Hearts are broken every day

I don't even know where to begin. Wednesday afternoon, everything was great. I had relaxed and forgotten about my work stresses completely, downloaded music I had been forgetting to download for a month, I knew Devon would be having a good time with Diana + Justin, and a little while later, she'd swing by our house and we'd go to Institute together. Two hours later, the girl I love had broken up with me, and I was driving around Long Beach trying to figure out where I was going to sleep that night. I lost my girlfriend, lost my home, and since I know that work stress on top of that would just break me, I quit my job. I didn't want to but I know that I just can't handle everything at once. My whole world, every aspect of it, has been turned upside down, and I feel so lost that my soul is breaking.

By far the worst part of it all is losing Devon. And I don't even know why, really. The only thing she was able to tell my was that it wasn't working, that she wasn't getting all that she needed. She didn't tell me what it is that she was missing, or how long she had known this, or anything else that would have shed just a tiny piece of light on things for me. She did, however, tell me not to forget that she loves me, and that I'm the love of her life.

But what does that mean? I'm the love of her life, but instead of telling me what's wrong, so we can talk and see if we can overcome this problem, like we overcame the New Zealand problem, it seems like she just wants to forget the whole thing and give up. She's let go of me, just like that, and that is the worst feeling in the world, to be let go of so easily because you feel like maybe that person never really cared about you in the first place as much as you thought, if it's so easy for them to let you go. That same thing happened with Nora, but the difference is that Nora *didn't* care about my as much as I had thought at the time. She treated me like crap, too. I was always the one giving all of myself, 110 percent, taking care of her, supporting her, making sure her needs were met while ignoring my own. Nora gave around 25 percent, so the crumbling apart of our relationship makes sense. But things were entirely different with Devon, which is why none of this makes sense to me.

I remember when we were in Maryland, at Opus, we had gotten into some sort of fight; I had gotten mad or upset at something, I can't remember what, exactly, but I remember her telling me that she's not perfect, that she won't always be able to tell when something's wrong and that I need to tell her, so she can fix it. She's probably forgotten about this, but I remember it very clearly. We were sitting on the bed that we had in our room upstairs. It was afternoon, Malini was gone, preparing for dinner, and it was before Liz had moved into the room. She's not perfect, I knew that, and I never expected her to be. Because neither am I. Does it not work both ways? Why did she want me to tell her what's wrong and allow her the chance to make things right, and yet not allow me the same priviledge?

It's the most disorienting feeling, to have something I cherish beyond words being ripped away so suddenly, and not have any power to do anything about it. And I cherished her so much. She was the love of my life too, you know. I have never known anyone else so kind, caring, smart, funny, talented, sexy, wonderful, beautiful and just all around amazing. I still know that she's not perfect, but at the same time I know that there is no one else in the world as special and rare and precious as she is. And losing her feels like a piece of my soul has shattered and gone missing.

I'll never again hear her sweet, beautiful voice singing to me, never know the joy of making her laugh so hard that an hour later she's clearing her throat every five minutes from the plegm, never watch her knit some amazing creation, never maker her PB+J sandwiches, making sure the crunchy peanut butter and raspberry jelly are mixed together just the way she likes it, never put together a jigsaw puzzle with our two completely different methods, never see her blue eyes twinkle at me mischieviously as we sit together in Sacrament Meeting, never pray together before falling asleep, never hold her hand as we walk to the beach to sit at the cliff and share a silence together that doesn't need to be filled, never share a tender kiss every morning when we wake up, never spend an entire night making love, just to wake up in the morning and start all over again, never see her squint one eye and one eye only every time she yawns, never take random drives where we take random pictures, never stand and hug her and she starts to sway us back and forth like we're slowly dancing to a song only the two of us know, never drive Mulholland Drive at night in a dense fog where I hold on in the passenger seat and fear that we're going to plunge over the side of a cliff and Devon gives an excited and endearing, "Weee!" every time she hits a particularly sharp curve at 40 mph, never hold her as we spoon at night and feel her grab my hand from where it's resting around her waist and bring it up to her chest and cradle it firmly over her heart for the rest of the night... I could go on with this list forever. There's just so much that I had, that we had. So, so much, and now it's gone. All of it. Gone.

In addition to losing the love of my life, I've lost my home. I'm sitting here in my sister's bedroom, in my mother's apartment, feeling the most intense homesickness ever. I want to go home. This is not my home. My home is over there. 1*** Florida, Long Beach, CA 90802; that's where my home is. Where there's no parking, and loud neighbors, where there's Bill, Christina, and two cute cats that flee every time I enter the room, where there's a tiger-patterned couch that's yellow and no longer orange and a fridge with naked man-part magnets, where there's a shower so large and magnificent that I can practice my kung fu moves as I wash my hair, and where there are books, books, books, everywhere you turn. And also, Devon is part of my home. All of that is gone now too.

