year in review, MMXIII

1. What did you do in 2013 that you'd never done before?

saw the third anniversary of a workplace, grew an even fuller beard, acquired a goddamn rainbow of pants, lost a bunch of weight trying to convince myself I wasn’t falling in love, let go of a thing I had wanted but realized no longer made sense, conga lined in a strip club, was in a stable relationship with someone in the same city, caved to someone asking me to be their roommate, actually met up with people from location-aware apps, went somewhere colder for a vacation, had a fender bender, went to a gay wedding, was a groomsman, actually had to start figuring out how not to match outfits with someone, made nougat, kept a toothbrush at someone else’s place, developed a whole emoji language and received an actual physical mixtape. Somewhere in here I should shoehorn the phrase: underpants advent calendar.

oh, and I came out to my parents.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

languages: nope
debt: nope
belleville: nope.

2014: man, fuck a resolution. I have some goals about languages and moving and debt freedom but nothing I’m going to tie to yearly cycles.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! More friend-babies happened.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes. Two friends committed suicide (separately) and I still don’t know what to make of it.

5. What countries did you visit?
Kicked it North America styles; two trips east (one Montreal/Toronto, one Toronto;) and two to Portland. Also we went to Yale (the one just north of Hope,) Victoria, and Pender Island.

6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
a clearer career path, a smaller waist size, the ability to pare my belongings down to an absolute minimum. Maybe my degree? Let’s go with that.

7. What dates from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
New Years Day, watching Dune and not watching Dune; being a Street Fighter ringer, decisions made on decision couch, that time at Bitter when I got told, Valentine’s Day/drag show/beary godmother (and subsequent reappearances thereof,) “oh hey it’s the 29th,” someone else’s party on my actual birthday, saying things I had left unsaid for too long, skipping a house party to have another couch talk, little dude’s first birthday, the wig party, Yale, my dad getting on my case about settling down and the explanation he wasn’t sure he wanted, PDXcellent, Ladner weddings and double bouquet catches, phone calls from Jordie, phone call from Jackie, Portland bachelor party, cross-country flights and inadvertent matching outfits, Rob’s wedding weekend shenanigans, Stevemas, boxing day facetimes, Pender Island New Years.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I let go of some things, and I came out to my parents.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I owe more money than I’d like. Also, I’m still working at a place I dislike increasingly and I don’t know what getting out looks like.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Strep throat, also now I get cold sores.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
probably the X100s.
aside from that: new glasses, all the plane tickets, underpants advent calendar.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
They know who they are.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
They know who they are, too.

14. Where did most of your money go?
debt, travel, stupid shit, single malts.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
beginnings, mostly.

16. What song will always remind you of 2013?
The National - Graceless. Beach House and Wishes are a close second, if only for that video.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? happier.
b) thinner or fatter? thinner, which I'm working on.
c) richer or poorer? richer, marginally.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Admitting, saving, giving myself room to breathe.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
buying stuff I didn't need.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
At home, getting ready for Boxing Day madness at work.

21. Did you fall in love in 2013?
oh man did I ever.

22. How many one-night stands?
two, though I guess they’re more vacation flings. I tried to have a casual relationship and we were terrible at it, but now I’m contentedly in love. Worse things have happened.

23. What was your favourite TV program?
Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Korra was pants, Drag Race remained solid, I haven’t gotten around to watching Arrested Development’s latest season nor Game of Thrones.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nobody new, but it's not like it was a long list to begin with.

25. What was the best book you read?
This Is How You Lose Her, followed by the Canal House cookbooks.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Rhye and Waxahatchee; somehow this was the year I got into Vampire Weekend.

27. What did you want and get?
A way out of what felt like a holding pattern.

28. What did you want and not get?
clarity? I think this is less a thing to receive and more a thing to create.

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
Pacific Rim, because certainly you can’t go wrong with robots and giant monsters but also it was really good.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
28. Once again, friends had their party on my actual damn birthday.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Just one? More money in the bank would have taken care of most of my headaches, really.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
colored khakis, hella oxfords, bow tie explosion.

33. What kept you sane?
I'm not really sure. I'm generally not, having come to the conclusion that if I think too much about it whatever tenuous balance I've attained will topple.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I didn’t, really?

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
I still can’t donate blood. Also guns in the US continue to alarm me.

36. Who did you miss?
aside from Rob Peters and Trevor, I think I made it east enough times to see the people I miss over there enough; this was the tentative reintroduction of Neil, and I don’t see nearly enough of Kat, Tara, or Spencer any more, largely because I spend more spare time in the West End and less on the West Side, now.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Steve escapes this one on a technicality (our first date was two days before 2012 ended;) but all his people don’t; Tyson, Cory, Nick, “Ivor”, and Kump are rad dudes. There’s a batch of new people at work who are working out pretty okay, too.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013:
man, if you lose twenty pounds stressing out about falling for a dude you should listen to your body and just go ahead and fall for him.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

“I’m a fool for that shake in your thighs
I'm a fool for that sound in your sighs
Im a fool for your belly
Im a fool for your love”
— Rhye, “Open”

or

“I am not my rosy self
Left my roses on my shelf
Take the white ones, they're my favorite
It's the side effects that save us”
— The National, “Graceless”

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the surprise of the week / was that I never heard the sound

I made three mistakes at once when my phone buzzed: I swiped to answer without seeing who it was, I didn't excuse myself from the table, and when I looked at who it was that was calling, I didn't think about the last time we'd spoken.

We were out for 5/6ths of an anniversary, which is an admittedly ridiculous thing (but par for the course, given us;) checking out the soft-open at a gastropub deal whose fame was wrought from a hundred and forty separate taps for beer and a small town of infrastructure spent on dispensing it. Prior to that, we'd put ties on for no real reason and followed pizza with gelato (though they didn't have the apparently elusive lemon cake gelato flavour that we enjoy enormously.) Until this point it was a fairly pleasant evening; full of both pizza and adoration, I sat behind a beer and made small talk, pausing occasionally to squeeze a thigh or lean over for a kiss and associated pleased noise.

In the brief moment between swiping to answer and putting the phone to my ear, I'd assumed that the call was something groomsman-related (though it was still a couple weeks away, the wedding in Toronto loomed large for a number of reasons,) when it was, in fact, a reenactment of the last time we'd spoken on the phone, when Jordie had called to tell me one of our friends had died (two days after a call to ask for a recent photo, because he was missing.)

Rob i—was.
Rob was someone I'd met via friend Jackie, whose partner he'd been until fairly recently, and whose first introductions to the gang involved us referring to him as Dr. Dreamlove, largely as a method of reducing confusion with the other Rob we all knew. What I'd taken for some initial reticence turned out to be a charming awkwardness combined with a tendency to observe, and so through combined forces of time, conversation, and fragments of shared writing, we developed what I'd like to think of as an understanding and eventual fondness. We bonded over unclehood, the intermittently incomprehensible difficulties of religious families, and later on, about beards (his was denser, but I had better volume.)
Rob had been found in a hotel room, alone; whether it had been old habits gone awry or old ghosts that had pushed him into a place we couldn't follow would require a toxicology screen to determine (though I know one was done, I don't know if I want to know what the results were.)

I'd seen him last from afar at a concert, and remembered that he looked more different than a mere change of haircut should have entailed. The last time we'd spoken was after Trevor's wake and the weeks of packing away an apartment, divvying up the things Kate couldn't actually bear to look at, and heaving deep sighs over drinks.

Conveniently enough, there was a drink in front of me, so I sighed, took a sip, and sent a text, partially because I was unclear on etiquette for texting a friend upon learning of the passing of their ex-partner but mostly because I didn't think I could have handled a phone call at that particular moment.

When the phone rang the second time, I checked who it was (Jackie,) excused myself from the table, and rushed past a gauntlet of what appeared to be decorative brewing equipment before answering, literally bracing myself into a window frame, exchanging condolences and messages of love, brief life updates (we're okay, still, somehow, should stay that way, jesus, lather, rinse, repeat,) and managing, through barest margin and greatest exertion, not to cry while on the phone in the foyer.

It didn't take much to make us old hands.

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footnotes from a vacation, part one

The cat found out first¹.

Emboldened by distance and encouraged by the gentleman caller, I'd crossed a pair of Rubicons in typical late-gay-bloomer fashion: until that point, all my relationships had been monogamous (in practice, if not in theory,) and I hadn't gone in for no-strings-attached affairs, either. I had only fooled around with dudes who I'd at least spoken to before and intended to speak to afterwards, though admittedly that didn't always work out—sometimes it was me coming to my senses, though.

I walked home² bearing a six-pack³ and an equal or possibly greater volume of uncertainty, then proceeded to drink one of those beers⁴ far faster than was necessary before simultaneously debriefing the dude⁵ and queuing up a list of songs to sing, loudly, badly, at aforementioned cat. I drank another one in the shower, music up loud enough that it could be heard above the water, then stepped out: clean, damp, buzzed, slightly hoarse, still unsure about what I'd done (aside from the obvious, though really that was more of a who.)

