Month: February 2020

Before I hit SEND on that text Wednesday night, I stared at it for at least 20 minutes. Overthinking at its finest. ‘It’s been three months since you last spoke,’ I told myself, ‘yeah, and the last time you spoke he was a dick.’ I followed up with.

My left pinky finger quickly pressed send, and my right hand grabbed my TV remote to press play. ‘It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t reply,’ I told myself, ‘and if he’s still rude then just never do this again.’

My phone chimed back almost immediately, and a text message appeared with my ex-fiancé’s full name. A video attachment of our dog rough housing in the hallways of the house I once made a home. I pressed play on the video and within seconds my eyes had welled with tears, and they began to pour down my cheeks. My puppy, who he had denied me seeing for six months, was now a dog. My old house, which I spent years making a home, was now just a shell.

“She’s so big, and so beautiful.” I typed back, through my blurry eyes.
“You can come see her if you’d like. I realize I was a dick last time.” He replied. “I’ll be working all weekend. Side gates will be unlocked.”

You can come see her if you’d like.

See Goose? YES.
The House? My garden? You? The shell of a life I ran away from 7 months ago.
I’m not sure about that.

I kept it to myself, and all-day Thursday, I thought about it. Stewing on the idea of digging up any feelings I didn’t want to feel. Thursday night I saw his sister for our usual yoga class, and I immediately exploded, “I talked to your brother last night.”

“You should go,” she told me over our usual post-gym beers, “you’ve wanted to see that dog for months.”

Saturday morning, I woke up feeling less confident about the idea of going. ‘and what?’ I asked myself, ‘have your heart crushed at the sight of your beautiful home as someone else’s? get upset that the 200 snapdragons you planted out front are dead, the vegetable garden is dead, the place you used to park your car has had another girl’s car there the whole time you’ve been gone.‘ My phone chimed: “I’ll leave her leash and harness on the porch if you’re coming up today.”

I smiled to myself as I got out of bed and got dressed, ‘Of course I’m going to come see my baby.‘

The gravel of the driveway was a little messier than I remember it. The front yard had been mowed recently, and the haul-away cart was still out front, with his gloves thrown on top of the dry grass pile in a sigh of accomplishment. I pulled my car around the house to the garage, my arms remembering exactly how to turn the wheel over the broken pavement. When I got out of my car, I felt nothing. I walked up the steps and rounded the shrubs I used to shape every few weekends. Nothing. Past the stairs up to the porch where I used to hang out on summer days in nothing but boots and a bathing suit, a beer in one hand and a gardening trowel in the other. I felt nothing. I took another turn at the brick chimney I used to use as a backdrop for flower photos, nothing. I pulled the lever to the side fence and quickly slid in, closing it behind me. For a moment, silence, and then Goose appeared from around the back of the house. Twice the size from when I’d last seen her. We both froze. She’d never seen me blonde. “Hi baby,” I began to crouch down, and she tilted her head. On guard at someone in her back yard, but- “Gracie Goose!” I called to her from 100 feet away and before I was finished saying her name, she was wiggling in my arms, in my lap, between my legs, anywhere she could possibly fit any piece of herself.

For just a moment I thought of the 7-week-old puppy I brought home, to this house, ironically all the way from the town I live in now. I put her in a crate for the hour-long drive, but she cried and cried, and in traffic, I let her out and kept her cradled on my lap. She tucked her nose into the crook my arm, and immediately fell asleep, silent for the rest of the ride.

Here she was, just over a year old.

I presented her birthday gifts to her; a newer, larger replica of her first and favorite toy as a puppy, and a ham hock. She took off with the stuffed toy immediately, throwing it and honking it all over the yard. I stayed for half the day. We went on several walks up and down the hills of the neighborhood, we played endless games of fetch and tug of war. We even napped briefly on the deck of her doghouse; my arms above my head, her nose tucked into my arm.

I got her nice and sleepy before I left. I kissed her goodbye, and quickly and quietly slipped back out the side fence. My sweet puppy.

