Diary Friday: “Hello you monkeys and lovers and lovebirds and shriners.”

What is clear to me now from this journal entry is that one of the things that is actually going on here, although I never say it, is that I am in love with three men at the same time. I never recognized it – because basically I am thick as fog usually – but that is what is happening. Yes, it is possible. Maybe you need to possess an abnormally large heart to achieve such a thing, or a willingness (overall) to let life get chaotic. Both are true for me. I’m not gonna lie. I am not fickle. These three men are giants in my own personal lexicon to this day, and while I have never been a date-r, or someone who was out and about with a million different men (I’m pretty steady and focused) … it just so happened that on this one 48-hour period in question … all three men from the past year converged into my life at one specific time.

I put this up today because of Michael, who has pestered me lately until I respond, until I am involved (he WILL. NOT. BE. IGNORED) and while it can be annoying, it also makes me feel cared for. Like it matters. He will not let me hide. He lets himself get upset with me. He wonders where I am and why I am not “there”. Grateful, grateful, grateful.

I put this up today because the other men in the entry – referred to as “P” and “M” are, forever, men in my heart … but it is Michael who is the one who is still in my life. I mean, in a real and friend-y kind of way. And isn’t that insane. I mean, it is to me, because I feel like I never would have guessed that at the time, but then when I read this crazy journal entry, I think: Yes. Of course. I didn’t just guess that that would be the case … it is there, tangibly, in the words I chose to describe what was, relatively, a casual encounter with him.

What strikes me here is the unbelievable intensity in which I appeared to be able to operate, on an everyday level. I am gobsmacked by my own endurance. And not just that … but how I used a journal back then, to work things out, to hash out issues, to really TALK to “someone” (a blank book), and try to figure out what was going on.

I no longer use a journal in that way. I barely keep a journal at all.

In this entry, I describe a 48 hour period during the very end of my time in Chicago. David has always said that he felt my life was a “literary conceit”, that things line up for me in a neat psychological way that seems unusual to him … and here it is obvious, in full force.

It was May. I was auditioning for grad school in June. I had a feeling I would get in, and that would mean I would have to move to New York. In August. Everything felt tremulous. On the verge of huge change. I loved Chicago. Chicago changed my life. Saved it. The thought of leaving was absolutely terrible. But I just knew it would happen.

I was recovering from a failed love affair with “P” – but I wasn’t recovering very well. I am amazed at how haunted I sound in this entry. It gives me a chill. I would remain haunted by him for years. Haunted still? Well, well, I just have better coping skills now. I see him every now and then when he comes to town, and it’s fun and good to see him, I still have one or two pretty bad moments during those times, it seems unavoidable, but philosophy returns in a matter of days, and I can incorporate the loss back into my understanding of life, and that’s just the way shit goes down sometimes. Man up.

But at the time of the journal entry, the wound was fresh, and I could not get over it. I wasn’t so much sad as baffled by what had happened. It confused me more than anything else.

Meanwhile: I had been hanging out on an almost constant basis with “M”, a boy I had met and dated (loose term) from almost my first month upon arrival in Chicago. So we’re talking years. By the time of this entry below, we had been going strong in our particular insane vein for four years. I’ve written quite a bit about him in the past. I cannot describe it except to say: it never had a label, sometimes we saw each other a couple times a week, and there was one time when we went nine months without seeing each other (and I didn’t miss him) … and yet we always kept revolving back to what we had created. I always knew I would hear from him again. He was a crazy man, wild, grumpy, immature, fun, and strangely deep. He was so relaxing for me – or that’s how I remember this time anyway – everything else was so crazy, but I could relax with him. Turns out there was a bit more darkness in the scenario which I had forgotten – we had had this huge awful fight at a terrible bar called The Gingerman Tavern and I had vowed never to speak to him again …which I actually stuck to for about two or three months. He would call and I wouldn’t answer. Stuff like that. I don’t remember much of this, actually. Strange.

