Not my first rodeo

Mental breakdown. Mental health crisis. Snapped. Went crazy. Nervous breakdown. Jumped off the deep end. Lost touch with reality. Psychotic break.

However you choose to phrase it, I suppose that’s what’s happened. This, however, is not my first rodeo. Although, I didn’t realize I was supposed to know how to do everything by my second rodeo. That seems like a very low number of rodeos.

I remember crying a lot. Not nearly as much as I do now, of course, but more than usual, I think. I remember the negative thought spirals, my brain whisper-yelling at me that I wasn’t good enough, no one liked me, my parents didn’t think I was special, and there was something wrong with me.

I was officially diagnosed with major depressive disorder about six years ago. I suspect it’s been in me for a long, long time though. I can remember depressive episodes when I was a teenager. At the time, I chalked it up to, well, being a teenager – the usual angst and intensity we expect from kids. And maybe that’s what it was. I’ve always been very sensitive to my surroundings and emotions. But I do remember the feeling of not being able to get out of bed some days. I stayed home sick from school a LOT when I wasn’t sick. I remember coming home from school and napping until dinnertime. I remember going for long walks, especially at night, at times contemplating standing in the middle of the road just to see what would happen. I remember crying a lot. Not nearly as much as I do now, of course, but more than usual, I think. I remember the negative thought spirals, my brain whisper-yelling at me that I wasn’t good enough, no one liked me, my parents didn’t think I was special, and there was something wrong with me.

At the time, like I said, I just chalked it up to being a teenager. And maybe that truly was it, or a lot of it. But as I’ve navigated the last six years (in particular), and looking back with scrutiny, I can see it so clearly now. This has been in me for a long, long time.

When I lived in Waterloo and worked in Cambridge in my early twenties, I can remember a specific curve in the road on highway 8 that I would drive on almost every day. And for a time, almost every day, as I approached that curve, I would think about what it would be like if I just let go of the wheel and drove off the road, plummeting into a cavernous salvation. It’s been with me for a long time.

Dark thoughts, I know, but why disguise the truth now? Did I ever come close to doing it? Not really. But that thought came to me every fucking time I drove on that part of the road. That is not a sign of a healthy brain.

I learned a long time ago that that’s called suicidal ideation. And I’ve ideated many times, in many ways of simply removing myself from the equation – the equation being life. It wasn’t because I actually wanted to be dead. But I have been in so much pain, felt so helpless and hopeless, that there just didn’t seem to be any other answer.

I’ve heard being suicidal described in lots of ways, but the one that has always resonated the most with me is this: imagine you’re in a high-rise apartment building and your home is on fire. There’s no way out and you’re standing on the balcony. Your choice is to go down with the apartment or jump. Either way, it’s terrible and in the end, not much of a choice. Figuratively, I’ve been on that balcony a few times, ready to jump. I just wanted the pain to stop.

Depression is serious business. It’s hard work to climb your way out and I’m not sure you’re ever truly out. I hope so. Otherwise, why fight?

So, yes, I’ve recently been plunged back into a deep depression. I’m on leave from work, I’m seeing a therapist, and have frequent appointments with family my doctor. I have referrals to two different specialists, and I’m “doing the work” as they say. It’s slow, difficult, and vague. It’s hard to track, it’s hard to assess daily, where I stand. That’s the thing about therapy especially – the real results of changing your ways of thinking or adjusting certain behaviours aren’t truly known until you stumble upon a familiar situation, and you acknowledge (usually after the fact) that you handled it differently than you have in the past. Super rewarding, but it’s a long game for sure.

I have good days, although not many. And I’ve yet to experience two good days in a row. Most days, I’d say I’m okay. Which is frustrating because what does that even mean? I guess for me, it means that I’m not in a constant state of crisis, having a meltdown and coming undone. But I’m also definitely not myself again (or yet); I can’t handle a lot of things well, my emotional response to stresses or difficult situations is disproportionate to the matter at hand, and I struggle with self-esteem and feeling worthy. I know there’s a physical, medical aspect to how I’m feeling that mystifies me (hence, one of the two referrals) and contributes to my depression. I’m in a sort of cerebral limbo, vacillating every day between feeling like I’m finally getting a grip on things, and finding myself on the balcony of the burning building.

There’s a lot I don’t know. In a way, I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what the next step is, I don’t know how to make sure that my support system is taken care of, so they don’t worry about me too much. I’m in a relentless state of overwhelm, and it’s hard to know where to start.

Lifting myself out of deep depression requires some hard conversations with myself. It goes beyond self-awareness, it’s about connecting the dots, recognizing my patterns in relationships, in the workplace. It’s confronting my grief – of losing my dad, primarily, but also losing my old life, my pre-pandemic life, as well as the loss of friendships, and the morphing of others and my family as it’s always been and now trying to accept and adapt to my family as it is now.

When I’m in this state of contemplation and consideration, I feel suspended in a way. Literally, the feeling of being suspended in the air sort of subsumes me, but also the metaphorical suspension in my life. I know I’m at a crossroads, but I have no idea which way to go, and all the paths are obstructed by overgrowth. I feel a sense of ephemeral unmooring.  

…almost always, the concepts of self-love and self-care get conflated.

All of that to say, I don’t know what I’m doing. There’s a lot I don’t know. In a way, I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what the next step is, I don’t know how to make sure that my support system is taken care of, so they don’t worry about me too much. I’m in a relentless state of overwhelm, and it’s hard to know where to start. I’m in a particular season of my life, which, to be honest, I wasn’t necessarily expecting. In the grand scheme, that’s totally okay. I can roll with the punches, so to speak. I’m very good at it, in fact. I’m open to change, I like new adventures and challenges, and I relish the turning of a page, ending a chapter to start a new one. But I’m not sure I’ve been on a precipice of so much change in so many aspects of my life all at once before.

Everything is in flux – my career, my social life, my love life, my relationships with family and dear friends – there’s been an undercurrent of change for a few years now, but I feel like the wave is about to break. I need to decide if I’m going to ride it or let it drown me. That’s a pretty heavy-handed metaphor, I know, but it’s the most honest way I can describe what I’m feeling.

I was scrolling the other day, as I am wont to do lately, and I came across a clip of some so-called “relationship expert.” When I was about to scroll on, (because why do I need to listen to a “relationship expert”?), something made me pause. The guy was talking about the concept of self-love.

I have to say, the more he talked, the more visceral a response I had. He made a couple of great points that resonated with me. The first is that almost always, the concepts of self-love and self-care get conflated. Acts of self-care include things like nourishment, doing what you actually want to do instead of giving into social pressure (e.g. not going to the party or event that you’re expected to attend because you really don’t want to go, and instead, staying home and doing things that bring you joy, like a long soak in a soapy bath, replete with scented candles and a good book).

Self-love on the other hand, is something very different. Real self-love is about loving yourself, your whole self, despite all your flaws, all your mistakes, all your bad decisions, all the moments of your bad judgement, all the times when you’ve been less than kind or compassionate or forgiving. It’s about trying to love yourself in the moments when you’ve actively not loved yourself before. And in particular, it’s the act of loving yourself in the moments when no one else does.  

The truth is that there is no one else on this earth who spends as much time with you as you. You’ve been with you since birth. It’s your job to love yourself because those who love you won’t ever know every single thing about you, every thought, every instinct or tendency, or desire. And as much as others may love you, no one can possibly love every tiny thing about you.

In this regard, self-love is not only acceptance, but forgiveness, openness, reserving judgement and embracing every single particle that culminates in the thing that is you. I think that’s one of the most radical acts anyone can commit. How many of us can say that they truly love themselves?

I think the idea of self-love is so important through the lens of depression. Depression robs me of so many things – rationality (at times), my self-esteem (big time), my belief in my own worthiness (of anything, really, including but not limited to basic nutrition, hygiene, connection, or love), perspective, time, sleep, motivation, and most significantly, hope. Depression has robbed me of hope, which is an awful way to exist.

Living everyday carrying the weight of overwhelm, the desperation that comes with the loss of connection and relatability, and for me anyway, the toll of isolation is so destructive. And there’s sadness, of course. But depression, the disease of depression, not just situational depression, which everyone experiences variably throughout their lives, is so much more than sadness.

I know this might be controversial, but if you’re feeling sad about something that’s transpired in your life, something that’s challenging or causing stress, I think you’re lucky. You’re lucky because with sadness, comes solutions. There’re things to be done about your situation to improve it. You will come out on the other side, back to your true self in no time.

I’m not saying that I don’t think I’ll come out of this depression on the other side better. I’m just saying that I wish I was just sad.

As I’ve said before, I’m not keen on having my depression define me in any way. It’s a part of me, right now it’s the biggest part of me, but it’s not the totality of my being. It’s something I’m afflicted with, it’s not something I’ve created or “brought on” myself. It’s merely yet another challenge that I must face in my life and do my best to navigate with as much grace, humility, courage, determination, and faith as I can muster.

So, in this, my second rodeo as it were, although I’m no expert on depression (or rodeoing), I’m trying to navigate these uncharted territories with strength, using the tools I have, as rusty as they may be. I want to be myself again – I like me, I think I’m a goddamn delight!

I’m eager to solve some medical mysteries about my body and my being that may unlock the answers about how to move forward. I’ll continue to do the challenging inner work of dismantling certain ways of thinking that have been imprinted on me since birth (or pivotal moments of trauma, grief, or upheaval) in order to be healthy.

I’m looking forward to not being sad anymore and to feeling worthy of this life, flaws, imperfections, shortcomings and all.

On being too much

I’ve been told that I’m too much by most people, most of my life. I’m a lot. A lot to handle, apparently, a lot to process. I’m a lot of energy, whether it be frenetic or dark. It turns people off. Or, I should say, it has turned some people off.

I can tell when I’m too much for someone, even when they say nothing at all. I can feel it.

For the most part, it’s OK. I get it; I can dominate a conversation, I can steal the light, I can fill up a room of one or one hundred without intention or even knowing it. That can be annoying. In fact, I know I can be annoying, which isn’t exactly the same as being too much, but it’s like a second cousin or something, so I’m familiar.

I’ve been described as being intense before, usually by men I’m dating. Or, maybe more accurately, men who’re trying to date me.

