Let's brag about love

We’re going to be reminded this weekend that we do in fact live in the desert. Sunday’s forecast is 100 degrees. Ugh. Already? It’s not even May! But I’ll take it if it means I never have to survive an East coast winter again. Last week, a friend said it was still frigid, windy, unbearable. I hold her it was 90 here, sunny, heaven. I’m not keeping many friends back there by bragging, but maybe we aren’t keeping that many friends back there anyway. We’re sort of in a lonely stage – the two of us staring at each other “how was your day?” “Good. How was your day?” sort of thing. I think what I miss most is having people who really know who I am. Who know all the history. It’s like people who hate their therapists, but keep going anyway because the thought of having to explain and relive all your issues again seems exhausting.
We are out of sight and out of mind. At least that’s how it’s felt for a while. Pat and I can both feel the shift – people stop texting, emailing, calling and so we stop texting, emailing, calling because we’d always be the ones initiating communication and trying without getting much back is a pathetic feeling. There are some relationships we thought would be around forever, but then they aren’t and we’re left mourning them like the dead. I had a therapist ask me once why I felt like I needed to fix everything, my relationships. And I answered: who else will? I think I’ve mentioned that here before, but I’m reminded of it now because I’ve always been the one who tries to fix it; distance, conflicts, but maybe it means I’m a clinger? Maybe I need to be better about letting go? So I’m not fighting this one. I’m not trying to fix it and as heartbreaking as it is for me, I’m going to let it go where it goes. We’re all caught up in our own shit, I know that. But take two seconds out of your day and tell someone that you love them. Two days ago, I heard a teenage boy bragging to a girl about his “homie” kicking the shit out of someone so hard that it ripped his ear off. Why do we brag so much about violence? About what we’ve “done” to people to prove we were stronger? I want to live in a world that brags about love instead. I promise, it doesn’t hurt any more than the slices of soul one gets when they repeatedly kick someone on the ground.

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On a happier note, Pat and I are going to love the sun this weekend. Poolside with some Mexican beer he recently found at our Mexican grocery store. It’s nothing special, but the beer he drank in Oaxaca when he lived there for a month and Phoenix is the only place he’s found it in the states. And I’m going to celebrate my Designer of the Month award. And I’m going to write. And I’m going to drink his Mexican beer and keep making memories for us.


Comments

4 responses to “Let's brag about love”

  1. Angella Avatar
    Angella

    Life runs in cycles I think. My husband and I have been in a lonely stage, too, since our kids left. I felt such recognition, the two of you, “how was your day?” but sometimes i am able to key in on how lucky it feels to have a playmate to do things with, to walk in a garden, to create Friday night pina colada carnivals with, just the two of us, to read next to in bed at night, to be quiet with and feel understood. We weather these lonely stages, and then life turns again. Enjoy your poolside time this weekend! And congrats on your designer of the month award! woot!

    1. I think underneath the lonely state is luck, definitely. In a way it can bring two people closer, forcing them to talk and hash things out that otherwise they would ignore or lay on other people. But you’re right, they run in cycles. And this one will be over soon and we’ll move on to something else. We’ll continue to make plans and things will begin to roll. I think, too, a part of me has always been lonely – and there’s no curing that, that’s where the writing lives. Thank you, Angella. I hope New York is blooming. xoxo

  2. I wonder if those of us who are children of divorce suffer most when other relationships in our lives fall apart whether from time or distance, nature or eventual disinclination? I think maybe. We constantly ARE trying to fix them, just as we wished we could fix our parent’s relationship as children.
    Or am I being an armchair psychologist? Probably.
    I am the same though. It grieves me mightily when dear friends drift, although as I have aged, I realize that this part of it all. And, I also realize how incredibly rare and precious it is when a relationship sustains through ages. And some do.
    Enjoy your weekend, and as Angela says, WOOT! on the designer award.

    1. I think you’re right. I think we’ve seen/felt how much relationships falling apart can impact things. Why wouldn’t we save them if we knew we could? But relationships take two people and for me it’s always been the other person drifting away. At least most of the time… There was distance in my relationship with my dad and so maybe I’m hyperaware of it happening. It is amazing – the relationships that last over the years. I have some of those and I cherish them. I’ve moved so much that I’ve had so many people coming in and out and promising to stay in touch and it’s nice in the moment, but you know it will fade.
      But there is always a pool somewhere and that somewhere happens to be my backyard and I’ll take it! We’re making new versions of ourselves.
      Thank you thank you. xoxo

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