Then there is Michael.

Timing-wise – this diary entry is in May. Michael and I had dated in the autumn of the previous year, and then sort of drifted apart. Nothing bad happened, no falling out, just … we were at different points in our lives, there was a significant age difference (although it’s not significant at all now – but six years was HUGE back then – I was like Mrs. Robinson, for God’s sake, sneaking my underage boyfriend into bars so we could go to Trivia Night, and helping him do his laundry), and so we let each other go on our separate ways.

I hadnt held on to Michael, which I think is one of the main reasons why we are such good friends today (but what a bittersweet lesson to have to keep learning … but that is definitely the theme of my life … I am a master at this, and should give seminars … and if anyone says “if you love something set it free” you can expect to be punched straight in the throat by yours truly) … and was not haunted by him or missing him at the time of this entry. I was far more taken up with the spectre of “P”, he was on the forefront, because I sensed I would be moving, and that would make it REALLY be over. But I was definitely missing “M”, by then too, because he was the one who – through playing pool with me, driving me around at breakneck speed in his car, climbing through my window at three in the morning, and deciding to order us fast food at 4 in the morning – helped me forget all my troubles.

Into this wilderness stepped Michael. And click click click some things clicked into place. Not with “P”, but then, that situation would never “click into place”. It was meant to be a mess, and it is still a mess, frankly. I just cope with it better now.

These three men who are all in this entry below I refer to as my “triumvirate”. Long-time readers will recognize that. And here they all are in one place (well – in my journal) at the same time. It is rather odd and unsettling to read.

This entry’s intense. Much of it makes me laugh out loud.

I was approaching a huge change. I knew I was going to move to New York, even though I hadn’t been accepted to grad school yet. But I just knew I would get in … and that the Chicago phase was about to end. That freaked me out to no end.

In the entry below, only Michael gets to keep his own name. He’s earned that. I think he expects it too.

MAY 15

I have FORCED myself to continue forward with my plans, even though I’m apathetic, a huge part of me doesn’t want to leave Chicago AT ALL. A huge part of me wants, at least, to be near P. I can’t let it go. I can’t.

[Then, in the middle of this text, I have written – and I have NO IDEA what it means: “Hello you monkeys and lovers and lovebirds and shriners.” Seriously – THAT LINE shows up right after “I can’t let it go. I can’t.” Shriners?? WHAT???]

But I have to. Or, I certainly can’t abandon my plans. I could not live with myself. I am already trying to prepare myself for the wrench of leaving. Also … about P. It’s done. It’s over. But in my heart it is so not. I live for word of him. My heart beats faster. But – like a steamroller – I keep making plans, taking the steps, 1-2-3 – without even really thinking about it. Forcing myself. And now I am flying to NYC in June for the audition. I’ll deal with the move when it happenns. Listen to how I talk about this – as though moving would be bad.

However, I think I am a pretty evolved person. I think my understanding of and feeling for the shades of grey in life is pretty deep. I understand how good and bad can be mixed. A “good” thing can happen and a really ‘bad” thing can be attached to it. That’s life. That’s being an adult.

I have a problem with the word “happy” anyway. I always have. Happiness, for me, is encapsulated in a moment. Not meant to last. The first glimpse of the skyline as I run around a curve in the lake … sitting in the sun on my front steps drinking coffee … dancing on P’s feet in the hot darkness, his arms tight around me … driving with Ann with the windows down singing the theme song to Greatest American Hero at the top of our lungs …

Moments.

When I feel a burst of contentment … Happy? I can see clearly (now the rain has gone …) I don’t say “I’m happy”. I live in shades of grey, despite all the hyperbolic stances. So I am preparing myself for this wonderful move – and preparing myself for the grieving I will do. Grieving for my life here. But what’s weird is – as of now – I am only thinking about the bad side of it. I can’t get to the place of excitement, ambition – I don’t feel it yet.

