The exchange

You message me. 

"Is it ok if I pick him up at 12:30?" 

You come on your motorbike and leave your hemet on. I can say no more than hello. I have no pleasantries to give you. My news no longer has any purpose in your pressence. 

I have a mild form of distaste that lingers like bad breath on my tongue. I can only feel yesturdays jelousy and anger. It rains and I stand there getting wet as your motorbike runs. I say nothing and barely look your way. Everything is grey.

If I love you it is only in concept. I hate you for choosing her even if I am the one who let you go. I want you to keep wanting me. You don't. No one does. 

We trade this human that we love. We share this love in seperate rooms in seperate houses. You snuggling him and then I in turn. Never at the same time never again in the same bed like before. Never all wrapped up together with a movie and popcorn all the love that he has under one roof. 

He is the only proof of love we have left. Even last month there was shouting at least and the ocassional hug. But now there is no more trying. 

You get him and then I. We swap. Tomorrow you will bring him back to me. You will stand there in the rain with the engine running and let him come to me. He will kiss me and I will only nod in your direction befor you drive off. The proof of love being traded in the rain with the motor running. 

My father used to pick me up at the A&w rootbeer shop. My mom would get out of the car and shake his hand. I would go to him and she would drive off as he bought me a root beer float and curly fries. Root beer wiith icecream tastes like divorce. 

You said you didn't want a root beer float divorce. That you wanted us to keep something of us. We can't. 

Just leave the motor running. Leave your helmet on. Give me back the only proof of love that we share and go about your life. Bitterness is the only thing left. The rain can't wash it away. 

the end and mashed potatoes

Today is thanksgiving. It is hard to tell. it is tropical and warm and no one is discussing stuffing. Today I am going to spend thanksgiving with my broken family. Pretend for one day like we are not broken. Like we still exist. Eat mashed potatoes. A chicken instead of a turkey, the real thing is far from possible.

I didn't really know it was over till now. The end of something sounds clear and precise but in fact is a nebulous blur of possibility. Only now do I feel like it is over. The day I asked him to move out I didn't even believe it myself. When I left for Paris and he stayed in my house with our son possibility still existed. When he started seeing her and we spent that sad week floating down the river in Borneo looking at proboscis monkeys it felt over but in fact there would be months of what if's, more tears, a lot of anger.  More pulling than if we had been using a proper rope. 

The back and forth. The I want you, I miss you, go jump off a cliff is constant untill its not.

Now it is clear, real, I know it as well as I know how to make the stuffing. I know we are done. I feel nothing anymore. the sadness is gone and even the anger seems to be drying up like a creekbed in the summer. Mashed potatoes, gravy and divorce. 

He told our son about his new girlfriend and plans to introduce them this weekend were only halted by a stick to the eye, the obvious outcome of sordfighting at eleven. 

I no longer rile in a ball on the floor. I no longer spew tears like leaky faucets. I am hollow and empty like the balinese fire truck which recently showed up to a five alarm blaze totally empty of all liquid. Ironic or just tragic, I am not sure which. 

He seems like a stranger to me, someone I don't quite recognize. His choices that of a foreigner. I look at her and understand nothing. His friend on facebook inviting him to an evening of rainbow shots. His smoking. He has been released to the world. I am no longer there forming him. He is what he chooses to let other people make of him. Rainbow shots. 

I let him keep the leftovers. I had no desire to eat mashed potatoes and stuffing the next day. It was over we are done. Polite conversation and our son is all we exchange. No Turkey. All the searching doesn't produce on on an Island with no Turkeys. Just another day. 

Practice

I drove to salsa feeling light. I felt like the world around me was mine again, not a strange empty place. I felt like I needed no one and plenty would want me if they only knew me. I felt glad, secure and confident. I felt like everything was possible and I needed no one in particular. My only focus simple gratitude for having remembered to drive my motor bike in flip flops instead of salsa heals, making stopping more reasonable. No complications. The night was hot and sweaty. I was happy. I was alone.

I sat on the big backed sofa changing into my salsa heels. Before the band started I ordered my first glass of red wine in awhile. I enjoyed the sips. Each one careful and delicious. I was alone. I was ok. Really ok.

In indonesian there is a word people use to describe not good when asked how you are doing in polite conversation. Lumian. It means just more than enough. For a long time when people asked me how I was this is all I could get out. Lumian, just slightly more enough, just barely alive, just slightly more than ready to jump in front of traffic. I was so much more than that this evening. A lot more than enough. 

Everything requires practice. I believe this as gospel. In order to become excellent or even just ok at something you have to embrace being terrible at it. Keep doing it. Let go. Be terrible. Love being terrible. 

My salsa dancing has progressed from terrible to mediocre to borderline passable. I practice a lot. I look dumb. I step on people 's feet, miss the beat and generally suck. It is less than sexy. I keep trying. 

Being alone or at least not partnered in the world and managing happiness is the same. I am practicing, getting better. I am starting to feel ok, like I can walk thru the world with no one holding my hand. Like I can do it and feel good even. 

