oh nola, how you break my heart while simultaneously band aiding it back together

louisiana, come go away with me. we’ll take the highway, i’ll see you in between. if i listened to my head, never would have come. spend two days without it, just the sleeping in the sun.

day 2.

and i, again, have no idea where to begin. my mind is, per usual post nola visits, spiraling. last year at this exact moment i was in bad shape (like a good moment of bad shape?).

i was on a plane, at 30,000 ft above solid ground, heartbroken. writing. trying not to lose it in front of innocent planesitters.

here i am a year later, heartbroken in many of the same ways. but in a completely different place in so many of the other ways. the heartbreak this year is different.

i was explaining my love for nola to a friend that was there with me, on his first visit to the fine city. well, trying to. and the most concrete thing i could think of to explain my love was the people. my friends in nola are real friends. genuine, connection and care filled relationships. with one hundred percent acceptance of me. and us. and whenever i am around them, there is no awkward catch up/get on the same page period. we just are. the relationship continues. we live in the moment. and enjoy one another in the moment.

and i suppose that is why leaving is so heartbreaking. no matter what, the moment is over. and there will be more. but, i just don’t want it to be over, ever.

you see, it’s hard to know that you are doing the exact thing you need to be doing in life. and not want to change anything (well, you know) but still have these amazing connections and ‘moments’ that you have to…leave.

and it’s not that i don’t have these moments of connectedness in my ‘real’ life. i do. gosh, i do. i have an amazing life, for which i am endlessly grateful to the universe. but i cannot seem to process the idea that there is another world of greatness 2,500 miles away. that i can’t experience more than once or twice a year. in person, at least.

and there is one part all of this that i just cannot self therapize through. you see, i’m pretty good at the ‘thinking through’ part of life, self-awareness, growth, and relational schemas. where i’m not so good is the feeling part.

i don’t know how to ‘process’ feelings. and maybe that’s it. feelings aren’t supposed to be processed? either way, i find myself stuck when i come to the point of ‘this is what happened and why i feel what i do.’ but then i’m not sure i know really what to do with the feeling with which i’m left. and i get stuck. very, very stuck.

i know for certain that sf is for me. that everything i am doing in life is exactly what i should be. but why do i feel like this when i leave nola? why are there people in my life that i want to be around much much much more than an annual vacation or two provides? i mean, i have friends all over the states. and i love visiting them, and i miss them, a lot. but i don’t feel like this when i leave.

like a piece of my heart is gone.

i’m sure there are pieces of the story i’m not telling you, in regards to the laundry list of reasons new orleans, and its people, affect me so. but know this- i end up, in a worse way, in the same stuck position. feeling helpless and lost a little by trying to just sit with my feelings. and say ‘they are what they are’ and i even know why they are. but they are hard, intricate and complex feelings that touch on so many other things in me.

i know that any therapist or intuitive would tell me to just embrace my feelings. that they are for a reason, and to trust the universe, and let things unfold.

and i can, and will do that. but right here, on an airplane, in suspended time letting it unfold is challenging. that doesn’t mean i won’t do it it. hell, i have no choice. but i feel like if i keep thinking, writing, processing, i’ll have an answer.

and if there is one thing i’ve definitely learned for certain, it’s that life doesn’t work that way.

drinking our coffee, under a canopy. never saw the morning, slept through half the day. there’s thunder and there’s lightening a hundred miles away. i got my hands full most of the time.

i got my hands full, all summer long. i’ve got my hands full.

‘Louisiana’ – The Walkmen

heartbroken and still picky, and that’s just ok.

and it’s only doubts that we’re counting on fingers broken long ago. i read with every broken heart we should become more adventurous

so after some time to myself, denial, and pure suppression of feelings i am back and ready to write. it’s funny that when i feel the most sad, vulnerable, confused and emotional i put it all out there and then retreat. so, sorry for the break. i just needed minute to regroup. and contemplate my heartbreak.

and that contemplating led to a very interesting, saddening and pitypartyful conversation with one of my closest friends. another heartbroken soul who is navigating his way through the murky waters of managing expectations of our future partners. so, we were discussing what it is like to have found that person that embodies all of our hopes and dreams in the perfect partner. and how a) our inability to be with that person for what ever reason is heartbreaking beyond complete repair, and b) how we know we’ll move on to different things but none will ever be what we can no longer have.