In retrospect, it seems a bit ridiculous: we'd established the framework, I'd been clear about what I'd be up to while out of town, and even when I asked, looking for an out, I received the same steady, patient encouragement I'd been given throughout⁶. Despite this, I sat down to add a couple more songs to a playlist, caught my own reflection in the screen, and asked the cat⁷ if I'd irrevocably fucked up a relationship with a man I was too busy telling myself I couldn't love to realize that I did.

The cat didn't answer in a way that I could understand, unless her nuzzling up against my calves was morse-encoded, and if that's the case I freely admit to having less of an idea as to what goes on, any more.

One of my hosts came home shortly after, and the rest of the day passed in the sort of blur I could probably reconstruct via forensic twitter and careful examination of message logs but won't, in service of vacation myths. Under the guise of a bar crawl there were fancy drinks (six through eleven, as it were,) a brisk walk past Super Sexe (with brief-but-necessary instagram stop,) and a final stop for bagels⁸ before returning to Parc-Ex, to hydrate and sleep, eventually.

We said our goodbyes underground the next morning, headed in opposite directions on the same subway line; back to work or onwards to further vacationing, respectively. One train, bus, and plane later, I landed at Pearson, sent off a quick landed-safely text to my folks and email to the dude⁹, picked an album I hadn't yet listened to¹⁰ and set off in search of my luggage. I got lost, as one does in unfamiliar airports, but made it to the carousels in time to see my flight's stuff spill slowly out onto the conveyor belt, all the while half-listening to some song about being saved from the grip of a mountain should a plane fall.

I stood spaced out and waiting, half-asleep and more than a little hung over; the singer geared up her longing a notch, and I was struck by a remembrance the last time I'd stood and waited for luggage in this particular airport, and the week that followed. I shook my head (as if these thoughts could be dislodged,) spotted my luggage, and went to grab it before beginning the bus-train-streetcar journey from Toronto's airport to, well, actual Toronto¹¹.

___
1. predictably, the cat wasn't sure what I was up to: our relationship, thus far, having been that I gave friendly words and behind-ear scratches in exchange for good morning headbutts to the beard, intermittent purring, and, just once, a kneading that I was puzzled enough to record video of—to be informed later that it was a comfort-seeking behaviour. I sneeze less now, so maybe I was being given more than I thought, there.

2. Used here as a flexible, almost post-geographical kind of thing:
• in Montreal, where Kristen will tell me off if and when necessary, it's in Parc-Ex, where Little India hosts the Greek Day parade and what it apparently the city's best souvlaki joint is a stumble down the block;
• in Vancouver it's divided between the couches I wake up on with some regularity and where, you know, my mailing address is;
• it's also wherever Rob is, largely due to his habit of welcoming me home whenever I see him, no matter where we are.

3. I stopped for beer, afterwards, at the same depanneur where I'd had a sandwich, before, and the clerk there (from whom I'd bought a different six-pack the day before, and had a brief but pleasant chat about trading Vancouver's rain for Montreal's snow,) cocked an eyebrow, as if he knew I'd been up to something in the time between visits but said nothing, blissfully.

4. making it number three on the day; numbers one and two having been consumed under the guise of testing the reasonableness of actually having a beer called a breakfast IPA for/with breakfast. The preliminary decision was that it was doable, since an earl grey-spiked beer combined both tea and toast, in a way, but further testing was necessary for a proper verdict.

5. all of our relationship discussions thus far have been via text message, involved some amount of nudity, or both; if for whatever reason our iMessage history gets PATRIOT ACT-d someone is going to have one hell of a time.

6. the man is a gem, if it wasn't clear.

7. in the way of things unthought until they were said and once said, unretractable. Long-time readers may notice a theme.

8. I have a photo of Kristen, full Asian glow in effect, biting into a sesame bagel around her wrist. I have no idea how we got there, and the more I think about it, the happier I am to let it remain a mystery.

9. I knew my folks would be awake and the dude wouldn't be; that I'd glanced at my watch, done the time zone math, and knew his routine well enough to make the adjustment was one of those things I figured everybody did (and found out later that it wasn't.)

10. I figured that two cross-country flights, one shorter one, and a bunch of unfamiliar public transit meant it was a good time to check out some stuff I hadn't heard before, both because I wasn't going to be doing a whole lot of acquisition but also because it made room for fresh associations. Sometimes this works too well, though: I can't listen to Janelle Monae's first EP without thinking of Edmonton.

11. While drinking a very large iced tea more quickly than was sensible and waiting to board, I looked one gate to the left and realized I could have flown directly to downtown Toronto; at the time I  recall wondering what my third questionable call of the day would be.

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[in progress]

Line up another list of four-minute loops of melancholy, then sing along until your voice gives out. Do this thing in the hopes that it might dislodge that small and persistent ache stuck at the core of you—accreted or ejected: pearl or projectile, depending.

Repeat this, to no great result, until you realize it's not something that's happened yet but some baffling and entirely novel problem: good man, bad timing, looming spectre of departures and agreed-upon end dates fuelling some sort of advance preview on heartbreak.

Wake up holding him, watch late winter's grey light filter through curtains and onto his sleeping form, careful not to disturb the hand of yours he holds; adjust the big-spoon-arm you still have no idea what to do with and wonder how this is a thing you can do and feel like you will miss simultaneously.

Note the ways you both enforce agreed-upon distances and the places you stop yourselves and each other: discuss public displays of affection while walking and then segue into whether either of you has had any success out in the world of other dudes. Do the same thing when he's settling into your arms as you go to bed for the night, or at a dinner party when you go to fish out a cat GIF and remark upon the dating site emails that only seem to pop up in his company.

Tell him to be less compelling, adorable, thoughtful; remind him he's liked (enormously, mind.) Mostly, though, remind yourself; maybe it'll stick, but it has yet to.

He'll start, just a little, when one of your friends refers to him as your boyfriend and as you start to deflect now and explain later how he's not and what that means (noting her mild skepticism and not-so-mild concern,) recognize that your central ache has shifted, slightly, and that you don't know whether it's the explanation or the necessity thereof that still bothers you.

Find yourself startled by the unlikelihood of a work dream and a moment of unrecognized surroundings before letting the arm around you and the deep, even breaths of a man firmly dreaming lull you back to sleep. You both snore, occasionally; don't think about how you've gotten pretty good at nudging the other into a position where it's less troublesome.

Step on a scale after wondering why none of your pants fit properly any more, and realize that the gentle and persistent increase of your stress level left you without an appetite: you're down twenty pounds, this thing is quite literally consuming you. Recognize this as both convenient and alarming, and make a note to eat better, since you're eating less.

Out for drinks with your friends, get called on all of this, hard. They do it from a place of concern, and they'll be right in pointing out that none of this is good for you on a variety of levels and that you can't think your way out of this: without actually talking to him, this isn't going to go anywhere and as much as you can try to convince yourself whatever has gone on so far is working, there's physical evidence to the contrary.

Out for drinks with his friends, have a pair of asides as you get moved from bar to table; one about a tweet from the night before about the value of being told things you needed but didn't want to hear, the other about not being sure about what to introduce you as (there's an inadequacy in 'friend,' a discomfort in 'boyfriend,' an absurdity in 'gentleman caller,') and mention, briefly, that the relationship that you set out to have isn't the one you've been having, of late.

Table it, for the rest of the night, so that you can get back to the business of meeting his people and later laying waste to them at Street Fighter. He'll beam, and turn the moment into one of those looping internet video deals, and kiss you on the forehead when you win the third match of five, causing one of his coworkers to demand double or nothing on the bets (the one who bet against you in the first round, which he will soon learn is unwise.)

Leave early, again, having to work the next day, and get pulled into a serious kiss; add this to the brief list you've been making in the off chance you have to rebut his claims of detachment (aware, wholly, that it's not like it would make a difference if he didn't want to be there, any more.) Pretty much everything on the list are things you find exceedingly endearing, though; consider it a potential add-on to the things you like about him, if this keeps going.

Before dinner and a movie (the movie ends up being a bunch of RuPaul's Drag Race that you have on your laptop,) end up on his couch, looking at each other, his hands on your knees and yours in your lap, afraid to ask a question but knowing the alternative is worse. Remember, briefly, ducks to faces at two hundred and forty knots; breathe deep, and start out by checking in. You're both okay with where things are, and though it's not something that either of you planned for, it's been more than alright, so far. It's still not forever, and it's not entirely monogamous (which is totally fine, as long as he comes back with good stories, you tell him; he says to do the same when you're off on vacation next month,) but it's nice to be able to reconfigure. The casual pretence is gone, and you hadn't really thought about how it's surprisingly pleasant to be attached (but you are, to him, who is delightful, so.)