I danced all night with different people including a very nice older gentleman who was incredibly generous with dance instruction despite my begining salsa. I had long moments when the dance was fluent. I had other moments when I totally lost the steps or missed a lead and didn't turn when I should have.

I am sure being alone will be the same again. I will faulter, slip up, get scared, feel lonely again. Loose my moments of happiness. 

I woke up this morning under my blue mosquito net, startled to be alone in bed. No child, no partner, no lover. After my eyes focused enough to remember where I was, I regained my emotional footing. The bed is empty and I am still startlingly ok. I am really astonishingly ok. I am no longer looking back with regret. I have let go. He can go on his way, I will go on mine. I am good. I am alone. I am happy. 

She is his girlfriend. You are my friend.

You are my friend. 

You coached me befor I met her. Before I faced the woman over a cappucino who now casually refers to herself as his girlfriend. You sweetly talked me thru it, you told me to hug her, to be nice. You looked at me as you said this with your large sweet brown eyes measuring me, willing me forward. Your wild curly hair defying your seriousness and ensuring that despite the topic at hand you still appeared playful. 

I now find you irresistible, like ice cream. Is this the oxytocin? I try not to appear overzealous as I wait for you to let me into your cracks, like sunlight thru leaves.  

Will you touch my leg as we ride the motorbike? Will you grab my hand as we are walking. When we lay in bed naked for hours as you ply me with music will you reach for me from across the otherside of the bed, grab me and pull you towards you? Maybe sometimes, for a moment. I am mostly left wanting. 

You are my friend.

She told me her life story, sprinkling in details that compelled me to envision this new reality of her and him. The story of her hair being left in his hair brush that she thoughtfully removed to spare its view from my son. Her vision of meeting his parents as the new woman in his life. She doesn't yet realise that she will be eating his mothers chicken divan and complimenting its blandness. I would always be his family she said, as she smoked another cigarette. 

She is just his girlfriend. You are just my friend. 

You called me after I met her and genuinly wanted to know how I was. We got on a motorbike and I rode with you to the dentist. We spent the night withought sex, just naked snuggles, music and conversation.

You are my friend.

The next day over a final cappucino befor you left for two weeks home to Australia you asked me how I felt. Two days earlier we shed real tears at the thought. What would we be missing if we stopped having sex, if we kept our friendship and left the rest behind? We took the question and turned it over and over in our hands. Applying all the logic and reason that you and I could throw at these otherwise fragile human emotions. 

In the end you don't like me quite enough, your want is outweighed by logistical hurdles or subtle inadequacies.

I of course have the same, but some how this doesn't stop me from wanting you.  At least today and tomorrow and the next I really want you. 

You hugged me and I walked away. It hurt. My heart. Enough that I could feel it. 

You are my friend. 

Someone else's laundry

I am wearing a shirt that is not mine. The laundry gave it to me by mistake. I can't give it back to the rightful owner so I am wearing it. 

Not long ago it was worn by someone else. A woman. I maybe even have passed her on the street or stood behind her in line at the supermarket. 

I should be bothered by this proximity with a stranger. The wearing of a strangers clothes just washed. I am not. 

You spent the week with her in another city, sharing a bed, sharing space. You will see me tomorrow possibly. I will hug you, share your space. You may tell me you love me as you did before you left. 

I spent the weekend pondering if you ever wanted me back, would I be able to share you like a shirt worn by someone else, just laundered. Would my phyche be able to ever get past this? This use, this wearing, this closeness. 

Once in the evening you came wearing her sweatshirt. I asked where you had gotten it. It was hers. I cried. Her things on you. It hurt so much. 

You just texted that you are back but didn't invite me for coffee as you said you would, only that you will pick our son up from school. I want to die. I understand why people feel this, that they can't bear the pain and they want to jump off of bridges. I did this damage. I pushed the first domino. I pushed us down this hill. Now I am a divorced mother. We never even were married. 

I went on two second dates today. The spanish guy who owns a vespa shop in Barcelona and the Australian journalist. I like both of them for company. For an hour. For a meal. This is supposed to help, this company. 

It really only reminds me of my loss. 

How do I replace this lifetime shared. I have to trade you in for someone else's shirt? For someone else's laundry? 

Conflicted clusterfuck

A friend described my life at the moment in this way. A conflicted clusterfuck. I can't move forward. There is no backwards. It is a traffic jam, a constipated baby, a dry river bed waiting for rain. There is no movement. None. 

Some one just told me a story about the traffic In Jakarta, the capital city in this country I call home. Sometimes the traffic jams are so bad that they last all night. Women are in the streets crying because they can't return home to thier children. They are just stuck in the street surrounded by cars that can't move. Each can't move because the other is there. I didn't ask but am left wondering, how is this resolved? What happens in the morning? I believe that the cars must eventually move. Slowly inch by inch, and then eventually picking up speed untill everything is freely flowing. 

