I bet you thought I'd never come back to this tale. Listen. I've thought about Part 4 nearly ever day since I hit "Publish" on Part 3. In fact, I wrote a lot of this soon after.
Tag: San Francisco
Hello, San Francisco, Goodbye: Part 3
It was the moment I'd been waiting for, for months. Between the excitement and the exhaustion, I felt like I was either dreaming or a high-functioning zombie. It was in this sleep-deprived surreality that I got my luggage, signed for my over-priced rental car and stepped out into the ...cold?
Hello, San Francisco, Goodbye: Part 2
“If I love you, I’ll love you forever, you know?”
Once, I said that to someone as a warning. By that point, it was probably too late, but I do believe love is a choice. Even if we aren’t aware that we are making a decision in the moment, there is a moment. We can choose to jump from that cliff. Or not. Unfortunately, for some of us, loving someone isn’t an action that can be undone.
This is part of what makes this story so hard to share. But there is more to it.
For one, the story isn’t just mine. Part of me feels guilty for throwing it out in the world, but this is what I do. I am a writer and probably for this very reason: to figure shit out, to process, to share with others, to connect, to heal (hopefully). So yeah, I want to be as respectful as possible. I know that my intentions are good, and I want to make sure my writing reflects that. But because of this, it feels like I’m writing in Pig Latin or something. If anything here seems cryptic or too elusive, please know it’s only because I’m trying to be… kind-ish?
Secondly, a move like this definitely has some Mortal Kombat “Finish Him” vibes. Whether my blog is read by the person or not, putting this out there gives a certain finality to our relationship. I’m pretty sure those coffin nails have been hammered in, but like I said above, when I love, I love. There is no “off” switch, so maybe I’m stalling, wading/waiting?
Lastly, it’s just downright embarrassing. Who flies across the country and invests so much time, energy and money into a person (and for all those years, really) when it must’ve been clear all along that the two of us were not on the same page? Who could be so foolish (?), naïve (?), unlovable (?) …if not those things, then what? I honestly do not know.
So. Here we are.
I am relentless in my need to figure out everything and anything. This is no different. While I risk being too reductive ( and annoying tf out of anyone who is actually trying to follow this), the story truly relies on logistics. So I’m sorry for all of the prefacing, but this is the last of it.
Here is some scene setting in the form of pre-trip communications, Exhibits A through C. Ha! It sort of feels like that, evidence. Bear with me and the next part will be the full story. I’ve been stuck trying to figure out a way to explain this without just blatantly sharing the full texts of text messages. And I think maybe that’s just too invasive and unkind, right?
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EXHIBIT A
In Part 1 of this tale, I describe planning the trip and the hotel while discussing it with K through texts. I would consider this Exhibit A. This direct quote from the conversation seems necessary to later revelations. K said this in response to my excited nervousness for traveling solo:
“While you’re here, if anything goes sideways, I’m here to help! You’ll be travelling alone with bowling alley bumpers.”
EXHIBIT B
About two weeks before the trip, COVID was running wild again—this time, it was the emergence of the Omicron subvariant, BA.5. This made me incredibly nervous, and so I texted K:
“Let’s not get COVID right now. I’m so nervous about getting it before I go. And the only reason I’m going for those extra days is for you! (alien emoji)”
I got no response, so the next day, I was sweatin’ it. I hate bugging people, but this seemed timely.
“You there?” I asked.
She answered. Whew. K explained she had some life stuff going on and the day before, when I texted, she was very “distracted.” I can understand that, of course. The conversation that followed, though, was about job transitions and the rampant BA.5. While my excitement was peaking for the upcoming visit, she didn’t mention it at all. Is that weird? Am I reading into something?
This is where I began to feel some sort of distancing. It’s hard to explain, but it felt like the focus of our conversation kept sliding into everything but the trip. These were texts, though. So maybe I was imagining it.
EXHIBIT C
About a week before the trip, K texted me. She asked what dates/times I’d be there specifically, so she could make sure our time together was “completely blocked off.” I was working, but I was so excited that I stopped to log into my flight schedule so I could double check and relay the dates and times correctly. She mentioned the crazy life things going on, but she seemed genuinely excited to make the time for us.