and after my last post, someone that i know only through his reading and commenting of this blog asked me a question. he said, “Curious question about your dating luck: are you looking for short/casual or long/serious or either? ” and what was interesting is that i stopped to think about it and realized that i didn’t even have to think about it. my response was simple, “either, or both. i would like to meet someone interesting and smart that i am also attracted to. it seems like i can’t find both in the same person lately.”  then i told him how i liked that he called it luck (as in- it’s not just me being wrong at life) and asked why he asked me the question in the first place. his response, “I ask because 1) I’ve had the same “luck” as you for 1+ year and 2) I’m looking for either, but super picky, even when asked out.” of course i responded, “well duh, i’m picky too, i’m not going to stop being picky just because it’s been a while since my last relationship.”

and suddenly the conversation with my friend came to my mind. while wallowing in our broken heartedness he said, “the thing is steph, we both know what is out there for us in terms of love, we feel we have had it or a taste of it, and what breaks my heart even more is that i know neither of us will settle for anything less. and that makes me worry that we will end up alone.”
so i guess this is the best way to explain where i am in my dating life. when most people get ‘desperate’ they change or lower their standards. they try different methods of dating or different types of people, they give in. whereas i become more steadfast and determined. alas, if i’ve waited this long there is no way i’m going to settle for someone that doesn’t do it for me like i know it can be done (ha). i mean i like who i am. i think i’m pretty great. and i also think that the person i am going to date casually or seriously needs to be pretty great. because there is nothing in it for me to talk to a physically attractive guy that doesn’t mentally stimulate me. i’m just past that. that’s what you do in your first year of being single. you explore all the possibilities. by year 2.5 you end up at the same place you were before. waiting for the one that has exactly what you know you need. the one that could break your heart if he/she didn’t work.

cause really, there is nothing more exciting than knowing at the beginning of dating that this could be something so good that it could kill you. heartbreak is just that. heartbreaking. but it is invigorating and rejuvenating, and ultimately the perfect reminder to keep looking. that those people that embody all your hopes and dreams in a partner do actually exist. and holding out is totally worth it.

and maybe ours is the cause of all mankind: 
get loved, make more, try to stay alive.

breakable girls and boys

we are so fragile and our cracking bones make noise and we are just breakable girls and boys.

so i am sitting on a plane listening to music that i am sure is about to kill me. i am about to lose it, and have no idea why. well, i have about seventy ideas. all of them lead me to a place where i have no control. and the more and more people start to read these ramblings i call writing the more i feel like i should some how alter the content of this blog to be less personal, more analytical, less crazy about to lose it on a plane steph. but right now, at thirty thousand feet above real life, i just don’t want to do that.

i’m sad. and confused. and connected. supported. and alone. and leaving an amazing vacation and an amazing city to return to amazing friends in an amazing city. and i am wholeheartedly bawl my eyes out sad. i’m sad to leave vacation, a fantasy world, to return to real life unemployment and dating drought. i am sad that someone is going to read this and not get me. and sad at the honest and unbelievably positive response i have received for writing. there is just something missing in it right now. and i am scared that i am leaning on past good things to fill this void. and when those past good things don’t work, or end for the same reason they did then, i am left feeling a little less sure that this all will work out.  and how do you process something that you know you want but just cannot have. where do you turn when you have no control over something. something you want so badly it breaks your heart. and since you can’t have it, how are you supposed know that it truly is that something that you want so badly.

how is it that six months after leaving my job, friends, home and life and moving across the country to start anew, i am already feeling restless. why am i reveling in this weekend’s discussion of grad school and a work routine that lead to a missed chance to connect one more time before i left. why do i long for all the things i was so excited to have already accomplished. ready for new. maybe it is unemployment, feeling one hundred percent undesired, or unsure of what my next steps are but i feel restless and stagnant and worthless and sad. and heartbroken. for reasons i just cannot figure out.

heartbreak. the feeling that you have no idea how to continuing moving through life due to a lack of the returned love, desire, spark and presence of the one thing you feel you cannot breathe without. here i am, on this plane, simply heartbroken. for seventy different reasons. all uncontrollable by me. because that’s what heartbreak is. something you would put all the power in your mind, body and soul to combat. and it still wins. leaving you feeling defeated, at loss of energy, hope, and worth all while simultaneously smothering you in the memories of what you had prior to the loss that made you realize that it was the only thing you ever needed.

this is a real life glimpse of the story of a twentysomething midwestern girl overwhelmed with love, honest connection, distance, friendship, accomplishment, and pure old fashioned heartbreak.

but i finally saw the piece of love in your face, that bathed me in regret then you drove me to places i’ll never forget