Think about but don't mention how, the first time you were on this couch, you talked about being adults and getting to decide what this looked like, and that here you are, being adults and deciding what this looks like. Remember the preemptive rebuttals you'd drafted, and move them over to the things you like about him column; tell him about it first, just to see what face gets pulled (it's not the smug dimple, this time, but a sheepish grin you're happy to kiss off his face.)

From there, it's a lot easier; movies are usually chosen on grounds of ignorability and this one is no different, after a few hours of watching and not watching drag queens vie for a ton of money and engage in arguably the most postmodern of reality TV shows, head to bed. You won't sleep for a while, yet, but when you do get around to it, he'll hold your hand to his chest and nestle contentedly, like the same weight's been lifted from both your shoulders.

Settle in to sleep and recognize the lack of central ache, thankfully. Hum eight bars of a song you realize you don't really need to lean on any more, pull him a little closer, and close your eyes.

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another year, another little survey deal.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you'd never done before?
saw the second anniversary of a workplace, actually managed to stay in a relationship for a year, had a one-night stand, caved to internet dating, went to a high-school reunion, saw a net reduction in the number of books I own, came out to my siblings, grew an even fuller beard, started thinking about what I want my 30s to look like. I made plans to leave Vancouver, only to realize I'd done the right things for the wrong reasons and another year made the most sense.

oh, and I got my heart broken.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

leave the city: no
get out of debt: no
leave the closet: my siblings know, so a little bit?

2013: learn javascript and python, regain the ability to speak French, get out of debt and get ducks in a row for Belleville.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! I have a nephew, now.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thankfully, no.

5. What countries did you visit?
I went to Portland, once, and that was about it.

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
a clearer career path, a smaller waist size, the ability to pare my belongings down to an absolute minimum.

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
New Years and straight-dude-makeout-offs, brunch, and secrets; Toronto trip and the beginning of the end; Bad Decisions Night; my sister and I dropping a couple facades;  Radiohead in Seattle; The Wooden Sky show at the Biltmore and the acoustic closing bits; birth of the little dude; the PDXcellent trip; Wye Oak/Dirty Projectors, the weeks of my parents' absence; advance breakup information release, the ton of launches.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I got into a school that I'd been wanting to attend for an age (only to realize it wasn't yet doable.) Also I wrote basically a dissertation (8,000 words!) on things I learned after the end of my relationship, which was useful for me and apparently enlightening for others.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I half-baked a plan to leave so I could be closer to a dude who was in the process of falling out of love with me, and even after we ended things I was pretty set on going forth; I'm not sure if the ultimate decision not to go ahead with it or the fact that I even went there was the failure in question but I guess that's what hindsight is for.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had to have a root canal, also some serious heartache, but otherwise not really.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Marty the Retina MBP.
Honorable mentions: cardigans, another trip to Portland, the 70-200/2.8L lens.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
They know who they are.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
They know who they are, too.

14. Where did most of your money go?
debt, travel, stupid shit, single malts.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
leaving (until I didn't,) my new nephew, future life goals.

16. What song will always remind you of 2012?
Wye Oak - "Civilian" and Fiona Apple - "Werewolf" (though the RAA's Stamp is an honorable mention.)

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? sadder.
b) thinner or fatter? thinner, which I'm working on.
c) richer or poorer? richer, marginally.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Admitting, saving, giving myself room to breathe.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
waking up alone, being the world's mopiest nerd, buying stuff I didn't need.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
At home, getting ready for Boxing Day madness at work.

21. Did you fall in love in 2012?
nope, though I may have broken someone's heart.

22. How many one-night stands?
one, and I'm not sure if I'm up for another.

23. What was your favourite TV program?
Homeland, RuPaul's Drag Race, The Legend of Korra.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nobody new, but it's not like it was a long list to begin with.

25. What was the best book you read?
fiction: 1Q84 almost by default; a lot of the other stuff I read this year was either schlocky or unfinished.
photo book: the catalog from the Alexander McQueen at the NY Met is gorgeous.
cookbook: the smitten kitchen book.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
It was a good year: Bat for Lashes, Hood, Baroness, Beach House, Purity Ring, Swans, Tim Hecker, Fucked Up, and The Men.

27. What did you want and get?
a new macbook, a couple lenses, physical and psychic preparations for leaving.

28. What did you want and not get?
an amicable breakup, if such a thing was possible; also I didn't get out.

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
Moonrise Kingdom, though if I'd seen Cloud Atlas I'd probably put it here.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
27, and I joined in on the Ricardobel Birthday festivities.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Just one? More money in the bank would have taken care of most of my headaches, really.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
camo, chambray, cardigans, and florals.

33. What kept you sane?
I'm not really sure. I'm generally not, having come to the conclusion that if I think too much about it whatever tenuous balance I've attained will topple.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Anderson Cooper? Paul Rudd? Damian Lewis? Whatever, I'm easy.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
gun control in the states, the slow unfolding of gay marriage across the US, the continued blood ban.

36. Who did you miss?
I miss Rob more than anybody; Hayles and Kristen aren't far behind, so this trip I'm planning for Easter is pretty pleasing to me.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
A bunch of coworkers: Dickie, Keegan, Spooner, BZ, Greenie and Adam make work bearable most days, and this year I reconnected pretty seriously with one Andrew, aka Chinny; between the couch and the pep talks and the shopping buddy-dom, I don't know if I'd have made it through this year in quite the same shape without him.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012:

I loved a man (my first), it didn't work, my heart was broken, and while I couldn't put it back together in exactly the same way, it became clear, over time, that this wasn't a bad thing.


39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

Pacing down the balance beam of half-remembered holidays
No rush of light, no sign of belonging
No joy in building, love in the finishing
Chasing down an anodyne and half-reflected radiance
Shearwater, "Animal Life"

I don't need another friend
When most of them
I can barely keep up with them
Perfectly able to hold my own hand
But I still can't kiss my own neck
Wye Oak, "Civilian"

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it's like whack-a-mole: get one thing sorted and three more appear, and clear those three to find another five, and you wonder if this ends (briefly, though, until something else arises.)

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Break the enormity of a thing down and down again, until it becomes nothing more than a series of lists to be checked off, and the act of leaving a place that is, quite literally, in your bones¹ goes from mountain to molehill. Proceed with enough purpose to get through the whole thing but not too much; more certain than any calcified anything has been the frankly inconvenient tendency of adrenal tsunami to lay waste to any sort of forward motion².

Maybe it's brought forth by some tectonically unknowable impulse—lizard-brain hangovers in some Verneian psychic centre of the world, hammering deep roots and rendering an already-shaky place wholly uninhabitable.

Maybe you're garden-variety crazy, and these fanciful explanations are just a way to avoid dealing with the reality of being up against yourself, that way.

Either way: breathe. Feel the first edges of winter in the air, search for the first taste of the inescapable rain you find yourself missing during summer days, wonder if the wind will bring you a little of the ocean.

Add these things to the list of things you'll miss, and wonder if you'll feel them again before you leave, and wonder what the air smells like in the place that you're moving to, and what it'll smell like in all the places you'll go before returning³.



1. left arm broken, age 6; jaws realigned, age 24; lifetime of backyard vegetables.
2. replaced, instead, with the twin urges to be alone or to be immersed in a sea of people.
3. it's not a certain thing, you keep saying, that you'll ever return, but there's probably enough iron in the surgical steel in your jaws to work like a compass and drag you home, face-first.

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that time i met his parents

I guess it's time, finally, for this story: I was supposed to go to Shambhala, and then we were going camping, and then I'd meet his parents. I bailed on this plan, partially because a long weekend spent surrounded by people high on things and listening to electronic music didn't seem super appealing, but also because there was a blackout on vacations at work, and while I probably could have pushed my luck and gotten away (management: surprisingly supportive of my long distance relationship, oddly,) I was gunning for a promotion at the time, and decided to hold off for a bit. I wrangled a few days off in a row a couple weeks later, and booked a pair of overnight greyhound tickets to/from Kelowna, leaving after a closing shift on Wednesday and arriving home in time for a Sunday morning start.

Figuring it was only polite to bring a host gift and remembering that his mom liked single malt, I went to the liquor store, and found myself attempting to commune with a wall of bottles to find out which best said 'hello! I'm nailing your son, who you thought was straight,' but was also delicious. A flurry of tweets (perhaps you are sensing a theme) and a recommendation later, I picked up a bottle of Balvenie Doublewood, which was both delicious and thematically appropriate (aged in two kinds of oak barrel for 12 years; bourbon and sherry, if I remember right. The other choice was Knob Creek Single Barrel, but that seemed a bit obvious.)

Armed with the above and also a batch of world peace cookies, I left after work (and a beer and chat with Kristen, Keith & Bryan,) on a Greyhound through a bunch of wilderness I'd passed over but not through and some towns I'd only heard of in a job I'm still trying to forget. I arrived a little ahead of schedule, thankfully unstabbed (but sore-necked from sleeping upright and, let's be frank, a little sweaty,) at which point I called to be all "hey I'm a bit early but am going to strike out in search of coffee," only to find that he'd slept in and was still in bed.

