Dear you
It’s been a minute since I have heard from you but I know it’s not because you are respecting my boundaries. Is it a game or have you moved on to the next woman you will gaslight and manipulate?

Today and yesterday and the day before and tomorrow I have been driving on the 80.... through Nebraska. And I remember those days I drove this route last. When you were fucking a woman you nicknamed Brooklyn and I was trying so hard to have faith in you. In this “us” you pretended to build.

It feels like a lifetime since that moment. And it has been a lifetime... I’m down 1.5 more organs, the world has completely changed in this weird pandemic, and I have grown stronger. I did not let you break me.

I finally know my worth.

Dear you,

It’s been almost 3 years since last we spoke although it feels like 10. I was watching Queer Eye earlier today and the woman on the show reminded me of you. And I just wanted to reach out and hug you. But that’s not possible anymore. I wanted to apologize for the times I didn’t give you what you needed. Not because it was my responsibility to fulfill all your deepest needs from childhood.... but because I could have done better with gentleness and empathy. I guess my hurt soul and your hurt soul just never got on the same page- the page when we could both hold each other up, stronger together exponentially in that weird math way.

A few weeks ago, I was in Kentucky and thinking about how you got so jealous the last time I was there. How I just wanted to share it all with you but didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to give you everything I wanted to give you ever. I gave you the best pieces of bacon and tried to include you in all the ways but that wasn’t what you needed. I didn’t know how to ask and you didn’t know how to express, except through lashing out and insane 2am text threads.

I wish you could hear my amends. I am sorry I couldn’t give you what you needed. Your feelings are and were valid.

You could have been anyone.
That first kiss at the airport could have been any first kiss, made into something more than it ever was, in my hopeless heart. Everything could have proceeded as it did. We could have had a bad first date and fought like a couple ready for divorce after only a few days... it could have happened exactly like it did, and not meant anything.

You could have been anyone.

We could have had a spectacular first few days together, random Home Depot And home improvement dates... it could have ended there, where no emotions were involved. Just a spectacular stop in a long line of spectacular stops around the country and then world.

You could have been anyone.

You could have been the person I sat next to on BART or the stranger I pass on my daily walk, as the whole world tries to cope with new rules and a collective trauma. You could have been a one night stand or a left swipe, never to take up space in my mind or my heart.

You could have been anyone.

I welcomed you into the soft spot just below my heart where tree turns into a cherry blossom... That spot where there is now a massive scar- testament to the detours life puts in your way. I gave you my deep breaths and exhales on hot nights during the summer and fall; and trusted you when you said my feelings mattered in that robotic way of someone who really doesn’t give a shit.

You could have been anyone.

You reminded me of the importance of speaking my needs and transparency. You taught me how important my feelings really are, and how my intuition is on point. You were the reason I know honesty is paramount, and empathy is vital. You brought my worth to the fore... not because you treated me with that worth, but exactly because you didn’t. Because every time you text me still, you don’t.

You could have been anyone, but you weren’t.

Things always seem to go back to you.... I realized recently that it’s been 5 years since we met. I still remember you walking in the doors of Herbivore. I was almost speechless but the near chemical need to be close to you, drew me in and outdid my social awkwardness. We talked all night and all I wanted was to kiss you. That and our first date were the last times that we existed in that space- Easy and happy; not overthinking everything.

And now when I think about you, so close... just one town over when I go to see my sister in Hoboken. I wonder if the suspicion and resentment are still there. I always said that one of your best traits was that you didn’t hold a grudge. One of your best and worst traits, because it got you hurt so much, but it was so beautiful in the end... I wish that could be me.

Instead, I think of all the times you made me defend myself when I hadn’t even done anything but try to love you. I think of those years of holding my own hand while laying awake at 3am. I think of giving you another chance... of giving her too many chances... and of knowing I can’t stay with them as I watch them self sabotage like you did.

It seems to always come back to you. And I still think you were my person.

As I walk through the cobblestone streets of my late teen years, I remember walking these streets in the rain in 1995, trying so hard to shut it down. The wind blows and I hear only the quiet rustling of leaves in the old cemeteries. The streets are empty and the cold nips at my neck, like the ghosts of past lovers.
I remember 18 year old me trying to turn off her feelings; shut down her heart.

