Home again

After the past two months, this chica needed to get back to her roots.  I know that I used the wrong "you're" in my last post with "your," as in the possessive pronoun, but I wrote it on my BB which doesn't exactly give me a lot of time to correct grammar.

So, home.  It was just was the doctor ordered.  Actually, I went in for a check up about a week before my trip home and it really was what she ordered.  If, at any time, any of you readers ever are in a funk, going home is indeed some great medicine.  I saw my nephew, my family, and my friends.  People who are ever so important to me and that I rarely see except for maybe once a year, if I'm that lucky.

My first day back, in fact on the way back from the airport, I sobbed.  Feelings I had been suppressing for the past months (this is way before I met "him") as well as the feelings I suppressed due to this whole dating debacle came out.  I was "home" and safe.  My parents were there in the car with me.  I knew I wouldn't be judged.  I didn't just cry, I'm talking big breathless sobs that stole my breath, and I felt like a moron.  I hate crying over things I consider stupid.  A bad, and yet incredibly short dating situation, is not something to cry over.  Pissed off I can handle.  Sobbing is not to my liking.  Perhaps it's because I feel when I do this, it labels me as weak, and that's something I cannot tolerate.  Other people who sob over a failed dating life, I extend empathy and sympathy but, for myself, I prefer to be apathetic.  This time I wasn't so lucky.

Also, I was dealing with a lot of other things that were going on my life (this was actually the bulk of my misery).  It gets to be trying working in a shitty environment, with a passive-aggressive boss, and feeling stuck.   Grieving over my aunt has never been incredibly easy as I live in her home, with her things, and her dog.  I know I get to stay here because I take care of the place as well as, when she invited me to rent a room, she did not think she would be dying of small cell carcinoma a year later.  The lack of sunlight during the spring and early summer definitely put me in a bad place as well.  I did not realize how the sun could impact my moods or the lack of Vitamin D from the sun.  So I spent a lot of time NOT eating, smoking too much, and exercising quite a bit (which isn't a bad thing but eating really does repair your muscles).

After the sobbing, my father got into psychologist/Daddy mode which meant he said the thing that always seems to cheer me up when I find out I have been dating a complete douche bag, "Nic, he's a sociopath or at least his behaviors are of one."  And I realized something.  It was good to be back in the South.  When I left Seattle it was about 56 degrees and rainy where I arrived in Alexandria and it was 90 degrees by 8:30 a.m.  The sun was out.  And in what used to be my aunt's Subaru I began to feel something I hadn't felt in at least four months, strength and peace.  A good dose of family therapy and Vitamin D will do the mind incredible good.

We drove back to Shreveport, had lunch at Southfield Grille where my father commented on how little I ate.  I told him weight loss and depression anorexia has that impact on the stomach.  Of course I have been working out and wearing the Sketchers Shape-Ups at work (they DO work, I no longer have an ass).  It was nice to be in that diner, eating salty meat sandwiched between crappy iceberg lettuce and slathered with mayo, with shoestring fries (no doubt fried in lard or tallow), and my parents in front of me.  Off to the daycare to pick up my nephew who was napping.  He sees my mom and smiles and then he sees me...and he smiles.  He knew who I was.  He's now two and has not seen me since he was 8 months old.  I stole his heart by giving him an ICEE.

The next day I wake incredibly early to the sound of Dora the Explorer and my nephew playing in the living room.  We danced that morning.  There was no music.  We just moved to the rhythm within out minds.  How fabulous it was.  Then there was dinner with Travis, Amy, and Levette followed by drinks with Chloe, Ivy, and my brother with his friends.  I got glances.  I wore a sundress.  Chloe said the look I had was of "confidence."  It's something I've had in work or how I am as a person but never in the sense of looks.  Did I mention we met three men later on who were absolutely cool?

The ten days I spent there were relaxing as well as frustrating.  Debating whether or not to move back to Shreveport has always been in the back of my mind.  Then there were the storms from Alex.  Missing one flight.  Another delayed which caused me to miss another.  A desperate phone call to Continental got me to LAX then to SEA-TAC the next day.  Steve picked me up at the airport on last minute notice while my car was waiting for me at the Park-n-Ride.  I came home to a happy dog and a spotless house filled with good juju.  And then I realized that Seattle is my home now, for better or for worse.  At the moment, it's for the better.

I just realized that today is my two year anniversary since I left the Port.  Two years of tears and frustration.  Two years ago I thought I had no one I could call a friend and now there are people who come to my home, from everywhere in this city, for dinner parties or when I tell them about an e-mail that says I'm no longer dating material.  They pick me up from the airport, watch the house and the dog, they let me know they're here for me with just a phone call, and attack me with mass hugs at a Forth of July gathering.  They've seen me laugh and heard about me cry.  I've always said that your friends are an extension of your family.  When you don't have family, you have friends.  And none of them want anything from me in return.  They're not using me to fill their beds, make them feel less lonely, nor are they using me for money (which we all know I don't have).  They come to my home for home-cooked meals and conversation.  We have drinks in the middle of the week in the city on a sunny day.  Sure, they're not the people I would've known back home but I'm not sure there are any people like them back home.  My friends are unique, here and there.

One thing Chloe told me while I was home was that to remember that I'm loved, even if those people who feel that way, are not there for me in the physical sense.  It's something we should all know.  And if there are people in the world who don't know what this is like, then I pity them.  Why?  Because it means they've closed themselves off from a good thing because they want to protect themselves from hurt.  Well, you can do that, but it makes for an unfulfilled life.  Believe me.  I've tried it.

So I suffered a broken heart when I least expected to.  It was painful.  It did hurt.  I picked myself up and realized that analyzing only delays the inevitable.  My father says when bad things happen, you must allow them to run their course, like the flu.  I used to hate it when he told me this but now it all makes perfect sense. And the whole moving on bit?  Well, you have to tell yourself I won't allow this to rule me anymore.  And I'm not.  It's done, for now or forever.  You can't save something that is dead.  The only thing I can save, improve, and love is myself.  And, I have to say, that's not a bad deal.  I have dignity, strength, and confidence to go forward.

Before I left I wanted to get a symbol representing strength tattooed on my right forearm to remind me, when the rainy days hit and the bad day come around, that I'm tough and can handle life where others give up and just use people.  I wanted something that wasn't trendy.  Nothing in Kanji, nor Mandarin, not Latin.  A Hindi woman came through my line and I asked her what the Hindi symbol for strength was.  She drew a symbol.  I took it with me to Sizer's shop.  It turned out that it was "ohm."  Ohm represents the universe, the whole enchilada, and that's what's now on my arm.  I don't regret it.  One bit.  Just like everything else in my life.