Tag Archives: New York

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Oh, Pretty Lady

Pretty lady, you’re so lovely tonight. You’re twirling and whirling around in my head, and though I can’t reach out to feel your effortless magic, I bask in your beautiful shine. Pretty lady, you encompass all of my wild dreams and you are so much more and so different from who I pictured you’d be. Pretty lady, I tried to envision your stare so many times, I swore I tasted your kiss on the rims of wine glasses I toasted with cheap substations of you. They never measured up, they could never compare. Pretty lady, I’ve been wondering when you would show up in those tall heels with those long legs and that look. With your look — the most enticing one I’ve ever known. I’m so glad I had the courage to talk to you.

Pretty lady, you were worth the chance.

Pretty lady I love the way you dance. In my mind, on that floor, in these streets. I love your words and the way you use them, both as daggers and as dreams, sharing and inspiring with each careful, calculated, caring phrase. Pretty lady, I long to caress that simple curve on your hip that leads to places I constantly crave. To places I need to explore, places I need to savor, places I aim to know as well as my own. What’s behind those eyes of yours? Those intense depths of matter — piercing right through me, tearing into all the pieces I thought were shattered. Turns out they were never quite broken after all. Pretty lady, your games aren’t games but tantalizing, exciting, alluring puzzles that make you into the imperfect masterpiece you were created to be. Created for me to
cherish. Pretty lady, you challenge me with one glance, with a single sentence, with the way you hold your fork, with how you show what you feel without saying a word.  Pretty lady, where did you come from and why did you decide to lay here with me, right now on this lazy afternoon watching the planes take off over the skyline? Have you been in this city all along?

Pretty lady, you were worth the wait.

Pretty lady, I hope you will say yes. I hope I get out everything I need to say, everything I feel and all that I want for you. For me. For us. For those babies I can’t wait to meet. I hope I can tell you how you’ve changed my life since that day we met at that dark bar on that summer evening, when you were wearing the dress. That dress I couldn’t wait to get off of you. Pretty lady, don’t start crying until I ask you, don’t touch my face how you do  — in that way you do — or I will not be able to resist you. Pretty lady, let me be the man to give you those things you thought were impossible, let me prove to you that yes, there are men. There are men like me who love women like you.

Pretty lady, you were so worth the highest price.

Pretty lady, you wear white so right. You were made for that dress and if I don’t stop sweating, your hands are going to fall right out of my grasp. Pretty lady, just keep looking at me, just take one step in front of the other. Just keep moving. Breathe my darling girl. Don’t you know I love the way you walk? I can’t believe there are only moments before I can call you my wife. Pretty lady, you have never looked more stunning — even if the cake is all wrong and the colors are a little off, and your uncle showed up embarrassingly intoxicated. I don’t see anyone but you on this day, at this time, when you say those two words I want to hear. My baby, you’re so lovely. You’re so full of life.

Pretty lady, I’m so in love with you.

Pretty lady, dream this little dream with me — the one where we make it after all. It’s the one you wrote on ruled paper with pencil, just in case it could never be true. Pretty lady, let’s go to places we’ve never been and meet people who live differently than us. I want to watch you experience something, some land, some life for the first time — I want to see the surprise and the encouraging intrigue light your eyes. Pretty lady, let’s make memories we will tell our kids and take photos their kids will show their friends about their crazy grandparents who dared to change the world. Who loved each other against all statistics and figures. Who chose love when it was easy, and more importantly, when it was not.

Oh, pretty lady, you will be worth whatever I have to do to find you. So don’t give up on me, my love, and I won’t give up on you.

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How to Love

This is probably the last time I’ll wake up with him, I thought watching the sunrise over the brick buildings on Amsterdam. It was a slow, gradual morning for the sun, just as it was for him. He didn’t move in the past two hours I was awake, other than to squeeze my hand and sigh silently into my neck, grazing his lips so slightly I could barely feel the tenderness on my skin.