Skin on skin

Lover to lover.

Twenty five years later I feel the uneven surface of the cobblestone, hear the crunching of fall leaves under my boots, and ache with the sinking in my chest.

I know I will never be that cold.

You lied every time you said my feelings mattered.

Skin on skin.

Lover to lover.

You lied every time you looked in my eyes and kissed me deeply.

Skin on skin.

Lover to lover.

You lied every time you said you loved me.

Skin on skin.

Lover to lover.

Drops of rain hit my cheek and my chest throbs with pain. My breath is tight from grief and loss.

I think about the beauty of the history within each stone; each building; each structure. I think of all the broken hearted people who have walked these same streets; about the possibilities of spirits walking next to me, within me.

And 42 year old me forgives the me of 25 years ago for trying to shut it down. Because as much as this hurts, I am so grateful that I could never be that cruel to anyone else. I know my tender heart is what brings beauty to the world; brings kindness, silliness and softness to the day and night.

Skin on skin.

Lover to lover.

I remember waking up that Sunday morning last month. I don't know what changed. I didn't know what had changed, but I knew something huge had lifted.

I will not let you ruin me.

I remember that moment in 2013 when it did. I sat there at the tiny sushi place in the Castro.... she said "you really love her, don't you?" and I realized I did... and that I wanted her in my life so badly that I would do anything.... including slowly killing myself, destroying my heart, my soul, my self esteem, and my self worth.

and on that Sunday morning in Ohio, from the bed of #persephonevan, I realized that I would not let you ruin me.

I am worth so much more than you.

https://youtu.be/P6Xr67cTzwE

​

You may think I’m a pessimist, always living in the negative, but what you don’t see is that I believe in possibilities.

And always have.

When I was 8 I wrote President Reagan to tell him to throw away his key to the nuclear bomb. I saw peace as a possibility

When I was 15, 18, 23, 25, 28, 32, 35, 38, and 40, I fell in love. I saw all that we could be. I fell deeply, even though the 16 year old goth/ punk rocker in me sighs and scowls and says I have never actually been in love, including now.

I believe in ghosts.

I believe in an afterlife and a next life.

I believe in fairies and vampires and magic.

I believe in aliens and scientific depth.

I believe someone will love me one day, the way I love them. I believe I am worthy. I believe it will come.

But not with you.

i believe you are capable of honesty. I believe it is possible for you to be direct and real.

but not with me.

I believe in my possibilities.

I believe I have the whole world in front of me. Literally.

And I will not give up these possibilities for this. For this nothing. This pain.

I believed I was better than ghosting. But I also know that’s how this will end.

​Im sorry.

​



​

Sometimes it’s like this just to remind you that you are still alive... it’s like that time when my heart hurt more than any of the deaths or the loss.... blades calmed my heart, and my head spun.

But this just tells you that you aren’t empty. You can still love. You have a heart: she said.
​
and that’s what it’s like right now in this liminal space; betwixt and between.

Thirteen year old Cora never fucking existed.

So you are speaking to nothing.

A dream

A delusion

But really, 13 Year old Cora was always there. Waiting to bloom and come out as this beautiful, strong, vulnerable woman you see.

But you wouldn’t know that because you never asked. You ask all the questions I asked you to ask, the questions you think mean something...

but they don’t.

​Much like with my random stabbing in the dark questions because you refuse to be transparent with me; your questions are more about you and yourself than they are about me and who I am, where I come from, and what made me the Cora you pretend to give a shit about.

I missed you and I hadn’t even met you. Which reminds me I am in the liminal.

Communitas happens, he said.

I know this is supposed to be uncomfortable. I am fighting my natural reaction to just run, which is more possible now than ever. Fleeing his narcissism and her gaslighting, each step feels like becoming more and more myself. But still the sticky complications of the liminal surround me.



​
​

After brunch on that last August Saturday, I folded up my hope and stuffed it in my back pocket. It sat there. And days turned into weeks and then months and years.

It was silly really because I knew from December 16, 2016, yet I held on to that tiny hope despite the silence and emotional blackmail.