By this point, I was practically on the ceiling. Stupidly. Childishly. Like I was 11 again in the backseat surrounded by blankets and pillows and a brand of feverish anticipation that you can barely remember as an adult. The kind of excitement that makes you step out of your body and ask yourself:
Should I let myself be this excited? How bad will it hurt?
Hello, San Francisco, Goodbye: Part 1
This isn’t the happy story I thought it would be.
I wrote and re-wrote this blog entry over the last month. It kept turning out as more of a chapter than a story—a brain mosaic of narrative tangled with memories and past traumas. Who do I think I am? Ha.
See, the San Francisco trip turned out to be more of a melodrama and less of a vacation, definitely not the event I’d been looking forward to for the last 4 months. The story feels important to tell, but it needs a little prefacing to make sense. So… buckle up? Or not. Boogie on out now, if you want. I totally get it.
Can we start with the song? I’ve had this song in my head since I landed at SFO on the 28th of July.
Hello, San Francisco, baby, I don’t ever want to die…
It was February when I planned the trip. In the middle of yet another Pandemic Winter, I was looking for a reason to keep going, you know? When you live in Pittsburgh—pandemic or no pandemic—February is pretty bleak. Groundhog Phil’s grim forecast didn’t help. So when the callout came up on my Facebook feed that poet Dorianne Laux would be workshopping at a four-day writing conference in California (on my birthday!), I perked up a bit. It definitely had those “meant to be” kind of vibes.
I love birthdays. Not just my birthday, but everyone’s. I love any excuse to celebrate the people I love in the cheesiest, gushiest, most ridiculous way. Still, July hits a little different these days. It was years ago now that Denise died 10 days before my birthday. If you don’t know, Denise was my soul sister—”my favorite person in the world,” I would tell her. So yeah, you could say there is some earned Birthday Abandonment™ trauma connected to this time of year. July rolls in hot and sunshiny, but with a weird ache. I feel it before I know it’s here.
Funny how it was her voice in my head as I was daydreaming about this solo trip across the country:
“C’mahhn. You have to live a little.”
There was more than one reason to visit the Bay Area: K lives there. K and I are what you might call penpals. We’d been posting each other (letters, postcards and packages) for over 10 years now, but she’s known me since I was just a silly, self-deprecating 14 year old posting on Tori Amos message boards online. (In case you were wondering what kind of adolescent I was… haha. It’s a pretty good tell.)
I referred to K as “probably my best friend, though we’ve never met.”
In 2017, we did meet. And, you know, everything clicked. Though I was nervous as all get out, that same energy and connection were there from our letters. What a relief! It was a short first visit and I was looking for any reason to get out to see her again. This writing conference seemed like the perfect opportunity. It was the two things that convinced me to look into it further, seeing K and the conference. High-tailing it to the Left Coast for just a one activity seemed a little more than frivolous, money- and time-wise. So, two birds, as they say.
I texted K and a couple of my SF friends to see what they thought. To my excitement, K was super into the idea of getting more time together. And boy, not to be too dramatic, but I really needed it. The pandemic era has made mashed potatoes of my sanity and so much has felt overwhelming: health stuff, roof, chimney, a lawsuit?, the thousand small cuts of homeownership, etc. And just like any small business owner, I’d been working overtime to make the money to take care of this shit. The point: there was an excitement there that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I mean, I don’t really allow myself that kind of anticipation anymore. (I swear it’s more practical than pessimistic.) But I wasn’t on my game. I was on E—physically, emotionally—and so very willing to push myself harder for this opportunity.
So BOOM. Just like that, the plans were made: I would fly in, rent a car, book a hotel for 3 days in the Northern Bay Area to spend time with her, and then, drive down to Pebble Beach for the conference. Once it was over, I’d drive back up to the airport and fly home.
Let’s throw our bones away, get happy, babe. ‘Cause I’m seeing blue again…
I’m not sure how to tell the story from here. You can probably guess that things didn’t go quite like that, right?
Spoiler alert: I still don’t know what the hell happened, really, and neither does anyone I’ve tried to hash it out with. But I’ll explain more in the next part.
Until then, go listen to that Margot and The Nuclear So and So’s song.
mt