Over waffles, after meeting up, contrition and kisses across the front seat of his parents' car, I asked what his parents knew about me; I'd been on his case to at least inform them that they'd have another visitor for a few days (if not to actually come out to them; knowing how my own coming outh was going to go put me in no position to push him into it,) and he hadn't said anything at all, but apparently this wasn't an issue. I shrugged and returned to eating a waffle the honest-to-gods size of my face; unsure of how the next few hours, let alone days, would play out, I thought it was only sensible to enjoy breakfast.

I started this some months before returning to it, and in the middle realized that all this weird dredging up of personal historical unpleasantness isn't super constructive, and while the easiest thing to do would be to abandon a thing, I'm compelled, to some extent, to close this out in a manner that seems complete, for most purposes; really, for my purposes, which are the only ones that matter, here?

Yes. 

Onwards:

I met his parents, after breakfast, introduced as a friend who was staying here for a couple days who he'd met at a conference; none of which was problematic aside from the space issues, as he had family who was visiting from Edmonton and a family friend who was arriving in a couple days, but it was lovely to meet me and the cookies looked good.

What followed, from there, were a couple days of sun-drenched idyll, being led by the hand on a whirlwind tour of places worth noting (and others worth mocking,) formative people and a large-though-unsurprising number of clandestine makeouts. We shared a bed, and showered together, and spent long nights out and longer mornings in, all the while avoiding the discussion I thought he was going to have before I got there.

Other things happening: insightful advice from his mom that made it pretty clear she knew what was up (that I'd shown up with serious whiskey was also a sign; apparently none of his friends had done anything of the sort, before,) an outing to the beach with a stopoff for some frankly amazing goats milk gelato, me laying waste to the dude and his mom at Scrabble.

The last day, as I was packing up, we had some hilariously couple-y conversation, and heard his mother coming up the stairs (probably having heard enough to make things pretty obvious,) and he shot me a look to which I responded with raised brows and a shrug, remembering that I'd been wanting him to have this talk well before I'd arrived, since a "hey meet my boyfriend, parents," trip was what I'd signed up for and a "hello parents I'm going to behave oddly and avoid questions about this guy who's just a friend" trip was what I'd ended up having, to this point.

Downstairs, over single-malt, we cleared the air; I apologized for the subterfuge but was waved away, we found out about how his sister's coming out had been substantially more sanctimonious, she asked about kids and we, somewhat dazedly, explained about how that was on the list of things to be dealt with when we lived in the same city, and those plans were laid out, and things seemed largely okay.

We went to a party, briefly, and after downing a larger beer than was perhaps sensible, we returned to grab the bag before heading to the greyhound depot (another overnight bus; I'm not sure how I thought this was a good idea;) and one almost-tearful "see you in Montreal in six weeks" conversation later, headed home to Vancouver, to kill three hours before another shift at work; time I'd fill with Naam breakfast, a walk across the Burrard bridge, and listening to Left and Leaving and trying not to be visibly upset in public.

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schroedinger's mixtape

I woke up, some nights, (while we were still together and/or more than I care to admit to,) remembering one particular night spent curled up in some bed, ours on a strictly temporary basis: tangled a little more complexly than spoons,  I had one hand on his chest and associated arm pulling him close, feeling the gentle and ongoing staccato thump of his heart as I drifted off. Feeling like some endlessly lucky bastard, I'd surveyed the gentle curves of his sleeping shoulders, satisfied (at that point, temporally,) that this was in fact the reality I'd become accustomed to, then let his heartbeat lull me back to sleep, until I woke, breathing him in, a little unsure of what side of dream I was on, again.

It was an enormously unlikely thing, at the outset, and so for the first little while I had to be reminded to holster my bafflement: that an unnecessary conference trip, a low-drag postmodern epistolary courtship conducted 140 characters at a time, and the fascinating interlock of our personalities and fields of nerdery would lead to all manner of gently romantic nonsense—like the above—seemed beyond mere numbers, as if some whole new field of physics needed to be created to adequately describe the surreal and increasing unlikelihood of our boyfriend-dom and its continuance.  I'd learn eventually that there was a look I'd adopt when struck by the above, wide-eyed with wonder and a little pained with uncertainty; and that it ended up serving as his cue to reinforce what normalcy the situation merited or occasionally create some sort of distraction (the nature of which is best left alone, here) to retrieve me from whatever headspace I'd entered while conflating understanding the rarity of a thing with the act of simply enjoying it.
 
When things came to a close, it felt a bit like the compound improbability of our continued entanglement caught up with us; in some effort to smooth over whatever space-time disturbance we'd wrought, we found ourselves moving through mirror-world reenactments of our first days together: Toronto swapped for Vancouver, weariness for joy, what I'd thought to be the alteration of our orbits that brought us together revealed as nothing more than a blissful tangent; even our first and last kisses saw one of us standing watching the other walk to a train, riding a metal-and-glass tube on to the rest of our lives. Having recognized the end before being able to admit it to myself, I spent the trip from his door to mine balancing standard travel anxiety (coloured person problems!) against heartache foreshocks, jolted anew by multivariate and inescapable reminders of the man I'd spent a week visiting, who'd just left me feeling underfoot and then resented. It took a train, a bus, a plane, and an automobile to get me home, unhappiness rumbling all the while and mounting through weeks of uncertainty and radio silence. Discontent simmered while the rest of my life demanded attention and continued to do so until, finally, I received an email in reply to my thousand-word airing of woes, seven days after I'd called to make sure it was a reasonable thing, five after I'd sent it off and three after I'd decided we were over regardless of what the email contained—his silences had said more already than his words possibly could, and as much as I hoped it was otherwise, it was time to let go.

I hadn't really thought about it, and if pressed, I would've assumed some relatively graceful denouement: the slow fade of rose-tinted glasses to hindsight's clarity, lessons learned, reinforcement of self in the way of re-knitted bones, but, you know, with hearts. I was wrong about this, with only naivete to blame/credit for the enormity of my misunderstanding; what I'd thought—if I'd done this before, maybe—would be a smooth falling action turned out to be some dense and awful jumble of sine waves: jagged peaks, all-too-brief crests, and implacable valleys. I came to understand (like any complex wave) this one was composed of several others; if psychic Fourier transforms existed, I'd have seen the threads that threatened my own unraveling: the inversion of my original bafflement, some sense of betrayal, pretty straightforward anger (at him, but also at myself,) some level of regret at the things I didn't say, the replay of my shining and awful moment of comprehension (that night on his couch, watching him sleep in the next room, knowing and refusing to know where things went from there,) encroaching loneliness, and the whole assortment of things pop culture told me I was supposed to feel, according to who took the initiative (arguable, really—he checked out, but I had to start all the unpleasant conversations, or so my ego likes to think.)

I read, a lot, as a coping mechanism; devouring novels I'd enjoyed before and had worn in, mentally (in the way of an object that knows your shape, like Homer's apocryphal butt grooves) meant that I wasn't plumbing half-remembered conversation and archival ex-boyfriend texts in futile searches, nor did it allow me to imagine complex and unlikely scenarios involving reunion, absolution, roles reversed; some action of mine leading to his spiral of despair. Fully recognizing the futility of imagining all the things that could have gone right, if only some unknowable condition had been satisfied, I did it anyway, then shook my head (as if such thoughts could be dislodged,) and reached for another book.

Reading involved headphones (obviously) and with them, the readiness to skip a track should opening bars necessitate it; both lyrical content and temporal association seemed poised to reopen volumes of thought best left shut, though not without a note to return (being wholly, sadly aware of what happens when I leave this sort of thing to simmer/fester, depending.) A playlist built itself, slowly; equal parts soundtrack, barely-disguised things I wanted to say, and unrefined heartbreak, skewed slightly towards songs indicating both sadness and acceptance, with a marginal amount of hope for the future. It made sense, given aforementioned mirror-world reenactments, to put it out in the world in the same place I'd put all the other mixes, though this one was more for me than him—at this point, we were past words and I wasn't sure if I wanted to exchange more, given all the good the others had done. I leant on tracks missing things (lyrics from a Do Make Say Think track, a rhythm section in a Twilight Sad cover, any sort of pretence from The Wrens,) and waffled a bunch, careful of the semiotic minefield that was track selection and wanting to project (but not too much) a place of tentatively being okay with things being over (slash intermittently displeased) and not some sort of weird state of elemental wanting for things that had exited the realm of possibility, no matter how many quantum systems were collapsed (a thing I liked to think of having left behind in the air over the prairies.)

