Author: Wild Little Hare

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.

I am grateful for my ability to love without being blinded by it. I am grateful for my sense of self, my vision of my goals, and my will to survive. I am grateful for the support system I have, especially when I know I was leaning so, so hard on them. I am grateful for my overwhelming compassion being met with equal amounts of pride and self-love. I am grateful for the moments I laughed out loud, reminiscing the beauty that is my life. I am grateful for the shenanigans; written, edited, and produced by myself. I am grateful for the doors that were slammed in my face, the lifelines that were severed, and the relationships that failed. I am grateful for the love I have found, the love I have lost, and love I have not yet met. I am grateful for my everlasting optimism and creative problem solving.

I am proud of myself for never losing sight of what I want and who I want to be. I am proud of myself for being able to recognize what was right or wrong for me; I am proud of myself for fighting until I received the things I wanted, and continuing to fight for the things I don’t yet have.

I got lucky enough for DMV to send my tags to my old address last month. I got really lucky enough that my ex didn’t just trash em when he found em, like he did the rest of my stuff.

I decided to make a day out of the 100 mile trip, and visit a few friends in the area too. The plant nursery I used to work at, being my first stop. I quit working there for minimum wage at the end of last year; around the time I accepted that I needed to be financially ready for first, last and security at any given time. Hopeful for our future, without being oblivious to mine.

I got an overwhelming sense of nostalgia pulling into the employee parking lot, gravel rearranging beneath my Chevy’s tires. I headed to the houseplants shed first. My favorite place in the entire nursery. Where my favorite photos of us were taken, where half of my plants came from, where my favorite/eldest/wisest friend normally hides out too.

“Blonde?!” Julie beamed as she walked towards me, arms stretched out, ready to envelope me into affection. “I missed you!” I laughed, as her long gray hair covered my face. “How are you?” She took a step back, and grabbed my left ring finger. “You don’t live in that house anymore, do you?”

She had about an hour before her lunch break, and we used the whole 60 minutes sharing stories about our most recent calendar year. “It’s like that song, have you heard it?” Julie asked me, as we each ran our hands through rows of houseplants, checking for yellowed leaves. “Unanswered prayers,” She nodded at me. “You didn’t get what you wanted- you got what was best for you.”

The bar was roaring with boot stomping on a Friday night. There was howling, cackling, laughter coming mostly from the corner of the bar where Hannah and I were leaning onto each other in shouts and giggles. I smacked the bottom of my beer onto the bar, and my attention was immediately drawn to the hand that had been placed on my shoulder. I was expecting Austin. I was expecting Mike, Robyn, Lynette. I was expecting George. I was expecting damn near anyone else other than you.

I can’t remember what I said. I’d honestly be more surprised if I had said anything at all.

I saw a deer on Consumnes Rd on the way to the bar this night. Austin and I laughed as we watched it hop straight up into the air, and over a 5ft fence. Not before it took a moment to stop in my headlights though. Frozen in indecision and maybe a hint of fear. I know this is exactly how I looked, sitting beside you at the bar, in this moment.

“I’m not here alone,” you told me. “Is that okay?”

“Is that okay?” You asked me, as my leaking heart split down the center, finally bursting, spilling my red blood down the middle of this old wooden bar. Blood, my blood, storming down to the end of this bar like a river in the winter. Cascading all the way down onto the worn hardwood of this bar, crashing into the wood grain below so loudly, I couldn’t hear a fucking thing else. This same bar you and I have sat at for hours- for weeks- for months. NO. NO, ITS NOT “OK”, NONE OF THIS HAS EVER BEEN “OK” but what else could I say? I’ve been the president of this bleeding hearts club for months.

“Yeah man, whatever.” I shrugged, as I turned my back.

AUSTIN. I thought to myself. Where is Austin. Be my boyfriend. Everyone be my boyfriend. No one is lonelier than a girl at the bar who just ran into the guy shes been chasing while he’s with his new girlfriend.

Lynette came up to me moments after he’d walked away and placed a new beer in front of me. “You okay girl?” She winced. What is there to explain at your neighborhood bar? These bartenders know my entire summer.

I met a guy who asked to swing me around this old wooden dance floor for what felt like hours. The entire room, a giant blur of my own blonde hair twirling around behind me. Dipping and stomping and laughing and falling into each other.