All I know is that sometimes I fear there isn’t enough space in the world for me. I don’t fit. So, I’ll either have to forever make myself small, or be alone. My fear is that those are the only two options for me.

When I was a kid, I had this sense when it came to my friends. I had a best friend in Becky, and I knew that was a ride or die friendship long before I knew what ride or die even meant. Through the years, Becky and I tried out a few versions of “best friends” with another, third friend. When I was young, and it was happening in real time, I always had anxiety about it. I wasn’t jealous, but I couldn’t name the emotion because I didn’t have the vocabulary to express exactly what I was feeling, which was an impending sense that I would be shut out or dropped from the group. And it wouldn’t be because I was a bad friend, or a bad person, or not fun, or unlikeable. What I couldn’t articulate then, but realize now, is that I was worried there wasn’t enough friendship to go around for all three of us. Like, my little-kid mind couldn’t comprehend that things like friendship and love and acceptance weren’t finite. And since I was the one who seemed to be the “most,” I would naturally be the friend pushed out of the group.

Of course, that wasn’t the case in real life. Becky and I were always the foundation, and the “third best friend” was occasionally added, but inevitably faded away. Outside of my deep and lasting bestfriendship with Becky, I’ve made other very close friends over the course of my life. Lots of them. I’m what Malcolm Gladwell calls a Connector. I’ve always had disparate groups of friends, lovingly placed into various compartments of my life – there are elementary school, high school, and then university friends, Girl Guides, various boyfriends’ circles, work friends, of course, in all my workplaces, choir and band, even youth group at one point, and so on and so on. I’ve always made it a priority to create connections between those groups, so that I, selfishly, could hang out with more of my friends at the same time. At least, that’s part of what the driving force was for me. It was also because I genuinely wanted to connect people who I thought should know each other. And I’ve never been disappointed, attempted setups for my brother notwithstanding.

And for that reason, I’ve always, since I can remember, sort of “folded” Becky into my other friend groups because I wanted to experience other friendships with her. After all, she’s the most important friend I have in my life, so there was no way I was going to allow her to fade away. I needed to keep her close, you see.

Also, I knew that everyone would be better for it – Becky’s lovely and wonderful and who wouldn’t want a new friend like her?  Just because Becky is my best friend and has always occupied that position doesn’t mean that other friendships I’ve fostered over the years aren’t just as meaningful to me. I’ve always felt lucky that I’ve been able to forge deep, meaningful friendships outside my bestfriendship with Becky. I think it’s made me a better friend overall and a better person, to be honest.

I’m afraid I’ve scared off friends and even some family because of my too-much-ness. Right now, I’m in the tight grips of a deep depression again. My mom calls me every day just to make sure I’m still alive. That seems to me, like the definition of too much.

Come to think of it, perhaps one of the reasons I’ve always had so many different friend groups in the first place, is because of this feeling of being too much. I think subconsciously I’ve concluded that if I spread myself out between a number of different friends, no one person or group would find that I was too much. This is all just coming to me now. What an epiphany.

As I’ve gotten older, and faced the challenges, and learned the lessons, my friends and friend groups have dwindled. Some have morphed and some have dropped off entirely, which I completely understand. People enter our lives for just a season most of the time. Some of my friendships have changed and transformed into something far more detached than how they started. But maybe that’s how it was always meant to be. Even though I believed it was for a lifetime, it really was for just a season. It just happened to be an unexpectedly long season. And now, in a bit of a full circle moment, I wonder if some of the cause of that is my too-much-ness. Maybe when it comes to being my friend, it’s a lot of work. Specifically, it’s a lot of work when I’m depressed, in need, in the mud, as it were.

When I’m healthy and really myself, I’m a goddamned delight. I’m the life of the party, I’m funny and charming, and gregarious and open and giving and gracious and pleasing and fun and peppy, and sunshine-y, and optimistic. That’s the true me, honestly. But since my depression diagnosis a few years ago, these descriptors can sometimes feel like shadows of who I once was. It’s not that they don’t reside in me, deeply inside me, but what has surfaced now is decidedly the opposite – the dark and twisty doppelgangers of these characteristics that masquerade as me.

Being too fun, too gregarious, accepting, funny, easy-going, peppy, and charming doesn’t seem like a wholly bad thing. But being too sad, too morose, hopeless, defeated, deflated, too self-deprecating, self-harming, too much of a fatalist, and basically an all-around Debbie Downer, is not necessarily a good or welcome thing.

So, again, the curse of being too much strikes.

I’m afraid I’ve scared off friends and even some family because of my too-much-ness. Right now, I’m in the tight grips of a deep depression again. My mom calls me every day just to make sure I’m still alive. That seems to me like the definition of too much.

When I reflect on the romantic relationships I’ve had, if I hold my breath and close my eyes and look at them as objectively as I can, actually dissecting them for what they were, considering the context of all the things, the failure of every one of these relationships can be attributed, in one way or another, at least in part, to my being too much.

I’ve only had one ex-boyfriend actually say with English words: “you’re too much – too emotional, too intense, you want too much, you expect too much…” In a strange way, as much as it hurt at the time, I appreciate his honesty. I’ve never forgotten those words, nor the moment that ushered them into existence.

There was a moment in our relationship when I was having the worst day and was really struggling emotionally. We were on the phone after this terrible day I’d had, and I was standing outside my workplace before heading home. I told him about my emotional crises, the outcome of something I was dreading, and that he know I was dreading. I was crying a bit, and I was admittedly a little needy. I asked if he would come over, for no other reason than to comfort me, and be a shoulder for me. I insisted we didn’t even have to talk about it.

But he said no.

He said that I was “feeling really intense emotions” at the time, and he didn’t want to invite that kind of energy into his mental space. I remember pausing, hearing the thickness of the air reaching a deafening crescendo before clarifying, “You’re saying you don’t want to come over because I’m too emotionally intense right now? So, to be clear, you’re prioritizing your comfort over my needs.”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. I said, “OK, I’m going home now,” and I didn’t talk to him for the rest of the night. You know who I did talk to? Becky. Notably, I’m not too much for Becky. That’s the beauty of friends (and people) who love and accept you just as you are.

A note about other ex-boyfriends: none of them ever specifically mentioned my being too much as a reason to not be with me, but in retrospect, it seems to me, that was the crux of the central conflict. I was easily hurt, I wore my heart on the outside, like an exposed nerve, inviting the pain, it seems. I’ve always lamented that my relationships have taught me that I’m hard to love. But I think I’m actually easy to love, it just takes an extraordinary person to love me the way I deserve. And in my experience, especially when it comes to romantic connections, it would seem that none of them were extraordinary enough. Or at least willing to try to be.

Sadly, I’ve realized, as I’ve lived longer and had more and varied experiences, I’m not sure that extraordinary man exists. Maybe he does, and I’m just in a bubble that keeps me from meeting him. Or maybe I’m so “extraordinary” that there simply isn’t a man in existence who can meet me where I am. Maybe I’m ahead of my time? The Outlander of it all is quite intriguing.

And then again, maybe these are things I tell myself to make me feel better about being such an epic failure when it comes to pair-bonding. I’ve reached what is probably the middle of my life (if I’m lucky), and I’m single, childless, and in all other ways, ostensibly, alone.

I always believe the best in people – I give people the benefit of the doubt all the time, even when they don’t deserve it, especially when they don’t. To my own detriment, as it turns out. I’ve been told I’ve expected too much from men in my romantic relationships. Maybe that’s true? I don’t know. I’ve always only expected a partner to match my energy, to love me as much as I love them, to think about me as much as I think about them, to be impressed by me as much as I’m impressed by them. I’ve always just wanted to be a person who is my biggest fan. If that’s expecting too much, then I’m guilty.

During a very honest conversation with a man at the beginnings of a relationship a few years ago – you know that stage, when everything is exciting and you’re the most interesting person in the world, and you’re campaigning to lock in their vote for you as partner – I mentioned this idea of my too-much-ness and how it’s handicapped me in relationships in my past and he said the most wonderful thing to me. He said, “you’re exactly enough.” And in the glass half-empty versus glass half-full metaphor, he said that I’m a “glass full of light.” I’d never felt more seen in my life.

For what it’s worth, he’s now engaged, so there’s that.

They’re lots of moments in life when I thank the universe that I don’t have a partner, and especially, that I don’t have kids. And while those moments are real and valid, they’re balanced by other moments in my life when I ache for a family, for little people who look up to me, who depend upon me entirely, and for a partner to experience this life with.

Maybe I’ll be a stepmom? That would honestly be wonderful. But, the older I get, the less likely it seems that I’d actually fulfill that roll and instead, fill the roll of “dad’s new wife” who I’m sure would be happily accepted into the family and perhaps adult step-children would even be fond of me, but it’s not the same. You know what I mean.

Most of the time, as least lately, I think it’s a blessing that I don’t have children and/or a family because of my mental health. These days I can barely take care of myself – some days just getting out of bed before the day is over and perhaps having a shower are legit accomplishments that I for sure feel proud of – how could I possibly handle the responsibility of caring for others? I’m a grown woman whose mom calls everyday just to make sure I’m still alive. Does that sound like an adult human capable of taking care of others?

On the other hand, maybe if I had different responsibilities in my life, I wouldn’t sink into these deep crevices of despair. Is succumbing to depression an indulgence? Do we indeed, succumb to it, like it’s a choice? Or is it simply inevitable for those of us whose brains are designed to invite depression in, like a lifetime friend, telling it to make itself at home? Cause that’s what it feels like to me. I don’t want to be depressed. I quite like the real me, the not-depressed me, the me who is effervescent and charismatic. But when depression shows up, I do feel that I succumb to it in some way. In fact, it sometimes feels like fighting it just prolongs the pain, it stretches out the agony. And of course, there’s the fact that none of this is in my control at all. It simply just happens.

I don’t know, maybe I’m not that special after all, I’m not extraordinary. I’ve always understood that I’m a true empath because I take on others’ emotions and plights and pain as my own. I put myself in others’ positions to such a degree that I actually take on their burdens, their sadness and trauma. I tell you, when I learned that being an empath is actually a trauma response, it made a lot of sense to me. Of course I’d rather take on other people’s pain than face my own. Of course.