It went up, life went on, and I found myself explaining it at a party; being rendered crestfallen by a passing compliment merited fairly substantial exposition, where friends go, and in talking about the causality of a mix tape, the thoughts that had been bouncing around my head came spilling out, in the way of things that weren't really considered until they were said (and having been said, could only stay that way.) Yes, I thought he'd been awful to his loved ones (like that time I met his parents,) the only time we'd ever had an argument was when I needed him to be more patient and less impulsive (while I shot a wedding and he wanted to make out,) and certainly the things I'd been concerned about and had noted mentally to discuss when we lived in the same city (our shorthand for serious business,) were in fact the same things that brought about the end. Having done a year of long distance at that point, I wasn't enthused about another (at a minimum, given our school/life frameworks,) and while his previously proposed idea to live together for a summer seemed idyllic, it was more full of perils than I was ready to face.

That's not to say it was all bad; like any human endeavour, it bore peaks and troughs, and I loved him in the manner of first boyfriends: foolishly, without reservation, and so completely as to have been upended by his sudden absence. It took one man, six cities, an avalanche of text in a variety of mediums and a fair bit of improbability for me to fall in love, and as much as I hurt at the end, I wouldn't trade it for the world (insert Shakespeare here.) Ultimately, I admitted, in our last voice conversation (a drunk dial, during Bad Decisions Night,) that I'd probably have some sort of soft spot for him, and should he find himself in some sort of jam in which I could be of assistance, that he could call. He didn't reciprocate, and instead decided to tell me that he'd moved from doubting to decided while high on cactus on Family Day (which had fallen in the middle of my trip for our anniversary,) and while I went in search of another beer with which to continue bad decision-making, a number of things fell into relief, and the notion of breakup-as-bullet-dodged took root.

It bears mentioning, at this point, that I don't dream of him any longer, and haven't since our last conversation. Talking it out with a friend who knows us both (after I returned and before we actually broke up,) it was pointed out to me that one of us had no capability to reflect and be emotionally self-aware while the other did it constantly (as if running emotiond, for my UNIX nerds,) and that there was the central chasm to be bridged; I'd come further than halfway, but I couldn't make him reach out (though now I wonder if this was even possible.) Painful as it was to let go, holding on to someone who didn't want to be there would have been worse—I'd already made all my bad decisions in one night, after all, and was reduced to making sensible decisions (at least temporarily.) 

Months later, I still wonder sometimes about what happened in his head to take us from a place of "generally working, despite geography" to "full-stop-I-don't-love-this-man," but I've come to understand (finally, yes,) that I won't get that without his relating it to me, rendering it functionally unknowable. His lack of comprehension regarding inner states was something he'd been apologetic (though not contrite) about in his last email to me, and every friend of his I'd run in to post-breakup (on multiple occasions; big cities are small places, some times,) had said much the same: he'd never had a handle on his inner states, and our relationship was regarded as some possible sea change until its ending, which while unsurprising in its manner was surprising for even having existed. I have no idea what to make of this, though it does recontextualize the "he's dating you?" looks I got early on, when meeting his friends, from what I thought was a body mismatch thing (the ex is an urban cyclist/effortlessly skinny person, I am none of the above,) to more of a "he's dating anybody?" sort of thing rooted in being aware of someone else's lack of self awareness, for which there must be some sort of compact German word (and which I recognize as small comfort but will take, regardless.) That his realization only came to him via recreational psychedelics (and not via any sort of internal means, as near as I've been told,) is one of those things I worried about until it sunk in that he wasn't mine to worry about, any longer, and all I can do is sigh, shake my head, and hope that he found out some things about himself, and some things to make life easier for future loves.

I learned some things from him: I'm worth loving; a beard is a good idea; sometimes life will upend you and that's okay; every decision doesn't have to be a good one; understanding a risk doesn't preclude taking it; talking with strangers isn't the end of the world; things are ridiculous and so they may as well be embraced.
I learned some things because of him, too: my instincts are good ones; to talk about the things that are problems you when they are bothersome; life will sneak in via blind spots, and all you can do is roll with it; I have surrounded myself with a cadre of people who've kept me going through all sorts of bullshit and will continue to do so; things work until they don't, and it's nobody's fault, sometimes.

From here, though, there's one more story to be told (the one about meeting his parents,) and then I'm ready to close this chapter: I loved a man (my first), it didn't work, my heart was broken, and while I couldn't put it back together in exactly the same way, it became clear, over time, that this wasn't a bad thing.

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sonnet slash unrealities eleven

it may not always be so; and I say
that if your lips, which I have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as I know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;


if this should be, i say if this should be -
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that I may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall I turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.


— e.e. cummings

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wax wings

The short version: east van party, invite from an old and incisive friend, creative writing MFAs, jokes about jokes about Lisa Loeb and Foucault and how he'd deal with her only hearing what she wanted to, a house named for its insane chandeliers, dancing well/terribly to a soundtrack split between relative modernity and highschool throwbacks, being reminded of who I was via a lengthy and detailed retelling of a weekend I don't remember and the things I got up to then, and then being given a reading which was both an obituary/about an obituary and also sort of compound heartbreaking.

tl;dr: a successful house party outing was had.

After this, an uneventful rest, a decent brunch with delightful company, a post-brunch adventure with different, delightful company, a haircut and the return of sunshine and a breeze about my ears and a bunch of musical guilty pleasures, before returning to Kits to take in an in-store performance (with a brief stopover to fall in nerd-love with a knife, which I had to sleep on, decision-wise, then went to buy and had to raincheck but now own.)

Full of free beer and late-March sunshine, I ran into a couple of my ex's friends, ones I'd met in Kelowna that time I went up to meet his parents (still a story for another time,) whose party we basically relocated at New Years' Eve, and into whom I ran periodically, by virtue of us all being into similar music and my tendency to hole up in coffee shops near their workplace. Unaware of my newly-single status until I told them (noting, grimly, their lack of surprise: both at the end of things and also at how they found out from me and not him,) we had one of those music-is-the-new-weather sort of discussions (appropriate, given the setting,) and then I got told: come over, drink, play video games. You're not seeing him any more, but we should still hang out.

Unsure of what I was getting myself into, some reflexive politeness kicked in and I found myself nodding, agreeing, making plans to meet a friend I'd only ever heard of as someone I would like, immensely, if the three of us were ever in the same city. Leaving Zulu with Kai, I wondered, aloud, what I was getting myself into, and then I was distracted by thoughts about that knife I wanted, and then I didn't bother thinking about it very much until Monday rolled around.

In fairness to everybody I actually saw that Monday, the visit and the gaming and the new-to-me friend were all uniformly pretty alright. It's certainly sort of surreal to deliver the end-of-relationship timeline to a bunch of people who would, in theory, be hearing it from the other half of the no-longer-relationship, and there's not much validation stranger than the sort received therein. Being told it wasn't a thing I did (but it also wasn't a thing I could do much about,) by people whose knowledge of his (apparently not terribly wide-ranging) interior states far surpassed my own (arguably my exposure was temporally incomparable but also wholly different in approach,) was a surprising comfort, and when conversation shifted (as it does, naturally, because this was all normal,) I realized that this bit wasn't a mistake, and that the nature of our relationship hadn't allowed for much cross-pollination of our friends, meaning that most things my people knew had been filtered through me (or witnessed, briefly, before we went off to make the most of the time we had alone,) and so this room of viewpoints was just as necessary as the ones I'd been consulting.

After the traded heartbreak stories, video games, a whole lot of "oh man have you heard this," and a surprisingly decent green curry, I headed home; feeling like I'd dodged a bullet, and so, unthinkingly, reached for my phone, fired up a Twitter client, and posted about what I'd been up to.

The response was immediate, and started out as public messages and then moved back to texts; focused on what had just happened, and how it came about, and how great the people I'd spent time with were, and what did I mean my siblings had known about us: I owed him a story.

I deflected, via text, and said something callous, and then thought better, and then explained that this was why I wasn't ready to be friends. He shifted topics, suddenly, and I nudged it back, and he shifted again; I found myself sort of puzzled by his obvious discomfort (while also trying to push down the urge to either throw my phone out a window or just leave it somewhere while I ran away from it,) and then made him do it again, realizing that it was a perhaps a sore spot for him, still, and wondered idly if maybe he wasn't over it as I thought he was.

Making an excuse to end the conversation (phone's dying, take care, we'll do this when I'm ready,) I was struck by how much I had wanted it to go like it had before; high-speed irreverence, how-was-your-day and what-the-hell-politics balanced with all the stupid in-jokes I'd derived comfort from, somehow, and the knowledge that the country that was in the way wasn't actually something that came between us. Of course, there no longer was an us, there, which also meant that his emotional state was a thing I didn't get advanced access to, nor was it something I needed to concern myself with, I thought.

He got bored, I said to myself, he's not yours, any more, let it go.

It didn't work, and then I found another set of archives, and then I realized I'd flown too close to the sun, and that avoiding thinking about a thing was by no means the same as being done with it, and as I pored through aggregated tweets (only the last 3200; in my case it goes back about ten months, in his it goes back about three years,) and rediscovered our google talk logs, (both of which more accessible than the text message archive I rightly am afraid to unpack—sleeping dogs, I think,) the dull ache I'd gotten used to became sharper, and I felt the all-too-familar sensation of anxiety rising, and the world falling away.

