Dec. 4, 2011

What would you do

If a man loved you

A man closer to your father’s age

Than yours

And closer

To the salaries of those

You abhor

Than the one you meagerly claimed on your IRS form

Alongside the donations you gave

To the church

And the Environmental Defense Fund

And Planned Parenthood

He gives thousands

Because he makes millions

To other non-profits

And people notice when he walks in a room

Because he’s Hispanic

(A different color)

So they try and denigrate him to inferior

(Incensed he rose to their level)

Or they acquiesce to him because he makes money

Gives money away

But only if it’s worth his while

If it aligns with his greater profit margin

And what would you do

If you were worth his while

If you were his profit

And his margin

This man your father’s age

This millionaire

What if he loved you

And invested all his age and wisdom,

Time and resources,

Money and power into you

What would you do

You with your 1100 square foot house

And your multiple-jobs-reported-IRS form

You who always longed to be loved

(Squeezed into the more traditional storyline)

By a boy your own age

With whom you’ll grow old

And struggle with finances

And rebellious children

Whose dreams you’ll share

Because you’re both idealists

And you both recycle

And sometimes you go camping

Completely naked

But this older man has already done

All those things

With someone else

In a time passed long ago

When you were learning arithmetic

Which in your time they called math

And spelling and

Music

And the songs you sang

The rhymes you recited

Reflected the culture you knew

Muffet and her tuffet

And the Little Old Lady

And that kid who put his thumb in the pie

And the Challenger made you cry

And Kurt Cobain’s death

And the first Gulf War

Not Kennedy’s assassination

Or MLK

Or Vietnam

Those were before your time and are called history

History he lived

Because he’s older than you

And there are two generations of lovers

Between you two

But he longs to bridge the gap

As they say

He’s bridged a lot of gaps

The rags to riches

The Spanish to English

The unknown to the acclaimed

But now, he longs not for fame or more fortune

Only to settle his heart

To do what’s right

To satisfy his soul

And he writes poetry about the stars

And touching you

And salsa dancing

(Because he’s Hispanic)

But your grandparents taught you

The waltz, the polka,

Swing

Can you swing

So far back

That you can bridge

The gap

The generations

The twenty years

The thousands of days

The millions of minutes

The millions of dollars

The collars of clothes

The colors of the collars

That represent your income,

Your heritage,

Whether or not those collars or colors mean anything now

What would you do

If a rich, Hispanic man your father’s age

Fell in love with you

A white girl in her early thirties

An actor

Who once played

Nelly Forbush

In that Rogers & Hammerstein piece

About war and racism

So you get it, you know

(Or at least you pretended to know

To understand love

When you were twenty and onstage)

You, the artist

Who only sometimes wears a bra

But longs to love

With every fiber of your being

Really you do

But you never imagined

Being wrapped up

In this

Without a curtain to close at the end

Or a bow to tie

To seal the deal, to end the show

This isn’t what you expected

The accolade you wanted

The hands clapping weren’t supposed to be brown

And aged

And stained by money

(No matter how well-intentioned)

And they certainly aren’t supposed

To be joined with yours at the alter

By another hand,

Belonging to your father

Whom you will never tell

About this older, Hispanic man,

Wealthy,

Who longs to hold you

(The right girl at the wrong time)

You won’t tell him

Because if you don’t know what you would do

What would he

Do with a man his contemporary

Brown and rich

Who loves his daughter

White

And poor

And lonely

And ill-suited for a man like that?

What the Waiter Said

To the waiter who frequented the table

Where a man and I were dining,

Bringing us water and refilling our wine glasses,

Asking about the taste and the quantity and

If the plates could be removed,

I saw your eyes, behind the dark-rimmed glasses.

You are my age and handsome.

An older man, bald and conservative

Grabs my hand and holds it.

His eyes soften as they peer into mine

Wondering if I will choose him.

But your eyes examine me too,

Size me up as unfit for this man:

Thirty something and still youthful, beautiful,

Too smart to be with a balding conservative,

Too courageous.

I should be with a hipster like you,

I suppose.

Someone wearing worn jeans,

And soft button up shirts

Loosely tucked and gently cinched

With a belt sporting a crafty buckle,

Something artful that demonstrates you have a soul.

Someone with dark-rimmed glasses

Like the ones from which your eyes appear.

But I find no judgment in them.

Your dark eyes, like caves I should run through

Could I escape this posturing dinner,

This miss-matched date,

Look at me sadly.

Two doors.

With paned glass.

I see my reflection.

I wonder if I look sadly back.

