when virginia woolf said love pure, love simple, love entire; love that has no shame; no remorse
...i felt that
i woke up feeling okay.
and then suddenly, i didn’t. i felt devastated and i couldn’t figure out the reason why. i have an appointment to view an apartment and i feel so sad about it. i don’t want to but i know i have to - the thought of jeremy thinking i am not looking for my own place makes me filled with an itchy type of anxiety. i don’t want jeremy to think i’m content just staying here for as long as he’ll have me. i don’t want to experience the humiliation of asking jeremy if it’s okay to stay another day or three. i need to feel settled. i want my own home. i want to belong somewhere. so even though my body is begging me to be useless - to do nothing but wallow- i shower.
i will myself to get ready.
i sit cross legged in front of the full length mirror, wrapped in my towel, and i feel like i don’t recognize myself. i look so tired. i look sallow. i look a little swollen. my skin feels splotchy and textured and speckled. the skin around my eyes feel thin and dry - the cetaphil i smear around my face a little too aggressively burns and my eyes water. i feel ugly and in the most shallow of ways, it hurts my feelings.
i put on primer. i put on foundation. i spot my concealer. i do my eyebrows. i lightly powder eyeshadow on my eyelids. i put on eyeliner. i coat my eyelashes with mascara. i do a gentle contour. i blow dry my hair. i set my face with setting spray. i wear a long camel colored coat. i want to look like someone that has their life together. someone who is responsible. someone you would assume has good credit. i want to look nonchalant, relaxed and carefree. i want to look like someone who the property manager wonders: why is she here?
the studio is bright. it’s really the only redeeming quality of it. there are windows that face the main street and the sunlight pours through the dirty glass and reflects on the weathered hardwood floors. the walls have random black markings that look like someone kicked it with a heavy black boot and the walls look thick and cakey with years of layered on paint - there is a sheen to the current white paint that i find repulsive. i ask the property manager if it’s possible to repaint the place. he asks me what color and i quickly say ‘just white’ and change the subject. there is a small kitchen nook that offers space for a small table with two chairs. i imagine myself drinking coffee there in the morning - the sun illuminating the quaint space. the windows have wooden frames painted a dull olive green that i find kind of charming in a way that i know my mom will hate- i imagine myself getting rid of the dusty crooked blinds and leaving the windows bare instead. the kitchen is narrow and outdated. the property manager asks me what i do for work- i don’t know how to answer that question so i say that i cook - usually for fun. he quickly looks apologetic about the kitchen but he shrugs and says, ‘everything works and there’s some counter space’. i nod in agreement.
i tell him i don’t need much and i don’t know why i say that. i don’t know why i lied.
i know my mom will hate this apartment. i know it will maybe make her cry to think of me living in a place like this. it’s not even that it is bad but i know in her eyes, it will be such a change from where i was living or where she thinks i should be living - in the big and beautiful home on the beautiful quaint block with jeremy- that it will make her feel angry at me. i know she will feel devastated on my behalf which will come out as frustration. i know that she will look around this apartment like she is scared of it or disgusted by it - maybe both. i know that i will never ask her to come over and i know she will never ask to be invited. i know that this apartment will be a physical manifestation of her fear of me living an uncomfortable life, a life that she was so confident i would avoid by staying with the person she trusted enough to take care of me. i know that she might not say it but through her tone and her not so carefully chosen words, she will make it clear that she thinks i made a big mistake - that this break up will be the thing i regret for the rest of my life - that this outdated apartment with the caked white walls will be my punishment.
but this is what i think of when i see this studio: i see the warm light that streams in through the windows as something so hopeful and cheerful. i imagine splurging on tekla butter yellow percale sheets paired with lavender pillowcases. i imagine a beautiful rug woven with greens, yellows, pinks, blues and reds finding a home on the hardwood floor - a soft place. i imagine hanging soft sheer white curtains in the main living room to soften the sharpness of sunlight on a summer day. i imagine resting paintings that i find secondhand on the floor - resting against the wall - instead of being hung. i imagine soft lighting in the evening, splurging on expensive candles and incense. i imagine a slowly dying bouquet of flowers in a beautiful delicate glass vase. i imagine a big antique mirror taking up almost an entire wall of the flat. i imagine purchasing pearl handled cutlery purely because it makes me happy and i don’t need a big set, anyway. i imagine a small couch big enough for two people - a soft yet vibrant blanket (maybe a lilac or a periwinkle) gently strewn across. i imagine jeremy stopping by to drop off cleo and him saying: oh, so this is you.