I couldn’t sleep; my mind wasn’t interested in being anywhere but in this moment. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I responded to his text message after ignoring them all for over a week. Maybe it was because it was March and still a little cold outside. Or maybe I felt the sting of being lonely a little too deeply, and the thought of a warm body – especially one I knew as well as my own – was comforting. Nevertheless, I found myself waiting in bed, smooth and fragrant in a skimpy I swore he’d never see.

I asked him to call me when he arrived on the Upper West Side instead of ringing my apartment – I didn’t want my roommates to wake. I didn’t really want them to know, just like I was ashamed to tell my friends. And my readers. How could I preach one thing, promise another and then invite the shadow that was haunting me back into my life? Even if it was just for a night, the aftertaste always lingers much longer. And once you try it once, it’s easier to go back for seconds.

When I opened the door, he smiled that same sad grin I’d known for so long and tried so desperately to forget. But there was no wine, no girl’s night out, no one night stand, no anything that could really make me move on. I knew that challenge was up to me, and that I had been delaying the process by believing many wonderful, lofty things that really, I knew would never be. Especially with his hand massaging my back on the 10-step walk to my bedroom. Maybe it’d be like those dreams you wake up thinking about, but then  disappear from memory ten hours later. If no one saw him here, then maybe I could pretend it never happened.

But it did. And I didn’t hate it, I sighed as I slowly turned over to face him, trying my best to keep him asleep. He never drifted away easily and I didn’t want him to leave before the alarm made him. I studied his face as I thought about all the space between us. No matter how far we got or how much time we spent together, there was always a gap I couldn’t bridge. Now, we’re lying as close as two can get, and yet, I know I’m still nowhere near his heart. He used to tell me that organ didn’t work for him, and then he said he’d try to make it alive again, and now we’ve just stopped talking about it. Have I settled to being his sex buddy? I wondered, terrified of the truth. I placed my hand on his chest and curled into the nook I used to sleep in nightly and reassured myself: No, you’re just now the backburner. Not the frontrunner. Without making a sound, I let a tear get away, and realized that honestly, being on hold was worse than being used for sex.

He felt my weight against him as I sank into his side and he murmured something inaudible as he kissed my forehead and pulled me closer. I heaved a sigh of total confusion – knowing he would always want to be beside me like this, but never beside me in the ways that mattered. The ones that counted in any book I’d ever read. You’re awake, Tigar? he asked, nibbling at my ear. I nodded to where he could feel it but didn’t slip a word, knowing if I did, I’d say things I’ve said a hundred times. Things that have lost their meaning because nothing has changed. Because nothing will.

We cuddled silently until it was time to start the getting-ready routine – something we mastered in small spaces months before. I snuck him into the bathroom, wishing I lived alone just this once so I wouldn’t have to worry about the shocked faces or the disapproving glances I knew I would get, I knew I’d deserve. As I rinsed his touch off of me, wondering if he’d ever stay with me again, he started rambling about work and the week ahead. He asked me questions so casual you’d think we talked all the time, that we had never broken up, that I hadn’t been attempting to get over him for six months. He asked me about my plans and upcoming events, and I gave him simple answers to match his simplistic attitude that I felt weren’t nothing compared to my conflicting thoughts.

And then I dared to go there: Mr. Possibility- what did I teach you? Did I teach you anything from dating me? I asked with the shower curtain spread open, the water falling across my back. I didn’t care that my face was bare, that my body was exposed and my heart was vulnerable, standing before this man I couldn’t understand.

He didn’t miss a beat and answered: How to love. You taught me how to love, Lindsay. And he left the steamy room just as it was getting hot.

Months after this incident, where I’m dating and rediscovering the city through my lens instead of his, I find myself coming back to that moment. Back to those three words: how to love. For a while, I was convinced if that was the case, I must be a horrible teacher if that was his idea of true love or loving someone. Then I cursed my heart (for the first time ever) for being so unconditional, so understanding, so patient and forgiving. I let myself feel so many extraordinary things that weren’t felt in return, and in the end, I never got the apology, the answers, the anything I really needed.

But I did get a lesson. One very important, overly-dramatic lesson.