Home is where you’re happy to wake up, where you’re happy to fall asleep.
Home is where you’re happy to come back to, after visiting a past life.

The girl that moved into this house was at-sea. She wanted to disappear. She wanted to start over. She was starving to be loved.

In the moments prior to signing my 5-month lease (that I believed was terrifyingly too long), I had been through hell, and then back, believing that my true home was wedged somewhere between lies, and deceit, and addiction.

I was terrified. Terrified of ‘failing’ without my boyfriend, just like he always said I would. But I was more terrified of continuing to care for someone who clearly did not care about himself.

“You have no recent rental history” my prospective landlord told me. “Without a co-signer, I need an additional month’s rent to secure your lease.”

I broke into silent tears. Standing outside of a job that I hated- and didn’t pay me enough to live on my own anyway. “I don’t know how you expect me to do either one,” I choked back tears, “I have no one willing to lend me money or co-sign for me, except the man that I am trying to get away from.”
“Sorry,” She offered.

I hung up the phone feeling defeated. Feeling worthless and pathetic, and wildly out of line for believing I could ever better myself past what he had already provided for me over the previous years.

The next day I pulled every dollar from every checking, and every savings account I had. I let all my automatic payments for the upcoming months overdraw my accounts, and I paid my landlord, thousands of dollars, after seeing my new home, just once, for 5 minutes at nighttime. I signed my lease after work one Thursday, convinced my neighbor to let me use his truck, and I moved out the next day.

I didn’t know this Podunk town. I didn’t know these roads. I didn’t know my favorite taco shop in town. I didn’t know where the cheapest gas was in town- or even where the nearest station was.

Fueled simply by the determination for a better life.

These walls in this house saw the brunette apparition I was when I moved in. Moving through the motions, without feeling much of anything at all. These walls saw me crumble, and cry, and scream. They saw me drunk as fuck on the floor, unable to stand; hysterically laughing, and they’ve seen me uncontrollably crying. They’ve seen me dancing in the kitchen making dinner by myself, and they’ve seen me hungover throwing together breakfast for my friends. These walls watched me dig a hole, and they watched me unknowingly plant myself into it. These walls watched me grow, they watched me sprout, and they’re supporting me while I bloom. Bloom within this town I selected on whim, this town I learned, this town I fell in love with.

The house that raised me, in this town that taught me to grow.

I walked into my neighborhood bar today, and immediately made eye contact with a man I used to helplessly love. A man whose car I usually would have noticed in the parking lot. A man I would have hated to see here.

“Are you kiddin me?” He beamed as my heels click clacked through the front door of the bar. He widened his arms for me to snuggle into.
“Wow, you’re still hangin’ out in my town, huh?” I laughed as I pulled my hands from my coat pockets, meeting his affection.

Without scanning the room first, I made eye contact with Jewel behind the bar as she flashed an unopened Modelo at me.
“Yes please girl!” I shouted to her as I sat on the same familiar camouflage decorated bar stools in this country bar. As she poured me a water to go with it, I turned my back to the bar for a second and immediately landed my gaze on Lola.
“Hey girl!” I skipped over to her barstool, placed in front of the pool tables, as she kept score of Tuesday night pool league.
“Hey beautiful,” she moved her boyfriend’s sweater off the stool next to her, “I saw you smile at Tim as soon as you walked in.” She rolled her eyes at me, “what the fuck.”
“I know,” I laughed, “what the fuck.”
She turned her whole body towards me, “And who was that guy you were here with two weeks ago? You’re so pretty, and he is so-“
“Ugh! Yeah girl, I know. But the alternative is, that fucking guy.” We both looked towards Tim, as he glanced at us, obviously catching and understanding my tone- knowingly exactly what had been said.

He turned back around to Jewel behind the bar, “Hey! Put all Micaela’s drinks tonight on my tab.”
Lola nudged my leg, “at least there’s that.”

The feelings that used to crush me, now offer me confidence. The things that used to ail me, now heal me. The things that I used to hate about me, are my favorite things about me.

Free yourself of the things that stunt your growth and watch yourself bloom.