2010.
This was … this was.
This was, i say again to myself.
This was a strange year.
*** *** ***
There is one thing, one big thing this year, and I am still at a loss for words. A loss for words. Not for lack of speaking, or explaining, or talking or walking or wondering or being. A loss for words.
Or maybe I’m just afraid of writing about it.
But writing, writing seems to be so, so
Final.
I only laugh because I’m so open, and I share so much with so many friends, that when I reconnect with someone far and away and we get to talking, sometimes, one of them will say,
Hey Sarah! I heard you got married – congratulations!
And that’s enough to startle me back to the end of 2009, when I was getting married and I have to stumble around in my brain a bit, and sort through some of those boxes. I mentally scroll through my calendar of this year, past the Fellowship and the three moves and the trips to Seattle and Portland and Philadelphia and Taipei, past the hospital stay for dystenery, past the triathlons and the open water swims, past the belly-aching floor-lying painful days of that month, the month when I realized I wasn’t getting married and it wasn’t happening, and then, way back there in my calendar, I look at it. I look back at my friend and then inward at myself and think,
Wait, I was going to get married?
I pull that self out from within myself and look at it, strangely, and I try to recollect where, and how, and when I could have been at a place where I thought a wedding band on my finger was actually happening.
Oh yeah. And all those wedding dresses.
There is a folder of photographs, on my hard drive, of my sister and I. I’m standing on a box and I’ve tried on seven different wedding dresses and she’s next to me in purples and pinks and blues, and all I can think is how awkward I felt standing up on that box, and how the dresses made my swimmer arms look fat, and how they squeezed tight in the middle and made me feel like a big poofy ball of cinderella lace and glitter. Enough to make me want to barf. The matching bridesmaids’ dresses – all I could think was that they were all so ugly.
And that I hate wedding dresses.
And I’m not so keen on the idea of weddings, in general.
Who wants to spend $50,000 on a wedding?
But it happened so fast.
I suppose I’m afraid to write about it, because it’s as if I write it, in one story, in one way, then that’s the only way that it happened.
What story do I start with? What comes first?
Should I work backwards, and tell you how it is now, now that I’m standing up? Now that I’m laughing, living, talking, and brighter than I’ve ever been? I can kiss your ass with rose-colored glasses and tell you the moral first, the moral that is the hard things in life really do make you better, and, sweetheart, don’t worry, because you’re gonna get through this just fine, because you know that I did. I’ve laughed my way straight through dysentery and death and rib removal and all the other stuff you think I haven’t been through, because it’s been one of those years. And I can smile, annoyingly at you and still not.really.get.it, because to be there, to be in that place, is something that only you can pull yourself out of.
Maybe I can tell you about a time in my life when things weren’t fine, and I really was quite upset. It takes a lot of digging for me to find that place again, because I don’t feel that mad or sad or lonely or anything anymore – I guess I just am. I am where I am. But then, then, then.
Oh, then.
The kind of what-the-fuck-just-happened-to-my-life upset, where I drove around in my car just to drive and I couldn’t make eye contact with the drivers around me because I was afraid if they looked at me, not only would they see that tears were streaming down my face, but they would see that my mouth was open, wide open and I was bawling. Bawling so hard I couldn’t barely keep my head above the steering wheel, hiccuping in that disgusting get-yourself-together kind of way, so I would just pull over at the next stoplight or drive in and park and sob. I would pull over the car to any side of the road, even the freeway sometimes (I’m sorry Dad, I know it was dangerous!) and stand and drive and stare for a very long time and just wonder. Wonder who I was, and why I was, and where the fuck I was going if I couldn’t even figure this part out.
Somewhere in the middle of the very loud silence that is the world when two people separate, a tinny noise came out of a strange technological device and I could hear my friends talking to me, consoling me, calling me, telling me that this was for the best and that engagements are broken more often than most people talk about.
I just remember being really cold. It was a cold, brisk water-front month in Sausalito. The kind of weather that makes the grass stand tall, brown and still, where the water on the bay moves so little the ripples almost apologize for being. I wore a sweater that wasn’t warm enough for the season and leggings and my gray flats, the shoes I bought from downtown San Francisco’s DSW to wear as a bridesmaid in my other friends wedding. It’s stupid to wear flats at all – who wears shoes without socks when it’s cold? Girls do, I guess. Girls can be stupid, I suppose.
The brutality of a break up is that you’re ripped out of forward thinking and shoved straight into the present time. It’s as though someone has robbed you of all your future memories that you have yet to make, and after they’ve stolen them, they run circles around you with your dreams and wishes and fantasies tied up in their little goblin bag, and then they make sure to come back and hit you and prod you when you least expect it.
Then, then.
I kicked the rocks on the waterfront, angry at the water, telling it to move out of my way.
Now I just stare at it.
So fuck, I can’t think of one word for 2010.
One word?
Well, how about a hundred.
Because 2010 was the year I became a writer.
