So this past week was ushered in by roses and Allagash White. Aside from general appreciation I have tried to keep to myself as much as I can. I really have no idea what I am doing dating a mature person who I can have any kind of conversation with. I had to ask my therapist if it’s ok that I am not rushing and just letting it happen…is that an indication I am not that interested? Is it an indication that things are just happening naturally and I don’t know what that feels like?

Anyway, I hold back on him because I am convinced he’s just enjoying a shiny new toy and is throwing so much into it that he will disappear pretty soon. I fear I will bore him but he said “you are many things but boring is not one of them.” I also know he needs words, he needs me to express something which I can do easily down the road but I can’t do now. Even so, I experimented and texted him while I was out to ask if it was ok to let him know I was thinking of him. He seemed happy about it and thought it was funny I was getting drunk with my parents and their friends.

Thursday night, all day Friday it was about ” when can I see you again?” I told him I’d be home Sunday. He texted me this afternoon for a very brief conversation and that was it. So I believe we are at a point where I expressed interest and perhaps should not have. We are also only 5 days away from me taking off for 2 weeks and I don’t know how that’s going to work or if it even will. Idle hands….well, I’ve never had great experiences seeing guys with idle hands. Don’t get me wrong, if he disappeared tomorrow, I would be ok. I am pretty happy in my life so him being in it is an additive but it’s subtraction doesn’t take anything away. I’d just be annoyed because I want to be wrong about guys for once. And I resent the idea of spending my vacation wondering who he might be comparing me to and if I am going back on the shelf. Thanks exes for doing this to me. You really suck, you know that?

So I think we are in a moment where I am supposed to act distant and disinterested. I think it’s biological that we have to have this stupid push and pull where a man and woman can’t be equally into each other at the same time. One must always feel the need to chase the other and when caught, someone tries to break loose again.

I shouldn’t have talked about this at all. I feel like I jinx things the moment I admit to them to friends which I did this week. So that’s where we are…..from optimistic and calm to questionable, iffy and annoyed.

So date 2 is in the books and went well enough that date 3 is tomorrow night. My head wasn’t in a great place upon going out Sunday night. But he is a great conversationalist. I love the way he thinks and he’s a feminist. We kept it low key. Beer and apps while watching some local folk bands who were really good. In fact, he texted me one of their songs the next day called “Make a Move” because he felt it a very funny representation of us.

I don’t believe in women who give ultimatums. How can you spend your life with someone who wasn’t willing to get there on his own and is simply more afraid of being alone than of losing you specifically? That’s why he gives in… not because it’s yuh he can’t live without. If he had another option, he’d be pursuing it. He’s just too lazy to be alone or start the whole dating process again. His acquiescence isn’t about you. What a horrible subconscious thing to have under the skin of your marriage and parenting.

I didn’t give an ultimatum. I just stated who I am and what I expect for myself and good luck to him but I am moving on. I had no expectation he would respond to that, challenge me to consider other possibilities and then bring solid A game from that point on. Honestly, no guy has ever tried to hang on as I’m walking away.

One cool thing with this guy is that I feel calm and unrushed. It’s fun and I don’t have any angst about it. Highly unusual for me. I am still very aware I could screw it up. I have some pretty complicated thoughts which make me want to be very careful I am not diving too far in knowing I will hurt him because of what I know I may not be able to deliver. But I’m considering doing the work on me to clean up my loose ends. We’ll see.

From this point on, I don’t think I will share more. Once a guy has potential, he gets writing protected because I value that privacy. But I at least wanted to check in knowing my Sunday post was a bit dismal. I just didn’t have a lot of faith in me. But he wants to so maybe he sees something I don’t.

I just read something about how super independent women like me who are used to doing everything on our own usually have some big insecurities that play out early on in relationships. That actually feels accurate. The article says women like me have to learn to trust. My issue is that I needed to know I could take care of myself alone before I could ever consider a serious relationship. Because divorce rates are so high, I had to know I had my own financial abilities should I ever be cheated on. And not having kids….because I knew I didn’t want to be left as a single parent and that I most certainly could not afford raising kids on my own while my ex has a mid life chasing after younger women. I never wanted to also feel stuck in a bad relationship for the kids or the money. So I am finally confident I can be in a relationship for the right reasons and that I can walk away anytime if it’s not right.

Yeah…. so trusting someone else’s intentions and view of me is foreign ground for me. But when a guy has the balls to tell you a Taylor Swift song makes him think about what step we are at, you have to have mad respect.

Additionally, you all try to tell me being in a relationship isn’t as great as I think and you have financial challenges too, etc, but what you have always had that I don’t is that person as your touchstone through the day. Your workday sucks but your husband texts you something funny which changes your mood. Your day sucks but you know you have a kid to go home to who will be delighted to see you. There is someone there you can speak to, someone you can give a grocery list to, someone you know will take the dog out when you are running late. You have alternatives. You have distractions. You have partners. I have the same shitty day and problems you do but no distractions, no light at the end of the tunnel, no partner to remind me what we are trying to accomplish even if we are frustrated with each other.