Instead,

My eyes,

Hoping not to be caught in lingering gazes,

Dart to the man who sits next to me

A nice man, sensible, frugal,

Divorced only once.

We finish dinner, which was delicious!

The wine bottle emptied, the bill paid,

We stand to leave, and I think I am free

Until we pass you standing behind the bar, and

You call out to us to have a nice evening

And our eyes lock again,

Mine with yours,

And I realize I am not free.

I try not to look at what you are showing me,

But I see.

And I watch myself leaving the restaurant

Further entangled than I intended to be

And the eyes of the man with the inquisitive love

Are joyful now, glazed, and will lead me to his car

And to my house

Where I will let him make love to me too quickly,

And I will wake up sad and stuck.

Have a nice evening, you say.

We will, my date answers for me,

And I try to smile at you

(To tell you it will be all right)

As I am pulled away from your eyes

Pleading with me to leave,

But I’m not sure I manage it.

I turn away from your open, beckoning eyes,

And my date and I leave through the front door.

Auguest 26, 2011

I am drinking a glass of wine from a sixty dollar bottle of rosé that the man I'm dating bought for me to drink last night. Sixty dollars, just for me. For no reason.

I drink for reason though, clarity maybe. Today would have been a year. On August 4th I went to dinner with the aforementioned man because my boyfriend wouldn't return my phone calls or texts or emails. A few days later we ended it, he said he was sorry, and I believed him. But I was finally free. Free from that neglectful, abusive relationship. Free.

Still, tonight would have been a year, and maybe we would have been drinking wine together, and whispering secrets to each other, and going somewhere remote to get away or see a play, and then we would have sex and it would be passionate and wonderful and he would groan my name in my ear over and over and over.

But it is over. And the sex isn't very good with this new man who never says my name, but does buy me sixty dollar bottles of wine, and his voice is bright and cheery when he hears it is me on the other end of the phone and shit, he answers the phone at least, so that's a step in the right direction.

It would have been a year. I had high hopes for that relationship. He "got" me. All sides of me. And at first I thought he understood, that I was born to do something, go somewhere, help someone. But later it became all about him, from who would get to go back to school first to who would say when we could have sex. And though he loved me, the control he exerted by only ever communicating on his terms was debilitating.

And I said things, no, I screamed things I've never screamed before, and felt helpless like I never thought I would be.

Because I am strong and courageous and born for bigger things than men and relationships. "Now Catherine, we all know you were born to shake the world," my sister Lauren once said to me.

But in this new relationship, he wants me to make it. He'll write and direct a play I'll star in. He'll book me a recording gig so I can make that CD I've wanted to. He'll give money to the people I believe in to help them achieve their dream. He'll spend time with the people I love and genuinely engage them and me. He'll take me to Peru and Paris and maybe even Marfa, Texas, and let me say no I don't want to have sex and just let me lay there next to him quiet and crying when I'm confused.

And I am confused. Fuck, I loved that bastard with whom I would have shared an anniversary tonight. But I left and there's no going back though I see now why women want to. It's easy to remember the comfort and forget the discontent.

No, no. There's only going forward now. And I'm twenty-two days into this new relationship and I'm almost finished with this bottle of wine. So it would have been a year. Who cares? It's a new year now. A new man. A new me.

Drinking a sixty dollar bottle of wine alone.

My Own Heart Let Me Have More Pity On

My own heart let me have more have pity on; let...

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

My own heart let me have more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst 's all-in-all in all a world of wet.

Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather—as skies
Between pie mountains—lights a lovely mile.

July 30, 2011

I cry a lot. The tears are not always plentiful. Never had been. I once had surgery on my tear ducts for the sole purpose of producing scar tissue that would build up and keep more water in my eyes.

For crying a lot, I don't have a lot of tears.

But when they slip out of my right eye and over the bridge of my nose and drip silently onto the organic bamboo sheets covering the mattress my left cheek is pressed to, the water trail they leave is cool and almost refreshing in a bedroom that feels stifling and stuffy and hot.

It is not naturally cool where I live and the lack of insulation leaves my house always a little too warm, and despite that I lay on my bed covered only in that same soft bamboo sheet, my uncomfortable body feels over-heated and tired.

So the tear feels cool and refreshing. The only hopeful feeling my body has received in a while.

I shouldn't be tired. I slept until 11 today after going to bed at 11 last night. And then again, this afternoon, after my duties were done, I laid down in bed until I had to get up again. And after the final early evening activities were complete, I returned to the fitted bamboo sheet covering the almost nine year old mattress even though it wasn't even eight o'clock.

