Wild Little Hare

My entire life I’ve felt like I’ve been searching for my people. My family. My friends. My pack. My flock. My herd.

I remember as a kid being so pitifully shy. Shy because the kids in my class didn’t hear a thing I said. Shy because my family didn’t understand a thing I said.

I’ve been quiet on this blog lately- mostly because I’ve just been so genuinely happy. I’ve been reflecting so hard on how many times I’ve manifested my own life, and cackling at the amount of times I’ve wished for exactly the life I live. Recently, I find myself sitting back multiple times per day, just to giggle at the fact that in the last year and a half alone, I’ve accomplished the things that I either: A.) didn’t think that I could, or B.) was told that I couldn’t.
Obviously one of those points caused the other.

I constantly think about the quote that plainly states you need two types of people in your life: the type that believes in your dreams, and the type that pokes holes in your dreams. For so long, my life was so abundant in the latter.

I’ve shied away from writing when I am happy; I’ve shied away from telling people when I am happy. I’ve shied away from sharing my happiness with others, because it seems so disgustingly rare to find a friend willing to bask in your happiness with you.

My pack, my flock, my herd.

I turned 30 this week, and my boyfriend threw a party at my farm. He cleaned the house, decorated the property, and then prepared tacos and margaritas for 30? of my friends and family. Friends I hadn’t seen in over a year, family that had never met some of the friends I consider family. A house full of the people closest to me; making sure my cup was never near empty. A roaring house filled with music, and laughter, and all the best vibes.

Early the next morning I rolled over in bed next to my boyfriend, and for the millionth time, complimented him on his party-throwing abilities.
“I had so much fun. No one’s ever thrown a party for me before.”
He leaned back a bit, “What??”

10 seconds later, my bestfriend walked in through the kitchen door with a bottle of champagne in her hand: “Happy Birthday, bitch.”

My pack. My flock. My herd.

The past can be a dangerous place to play
a dangerous place to run
a dangerous place to visit
a dangerous place to bring a friend.

The process of the product.  The road behind the vista.
That part of the iceberg that stays hidden beneath the frigid waters.

I don’t think about my past because I miss it.  I don’t write about my past because I wish I were there. I think about the past while I’m basking in the beauty of the present.

I think about the past when I’m basking in the perfection of the product that is my life today.
I think about the past when I’m hollering my gratitude to the universe for the vista I have.
I think about the past when I’m washing the dishes and you ask what I’m giggling about.

I love my past, and the stories it’s given me.  The gratitude it’s forced me to have, to think about the life I no longer live.  The happiness it gives me, to know that I’ve never stopped improving.  The characteristics it’s imbedded into my personality.  The knowledge I’ve been given, through the mistakes and the failures, and the lessons and the success.

To ignore the past, and the discomforts it could provide, would be to exist unconsciously, every day.

I live for the miniscule moments of recognized accomplishment.  The super quick, picture perfect moments where you take a deep breath and realize you have single handedly created all the little and huge things you’ve silently, or out loud told to yourself you wanted.

Every time I walk up to Jess and Mike’s house, I get a brief twinge of a memory.  A memory you’d think would be a sour memory, but for me it’s sweet.

I was in my car outside their house, some wacky night in July.  I had been texting Jess for a couple hours already, and the most recent of texts I had received she was urging me, “You need to get out of there.  Get in the car right now and come over.  We will be home in an hour.”
My head was exploding with every throb of my tear-driven headache.  I was in my pajamas, smelly and sticky with a bottle of corona that had been poured over my head just an hour or two prior.
I saw their SUV pull up, and I dragged myself, half-alive, from the driver seat of my car onto their front lawn, and trailed behind them into their house.  They’d just returned home from a Giants game in San Francisco, and were just as exhausted as me. “Do you want a drink?” Jess asked me, as Mikey disappeared to bed.
I laughed before I replied: “Just a shower and a blanket would be awesome ‘til morning.”

The next morning, was a Saturday morning.  Gracie had a vet appointment at 7am that I had to call and cancel.  I sat on the couch with Jessica in the dark.  “What are you going to do?” She asked me, over the brim of her coffee mug. “I don’t know,” I told her with welled up eyes. “Obviously there’s no going back, though.”  I set my phone down on the arm of the couch between us; a listing of apartment rentals staring up at the ceiling.

In this moment I didn’t know what was going to happen next, or where I was going to go. In that moment, the only thing I knew was that I couldn’t keep doing what I had been doing.

“Sooo, thanks for that reminder,” I told Mikey last week, as we sat back in camping chairs watching a stranger strum a guitar to a small crowd of drunken campers.  There were two empty chairs in between us, our other halves had left for just a moment. I pulled my sunglasses from the top of my head back onto my face, “I will forever appreciate the small reminders that I did the right thing.”
“Yep.” Mikey sighed, as he tossed a mushroom cap onto my lap. “Love you girl!”