I’m traumatized. I’m a dark and twisty enigma, searching for meaning. I have dark thoughts and frequent out-of-body experiences that make me question whether my being here really adds any value to anyone’s existence. Don’t worry, they’re just thoughts.

Let me put it this way: My mom has no real reason for concern about ensuring I’m alive on a daily basis, but I like that she calls every day.

It’s good that she calls every day.

On finding my lobster

To those of you who chose your partner in your twenties (or earlier or slightly later, but definitely before me, aka a person in her forties), I’m very happy for you.

As a forty-something year old woman, I’ve been taking stock of a lot of things in my life lately. Some of them about family, some about living and thriving, and lots about work and career. But I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t thought about the idea of me finding my lobster. As I have intimated before, the fact that I’m single in this stage of my life is more of a reflection of things I’ve tried to avoid over the years than any other factor alone. While I have dated a lot and had relationships, I haven’t found the true partner I’ve been looking for, and so, I remain on the market, as it were. And that’s totally OK!!! I’m not saying that I have marriage or even partnership as a goal, so to speak. I just mean that I’ve come to a place, having lived through the pandemic, having faced terrible and heartbreaking loss, and having picked up the pieces of myself in order to move forward, where I’ve had a lot of time to reflect and contemplate.

And from this contemplation, I’ve discerned that what I want in my life, for my life, is a true partnership. I want to be on a team. I want to build someone, and I want them to build me. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. But I think about the people and couples I know, and how they are true partners to each other (at least on the outside), in the truest sense of the word, and I marvel at how and when they may have made that choice for themselves. You know? I’d like to think it just boils down to a timing thing. That certain people find their lobster early in adulthood. And I am simply not one of those people. And that’s OK. This is not a diatribe of a lonely middle-aged woman lamenting about where it all went wrong. We all have different paths, and our stories are unique. I love that about us.

I envy those of you who have a partner. You have a person with whom to navigate this life, someone to witness you live it, someone to share the intricacies and intimacies of existence with you. I think that’s wonderful. I actually think it’s awesome. But my point is that this feeling you have, this experience you have of being part of a team, one half of a partnership, is something I don’t feel. And frankly, have never felt. Yes, I’ve had relationships, a few that have been years- long, but I’ve never reached this level of integration that I seem to see all around me.

Maybe that means that I’m meant to live out the rest of my life unpartnered. Or maybe it means that because I’ve been living without, waiting so long for a person to complement me and my, that I’ll be rewarded by the universe with the most perfect (for me) partner who gives me everything I’ve ever wanted and more. And I’ll give them the same. Maybe the universe always had this in the works for me, and my patient observance, my personal growth, my work on myself and my mental health, my commitment to self-awareness and learning from my mistakes has paid off. Or it will pay off if I just wait a bit longer.

When my parents met, it seemed unlikely, and in fact almost impossible that a life together was actually in the cards for them. They lived in different countries; they came from two different worlds. My mom had plans to travel overseas (again – she had already had a fantastic trip through England and Spain), and when she met my dad, although she really liked him, she thought she’d never see him again because he lived in Ohio. But, as it turned out, Dad wanted to see her and make it work so badly, that he simply…made it work. They both did. They exchanged letters and talked on the phone once a week, alternating who called because back then calling long distance cost a fortune. And when my dad was back in town for the summer, he made sure they spent every possible moment with one another. They dated every single day for the whole summer. The only time they were apart was when my dad travelled back to Cincinnati to collect his paycheck, with which he turned around and bought an engagement ring.

What I’m saying is that people will go to great lengths to make something work, to have the outcome they desire. And, even though my mom back-burnered her plans to travel overseas again to marry my dad and move to Cincinnati to start a life with him there, she has no regrets. At least, that’s what she tells me.

What am I saying? Well, I guess what I’m saying is that life presents us with challenges and our response to those challenges determines our trajectory. And life is about choices. If my mom hadn’t taken the leap and dove into a life with my dad that was completely foreign to her, far away from her family and everything she knew, then I wouldn’t be here.

So, I return to my initial statement, which is that I envy those of you who had the opportunity to meet your person early in life (or earlier than me), and you recognized that they were indeed your person, and you jumped on that opportunity for partnership when you had the chance. Good for you. I’m very happy for you.

My lobster is out there. Who knows, I may have already met him. But, rest assured, I haven’t waited this long, or done the inner work or, frankly, endured the experiences I have to be disappointed. My person is out there, just waiting for me to make space for them in my life and in my heart.

Online shopping, birthdays, and other thoughts

It was too early to go to bed, and I was bored of TV and movies, and YouTube videos. So, I thought I’d sit down at my computer and write something.

But first – I poured a whiskey, turned on a playlist, and began ghost shopping. This is a term I think I might have coined. It’s when I shop online and put all the goodies in my cart as if I had the disposable income to just click “submit order” without having to calculate whether this will mean I’ll be able to cover rent or not. Alas, I fill up my carts, all over the internet, with fantasies and ideas about what I’m going to wear, how I’m going to redecorate my apartment, and how all the organization implements I’ve thoughtfully picked out will help me finally get my shit together.

And then I abandon them, fully curated carts with things I think will make me feel better, make me a better homemaker, a better stylist, a more attractive woman, more organized, more refined, more accomplished adult, a better person.

Of course, no click of “add to cart” will result in any of those things. It’s a suspension of disbelief I allow myself sometimes. When I’m in a healthy place, it’s harmless, it’s fun, and just something to pass the time. I can close all the browsers and walk away and laugh at myself at the absurdity of it and realize that I’m perfectly whole and good the way things are and the way I am.

But sometimes this harmless pastime ends with me feeling depleted and exhausted, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of it. I know that stuff – the clothes, the furniture, the art, the décor – won’t fix or change anything about my life. No matter how great those candles would smell or how much that rug would perfectly match the vibe of my living room.

What surprised me this time was that, when I was done filling up a cart worth a cool $1300 or so at Gap and Old Navy and scrolling through my wish lists (yes, plural) on IKEA.com for the eighteen thousandth time, I got thinking about my birthday. It’s coming up.

My birthday is now forever linked to the day my dad died. He died on a Friday morning. My birthday was the following Monday. Three years ago, I was home, of course, with my family. And I must give credit to them, they all rallied and made sure to celebrate me during what was a strange, sad, and out-of-body experience for all of us. My brother made an amazing meal (steak – I think? I don’t remember with confidence), and my sister made delicious cupcakes, decorated all fancy, as is her specialty. There was a toast to me, a bunch of “happy birthdays” and smiles and attempts at normal conversation. My mom signed my birthday card “with love, Mom and Dad.”

I was sad, to be sure. But I was angry too. I remember, at one point, the conversation turned to what were going to do in lieu of a traditional funeral. This was September 2020, so we had to think outside the box. The thought of not doing anything was unimaginable. We had decided to have a sort of drop-in memorial thing outside, in the front yard of my parent’s house. We were going to set up some tables and display a bunch of his memorabilia – pictures, of course, of him as a young man, with his parents and brother, of when he and my mom met and got married, and a ton of football-related things. We had all kinds of pictures, trophies, and news clippings from his lengthy career as a coach. It was an impressive display. We had all the flowers we’d received in the previous week displayed beautifully, a guest book, and all this stuff that represented him and his life and passions. It’s exactly what he would have wanted – far more than any kind of service in a funeral home. It was a beautiful day, too. Sunny, with a slight breeze, and cool – the first time it really felt like fall. Perfect football weather.

Anyway, I was angry, irrationally, at my uncle. This is my mom’s older brother who loved Dad very much and is an important member of the family.

I ended up sitting on the stairs. Just sitting, crying, missing my dad, angry at my uncle, angry at myself for being angry at my uncle, and cheated out of celebrating my birthday with my dad. Just cheated in general.

We were talking about the logistics of the day, anticipating people wanting to park, stop by, and come over for a bit to give their condolences and talk to us. We imagined it being a sort of constant stream of people in and out for the duration.

Dad was a very prominent figure in the community – it really seemed like he knew everyone. And he was well-liked and respected. I think in a parallel universe without COVID, had we held a more traditional funeral, there would have been hundreds (and hundreds) of people lined up out the door to pay their respects.

Anyway, we were talking about parking and how we were going to manage it. We talked about speaking with the synagogue across the street to see if they could accommodate overflow parking. Someone (maybe it was me, I don’t remember) mentioned the idea of traffic control, because, of course, there would be streams of hundreds of people for the whole afternoon. Perhaps we should look into requesting a couple of officers to manage the crowd.

My uncle chimed in and said that there wouldn’t be a big turnout because of COVID, and we didn’t need to worry about traffic control or parking. Even though it was outdoors, and we would be following all the protocols to a tee, he said that people who would have normally come, under these circumstances, would likely stay home.

This enraged me. I remember sitting at the table, my face getting hot, my adrenaline kicking in, and my brain racing to form the sentences my emotions demanded so that I could be articulate and measured. For maybe one of the handfuls of times in my whole life, I was at a loss for words. I wanted to yell at him, screaming that he didn’t know what he was talking about, that he was wrong, that we knew best.

But what actually happened was that I just stared at him, with a look of pure disdain, anger, and indignation I’m not sure I’d ever felt. I don’t think I actually said anything. If I did, it got drowned out by siblings or kids or general chatter or whatever (story of my life).

A short time after that conversation, after my family sang me “Happy Birthday,” I excused myself from the table. I walked through the kitchen where my sweet niece was starting to clean up. I’m not sure where I was going. The bathroom, maybe? I ended up sitting on the stairs. Just sitting, crying, missing my dad, angry at my uncle, angry at myself for being angry at my uncle, and cheated out of celebrating my birthday with my dad. Just cheated in general.

My mom eventually noticed I’d been gone for a while and came looking for me. She found me on the stairs, and she asked me what was going on, and all I could say was “he should be here.” She started crying and said that yes, he should be, but he wasn’t. But he’s here – putting her hand on her heart. I started to cry really hard, and she just leaned forward and held me, comforting me. We stayed like that, crying and hugging on the stairs for a while.

I’ll never forget that. Because it was a beautiful moment of vulnerability and tenderness with my mom, but also because it was honest – one of those things in life that just is, and even though, to me, it changed everything about my birthday and that span of three days in September forever and ever, it just is.

And now my task is to bend my life and my heart around it.