Because I'm depressed. Obviously. Depression is an old friend I know well. I say friend because as friends are so wont to go nowadays, depression seems to be the only one who keeps coming back.

I wonder if it is me.

Two friends got married tonight. Two people I introduced to each other. However, last year they decided my friendship wasn't worth it, but never told me this until after months of silence when I asked what was up, they admitted their conviction. I didn't go to their wedding because I wasn't invited, because I wasn't wanted. This is only the third friendship issue I've ever really had. People fall in and out of your life, but this is only the third friendship altercation I've experienced. The first was with a women everyone agreed was bat shit crazy, and she dropped everyone else like a bad habit too, so I felt kind of grateful when she was gone. The second incident with a beloved friend of mine resolved itself after some time and space. But this third one went on unbeknownst to me until so much time had passed that when I finally found out what happened, I felt embarrassment and more hurt than I ever would have felt had we talked about the issue at the time.

Adding to their wedded bliss this 30th day of June, is my roommate who got engaged tonight, finally, after months of complaining about her boyfriend and begging him to ask her already. She's ten years younger than I, and so I realize she doesn't know to just let time pass and be grateful for life as it comes in its own readiness, but still, her engagement makes me think of the man who asked me to marry him when I was her age. And the ring that was given to me by another just two years later; and it made me think of one of my best friends, a boy I loved, who asked a woman to marry him last week, a woman who isn't me.

And I guess it's just too much happiness. I can't even get my current boyfriend to return my texts or phone calls. Nothing. Just silence. The first man I loved in five years, the first man to love me back since that guy with the ring, and yet, I've never been more unhappy.

So I lay on my bed and cry. Not big tears, just slow, silent, wet ones that cool my face just enough to grant me brief relief from my friend depression who lays on top of me, unwelcome and unrelenting.

And then I realize it's not them. It's me. All the failed relationships over the years... if I'm the one who ended up single, then it's me who has the problem. The common denominator in fifteen years of adult dating is me.

Me.

Like the friends who left because of me, so the men leave because it's me. It isn't them. It's me. And depression lets himself back in the house because it's me who will leave the door unlocked. It's me who has the problem.

I don't really believe this in my heart of hearts. Really I believe a boy should call his girlfriend on the phone, or at least pretend she exists. And he shouldn't smoke pot three times a day, or have anger management issues, or still be in love with his ex-fiance. In my heart of hearts, I know these men weren't good for me.

But what I understand tonight is that I probably wasn't good for them either. Or any of the rest of the men who have wandered in and out of my life. So when men don't call back for a second date or dump me after two weeks or fill in the blank, it's not them, it's me.

And maybe that job that everyone coveted at that organization that everyone wanted to be a part of, wasn't as oppressive or exhausting or ridiculous as I thought it was. Maybe I was the problem there too. Like the suffocating relationships, I thought I had to get out. So I did.

But the common denominator there again was me.

I'm the problem. And depression has come to reveal this to me. But in this illumination, he has turned off a light. And another ray of hope is gone. In the revelation comes the closing of the drapes. They say it should be another way, that with enlightenment comes freedom, light, weightlessness. But they're wrong. Recognition only gives way to deeper solitude, darker souls, deadlier depravity.

So while the tears are a nice respite, they will not free me from my friend. They will only usher in the night. And again, I go to sleep.

Three Conversations

Three things were said to me this week while I was on vacation. None of them by my boyfriend.

One was a text message I received from an (I'm guessing) 40 something year old recently (in the last two years) divorced man with two teenage children: "You were the bright spot in my week," he said. I met him in a bar. We were both alone, sitting at the counter, reading a book and drinking a beer. Conversation ensued (it usually does), and he turned out to be a very bright man, a graduate of Yale who speaks four or five languages (modestly) and is in computer software or something. We talked through most of dinner and then I joined him at his house where we played several rounds of Rummi 500. He would have liked to have seen me more: without being pushy, he offered to take me to dinner the next night, or to do whatever I wanted. But I have a boyfriend, and even though we're on a "break," I want to be respectful of him.

But the text I received the next morning from that man was, "Thank you for last night. You were the bright spot in my week."

Later that evening, I drove to a nearby town to try some more local beer and read a little more of my book. At this second restaurant, I sat alone at a bar table, rather than at the bar counter, which means fewer people talk to you. But even at my bar table a man with a long pony tail and a beard came by and asked what I was reading. "When God Was a Woman," I replied. Truthfully, this man was not the sort of man I was used to talking to. He was a cross between a cowboy and a hippie, and older - 40 or 50.

