Sanguinity: A Return to Form

feeling down like a dog but hopeful

I have planted gardens upon gardens of seeds and yet, I have come up lonesome. I actually convinced myself for a long time that this condition was preferable. That the time I spent with myself was the only moment I could find myself free of judgement, at my most comfortable. The silence was anesthetizing. It was not until I left for college that I got to gnaw on my loneliness. I had assumed that my lack of ever being in a relationship was what kept me in this perpetual state of isolatory woe. That the only thing I was missing was a partner-in-crime. This was not something that bothered me, or maybe it was, but my egotistical anxieties would not let me admit that I was missing out on something. Of course, I desired to be desired and I still do, every day. When I pass strangers on the sidewalk, I curse my bangs and wonder if too much of my forehead is being exposed by the wind. On the subway, I hope the stranger across from me is staring at me not with repellence but because they like my oversized, black glasses or something. Yada, yada, perception. Yada, yada, superficiality. It’s on the resolutions list to “get over appearance.” Maybe we’ll get ‘em next year.

I danced with the idea but ultimately, I avoided relationships when the option was sparsely presented to me as my gut told me to run away and, I suppose I wasn’t charmed. I had been quite selective in my intimate encounters; a concoction of high standards and a fear of the unknown. It was not until a little over a year ago, I considered the idea of pursuing someone. I took my sweet, sweet time. A slow transition into what had felt like 20 years of build-up. It was emotional for me, it was convoluted, and knowing that anything that begins must end at some point or another, I had to fight the urge to view this all as pointless. I had to alter friendships and reconsider the core of who I thought I was. I came back to what I first suspected about myself many years ago: that it is a personality that swindles me, not genitalia. For many months I found myself to be the happiest I had ever been. I felt lucky, I felt loved, I felt fulfilled. And then, quietly, like a bruise, it sort of washed away. My loneliness crept back up and I felt disappointed in myself– foolish even! How could I expect one person to take away years and years of bottled emotions and solitude from me? To lift the burden off of my shoulders without putting in any of the necessary work?

A “shipwreck” egg coined by my Poppy

I pushed the idea away and unconsciously looked for an egg to fill the hole of my shipwreck. I attempted a nonhuman solution: watching my sweet angel baby darling of a dog for a week. Dixie Jane, her name is Dixie Jane. Dixie is a pandemic baby. She spent every night in my bed despite my attempts to be a good dog owner and keep her in her pen. Every morning, she would wake me up by assaulting me with her sloppy kisses. She craved closeness so much that she would climb up the walls of her pen, anchoring herself with her small, fat neck and boosting herself to crash to the other side just to be with me. How could you not respect the hustle? I have a scar on my thigh from the time she was so happy to see me that she lurched to be in my arms. I look down at it fondly. In such a tizzy to be embraced, she took my heart and a piece of skin with her. You always hurt the one you love.

Once I had left for school, she was left with my incredibly cautious mothers and her ever-growing stockiness labeled her as a hazard in a house of small dogs and so, she was kept in the hallway. She watched everyone play with the other dogs, she watched everyone gather for dinners, she watched movies from the other side of the house. There, but on the outskirts. That is kind of the best way to describe how I have felt all this time. Singular, watching. Despite my being in a relationship, I was not one with them, I am two. I did not feel a closeness that I longed for, a closeness that I had with myself. I am a part of a family but I am me. I am a twin and yet I am just a sister. Two separate eggs rather than one, whole, split into two. There is no telepathic connection, there is not even a cellular one. There has never been a time when I didn't know who I was without someone.

The longer I was away, working for a degree, experiencing weed psychosis and homoerotic situations, the lonelier she was. Her isolation toughened her skin. Now, I am not sure if I can touch her without her getting upset with me. You know where this is going. I see myself in Dixie Jane. We both have a genetic predisposition for anger. Hers is the terrier in her and mine is the amalgamation of five Italian provinces. Anger and loneliness are the two most prominent emotions that rule over me and my daughter’s bodies. My lack of confrontation skills has gifted me this anger I feel at any waking moment. Bottled up, once shaken, I am ready to burst. This time in isolation has made us mammals unsociable and altogether frightening on the surface.

I have moved away from home and subsequently her. It's my life’s dream to have her live with me. Unfortunately, as life goes, she cannot. Allergies, frightful roommates, a cat that she will see as supper. But for the awkward time between Christmas and the new year, while my roommates had returned to their home states to rekindle with their loved ones, I watched her in our apartment. I spent my days on the couch, crocheting and painting by number and watching seven movies a day with her by my side. The only time we had left the apartment was to show her what Brooklyn looked like and she tried to steal a Twinkie off a 14-year-old so it was short-lived. Overindulgence doesn't get rewarded. During her stay, her docileness and loving nature climbed back to the service. All she needed was space, trust, and love. Maybe that’s what I need too.