My uncle, by the way, was right. The turnout was far less impressive than I thought it would be. He was just trying to help and offer good information. I told you my anger was irrational.

So, in a few weeks, we’ll mark three years since Dad left us. Also, my birthday will come and go. I used to love my birthday. I’m the obnoxious person who told everyone when it was my birthday. I’d have a month-long countdown (sometimes longer), I used to actually update my voicemail at work to say “Hi, you’ve reached Angela…blah, blah, today is September 14^, my birthday.” Insufferable, right? Give me all the attention, all the balloons, the cake, the cards, and the fanfare. I loved it all.

Hopefully one day I’ll get back to that level. But I’m not there yet. I know my dad wouldn’t like this – he would tell me I’m being silly and that I should get all dolled up and go out for a fabulous dinner and night on the town with my friends and just have the best time ever. I’m working on it.

Hopefully one day I’ll get to the point where I’ll feel it’s a kismet thing and it was meant to be this way so, creating the perfect moment to celebrate my birthday and my dad. We’ll all raise a glass of red for Big Jer and cheers to the best guy ever and celebrate that he existed and that he was my dad, and that he instilled in me a sense that birthdays and occasions and holidays and milestones are for celebrating.

Dad loved telling the story of the day I was born. It’s a pretty funny story. Perhaps that could be a new tradition on my birthday. I’ll toast to my incredible friends and family and all the people I love that make my life worth living, and I’ll tell my dad’s story of the day I was born. A happy birthday, indeed.

From my balcony – three years later

From my balcony, I catch glimpses of patchy grass and salt-bleached concrete popping up between bits of snow here and there. I see bare trees and warm coats with matching cute mitts. Looking out from my balcony, I feel unmoored, yearning to be tethered…to something.

We stayed the course – we locked down and masked up, we followed rules, and got through the worst of it (question mark). And now life is back to normal.

Is it though? Mine certainly isn’t. The pandemic, specifically being isolated for the better part of three years has changed me.

From my balcony, I look at the school across the street. Elementary. Lots of shrieking. I can see that things like kids back in schools and no more mask mandate or social distancing have made us feel like everything can just “go back to normal.” But I know there is no normal so I’m not confident that a new normal even exists.

To me, it seems these last three years function as a divider of sorts. Not in terms of people’s opinions, although that definitely happened and still is – a divide in time. There’s life before the pandemic, and then there’s life now.

Most days I feel cozy in my work-from-home situation; holed up in my apartment in comfy pants and my dad’s old hoodie, no make-up, no need to do anything with my hair, with someone I really like spending time with. Who wouldn’t want to spend their workdays like that?

Other times I’m so unsettled, I feel sick, like stressed-out-kind-of-sick.

Socializing isn’t the same anymore. I mean, with my closest friends and family, I don’t feel a dramatic difference. But I find it vastly different with colleagues both past and present. Or maybe that’s just my experience because I’ve started two new jobs within the last three years, and onboarding remotely is really hard.

There’s a lot less “hey let’s grab a drink after work” when you only see your colleagues once a week. And old friends, your former colleagues, seem to be hiding out. Friendships that were new or thrived during the pandemic may have faded away or abruptly stopped and you’re sure it’s because of that thing when you trauma-bond with someone and then maybe they don’t need you now that life is “back to normal.” But who really knows? I suppose you could say that with the looming (and actual) global health crisis, many have put their lives (and everyone in them) in perspective. Maybe people seriously evaluated their relationships and phased out those who didn’t serve them anymore.

Life is hard as it is, and when you add the stress of navigating a global pandemic, things always seem worse. Or maybe are worse.

My world is smaller now. That’s been the toughest part of all this. My social circles have shrunk, my calendar is empty, and I’ve been isolated. Just physically at first, like many of us were, but as time has gone on, that isolation has crept into all facets of my life, and it’s stripped me of an essential part of my identity – connectedness.

No longer am I the person who, three years ago, posted cute videos of herself talking about being locked down and working from home, who three years ago worked from an office full time, interacting with the world, walking everywhere, talking to people all day. I’m no longer the person who happily traipsed across this city to hang out with friends, no matter how far or inconvenient. I’m no longer the person who was finally feeling like her life was on track – in the best shape she’d been in in years, who had a good grasp on managing her mental health, was feeling financially confident and even planning her first trip overseas with great friends.

That woman is gone.

I don’t know where she went, exactly, but she doesn’t exist anymore. It’s funny, sometimes when I get thinking about this stuff, I have visions of what things might be like if I had come out of this on the other side the same person I was before this all happened. But that’s not productive and how would I really know, anyway? I wouldn’t, I don’t, I can’t. None of us can.

On the other side of this new me, this mysterious me who only reveals herself a bit at a time is quite happy in a lot of ways. I feel confident and more at ease with work (that’s a biggie), I’ve been able to hang out with family a lot and host dinners, which is a passion of mine. I’ve gotten quite a bit done around the house – like shelves going up, things getting organized, artwork on the walls, that sort of thing. And, of course, there’s my love, the man who is here with me, who supports and listens to me. He encourages me when I need some pumping up, he thinks I’m sweet and wonderful and impressive and tells me so every day. And he is too.

My world is smaller now. That’s been the toughest part of all this. My social circles have shrunk, my calendar is empty, and I’ve been isolated. Just physically at first, like many of us were, but as time has gone on, that isolation has crept into all facets of my life, and it’s stripped me of an essential part of my identity – connectedness. There is a disconnect from my previous self, my pre-pandemic, pre-2020 self and I grapple with what (and who) to connect with now. There is no going back, there’s no “getting back to normal” for me. Too much has happened in the last three years, too much has changed. I have changed. As they say, you can’t un smoke a cigarette.

But now I can say I feel open, I feel ready. For what exactly? I don’t know, but a change is coming for me. I think whatever the universe has in store for me will be extraordinary.

And so here I stand on my balcony, in late March, anxious for the warmth of spring, taking stock of all that has transpired in the last three years: the challenges, the grief, the depression, the bright spots, and the not-so-bright ones, the changes, the wins and losses, the triumphs, the confusion and clarity, and the evolution. Of me, of those around me, of life and the nation.

From my balcony, I see my neighbours scuttling here and there, some carrying shopping or takeout on their way home, presumably. Some are bundled up, concentrated on their walk, while others sort of meander down the sidewalks, testing the limits of weather having traded their boots and heavy coats for sneakers and jean jackets. And everyone is breathing in the fresh, somewhat warm air.

It’s beautiful outside today.

It’s almost springtime. Soon the weather will break, and we’ll start to feel the warmth on our skin again, sunshine will once again cast animated shadow images on the balcony floor. The grass will grow, flowers will bloom, and the trees will return to their former selves, canopied over sidewalks and porches. I can’t wait until the weather turns for good, and the city starts to come alive. I’m ever bewildered by nature and life and time because it just continues, season after season, no matter what happened during the pandemic. I’m encouraged by that.

We’re allowed to feel whatever we feel about living through a global pandemic. I think the hardest thing for me to make sense of is whether I’m supposed to be trying to “get back to myself” now, or if I should be accepting the changes I’ve experienced and just…move on? Maybe the answer is somewhere in between.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue to take things as they come and I’m going to stay open to what the universe might offer me. That’s all I can do, right? And I’ll keep on looking at my neighbourhood from my balcony, trying to figure out people’s stories and imagine the extraordinary things they do.

It’s a great view.

Ghost whisperer

By now, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard of (and maybe even read) the article published by Psychology Today that’s gone viral. It’s about the rise of lonely, single men. It’s started quite the conversation – on Tik Tok and social media in general, but in real life too.

I’m here to tell you that this is a very important article because it’s the truth. Over the last several years, when it comes to dating, I’ve shifted into a mental space where I’m all about matching energy. I’m not waiting by my phone and constantly checking for messages. If the conversation was left in your court, I’m not reaching out. If I’m getting a “meh” energy, a “no communication for a few days, not gonna reach out, just drive her a little crazy trying to figure out why I’m suddenly MIA when I’ve previously been super interested, initiating conversation, making plans to see her and definitely making it known that I’m interested in getting to know her” kind of energy, that’s what I give back.

Gone are the days of giving the benefit of the doubt – oh, he’s busy, I’m sure he has a lot going on, he must be working late. There are no benefits of any doubts anymore. Gone are the days of believing him when he tells me that he’s afraid to get into something ‘serious’ and therefore isn’t ‘ready’ to introduce me to his friends and family yet. Gone are the days of trying to convince someone to like me after we’ve already clearly established that they do. I shouldn’t have to do that. I know that at the root of dating and this whole dance of trying to figure out if there’s something there, what it comes down to is this: if he’s interested, he’s reaching out, he’s planning the date(s), he’s making time for you, he’s putting you at the top of his priority list. And vice-versa! There is no such thing as ‘being too busy.’ There is no such thing as ‘I’ve just got a lot going on right now.’ When you like someone, it doesn’t matter how busy you are, you make time. You (metaphorically) move mountains to spend time with that person. Full stop. That’s it, no excuses, no extenuating circumstances.

“…single, hetero, cis men are lonelier now because of the rise in relationship standards. And I couldn’t agree more.”

Nope. I’ve had enough. It’s partly a me thing – the amount and intensity of therapy I’ve had over the last few years has helped me accept and understand things about myself and the end result is…I’m too awesome to deal with your bullshit.

The part of the article that is going viral and is the centre of most conversations, is the part that says that single, hetero, cis men are lonelier now because of the rise in relationship standards. And I couldn’t agree more.

One of the most important things I want to know about a man I’m about to date is how he talks about his exes. I ask questions like ‘so what do you think ultimately went wrong with you and your ex?’ or if, through conversation, they talk about their ‘psycho ex-girlfriend’ and all the reasons she was so ‘crazy’ and drove him away, I challenge them and try to find out if they understand that there is no such thing as a ‘crazy ex,’ and that they hold equal accountability for the demise of the relationship. Pro tip: if a man truly doesn’t think he did anything wrong (in every relationship he’s had, romantic or otherwise), that’s a big huge red flag – you might as well wear it like a cape. That’s a classic narcissist narrative, so steer clear my friend, run away as fast as you can.

Another question I like to ask is “what’s the most important thing you’ve learned from your relationships?” If the answer isn’t self-reflective in any way, that’s also a big ‘ol red flag.