And I thought I wouldn’t be able to write about this.
*** *** ***
Photography credit: The amazingly talented Alexandra Sklar, who blogs at Bancroft & Ivy
Sarah – this post is absolutely amazing. Honest, raw, vulnerable – the kind that stops me in my tracks when I’m in Reader, and the kind where we really get to learn about what’s made you who you are today. Thank you so much for sharing — and for having the guts to post this.
Way to go! Bold and brazen. I guess blogging will lead to more of this “vulnerability” that the world usually tries to hide.
This post caught my attention and really pulled at my heart strings. it hit my heart in so many different ways…reminded me of things in my own life that I’ve never written about. Maybe I should…or maybe I should leave it where it is…in the past.
Beautifully written still.
Jennifer: thanks. Publishing last night made it difficult for me to go to sleep! Waking up to such wonderful comments just made my day.
I think we can both write about the past and leave it where it is; in the past. I always felt awkward writing about it because it’s so hard to bring up and felt so clumsy talking about it. But yesterday, for some reason, I finally found a way to remember it without being burdened by the memory.
Kevin! Thanks so much! Writing and publishing into the blogging world is incredibly vulnerable! Sometimes the best stuff is the hardest to write and hardest to post about – but I’m glad that I did.
Jenny! Thank you SO MUCH! I haven’t loved/hated/worried about a post so much. It’s like I’m finally getting into the guts of what I can write about. Merry Christmas, lovely!
Sarah, wow. You certainly did find more than one word to capture the year that got you to dig deep and create this gem of a post.
Your last paragraph (“goblin bag”) is remarkably poetic, and it relates to so many of life’s events that just don’t go the way you imagined.
There’s such strength in your writing, and I’m so happy you shared it with the world. I look forward to more of your beautiful prose!
Thanks so much for sharing Sarah, I honestly almost never read blogs. I find it odd, maybe even uncomfortable to be so open with strangers … but then it reminded me of when we met, after track we were walking to our cars and post track social and we totally connected over lost loves ( I was getting over a long relationship too) and I felt myself being so open… with a stranger. Beautiful prose . Thank you. yoojin
Brett, THANKS. If there’s a golden truth, it’s that NOTHING ever seems to go as planned, as much as we try! Been really fun talking with you lately!!
Thank you! I’m so glad you shared this comment :) I remember that night after track, too! I don’t remember how we got on the topic of boys and love and all that other goodness, but it was so refreshing to run with you and then be real + honest. (PS: Let’s go running again soon!)
Hi lovely Sarah, I am so happy that you wrote this and shared with us. You are amazing.
Alexandra
Alexandra! Yes … it’s TERRIFYING to publish this stuff, because of the fear that people will judge or disapprove! But it’s me and it was and it is, and that day, it’s what I wrote about. YIKES. Not every day is so heavy. (Some days are more fun, like that time we danced foolishly with 3 cups of beer each? HEAVEN).
xoxo miss you lovely lady!
Brett – those goblin bags, they get us sometimes! It takes a lot of insight and reflection to figure out how to proceed, and I definitely did a lot of staring at the water and wandering through the world to figure out what to do next.
(As an aside – it’s been SO GOOD to talk to you lately and connect – you are brilliant! Hope all is well on the east coast)
Yoojin – I absolutely remember that evening. Wandering in the dark after Track and getting to know you – what an interesting overlap in our lives! Hope to see you more this year, running around San Francisco. Thanks SO MUCH for commenting. I love hearing from you :)
It’s been awesome talking to you, too! You’re the brilliant one :)
Wow-ee, powerful words. I feel you here, I so do. I too would drive and bawl, scream and shake. I once had a few glasses of wine and then started driving in the middle of no-where wine country, no streetlights nada. Crying and listening to Ray LaMontagne, because I literally and figuratively had no idea where I was going, where I was, or who I was.
I’m glad you are happy now, we all deserve it. I’m working to be there too.
Best,
Quinn
http://urbansoulretrieval.com
Thanks so much Quinn. – it is one of the things about being human; this capacity for sadness and emotion. How we deal with it is fascinating… I share this because I’m no longer there (but I’ve been there).
Aww Brett! THANKS. It means a lot. See you in New York at some point …
Lady, you never cease to amaze me – from the time freshman year when, as medball partners I took an 8-pounder to the face and you responded with “are you going to throw it back to me or what?!” you are a brazen inspiration that life does indeed go on, and unexpected, wonderful things happen only when you are at your lowest, so that you can truly realize how wonderful they are. I had a pretty gut-wrenching 2010 as well. I don’t think I can write about it quite yet, because its a little too close and a little too scary. And I’m not yet brave enough to admit my failings to the world. But your post has shown me that eventually, I’ll get it out, just as it got through it. Keep being awesome!
Emily
Sarah, thank you so much for sharing this link. What an amazing story. Your writing takes me there, as if I’m standing right next to you. I’m really looking forward to following you through #reverb11.