I just had a chilling thought.

5/15

[Looks like I put the pen down – because of my ‘chilling thought’ – went off, did something, and came back to the journal later on the same day … to write the following:]

Capture my heart and then bite it in two.
I won’t forget.

MAY 16

I had to put down the pen. It’s too awful. The chilling thought I had was this. It just occurred to me: what if that is going to be my life from now on. Not being able to “get to” excitement, in any pure or unabashed way – but knowing I have to keep forcing myself to make plans, care about things … force myself to go on living.

Once again, things shift so that the fantasy world is more potent and real than reality. Ann and I talked about that – the times in your life when your life is what you fantasize about.

“There were a couple of months when I couldn’t even read books because they couldn’t hold my interest like my own life could,” said Ann.

She’s right.

I cannot picture being in that state again.

I felt it briefly on that frozen day when I had 3 auditions in a row. I revelled in my own life on that day. I revelled in being myself.

I am being too dramatic. I am talking myself into a depression. There is no need to do that. My emotions need fluidity. I do not want to petrify. That is where bitterness comes in. Also, it will kill my acting. [I am really working things out here in writing.]

When depression hits – I go with it. What the hell. I am really sad that this abyss is between me and P. I am devastated that we did not get a chance to add a bit of light to the universe. And I am still overwhelmed by a feeling of wrongness. This is wrong wrong wrong. But mostly I just live with it. I bear it. Somedays I can’t bear it. I don’t judge myself.

This is why I cannot go to see his shows.

He blots out the sky for me. I get lost in his shadow.

A couple weeks ago I was called in to read for Suburbia – one of the hit shows in Chicago right now. The show is a smash and they’re looking to extend it so they were reading for replacements. I would kill to play that role. Despite my huge problems with the script itself – I think I could make something fabulous out of that part.

The audition was on a Saturday morning. I had kind of a weird day – full of serendipity. It was a grey day. Drizzly. I dressed totally Generation X for the audition. Plastic barettes, corduroys, etc. I walked to the Theatre Building – with Liz Phair blasting in my ears. Much wind. Light drizzle.

Walked into the Theatre Building lobby and couldn’t see clearly because it was dark after being outside. I sensed a group of waiting actors in one area, so I walked over there, my eyes adjusting. The first actual face I perceived was Michael’s. He was sitting down, grinning up at me, wryly – waiting for me to see him. I remember the moment – I was walking with purpose – striding really – and then I saw him. There was that audition-going-on hush in the air so I didn’t make a sound – but my heart leapt out of my chest at the sight of him. I have MISSED that boy.

So as I circled aorund the row of chairs between us to get to him, I mouthed silently, “Oh my God!” – my quiet ecstatic reaction to seeing him. I haven’t seen him in months. We’ve talked a couple times on the phone, we always say “Let’s get together” but it never happens. I certainly don’t want to get into a situation where just meeting for a coffee is a huge fucking ordeal. He knows where to find me if he wants me. We’re friends. I think we could be great friends. We had a real connection – that is still apparent. We are not estranged. [Hello, Jane Austen.]

I wanted to dance and sing at the sight of him and I would have if we hadn’t been in the cathedral atmosphere of an audition. We had to contain ourselves. He was happy to see me. He played it pretty cool, but I could tell. We were very in sync that whole day. He stood up to meet me and he actually looked kind of moved. It wasn’t a simple “Hey, great to see you” – for him or for me. Something happened between us in Ithaca and we both recognized it. We had a fabulous hug amidst all the actors on the floor, filling out forms. We were holding onto each other and he wouldn’t let me go. He’s Italian. So not Irish. We both were whispering into each other’s ears, “It’s so good to see you! Oh my God it’s so good to see you!” We moved ourselves out of the group of actors so we wouldn’t disturb anyone and we basically said “Hi!” ecstatically for 5 minutes. There’s something about him that makes me laugh.