I learned there’s no course to study or class to take. There are many tests but never any measure of success. There are many words to write, but no rubric to follow. There are no answers to any of the questions or a correct bubble to fill in. The choices are endless, but the options seem limited. No matter the experience you endure or the hours you put into studying — there will never be a tried-and-true way to know how to love.

Maybe someone can teach you – the best anyone can teach something they’ll never fully comprehend or have the ability to describe. Maybe there are people who are shining examples of how to care for another person, and others who are quite the drastic opposite. Maybe the love is different depending on who wears it and who wears on you – but the thing about love is that it’s just a word until it’s put into action.

I may have taught him how to love but he never could translate it into something that meant something more. Into something that mattered in the ways that are significant. Those three words, where they be I love you or how to love – are meaningless until there are gestures and evidence there to support them.

So if every relationship teaches us something – as I have always believed they do – then that’s Mr.  P’s contribution. He’s made me see that love is so much more than words, no matter how often they’re spoken or sincere they can seem. And if he could never show me what they really mean, I know there must be someone out there who can.

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And Then I Found Love

It was March 16 — and I was having one of those terrible, horrible, very bad, no good days.

It started with a lack of hot water in my apartment for like the 100th time  (sadly, only a slight exaggeration), which resulted in playing chicken with the shower head until I was at least somewhat clean. From there, it only went downhill: the train was late, the weather was depressing, the line at Starbucks was way too long for me to make it to work on time, and as it always does, the course of negative events left me feeling less than 100 percent. Midway through the day while eating the snack-size Lean Cuisine that I somehow manage to consider lunch, something else popped up to make what was a crappy day, completely shot to hell.

He emailed me.

And for whatever reason, even in my near-crazy state, I decided the logical thing to do was to read it. Then and there, on the spot, while chewing highly processed food that I didn’t care for. The sentences weren’t important, nor the sentiment, but the feeling I had my stomach — and in my heart — was. Moving it to trash doesn’t make it any less significant, but it at least gets it out of plain sight, or at least, I thought so anyway. But with the swift deletion, I started to feel them inch their way up, fighting to let out the crisis I felt I was facing. My warmest organ started to burn, signaling it was time to make a b-line for the bathroom where I could exhale in semi-private.

Standing in the stall, counting to ten over and over, looking up to the fluorescent lights, feeling the salty, achy drops form in the corner of my eyes, I got angry. Not for the first time and certainly not for the last in this ordeal, but for the first time, it felt real. I thought about the six months I had wasted communicating when I knew I shouldn’t, the few months I spent going back to what I knew was wrong, and most of all, for trying to be so strong and really, being nothing but weak. Sure, I forgave myself (and luckily my awesome friends did too), but knowing I needed to focus my energy on positive things, like my great job, I decided that it was really, truly time to move the f*** on.

I’m not sure why that particular afternoon meant so much to me — it wasn’t any different or worse than other days I spent attempting to let go of Mr. Possibility. I probably still Gchatted the regulars expressing my frustration and he obviously still made an effort to talk to me, as he did for such a long time. And if I’m honest, even here-and-there now. But in that brief thirty-minute span where my lunch break turned into the moving-on-moment, it clicked in a way it hadn’t before. Maybe I saw that regardless of how much time passes or how many tears I waste, it’s still impossible to make something out of nothing. Or that some sorts of love and relationships simply aren’t meant to last forever, and that’s okay. Perhaps it was just that I finally figured out I wanted more – I truly deserved more – and I wouldn’t get any closer to the best kind of love if I kept holding onto to the hope that mostly-bad could turn into kinda-good.

And so, I did what I always do when I set my mind to getting over someone: I started frantically dating. I signed up for two dating sites, tried to make my profile sound like myself (though, it rarely does), and accepted three or four after work drink invitations. I smiled and flirted, and had meaningless conversations with men who now I can’t remember their names. I didn’t find anyone appealing or entertaining enough to continue to a second date, and I found myself a week later, sitting on Gchat complaining to K about the stress of trying to rebound and how much dating felt like some cursed chore I really didn’t want to do.

So don’t date.