For the love of this blog, I wish I could remember his name.

Walking out from the bar you stopped me in my tracks. You were pulling onto Grant Line from this old gravel lot, not yet to the road. “Hey,” You called out to me. “Can I talk to you for a second?” I probably rolled my eyes as I took just a couple steps near your rolled down driver side window. “What’s there to talk about?” I laughed. “You’re fucking awful.” I rounded the rear end of the same Chevy truck we fucked in, a few weeks ago, at this exact bar.

Text messages started rolling in just a few minutes later:
“I’d still like to talk to you.”
“But if you don’t want to talk, I’ll have to deal with that.”

DEAL WITH IT THEN. Deal with it like I have dealt with this broken, bleeding heart for months, while I chase after you. and reserve my feelings for you. and compare every guy I’m with, to you.

Fucking deal with it, then.

Flashbacks of you hit me like coastal fog when I’m doing 75 on the freeway. Images of your smile haunt me like a shitty dream just a few minutes before my alarm goes off. Your memories sit in the back of my mind like a juvenile delinquent in the back of the class.

You used to get so frustrated with me when I spit my rendition of the truth. “Look,” you’d tell me. “Honey,” you’d beg me.

No matter what you’d say, no matter how tight you’d squeeze me, or how many kisses you could fit on one cheek- I knew. I knew our time was limited. Limited by my temper, limited by my attitude, my patience, my self-worth.

From the moment I met you, I knew I was too hot for you to hold.

I miss you more often than I don’t.

When I feel devastatingly lonely in the middle of the night, I think about the nights I woke up wrapped in your arms. I think about waking up to the sound of you snoring, and kissing your face until you stopped. I think about the way you’d reach over in the middle of the night, and pull my arm over you. You’d pull my hand up just a bit further to your mouth, and half-asleep kiss my fingers. My fingers in your beard has always been my favorite feeling.

I checked my pockets before I walked through the front door, and I noticed then that I had left my phone in my car’s cup holder. I didn’t go back for it though. The girls I was meeting already snagged a table.

Any time I’m at this bar, you’re the itch in the middle of my back. You’re the mosquito constantly in my face. You’re the chill of that front door swinging open, and my heart racing when a bearded man walks in. You’re the eye-rolling disappointment when it’s someone other than you. You’re always on my mind, everywhere I go, but especially here, where we were born.

I stopped with Mike and grabbed a whiskey, and snuggled into a hug with old man Donnie. This bar is a different type of zoo on the weekends, and it’s written all over the regulars’ faces. Saturdays especially, this place is infiltrated by people from the city, stomping around these worn down hardwood floors in their brand new boots. They don’t know the bartenders by name, or care which pizza joints will deliver out this far. They’re just here for a honky tonk good time.

“Whassup bitches??” I hollered at Jess and Jill as I rounded the corner and slid my whiskey onto the table. I was greeted with squeals and hugs and laughter before our glasses clinked together.

The bar began to fill rapidly, with the usual Saturday suspects. Our drinks were ready for refills, and we were reading out loud a few of the handwritten love, hate, and drunk messages off the wall nearest our table. Our table roaring with shouts, heads back, howling with laughter.

I glanced at the corner of the bar just in time to catch his eyes meeting mine. I could feel a smirk form on my face, remembering that it was just last night that I said I missed him. It’s been over a month since I saw him last; at the bar by his apartment, and in his bed the next morning. He rounded the corner and came to me with arms open.

“What’s up, fucker?” I slid my arms under his. He squeezed me, and kissed the top of my head, his chest heaving with laughter.

And it was happening. My exboyfriend’s sister was about to meet the man that inspired me to finally leave my ex. The man that eagerly handed over the keys to his truck after I told him I was looking at a country home to rent near his ranch. The man who talked me up, and talked me through, my wild mess of emotions while I separated myself from the life I’d known for 3 years prior. The man I fell so deeply in love with after my ex, and the man that built me up and restored my faith in myself, and in love after my exboyfriend chose once again, his vices over his future and his relationship with me.

He released me a bit, but we kept an arm around each other. “Hey there,” he announced to the rest of the table.
“These are my girls!” I beamed, “and this is Tim, the love of my life.”

