Everything After

*I have no interest in publishing this post, but there you have the story of my blog life. 

I'm back home, wandering the rooms, frantically pounding out work that didn't happen when it was supposed to because so many other things were, not really sure of my space yet, pressing my thumbs against my arms for some sense of solidity. There is dust everywhere, half-dead pots of herbs, anthems on the tv and a newly strange sliding-glass-sized view. 

I feel weird, ungainly in a different way than I usually do in August. I promised myself last year at this time I would have a refuge slated. I dreamed a place -- anywhere in Europe, mostly, or maybe just a beach anywhere, because I am predictable -- to ease into where I could breathe out the exhaust of intense ideas and social interactions, of the competing pressures of moving and traveling and presenting and being, of speaking and hearing millions (what had to be, right?) millions of words, alphabets of them crashing into each other and melting in the New York heat.

I didn't end up doing that for myself, of course.  It was an extra, unhappenable thing, that ended up seeming untenable for lack of dollars and sense. So I'm trying to make that happen here, which would work better if I could drum up the energy for groceries beyond coffee rations and soccer game Prosecco.

It's not so bad, as it always isn't, unless it really is. It's quiet but a little too much, the familiarity not exactly what I wanted, but it will have to do, because the urge to work to go anywhere in this moment is absent.

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I want to be better this year. I am dissatisfied with myself, my thought processes, the way I dwell on wrongs. I'm not proud of so many things I'm thinking and feeling, of my dissatisfactions and my petty irritations. I am good things amid the wreck, but it's the wreck I mostly see. Mirrors are hard things.

I don't know what will happen now. I'm scared of it, to tell the truth. There is this next expanse of time to fill that I don't understand quite yet. I feel like I'd been looking at life since May as a pre- and post-BlogHer proposition, and now that the post- is here I'm out of mulligans (That is a golf term. I'm pretending to know something about golf now. See? I'm a damn dirty liar.)

I'm afraid of not doing whatever it is that I'm capable of doing, basically. I'm afraid of not fulfilling a prophecy that I can't possibly know, but feel like I should.

I'm afraid of being alone, of lack of love, and a little bit, of myself. That I'll never get it. That I'll dwell too much in possibility and miss the exit. 

I worry that I'll always be one step behind, that what I leave won't mean anything, that the things I've broken down will be the story. I'm sick of myself, of my indecision, of any kind of unhappiness, of grieving what I've lost and, worse, what I just can't have. I'm sick of working on boundaries and letting go. I'm sick of working on anything. I'm mad at myself for the things I can't stop being sad about, for resenting the relatively small things I have to endure, for not being more graceful in disappointment and want, for my inability to recover from pain more quickly, for my tendency to dwell, for being the worst. person. IN THE WORLD, right? 

I hate that I'm embarrassed to write this down, that I know I'll be embarrassed to send it out into the world, navel-gazing, self-loathing bullshit. Emotional dreck, whatever. 

I know I can be better, is the thing. I know that all I can do is take responsibility for the things I've done that aren't so good, and move on, to dare to hope, I guess, for a little slant of sun. 

I wish it would hurry up, though -- the better-getting -- because I am tired of this particular stretch of verge-of-midlife-suburban-wanderer highway. I aso know that I can sit down on my living room rug and turn up my hands and invite it, too, that I'm probably missing it in the fray. I know that I can forgive myself for the things I smack myself around for, that I can say for sure that even my most ridiculous actions are generally rooted in some hazy good intention, that I am not really all that bad. 

Maybe I feel like if I dump this out old-style  the poison of my thought processes that are wrecking up my plans will seep out of me. I told the people who so kindly and remarkably (honestly, I could not believe it. I was terrified to see it, as much as I was pleased and gratified) filled a room the other day to listen to Neil and Schmutzie and me that I am never as happy as a writer or an online person or a person of any kind as when I come back to this empty white blog box and type stuff into it, so maybe this is just some sick way of proving that true, that there's a comfort and satisfaction in it even when I can't see the screen for dumbass tears. 

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I need something better, you guys. It's been a long time coming dancing in front of me. I don't mind working but I feel like I've been grasping, and no good comes of that after a time. I think I know that I have to do some radical, physical, movement to get to what it is, the yard and the sun and the dog and the face I can kind of see but not quite, that I want to acknowledge as my truth, somewhere I can land to do what I know I want to do. I can't sit here anymore, not in this zip code or this head space, and expect to have the generalized sense of being on the right path that all of this 2012 drama has been about. 