My life is this right now. Nothing moving and no possibility of escape. At somepoint something has to shift. The morning has to come. 

He is getting on a plane with her today. A visa run to kuala lumpur. He shared coffee and tried to fix my computer befor he left. The strength it takes to accept and even love in the face of this is extreme. He hugged me and told me he loved me as we do. Then he drove away. He is not mine. I have to be strong and let him go. He is becoming something, I have to give him the space to become. 

I have given up on online dating. I deactivated my account. Focusing on my relationship status is the wrong thing. This is too insane. 

I will keep dancing and searching out the things in life that are me. I will try to beat back the aloness with a stick. The morning will come, things will start to move again one day soon. I have faith in this. 

Ours, yours and mine

I made fried rice out of the leftovers in the fridge, added an egg. This is yours, I forgot it was. You reminded me that this is what you used to do last time I saw you. 

I painted your walls butter yellow befor you met her. You still wanted me then. Now these walls are yours. These yellow walls. Other people compliment you on them. You say thank you. No credit given, no credit required. She doesn't even know they are mine. That me and your son picked the color with love and painted them for you, using our own two hands while you were away. 

Remember that city in mexico when our son was a baby? Remember all those yellow buildings? We were there. Can't we return to that moment?

You cook our food for her. It was mine first but over the years it became ours. First when I was pregnant and couldn't stand the sight of raw food. Me lying on that old garage sale couch nautious and directing you in the kitchen. You slowly becoming a cook.  

You have pickles on your shelf that you made. They are my pickles. My recipe. Can I take them back from you? I cannot. 

We have these things that are ours. This is how it is. Now you are sharing them with her.

Is that you outlined in a shadow in her Facebook profile picture holding those pickles next to you and her? She doesn't know they are mine does she? 

Then of course there is our son. He is the perfect equal combination of you and me. Yours and mine. Your face, love for books, astronomy and a dry wit. 

My snuggliness and sense of adventure. 

These things are so intertwined, so jumbled. After this many years, we can no longer pull apart these pieces. I am always a part of you and you are always a part of me. I just have to accept that you are now sharing those parts with her. I have to accept this without feeling like a jealous toddler who is unwilling to share my toys. I have to release you. Release all that was shared. Give you away. Give it all away, to you, to her. 

Date #2 and #3

Date number two was an Australian. Wild curly hair and tall but with a stylish conservative button down shirt. He was the first intellectually oriented person I have met in this small town. We had a lovely debate about capitalism and micro economies that was stimulating. This should have been enough all by itself. After a drought of lonliness one would imagine my brain would have jumped at this dance. It was a good start to feed my hope that someone could be possible but not enough to satisfy me beyond dinner. 

It is strange what you sort for in a friend, a lover or a partner. The right combination of things. I kept looking at this man across the table thinking he is smart, a journalist, he is a bit alternative, we are having a nice intelectual debate. What is missing?

Ironically after my first date with the man I spent my whole life with I wasn't sure. He was just nice. At 20 this was enough, to be just nice, or maybe it wasn't. All these years I was unsure if just nice was enough. Now I think that maybe all relationships are grown. Watered and fed untill shared experience makes them real. Maybe there is always a blank slate from the start. Maybe there is nothing else. 

Date number 3 was different. He was brazilian and alternates between working on oil riggs and surfing. I could have been on a date with Vinnie from the bronx, if I could just ignore the portugese accent. He asked me if I ever wore high heels. He liked really high ones especially.

 "I live in Bali," I replied. Heels? I have not even seen them in years. 

I made it thru my coffee, just barely. He was tan and muscular and I had always liked latinos. I could no longer be in his company, not for a single moment more. How is it that this only makes me feel more alone? 

Is funny and charming with some intellegence, a sense of adventure and fiscal independence too much to hope for in one person? I want my old very flawed life back. It was mine. 

The father of my child, my partner in all things life sat and waited in the school parking for a parent teacher meeting. We had driven on a motorbike together for one hour without talking, thru balinese ceremonies, traffic. Him fuming and smoldering over the fresh knowledge that I had a date, that in fact I was dating. This my only recourse from running into him and his girlfriend while buying bananas. It still felt like a betrayal somehow. 

"Let's just drive to the airport and get on a plane and never come back to this godforsaken Island that ruined our life" he said in a tone that lacked conviction. I imidiatly thought of real life. "We have property to sell first" I said. That was the wrong answer. I am still my practical non romantic self he declared. 

I don't believe its what he wants. I am not sure it is what I want. Not sure the genie can be put back, that the pieces can be glued back together. Would I respect him anymore now than I did then? Would I be able to get over his physical intamacy with another woman? Probably not. How can I be sure?

He is caught enjoying his new life and still missing his old one and feeling guilty about the dichotomy. I am stuck alone with no way forward. I am stuck trying to get thru 15 minutes of coffee and hoping that the next one will make me want to at least stay for dinner. What would someone have to be like to make this true?