and again

1 //

I’m in a relationship where I give too much of myself because I’m terrified that if I don’t, they’ll leave me. Or worse, find someone else and then leave me. Or leave me and then find an immediate replacement. All painful.

And some of this is me, and some of it . . . isn’t. How do we know which parts to carry? Can I say the part that’s scary to say? Here’s what I’m holding. I blew up my life, partially for this. We cling, when it’s high stakes. Or maybe, because I have been deeply afraid — all along — this won’t last. Does anything, really?

I’ve decided I don’t really know how to be in relationship, and when I say decided, I mean it. I get to decide these kinds of things, I’ve been in this body for 40+ years and when I lean over my boobs just look . . . flat and weird now, like tube socks, my friend Rachel once said (of hers, and I said yes, that’s it!). We get to decide these kinds of things at this age, I’ve decided that too.

But god, do I want to love and be loved. What does it mean to be a partner, anyway? I click on way too many Instagram-therapy posts and everyone’s got an idea about everything. We’re all abused or abusing. Manipulated or manipulative. Both/and. Everything all at stupid once. I’d like to think I can hold all the nuance, but I’m not supposed to do that either. What can my body hold? A lot, according to my life history. What about now?

I’m returning to words. Whatever comes out. Trying to make sense of how to be anything to anyone. How I’ve tried/how I’ve failed. What of the trying? What of the failing? Did I ever even stand a chance? Can you stand a chance, when everything you try comes out sideways, because you got wired up wrong from the very start? When my partner thinks a dog is gross/weird/slobbery, etc., I say to them they didn’t ask to be born.

I just showed up here on this planet one day in mid-July of 1985, born to people who could have waited to have kids and probably would have been better for it. What if my mother could have known she didn’t need a man to save her from the life she didn’t ask to be born into? What if she’d traveled, written those books, healed the parts of her heart that had been shattered every day of her twenty years since she showed up here on this planet one day in early February of 1965? What could any of us be?

photo by my lover-partner, joshua tree, sept. 2025, yashica 120mm

My foolish, longing, open-sieve of a heart believes — all of us — with our rush-blood and desire and wonder, always and forever in conflict with all of the pain coursing through our bodies (handed down and handed down, passed around), are still worthy of love. So what happens now? Have we attempted (are we attempting) to find some sort of perfection in our relationships? Do we avoid and call it boundaries? Do we stay and be harmed/cause harm? Do we recognize we are all desperately, irrevocably flawed? Do we offer compassion and forgiveness at the sake of ourselves, or do we offer compassion and forgiveness because they are broken, as we are broken, and we’re just all in our brokenness, trying and failing and trying again?

2 //

I walk through my day - - as something, not my own.

To write this one thing, after talking to my daughter, I tell my daughter I need to write. She says, well, I want to talk. We’re going to spend the entire afternoon together, getting bubble tea, at the piercing shop, vintage shopping. I can’t wait, and I can. Before my daughter came downstairs, with her dyed red bedhead and vintage t-shirt with the rodeo grandmas screenprinted on it, I gently rub my lover’s neck and back, their long long body, sometimes in my brain I call them MAV-LONG-BODY, like it’s one word. We walk at the same speed because our hips are at about the same height, but they have this stretched out torso that gives them five more inches than I’ve got. Both times, I half-close the lid of my laptop. Half-close the lid of me.

3//

I remember this meme about Cancers, how we don’t want anyone to know we want to be babied. Crabs are watery and gooey inside, the hard shell is a necessity to stay together, but even that could be crushed instantly and I know it. So I’m tough and protective, but when I’m safe, I'm soft. I’ll let you see my gelatin-insides. Hold them with care. Hold me. Call me baby.