I know this, and I know it has to start now. I knew it when I was walking those crazy halls in New York and I knew it when I hugged my friends with a peculiar sense of desperation. I really knew it when I bought myself an extravagant lunch and then took two cabs and finally ran for a train only to come back to sit in this spot again. I know it when I look for what I'll never find on the internet and yet can't seem to see here either, when I refuse phone calls and shut people down, when I do whatever it is I do to knit together a routine. 

I know it. I don't really want to, because for some reason it is a hard last hurdle to jump, but I do. 

This time I really do. 

*Photo by Leslie Fandrich, who is a very sweet soul, among other very good things. Text by Robin Plemmons, who is Robin Plemmons, master of train horns and human hearts. 

PS: One more thing! Tonight, Alexis Hinde posted a lovely video in answer to a dream Schmutzie had last night about Bret Michaels, who is one of my favorite last vestiges of the hair metal culture of my teenaged years, and who -- I am not kidding you -- I admire for his staying power. Say what you will, but dude is a master of reinvention, and also a mogul.

Every Rose Has Its Thorn is one of my favorite songs of all time, and for reasons only she can know, Alexis offered to sing it. She did a beautiful job, and it made me feel much better about life, the universe, and everything before I called it a day. We're not sure if it's cool to post it here, but just knowing it's out there makes me feel better.

It's the little things, the little things that are big things, that keep us going.  Thank you, Alexis, and Schmutzie for everything else, pretty much. 

Comments

[Alexis]

I offered to sing it at first as a joke, and then as an almost dare to myself. And I thought it might make some people smile, so I thought, "What the hell? Why not?!"

I spend a lot of time worrying about looking ridiculous or not cool enough,and as a result end up acting aloof more often than not, which serves no one.

I'm making a concerted effort to risk looking ridiculous more often. This ended up being a part of that - trying to shut down the "Oh no! People might think you suck/are stupid/are lame/are [insert dismissive adjective here]!" voices that rule my head all too often.

I almost didn't post it. Glad I did; glad you liked it.

[Schmutzie]

That Plemmons is secretly a sage.

[tracy @mamacreates]

Amen, sister.

{hugs}

[Mom101]

You are amazing Laurie. This post, your words, your bravery at publishing. And ps, your name keeps popping up all over my comments today in all sorts of posts.

So don't for a minute think that you're not reaching a lot of people in very profound ways right now. Wherever you go next.

[Vikki]

You'll get there. I feel it in my bones. Either that or I have arthritis.

Sending good thoughts to you from Minnesota.

[asplenia]

I just wanted to say that I could feel the ache in your post and it comforted the ache in my own bones. Thank you for being vulnerable and real and giving permission to the rest of us to be so too.

[Robin Plemmons]

Look at you gettin' all raw & shit. Not that you weren't raw before. This just feels raw-er.

Do not be afraid of what is going to organically come out of you. Give it the space it needs & desires. Celebrate your small victories & keep opening up, my precious flower. You cannot go wrong. <-- I needed to hear all of that myself.

[Teri]

Through connections of connections I've found you and this post and eerily, it seems that you are giving words to a very similar, visceral knowing in MY psyche.

Be kind to yourself. Be yourself.

These are the two simple/tough truths I've been having a tumultuous relationship with over the past two years.

As I wait for a photo to upload on my most recent blog post about this very thing, this is all I can offer is that to you.

Keep on.

[Varda (SquashedMom)]

Brave, beautiful, raw writing.

Wishing I'd gotten one more hug in at BlogHer, but in spite of all the good, it was an oddly disconnected conference for me (possibly distracted by all the VOTY build-up and then limp-noodled relief afterward).

Thinking of you. Wishing you great leaps of wonderfulness along your path.

[Leslie]

Oh Laurie, thank you for that little nugget. It's not just you who feels lost sometimes. I do too. But I keep working and I keep trying and I just keep doing it over until I get it right. I think it does help to name the fears, to talk about the feelings, be specific and it'll focus you towards what you can do about it. Also, be KIND to yourself. Give yourself what you need. It's all there, you just need to be patient with the process of growth. Sometimes it takes longer than we'd like, and sometimes it happens too fast, but either way, we grow. xo