After we both auditioned – we hung out for a bit.

I said, “Did you watch our boy on the Oscars?” (“Our boy” means, of course, John Travolta.)

Oh, wait – before this – I said, “Oh! I’m in a show now.” He immediately was so excited for me. I love actors. I love my actor friends. Everyone gets so excited for each other. He leapt on the news.

“Really? What?”

“Oh, Michael. It’s a Bailiwick gay pride show and it’s called Lesbian Bathhouse.”

(It is so hard to tell people what I’m doing. “What show are you doing?” “Oh, it’s a sweet little romantic comedy called Lesbian Bathhouse.” I told M – he actually just called me, story at 10 – anyway – I said to him, “It’s called Lesbian Bathhouse.” There was a pause, and then he said, “Lesbian Bathhouse? What. The. Fuck.” That is generally the reaction.)

But anyway, Michael and I laughed about Lesbian Bathhouse – and then he said, “I always knew you were gay” and I just BURST into laughter. First of all, I was so damn happy to see the boy I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. Also – he just goes right back into our little drama – “I always knew you were gay”. I love that he thought I was gay at first, and that held him back from making the first move.

Then – I brought up the Oscars and John Travolta. He said, “Of course I watched it.”

I said, “I was bummed he lost. How are you doing with it?” Kiddingly serious with him. [John Travolta was his childhood hero]

He said, “Yes, he lost, but … he looked cool though. Don’t you think? Didn’t he look cool?”

He is like Christian Slater in True Romance saying that he would fuck Elvis Presley – and only Elvis Presley – no other guy – but he would fuck Elvis. So anyway, as Michael spoke – he kind of became a 14 year old girl right in front of my eyes. He went off into Travolta Dream Land – he kind of stuck his hip out, standing there like Michelangelo’s David, a little sexy flirtatious pose – and as he said, “He looked so cool” – he, without thinking about it, started playing with his nipples. [I AM HOWLING right now!] Laughter flowed out of me – unstoppable. I had to say it: “Michael, look at you. And you think I’m gay?” Michael said, “For Travolta, I’m gay.”

Here’s a serendipitous thing: the 2 of us were both happened to be wearing our Ithaca “uniforms”. We basically wore the same clothes every day in Ithaca – and there we were again, on this day so many months later, happening to be wearing the same clothes: I had on my flannel shirt which I bought in Ithaca – he had on the tan corduroy jacket which will forever remind me of Ithaca. He slept in the damn thing, for God’s sake. And he told me later – that the Suburbia audition was the first time he had worn it in MONTHS. It was the first spring-ish day – he put it on – and who does he run into on that day but me. And I was wearing my flannel shirt, brown corduroys, and my plastic barrettes.

I sat down to fill out my form, I glanced over at Michael, and he gestured at his jacket like, “Look what I am still wearing.”

My audition went really well and they invited me to come see the show that night. They invited Michael too – so we made a date to go together to the show and it was just what I needed. I was in a funk.

The night before Jackie and I had gone to see some improv – and I don’t remember why – but I left without saying good-bye to M, who had performed.

Why do I act so weird? I felt so weird about how I acted. He was talking with some people – but he totally knew I was there – we had talked before the show – and then – I just had an implosion and I left without saying goodbye to him. I reverted to my weird behavior.

Then – even weirder – I got home – I walked home thru the drizzly night and I felt so confused at my behavior. I suddenly, also, got this very desolate feeling – and I realized how – without M right now – my romantic life would be at a standstill. He is it. If he goes and starts dating someone else – and I am not his girlfriend and I have never been his girlfriend – not really – then I’ll be stuck. However, I am his friend and I should have at least said goodbye or good show or something. That was just plain rude. And my behavior freaked me out. Why am I freaking out? M and I had really got into a nice groove (before the eve of the Gingerman) – but I hold back. He holds back.

It’s probably for the best.