I don't really feel the need to rehash this, thus the short version (again): it sucked, for a while, and I lost my appetite again (and was resultantly a little worried about my relative asslessness and the state of my pants selection,) but things got better, slowly, and I filed away some more things I'd learned about myself, yet again.

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restorative

Strut, fret, stamp, frown; walk it off, as if charley horses and broken hearts could be mended, alike.

Having been told that a city had taken my place in the heart of my no-longer-boyfriend, it seemed like a reasonable response to reclaim the one I'd grown up in, drowning out heartache with footfalls and preempting tears (that never came) with rain on cheekbones. So I went, across bridges, through liminal zonings, and into places I knew as if they were places I didn't; bearing headphones as social insulation and camera mostly out of force of habit.

With the world blocked out, I tried not to have imaginary conversations with the ex-lover in my head—mined from hindsight, those comprehensive and brutal archives scattered about the internet and the conversations I remember in all the places we exposed ourselves, figuratively and literally; both incomplete and exaggerated, it was the only place I could hope to find the barest insight. Though I knew it was a terrible idea, I prodded until the ache in my heart became a pit in my stomach, (like any other bruise that gets poked both to refresh the lingering painful memory of its origin and to assess the damage that still needs healing,) and wandered through days: glass-eyed and teetering, remembering to put a mask on in the appropriate places; working, slowly, towards feeling like an actual person again, and not some bearded shade, fuelled by bafflement and confusion and displeasure, yearning for an unknowable answer (as if knowing the whys or hows of a thing could make dealing with its fallout any easier.)

Throughout all this, my sister was in the hospital; her pregnancies having always been weirdly tense things, it came as little surprise that she'd been put on bed rest again, supervised to ensure minimal activity and shot full of things to address the problems that resulted in her admission and then shot full of some more things because lying around for a month solid results in a whole other host of issues. Also, there were blood tests and ultrasounds and various medical proddings scattered throughout, which meant that visits (daily, for as long as possible, usually after work and bearing better-than-hospital food,) were occasionally interrupted by some well-meaning and thankfully competent medical type person, sometimes shooing me away (what brother would want to know these things,) but also sometimes furnishing me with complexly technical discussions of what sort of things were going on as far as impending niece/nephew and/or the state of my sister's lady parts (see above re: what brother would want to know these things.)

In the midst of this, we got to talking: more and longer than we had in recent memory, and so my constant internal tug-of-war began anew, which, funnily enough, turned out to be a non-issue. Nestled deep in a conversation about why I was moving and how come I kept going to Toronto all of a sudden, my sister relayed an anecdote about our older brother: he kept tabs on her when she was my age (we've got an eight year gap,) while she was out without parental consent/knowledge and she would, accordingly, receive vague but supportive messages on her pager; stay safe, he'd say, I know where you are, let me know if you need a ride or things get weird. I'd never get these, she said, brotherhood being a different sort of beast (rendered stranger still by our nine year difference straddling a generational gap, to some extent,) but he worried, and he kept an ear to the ground, and when last summer rolled around and I kept leaving town for weddings (among other things,) they put their heads together, and found some things out. The short version: they knew I was gay, they'd known I was dating a man for about half the duration of our relationship, (from about I went to meet his parents—still a story for another time,) they were convinced I was moving to be closer to him and not for school, and they were concerned that this would be the end of me. Not in a death way per se, but in a self-exile no contact way; all of us will admit that we're not the fondest of each other but will freely fuck up whatever vector of discontent needs addressing, in the way of all siblings, really, and so the notion of leaving/cutting all ties over what turned out to be non-issues seems ridiculous, in retrospect.

Neither sibling was mad, or disappointed, or hurt; there was some surprise that I'd kept it from them for so long, agreement that keeping our parents in the dark was a necessity at the time but that they needed to hear about from me before they heard about it from someone else, and a low-level grudging admiration for having kept so much of it well-hidden for so long. I didn't ask about exactly how it came about; it seemed superfluous given what else I was being told and how much better I felt, being a little closer to no longer living a lie.

The rest of the week passed, the weather got better, and I did too, somewhat. I slept too little hammering out another one of these posts, and so I bailed on Friday post-work drinking after an early shift to slump on a couch and watch Avatar (the cartoon with the warrior-children; nobody is physically blue in it,) noting that buried in the back half of the final season of a kids show were surprisingly mature discussions of trust, communication, and ethics; I was going to talk about this to someone and then thought about drawing parallels and then laughed at myself, realizing that if I was suddenly drawing life lessons from kids shows (albeit excellent ones,) then maybe it was time to go drink in a house full of strangers. So we did.

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event horizons

It's a bit like being told not to think of a pink elephant: moments later, find yourself inevitably weighing the texture of its ears, feeling space warp around it and letting it sink and bob and float in the peskiest part of your consciousness; aggravating in its seeming ability to disappear until an inopportune moment before appearing in some exaggerated form, filling all available brainspace.

Mine's no surrealist pachyderm, mind, but the red-haired man I haven't quite adjusted to no longer loving; tracing the arc of our time together starting with his number in my twitter inbox to our tentative first kiss in the rain (under a streetlight, after a night of craft beer samples,) all the way through to his last distant look into my eyes, one year and six cities later. In the middle lie memories of a year of furious textual innuendo, stretches of distance punctuated by ridiculous bursts of intimacy (I'm sorry, everybody's couches,) and feeling a little more complete as we drifted off, entangled (for a few days, once every couple of months.) It was, until the very end, a good relationship, and I was fairly certain that I was and was dating a good man.

I've been lucky, to some extent, that none of this hurts, per se, as much as I just sort of miss it. There've been a couple close calls, wondering if he's over me already (probably,) if at some point he hurt the way I did (probably not,) and if all the things that he can trace directly to me will remind him of the good times or of a life and a love he decided he needed a clean break from (who the fuck knows.) The actual bits where things hurt carried a physicality that was both unexpected and painful; different from an anxiety or a displeasure, more like some novel combination of instant-onset loneliness and a blow to the gut—something I am glad to experience as infrequently as possible.

It works out in my favor, then, to not have much in the way of tangibles; the bag I bought because we bought too much stuff in Portland, the glasses and tie he picked out for me on aforementioned Portland trip, a letter that was enclosed the time he mailed his computer to me so I could take it to work, a copy of The Trial (which I should return, come to think of it.) There's a row of bottles of Scotch we were supposed to drink together (I refused to fly with them, though, so it was going to wait until we at least lived in the same city,) a single t-shirt bearing a Toronto streetcar (ironic, when I think about the reason he gave for bringing things to an end,) and a whole archive of photos, which has been both the hardest to deal with (being a literal record,) and the easiest (editing photos is an autopilot sort of thing, now.)

Having never really thought about how these things work, I'd assumed that discussing the end of things with people would be fairly boilerplate, but that's been far from the case. In the midst of yet another explanation to yet another friend (don't feel bad, friends, I know you ask because you care, and I treasure you all for it,) I found words coming out that I hadn't been thinking before, about how there were things I was busy not seeing, which in retrospect were both emblematic and problematic. There was a callousness towards people he'd come to take for granted; the manner in which I was sprung on his parents (a story for another time,) spoke to that, as well as some enormously insensitive comment that left me reminding him to apologize to a best friend. Hindsight also reveals that I made excuses for his doing things I wouldn't have pulled (and would hope someone called me on,) and also that the space from which the end of our relationship arose and the manner of his sullen, silent ending of it were ultimately things I let myself be surprised by.

I probably shouldn't have been surprised, then, when he took an in-joke of ours (the absurd phenomenon that arises when a big dog and a little dog encounter each other; draw parallels at your own risk,) and turned it into a single-serving tumblr and sent me the first message since our breakup and/or Bad Decisions Night 2012 during a launch day at work. I found myself not really wanting to deal with it, bafflingly missing my appetite (which comes and goes, still; I've gone down a pant size,) and just sort of displeased that he'd take something that I'd considered a joint thing and decided on taking it somewhere I wasn't entirely on board with. My response was measured but displeased, making it clear I needed more time before I was ready to resume a friendship (but that the desire existed,) and his response was both unrepentant and dismissive, missing the point I thought I'd made and being generally revealing of where he was, as far as I was concerned.

I had a whole paragraph in my head about this but really it's been sort of useful in moving this whole episode from a thing I miss to a thing I enjoyed-but-am-done-with, mostly.

Reconfigure associations, rebuild the maps in my head without the places defined with "we", and return to being okay with being myself: amateur semiotics as heartbreak prophylactic?

