She don't want anybody to see what she looks like when she's down

I broke my rules. On the weekend. On the weekend without my daughter (see also: extra quiet and lonely).  I looked at Pinterest which is like a barrage of visual and mental "your heart is broken! don't you miss him!" madness.

And I went downstairs. Where I have his stuff in a box. Including his cologne that smells like the best thing on the planet and sort of like the old lady who swallowed a fly...I guess I'll die.

Not actually. I just feel like her. I did something silly and felt like a fool and like dying or such.

As soon as Sloane's party is planned Pinterest is finding itself deleted again.

Thankfully I have avoided that bitch Adele.  And there is one thing I absolutely refuse to concede to: any of these "broken" sentiments.

I am not broken. Lies and wasted time and empty promises are just that. I'm the kind of badass bitch who has been through a lot worse than this and still manage to run an amazing life and look pretty fashionable while I do it.

No one is going to ruin my track record.


















She don't want nobody near, from the Counting Crows for the title 

When the morning comes, let it go, this too shall pass

In my early twenties, I like many other women my age and older was obsessed with Sex and The City.  I identified (still identify) with Carrie. The longsuffering, overthinking, terrible man choosing albeit fashionable Carrie.

On Sundays I'd watch SATC with my very best friend and a total Charlotte, Breann.

So Breann over the years has taken to describing my relationships in SATC characters. I've had way too old for me Aleksander Petrovsky (must be in the name), I've had my sensitive and wonderful Aiden that I destroyed chasing who I thought was Mr. Big at the time. And Now I have my very own Jack Berger.

Hollywood kisses with a post-it note ending.





















What I'm beginning to come up with is maybe there isn't a Big and maybe Big was a giant douche anyway. And maybe, just maybe, I'm not a Carrie. I mean I'm not a city girl. Maybe I'm more like the teacher from Stuckeyville from the other show we never missed, something more original, more obscure. Maybe I'm just a Carol Vessey. Looking for her Ed Stevens.

title from OK GO: This too shall pass 

You don't need to change a thing about you, babe

How To Mend Your Broken Heart in 7 Steps 

(Badass Bitches Only)

1. Uninstall Pinterest for 4 months.

You're welcome. 

2. Fuck Adele. Yes, I know, Adele's new album drops next week, yes I know she won a crap ton of Grammys. DO NOT DOWNLOAD. 

3. Your smart phone was made for break ups.  Use all functions available until emotionally stable enough to delete.  a) HIDE all the pictures. b) give him a new name that reminds you to STOP that behavior this instant, missy! c) delete the playlists d) block that number baby

4. You are not friends. Therefore you are not "following" on apps you are not "friends" on FB.  This one hurts but rip that disgusting band-aid that's hanging from your scraped up ego off. And throw it away. You also need to unfollow his sister.  Don't forget his mom, even if she did send you a message indicating she thinks her son is a complete moron.  Do it. And do it now.

5. Congrats you are a girl.  You are allowed through society's patriarchy to post a GORGEOUS selfie as your new profile picture to every social media outlet you have available.  If he posts a selfie to FB he looks like a desperate weirdo or a total douche bag (unless he's under 21). But you my dear, you should look flipping gorgeous every time he searches for you late at night (or even if he doesn't, whatever he does, he totally does).

6. Post sappy things only where they WILL NOT, CAN NOT get back to him (that's why you do #4 and #5 first and keep a blog that he doesn't know about).  Everywhere else you have your one new picture (don't look desperate girl) and nothing but rainbows and roses.

7. Have an ample supply of straight men in your life who will tell you he's a dick and he's out of his mind.  If you don't have any use your brother and download the Griffin House song "The Guy That Says Goodbye To You."  (also staring at Griffin House is implied in this directive).  Gay men are great too, but this one's better coming from a guy who likes vaginas lots.

Again, you're welcome.

Post title from the hottie with the hair and eyes and arms, Griffin House - The Guy That Says Goodbye To You Is Out Of His Mind 

But no word or warning do you say. One minute right beside me, another you're a thousand miles away

When I said "I'll take it." I meant: as is. Just give up and admit you're an asshole... And I think you'd find that your friends would forgive you but maybe I'm just speaking for me.  - As Is by Ani Difranco

In an effort to practice what I preach...

I often tell clients that sometimes their pain lives in a place without words. Which seems only poetic, but it's actually true.  Trauma experiences are stored in the opposite hemisphere than language. So asking someone to process with words could be asking someone with a broken leg to walk to a hospital to set their leg.

I use Mandalas with clients in lieu of journaling occasionally because it provides a container (the circle) for their feelings, and a boundary. Also because if a client is not highly literate (or young) words can be intimidating and feeling like they are set up for failure before the activity even begins.

So here are two of mine.  I prefer oil pastels because I love to smudge and get my fingers messy and I title mine, a lot of times with song lyrics like the one below is a lyric from Possibility Days by the Counting Crows or with thoughts that I think they capture, like the top photo.  I always date them. Titling and dating is not necessary. It's just something I do to make it like a visual diary.  And yes, the top photo is inside my car.  I had the supplies in my work bag and I just had to "get it out."

Here's to the next step, which I am not happy about taking but not all of our steps make us feel thus.

Title from You're No Train (from Songs for a Hurricane) by Kris Delmhorst 

"Sorry," is all that you can't say

I came home weary from traveling to NYC for a work conference but I was ecstatic to get back to Nick and me, the way we were before he was hospitalized. I couldn't wait for text messages and photo sharing and talks without people listening in a hallway and most of all for FaceTime.

None of that happened.

On Tuesday evening after getting home early Tuesday morning and feeling something was off all day during our usual evening phone call I had to ask. "Are we okay, are you okay?"  I didn't expect the answer.

I didn't expect this. Not in the way you don't expect your car to breakdown.  I drive around acutely aware that my Subaru can break down (and does) at any moment.  This was the kind of unexpected like you don't expect the sky to fall.

I believed Nick each time he reiterated how he'd never leave me, never give up on us, never divorce me unless I did something unforgivable.

He said "no." I said "what's going on? Do you still want to do this?" I wanted him and expected him to tell me how absurd my question was.  Instead he said "I don't."

So without telling about how I got through sleepless nights of a deployment where his life was in danger often and telling you how I planned to be there come hell or high water (including delayed flights, a flat tire on my rental, waiting for a key to his house to come in the mail from Iraq) and how that weekend I got him from the airport and was in his arms again he planned the most surprise and beautiful heartfelt proposal on the beach in the moonlight with the most glittering and beautiful ring that meant the world to me, without telling you all that I'm here now.

I'm where I never wanted and never thought I'd be.

I never got a real explanation, it was a flurry of doubt, protecting me from himself/finding himself/you never did anything wrong I just wasn't happy anymore/the distance couldn't work anymore.  I asked for a face to face conversation (via Face Time) to try and accept what he was telling me and I didn't get that either.

What hurts more than all of that is that he never told me he was sorry.  He told other people he feels sorry, feels guilty.  But when I confronted him via text (because it was my only choice) about how I just wanted him to apologize, well that was the final word between us.  He never wrote back. Not even just two words.

Of course I'm left with one hundred thousand other words. Words that I don't know if he meant but then couldn't mean anymore, or was just pretending the whole time. iMessages, letters, notes, cards, inserts from flowers, a diamond ring, gifts, hundreds of song lyrics that he picked just for me to listen to, poems he'd find and send, words words words words words words words.


title from my girl Tracy Chapman: Baby, can I hold you.