Her response was how much of her advice is — to the point, realistic, mature and taken from the wisdom she’s gained from many more experiences than me. I started to counter her argument, stating I tried that in college and decided placing rules on myself wasn’t healthy and that I never lived up to the promises anyway. I’d be 20 days in when I said I’d wait 60 and give in to some guy I worked up into my head to be the guy. He never was and I only became more disappointed in dating, and worse, in myself. She then, with careful words and gentle encouragement, convinced me that because it was my decision — regardless if I changed my mind later or not — giving myself a break from the whole scene, the intolerable exhaustion (especially in this city!) would make me hopeful…and less bitter.

Ouch.

It hurt to see those words in black-and-white and it stung even deeper to feel it in my heart. Mr. Possibility hadn’t turned me totally sour, I had swallowed that pill all on my own — allowing destructive, damning mantras to become my normal, instead of the cheery, optimistic phrases I usually live by and post around my bedroom walls.

And so, I took K’s advice and set a time frame — from March 23 until May 31, I’d be single. Like really, completely, refusing-to-go-on-one date single. I would be by myself and I would do what I needed to do the most: heal and forgive. Myself, Mr. Possibility, New York and love itself.

Today, on June 7, I’m happy to announce that I did it: no dating, no falling in love with strangers, no making random glances into advances on the subway, no anything. I went to and returned from Puerto Rico, welcoming the world of adventure that awaited me there. I found the peace I had been needing from Mr. Possibility by realizing that somethings really don’t change, but I can, even if he can’t. I stayed out later than I usually did and felt comfortable calling it a night a bit earlier than my friends. I showed my beautiful mother the city I love, ending the last evening by running through an open fire hydrant on my street, and savored every tone, every pitch in her laugh, wishing I could capture it for whenever I feel alone in this big place I adore. I started to accept that maybe, I’m never going to be a size two again, but size six looks pretty good on me. I had heart-to-hearts with my friends and dove into the work that fulfills and excites me.

And then, out of nowhere, without any warning at all, I found love. Real, powerful, all-consuming, can’t-live-without-you love.

No, not with the first guy I went out with on June 1 (he was actually rather awful). I don’t intend to find it with the dates I have lined up next week — but instead, I fell in love with myself. With my life here, with the people and the experiences that have made up the sum of all of my parts.

K was right — I needed time to put dating totally out of the picture so I could see that at the center of it all, there is me. There is the hope I’ve always believed in. And most importantly, there is love.

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Single Is As Single Does

After a brisk three-mile run on Central Park North Thursday evening, I stopped by my local grocery store to pick up two very specific things: olive oil and barbeque chicken. My roommates and I have recently discovered kale chips and now we’re all making them – almost nightly – so olive oil has been quite the popular ingredient (if you don’t know how to make kale chips, read this. No seriously, do it – they’re amazing and super easy. And you know, good for you). I blame my craving for bbq on my Southern upbringing, but when the deli on theUpper West Sideoffers it, you know it can’t just be for the transplants. Plus, the patty I selected was heart-shaped, how could I resist?

Listening toFlorence& the Machine as I heated up my chicken and tore off tiny pieces of greens before smothering them in garlic salt and oily goodness, it hit me:

Wow, I actually like being single.

For a lot of folks – and the majority of my beautiful, independent friends – this concept isn’t a revelation as much as it’s fact. But for me, the girl who notices with poultry is loving-looking and still cries at the predictable sweet happy-ending even when she’s seen it countless times, noticing the comfort of being a minus-one is quite the accomplishment. It took me a year-worth of writing blogs, one terribly difficult heartbreak that still aches most days, and lots of self-encouragement and reassurance to get to this place.

Or if I’m honest (which I always make my very best attempt to be), it took a hell of a lot more than that. It took drunken nights in college, pining over guys in polos I thought were awfully adorable (though were really quite pathetic), trying to be the cool gal who could keep up with them beer-for-beer. It took staying in relationships that were already dead-end before they began, because I was so desperately afraid of never finding love or being unloveable (as one guy told me once), that I decided to devalue my self-worth so I could hold the title of “girlfriend.” It took many, many instances of being a bad friend because I was so jealous that someone could find what I wanted so badly, and for whatever reason, I could not. It took me standing in front of the mirror nit-picking my body, my face – my everything – because I imagined men wouldn’t like me or find me beautiful if I wasn’t perfect.