But I felt all itchy and edgy on that walk home. I felt sudden panic, too, when I entertained the thought of M getting involved with someone else. I becamse super-conscious of how tenuous it all was – how nothing holds me and M together – nothing. I mean, I have always known that, but I was very uncomfortable about it, suddenly. My heart sank at the thought of losing M. Where would that leave me? He’s all I’ve got – and what we’ve got is so transient – it has no weight at all. [Speaking with the 20/20 of hindsight, it most certainly did have weight. Things are not always what they seem, my dear.]

Let me say one thing: this has been a very tough winter and spring for me. I have been lonely, sad, depressive – and M has helped me a lot. He has gotten me thru – just by his presence, his kisses, his company. He has helped me bear the sadness – these have been the darkest hardest months for me – and I de-focused all of that all over him. [Lucky him.]

But then – after all that – I left the show last night without saying goodbye. What is that about? So – weirdo that I am – I paged him when I got home and told him I loved his show, which I did, and that I was sorry I left without saying goodbye. He is a fearless giant onstage – he is one of the most exciting performers I have ever seen.

But look at me: I see his show, I don’t speak to him afterwards when he is right there in front of me, and then I page him from 3 blocks away. I am crazy right now. I am not behaving in a rational manner. It is all P’s fault. I have lost my balance completely.

I went to bed that night – quite uneasy. I got this weird feeling. This weird doomed span-of-time feeling, as in: Maybe this will be my life. Maybe this is it. This peripheral relationship will be all I am capable of. This is it.

And then who did I run into the next day at the audition? But Michael.

A guy who got under my skin, despite all my baggage from P. A guy I could care about, and did care about. This guy who showed me I could care about someone else right after P. The guy who held me down when he kissed me, making me take it, making me stay still, and be in the present moment with him. It was a very significant experience for me. I was all “oh my heart is dead” and Michael randomly showed up last fall and showed me my heart was not dead.

Bringing him coffee in the morning
Trivial Pursuit
Our first kiss – on the living room floor of the drug-addict gay guy they were staying with
Kissing under the waterfall
Breakfast all day long
Talk talk talk
Our fights on the sidewalk
Dancing with him – we loved to dance together
Standing on the porch at night, watching him walk off – the dark trees, leaf shadows, the quiet, the country sounds – assailed by the sweetness of life – my country boyfriend walking away
Falling into his eyeball
Driving around – Laurie driving, Pat up front, me and Michael in back, his head on my lap
The guttering candles at he and Pat’s damp dark place – the sound of the river below – the shadows of the leaves
laughing HYSTERICALLY
Joe Daily and my cobalt blue bra [I can’t even get into this … it’s too funny and too weird … the landlord, the angry letter Michael wrote, and my random cobalt blue bra sitting in the middle of the room at a crucial mortifying moment … too much to discuss … so funny though]
WINE TASTING MAGIC
The Haunt – that was an underage dance club – I danced on a platform at The Haunt
Oh and that was the night that Laurie cried – she cried at the Haunt. Michael called it “random crying”. He said, “I have no idea what’s going on with you, Laurie. This is just random crying, as far as I’m concerned.” Laurie called him a “goober” and a “wanker” because he did not validate her “random crying”.

So anyway – I ran into Michael that very next day at the audition – after my uneasy doom-filled night, all worried about my non-romance with M, and also how weird it was that after all this I didn’t feel comfortable talking to M after his show … and Michael and I had a date for that night to go see Suburbia. It was the perfect medicine. Serendipity. M. doesn’t have to be the only guy in my life.

But listen to this craziness – I walked home from the audition. It was about 5:30 pm. I was going to meet Michael back at the theatre at 8 or whatever.

The night before I was all anxious that M. had taken on a boyfriend role in my mind – and I didn’t like that, I didn’t like having to double-think how I interacted with him – so what did I do? I fled into the night, only to page him from my house three blocks away. I was freaked out at how he had become IT. I don’t want him to be IT.