I got an adorably sexy text this morning which changed the dynamic of the rest of my day. It was in that moment I truly understood what you have that I don’t and why your days really are more tolerable than mine. Yes, I get to travel and I don’t answer to anyone which is great. But when I need a partner, I have no one answering me. When I get the news my dog has a chronic illness, I go home alone with that news and I alone start the treatment plan. And to travel, I pay double what I would if I had someone to go with. You have that option. You just don’t have travel as your priority. Doesn’t mean you can’t do it.

Maybe your husband is dismissive or not that helpful. That’s too bad. Seems like you should fix that since you are still together. Don’t settle for it. And don’t compare it with me. You have a partner and you guys got complacent and now have a problem to solve. I don’t get to have the problem of complacency. I just always have to buy my own groceries even when I am sick and my dog is sick.

I’m not complaining. I just had a major revelation today that made everything make sense. Every time I mention the challenges of being single, somebody corrects me by starting how awful it is even being married. Exactly, we both live awful stuff. We both don’t have partners. So no, it’s not as hard and lonely for you. It could be because you have a choice to stay or be single. I don’t have that choice. And if going it alone were so much better and easier, you’d do it. So let’s please acknowledge that you don’t know what it’s like to wake up alone with nightmares. He may not wake up with you when it happens to you but at least there is a body next to you. You could shake it awake and make it talk to you if you wanted to. So the comparisons of our life challenges are fair. But it ends there because there is no break in mine like there is in yours. That’s all I have been trying to articulate all these years.

And yeah, it’s pretty nice to be thought of and flirty in the beginning. If you are missing that now go fight to get it back. It’s worth it.

Wow, major tangent but those are my discoveries today. Fingers crossed I don’t feel the need to write about this guy again. That would happen if it bottoms out.

So if this thing works out he will either find my rawness and pursuit of art charming or he will be aghast and fearful he’ll never have anything private. Fair. But I am being true to this journey because this guy isn’t as left field as so many of the others I have dated and have been so funny to write about. I am putting some “real” to this one and owning that if it blows up, it’ll probably be me that does it. Shocker.

Last week I decided I was on the back burner and that he was dangling carrots periodically to hold his place with minimal effort. I asked if we were going to make plans and he said some weird shit about having a really busy 2 weeks and that I’m hot shit. Not really an answer. Nothing to lose me called him on that and just said I am not a back burner girl, that he can go ahead and date a bunch of other people and that I will too, but that he doesn’t get to keep me in his back pocket in the event he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. I told him I am the busiest person I know, physically and mentally but if there’s something I want, I make it happen….that when a guy wants a girl, he will make it happen. I just don’t mess around and that’s the very thing he said he really liked about me when we met. So I was done.

He actually responded and told me I was right to feel the way I did but that 9 times out of 10 your gut is right and that mine wasn’t right about what was keeping him away and that he was disappointed that he made me feel like that. So, I did what I never do and responded. “I’m willing to listen.” I am so afraid of feeling love and fear of losing love that I light matches on houses that haven’t even begun being built just so I can feel safe and have nothing to go back to. So I cut and run really fast on people. My life works because I don’t let anything in that is uncertain or shakable. I can’t be trusted with that stuff. I do one night stands and people who can never stay. Being someone’s not first choice back in the day fucking broke me and I have never really gotten over it. I just stay out of situations which might make me feel too much. It’s easier to be a bitch and travel alone, proverbially and otherwise.

But we are going out for drinks tonight to re-connect. I was looking forward to it a few days ago but am a little scared now. Nothing to do with him. I just shook hands with the old, broken me the other day and it scared the shit out of me…its potency. Time did not heal my hatred of who I used to be and the fear is just as thick in this moment. I am hoping going out tonight will kick me back into being me and getting my train back on the track. Shit, maybe being this naked and raw could be a good thing for once.

So I kind of hope he comes with complications I can keep at arms length for the moment because the obvious ones in me aren’t the ones he needs to worry about. Dating is supposed to be fun. It’s treachery for me. I don’t have a problem attracting people. I have a problem getting them to stay. There’s a lot out there easier to deal with than me…not necessarily better, just simpler. Some people are ok living the life I used to want to live because it’s less unpredictable. You miss out on a ton of fun, adventure and spontaneity with me that I think could be worth sticking around for. But the other stuff….well, it’s just hard and people just don’t want to wade through the seaweed to get to the good spots. I want someone to break through but I don’t have the energy to help him do it.

Once again I have spent time in old haunts and get really screwy for a little while after I do it.

Yesterday was one of the bigger experiences where 20 years worth of thoughts and emotional snippets got in a blender and spit back out through the words of an 8% IPA. Good stuff, funny stuff, weird stuff, fucking gut wrenching stuff, and where on earth did that come from stuff. Stuff I want to apologize for and stuff I don’t.

When I lived up that way I was pretty much batshit crazy, unmedicated depression, rape survivor, court process victim. I had no idea how to manifest myself or express my needs properly so I was very dramatic….even intentionally loud at times just to draw attention. I was unbearable and obnoxious and yet made some of my deepest friendships at that time. I fell in love but it was too intense for me to know how to manage it. I made friends I still see and talk to 20 years later….people I can’t believe still want to be in my life considering who I was then. You see pieces of them in many things I write.

