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