But then … who did I run into the next day? Michael. Showing me that no, M. is not “it”.

It was like: all of these people in my life … it’s almost like I have created them. I have made them all up to serve certain personal purposes.

So I walked home on Southport. Still buzzing from the encounter with my young-buck hot ex-boyfriend Michael. I felt so good about it, and I felt good about my audition and how well it had gone. It had already been a great day and I was looking forward to going to see the show that night with Michael. Michael came out after his reading – I had waited for him. He came over to where I was sitting and said, “I have to hug you again” and he just burrowed himself into me – it was so sweet. He hugs me like he means it.

What I liked about my behavior that day (as opposed to the day before when I blew M off after his show) was how open I was to Michael. I was happy to see him and I let him know. I felt young and unjaded. I lit up at the sight of him. Openly. Trusting he wouldn’t get scared and reject me. All was okay.

I need to strip myself of my layers of protection. They isolate me. I no longer want protection.

Hurt me – love me — Life’s too short to miss out on any of it.

And of course – as I walked by the Starbucks by the L tracks – I ran into M.

The whole day I felt like this sorceress. Like I woke up and thought: “Hm. I feel like M is the only man in my life at this moment and I don’t like it. I wish I could run into someone who makes me realize that that is not true.” And then POOF! “Here’s Michael. Hm. I feel very badly about leaving last night without saying goodbye to M. I wish I could run into him so that I can make it up to him.” And then POOF. “Here’s M.”

I was approraching Starbucks on the east side of the street – and then I saw, rounding the NW corner of that intersection – a figure with familiar insane hair and a familiar technicolor coat. I didn’t even have time to process the coincidence. After all, I basically knew I was going to run into him. Didn’t I? It didn’t surprise me at all.

I called out his name. The figure stopped and looked in my direction. He’s so scruffy. He’s a mole. He didn’t see me – I saw him look around – then give up and turn to go to his apartment. So I called out his name again, and this time waved and started towards him. He saw me. Cute smile. He’s so cute and awkward. He stood there, gangly, untethered, waiting as I crossed the 2 streets to get to him. At one point, I felt goofy so I did a slow-mo run – and I could hear him start laughing.

He had gone out to order lunch. He had a jar of pink lemonade in one hand. He had clearly just woken up and was getting ready to go to work. We stood there and talked for about 5 minutes. I can’t even really remember what we talked about. His show, I told him how good I think he is, I told him about my audition, he told me about his show, and that was it. He went his way, I went mine … but that weird edgy feeling that had been palpitating around my heart from the night before was gone. I had made my peace with him. It was important to me. He means a lot to me. It’s not his fault I’m leaving soon and having a nervous breakdown about it.

Michael and I had a great time that night at the show – there was a distinctly date-like aura over the evening, but we’ve been through so much together somehow that we are comfortable with all of that. It was great to be with him. Fun. We were giggling like teenagers. He was also ALL OVER ME at ALL TIMES. I like him because he’s unafraid, and totally masculine. He’s meaty and physical. I am not. I want to be – but whatever, instead I ignore M. and flee into the night, instead of doing what I want to do which is pull him into a corner and hump his thigh. I’m so careful with myself physically – especially if I feel like I could ever be hurt by that person. But there was Michael, playing with my hair, untying my shoes, putting his arm around me – fun, playful, annoying me – not being careful with me. Not being careful with me. I appreciate that.

We were sitting in the theatre and he took my arm in his hands and peered closely at my fingers. “How’re the warts?” [bwahahahahaha. This makes me laugh!! When he met me – I had this freakin’ awful outbreak on my poor fingers. So attractive, right? But still: my warts took over my life during our entire relationship, which occurred directly in the aftermath of the P breakup. I am convinced that it was because of the stress of the P situation – everything in my body went haywire. I stopped sleeping, eating, I dropped to a size 2 for the first time in, like, ever, my skin changed, and I had warts on my fingers. So there are pictures of Michael and me, in Ithaca, doing whatever – playing cards, reading, and you can see the band-aids on my fingers. Romantic! But it was funny because it had been months – but there was Michael, picking up my hand to peer closely at it.]