Thing is, I don’t really identify with who I was that far back so it’s hard for me to understand what these people see in me, what keeps them attached. I’ve moved around. I’m a Massachusetts girl through and through….so much so that I live in the last town in MA before getting to NH because I work up there but can’t live there again. I need city. I need music. I need art. I need ocean, family….airports and highways. Liberalism and The Republic of Cambridge. That stuff really does go through my veins.

But so does Portsmouth, so does Portland, Saco, York, Dover, Durham, Somersworth. I spent a couple summer vacations at York Harbor Inn in my early 30s trying to connect to something amorphous that’s always in my rear view. Saco….where my family spent every summer but family fallout prevents me from going there now. I almost drove through today on my way home but I couldn’t do it. I was already spent.

Don’t get me wrong, yesterday was one of the best days. My boss sent me home from work early for busting my ass all the time and because she appreciates the hell out of me. The weather was gorgeous. The commute was scenic. Fergus was with me and wearing a hip new harness and bow tie. I had a dog friendly hotel situation. I got to see one of my best friends for the first time in about 18ish years I think. Drank some very high quality beer in a brewery that admitted Fergus. People kept fawning over him and taking pictures. I saw John Butler Trio….on an empty stomach with lots of beers throughout the evening. I did get a little silly and sloppy after 9. I underestimated the emotional shit. I always do. It happened after dinner in Portsmouth with Rich. It happened after Jess’ Xmas party in Somersworth. It happened last fall at a Haven event where I ran into my old attorney and experienced flashbacks I had blocked out for 20 years. I think it took my body about a month to recover from that night.

Every time I am in these places, I connect to a person I was deeply ashamed to be and find myself wanting to apologize for anything and everything, even if I didn’t do it. It’s jarring to be so in the face of that me. That girl wanted to get married and maybe even have kids. I figured I’d always live on the seacoast traveling back and forth between families. I’d be a teacher. I’d hang out at the same bars in Portsmouth I did right out of college. I’d summer in The NEw Hampshire mountains and Maine Seacoast. I’d grab coffee on summer mornings in relaxed beach towns.

But something in me snapped. I started therapy and then took off 2300 miles away to see if I could become someone else. I left all these people I loved and who loved me for some odd reason. I don’t even drink caffeine anymore.

I have never completely rid myself of her. I’ll always have some level of exhibitionism but I am a writer now. Back then, it was undiscovered art that didn’t have a canvas. Picture Jackson Pollock with no place to spread his paint. Now, it’s part of the way I see the world and I just write the shit out of myself because mine is the busiest mind I know. My depression comes in different depths but it’s medicated and gets therapy every 2 weeks. It has PTSD with it too so that gets exercised and massaged out with occasional anxiety medication and sometimes waking the dog up in the middle of the night when I start screaming from nightmares. But I still have it together on top of all that. I kick ass at my job most days. I own my own home. My debts are manageable and I have a great relationship with my family that didn’t exist 20 years ago. I have this little pug nugget….love of my life. I’m a hundred pounds lighter than I was when I was nuts in New Hampshire and Maine. Overall, there isn’t much I dislike about myself now. The friends I have made in the past 10 years, I am not confused by what attracts them to me. I travel alone…big, meaningful, life altering trips. Yeah, I’m single with no kids and I’m getting more and more ok with it.

I lost my shit a little more than usual after Trump got elected and, thankfully, my friends were looking both ways when I wasn’t. Fixed my medication and got back on the bike. Feel better than I ever have. Every time a famous person commits suicide I get shaken up for a few days because that’s when you realize all the armor in the world can’t prevent your damaged brain from turning on you like that if it wants to. You just have to hope your friends are looking and point it out.

“Are you happy?” He asked me. That question is going to fucking haunt me the rest of my life, I think. I don’t know why I couldn’t answer it because I am….certainly more than I ever was back then. Even though when I get up in those states I see people living the life I thought I was going to have, it’s not a life that appeals to me much now. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling it when I put myself in front of it for some reason. Yet, I feel like I am missing out on something only when I am there. I fucking hate the girl I used to be so I hate looking at her through the eyes of these locations. I worry that the eyes of my friends are just waiting for me to lose it again or that they don’t see the sweeping changes in me that I think are there.

I come home and try to re-ground myself. I want to get promoted. I want to get published. I want to keep doing Cape weekends and August vacations. I want to get married and share my world trips with someone that has the same wanderlust and curiosity I do…someone who wants to bring a piece of every country back to our insane US lives. I want him to love my family because he will need to spend a ton of time with them. Dogs…we have to always have dogs. We need to read good books and grown our brains together. City nights in small clubs seeing great, local bands. Brewery tours, plenty of good beer and the forever search for what will be our favorite. It’s a pretty different life than the NH\ME girl wanted so I don’t know why it rocks me so much. I think shame probably has quite a bit of a role. Even if others have forgiven or forgotten her, I never will. I will always be ashamed of who I was even if that’s what it took to get me to who I am.