It’s all of those reasons and ones that I’m unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) forgetting that I started this blog in the first place – one giant gesture to myself to love who I was, sans man. But that was in September of 2010, and now we’re nearly half-way through 2012, and I finally made it.

I finally did it.

In that time, I met, fell in love and broke up with a man who couldn’t love me back in the way I deserved or wanted. In that time, I moved apartments and created an entirely new circle of friends, some of which I’ll know and love the rest of my life. I left the starter job to find the dream career, and received way more attention from this URL than I intended. I went up and down a few sizes, found a workout routine I really like, and experienced my first Brazilian wax. I became a New Yorker (by my own definition) and I discovered each borough, except Staten Island, which really, doesn’t count anyway. I grew and changed, took ten steps back and a few forward, said things I regretted and bit my tongue more than I should. I sacrificed my beliefs and standards, and then stood up for myself, over and over again, day-end and day-out.

I’ve done a lot, and for that I’m really proud of myself. But what makes me the happiest isn’t a fancy title or a nice apartment, going to places I couldn’t afford but now can, or the fact I’ll be on my first solo-trip to Puerto Rico in a matter of days.

It’s that I learned the most difficult lesson (for me anyway), there is to learn: single is, as single does.

Like anything that’s worth anything – the way to success or to self-fulfillment has more detours and less straight-and-narrow directions. The route is curved and complicated, frightening and at times, as much as we try to avoid it, self-destructive. Learning to be single is less about buying for one or figuring out how to sleep in the middle of the bed, and more about perception.

However you see it, whatever image or definition you give it, that’s what it’ll be. And how it’ll feel.

Sadly, for most of my 20-something life, I’ve closed my eyes and fearfully envisioned myself as a pasty-white, wrinkled prune of an old woman, nursing my ten cats and waking up to a cold bed, morning after morning, disgustingly alone and so beyond bitter that I’m apathetic. I’ve worried that by the time I met the right person, I would no longer look stunning in a wedding gown, or worse, my ovaries would be way past their expiration date and babies would be out of question. I’ve defined being single as not good enough or pretty enough or smart enough. And then again, as being too strong-willed or independent, too much of this and not enough of that. Really, just that I wasn’t able to be loved for reasons beyond myself that I couldn’t change.

But that’s not what single is like – at least for me now, six months after the end of one possibility, and finally dealing with the hurt that came with a slow demise. Today, single means opportunity, and even more possibility than I’ve experienced before. It means I get to be on my own schedule, do what I want without considering another person each and every single moment. It means not having to answer to anyone or anything about my choices or my plans. It means I’m blessed to meet and enjoy other people – for brief periods of time or longer – and learn about what makes me happy. It means I can explore and navigate the city however I see fit, and that if the mood strikes me, kiss a stranger – or two – or not. It means that I’m thankful for (instead fearful of) this time flying solo, because the reality is, even if I don’t get married until 35 (Southern people, drop your jaw in unison), I’ll still spend the majority of my life promised until-death-do-you-part with someone else. It means that love could always be closer than I think, or further away, but that it doesn’t quite matter because I’m content here. I’m content now. With just me as my companion, with the life I’ve created, with the woman I’ve become. I didn’t do it all by myself and I’ve been luckier than most, but more than anything, even in those dark moments where I only put myself down, I still believed.

I’ve always believed in what I was capable of and what I was made of: lots of fiery passion and determination, an insatiable curiosity and a rose-colored imagination that always sees the best in people and in situations. And though I’m satisfied with where I’ve landed and where I’m at in this moment — sitting at a laundry mat before dinner with my fabulous gay husband — I’ll always still be the girl who believes in herself, but also in love and that one day I’ll find a person who feels the same way.

But for now, single is as single does. And single is what I’m damned proud to be. Finally.

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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.