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tragedy starts from the very first spark

in retrospect, I knew it was over when I tried to kiss him goodbye and he pulled away with a look I'd never seen before: something final, something distant. From there, it was anxious grasping at straws on the subway, the bus, and the plane; was it something I'd done, or simply who we'd become, or some other endlessly examined permutation of discontent. I came home and went to/threw myself at work the next morning, at which point it was another week before I tried contact, and another week and a half before we resolved things.

I shouldn't say resolved, really: we broke up. He'd started with doubts that ended with falling out of love with me and in love with a city, and I was tired of his inability to communicate things until they were past fixing, his response to my attempt at some level of adult discourse, and the generally shitty way he treated me the last time we were actually together.

I had an early shift at work, a house party in the evening, and two days off immediately afterwards, which seemed like an ideal time to do an unpleasant thing, so while I sat on Kai's couch and ate an enormous burrito, I worked through the things I wanted to say, how best to walk away from a thing I'd been trying to salvage while knowing it was unsalvageable; in short, how best to let it die.

Then the response came: apologetic about the treatment I'd received, 20/20 in hindsight,  explicative of how distance and novelty and a desire to make a place his own meant that what we had no longer fit in to the context of the rest of his life, and though he'd reached this decision weeks ago, he couldn't actually say it until today.

It was a relief, honestly; I didn't think my chances of getting him to change the things I was bothered by were very good, my recent acceptance to PJ school meant at least another two years of distance and I was sort of glad we both wanted out, because it made the phone call easier—it was brief, and oddly mature, and we'd agreed it was a good first relationship, that everything but the last 2.5 weeks was something we'd look back on fondly, and that the other was a pretty alright  guy. He thanked me for not being crazy; I joked that it was only going so well because neither of us knew how these things normally went. Nobody cried, no voices were raised, it was how I'd always imagined adults in relationships went about solving problems, which made its placement right at the end of ours both wrenching and funny.

I had a night of bad decisions, which I live-tweeted and then storified for posterity. It's here, if you're curious.

Since then, it's been hangover recovery, general ennui, skipping things on shuffle when the first four bars make my stomach flip over because I'm not sure how I'm going to react and in public is not the best place to find out, right now, and reflecting.

We did have a good run, and built a relationship from an offhand Tweet about porn funk in Montreal elevators, five weeks of texting, and the weirdly happy accident of a spare ticket to a Godspeed You! Black Emperor show. It took me to Portland, for maybe the best second date/five day vacation you could ever want, to Nanaimo and back to Montreal on diversions from weddings, Kelowna to meet the parents (and understand his adolescence/restlessness/the space from where our eventual end arose,) and to Toronto twice more, once just enough to see that we could maybe carve a place out of our own, and once to see just how wrong I was, earlier.

I'm left with a mountain of tweets, somewhat thankfully archived (but available to marketers and the Library of Congress, somehow,) an explosion of photographs, an archive of texts I don't know what to do with, a bunch of music he put on my external drive, a letter he sent, an emoticon we invented, four bottles of single-malt, and a year of memories of the first man I loved.

It's darkly funny that he told me he didn't love me any more almost precisely a year after he first told me he did and also that we bookended our time together with photowalks along railroad tracks, and I have no doubt hindsight will fill in other gaps, both bitterly and sweetly.

From here, though, all that's left is to take the positive with me, learn from the rest, let myself mourn, a little (but not wallow,) take comfort and joy in the grace and strength of my friends, and get ready to face whatever's next.

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and so we came to the end

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cooler heads

this one I'm sleeping on, and then sending, maybe.

my sister's in the hospital until the baby's born, which in an ideal world works out to some time in late April (full term is early June, shit got real, basically.) I've been spending most of my evenings visiting and don't see that as terribly likely to change in the near future, which makes the discussion I keep wanting to have with you sort of unlikely, timing-wise. Also, if the baby's born in late April, I'm probably not going anywhere for a while, which I think is okay with us both, for the time being.

at the same time, if I don't express this thing that's been bothering me since I was somewhere over Manitoba I'm going to end up with an ulcer, so here goes:

The first time I wrote this out I ended up with four intermittently apoplectic pages, give or take. There was also a fair bit of catharsis, but not a whole lot that lent itself to actual forward motion; it felt like one side of a shouting match* and the less said about those the better. To some extent it was useful to get it down somewhere, and hopefully it's not something I feel the need to do, again.

What it did highlight, though, aside from making clear how I felt (concise version: underfoot and then resented; neither of them something you want to encounter from a loved one, on vacation, or both,) and the ways and means by which I resultantly alternated between bafflement, sorrow, and fury, was how I got to feeling what I'm still feeling, ten days and four thousand kilometres later.

Here, then, lies the crux of the issue: if I'm having a problem with something you're doing and/or how it affects me, and I try to discuss it rationally, and I'm going to get put through days of silence, emotional distance, and concealed displeasure, which is going to happen every time I bring something up (and it might not, but I have no way of knowing,) then my choices in a situation like this are as follows: get put through the wringer again (and what a wringer it is), or be a doormat.

It's an enormously shitty feeling to realize this, Aidan, and it's even worse to do it having spent all sorts of time and effort getting across the country, bearing gifts and baring self because we'd spun around the sun once since we started this thing and I succumbed to my worst hopeless romantic impulses, having thought you'd be if not excited then at least pleased, on some level, to see me.

I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but I don't think it's worth dwelling on more than is necessary, certainly there are things for us to take away but I'd much rather look to what comes next—I don't think this is insurmountable, I am still in love with you and I do, very much, want this to work out.

That said, it does still take two to tango (and we are, if that reception in Montreal was any indication, terrible at slow dancing) and what I need to know is that my attempts at raising concerns won't lead us down this path again, because it's painful in the short term and destructive in the long term. I'd like to be told when things aren't working for you, and if there's something I can do to make it right, goddamnit, Aidan, you're important to me and your happiness is absolutely part of that. I'd like an apology, certainly, but I also feel like I'm asking for a lot already, so that one's totally up to you. I don't like that we're here, but I'm going to try and keep us from being in this position again because I don't think either of us are enjoying it and there are so many double entendres I could just slide right in, here.

I love you, Aidan, and you said, last we spoke, that you like talking to me, still. It's a thing we're pretty good at, and maybe it's a good place to start, again.

* I saw enough of these, growing up, I'd rather not go this route or be that person.

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he took a duck in the face

in what will surprise nobody, I am freely lifting a mechanism from a William Gibson novel as a method of dealing with how I'm feeling; this time it's from Pattern Recognition, in which Cayce is told to write letters to people before not sending them as a way to work through people-related situations. 

I got in, and then we didn't do the things you'd planned, sidetracked by errands and school and your bros, and I found this upsetting, after a while. I spent a night being distant and angry and unsure of how to proceed, and the next morning I tried to apologize, realizing the absurdity of wasting what little time we had together by being pointlessly furious, and mentioned that I wanted to talk about this later.

You said, in bed, after your day on peyote (in the company of your friends, who later apologized for timing this during my visit, claiming ignorance on their part and leadership on yours,) that my concerns were valid and my manner reasonable; too reasonable, even. I was careful to keep an even tone and not to assign blame, but simply laid out the manner in which your actions left me feeling somewhere between underfoot and unwanted, which was I was sure far from your intention and possibly a result of an overload of daily life, grad school, the sheer novelty of this whole thing, and unclear expectations of mine. I'd felt this way for a while, but didn't want to saddle you with a bad trip, so I sat on it for a bit (and realized, later, that maybe the morning sex and the evening talk was spectacularly awful mixed messaging.) You apologized, then, and buried your face in your pillow, and seemed more upset than I was about it, so I pulled you close (or tried, anyway) to remind you that this wasn't something either of us had experience with, that I didn't think it was the end of the world, that I wanted to be convinced that you wanted me there, and that, ultimately, I knew we'd get through this because we'd already made it this far.

Falling asleep, I looked at you and thought that we'd be okay, that we'd hit a speedbump and talked about it, that you'd understood me (like you always did,) that we'd wake up tomorrow and it'd be a new day. I sighed a little, smoothed out your hair a little, and slept.

I woke up, and something wasn't right; it felt like you weren't entirely present, and you alternated between sullen and vindictive when we were alone but dropping the facade when we were with other people; no hands held, the barest of acknowledgement but alone time together—everything I wanted, in the worst way possible.

It was fucking awful, in a nutshell. As you're now aware, I don't react well to the silent treatment and as I pleaded with you, for all intents and, to come back to me, you pulled the walls higher, until I spent half a night on the couch, buried in a book, because I couldn't stand to have you so near physically and so far in every other way. We still went out over those days, and I executed the brunch you'd thought would be fun (but didn't get any sort of plan together, somewhat unsurprisingly) and there was a wander through a park and some graffiti, a park, an exhibit and a niece-request-led shopping trip and a variety of things that would have otherwise maybe have been fun, had I not been frozen out.

Here, then, lies the crux of the issue: if I'm having a problem, and I try to discuss it rationally, and this is going to happen every time I bring something up (and it might not, but I have no way of knowing,) then my choices in a situation like this are as follows: get put through the wringer again (and what a wringer it is), or be a doormat.