So I am trying to integrate back into my life if I can. Salt lamp night in the living room, Fergus snoring next to me. Great music through Spotify….albums I was listening to a lot 20 years ago. Blogging. Cooked a steak for dinner. I haven’t cooked myself a real dinner in forever because it doesn’t work with my schedule. Canceled the gym tomorrow because I am still wheezing a little from the asthma I experience after every cold and sinus infection. I’ll probably take an anxiety pill tonight. Tomorrow I will clean my bedroom and try to figure out a good outfit for a chill Sunday night folky date. And then back to work Monday anticipating my Cape weekend. I will try to figure out what it will take to pay down my credit card so I can start saving for my next trip to Europe. Norway, Iceland, Germany are all speaking to me as of late. Massage and reiki Tuesday night which can help move this energy out. My poor massage therapist. She is physically drained after my reiki every time. I think she’s the only one who gets a glimpse at my empath soul and all the work it’s doing scanning the environment, feeling other people’s feelings, seeing parts of your soul you don’t even see at times and then driving home with it on my mind, writing stories of you in my head. I have to listen to frivolous podcasts or 80s playlists to balance myself out.

Maybe being an empath is why this happens when I go to my old haunts. Those places carry actual feelings, sensations, smells and memories that are living things when I attach to them by parking my car. Even if it’s a happy occasion, it’s still an internal physical assault I am never prepared for. You’d think my complaint today would be a hangover but I don’t have one. I took my Tylenol and beer shit when I got up. Drank a ton of water, took a shower and ate a whoopie pie. This is an emotional hangover I think. It will pass.

I am incredibly blessed to have the life I do now and the close friends who have stayed with it or entered later along the ride. It’s an artist’s life, kind of. It’s on display for a reason. It’s not about attention at all. It’s art and social study of sorts. It’s to challenge and grow…me and all of you. But it does extract quite a bit of energy sometimes and today is one of those days.

2 weeks ago I had a promising date with a really cool guy. We matched on intelligence, humor, beliefs, interests. The next day I got a great text about blowing away his expectations and would I go out with him again. I said I would and he proposed we meet for a drink before I head to the Cape on a Friday night which ended up being too complicated with the dog in tow.

Next plan was to meet up when I was at the Cape and he was coming off the Vineyard last week. He blew that off with some lame excuse and asked about my availability this week. I don’t like a blown second date and I don’t do try outs while a guy is testing all the other shiny new toys he comes across in the meantime. Gave a short response about being home by Sunday and was pissed.

No response, no follow up to find out what day I am available. So I decided this was a done deal.

Got a little bread crumb today where he sent me an article which reminded him of a conversation we had at dinner. But that was it. No follow up to ask when he could see me again. The article was a smart move because it caught my attention and softened me up. But nothing since which means he is likely on a date right now. Points gained quickly blown once again.

My guess is he is trying to ensure I don’t go anywhere while he’s test driving other options. I am definitely not a fan of that.

I am blogging about each step on this one because it’s showing all the classic moves of modern dating and “back burning” to make sure he’s not missing out on anything else before deciding on next steps with me. But there still could be potential depending on how it plays out.

I do find this process fascinating even if it’s degrading. So it’s worth documenting in this blog to see how this approach plays out.

Remember the days when you randomly met a cute guy at a bar, through friends, maybe even at work? You would chat a bit and then go home thinking “does he like me?” You’d banter a little over email, maybe even over the phone and then he’d ask you out.

You’d get so excited about your first date. You already knew you had a lot in common, that you are attracted to each other and he makes you laugh. It was all about thinking of the perfect thing to wear. Not too casual so as to make him think it’s just a friends thing and not too suggestive to make him think it’s a one night thing.

You weren’t seeing other people. You were dating in advance of heading towards a relationship when the time felt right for that romantic declaration. Your first kiss was the first of many. And you eventually became a couple. It was so fun, mostly happy….only minor communication frustrations along the way as you tried to figure out what he was thinking without showing too many of your own cards too soon.

Your friends would meet him and say “good catch.” Your family next and they would agree. You became part of a community who rooted for your success.

Unfortunately, I remember it vividly as I navigate dating present day and it’s so alien to me. It’s actually depressing.

You spend a bunch of time swiping right on online profiles and match with a few people. You get about 4 different conversations going but they eventually just fade out never to be heard from again. Once in awhile one asks you on a date and means it so you make plans.

You are meeting a stranger which isn’t fun to anticipate. It’s more like looking for libations to rip off a band aid to see if this is someone you would want to see again for real. It takes a couple beers to ease into it but it goes well. He texts you the next day to say ” you are way better than your pictures like I looked at you and whoa! I am pleasantly intrigued. Are you free Friday for a drink?”

You aren’t free then but figure out a day next week that works and you go your separate ways. But you know he’s talking to other girls and he figures you are too. You try to put it out of your mind and trust he’s that into you because he said he was, including worrying he might come across as too eager. Not at all. I’m a person who respects people for owning what they want and skipping the games. But you don’t talk about him with anyone to spare yourself the embarrassment of constantly having to explain why things don’t work out every couple of weeks. You’ve survived 20 years of people asking what’s wrong with you because you are still single and it has taken both decades to build the belief in yourself that it’s not you. But it’s something.

For every day in between then and date number two, you know he is going on other dates. You figure you would too if you had something lined up. Then you check in ahead of date number two and something has come up, are you free next week. Funny question considering how clear I am that I don’t audition and compete with other women. That I walk away very quickly if I perceive that’s happening. And it always is.