"I've heard of that," he said to my surprise. "Is it good?"

I shrugged my shoulders and said, "yeah," figuring that would end the conversation.

"The way things were before men fucked everything up, huh?" he said and started to walk off.

"Kinda," I said, a little embarrassed.

"Not kinda," he said as he looked back at me, and shaking his head, he left.

Today is day three. And today I received an interesting email from an ex. He said he'd been thinking about me lately and just wanted to say hi. He recently married a woman he's been with for several years now and has moved away with her. I appreciated the sentiment and as our friendship always valued honesty, I told him about the book I'm trying to write and where I was on vacation, but also about my boyfriend and how we're on a "break," and how I'm not sure he can decide whether or not he likes me enough to keep loving me.

I received the following response:

i'm sorry about the boy. i know i don't have much room to speak to that situation, but i think you have the wrong attitude about yourself. you are a catch, and if a boy can't see that and act accordingly (this includes all boys, even this one), then he's not worth it. or he's got some growing up to do. but either way, you are not impossible to love (though i think i am finding, now and as i go through life, that love is pretty difficult across the board, even really good "it" kind of love, but that's beside the point). my wife says the same. she wants me to tell you that she's met you, so she knows that you a beautiful, intelligent, funny, and fun and that if some boy has to think about if he can stick it out or not, then YOUR answer should be NO to him!so, that's a bit harsh as a general statement, maybe, but i think she's basically right. you are a catch, and some man somewhere will be awake and aware enough to recognize it and treat you as such.

i've been having do a lot of growing up this year (or two), and a lot of it is hard and painful and just sucks. but i can look back on myself and see how i was operating as a not-quite-grownup in a grown up role and trying to have grown up relationships. i think at some point in the future i might even be mature and whole enough to look back on those selves of mine and not loathe or despise them. but for now at least i can see myself more clearly. i see where i wasn't acting like a grown up, in so many ways.

anyway, what i'm skirting around here is that i wish i had been more grown up when i approached you as a potential partner. i was caught up in so much of my poor boundaries and unknown needs, and it caught me up with you, in trying to give and be what i didn't have the space or availability to be. like i said, i want to have compassion for myself in that, but it is a shame. you are such a catch, as a person, a friend, a girlfriend or partner or lover, and i wish i had been more grown up to be able to treat you that way, whatever way it would have ended up being - to be the best friend to you i could be, or the best boyfriend, or whatever.

i don't feel like there is bad blood between us, but i just want you to know that i recognize my inability to have treated you the way you should be treated, and i'm truly sorry for that. you are certainly worth more than i gave, and more than this boy is giving. i want you to know that my heart knew that and knows it now, even though i wasn't grown up enough to act accordingly.

boy, didn't mean for this to be such a heavy email! this shit happens all the time now, these emotional bursts of "oh! i get it! boy, wish i knew that back then!" my wife is mainly the catalyst for this change. i guess i am doing a lot of work, but i don't think i would be doing as much of it so soon if it wasn't for her. thank god for girls in men's lives.

Thank God for girls in men's lives?! Who says that? The way the world was before men fucked it all up?! Who saysthat? And you were the bright spot in my week? How often does a woman get told that?

Anyway, I don't know what the point is to writing these conversations down, it's just that, well, I couldn't even get my boyfriend to pick me up from the airport tonight. He didn't want to see me very badly, I guess. And it made me cry... hard. When my friend who did come get me (also a male) asked what happened to my ride and who asked about who had I anticipated picking me up, I told him. And he just said, "Oh, Ann." And I knew what he was thinking.

And I knew that somehow I have turned into that girl I've always hated. The one who gets walked on and neglected and manipulated by the man she's convinced herself she's in love with. And everyone feels frustrated cause they know she could do better. Know she deserves better. But for the first time, I can't be gutsy enough to get out. Every time I try to end things my boyfriend says I'm being reactionary, and tells me he loves me even though it doesn't feel like he does, and that he just needs time to think...

Well, maybe I need time to think too. But first, I need someone to pick me up from the airport.

July 1, 2011

"You leavin' again?"

"Yep."

"Where to?"

"Colorado. I'm house sitting for a friend there."

"You should tell that friend of yours... what's the name?"

"Aubra?"

"No, your friend."

"Oh, Jacob."

"Yeah, Jacob. You should tell him he should watch out, you leavin' on all these trips." And my seventy-something year old next door neighbor laughed.