It shrank over the months after the third ghosting, like a dollar bill in the pockets of your favorite jeans.... Over and over through wash cycle after wash cycle, becoming dried up, crinkly and barely legible.

But still it held the same value: 1 dollar. One ounce of hope that you were my person.

And one day that tiny piece of hope disintegrated. It was too much (or too little). Too many wash cycles. Too many disappointments.

I'm not sure when that day came. I know I forgot that tiny hope was even there after hundreds of walks alone for hours, and distress-tolerance movie viewings every weekend.... But like a smoking habit, I felt comfort in the deep inhale and exhale of toxic energy. And then it was gone. I reached for it, leaving a bad date or after a shitty day at work, and realized it was gone.

The tiny hope was gone and I wasn't sure what to do with my hands. I held my dry elbows for a moment, feeling their flawed simplicity. And then I felt that deep sinking feeling in my chest.

And as that hope faded-- barely legible on the paper-- my heart beat grew stronger. Each night I could feel it about to burst as my hand reached for nothing. Holding my own hand under the weight of my down comforter; my heated mattress pad the only warmth.

I know you know that feeling. That feeling of deep loneliness and hopelessness. The one that makes you forget what Love feels like; what it feels like to have someone touch you; to have someone inside you in all the senses of the word.

I can remember it like a word on the tip of my tongue. And like a book I haven't yet finished, you filled my dreams while my subconscious tried to put you in some order; to figure out the end.

Until I remembered that crumpled up piece of hope and realized that Saturday was the end, scrolling across the screen with no sequel.

The. End.

And I reached for my new piece of hope, just as tiny and a bit frayed, but so full the potential of the next deep breath of fresh air.

I've long thought I wished we were strangers again.

What would it be like to meet you fresh, as 41 year old me? Would we even make it beyond the first date, or would you be like the dozens of dates that have slipped quietly from my memory in the early evening hours after a meh drink or 3 at the same bar we've both been to more times than we can count?

But now I realize that I am glad we are not strangers again, despite how little I feel I ever knew you. Because, in the end, I learned a lot.... not from you, but from the work I did over the years to get past you.

I would never know how to set boundaries and speak needs. I think I realized this the last time we had drinks on Haight. I tried to speak needs and you lashed out on me. I knew at that moment that I was done with you; that our time was over.

I would never know the importance of perception checking... I think I knew this fairly early with you, but it was cloaked in your jealous blaming, so it took me a minute to truly understand. It is not all about you.

I would never know the power of forgiveness, because you (not) working that ninth step makes me remember over and over how toxic resentment is.

So, now I walk in a world of strangers. Bullies remind me of that time when your soon to be best friend was so cruel to you, and all I wanted was to cover you in love, but didn't know how. No one seems to give a shit, and the weekends feel like drowning and hopelessness. Yet, I still know better than to have feelings for you or you or you or you... My heart healed and I know better than to try to attach to someone so narcissistic or cruel as you or you or you or you.

Instead, I just walk forward; trying to keep hope alive that one day someone will love me.... one day, my person will say "where have you been?" And in that moment, I will be grateful that we were not strangers again.

I have been waiting for you for what feels like a lifetime. When I think about my first thoughts of you, they feel like the thoughts of a child... sweet, innocent, but hopeful and tentative in their desire. I was so scared, but I hid that under my hard shell, so you never knew. And you were so scared, but you hid it behind silence and withholding, so I never knew. I wish I could tell the us of then just one thing:

Be brave.

We would burst into each other's lives with bold confidence, kissing sweetly and passionately every chance we got.

We would speak needs with gentle words, almost able to see the listening from the other.

We would dance in our bubble so sweetly that no one else would ever be a factor.

We would sing and laugh and dance and cry and breathe with daring.

Our love would be silly and full and the perfect amount.

We would know we were each other's person, just like we have, but this time, we wouldn't hesitate, because we would be brave.

There would be no need for pleading letters; longings on lonely Saturday nights; wishing I could text to say hi without being too stalkery; failed attempts at dating others or getting over it.

You would come to my apartment in Berkeley and easily break the force field of solitude I have built around myself, look at me with your adorable smile, and we would be together.

We would get out of our own ways and be brave.




https://youtu.be/kjRo_CHSdt0