Endings and beginnings are just transitions. I have been amused by my own liminal state.
Financial pressures are building, causing me to rethink my next options. Sell stuff. Move and rent my house. Air BNB my house. Take in a renter. All have been passing through my mind. Being rather obsessed with my own writing at the moment, the explosions in my mind, I find contentment in my bed or living room writing and being courted by two lovely cats.
When love walked in the room I was unprepared for the effect. Over the course of the next five hours, I knew my life had been altered in some way. Not as expected.
I’ll save the surprising red flag towards the end of this short story.
I would go on to tell her, “I’m taking a three month cooling off period. I need to focus on finding a new high-paying job. I need to not start any musical projects that will distract me. I need to not start a relationship that will take a significant amount of my time and energy.” Well, I didn’t do that. I haven’t found a job. Or started a band.
I wonder what mysteries the universe has in store for me. My life work took a flipturn two weeks before Valentines day. I might be nearing the wall, the flipturn back. I don’t know.
I am not confused about myself. I cannot be confused about the other person. That’s not my job. Yet…
In the rush after the initial flip-turn into her life, I began to lose oxygen. I was not sleeping enough. My breathing had become shallow. I was relaxing and working to relax more than usual. Languid yoga lounging in her sunroom, studio, classroom, and playroom. So much sun, birds, poetry, contact. Fascinated by the opening and raw potency of her movements, thoughts, and touch.
More talking than sleeping. More loving expressions than we could possibly believe. Already, there was a scarcity of time. A mutual desire to skip forward a few steps to the calming good parts and not just the burning good parts.
En fuego is exhilarating, but not sustainable or healthy. I do not want a high relationship. Calm. Centered. Balanced.
I don’t blame her for the situation. I don’t blame god either. I probably, somewhere, blame myself. The cardinal rule had been disobeyed. The reddest of red flags was presented freely in the first few hours. Her eyes, her smile, her warm hug at our intial meeting, all tamped down my warning alarms. I leaped over the exception and leaned in. She was all for it. We burned.
We got a bit singed. I became the “we need to get some sleep” person. I can nap in the afternoons for sure, but I’m supposed to be putting all my attention to my financial progress. I am afraid of that shit, so I leapt into her river and began to swim with the current. I was not calm or patient. I did not go slow. I brought flowers and food a week before Valentine’s Day. I stayed in the pocket of blissful and timeless heat we created when we were together.
A shift happened.
A harm from my past lept up and reminded me how much of this romantic bonfire I was generating out of my own passion and longing for a partner. Something had shifted in her as well.
A buildup of anxiety or hurt confused us both. I was invited to her house. I followed my normal path, texting her my ETA 6:31. Excited.
I pulled into her driveway. She was across the street talking with two men. In the ambiguity of our partnership, the privacy and care of her neighborhood, I didn’t know what to do. I sat in the car. I said some meditations. I listened to a song. Checked the email on my phone. Each minute ticking by, hoping that she would soon knock on the window of my car and let me out. She didn’t.
Around 15 minutes in, I started to feel mad, abandoned, tricked, trapped. I couldn’t go into her house. I didn’t know who the men where. I couldn’t go say hello. Same reason. I couldn’t call her, she didn’t have her phone. I drove home to examine my own pain and what this minor incident brought up for me.
It was bigger than waiting in someone’s driveway for 20 minutes for them to come say hello. It was more than not being greeted or even acknowledged when I arrived. I was in uncharted territory. I was flying into her life with full force, she seemed to be twitching slightly, but this felt more like a glitch. As if there was some reason she didn’t come over and check in with me. Tell me I could go into her house. Bring me across the street to meet the men. Or just connect with me and let me know what the plan was. She was asserting some independence. She said later she didn’t even notice if I had gone in her house or not. She was merely surprised when I drove off. She called me around 7 pm and did not like my Brené Brown framing.
Nothing has been the same since.
For two days, the fractured liminal state continued. Without eye-to-eye communications, things can go south quickly. Even FaceTime can be redirected and shut down. As she counted out her next few busy days, it became clear that she was taking a pass. Or giving me a pass. I did not want to collude with her rejection or fear; I couldn’t tell which. Also, not my business to fix either of them. The phone call was going south, and I kept offering, “I just want to see you. Have this conversation with you looking in my eyes.”
She allowed me to return.
A pleasant evening passed. A second pleasant evening passed. I avoided my storytelling. I tried to maintain good attention for her even after the repeated mention of her husband’s name. Oh fuck. Right. She’s still married.
Might be nearing the wall of my limits. Flipturn back to this calm alone. My cat-filled plateau. More time today for job hunting. Sorting pieces of my own emotional puzzle. Walking alone. Listening to a new musical artist who spoke to my loss and confusion. I am confused by only one thing: is it love, or am I standing in for her soon-to-be-ex? Taking arrows that are definitely not mine.
She is fighting a war on one side of her heart and trying to stay present and open on the other side, my side. Last night, with no alcohol, I could feel my own anxiety. She could exclude me again at any time. She’s trying to reestablish herself as a solo woman. Reclaiming her house. Refinding her friendships and activities that give her support and joy. And then there’s me. What about me? What’s the right angle to approach a new partner when you’re still warring with your emotions and actions of the recently vacated husband? I am sleeping in their bed. It’s still 50% his house. She’s getting emails from him that upset her. I am giving advice, where I should be merely staying present.
But I can’t stay present when the arrows are being shot at me. Arrows not meant for me.
If I slow down, if I reclaim some of my time, if I ask her to step into my house, I risk losing her. Staying in the present state, however, is depleting me. I’ve been a sprinter my entire life, 50-meter freestyle is my race. Did I just false start?
I am fully capable of jumping the starting gun. Obviously, I’m also capable of blowing past my own best interest. She’s worth it. She’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met. She’s funny. Beautiful. Fit. And married.
Fuck.
No fuck.
Back to fucking myself, I suppose. I can’t ask her to change. I can ask for a boundary. Can we use a funny name for him, if you have to talk about him so much? But, I cannot, will not, and don’t want to wait around to get her to change. She’s healing. She needs to feel safe. She needs to rejuvenate herself without some infinite jester dancing about and playing songs and writing love poems.
Even this makes me sad.
I won’t be going anywhere. I won’t be jumping on the apps. I will be cautious about my future moves. I will give her time and space and see what becomes of our friendship. I want her. She is everything I need and dream of. Maybe gone in a few months, maybe reopened for a more even courtship. What was started in flames has settled into a more complex dance. One I think I need to sit out for a few rounds.
There is nothing I wouldn’t do to make things right for her. I am powerless to repair her. My efforts are missed, my words accused of being lectures. Any response or frustration of mine is labeled as an attack and my problem. I’m stunned. Silenced. And beginning not to share my full self for fear of being told, “We’ll just do the night off.”
Even as I type, I am anticipating her call. She said 8 pm. It’s 8:20. [Checks phone. Ringer on.]
back to the glitching index