When the day came when she had to return home to New Jersey, I sobbed as if she had been hit by a semi-truck. I could not stay in my apartment and vacuum up the ten pounds of fur she left behind. It was too painful. My loneliness and despair had been magnified and I could no longer ignore it. This was only worsened by my partner being gone for a month to travel with their family. Continuing my search, I started walking other people’s dogs but I don't think it helped me much. I feel like I have been hovering through space, my body just taking me through time. I can't help but feel so alone. I go through this in silence and expect everyone to know what I need. I speak to my mom four times a day, I live with four people, I am in a relationship, and I can’t not feel alone. Humans can not survive alone and as much as I like to think I am not like other bitches, I am.

(Editor’s note: I was broken up with two days after drafting this paragraph)

All the cliches that happen to a person after a breakup are happening to me. My friends wear hate masked as support. Though, like any time your friend gets broken up with, it's a chance for you to state all the things you've been waiting to say. Guilty! I will use the things we joked about against them like the Sartre tattoo and the coffee mug for their ex-girlfriend. The ones I would trace with my fingers. I will go back to the easiest thing for me to feel: anger. Every time I think about it I’ll say a little too loudly, “dumb, fucking asshole.” I see the things that should have been warnings. These moments come back to me with clarity now that it's over. I hear that happens to you. Why can't I be aware of it all at the moment? I feel like a victim and I turn myself into the villain by searching for strangers to fix the irreparable sense of humiliation and shock I am trudging through. This endless search I am on. Looking anywhere to put all this fucking emotion I have because it is hoisting itself above the pen to get out of me.

My muse and idol is gone and I am alone but with much more love and pain than usual. Truth be told, I had prayed for it to go down this way. For me to be the one getting hurt. I knew I could live with myself this way. I ice people out, I cut them off. Middle school, high school, college best friends. Roommates. Potential lovers. Family members. I say that I have no problem doing this because no one is permanent. I expect everyone to leave me. Maybe this is a result of being a child of divorce (BOOHOO). I had never given anyone the opportunity to leave me though. I always anticipated their plan and beat them to the punchline. And for the first time in my life, I came in second. And might I say, it was so much easier being the one to go. One thing of note is that no one really fought for me like how I did when I was being left. Yow-ch!

Everyone keeps repeating to me how this will teach me about myself, how I will grow and be a better person. But I don't want to learn nor grow. I don't want to be a good person. I want to stay stupid and in love and bad, awful even. I want to steal a Twinkie from a teenybopper, I want to be let in with the other dogs, I want to bite the hand that feeds me. I don't want to be on the other side of this. I don't want to have to confront what is wrong with me and why. I don't want to have to distract myself. I don't want to create playlists or watch movies or have everyone ask me how I am doing every hour. I don't want to have to hide photos, letters, and clothes. But I suppose that’s kind of the whole crux of a breakup.

While it was all happening and I was being given a hug that moved emotion from one body to another, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about how terribly beautiful it all was. I was ultimately getting demoted to friendship and naturally, I thought about how romantic and new this pain was. One day, you are sitting across from someone in a yellow shirt and falling in love and the next, they're in blue and you are broken. Someone is putting their heart out there and confessing their feelings and quoting your own essay about rejection and then they are leaving you and quoting your own poem about loneliness. The cruel irony of someone using your own words against you. I can run from everyone but I can't run away from myself. I am my own savior, I am my own crutch, and it's my own words that can save me. Writing makes me feel like I know what I am doing. It takes these emotions out of my chest and I don't have to cycle through thoughts on repeat. They become material. It becomes easier to deal with it. It is not up to me to decide anymore. They are now your problem. And maybe— no definitely —that is why I am writing this as I mend myself. I am trying to expedite the process. I don't like to sit in my grief and self-pity, if you can believe it. It is boring.

The truth of the matter is that alone, I am more poetic and I am a better writer. Though, this is not something I particularly care about. I would rather have love and happiness than a striking wit and the ability to string together words. Yet, I am back where I started: a state of self-obsession and overthinking. I am left with nothing but my words and empty soil to confront. It does not matter how many seeds you plant, cultivation does not happen in the winter. Wait for spring.

Dixie Jane