyes when he looked at her. And what I saw was purely love.

I obviously do not know anything about who they are or what language they speak or if those feelings are true or not – but his eyes said a thousand words I could never write to give justice to. He showed the same admiration (rightfully so) to his children – scoping them up and tickling them, kissing the side of their rosy cheeks. It all seemed so intimate and innocent, natural and inviting.

Here I was, among the distinguished and more intrigued by the ordinary. By the gentle, calming and warm feeling that comes from seeing people who really love each other. If given the choice, I’d trade the fancy clothes and by-invitation-only invites to have simple clothes and an open invite into someone’s heart who actually wanted to love me in return.

I didn’t watch them very long, maybe a minute or two, and Mr. P grabbed my attention, looking me in the eyes as he kissed my forehead. I smiled cautiously and attempted not to show my disappointment. This was fun, it really was, but is it what I want? Can he give me what I want? Does he have the ability to feel about me how I want him to? Could I picture any of this with him?

Could those eyes that I’ve looked in, searching for a solution, for a sign, for an indication, for anything, ever give me what it is I really need? Could he ever look at me with those loving eyes?

Or is it time for me to look elsewhere?