Listen, I know men have it hard. They are just as much a victim of patriarchy as women. They (at least the men who are age-appropriate for me) don’t know how to express emotions, they haven’t been taught that self-awareness is healthy and a great tool with which to move through life. They don’t have a measured sense of what ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are, while also not really understanding that masculinity and femininity’s very existence are a social construct that only end up hurting people and we need to get rid of them.

If you think about it, most men don’t really even like women. Why would they? They (at least in my generation, and I would argue, generations before me) have been taught that anything deemed ‘feminine’ is exactly what they should avoid and strive NOT to be – crying is for girls, don’t run like a girl, ‘man up,’ grow some balls, a ‘real’ man doesn’t have long hair or wear earrings or leave the house wearing pink, don’t be so emotional – it shows weakness. Don’t be sensitive to others’ feelings, don’t ever let anyone convince you a girl could perform better than you in school, sports, music, or driving, don’t talk too much, that’s girly, don’t express your love for your family in a physical way like women do – men don’t hug each other! Men don’t kiss other men out of love and affection! Men don’t cry, men don’t back down, men don’t take no for an answer….

And we all know how that ends. All too well.

And please, before you even hover your fingers over the keyboard to ALL CAPS prove me wrong, of course I’m not talking about all men. You know this. And if anything I’ve written here has made you feel defensive, angry or feel the need to yell at me “BUT IT’S NOT ALL MEN, I’M A GOOD GUY”, then you, my friend are part of the problem. If you feel you must announce/remind/state that you’re a good guy, you are most certainly not one.

I was sexually assaulted by a (male) cab driver. I’ve had more creepy encounters with male Uber and Lyft drivers than I care to recount, during which they ask very personal questions, tell me how beautiful I am, want to know my status, if I live alone, if I’m married, if I have a boyfriend, if they can have my number, or more recently, try to manipulate their way into my apartment. And you know what? Because I’ve been conditioned to be polite, I engage in the conversation, trying to answer the questions without giving him the information he’s looking for – if I’m a ‘good’ target, if I’m the wounded gazelle.

“If you think about it, most men don’t really even like women. Why would they? They (at least in my generation, and I would argue, generations before me) have been taught that anything deemed ‘feminine’ is exactly what they should avoid and strive NOT to be.”

I generally don’t walk alone at night. If I’m out with my headphones in, listening to music, I always take one earphone out so I can hear things around me. If I am walking alone and I see a man coming towards me, I cross the street. I would never, in a million years, rent a ground-floor apartment, or leave my door unlocked, even when I’m going in and out to do laundry which is in the building. I’m careful about who I share my personal information with, I don’t let people follow me into my building unless I know them or I can clearly see they have keys. I don’t give my number out lightly, I tell a girlfriend when I have a date and where I’ll be and I never go into a parking garage after dark. If I get catcalled, I typically don’t say what I want to say (which is to confront them and make them feel super uncomfortable and dumb for what they think they’re accomplishing), because I run the risk of making said catcaller mad, putting me in potential danger. So, I just ignore them, which often encourages them to say even more disgusting things to me. There’s a reason women have such a hard time telling a dude that she’s just not feeling it. If he doesn’t take it well, we could get murdered. That is not an exaggeration.

These are just some of the safety precautions I take so I don’t get raped, assaulted or murdered. There is no way to know, just by looking at a man, that he’s not a threat. So, until proven otherwise, it is all men. Get it? Our lives literally depend on it. Women can’t afford to let their guards down on the chance that you’re a “good guy.” It’s simply a matter of survival.

Anyway, I got a little off track there. What I really want to say links back to that article in Psychology Today. Yes, men are finding themselves lonely and failing in the dating scene because, to put it simply, women aren’t willing to accept the bullshit, sub-par, bare minimum anymore. Let’s face it, women are at a point now where we don’t need men. We no longer need to rely on men for financial, familial, or social security. We have our own careers, we can pay our own bills, we have rich, fulfilling friendships, and lots of interests and people who keep our lives interesting every day. We don’t even need a man to have babies. We no longer feel we need a man to complete us. FYI, I’ve never felt that way – I’ve always said that I don’t need a man to complete me, I’m a whole, fulfilled person, I’m complete all on my own. But I’d love a man in my life to complement me. I have a lot of love to give, and I’d love to be loved. I think I’m lovable, despite what my dating history would suggest.

Indeed, for us heterosexual women (for the most part – I would never speak for all women), we still want men – but we want them to add to our lives, to bring us joy and excitement, love and affection, true partnership, and companionship. I don’t need a man to be successful. I don’t need a man to ‘complete’ me. But would I like the love of a man in my life? Abso-fucking-lutely.

The problem seems to be that there are few men who are on the same page, few who have been paying attention to how the world has been changing over the last decade or two. And it’s a shame because a lot of it has been out of their control. It’s a damaging narrative that’s been handed down, breaking the souls of men. It’s left them with little guidance and poor examples of what it means to be a whole, actualized person outside of a very narrowly constructed idea of gender and specifically, of ‘manhood.’ My head hurts and my heart breaks at the Andrew Tate of it all. And if I read one more profile asserting that he’s an alpha male, I may be forced to poke my eyeballs out with a pencil. Stop it, guys. Just stop.

But that doesn’t mean that men are off the hook. There are plenty of men who have been paying attention and they’re doing the work to unravel all that toxic masculinity. It’s those men I want to meet.

Which brings me back to my original point about ghosting.

For the uninitiated, ghosting is a popular phenomenon in modern dating whereby a person who has engaged in a certain level of contact/communication/dating, suddenly, without warning, simply vanishes – like a ghost.

It’s very common in the dating scene. It’s obnoxious and frankly, still startling and kind of unbelievable to this old lady, even though I’ve experienced it more than I care to admit.

It’s one thing if you’ve been chatting with a person for a while, and it just sort of…fades away, gets boring, gets weird, or too intense and someone ghosts – not the politest of exits, but overall, I don’t think there’s any real harm done. Especially if you’ve not met in person yet.

But it’s the people who ghost after almost three months of proper dating, after having the conversation about you both being ‘all in,’ about you being on the same page in terms of intentionally moving forward together to see what happens and hopefully building something serious, that I have some issues with. It’s the people who ghost after driving you to your hometown (even though he can’t stay – he just wants to help you out and spend some extra time with you) and meets your mom, I have some questions for.

This happened to me recently. I have no idea what changed, and I won’t ever know. I’ve accepted it and moved on (more easily than I thought I would, to be honest). But it still boggles the mind. How does a fully grown adult man go from telling a woman how much he likes her, how much he wants to spend time with her, telling her how beautiful and smart and amazing she is, to days later (I mean, four actual days later), losing interest? And why does that man think it’s perfectly acceptable to simply disappear, slink away into nothingness instead of talking to said woman about whatever changed his mind or what was bothering him or whatever. You know, like adults do.

I will never understand.

But what I do know is that this is the reason single men, especially those in my age bracket, are lonelier than ever. Emotionally stunted, sexist and misogynistic (unknowingly sometimes), trying to hang with a woman like me – a strong, independent, self-aware, constantly working on her “stuff”, a big fan of and long-time participant in therapy, intelligent, savvy, ambitious, probably (definitely) smarter and more socially aware than you, knows who she is, knows how to be alone, enjoys her own company, has deep and meaningful friendships and who is replete with self-respect – no wonder they get spooked and slink away like a ghost in the night. They don’t measure up, they don’t understand the assignment.

All I can say to these ghosts is good luck! I wish you success but I know that you will never actually be happy and will perpetually disappoint every woman you attempt to be with until and unless you (say it with me now) do the work! For the love of all that’s holy, get yourself into THERAPY! Right now – do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Take a hard look at yourself and your past (and current) relationships and start to understand what you actually bring to the table. I promise, you’re more damaged than you know and you need more help than you think. Just fucking try to better yourself, be a better human. That’s all we’re asking of you.

It’s not completely your fault that you’re hitting this wall in trying to date and have meaningful romantic relationships – society has told you since you were a little boy that you can (and should expect to) get away with giving less than the bare minimum and still get what you want.

But it is your responsibility to recognize how ridiculously low that bar is and to work harder to be worthy of a woman’s time, energy, love and affection – certainly, to be worthy of mine.

New Year’s Eve, 1970

She stood in her bedroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror of her vanity. She questioned her choice of shoes, wondering if they were fancy enough for where she was going. Also, if perhaps she should choose a slightly higher heel. She decided that comfort was paramount, and no one would be looking at her feet anyway. She gazed, considering her red dress with its white lacy collar peeking out from her perfectly styled blonde hair. She had carefully pinned it up in a half-up ‘do, just like her mother, a hairdresser, had taught her. She decided her whole look was hitting exactly the right chord for the evening, but also that it was quite flattering. She leaned in, touching up her pale pink lipstick, took a deep breath and stepped back for one final look.

“Well fluffy, I think that’s as good as it’s gonna get,” she remarked to her cat who was sprawled on her bed, watching her get ready, but mostly drifting in and out of sleep.

When the doorbell rang, Nancy jumped a little, pulled from her daydream. She immediately felt her stomach turn itself over and drop into her pelvic floor as she remembered exactly what was happening tonight. It was a blind date. She would be joining this mystery man and his whole family at a New Year’s Eve dinner party before heading to a house party with Jerry’s brother and sister-in-law, which is also where her brother Stan and sister-in-law would be later that night. It was a sort of six degrees of separation situation.

Nancy skipped down the stairs, Fluffy in tow, meeting up with an urgently barking Laddie and Nikki in the front foyer, as she headed to the door. Of course, there was no way to know that Elaine, one of the conspiring matchmakers, was deathly afraid of dogs. Nancy opened the front door, vacuuming a blast of frozen air into the house. Before her stood Jerry and Sam, two brothers who couldn’t look more alike if they were twins, and a quivering Elaine cowering in sheer terror behind her husband.

It was a bit chaotic with all the pets and the lights and the potential trauma to Elaine, and she was eager to just get on with the evening, so Nancy grabbed her coat and purse, and shuffled out the door as quickly as she could. She smiled to herself at the thought of leaving Fluffy, Nikki and Laddie an empty house in which to enjoy their New Year’s Eve celebration.

