Sweetlifeconfidential’s Weblog

I took a cab across town to meet you at The Continental Midtown. “Appetizers” we said, something to nosh on, to make our conversation less awkward, paired with my favorite wine, of course. You brushed my face and told me I was beautiful, with adorable dimples.

I made silly jokes, I felt fun, like the creative one, and I think you liked me this way, like I was enriching your life. Maybe you thought, ‘Man, this girl’s on crack!’ or maybe you thought ‘Wow, she’s really fun and passionate and creative!’ Either one was ok. I felt high, giddy, and infatuated, caught up in the bloom of a new relationship.

We spent the evening giggling, hands slowly caressing easier as the alcohol went down more and more. Telling stories, sharing ideas, enjoying this company. Falling into like.

“You know, I never asked you what you do?”

“I write. I go to school.”

“No, I mean what do you doo. For money?”

I grew silent. I didn’t know how to respond.

Fuck it. I slurped down the last of my wine.

“I work at GiGi’s.”

“Oh, like bartending?”

“Ohhh.” His mouth made a perfect circle. He leaned over the bar and slowly drank down his vodka and club soda. There was a pause that seemed like a lifetime. My heart was racing, I grew disappointed, knowing once again, I had ruined a perfectly lovely date.

“You certainly don’t look like a dancer. I am surprised. You’re smart, you’re educated, you’re different.”

I looked up and our eyes met. He put his arms around me and hugged me. He was the first guy who didn’t treat me like pretty woman. It was like nothing had happened.

He shrugged “You’re just trying to get by.”

Just like everyone else.

An e-mail from the Latina.

“Forwarding a rare moment…hope you get it.
 
I love you and take it for what its worth- I LOOK up to you- always. I’ve only known you for a year, but have always looked up to you because you’re you. Taller, wiser, reserved, prettier? Who knows, but I know we have grown apart because that is a part of life. You are the one person in this life who makes it look fun.
I lost myself this year. Reading your blog was like reading someone else’s opinion of you. I thought you had control and only realized in the end that even people that act the strongest make mistakes and fall down- just like everyone else. Seeing you go through your fair share of heartache, to be working as a dancer, live in a beautiful condo, still pursue your dreams, give up on friends, forgive friends, seeing you go through the thick and the thin, was eye opening for me. It was shocking. It was real. You had the fairy tale and you gave it life. You made me realize fairytales do come true, but there is always a reality check before the happy ending.
Got me.
My point is that I stayed in touch with you. I learned and listened. I love you and it may sound selfish, but I hate that I never see you anymore. I know you cannot be at my beckoning call; you have a life to live. This year has been crazy and even though it is the end of summer already, I know the next time we hang out it will be like we were never apart.
I don’t mean to ramble, but you have given me courage.  You have given me the courage to keep dreaming, laughing, and, shouting- the courage to be myself. An individual in a world where everyone tells me I’m wrong. You may be down, but it was YOU that has gotten me through dark times.
You are staying in Philly, not letting it defeat you. Slowly ridding your life of the toxic people who have burdened you, not manually, naturally. I know you will be famous one day. Perhaps, I’ll be your personal assistant. Your life may seem like a novel a tabloid story, or a telanovela, but it is NOT. I am fucked up and I admit it. You’ve scared me once before, DO NOT make it twice. Realize your star still shines even after all you’ve put it through/been put through. I am glad you are staying in Philly.
Dixie, different name, creative, from across the country, but it has been this girl that has made me realize it is ok to be crazy, sexy, and cool. Here’s to learning more about you.”

“You just have this fucking air around you that you’re better than everyone because you have reached the lofty heights of cock grinding.”

I stood there dumbfounded.

Noah was right. I did act like I was better than everyone else. That I was a little bit faster than you. I knew everything your husband wanted. I was the whispered secret, the mysterious girl people only glanced at from the corner of their vodka-tonics. Instead of defending myself, I threw my Louis Vuitton bag over my shoulder and marched out.  

He called out after me.

“See! You’re always running!”

It was over. Our relationship had run its course. It left me with an empty feeling inside. Feeling like I lost a year of my life, feeling like I had lost my best friend. Who am I going to call at 3am to talk about my night? Who am I going to text madly when work is slow? To snuggle with or to whisper secrets in the middle of the night? I felt like I had lost a limb.

In the bathroom at Brasserie, B held me in her arms, letting me cry, soothing me like an infant. She knew all the right things to say, she was the Barbie band-aid I needed to help heal the wound. She didn’t find this to be trivial. She didn’t tell me to get up and kick it over, she let me dwell and suffer in it. To let me heal on my own terms.

