Visceral

My favorite word: visceral 

Old women are beautiful. I’m in the emergency department today. Ironically, not an emergency. I’m one of those bane on the system types, but my gp told me to come in so here I sit. The seats are blue and grey. It feels like they always are but I can’t remember the amount of times I’ve been in one of these. An old lady is telling her loved one that her friend fell, she says not to worry. She glances at her friend and says: it was quite a way to make a statement. She laughs, not strained, but free. Not callous, just gentle in the only joy that can be found when acceptance is well and truly past. They gossip after the phone call is done. Talking about daughters and mother hens. There’s a beauty in that I think. I’ve watched people assume that the elderly are resigned. Like it’s sad. But I watch her laugh and natter and I don’t see it anywhere. I love aging. I feel more solid every year. Not compacted to the point of unchanging, or drowning an inner child, just a step closer to something

The panicked face of a mother, the impatience of another. The emergency department is both great people watching and a place where I want to glance away and offer privacy. Yet I document so what does that say. It’s another grief day today. I wrote this poem once. It’s wanky and long and I don’t say that to minimise my heart, I say it because it’s true. There’s a line in it I like though: 

To once be lost is to be a found thing. 

I lost myself again recently. It’s the same pattern, and in all honesty the degree was minimal. It’s that aging thing. But it was there, and the consequence was something that broke my heart. Not because it didn’t work out, but because in my panic I asked for something that to me was a deep self betrayal. Not to be dramatic about it, but probably my worst actually 

The situation wasn’t ideal— I’d been in this situation for months and I hate that word. It feels small for what it was. But also bigger. I don’t know. I wanted it to work. But I’d talk to him sometimes and those moments would come, a feeling you’re failing a test you didn’t even know you were taking

I’ve had the same words in my head for so long, you can be done. There’s an ickiness in saying no to a child for the first time. That’s the adults cross to bare, and if you’re doing it right, you keep making that choice when you think it’s right. I’ve been trying. I tried before him, and it felt so safe. So full of grief but also joy. You can be done

I don’t like sex. I don’t like the risks of it. I don’t like the thoughts I have and the wanting and the fear. I’ve used it to replace a hug more often than I’d like. There’s this dream I have, that somewhere will be safe and I’ll get to embrace it and explore and want without all the dirt and muck attached. And in equality I’ll be wanted. My ex made me feel safe for a bit. Until I realized it wasn’t even my body in his head. It wasn’t my hands, or my heart or my humanity. Then it was my fault. I said too much and asked for too much and I made him feel bad and I took that and held that for him so he didn’t have to look at himself too closely. I thought that was kind but that’s a type of indulgence too. And I weigh all these things up and the scales always tip in their favour. Like I’m not precious too. I tried explaining my choice to be kind to my situation. I didn’t get the words right. I said I had to because statistically I should be shit, but that denies my agency. I want to. In the face of everything, I’m not that naive, I know sometimes people are just crap, myself included, but I want to try to make that choice everyday. Even if it’s not returned. That is beauty too. Or shame, because sometimes I’m so far down a road of its better to be kind, that ugly bits drip out as along the way I crossed too much of me. I guess it’s all balance 

It’s okay this most recent situation turned out to be the same and it’s also not. I wish he’d told me directly when the questions started feeling like tests. Ambiguity can almost feel like your fault, you know. It’s the shame of it all. I know I asked for clarity, I also cut off the silence. I’m angry he protected himself over me. He said he’s selfish and it’s something I admire, but also sometimes I forget I can be kind and still say fuck you. We were good. It was good and lovely and I was excited for our friendship. Stay broke things. I want lovely and silly and not stay. There’s an aurora on the emergency department television. It says 9:26. It’s not 9:26

I wish my mother told me I was like the air or the sea. I wish she’d bestowed something that beautiful and innate to my world or a constant in my heart. I wish it was still acceptable to blame your parents at 26. But it’s not a habit I’ve indulged in for long and it’s pointless in a way, I prefer to cradle them or cradle me. I feel like the old ladies when I’m settled. Accepting. And I hate that that’s viewed as weakness, when it’s simply all one can be when there’s nothing to control. And this most recent venture of asking for what I want just made me feel like I was denying the agency of someone I love. He’d chosen someone else. I had no business being there. He had no business being there. I hate the way he hides in the things unsaid. I hate that I had sex with him after cornering that conversation. I hate that he didn’t hold me like he used to, and the things he’d found endearing prior had become annoying and I could feel it, and instead of accepting it, I argued. Like you can argue with a heart. Like that’s fair to do. I hate that so much was left unsaid for so long. Being unkind doesn’t change my reality, unless it’s being unkind to me. There’s a life lesson then

But good lord I hope he stays my friend. Because I’d like that. I tried to explain to my other friend why— and they were the best person to talk to really. I’d said: because people are good and bad, and I will learn and I will grow but damn it’s hard to do it alone. And he’s got so many good bits to give, and when we’re not having confusing sex, in a way those good bits are mine too. There’s no valliance in doing it all alone. It’s just harder and it takes more time. It’s okay to do it with other people. That’s why I choose the friends I do, and each and every one, they are choices from the bottom of my heart

I slept with a man while I was seeing this situation, in the early days. I didn’t want to— but it felt like I was trying to prove something. To him or to me, I’m not sure. I thought I could be a part of this somehow. The same and unaffected. It made me feel worse. Like I was breaking something. The man had said at the end: you’re lucky I still want you despite your lack of family and inheritance. For the first time in a long time I was angry. Because while I could understand it, it’s something I could never control. I told my situation once I don’t know how people do this, this casual thing. But I’ll get used to it. He’d said: you don’t have to. I think of that a lot 

The hope of a home that I don’t have to build alone is my Murakami’s well and I often see sex as the buy in. People roll their eyes usually when I make statements like this. But I get to be done now. I need to be done. The home is me

I think I’m pregnant. That could be literal. But also, it’s been a week, I ovulate late but my period is only a day late. It happens. It’s normal. I’m probably not. But the joke was there so I had to

I don’t know why I’m minimizing this. I can’t tell him, he’s not the sort you can ask for support from unless it’s offered prior. And that’s not I wouldn’t, that’s, if it’s not real there’s not much point. He was going to seek out and find this shit, but he won’t because he’s never looked at me that closely really. And I have to tell someone. So I’m going to pretend I can right here. Hello. I might be pregnant. I’m scared. I’m morally disgusted with myself, not because baby. But because sex had in the context it was had and I can’t stop vommiting and I’m wobbly when I walk. Hence my doctor deciding the emergency department is where I should be. I just want normal. It’s okay to get things out, I think my body is trying to wash away the pain. I wonder if it’ll wash away a baby too 

I left. Before the doctors saw me. I’d changed my emergency contact to someone six hours away. I think if there is a baby, they deserve more than that

The old lady who’d fallen has the same name as my Grandmother. It made me smile. I miss you. I’d always planned to write this book of all the advice you gave me and now it’s been too long and I can’t remember. That’s the thing with plans, there’s usually something more to the doing. I hope my next plan is a little less desperate and a little more kind. I hope my friends stay the same and I don’t just fade into someone to navigate rather than a human with a place in peoples lives. I hope life gets warmer, and if it doesn’t I’ll make it so. If I am my home then I’m a hearth too 

Wanting though. That’s the one I can’t fully figure out. A want feels like an impeachment

I want to shoot arrows. I want that feeling of being connected to something that leaves my hands 

I want to ride horses again. I miss the power of my legs and feeling the power of theirs 

Wild Geese. Mary Oliver