It wasn’t until Jerry opened the backseat car door for her that Nancy finally got a good look at him. He was not tall, stocky, with dark hair and twinkly eyes. He had a very kind face, a certain energy she couldn’t quite identify, but also couldn’t help getting caught up in. He wore glasses and smelled great. Nancy could tell he was a little nervous. Good, she thought. As she gingerly took her seat in the car making sure she had solid footing on the frozen driveway, she noticed that the summersaults in her stomach were turning from a foreboding thudding to something more akin to butterflies. This is a good sign she thought to herself.

They arrived at the Tamarack Golf Club, probably the most well-regarded venue in Peterborough, giving the air that they double dated like this all the time. Nancy decided to take that as a good sign as well.

Navigating through the maze of tables, the invisible partitions of smoke and perfume, they reached their party. Before her sat Jerry’s family. Like, his whole family, all his brothers and sisters and their husbands and wives and dates. Nancy girded herself, shielding any perceptible nervousness with her big square smile. Her dad always told her what a beautiful smile she had, and Nancy had learned long ago that it was also effective armour in situations like this. It put people at ease and conveyed a level of confidence that she could only strive for internally. But even she had to admit, however vain some might think it to be, she did indeed have a beautiful smile. It was one of her best features.

Taking their seats, Nancy felt a sense of familiarity, or comfort…or something. Which was surprising given she just met her date not twenty minutes ago and was now in for a whole evening with his nearest and dearest. She shook her head at the absurdity of it all.

Once they were somewhat settled into their seats, Jerry began introductions. It was a huge round table, so he just picked a starting point and went around the circle. There was Lance, the eldest brother, and his wife Marilyn. Next to them were Pam, a sister, with her husband Peter. Beside Peter, was Herb, the baby of the family, and his date, whose name Nancy promptly forgot. Across from Nancy and Jerry were Linda, another sister, and her husband Adriano, and next to them and across from Sam and Elaine were Randy and his wife Claudette. Apparently Claudie and Elaine were best friends and this blind date setup had something to do with them. Nancy’s head was whirling with new information and still adjusting to the fact that she knew no one here. She thought to herself that she must remember to ask Jerry to go through all this again and to ask about his parents, so she could get it all straight. Well, if she felt like this was going somewhere and it was worth learning all these names and who was married to whom and birth order and all the things you learn about a person’s family when you’re dating.

Dating! Nancy quickly snapped herself out of her daydream. What was she even thinking? Dating? She just met this guy. Yeah, she liked him so far, and yes, she felt comfortable and excited with him, and damn, those twinkly eyes. But Nancy was a practical woman and wouldn’t let her emotions run the show. She just wanted to manage to not have an awful time and ring in the new year without catastrophe.

Besides, she thought, even if this were love at first sight, Jerry lived in Cincinnati! That’s in a whole other country, over 500 miles away. What could possibly come of this?

Shit thought Jerry. Shit, shit, shit. What the hell was he doing? Why on earth did he agree to this? It had been a great Christmas break in Canada, but did he really want to end his vacation with a potential disaster of a blind date? No. No thank you, ma’am.

Even though he’d been coming to Peterborough since he was a kid, he never imagined that this is where his whole family would eventually call home. Not him, not Jerry Peters. He was an Ohioan to his core. But he had to admit to himself, he really did love Peterborough. Maybe not so much in the winter, but practically a lifetime of spending his summers on Rice Lake at the cottage resort with family and friends made this stubborn goat admit he had quite a soft spot for the place.

But loving Peterborough and being surrounded by family didn’t change the fact that he lived an 8-hour drive away.

So, when Sam and Elaine insisted that he bring a date to the New Year’s Eve parties they had planned, Jerry thought, well, yeah, that would be nice. Even if it couldn’t go anywhere, it would be great to have the company of a lovely woman for the night. As was his motto in high school when it came to girls, he had to give ‘em all a chance. Not to mention, it would be great not to be the 13^th wheel as it were.

He knew her name was Nancy. That’s about it. Elaine had never actually met her; she just knew she was the sister of a friend of hers from work. Or something. Why was he trusting his sister-in-law again?

Jerry sat in the backseat of his brother’s car, trying to catch his breath and slow his heart rate. They had just picked Nancy up and after a bit of dog-wrangling and hasty introductions, they were finally in the car, on the way to the Club. Nancy sat to his right, but he dared not stare at her for too long or else he’d surely make her uncomfortable. But all he wanted to do was stare. Nancy was beautiful. He couldn’t believe that this angel would be his date for the night. She was tiny, 5’2”, small and delicate, long blonde hair, perfectly coiffed. She was so refined and well-mannered. Jerry immediately felt out of his league, but at the same time, like he’d known her his whole life or something. She was wearing a red dress under her black pea coat, very light make-up and just a subtle whiff of the most intoxicating perfume. She had beautiful hands. A strange observation he realized, but they looked so soft and small and perfectly manicured. He was oddly transfixed by her beautiful hands.

But of all the things that added up to make this vision beside him so stunning, there was one thing that stood out. Jerry had simply, in his 29 years on earth, never seen a smile so magical. Never mind lighting up the room, Nancy’s smile could light up the galaxy.

The dinner was going well. Jerry had done all the introductions, fully expecting Nancy to forget everyone’s name and whether they were a brother, sister, spouse, stepsibling or just some guy sitting at their table. Nancy seemed to be enjoying herself and Jerry was impressed by how easily she seemed to fit in and make conversation. She wasn’t a wall flower. How refreshing.

As the dinner progressed and Jerry had a few glasses of courage coursing through him, he felt his nerves disappear, his stomach settle, and the lump in his throat melt away. As he was telling Nancy a particularly impressive story about one of his many crazy fraternity stunts (usually a hit with dates), he was caught up in the moment, showing off, tipping back on the back legs of the chair, balancing heroically. And then, without warning he thudded to the floor as the chair shifted under him, dumping him on the carpeted floor of the dinner club. Surrounded by his siblings, a full dining room, servers, and other staff Jerry had just made the biggest fool of himself, and he knew it. He quickly joined in on the laughter from his siblings to hide his hurt pride. It was bad enough to have fallen in the first place, but that he fell in front of Nancy was most embarrassing. He was never more thankful that the lighting at the Tamarack wasn’t the best so maybe Nancy didn’t see the ruby shade that had crept over his face.

He was mortified. As Jerry began to gather himself up from off the floor to resume his place at the table, his cheeks flushed, his stomach butterflying once again, he slowly looked at Nancy to face his (deserved) reprimand. To his utter shock, what he saw on Nancy’s face as he made his way back to an upright position in his chair, was that magical, gorgeous smile. Nancy was not reprimanding him, she wasn’t ready to scold him for acting like a fool, she didn’t even seem like she would give him a slap on the wrist.

No, Nancy, his beautiful, young, blonde, date for the evening was laughing. She was laughing! When he finally righted himself on his chair next to her, she gently reached for his hand and gave him a reassuring little pat. Jerry knew in that moment that this young woman was special. He felt electrified, a kinetic energy he’d never felt before.

That was it. He was smitten. He was in deep smit, as the kids say. Nancy had his attention, his interest, his heart. They’d only spent a couple of hours together but there was something inside of him that had lit up in a way that he couldn’t ignore. All he could think about was how he was going to manage to spend more time with this extraordinary woman.  

It had gotten colder by the time they made it to the party at Patty and Bill Clayton’s house. Nancy barely noticed though. She was still hot from the bustling club where they’d been before…and maybe a little bit from the wine too. She couldn’t believe it, but she was having a great time. She had such little faith, and admittedly, maybe a little embarrassingly, no confidence that this night could have been anything but a disaster dressed up as a favour to her brother.

Nancy had found Jerry’s brothers and sisters quite lovely and amusing. She still wasn’t sure she had all their names right or understood fully who the siblings were and who the siblings’ spouses were. But, really, did it matter? It’s not like she’d see these people ever again.

Nancy laughed a little to herself under her breath as the four of them made their way to the door of the apartment on Clonsilla Ave. She was giggling because she would have never, in a million years, imagined she’d be here – on a blind date, set up by people she didn’t know, on New Year’s Eve, with this football-coaching, high school-teaching, Prom King All-American guy – and that she’d be having the time of her life.

She could still feel the butterflies, but they were less about nerves and more thrilling now. Sam, Elaine, Jerry, and Nancy entered the apartment to ring in the new year with friends and fanfare.

The condition on which Stan had ultimately managed to convince Nancy to agree to this setup was that when they got to the party at Patty and Bill’s, if she was having a bad time, all she had to do was let her brother know, and he’d take her straight home – no questions asked, no fuss. All she had to do was give him the signal.

But Nancy had all but forgotten their deal when they joined the party, excitedly taking Jerry’s extended hand and weaving through the crowd to snag a glass of champagne for the big moment.

Before he knew it, midnight was minutes away and Jerry was suddenly gripped by the thought he’d been actively avoiding all night. To kiss at midnight or not to kiss at midnight? And if he did kiss her, what kind of kiss? A sweet peck on the cheek? An innocent light brush of the lips? Go for it and lay it on thick? So many options, and he didn’t know quite how to read Nancy. Maybe she’s not even thinking about this! Maybe she is and is hoping that he doesn’t kiss her! What if he’s been misinterpreting the whole night and she’s not interested in him at all? What if she’s just been polite like the well-mannered young woman she seems to be? Oh no, now Jerry was all discombobulated and suddenly worried about something he was so sure about not 10 minutes ago.

Everyone at the party was starting to gather in the living room, passing around glasses of champagne and noise makers for the big moment. Jerry took Nancy’s hand and led her into the heart of the crowd, grabbing two glasses of bubbly on the way. It was one minute to midnight now, and as he stood there, scandalously close to his date, he was overcome. He wanted to kiss her so badly, and he was sure that’s what she wanted too, but what if he was wrong? The last thing he wanted to do was offend her or make her feel uncomfortable.

But he wouldn’t be feeling all these lightening bolts and fireworks if she wasn’t either, right? Jerry considered himself pretty good at picking up social cues, especially when it came to the ladies, so he had to be right. Right?