Even if date number two happens and it’s great, he kisses you but you know you aren’t the only one. He’s trying on a lot of shoes and you are in consideration for first place but you aren’t first place yet. So there’s no magic, no weak knees, only very cautious optimism.

You don’t let down your wall in anticipation of building towards something together. In fact, you further erect the wall to protect yourself from being put back on the shelf so you don’t give it your all purposely.

You give short answers to next week availability to make it clear he blew the excitement and made this experience basic like all the others. You hope he still pursues it to show you he really means it when your gut says he doesn’t. You sit on a beach and keep swiping and starting conversations with new guys… your back ups.

Everyone is a commodity. There’s no excitement, only caution. No anticipation, just skepticism. It’s honestly not at all fun or cute. I suppose it wouldn’t bother me except that I remember a time when those things did exist…when the pursuit of love was joyous and nervous. Instead, it’s now dreading and self loathing. It’s a task of ruling things out.. like ruling out cancer when you become mysteriously ill.

I have always been a romantic at heart so this just holds nothing of that. Even sex is a transaction. You can have it but you can’t possibly hope you will have it with the same person twice.

I guess this where I am supposed to say I am proud to be an American. I mean, I always have been. I grew up during the Cold War with Russia with many of my childhood fears heavily influenced by thoughts of nuclear war and the potential for Russian tanks to eventually roll up on my front lawn. So in relation to that alternative, I have always been a proud American because Communism has never felt like the right answer to me. Dictatorships, terrorism….all that stuff is not an acceptable alternative for humanity.

But what does it mean to be an American? I only just asked myself this question today and it’s baffling to break it down.

This country belongs to Native Americans. The British invaded this country, originally, as people who had enough wealth to get here so they could own land and become even wealthier. Those were the folks all the way up to the Pilgrims. I am glossing over about a hundred years because this is a blog. If I were submitting this as a paper it would be cited and have a bibliography with pages upon pages dedicated to orderly time periods of American transition. The blog is more about making a point and provoking thought.

So we came here for land. Land we stole from Native Americans. Then, some wealthy people didn’t like being told how to worship so they came here to practice religion on their own terms. Between that and a few other arguments, we went to war against England to protect our freedoms which eventually led us to write a constitution. Funny, we didn’t feel Native Americans had rights when we stole their land and killed them but I guess not much has changed in a few hundred years.

Every 4th of July we celebrate this fight for Independence. We sit on our beach chairs. We drink beers. We eat chips and guacamole, have cookouts and get drunk with friends. We watch fireworks with our kids because we have been checking the local papers to see which towns are setting them off and when. We don’t think much about the war for Independence or the many roads which led us there. We don’t think about what freedom meant to a microcosm of people at that time….a group of people who were divergent from those in their homeland. We edit out what is unpleasant and turn it into a reason to go car shopping or for long weekends….a day off from work.

We came here to own land. We came here to practice religion. We weren’t fleeing drug cartels, rapists, gangs and murderers. The lives of their children were not in danger. They were not fleeing poverty or starvation in the first few waves of migration. They were traveling on white privilege. They didn’t have it that hard at home in the first place. Later waves of migration were fleeing danger but not the initial ones. They were looking for more privilege.

I am not sure they truly understood what they were asking for with freedom of speech, press and all the like because that means being accepting to more people than present day Americans feel they want to. You can practice your religion here but not Muslim. You can flee your country and come but only if you are white from Norway. You can fall in love with anyone you want and not have an arranged marriage but, if you are gay, you can’t have a cake. The Irish, the Italians, the Jewish….they are all finally ok ( they were heavily discriminated against at the time) but if you are from Mexico, Central or South America you can’t come because you are a drug dealer, rapist or lazy person looking to suck off the American tit. Funny, because I worked in a restaurant before and never saw any privileged white boys working the dishwashers. The only people I see sucking off the American tit are people who look like me – lazy white, capable ” Americans” who have found loopholes into entitlements designed for the truly willing but totally incapable.

Maybe it’s my Irish heritage which gives me some empathy. People from my country were fleeing British genocide during the Great Famine. Those who were able to make it here took the vilest of all the jobs because they were thankful to be here and wanted to contribute, work hard and give their families a better life than they fled. I have to believe that these families who spend months trying to get across the border in Texas with their children are fleeing for their lives….not to buy nicer land and getting to church eventually would be a nice to have but not a need to have at the moment.

I am not naive. I understand the drug business. I also understand that there may actually be situations when the US government has profited off the chaos of cartels,in South America…do some digging into George Bush Sr’s time in government before becoming President. There’s some “look the other way” in there. Watch Narcos. The drugs aren’t all from south of the border. There’s plenty of corruption coming from parts of Europe as well. And people from south of the border aren’t all rapists. My rapist was a white boy from New Hampshire. The only people who have ever offered me drugs have been privileged white kids. And I have skin in the drug game…one of my closest friends died of an overdose nearly three years ago. And no, time does not heal. I still think about him every day. So I am not being a Pollyanna about these things. My eyes are wide open.

