Paco told me to write.

And then he tagged this wall. (Photo by Aviva Rubin.)


Um, so...hey.

I like your hair...d’you do something new to it?

No? Well your skin really glows in this January February March gloom.

Plus that color always works so well on you.

Very slimming.

Very slimming.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had a tapeworm.

I meant that as a compliment.

So, um, how have you been?

Oh yeah, me too. Soooooooo busy.

Hey, Boo?

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I did that sociopathic break-up thing where I just pretended we weren’t hanging out and getting close these past years and just dropped off.

I’m sorry I’m here saying sorry again.

I just couldn’t get myself to post anything. I just didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I hope that doesn’t sound rude. I think we know by now that this is my shit. I just felt sort of meh about connecting. Sort of meh about everything really. It was all a little meh in these parts for a while.

And did I want to explain that? Did I want to say meh anymore than I already have?

Nay.

Nay, nay.

And if try to embark on an explanation now, then this will just become another entry I never post. I know this because I wrote most of this two months ago and then as I started getting into it----writing about anxiety, depression and meds, oh my!---I got very holy fucking meh about posting it. So I put it away and then tried again two weeks later. Same thing happened. And then I just kept taking it out and putting it away again and again. (If you are reading this, it means a small battle has been won.)

But I’ve been thinking about you guys this whole time and wishing I could just call and leave you a message (I’ll admit, even in my fantasy I prayed to get your voicemail) so I could say:

Hey. It’s me. I miss you, Baby. I heard “Groovy Kind of Love” on the radio the other day and it made me think of you. I’ll never forget all that you did for me these last three years. All that you mean to me. I value and appreciate you, Boo.

And then, if I was a little buzzed up, I might sing a little.

When I’m feeling blue
all I have to do
is take a look at you
then I’m not so blue.

Really, Phil Collins? Twice you say blue? Twice?

All of this would have still been on your voicemail.

Then you would have heard me weep...or fall...or yell at my phone---Turn off! Turn off, Gadget!---and you would have known I love you.

But, no.

I stayed away. There was too much to say and I thought I wanted to be alone. I did want to be alone. I know how I sound. I understand if you think me a terrible ingrate right now. I felt that way too. When you guys come here, I am a writer whose work is being read and that’s a fucking privilege I don’t take lightly. More than that though, you guys are smart and safe and have been incredibly supportive through the crotch and when I disappear it makes me feel like I’m cheapening our thang.

At the same time, I didn’t want to disrespect you by telling you half-truths. Just the rosy. Next month it’ll be a year since my dad’s death and the last year---both parents being gone, the house on the market, the changed backdrop of life---it’s been, I’ve been, all over the place.

And I didn’t want to put my “all over the place” out there. You’re probably thinking---Oh, The Spew got hacked. All this talk about privacy couldn’t possibly be coming from the same brain of the girl who gave us the play-by-play of her colonoscopy.

Don’t I know it. Sometimes it feels like there are 17 people in my head (one’s named Paco) and they all have different boundaries. Some of them know I’m a better person when I reach for human interaction. Others of them are all, “Bitch, don’t you walk out that apartment door. You know we like our smoothie at the same time every day.”

But last month I went to Guatemala. And it was a fantastic adventure and the best reminder of why I have to fight---fight like a mofo---to be well and rebuild and create a bad-ass life. And I am straining every muscle of my hands and chest and heart to keep hold of that knowledge because depression is always trying to strip it from me. So I want to write something here about the trip.

Let’s give me a week. A little cushion. Today I feel strong. Tomorrow I might not. But I’m walking and trying to get to sleep at the same time every night and doing all that self-care bullshit that makes me feel like I’m eight-years-old, but which I know is always the foundation for any sort of lasting positive change. I should be able to get something post-worthy together by next week. Even if you’re not here---and I really understand and accept that most of you may not be here anymore---I’m going to get something up about my trip by next Thursday. (If nothing else, you'll get a poem.)

But I really want to write about it because:

It feels pretty wrong that I didn’t even tell you I was going, given that you guys were the first ones I told about the dream of taking this trip.

And because:

I don’t think I want to be alone anymore. Not all the time anyway.

Smoothie or no.