It was happening. 10, 9, 8, he turned to face Nancy, pulling her ever so slightly closer to him, 7, 6, 5, 4, he looked down at her beautiful face, staring into her (slightly glossy) eyes, 3,2…1. Jerry took a sharp breath and leaned in for a kiss. It was soft and light, modest and respectful. But it was on the lips. And to Jerry’s thrill and relief, Nancy kissed him back. He felt vindicated, his confidence in his intuition restored.  And what a feeling that was! He’d never wanted to kiss someone so much before, and he’d never been so glad he did. Yup, this little woman was inching her way into his heart with every minute that passed.

It was officially 1971. Jerry again looked down at Nancy, squeezing her hand impishly and thought, however premature or ridiculous it might seem, that he was looking at his future.

Around 2:00 am, Sam found his brother in Patty and Bill’s kitchen, talking to Nancy, looking like a fool in love. It was time to go. The would-be double-daters piled into the car and set off to drop Nancy off at home before the three of them went back to Sam and Elaine’s for the night.

When they pulled into the driveway on Dobbin Avenue, Nancy could see her parent’s bedroom light on, which meant they must have just gotten home and haven’t quite called it a night yet. She couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. Lightening bolt city! She was hoping Jerry would kiss her at midnight, but she was too shy to make the move herself. It was intoxicating – the crowd of people surrounding them, the light head from all the wine and champagne, the closeness of their bodies, being shmooshed in that hot living room. As the countdown started, the butterflies returned to their residence in her stomach and her toes got a little tingly. Maybe that was more from the drinks than anything, though.

And then he kissed her. She felt more sparks with his innocent, unassuming little peck on her lips than she ever had with her ex-finance, Doug. Everything happens for a reason, she thought to herself as Jerry took her hand to help her out of the car, so they could say goodnight out of from under the gaze of the two very interested parties sitting in the front seat of the car.

At her front door, where just hours earlier she set out for the night with three strangers, there she stood with Jerry – a man she had quickly learned was a good, respectful, funny, smart, twinkly-eyed stealer of hearts.

She told Jerry that she had a really nice time and thanked him for the lovely evening. It was cold and the wind had picked up, blowing whisps of blonde hair in her face. Jerry reached down, gently pushing her hair aside and kissed her once again. This time it was more than a modest peck on the lips. It was the kind of kiss that made you blush. Well, it made Nancy blush. They pulled apart and Jerry took her hands and told her, with a sweet earnestness, that he hoped to see her again and that he was so glad to have met her.

As she closed the front door behind her, silencing the sound of the wind in the trees, Nancy sighed deeply. What a night. Her mom was up, sitting in her usual spot on the couch, night cap of Crème de Menthe beside her, cigarette dangling gracefully between her fingers.

“Come in here Nancy, and tell me all about your night,” she urged.

Nancy hung her coat up and slipped off her shoes and joined her mother in the living room. When her mom asked if she had a nice time and what she thought of Jerry, Nancy hesitated to answer at first. She didn’t know quite what to say.

She took a breath, looked up at her well-meaning (but totally nosey mother), and said, “Mom, I really like him, but he lives in Cincinnati! I’ll never see him again.”

She realized as the words tumbled out of her mouth, she felt she could cry. Even though she was aware of this all night, it wasn’t until then that she felt the full weight of their distance. Suddenly, she was very sad. After a gossipy breakdown of the night, you know, the ‘whos,’ the ‘whats,’ and the ‘can-you-believes,’ Nancy and her mom finally decided to turn in. As she climbed into her bed, utterly exhausted from the night, still smiling, she closed her eyes. Even if it was just one night out of the millions of nights she’d have in her life, it was going down as perhaps one of the best.

One month later

Nancy returned home with the few things her mother had asked her to pick up from the A&P. As was habit, she headed to the main floor door so she could check the mail on her way in. As she entered the house, slipping her heavy winter boots off and setting down her bag of groceries, she opened the little door of the mailbox.

Flipping through the pile that was there, she suddenly stopped, her breath catching in her throat. There was a letter addressed to her. It looked to be international mail. Her eyes quickly darted to the upper left corner of the envelope and staring up at her was the name and address of a Mr. Jerry Peters from Cincinnati, Ohio. Nancy couldn’t get her coat off fast enough, and sprinted up the stairs, dropping off the bag in the kitchen, not stopping on her way to her bedroom. She closed the door behind her and flung herself on her bed – not exactly the graceful young woman she was raised to be. She carefully opened the envelope and pulled out a letter with what looked like the sharpest, most perfect handwriting she’d ever seen. She closed her eyes for a second and contained a little squeal, realizing that Jerry must have had to call around to get her address. The evidence of his efforts made her feel uncharacteristically extraordinary.

She opened her eyes and began to read, already thinking about where she had put her stationary so she could write him back.

“Dear Nancy,” it started. Everything about their night together came rushing back and Nancy noticed those butterflies flapping again and the familiar warming of her cheeks. And she didn’t even need to look in the mirror to know that her big square smile was crawling across her face.

What has the pandemic done for you lately?

You know that thing when you pull out a comfy, worn-in pair of lounge-around-the-house-pants, and slipping them on your legs and pulling them up you realize that they’re a bit…snug? Yeah, I experienced that this week. It’s not a big deal. I mean, I’d rather have packed on a few extra pounds than be dead from COVID. But it’s still a little alarming, isn’t it?

The tightness of my pants notwithstanding, this realization got me thinking about what has really transpired over the last two years.

For the last two years we’ve collectively been experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic. We all know this. I’m not going to go on about how difficult it’s been or politicize my blog by telling you all the opinions I have and my desire to change hearts and minds of those on the “other side.” No, I don’t want to talk about that.

What I do want to talk about is this: what I realized after rocking my now form-fitting comfy pants is how much I have changed. And how much the people and relationships in my orbit have changed. How we generally interact in public has changed, and how all of us are, or are beginning to, or maybe haven’t even yet thought about, reconciling how this pandemic has affected us.

You might be someone who considers themselves relatively unaffected by the adjustments you’ve had to make to your life over the course of the last two years. And to that I say, good for you and you are probably right in a lot of ways. There are many people for whom their day-to-day existence didn’t really deviate much from what it was in the Before Times. But I think we are forever changed in big and small ways.

And the thing is, it’s going to take a long time for all of these changes and their impacts to fully unfurl before us. There’s no way to really tell right now what exactly the pandemic has done to us.

For my part, with some reflection and through lengthy conversations with friends and family, I have determined a few things I can say have unequivocally changed in me.

• It takes a herculean effort to go anywhere. I clearly have taken for granted how convenient it was in the Before Times to run errands on my way to or from somewhere. I have found it quite challenging to muster the motivation to get out and about. Case in point: I have a package that I need to pick up from the post office, which is located in the Shopper’s basically around the corner from me – about a 10-minute walk. This package has been there for 9 days and counting.
• Time has no meaning. I feel like the last two years could be lifted right out of my life’s timeline and it wouldn’t make a difference at all, but at the same time, like they are the most meaningful years I’ve ever experienced and have irrevocably changed my life’s trajectory. It’s like the last two years are just a void – a holding place where we’ve all been waiting for life again. But life, of course, has continued because that’s how time works.
• I’ve never eaten so much take-out before in my life. I like to cook, I do! And I really love to cook for others. When I moved into my apartment almost four years ago, the thing I was looking forward to the most was hosting my friends and family for dinners, hangouts, parties and all the quality time we could handle because I finally had the space (and beautiful dining table) to do it! But, living alone during the pandemic, dealing with major life changes, coping, surviving, and being resilient apparently stole my desire to cook. This is a big part of the reason why my pants are tight.
• Spontaneity and I aren’t really friends anymore. There’s no room to fly by the seat of your pants during a pandemic. When I have gone anywhere, usually to be with family, it was always thoughtfully planned and laid out. I miss spontaneity. I like flying by the seat of my pants.
• I’ve become a bit of a voyeur. Not in a creepy “peeping Tom” way, sickos. I mean I’ve grown so accustomed to being alone, not really talking to or interacting with humans a fraction of how much I did before, that I find myself mostly observing. It’s not an inherently bad thing, and I’ve always been inclined this way – I’m a certified people-watcher. I like to imagine what their stories are, what their lives are like, who they love and how they fill their days, what keeps them up at night and what fills them with joy. A good friend told me once when we were talking about people-watching that she watches for the fashion – she likes to see what other people are wearing, and essentially decides whether she thinks it’s a good choice or not. I will say that my friend is quite fashionable herself, so when she told me this, I wasn’t surprised and nor did I think it was a bad thing. Anyway, when she asked, I told her what goes through my mind when I’m idly watching people live their lives and she smiled and said that it’s because I’m a writer. I’m always writing stories, even when my pen is invisible, and the story is in my head. Anyway, all this is to say that I find that because of how much time I spend on my own, this practice of watching and thinking and wondering and story-building has become much more prominent.
• I’ve become lazy. Well, lazier, really. I think this is because there’s nothing to do, nothing to look forward to, nothing to plan for and no new experiences on the horizon. It’s depressing. And while it does sort of force one to live in the moment more than they probably ever have before, it feels limiting. There is only now. That’s not the same thing as spontaneity though. It’s a strange vortex in which we simultaneously don’t, (or didn’t until very recently), have the freedom of true spontaneity – no last-minute plans to go to the movies, or to a restaurant, or a mall – and where, because of the uncertainty of the life of this pandemic, there is only the present. We couldn’t make vacation plans, or plan weddings or parties because we didn’t know what was still to come and when we could reasonably expect to regain some normalcy.
• I’ve developed a bit of an online shopping problem. For me, it’s clothes, mostly. I think I’ve worked out that it’s because of two things:
  • I want to imagine what life will be like when the world is fully open again, and specifically, what I’ll be wearing when it does. I think about going back to an office and putting on a mini-fashion show every day, even if it’s just for a handful of others in the office who don’t know me or give a shit about what I’m wearing, it excites me. I have accumulated a fantastic wardrobe – work and non-work clothes. I just don’t have anywhere to wear them. Yet. I will. And I will look fantastic. Just you wait.  
  • Ordering things online – clothes, groceries, medication, take-out, random housewares from Amazon – gives me something to look forward to. Yes, as sad as that sounds, I’ve deduced that it is the crux of the issue. It’s the truth. My life has become so small, so insular, that anticipating getting a delivery (of anything, apparently), gives me a little tiny sense of suspense and purpose.
• I’m rusty when it comes to social interaction. You have to understand that in the Before Times, I was the life of the party! OK, maybe not immediately before the lockdown and ensuing end-of-the-world panic. But I’m a very social, outgoing, entertaining person. Case in point: I was with my family over the Easter weekend – the first time I’d seen any of them since Christmas – and I thought we were having the best conversations ever! I was so excited to be sitting with my mom and sisters and brother just shooting the shit, catching each other up on our lives – it was invigorating. Later in the evening, my siblings started calling me “Windy.” Apparently, I was talking a lot. Maybe too much? In my defense, I have been seriously lacking human interaction for two years. Actually, more than two years, but we’re not going to get into that right now.

