Minds

photo credit: ge, april 2013, brooklyn, new york

 

My priority for the next post was going to be to begin a series of Camp Gramercy Goodbye and Thank You for Everything narratives, however something else right now in my life deserves mention, instead. Camp Gramercy posts to follow suit eventually (Rob is moving out at the end of May and Camp Gramercy, 240 E. 21st Apartment 6RE will no longer be "in the family," as I've liked to call it.) So, as this online journal is well aware, I fell deeply in love over a seriously short span of insanely amazing time before my relocation to Los Angeles. Granted, we had been off and on since April...well, May, after encountering each other by chance (through Lit Crawl) and wound up talking for like 7 hours that first night, and established a brilliant and beautiful connection like none other I could dream to establish (it was unexpected, unreal and rather under appreciated, at first, given the circumstances on how I'd given up entirely, at that time, on love ever happening to me.) (And oddly, he was rather in the same position having suffered a fairly serious recent-ish break up himself.)

Through a series of off and on encounters, deeply embedded emotions rose to both of our respective surfaces, and at one point there was a sobering encounter he experienced with his ex that basically required him to not only have buried her once, but a second time, and that disaster happened at some point after we had met, resulting in some radio silence between us for a while (and understandably so.) Life trudged, or hammered on me, or hit me with hard blows or however you'd like to envision it repeatedly through the year, with work, with issues outside of work, and so forth. And then the Los Angeles Announcement Train left the station to yield him standing figuratively with his arms at his sides, helpless and with little to do. I don't to this day know why I contacted him in response when he sent me an almost immediate note of request for time with me. What did I have to lose? Why not? Sure as anything he remains to this day the most impactful connection I made in New York City in my many years there, so why the fuck not entertain a short run of time with him before flitting off to a different coast?

Well, that short run of time sent us both reeling with unanticipated emotion for one another, all leading to the moment he stood at Kennedy gazing at me before my one-way flight to LA and offered that he hoped I didn't find it "creepy" that he had begun to consider me his New York Girlfriend. I mean, aww.

Then of course as these things unfold, there were visits, January, February, twice in March and then a long term visit in April. And through the course of all of our time, emailing long, long outpours of who we are, jumping on Facetime to "see" each other, long distance perpetually reared its often ugly head and turned me into an angry, embittered and often foolish person (along with all of the other fears and pressures outside of just *us*, including miserable attempts at establishing quality LA connections, which runs its course quite deeply with me emotionally especially having just glimpsed a teasing look into the red hot fire of such a fantastic, ridiculous, absurdly beautiful and quite rare connection with Greg.) In doing some reading here recently, which I will touch on in more depth at some point, I've read that in Shamanistic belief there is the notion that during times of life trauma, part of the soul exits the body to protect itself and through Shamanistic ritual with a healer, that soul can and will be returned. This is all life meaningful practice that I'm in the process of investigating because I am in desperate need of healing, right now.

I've been posting here recently about a steep pile of pain. And with work so slow and spring in full force and my recent experiences with Greg *such* a complicated collection of high and low points, we've been, in order to avoid conflict, rather quiet with each other. My initial reaction was obviously one of searing pain. Somehow we had been managing to remain *so* communicative over the last few months that oftentimes it felt like he was right here with me. Take, even, for instance, last Thanksgiving, before I even left New York, while I was in Indiana and Chicago with my family. We texted with each other, G and I, *so* frequently that at times, it's hard to believe he *wasn't* there, or I with him with his family. And not only that, but to that, he is *extremely* challenged at his career and staying focused is pivotal for his successes day to day, and he has expressed on many occasions how difficult it is to pop back and forth between our seriousness and his work tasks. I *try* of course to be mindful, and understanding and respectful, at times to great triumph but at others, not so much.

But in all of this, I have discovered some very serious life action that must be taken on my part, for me to be a positive force in *anyone's* life, ever, at all. And for as many times as I bitterly wanted to walk away from Greg, handing him over nothing but angry silence on my end, the giant pure heart in me is refusing to shut him out (which is, in KB history, a miracle, believe me.) For a couple of weeks now, I have been sharing *a shit ton* of my darkness with him, ignoring the infrequency of response, trying to fully respect and admire his needs in terms of dealing with this. Oddly, I would hand him possibly first place in the sensitivity category between us. Wait, no, we'd fight to the death for it but my point is, he isn't taking this easily, either. And there is life sized void in me during this struggle that really, genuinely can only be filled with my words.

Today, I admitted to him:

And that is another thing I want to confess to you, if you didn't already know. I hide behind words. I just do. I cower behind them. I am such an afraid person, Greg.

So very many times do I just write and write if nothing else to stabilize my brain, keep my mind moving so that it won't stop to spend time with itself.

But why I'm writing on this today, is this: somehow, G has arrived at a more comfortable place where he feels (though he still fears) that we may not be tempted back into what he called today "emotional collapse." And he wrote me long, long emails, so typical Greg fashion beautifully crafted, and even yesterday, he did, taking significant time from his commonly swamped work days to not only respond to me in such fullness but to also continually express how much belief and faith he has in my recovery process. And tell me how beautiful I am as a person. Repeatedly. It's incredible what taking time to tell someone that can mean to the recipient. And while I'm on a road with a vast volume of twists and turns ahead, I feel him near me somehow, despite the division. I feel as though we can continue to access each other for spiritual uplifting, which is, in this process, going to be of utmost significance to my head and heart, and the retrieval of my departed soul.