All I have left now is a small photo album of black + white pictures of Devon that I took, a folder with all of the letters and little notes that she's written me, and two pillows from our bed that overwhelmingly smell like her.

Oh, and the memories. Dear God, the memories.

Earlier today, I picked up Marlon so we could do something, and I took Bellflower down to Atherton, to get to his house. I passed near Devon's dad's house, which was just one street over and my heart clench cause I remembered the one night we spent over there and how we've been feeding Mama Cat recently while her dad's on vacation. I passed our UU church where Devon and I first met over 6 years ago. I picked Marlon up and started heading down 7th street and ended up passing Cal State LB, where I would drop Devon off at class while my car was on the fritz, and my heart clenched painfully again.

I sped up and got on the 22 to the 405 North, and told Marlon we needed to get the hell out of Long Beach if we wanted to do something because there are just too many places and too many memories that I just can't bear. I told him I felt like running far, far away, that I wanted to get as far away from the pain as possible. He reminded me that that's what he did, when his girlfriend of 4 years had come back from a vacation to India married to someone else. He immediately bought a plane ticket and flew to California, leaving Maryland far behind. He said that if I needed to, I could do the same thing, just in reverse, since he still has buddies in Baltimore I could crash with until I get on my feet. But then I pointed out to him that Maryland holds memories of Devon too. Of Opus, Camp Mardela in Denton, of our ill-fated trip to a beach in Delaware, where while stranded on the side of the road, Devon made a hotel reservation and I made a sandwich, of that spectacularly large bed in our Marriott Courtyard room, of the quiet nook in a terminal of BWI airport where we made a semi-fort with our luggage and cuddled while we waited for our flight. Marlon shook his head and said, "Oh yeah. Won't work."

So we take the 405 up into LA, and I drive around the city aimlessly, not really noticing what particular streets we're on at any given moment, until at one red light where I've stopped, I look around and realize that I'm at the intersection of Santa Monica and San Vincente in West Hollywood. Where the entrance to Gay Pride was on June 9th. Where everything between us started. I had to pull over for a few moments to just let out some tears. Then I continued down the street and remembered us walking down that sidewalk. Passed the parking structure where we parked at. Passed Pinkberry, where we went with Briana and Mike. This continued on all throughout LA. The two Dennys' only half a block apart from each other where we ate after Pride, Sunset Blvd. where she called her dad to see if we could borrow the Incredibles, and so on and so forth, and it occured to me that it doesn't matter if I leave Long Beach or LA, or avoid Maryland and Delaware; no matter where in the world I am, these memories will still be with me, and I will forever cherish them for the joy and despise them for the pain they simultaneously bring.

And I can't help but felt like things could have turned out different. I know that somehow, someway, I screwed up and now these are the consequences of my mistakes, mistakes that could have been avoided and I'd wouldn't be losing the greatest thing ever to happen to me. I have a guess on how I may have screwed up, but when I asked Devon if Tuesday night had anything to do with this break-up, she said no. I'm at a loss.

And I know that this journal entry seems like a long string of endless lists, but these are only a fraction of what remains unwritten, that's only in my heart and in my memory. The reason I wanted to write a large portion of the down is because there's just so much that I have to relieve some of the burden from my heart down onto paper. I have lost so much.

I feel like I have lost everything, and I don't know which way to go.

O God, help me.

She is fucking amazing. I'm not sure I deserve her.

But I'm not going to question it. I'm just going to hold onto her.

"A Mormon Jew? But that like, defies the laws of, like... thermodynamics"

Thus said my sorority sister Michella, who is herself an utterly fascinating contradictory combination of stereotypical blonde Valley girl and astrophysics genius.

She's not the only one to question this peculiar fluke of nature, so I thought I'd give a go at enlightening the puzzled.

My parents are both mutts. Which sorta makes me Mutt 2.0. On my mom's side, her dad was half-French half-Irish, and her mom is half-Cambodian half-Chinese. My dad's side is composed of my half-Spanish half-German grandfather and my half-Mexican half-Navajo grandmother. All of this adds up to me, compiled from eight equal 12.5% chunks of ethnicity. Lord Muttious Supreme, Ruler of Mixed Race, Duke of Cornwall. Each of these ethnicities came with it's own accompanying traditional religion. So my parents to decide me with no religion at all.

My paternal grandfather, a descendant of conversos, despite marrying my Catholic grandmother, remained a practicing Jew up until his death. The discovery of this part of my heritage sent me on a journey of seeking and learning that eventually led me to honoring my bloodline and rekindling the faith of my ancestors. (First however, my dad's mom *did* attempt to raise me Catholic, but after I got kicked out of three different Sunday school classes for asking too many questions, she gave up.)