So here I stood on the front steps of this same house, hungover in yoga pants and my neighborhood bar’s hoodie.  Mike and Jess had just backed the RV in, but obviously not unpacked it yet.  “You didn’t have to drive this all the way over!” Jess laughed at me, as I handed over the mask Mikey had left in the backseat earlier that day.  “We went to the farm to check on the goats after we left the campsite.  It’s on the way!”
We each hollered I love you, and I turned to walk back down the steps of their house, back to Nick’s truck, pulling the trailer that’s been stamped with our names on the back window.
Another camping trip, that I’d always wished I was going on with Mike and Jess. After leaving the farm I had always said I wanted, after checking on the goats I always wanted to have.

And I smiled to myself, in this miniscule moment of recognized accomplishment.
I had no idea that morning in July what was going to happen next, or where I was going to go… But I am so thankful every day that I didn’t keep doing what I had been.

Something I’ve written about many times before, always in a manner of gratitude, is my ability to move quickly past something. I’ve always been amazed and appreciative of my ability to assess a situation [mostly] logically, and either problem solve the remedy or, remove myself completely, with minimal emotions.

I can’t be sure where I learned it.
Probably my narcissistic and avoidant parents, right?
[finger guns]

Circa 2013 I had started dating the door guy of our neighborhood bar. Everyone in my house, and friend group, had gone to school with him. He got us in to the bar every Friday night without having to wait in line or pay the cover. Our houses were just a couple stoplights away from each other, in a neighborhood that backed up to the American River. I broke up with him on the Fourth of July at my family’s barbecue, right after he told me he loved me.
A few weeks later, I was sitting on the couch with my roommate, sharing a blunt and a blanket while the TV played in the background. My roommate quickly showed me her phone, which displayed a snapchat that the ex-door-guy had sent her. A photo of his girlfriend after me.
“Yeah, I saw that one after work.” I dismissed the photo.
“Your exboyfriend sent you snapchat of his new girlfriend?” She furrowed her brow. “He’s obviously trying to hurt you.”
“Yeah,” I shrugged, “It probably would hurt my feelings… If I fucking cared.”
She took the blunt from me as she rolled her eyes: “Micaela, you’re not a girl.”

Last summer I was standing in my mom’s driveway collecting broken down boxes from her. “Well, they say,” she said while handing me more boxes, “It takes half the time of the relationship, to heal from it.”
I laid down down the last stack of boxes into my car, and pushed the trunk door down. Without expression at all, my eyes met hers, “No.”

My mom sent me a text the next weekend: “How ya doin’?”
I had just retrieved my phone from charging on the table next to my neighbor’s bed. I was shuffling down the hallway in just a pair of socks, and his tshirt, a glass of whiskey in the opposite hand, ‘I’m having the time of my life!’ I hit send, and laughed to myself as I tossed my phone onto the couch.

What a luxury to not be able to hear your heart scream when you don’t want to.

What a pathetic, passionless way to live.

A week after I moved out, we stood in the kitchen again passing a joint back and forth. Pretending things were normal, for just five minutes, for the sake of a brief moment of continued regularity, maybe everything could stop hurting for just a little bit.

Somehow it felt new, but this was still the exact same kitchen I had made dinner in every night. The exact same kitchen I baked cookies with your mom in. The exact same kitchen we used to pile with bags of groceries. The same kitchen I accidentally flooded that one time. The same kitchen we made love on the counters in. The same kitchen I used to open the basement door from, and holler to you in the wood shop that dinner was ready. And then again in 5 minutes that it was getting cold goddammit get your ass up here. The same kitchen we sat on the floors of, eating pizza out of our hands, beyond exhausted, the night we moved in.

You stood in the kitchen that day and you apologized to me. You told me you were sorry for dragging me through this with you.

I remember feeling the most angry with you, in that moment.

Fuck your apology, and fuck you.

How was I supposed to rebuild my life, with your apology. How was I supposed to forget how perfect our relationship had been, with your apology. How was I supposed to forget what a monster you had been the week before I moved out. I gave you all of my understanding, all of my patience, all of my trust. What the fuck was I supposed to do now, with your fucking regret.

Its been a year simce then, and I think back to this moment, and every second of it that I took for granted; I am wildly grateful for your apology, and for your recognition that I didn’t deserve the way we ended. I realize now, that apology, will be the only one I ever get.

A night or two ago I was casually talking about finances with a friend of mine. I was reflecting on the role money plays in your life when you’re not constantly thinking about how or where you’ll get more of it by the time the next bill is due.

I’ve been paying my own bills and rent since I was 15 years old. Always with roommates, but somehow who always worked fewer hours than me, but always had parents that paid their rent, or phone bill, or petrol, or groceries.