With recent shake up in the Supreme Court…frankly, the Holy Grail of what Republicans have been fighting for this whole time, there is going to be a war on women. And while we are all fighting tooth and nail on that, LGBT rights will be signed away in the dark of the night because we got distracted. Women will still lose too. It will somehow be ok to tell me how to manage my own body because Republicans can find you a slew of crazy, privileged white women who say raising 10 kids can and should be done for all since they can do it….(look at the female Supreme Court nominee Trump is behind….7 kids, one with Downs Syndrome and 2 adopted ….I want to be wrong on this but I bet she’s going to be one of the ones who is pro life because if she can do it and have a successful career, why can’t all of us?)

Driving home from the Cape today I was thinking about the Handmaids Tale and actually wondered what it would be like to have my credit card shut down and lose my job because I am a woman. Her husband told her he would still take care of her which is great but why should she have to be looked after? And what if that happens and I don’t even have a guy to look after me? I have no child bearing value. I support gay rights. I will be banished to a terrible work camp for the rest of my life. You laugh at the exaggeration. I cringe at the very, very, very real possibility.

So what is it really to be an American right now? What is it to be a proud American right now? It seems to me it’s a lot like building ones own life but lacking tolerance for the ways of others. It’s ok we all got here to this country without admitting it was in the smallpox of blankets handed out to Native Americans so they would die and the slaves we stole from America who we later wouldn’t share bathrooms and water fountains with when we were the reason they were here in the first place. Their families didn’t choose to come here. We literally kidnapped them, whipped them, taped the, made them work for us and then wouldn’t share rights without wars and riots. We attacked them with fire hoses, dogs and mace when they tried to exert their rights. We hung them from trees. Americans did that. Our ancestors did that. And it’s their offspring several generations later who want to dictate who can and cannot enter this country, what kind of healthcare women can pursue and want gay people can eat at their weddings….if they even get to keep their weddings.

I can say I am proud to be a Dolan. I am a proud daughter and sister. I am proud to be a part of my various circles of friends. I am proud to question what is happening around us. But I don’t know that any of that is truly American. I think it’s just me and a handful of people I know who are realistic about how we all got to be born here. But we aren’t the ones running this country right now and that frightens me. Doesn’t it frighten you? When you are drinking your 4th of July margarita and eating your cheeseburger and potato salad, will you be thinking of those families who are just trying to survive by getting to this country or will you just be thinking about what’s for dessert?

I posted a Pinterest quote earlier this week about wondering what songs make people think of me, if any. Yes, I use Pinterest. I never said I wasn’t basic. Seriously, does anyone ever hear a song and think about me? That would be a super cool thing to actually know.

Last week, at Depeche Mode, they played “Stripped” as they typically do and every time I hear it, I am brought back to one very specific memory. It was a party thrown by mutual friends in September during a period of time when my ex and I weren’t speaking. We had those periods a few times over the course of 3 years. But this time, I was serious about it and prepping to move 2300 miles away in order to hit the reset button on my life to find out who I could be separate from him and our friends.

He was there, keeping me within his view. I could tell. I could always tell. He could never glance at me without me not knowing. He was wearing a periwinkle polo shirt which brought out the bluest of his eyes…”I don’t know what it is about the voice of your eyes, I only know it is deeper than all roses.” Ee Cummings. Anyway, I needed a break and sat in my car for a few minutes to catch my breath. “Stripped” came on and just hit me. Why was I moving away from someone I didn’t know how much I loved at the time, yet always felt it in my bones? Why couldn’t I just stay and wait for us to start talking again? We’d eventually hook up and do that for a bit. But then he’d do it with someone else, I’d find out from a hairdresser or something unexpected like that. He’d touch me and I would throw up and then we’d stop speaking again. I guess that’s why I was moving. Most girls would sweat it out, eventually give an ultimatum and hope for an eventual proposal after years of this. I’m not most girls.

When I went back to the party and to the keg for beer, he went for it and asked about the one thing he knew would soften me up. He asked about my dog, Emmett. A dog he had babysat, taken to the beach and walked for me at times when I couldn’t walk him myself…like after he would touch me when I was upset about who he most recently slept with and I was puking in the bathroom.

Of course I gave in and responded. There was just a connection between us I couldn’t steer clear of. We’d split up, he’d tell everyone I was crazy. I’d find out he slept with people I knew, which embarrassed me. And sometimes I was crazy….either in response to him or because of unmedicated depression and an eating disorder. He’d tell everyone I was crazy again, get a new girlfriend and months later, he’d be drawn to the same thing I was and he’d break the ice…single or not. Him, not me. I never cheated.

We wound up having beer together. I knew our friends were in the periphery rolling their eyes and placing bets on us hooking up as they had seen this routine so many times. We walked away to a football field nearby and I leaned up against him while we talked about everything we had experienced during the time we hadn’t been speaking. God I had missed him. He was my best friend but also the worst part of me all in one. I bet he would tell you the same thing. But that night he laid it on the line. He told me I was actually someone he could see himself with long term, even married to, but just not right now. It was actually the most honest I think he had ever been and I completely understood what he meant. I felt the same way. But how do you gamble on waiting something like that out? Especially when he had a girlfriend flying in from Buffalo every other weekend? I have never been good with competition. Either you want me or you don’t. I am not going to stand around auditioning.