“I know its hard, but the tears really don’t go with your Cavalli.”

I started to laugh and blew snot across the bathroom stall. She made it easier to hurt, to feel sad, but she also made it easier to get off the floor and get back onto my trusty stilettos.

Once it ‘was over’, letting go becomes difficult, the pain comes in waves. It reminds you of the ocean you fell in love next to, it cues the tears, the “what ifs?”, but you cannot focus on the hard parts. I drive myself crazy replaying it in my head, perhaps if you had done things differently it wouldn’t hurt so much. I just want to rewind, to crawl back in that bed with him, to feel his arms around me, to feel his hair brushing against me. It won’t change, I know it won’t.

I now live life in small moments, some better than others. The good being chased by the bad. The what was I thinking followed by I’ll never do any better. But I parcel them out, let them lay on the bedside table, intermingled with our wine corks and love letters.

I try not to let him infiltrate my thoughts, but he does. As the days pass, I begin to feel a sense of relief that I am free to make my own decisions without guilt or judgment. I can finally decide what I want to be when I grow up, I felt like I was back sitting cross legged in circle time, dreaming and imagining what I will do.

I find myself sitting on a bench in Rittenhouse square, leafing through magazines, gulping down sweet iced coffees – fucking around. My blackberry no longer humming with little reminders to pick up his mail, or drop something off, or to stop fucking around. I can enjoy the day, bathing in noon’s lovely rays. Not pretending to be a personal assistant, a shadow in his world, because now I can have my own, as small as it may be, its mine. And if I only have me and B to share it with, well that’s just fine.

It’s taken me a week, 9 bottles of wine, 12 vodka-redbulls, 2 vodka-tonics, 1 bottle of champagne,4 ambien, 2 xanies, 1 ½ hits of e, and 3 bags of the white stuff to realize that my life might actually be out of control.

I’ve been living life pretty hard in the last week. Waiting for the depression to hit, the come down, but even through all of this, I’ve only felt one thing- happy. If I asked myself what I was waiting for most days, waking up and hitting the repeat button, trying not to think too hard about meaning or what I want from this shitty little existence, it would probably be this. A complete absence of responsibility and self-determination, the slow and inevitable decline into nothing.

I rolled over to a text message from his best friend.

“It’s time to grow the fuck up and get some much needed self-respect.”

I just stared at it blankly, letting the words fill up in my eyes.  Then, without thinking, I hit ‘delete’. I mumbled something on par with ‘stupid mother fucker’, then, rolled over to contemplate this life.

Remembering last weekend, skipping across the roof of the Gansevoort to nestle into a bathroom stall where I carefully shook the baggy over my hand. Pouring a bump onto my rolled up fist. The all too familiar sharp metallic burn, and suddenly I came back in a happier state. He licked the remnants of my gluttony from under my nose.

Wandering in slow motion to Mokai where the beats were louder and the coke hit you harder. Joey the bartender gave us free shots and invited us golfing, neither of us sure if we obliged. In the bathroom, girls stood around talking to me and admiring my clothes as if I were a permanent fixture.

In the cab home, I vaguely remember trying to call out for help, but only able to send it out via text. His phone fluttered in his pocket and he leaned in and held my hand. Stumbling to the front door, snails crackled under my platforms like fireworks.

Laying in bed, battered and bruised from our constant submission to chemical endorphins.  When lights took on a rare and precious quality, when the screen on his laptop buzzed and shimmered words and images I couldn’t comprehend. The soundtrack to our freak show; the fucked up harmony of tossing and turning in new sheets. We talked and we didn’t. I just gazed fascinated by the things I believed I could see.

The next afternoon I awoke to a dry miserable state, a victim of my own abuse. He held me in the grasp of his arms and I wanted to leave, attempting to pull away, he only pulled me in closer. I began enjoying this sensation of being wanted, of security, and so I stayed there in his arms.

I have been away. No time for writing,nor the energy. Fidning myself blogging on my blackberry in the corner of a bar. Holding up a Lily Pulitzer dress, one that used to fit my curves and now can barely hang onto my bony frame. A life I thought I had finally gained control of. Now left again in the control of another man. I’m frightened to get out. Scared of what my fate may lead me to. A destiny or a hell. So far away from anything I have ever dreamed. I feel like Alice, hoping to regain her sense of control, the life she used to have, not this neverending mad tea party.