I witnessed firsthand the difference it makes in someone’s mentality and personality to simply live, instead of struggle to survive. I laughed at how I’d spent my whole life listening to my biological Dad tell me at 20 years old that I was broke all the time because I was bad with money, NOT because I’d been on my own since high school and was trying to make ends meet on $13 per hour.

So, my whole life thus far, I’d taken my caregiver’s opinion of me seriously. Hi, I’m Micaela and I’m bad with money.

Imagine having such a enormous emotional impact on your child, and using it to trivialize and berate them instead of provide guidance or support.

Gross.

I’ve been struggling to be patient with myself. I am struggling to be understanding and accepting of any and all flaws I see in myself. I am being so excruciatingly hypercritical of myself that I’m struggling to think of something nice about myself. Just one nice thing.

I can’t pinpoint where this came from, or why it’s so hard to shake. Even in the wake of my usual self-destruction, I have always been able to throw myself a beam of sunshine. A compliment as I pass myself in a window. A playful giggle at a careless mistake.

When I open my mouth to speak, I don’t sound like myself. My thoughts don’t seem to have originated from who I’ve been. I feel like everyone around me is over my shit. I feel like I am over my shit.

I barely know who I am anymore, and I don’t know where I can find me again.

I woke up the same exact way I always do at his house. Hungover, maybe still drunk. Trying to recall every detail of the exact moments leading up to me crawling into his bed the night before.

He curled his right arm around me, and squeezed me into his chest. “You ready for coffee?”
I nodded without opening my eyes, “Mmhmm. Yes please.”

It’s always the same show, different stage.

He brewed us coffee, and as usual, drowned my cup in coffee cream. I didn’t say anything, though. I never do. He handed me a red and yellow striped mug.
“Oh,” my eyes darted between coffee mugs, “You got new mugs.” I reached for mine.
“I made them,” he said, “I took a pottery class with my daughter in Lodi a few weeks ago.”
“They’re cute!” I lifted mine above my head to check the bottom. ‘TEB’ was handwritten in paint. “They’re very cute.” I beamed at him in the pre-dawn darkness.

“Hey,” I began to ask, “Uh, did we have sex last night?”
“Yes, we did.” He replied.
“Did we talk about our feelings?”
“Yep.” He curled an arm around my shoulders.
“Did I cry?”
He gave me a kind side-eye, “yeah.”
“Ugh. Sorry.” I rolled my eyes at myself and leaned away from him. Just this constantly vulnerable, girl always crying for some reason,
“It’s okay,” He pulled me closer, “it’s what we do.”

“…and then I sent my exboyfriend $10?” I shake my head in confusion, “and then I labeled the transaction…” I inhale for a laugh, “knick knack paddiwack, GET THE DOG A BONE?”

The bartender’s head flew back as she let a howl of laughter fill the air. The couple next to me, in their 40’s, turned directly toward me: the still drunk 29-year-old, balancing her ass and both feet on a single barstool; at the bar alone on a Saturday morning, after ubering back to the bar to pick up her car from the night before.

“Honey,” the husband leaned into his wife’s ear, “give that girl our number.”

The bartender cackled.

One Mockmosa turned into 3, turned into shots, turned into making friends with every single person that walked through the bar door. Three girls just out of a Saturday morning Zumba class were at the end of the bar, spinning around the empty wooden bar floor, and occasionally tapping on the drums that hadn’t been disassembled yet from the night before. A birthday party, waiting on their party bus, flooded the bar for some time, and disappeared shortly after. The couple next to me had another couple friends show up, and after a few hours it had been only the 6 of us. The bar door under the roof of the porch was wide open, and the rain outside was pouring down. The clacking of pool balls, howls of laughter, and beer bottles smacking the wooden bar filled the air between the country songs that were turned up too loud. Kicking my legs under my barstool, I laughed to myself, ‘how is everything is so much fucking fun, all the fucking time.’

“Hey Ana,” the husband from the first couple called out to the bartender out of sight, around the corner. “Will you close us out?”

Then he turned to me. “What have you got going on today?” I shrugged, and threw my arms out, “this mostly.”

He laughed, as he reached out for his wife who had just taken a shot in pool. “We’re heading out. We’re gonna hit up a friend’s birthday barbecue in Elk Grove. Do you wanna come with us?”

Without hesitation, I finished my beer: “Yup!”

“Jordan?” I asked Katie with a slight grimace, “why Jordan?”
“He’s cute,” Katie replied, “and he bought every single drink tonight.”
“So?” I spit back at her, “that equates to nothing at all.”
“He’s cute.” Katie shrugged, as she stopped briefly below a streetlight to spark a joint.

“Just call me afterwards. You can obviously stay the night at my house still.” I told her as I reached out for the joint pass.

“Come on!” She begged one last time, as we neared the corner. “Do it for the book.“