Anyone who placed bets on us hooking up that night hopefully collected their money because we did. We did several times that month before I moved. He was seeing his now wife at that time but we were safe because we both knew I was leaving and I even told him to make it work with her. I wasn’t trying to disrespect her and I don’t think he was either. There just was me before her. This was just something we needed to do…a connection we would always have. This was the rawest, most honest, most Stripped period of our relationship because we always knew I was walking away and he was off the hook.

A couple decades later, he is married to her and we are good friends. He even saved my life a year and a half ago. He is my compass in life. And I got to grow into who I was supposed to be with or without him. Maybe with him, I wouldn’t have seen this full evolution. While it’s been rocky, I am living such a beautiful life now. I am experiencing me at full throttle and likely at my best. And while we live separate lives, he gets to see it and I get to know the greatest love of my life, an incredibly critical friend is living his happy too.

Had we not seen each other “Stripped down to the bone” in so many ways so many years ago, who might we have become otherwise? What lives would we be living? I like to think even at our worst, we compelled one another to our best. It may not be the love of fairy tales with fairy tale endings but it’s the deepest, most important love I can imagine coming from myself to anyone beyond my nephew and dogs.

Spain. I don’t know what it is but Spain really spoke to me. I know I joke about every beach having a bar and getting free tapas every time you order a beer in Southern Spain. But there is something very seriously right in those aspects of their culture.

I was fortunate enough to be able to reunite with friends and do a little mini vacation with them. Because of that, I got to experience the culture much better than if I had done this part of Europe alone. We spent an afternoon doing a tapas route where we would sit at a bar, enjoy a beer with free tapas and then move on to the next bar and do the same. Because it’s well paced, we didn’t get drunk. We had a lot of fun and we talked….we really talked.

My friends run their own business so they did need to address work issues on and off throughout the trip. But when we were just hanging out, we had awesome conversations. It wasn’t until having done this for a few days that I realized how few meaningful and complete conversations I have.

I have a lot of friends at work and we get to chat periodically but we are working so it can never get too in depth on any topic; whether funny or serious. There’s always another task, meeting or interruption that must be attended to and the conversation lingers unfinished. People with kids seem to desperately want to have adult conversation but can’t often complete more than a few sentences without a kid interruption. They can sit for hours in front of a tv ignoring you but the second they sense you are being fulfilled by an adult conversation not involving them, it’s over. So those conversations can go 20 years without getting past where you went for dinner over the weekend.

No one talks on the phone anymore. Guilty, as I am more than ok with this. I love the written word and prefer texts and emails but nothing in depth happens in the immediate moment. Emotions, laughter are experienced without company.

In Spain, we had conversations covering a wide range of topics. I don’t know….maybe not seeing someone for 20 years makes it easy to have topics to catch up on but I think it’s more than that. I think their culture is far more focused on community and quality of life. Not the quality of life Americans define with cars, houses, job promotions, prominent educations and expensive clothing. Quality of life experienced via the means of fully engaging with other people. It’s relaxed. No one is rushing off to a soccer game or needy husband. They love their families deeply but they don’t lose their identities in them and use it as an excuse to check out of every other aspect of living. Not our fault in the US….it’s how we have been brainwashed. We have time for nothing other than saving for a retirement which may never come and trying to get our kids accepted into colleges they may never get into.

I love my house, my cheap car, my clothes, my jewelry. I can probably never fully stop that. But I do think there are a few things I could live without in order to have whole conversations several times a week.

Today was my first day back at work after 2 weeks. I promised myself I would leave on time since my dog is legit sick. I was only 20 minutes late on that promise. Throughout the morning, I was picking up small details of all the projects in motion since I have been out….projects I would likely have led had I not been on vacation and it stressed me out for a second not to “have my name on it” or be participating because I just always participate. But then I had to ask myself why I cared so much. I am more than busy enough as it is without adding more to the list. It’s nice for other people to have opportunities. Why do I care? Why was I happy to see an email litany of things I am needed for starting in a day or 2? What does any of this really mean? I was beside myself a couple weeks ago trying to get out of the office for vacation. The neediness and lack of consideration, dignity was breakably disturbing and something I have not forgotten.

I work to save for retirement. It’s the American way. But the way I have seen it, once you retire, you get cancer. At least that’s what has happened to everyone in my family when they have stopped working. And when they look back to their working years, I can promise you they aren’t wishing they had their names on more projects. They are wishing they spent more time with family. They are wishing they traveled more or spent more time on hobbies. They are wishing they had more conversations along the years which didn’t include talking about their cancer treatments. They are wishing they had more friends around.

Until this trip, I didn’t know that my definition for life quality might actually be wrong….that the American dream might not be accurate or for our benefit. I am not naive in believing other countries don’t have problems. Of course they do.

My friends ran into a Spanish friend in Granada who joined us for Tapas. She speaks some English but veers mostly towards Spanish. I had a more fulfilling and interesting conversation involving her than I have been able to have in any given hour with anyone I know in the US. I had fun. I learned about the government and teaching systems. We laughed at how free the parents and children were to do their own thing without people calling the police on them or taking videos of perceived missteps Americans would be all over. It was absolutely delightful.

Just one of many reasons I fell in love with Spain. I have a conversation soul. I love to know you, your thoughts, your every mood and facial expression. It’s art. And I already miss it achingly.