It's an enormously shitty feeling to realize this, Aidan, and it's even worse to do it having spent all sorts of time and effort getting across the country, bearing gifts and baring self because we've spun around the sun once since we started this thing and I succumbed to my worst hopeless romantic impulses, having thought you'd be if not excited then at least pleased, on some level, to see me.

When you left, I tried to break down your wall, convinced that it was the last chance I'd get, and as you walked away having issued all sorts of non-answers to my obviously distressed questions, I was pretty sure that was the last I'd see of you. I threw myself at the last errands I needed to run before leaving Toronto, bought dinner, and headed back to get my things, hand off my key to your place, and actually leave. I wasn't sure I'd keep food down, so Stefan had the majority of the roti I'd bought while I downed a pair of scotches and explained, in some detail, the depth of my confusion and nascent fury. He was both understanding and apologetic, trying to convince me that you weren't a lost cause and that I hadn't wasted a year generally and a week, specifically.

I left, unable to shake your last words, and followed with seven hours of dwelling on train, bus, and plane, ending outside the airport but before I got into a car with my parents, who'd been kept ignorant of the whole thing (boyfriend, distance, anniversary, troubles.)

I came home to an acceptance letter, and so I told you, and you congratulated me (an infuriating one-eighty, right as I touched down, it seemed,) and after that I made no effort for ten days, partially because I knew you were drowning in schoolwork and also because I wanted to see what happened.

Nothing happened; I stewed, and consulted friends who'd survived long-distance relationships and vented to confidantes and realized I'd done all I could, and that ultimately the means of continuation lie outside my influence, and there isn't much I can do but ask you not to do that again, to match my rationality with your own, to show or tell or somehow make clear that this isn't something I can go through and that fuck you I deserve better, because I do.

All I really want is an apology and a good-faith commitment to engage when I try and bring up how I'm feeling. I feel like it's not too much to ask, and I know we're both stubborn men (your mother warned me, after she asked about kids and before she mentioned how she thought that bag we bought in Portland was delightful,) but I need you to bend, here, or you're going to break me.

love, still,
gerald

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until, unknown / tear your hair out

I have to ask myself some days: what are you afraid of, exactly?

spent a week in Toronto, half of it feeling unwanted and another half being paranoid that this was the end of my until-now stress-free long-distance relationship, ending with a pair of ambiguous statements outside a subway station, followed by seven hours of dwelling on train, bus, and plane, ending outside the airport but before I got into a car with my parents, who'd been kept ignorant of the whole thing (boyfriend, distance, anniversary, troubles.)

I think we're due for a conversation about where we are and where we're going, but I should probably first make clear the source and extent of my unhappiness with the way I was treated, ideally in a manner less oblique than my current venting via mixtape and twitter.

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this way madness lies

I've been doing this since 2004, and see no reason to stop.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?

I travelled a lot, to the point that I spent something like a solid month out of town. I had the same job at the end of the year that I had at the beginning, shot a bunch of weddings, got promoted twice, got a phone number over Twitter that turned into a texting crush that's since turned into a baffling/delightful relationship (albeit a long distance one,) I met someone else's parents as the boyfriend, mailed cookies all over the place, and started making serious exit plans.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

get out of debt: partially
reduce the amount of clothing I own: yes.
wear clothing that would pass without comment any time in the last 60 years: not so much?

2012 is pretty simple: leave. the city, the closet, the nonsense.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thankfully, no.

5. What countries did you visit?
I went to Portland, once, but I also went to Montreal, Saltspring Island, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Montreal again, and then Toronto.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
debt freedom, a Belleville address, fewer hours spent in flight.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
montreal trip #1: bits of Nash, the Johnnies, exploring the city, jokes about daggering; constant furious texting.
valentines day, the godspeed concert two days after, the morning after the concert.
phone calls from fernie (the city), train trip to portland and all that entailed, weekend visits and seeing the Mountain Goats, sneaking out of post-reception madness in Nanaimo to see the dude, inadvisable three-day overnight greyhound trips (gigantic waffles! goats-milk gelato! being judged on hugs!) montreal trip #2 and seeing Wilco. A whirlwind tour of Toronto, seeing people I hadn't for far too long (Jess, Goh, Hayles, Jake,) and the growing realization that it was a place I could live.

also: all of the weddings.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
ten months of a long distance relationship, two promotions at work, eight weddings survived. Also I grew a sweet beard.

9. What was your biggest failure?
my debt load isn't as small as I'd like, somehow.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
not really?

11. What was the best thing you bought?
delegate fees to Nash 73 and a plane ticket to Montreal. honourable mentions: new phone, train tickets to portland, hot-wire.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
They know who they are.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
They know who they are, too.

14. Where did most of your money go?
debt, travel, wedding gifts, single malts.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
travel, concerts, Aidan.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
James Blake, "The Wilhelm Scream." or The National, "Wake Up Your Saints."

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? happier.
b) thinner or fatter? fatter, which I'm working on.
c) richer or poorer? richer; I got promoted twice.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Admitting, working.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
waking up alone.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
At home, getting ready for Boxing Day madness at work.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
yes. [insert expletives here] yes.

22. How many one-night stands?
None.

23. What was your favourite TV program?
Community, Good Eats, Avatar: The Last Airbender. TV's not something I consume a whole lot of anymore.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nobody new.

25. What was the best book you read?
man I did not read nearly as much as I used to, but The Pale King is probably at the top of the list for obvious reasons. Photo-book-wise, I was surprised that Annie Leibovitz At Work was actually fairly informative, and I still want to make basically everything out of the Baked cookbook.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I'd seen Wye Oak a couple of times previously, but I got my hands on the My Neighbour/My Creator EP and then Civilian, and they were both really, really good.
The Rural Alberta Advantage, while not new strictly speaking, acquired serious playtime, and somehow I left it until 2011 before getting into Elliott Smith.

27. What did you want and get?
I fell in love, found a viable-though-not-ideal career, and some technological bullshit.

28. What did you want and not get?
A little more freedom, knowledge that things will function at home in my absence.

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
Drive, since I didn't watch anything.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
26; I went out on the Saturday after for dinner/karaoke/beers and then went to Portland with Aidan the week after that.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
being able to find myself next to Aidan more frequently than once every six weeks.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
more cardigans, chambray, and fuck-you chinos, better ties, more texture.

33. What kept you sane?
I'm not really sure.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Tom Hardy, with Chuck Hughes (yes, the chef) a surprisingly strong second.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Occupy, SOPA/Access Copyright, Jack Layton's passing.

36. Who did you miss?
I ran into a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while via the eight weddings I attended and while part of the experience left me missing people, part of it also made me realize that we're not so much growing apart as we are carving our own ways, and that's actually pretty alright.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Aidan's the obvious one here, and I can see him rolling his eyes as he reads this, so I'll exempt him for obvious reasons.

new kids: John Cameron and Emma Godmere from CUP, Camille and Calvin and Mike from work, Ginny from the Ubyssey, and Aidan's friends Jake, Ryan and Jess.
people I got in touch with again, which don't count as new per se but are noteworthy: A bunch of people in Toronto, Thor, Keltie, and my on again/off again nemesis Chris Berube.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
Twitter: who knew it would get you a boyfriend, a couple paying gigs, and a place to actually connect with friends?

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
the cities love is cold and the cities love is hard

locked into our veins from the first September's frost

January snap and the April winter thaw

rough and tumble summers underneath the midnight sun

— The Rural Alberta Advantage, Good Night

or

I'll make a living telling people what they want to hear

It's not a killing, but it's enough to keep the cobwebs clear

Cause it's not a perfect plan

It's not a perfect plan

But it's the one we've got.
— St. Vincent, Champagne Year

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so I alluded, aggressively loosely, to something happening that I wouldn't talk about now back in January and then spent eleven months not talking about it.

hi.

at a conference that neither of us had any real reason to be at, fueled by ridiculous texts and drunken post-danceoff get-low-offs, I met a guy. weeks of texting later, we got our being-in-the-same-cities act together and had beers, photowalks, first kisses and a proper dinner/concert/drinks date (that ended with much impropriety, in the best way.)

ten months, six cities, three weddings and more fossil fuel than I care to admit to later, we're still together, which is nice. and new. and occasionally terrifying.

today's been one of those days; working retail xmas makes it impossible to get away, and boyfriends family being in either Victoria or Kelowna has left us scratching heads after more than a few "well, what about these days?" conversations, when we look at our proposed orbits (and hope for crossed paths and the chance to let all other concerns lay eclipsed,) and find no place where they might intersect. Until this point, we'd been pretty good about seeing each other every 6-8 weeks, and I can't get away from work until mid/late February (which is convenient for other purposes,) which would put it up to three months (read: too damn long.)

so now I'm listening to songs about falling apart, and wondering what to do. fuck.

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