Michael’s all in my space. I like it. We flirted like maniacs – but because we’ve already basically had a relationship – there’s a different feel to it. It feels safe. The currents run deeper.

As we walked to his car (he has a car!) – he kept hugging me and wrestling with me and whirling me around – I joked at one point, “Hey. Learn boundaries.” That kind of pseudo-therapy talk always made Michael laugh so hard. He said, “Fuck you. I can’t have boundaries with you.” While he’s pulling my hair, and grabbing me by my belt buckle, pulling me to him.

We had a ball during the show. We had issues with the production – and with the script – we both felt like we had done great in our auditions, so we had fun, in that bitchy actor way – whispering criticisms to each other. We talked at intermission, getting into it – and of course, all we were doing was telling the other one that they were MUCH better than the actual actor playing it on stage.

Oh, and he laughed openly at my plastic barrettes and called me a “kinder whore”.

I feel pretty when I’m with him. Weird. I had that feeling with P, too. P made me feel like I was the inventor of beauty and mystery and sex. Like I was Cleopatra. It’s not quite that intense with Michael – but when he looks at me – I just feel the appreciative imprint of his eyes. I feel seen. I wonder if I make him feel the same way. Or is all of this talk, as M says, “a girl thing”?

Oh, and Michael calls me “dude” – the whole “dude” thing was an Ithaca phenomenon – and we all caught it. We all referred to each other as “dude”. All of us. We said “Thanks, dude” to the cashier at Ben and Jerry’s. Men, women, didn’t matter – all were “dude”. So he called me “dude” on the way back to the car – and I said, “Dude! God! I forgot about that!”

Out of the blue – in the lobby of the theatre – Michael said very hostilely, very confrontational, “So … have you seen that 60 year old guy you were in love with?”

Every time Michael references P – he makes him older. So P. is 60 now! I couldn’t help but laugh – at the surly attitude, too.

I didn’t ask him about his ex-girlfriend – although I wanted to. See? There’s the main difference between me and him. I don’t ask something if I might not like the answer. He asks.

I want to be more like him. He’s not passive-aggressive either. He’s out there. Revealed.

But that, so far, was that. It’s okay, though. I don’t want another peripheral guy. I want a boyfriend.

P and I recently talked a little bit – he’s reading Mating now – on my recommendation – and I think that maybe that book plus my letter are the sources of the new look in his eyes recently. A deeper understanding. A kindness. A patience with me. An ability to deal. He doesn’t try to jostle me into the way it used to be. We cannot go back.

I have this vision of myself coming back here. 5 years from now. 10 years from now. Whevener. And I can see myself going to see his show – sitting in the back – not letting him know that I’m out there – and I have this feeling – I just KNOW (it’s more than just a feeling) that, whatever else may change, our connection won’t.

Quantum mechanics at work. 2 alternate separate yet very similar lives travelling along at the same moment. The Double Life of Veronique. We wil not see each other for years. And I can see me – 5 years from now – being really into a certain band, a new book – or, less obvious – I’ll be experiencing a sudden random surge of interest in – oh, I don’t know – Brigadoon – It doesn’t even really matter what it is – and I know that the following will happen: I will be in a big Shenandoah phase, a big Seven Brides for Seven Brothers phase – and I’ll sneak to the back of the club to see him play – and during the show P will reference Shenandoah, or Brigadoon, or he’ll do a medley from 7 Brides – Whatever. I know that this will happen. [And it did. Again and again and again. Still does.]

Even when we are separated by miles and years – the connection will remain.

Love never dies.

Not really. It’s like matter. It cannot be destroyed.

A connection like that – when it happens – can’t be erased. You can pretend it is erased – but that would be all it was: Pretense.