So I embraced Judaism. And thought that was it, that I had found my faith and I was done with exploring other religions.

Enter the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints. I emphasize the words 'Jesus Christ' because if you've ever seen the logo of the Church, you'll know that the words "Church of" and "of Latter-Day Saints" are in regular, normal letters, with "Jesus Christ" slapped in the middle in big, huge 'What now, bitch?' CAPITAL letters. See what I mean?

This is amusing to me because I know this is one of the subtle ways the Church flips off/defends against those in the Evangelical community that are adamant that Mormons aren't Christian. "Look here you freaking little fetchers; its says 'Jesus Christ' right flippin' here morons. Suck my balls."

I'm digressing. Let me go back. Starting when I was 13, my best friend Laura had started taking me to her church, a Unitarian Universalist church, where in religious education class, you learned about all different kinds of religions instead of just one. That class helped build my foundation of knowledge of Judaism, and also introduced me to the LDS Church. I read and studied about the church, and despite the obvious contradictory flaws between Judaism and the Church, some of it really made sense to me. I accept Judaism as a whole, and also accept bit and pieces of LDS doctrine as well. I am baptized as a member of the church and regularly attend Sacrament Meeting. I am a Mormon Jew. Or a Jewish Mormon.

So while it may seem strange that I consider myself to be both Mormon and Jewish at the same time, it's entirely possible and no, Michella, it doesn't violate the laws of thermodynamics. It probably violates string theory, though.

The joy of being miserable

So the other day (Monday, if I recall), it was raining here in Southern Cali. I was at work, and went to my lunch break around 12:30. Now, I normally eat at the food court in the mall, which due to the L-shape of the mall, would be easier to reach by walking outside and cutting through the parking lot, instead of staying inside. So in order to conserve energy, I apply Pythagoreas' theorem and walk directly to my destination. That and the fact that I enjoy watching drivers follow me cause they think I'm leaving the mall and walking to my car and they want my parking spot. It amuses me to no end when they follow me for 10 minutes, then see me cross the street and head back into the mall and they honk and yell and flip me off and I yell back at them to 'blow my ten inch DICK'. This game is especially fun during the holidays, when people are so insane with holiday shopping that they cease to exhibit normal human behavior. Good times.

So anyways, there I was leisurely making my way across the parking lot (because I wasn't all that hungry so I wasn't in a hurry), when the mild drizzle turned back into an all out downpour, and the wind kicked up with enough force to make me unbalanced.

Recently, things in my life have taken a turn for the worse. My parents had increased the frequency of their histrionic fits and the immature crap they keep throwing at me. An ex I had a messy break-up with came back into my life with her new boyfriend and embarked on a vicious and deliberate campaign to throw it in my face with a complete disregard for me and my feelings. My best friend and I had an actual disagreement, nay, a full-blown argument with yelling and short tempers and a smothering sense of frustration.

So as I'm meandering along, iPod on random, contemplating all these things crashing down on me at once, the song on my iPod changes to "Bleed" by Cold, which is a simple song, raw with despair and is the most depressing song I have in my vast collection. I decide to stop walking, and stood there with my arms held open, and welcomed the storm. I stood there, rain soaking me to the bone, wind whipping my hair, clouds dark and menacing looking, Scooter Ward's lonesome voice and guitar in my ear, and I had never felt so miserable in my entire life. So completely dark and depressed and conflicted and confused and totally, utterly alone.

It felt fan-fucking-tastic.

Not literally of course. Depression isn't a warm, tingly feeling. But it was fantastic in that I could *feel* it. Up until that point, I had generally felt kind of.. empty and numb. Like I was walking through my days with my emotions dulled. Each time Shannon sashayed past my store with her new ogre of a boyfriend, making sure I was looking when she stopped him and kissed him, I felt nothing. A small sense of anger at her immaturity perhaps, but for the most part, I didn't feel anything. But there, in that parking lot, I felt something, and I felt something intensely, and it's been a couple months since I've felt something so strongly.

The second part of it being fantastic is the fact that I can feel depressed, and I'm not afraid to feel depressed. In my past, I've found many alternative ways, some extremely harmful to my health, to handle depression instead of just dealing with it. I've been clean for 3 years now, and there had always a lingering fear that one of these days I wouldn't be able to handle those types of feelings and head right back to coke as a way to cope. But I've now reached the point where I'll only give one nanoseconds' thought to using drugs to make these feelings go away (the thought will never completely go away, any ex-addict who tells you otherwise is full of shit; true addiction is for life, the only thing that changes when you go clean is how much power you let it hold over you). Rather, I'll let myself bask in the glorious feeling of depression and feel intensely happy with the fact that I'm no longer too chickenshit to experience life and feel like a normal person without the crutch of substances.

I am not afraid.

Testing

Eh?