The aforementioned points are just scratching the surface. They are only the things I have come to realize on my own. I’m sure there are myriad other ways the pandemic has changed me, probably unexpected, and perhaps tiny and insignificant, but whatever it is, I’m ready.

Bring it on, universe! I don’t need to go back to life as I knew it before, I understand that things change, and a lot of specific things have changed because of the pandemic and may stay changed forever. But I do need to get out of my damn apartment, go to work, meet up with friends and go out for dinner. I need to connect with people, especially my people, and make sure that I do it often enough that “Windy” doesn’t stick as a nickname.

Also, I’d like my pants to not be so tight.

Hey Dad, can I talk to you?

Dad –

I could really use one of your pep talks right now. Even though I know you would probably speak in clichés and say all the things I’ve heard you say, I would still really like to hear from you. There was always something about the pride and excitement in your voice when we would talk about my work and life goals. Whether you actually felt it or not, I always left our conversations feeling like you were very proud of me and like I could do anything. What a f-ing high.

You set a high bar. You were the first in your family to go on to university; you were an achiever, a doer, a man who floated easily through the social and academic world and seemed to commandeer any space in which you ever found yourself.

You used to remind me that I am a Peters, a person who follows through, who puts their best efforts forward, someone who gives 100% all the time. You raised me to have integrity and confidence, but also humility and grace. You were a man who championed loyalty to employers and organizations, even though you yourself were a trailblazer for your generation, having several distinct careers in your working life.

Even though you and I didn’t always agree, I admired your belief in a strong work ethic. I’m so glad you instilled that in us. In me.

All through elementary and high school, when I would come home with a test or paper that was a 90% or 95%, or even a 99%, you would say “well, where did the other X% percent go?” I think you were just teasing, but it really implanted in me a need, a desire, a compulsion, even, to achieve. I strived to make you proud, to prove that I really could do anything I set my mind to like you made me believe I could.

I’ve always been a risk taker and I know that you, in the strictest sense, were not. I know you have doubted (even judged harshly) some of my decisions, especially when it came to my career, but I also know that after the proverbial dust had settled, you were proud of me. I like to think maybe you even admired me a little for taking the leap of faith that you couldn’t (or wouldn’t).

But, at this particular moment, in this season of my life, I’m struggling with my confidence and ability to frankly, just do a good job. And I could really use a chat with you. I would love to hear you remind me that I’m tenacious, that I’m an achiever, and that I have talent. That’s the thing I miss the most. And even though you told me more than a couple of times, it always knocked me over to hear you tell me how talented you thought I was. I suppose you still think that. But not really because you are in the past now, you’re not here, you’re gone, so I’m just left with the memory of those conversations.

When you left us, I heard from several people in my life, in our lives, who told me how very proud you were of me. I know you were proud of all your children, and I love you the WORLD much for that. But it has always meant so much to me that you would speak so highly of me to others. I think that’s because think I was the kid you related to the least. And to be clear, I know that having things in common with one’s kid is not mutually exclusive to one’s level of love. I just mean, of all of us, you and I really didn’t have that much in common, certainly not as much as you did with my siblings. At least on the surface.

I’ll never forget the way you would tell the story of the first time you saw me perform. I sang a Tracy Chapman song in a school cabaret. You knew I sang, obviously, because I was in all the choirs, and you knew I was musical, because, well, comparatively, that was my “football.” But you always got tears in your eyes when you told the story of the first time you heard me sing, by myself, a cappella, in front of an audience. That is the feeling I’m yearning for now. That unfailing, full-of-love support that only a proud dad can give.

I dream about you all the time. In my dreams, you’re here, in present day, where I can touch you and talk to you and hug you. And then I wake up. Sometimes it takes a good 30 seconds for me to realize that I was dreaming. And then I feel your loss all over again. Often, those are the best 30 seconds of my day.

I can’t tell you how much I miss calling you in the middle of the day. You always sounded so delighted to hear from me. And even though I could practically recite what the conversation would be, verbatim, I never got tired of it. What I wouldn’t give to hear your voice on the other end of the line saying “Hi honey! Have you grown any?”

I miss you, dad.

Love,

Little one

He thinks he understands the assignment

This is how I imagine men on dating apps understand the assignment:

• Contact a woman – usually a simple “hi” or “hey beautiful” will be enough to make them want to message me back because I’m clearly what she’s looking for and/or the best offer she’s going to get. Caveat – if I copy and paste a prepared, generic but appropriately “interested” message, she’ll never know I’ve sent this same message to approximately 47 other women.
• When said woman replies, shower her with compliments about her eyes, her figure, her smile, her general appearance. I mean, it’s obvious what she looks like from the 16 photos she has posted on her profile, but I’m going to ask if she has any more. I think she’ll like that.
• Ask the requisite questions: what part of the city are you in? Do you live alone or with family? (this is of course, to determine how convenient it will be to go to your place all the time). Do you have kids? (even though this one is almost always answered in the mandatory profile details). When was your last relationship? What do you like to do for fun? Oh, and maybe ask what you do for work, but only if you ask me first. I don’t actually care nor am I interested in what you do for a living.
• Keep complimenting her on her appearance because I know that’s what women in their 30s and 40s really appreciate; they don’t need me to be genuinely interested in who they are as a human person. Make benign small talk, seemingly letting her “get to know” me without really telling her anything of substance, all the while redirecting the conversation back to her – this makes her think I’m interested.

• Once an acceptable number of messages have been exchanged on the app, suggest we take the chat to texting or WhatsApp.
• Once chatting via text, try to be flirty, maybe mentioning something about a sexy image I have of her now that I’ve “known” her for a few hours/days. Obviously, we’re at the stage now where I can start calling her “baby” and “sweetie” and build up that false sense of intimacy so I can get what I want faster.
• Nail down a first date – drinks is usually a good one to suggest. Continue chatting everyday, making sure to send the ever-important good morning and goodnight texts – women love that.
• On the date, be friendly and ask lots of questions – this way she’ll feel like I’m interested in her life and stuff. Try to maintain an air of cool without being too aloof. Try to make physical contact as much as possible so she knows I’m attracted to her. Goal: get invited in at the end of the night.
• Once I’m in her home and after I’ve put in the obligatory amount of time tricking her into feeling comfortable with some touching and maybe some groping, it’s time to go in for a kiss.
• During the make-out session ignore all her body language and just keep escalating the heat. She won’t want to seem like a prude, so she’ll go along with it, even if she doesn’t really want to. Forget everything I’ve ever learned about enthusiastic consent – I mean, we’re adults, right? This is what dating apps are for, she must know this. She obviously knows that this is what was going to happen. Duh.
• Once I’ve gotten her at least partially out of her clothes, just go for it. Don’t bother with a condom, she’s probably on the pill. Also, just put her in the position I like, it doesn’t matter if she likes it ‘cause sex is just sex, and since I probably don’t intend on seeing her again, I want to make sure that I enjoy it. I don’t give a tiny rat’s ass about her enjoyment…she knew what she was getting into. She’s probably never been raped or anything, so I can just do what I want, and she won’t get upset or triggered. God, like what’s the big deal, ya know? It’s just sex. And we’re adults.
• When she stops me after a few pumps, act confused and offended. She’ll probably go to the bathroom to pull herself together. When she comes back, ask her if she’s OK – you have to establish that you care about her (even though you don’t, not really).
• Somehow, during the ensuing conversation, twist things around so that she ends up apologizing to me – for being uptight, for leading me on, for giving me the “wrong” idea, etc. Generally, try to make her feel like a fool and that her (obvious) issues with “intimacy” are preventing her from having a good time with me. I’m not a monster! I’m a good guy!!! I think she’s attractive and I just want to fuck her to satisfy my sexual needs and up my body count be close to her.  
• Tell her that I appreciate her feelings about sex on the first date and blow it off like it’s all good. She’ll feel bad and maybe a little silly or stupid. That’s all good – I know I’ll be able to seal the deal next time.

• Continue to talk and see each other for a few weeks. Evade revealing any real information about my life and my emotional maturity/availability and for the love of all that’s holy, avoid answering any direct (or roundabout, for that matter) questions about me or my family, my actual relationship status, or my living situation, etc. If she knew that I’m living with my ex or have a couple of roommates, that will scare her away. I need her to believe I’m a self-sufficient, financially, and emotionally stable man with my shit together. I mean, I will be…eventually – obvi.
• When she inevitably asks if I’m talking to or seeing anyone else, say no, even though I absolutely have 3-5 women I’m juggling. Of course, I’m just testing them all out, waiting to see which one is going to give it up with the least amount of hassle  I like the most.
• After a few dates, stop asking her to hang/go out. Avoid making any kind of plans to see her at all. Eventually, she’ll ask me to do something – I just tell her that it’s a really busy weekend, but I’ll definitely try to figure something out.
• Stop all communication. Ignore her texts, don’t reach out, don’t express to her in any discernable way that I just don’t want to see her anymore. I don’t have to have a real reason for this, but most likely it’s because she’s just too much for me – she feels too much, expects too much, asks for too much. For the uninitiated, this is called ghosting. I will ghost the shit out of her. If she calls me out on my bullshit, I just block her and never have to think about her again. She’ll get over it – this is what online dating is. Any fool knows that.
• Move on to the next unsuspecting woman and wash, rinse, repeat.
• Continue to absent myself of any self-awareness, accountability, or any understanding of my stunted emotional development because toxic masculinity has me by the balls. Of course, I want happiness, but I’m not willing to look inward and treat other humans with the basic decency they deserve. What can I say? Bitches be crazy!