i imagine the act of making a place my home - a place that is purely just me and purely for me. i imagine it being made beautiful with my hope and my excitement and my love. i imagine it being transformed into a home i need in order to feel brave and to feel confident enough to trust that i’ll be okay - life goes on.
it’s valentine’s day today.
it’s the first valentine’s day in five years that i know not to expect flowers or some sort of dinner plan. i don’t think about it when i wake up. i drop cleo off at daycare and while still half asleep, i stop by our neighborhood coffee shop to pick up our usual coffees for the both of us. i do it without thinking.
jeremy and i say good morning. i tell him there’s a coffee for him in the refrigerator. he asks me how i slept. i ask him if he had any dreams. it feels like any other morning except we do not hug. our conversation drifts off and he tells me to have a good day. i tell him the same. i wave goodbye.
i drop off a card and a valentine’s day gift at viv’s house before i head to work. i stop by a gourmet food store to pick up heart shaped cookies and speciality chocolates for my two coworkers. later in the afternoon, we cheers with our cookies- the powdered sugar dusting the glass counter like snow- to continue loving those who love us and to one day finding love - ones who deserve us.
i laugh awkwardly even though it’s a touching moment between three women who don’t know each other very well but understand the thread of singleness that connects us just enough.
sometimes jeremy and i fall asleep with our bodies intertwined. it’s mainly out of comfort and familiarity. his warm breath against the back of my neck lulls me to sleep. there is a comfort between us that only feels like kindness - when i see us now, if i don’t think about it it too closely, i wonder how this could have gone so upside down.
i ask if i can stay at the house for a week. and then once that week is up, while blinking back tears of embarrassment and sadness, i ask jeremy if i can stay for several more days. i apologize for imposing or for overstaying my welcome which hurts to say because it’s just further confirmation that this is no longer my home. was it ever really my home? my belongings are here and there are photos of me on the wall but this is no longer where i live. i am a guest. jeremy tells me he is in no rush to have me leave, that he understands that my life is here, that my help around the house has been nice, cleo will be happy i’m around- he understands.
we spend valentine’s day eating doordashed indian food while sitting on the couch. we know we aren’t celebrating valentine’s day together. we know there isn’t really anything to celebrate but we sit together anyway. we eat together. we ask each other if we ate enough.
cleo falls asleep, snuggled deep between us.
she breathes a heavy, deep sigh of contentment.
i want to cry but i don’t.
one man i thought i was in love with used to say: ‘tell me you love me’ while we had sex.
tell me you love me. say it.
when i said ‘i love you’, he would ask: you promise?
it was the only time i felt my ‘i love you’ was powerful in a way that i always wanted it to feel powerful. it felt like a weapon.
i would say ‘i promise’.
his eyes would close and he would shudder on top of me.
i think of the men i’ve loved in my life, the men i thought i loved, the men i dreamt with, the men who tricked me into thinking they loved me, i think of the men i gave my body to, the men i poured myself into- in hopes of it being enough for the both of us to feel loved, i think of the hurt i’ve caused, the hurt that has been caused to me, i think of the things we say in hopes of feeling something that could resemble genuine affection and care even if it’s nothing close to being truly genuine, i think of the mistakes i’ve made, the emotions i’ve shared out of desperation, the things i never said, the desires and needs and wants i kept silent in the back of my throat out of being ashamed, out of not wanting to be too much, of not wanting to be loved less or even worse - liked less, i think about the endless daydreams i’ve had about being loved in a way that is loud, ostentatious and oozing with exuberance, i think about the ways i can be a bad partner to someone, i think about my selfishness, my ability to be immature, my seemingly unrealistic expectations or views of a shared life and domesticity, i think of the men i didn’t like but fooled myself into thinking i did out of loneliness and the need for some sort of shallow validation, i think of how one day you wake up with the love of your life - the person you believe you will make coffee with every morning until you die- and then one day, not so suddenly, they are the past tense. they are the men you have loved. they are the men you dreamt with.
they were. they were. they were.