We will go on, totally separate, more and more separate every day, but that silver cable will remain.

Nothing gold can stay. Right?

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7 Responses to Diary Friday: “Hello you monkeys and lovers and lovebirds and shriners.”

  1. K says:

    Oh what a wonderful story. I know what it’s like wondering if you’ll ever have a magic time in your life again like that. Is there an entry that tells what happened between you and P?

  2. red says:

    K – thanks for the words and thanks for reading! Very intense time – such a new beginning for me but I couldn’t seem to get happy about it yet!

    The P story has not been told on my site. I’ve written quite a bit about Michael and “M” on my site – but not P.

  3. Catherine says:

    Do you think keeping such an intense detailed journal helped you at all? I mean, when you were going through all that.

  4. red says:

    Catherine – in entries like this, I can say that yes, it most definitely did help. By writing out the whole story, I helped myself figure out what was actually going on … and I talked myself out of staying safe and narrow … I am actually imagining myself into the unknown future here … that’s what amazes me because I just don’t write like that in a journal anymore.

    I write incredibly quickly and also this was probably written over the course of a whole week – my journal was never a “today I made a tuna fish sandwich” kind of thing … it’s always long-ass stories like this one, that I spread out in the telling.

    Its fascinating to me … I guess I miss it … but my writing impulse just goes in different ways now.

    Do you keep a journal, Catherine??

  5. tracey says:

    Sheila — I love this Diary Friday entry. For many reasons.

  6. Catherine says:

    Yeah, I do. Have so since I was 16 or so. Actually, I kept a journal during my first year of secondary school when I was super miserable, but I destroyed it soon after. Wish I hadn’t. I began again, in earnest, during Transition Year. I’m not totally regular, but when I get the urge to write, boy do I write.

    It’s very comforting to me to know that this kind of thing helped you! My diary is kind of like that as well. I’m really interested in diaries and journals and how they can help people work through problems and stuff. I think that’s actually how I found your site in the first place, I was Googling sites to do with journalling. And, um, a lot of them are total bullshit and laughable and I was rethinking my whole “diaries are amazing” idea, so it was a relief and a joy to find all your old Diary Friday entries. :)

    When did you stop keeping a journal? Sorry to pry. Like I said, this whole thing just really interests me.

  7. red says:

    Catherine – fascinating! Of course I pick diary entries that I think are somewhat literate and interesting (or humorous and ridiculous like the high school ones) – but there is much there that is either boring, or too embarrassing to share … The best thing about a diary is that it’s a private space where you can just revel in your own subconscious. I do find it helps. And I am so so glad i have them all now. They help so much with things like memory – and also when I go to write something new … I call on these journals all the time.

    It’s also great because friends come to me asking me to cross-reference their own lives because they know that I wrote it all down!!

    I stopped keeping a journal in 2005, which was a real annus horribilis for me and much that went on that year was beyond speech.

    I had been moving away from journaling for a couple of years before that … I think I got sick of my own company.

    I have a feeling that if I fall in love again, I will want to write about it in a journal. That’s the only thing I imagine will make me start again. Because in a journal you can totally be free.

    Lots of people use their blogs as online journals and I never have – I preferred to write about TOPICS that interested me – founding fathers, Cary Grant, etc. I like to weave in my own response to these things, my own history – but I have never had a blog where I come to it every day and tell the world what I’ve done in the last 24 hours. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – I love many of those blogs if the writer is good … but that is way too revealing for me. I can’t have strangers weighing in on something I am going through right at that moment. It’s too tender, too raw – and as I have learned, many people do not know how to be kind to others who are in process.

    But yeah. If I fall in love again? I know I’ll want to write about it. And I would never write about it here on the blog – it would have to be in a journal!!

    I love journals too – I love to read the journals of writers that I already love – people like Tennessee Williams, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, LM Montgomery – I love them!

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