Tim left to get us new drinks, and immediately the girls leaned in, “So wait, this is The Neighbor??” And I burst with laughter. I have a habit of constantly saying so much more than I’m aware of.

The band played a few covers, and after a few text messages from their kids, the girls decided to head home.

“I should probably get home too,” Tim kissed my cheek. “Wanna get outta here?”
“Nah, I’m gonna stay a bit longer, but I’ll walk you to your truck.” I said as I hopped off the stool.

A few minutes later he was out front of the bar, wrapping his arms around me as we walked out back to the dirt parking lot. “I looked for your car when I got here,” he said. “I didn’t see it.”
We laughed as we came around the corner and found only a single truck between our cars.

“So you’re really not coming home with me,” he sighed. “I still think about fucking in my driveway on the hood of your car.”

I reached for the zipper on his pants. “I’m thinking about it right now.”

He laughed as he fished for his keys from his left pocket. “Get in the truck.”

I’ve been thinking of you so much lately, that I’m allowing you to cloud my vision of almost everything. The speed in which I’m willing to call any flag red, and jump ship the moment a gray cloud crosses the sky. You called me a gypsy, and you called me flighty, and then you became the reason for my flighty, gypsy habits.

The lies. The lies. The lies. The recently uncovered lies that you’ve told both in recent, and distant past. To swim in your environment has been both healing and sorrowful.

I am in relief that I am not the only one that now has to suffer in seeing you for who you have been. I am tragically disappointed in the untapped, and unused talent, that is rotting beneath your addiction.

I pity myself, since you have turned to be vastly different than the man I fell in love with. I pity you, since you have turned to be someone I’ve seen you tearfully state that you never wanted to be.

I am devastated, thinking back to the young, carefree lovers; moving into the the house we figuratively, and literally, built for each other. Our whole futures ahead of us…

Having no idea that within years, it would be cut short in the exact disgusting way we were so carefully trying to avoid in the beginning.

In the first moments awake, before opening my eyes, I felt a hint of annoyance with myself for having left the music up so loud before I had passed out the night before. ‘My housemates hate me…’ crossed my sleepy conscious as I curled onto my left side. A familiar scent stopped my train of thought, as his arms wrapped around me and pulled me in closer.

He sprinkled my shoulder with kisses and still, without opening my eyes, I shrunk in his affection, suddenly feeling every ounce of him on every inch of me. Not at my house by any means, but definitely at home.

“You know how many times I’ve closed my eyes and imagined bending you over the hood of your car that night,” he told me at the bar, just hours before this moment. “Yeah, that was fucking hot.” I said into his ear after I leaned in closer to kiss his shoulder.

“Really fuckin’ hot.” He announced as he lifted his whiskey glass to his lips.

“So, how’s your apartment?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t so excruciatingly obvious I was blushing. “It’s not the farm, but it’s fine,” he shrugged and set his empty glass on the bar, the ice crashing to the bottom. “Wanna see it?”

A few hours later, somewhere between my 4th and 5th orgasm, I had my face buried into his neck, and my fingernails buried into his back. “Fuck,” he moaned, “I’m so glad you talked to me in that beer line.”

I’m always just spilling with laughter any time we’re together.

“You ready for coffee?” He asked me this morning, in the pre-dawn chill creeping in under the blinds pulled shut. “Yes please.” I sat up in his bed, counting the outlines of pillows that had been thrown to the floor during the night’s mischief. “Oh, that’s gonna be beautiful,” he said as he took a step back to push the blinds to the side of his sliding glass door. “Get ready for an incredible sunrise.”

A few minutes later he returned with a mug in each hand. “This one’s your favorite, right?” he set down a white mug with brightly colored flowers next to my phone on the nightstand. “Thanks honey.” I smiled as I watched the silhouette of his bare ass make it’s way back to the other side of the bed. He climbed back in and pushed our surviving pillows up against his headboard so we could watch the clouds change colors. “You’re welcome baby,” he smiled as he leaned over to kiss my forehead.

He moved to a different town, out of the countryside. In a third floor apartment. He made a joke at the bar the day he signed his new lease. “Here’s my new address. So when your lease is up in December- get an apartment here too.” He said with his usual perfect smile.

“Neighbors forever.” I laughed, before exchanging a mischievous glance with him.