Having just returned from Europe, I am marinating several blog topics but I can’t get to them without first addressing the deaths this week of both Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain.

It’s not that I care more about celebrities but they are the ones who get your attention and make you think for a few minutes more than you normally would.

I keep seeing posts about how the mentally ill should call hotlines or reach out to friends and family for help. I realize you mean well and probably don’t know what to say. But do you know what mental illness really is? Do you understand that it alters brain chemistry? That it can manipulate a healthy thought process? It can make you believe things which may not be true. It’s not like having a fever and knowing I need to call the doctor. It’s taking away my ability to recognize a fever at all.

I need to say this. I am sorry if it hurts you. But if you haven’t yet suffered from the kind of depression which robs you of reason, energy, soul and breath 1) you are lucky 2) but you are not immune – it could happen to you anytime 3) you can’t check us off your list with a quick hotline number Facebook post and consider yourself part of a solution.

I have suffered with depression on and off my whole life. While my parents had the boldness to get me treatment in the 80s when it wasn’t talked about….it wasn’t talked about. I wasn’t allowed to tell my friends where I had to go on Saturday mornings. That was my first lesson in shame and privacy. I was only allowed to talk to Elvira, my shrink for about 12 years.

At my darkest times in adulthood, it was fiercely important to me to take financial responsibility for myself so calling out sick from work was just never an option. But after 5 every day I bathed in it. I lost sleep because of it. I questioned my worth. I wondered if anyone would notice me gone. I binge ate in my dark corners. I purged and then got up the next day and went back to work. I couldn’t let people know how bad it was because I would look like a failure. I wouldn’t look “strong.”

Unable to empathize with myself I got a dog to keep me alive because I would at least get out of bed to feed him. I wasn’t talking to anyone about my actual depression. I was feeding the dog and getting myself into work every day.

At 40, PTSD got added to the menu. I dabbled in food and alcohol issues awhile but have managed to stabilize myself through therapy, yoga, exercise, reading, beaches, travel, dog. Notice how I don’t mention anything about talking to my friends about it. Very rarely do I actually discuss what it feels like or when I am in it.

Here’s the hard truth. Mental illness erases reason. In healthy times, I know you care about me even if you have spent the past 5 years at field hockey games and gymnastics. I get all our hustle and bustle. I watch your kids grow up online and wait for a drink when they get to be teenagers and maybe you have some free time. You watch me online and think “I should reach out and make plans” but just never get to it.

With an unhealthy mind, though, if I can’t get you to commit to one dinner every couple of years, why would I call to tell you I need help? You can’t even find time for a cup of coffee when I am happy. What would you do if I told you I was thinking of killing myself? I know that’s hard to hear but mental illness is ugly, morose, confusing and zombifies any reason a person may have once had. We think back over the years and figure we are a burden because you don’t reach out, you don’t confirm or keep plans. We have our answer because our disease is eroding self worth like a cancer but because you can’t see it, you refuse to believe it’s really there. You think we have the capacity to ask for help when we often don’t. In fact, we think we are doing you a favor by not reaching out and that’s what that kind of depression is all about – to confirm you are better off without us.

Even if we could reach out, that kind of friendship/depth has to be nurtured during the good times. In fact, me asking you to meet for dinner is my health plan. It’s not because something is wrong I want to bore you with. It’s to feel alive and engaged in your life and to make sure you know your importance in mine just for day to day. It’s to actively work at heading off depression. Only something cultivated has a chance of flickering through a black depression and maybe getting us to reach out to you. But, more often than not, we have already reached out multiple times on the mundane and been rebuffed so we have our answer when life becomes unlit. I’m sorry but that’s the reality of it.

My worst depression was a year and a half ago. When I was standing on a sidewalk considering walking into oncoming traffic, I wasn’t thinking of who I should reach out to for help. I was thinking of all the people who couldn’t be bothered with me and confirming my delusional lack of value in my damaged head. It was the miracle of 2 friends reaching out within a week of one another, in different ways, that gave me the jolt to wake up from my sidewalk trance and get my shit together. It’s not because of people like David Spade saying life is hard and we should “try to hang on.” It was two people noticing something out of place and taking the time to tell me. They saved my life. Not only that, once I went to the doctor and re-adjusted my prescription, I’ve had the happiest year of my life. So yeah, you have to do more than give me a phone number or tell me to reach out, but not a whole lot more. One of them just emailed me. The other bought me a book and wrote a heartfelt note. That’s really all it took.

It’s not your fault people kill themselves. It’s not your fault people in your life develop mental illness. It sucks when it’s close to you and you have to deal with the madness of it. You need space. You need distraction. You need your own attention. That’s all valid. But it’s a shitty disease. You can’t just offer to drive us to chemo and let us borrow a book. You have to wiggle in there, into the deep crevices around a monster and try to find the place where we still exist. I know you can’t just check it for your list like a grocery item quickly bought. It takes work. It takes community. It takes a different way of thinking. It requires taking unfair responsibility. It’s a nuisance in your day or week. Imagine living with it your whole life and trying to survive it. Imagine the exhaustion. As you can see, even those who “have it all” and achieved the highest levels of success surrounded by people who love them can’t always survive it.