"I would, if I thought he gave a damn," I wanted to respond, but didn't. Instead I mustered a meek laugh and said, "Yeah, right?" and turned to head into the house.

Truth is, I had just left Jacob who said he wants a break. Because not calling or texting or emailing or facebooking or talking to me isn't break enough for him. He has to know on a cognitive level, not just on a shitty-boyfriend-level, that he is free of me. That he's not letting me down by not calling, texting, emailing, facebooking or talking to me... except he is. Every time he doesn't do it.

And we never do it. Twice last month. And I think only twice the month before that. He says it's just that sex is very emotional for him. And his medicine suppresses his libido and, well, he has the right to say no sometimes, right?

It's like being with a woman, except a woman would tell me she loves me when she drops me off at the airport.

"You're still holding on to that?" he exclaimed.

"Yes. Instead of responding that you loved me too, you mumbled something indistinguishable and walked back to the car. How do you think that made me feel?" He rolled his eyes exasperated. That was two weeks ago when he dropped me off at the airport.

And he wonders why I refuse to allow him to drive me there tomorrow when I fly to Colorado. Like I want to experience that again. Even my friends tell me they love me when I leave. But he can't muster the compassion or dare I say it, love, enough to do that.

"I do love you though," he said tonight. "I know you don't feel it and that I don't act like I do, but I do. I do love you."

I don't believe him, but he probably doesn't care. He's vilified me in his mind as this nasty, bitch woman who nags and nags and demands to be loved and allowed to talk to her boyfriend when he gets home from work, and who wants to have sex more than bi-weekly with the man she loves. What a terrible person I am.

It's true, he's disappointed me. And it's probably true that, as he muttered tonight, he's a disappointment at work and in his relationships and to himself. But that's not really my problem, is it? Isn't it my job as a single woman to try and find a partner who will love me and cherish me through the good times and bad and maybe call me on the phone every once in a while or want to take me out on a date?

It's my job to protect myself and choose someone who is supportive of what I do (write, speak, act and sing), and who I am (a liberal, feminist, compassionate, try-to-follow-Jesus-er-person), and who loves me even when I'm needy. And isn't it my job to find someone to love indiscriminately in return?

"We're both just very high maintenance," he said. Except that I try to give to him, in any way I can think of, to tend to that maintenance, and I am rejected. On top of which, none of my maintenance is ever addressed.

I hate it.

But I love him.

So yet again, I will let him put me through this bullshit, I-need-space, thing. I'll let him have his "break" and let him go home and sleep 15 hours a night, and get up and go to work, and come home and watch TV, and drink a bottle of wine, and go to bed again, and never think about me "break." And he'll go out with his "shallow" (by his own admission) friends who will encourage his drinking habit and make him do stupid shit like make vulgar gestures with his tongue and fingers and capture it on camera and put it on facebook, but not tag him, because no professional would be caught dead tagged in those pictures. But we can all see that it's him in the photos, but only I know that, despite the fun he appears to be having with his lusty expressions, we don't have sex.

Maybe twice a month.

And that's supposed to make me happy.

"Tell Jacob he better watch after you."

"I'll tell him!" I respond as I turn toward the door.

Yep, I'll tell him.

January 27, 2010

Beatrice is asleep on the couch. Nikola's asleep in her crib. The cats snooze, in and out of consciousness on the edges of chairs and windowsills.

I am awake.

Beatrice's husband comes in and out of the house, runs errands, gardens, goes to work, and sighs loudly, but not to offend, simply to get the tension out of his body.

His wife cried today on the couch after returning from the bedroom where she took some anti-anxiety medicine. "You're going to have to drive me to the hospital for the steroid shots today, I'm too weak to go by myself." She picked up the flip photo album and began naming the people in it to her daughter who stood briefly, wobbling, before dropping down on her cushioned diapered bottom.

"This is gopa and mimi and your great-grandpa. Do you remember them? And here's nana and poppa. And look, here's mommy with Nikola when you were a little baby." Her eyes were red but determined as she tried to teach her young daughter names and faces.

I stand in the kitchen doing dishes.

* * *

"Ha ha!" Grant laughed, pleased at himself for having made it all the way through the night without his wife. "Each time I went into her room during the night, she had thrown her pacifier out of the crib. The third time I wised up and lined every pacifier in the house on the inside of her crib. This morning, there they were, all in a line outside the crib, having been thrown onto the floor!"

Beatrice had been in the hospital since Monday. I didn't choose to stay the night to help out with the baby because I hadn't known in time that it would be a three day stint. He kissed Tessla on top of the head. "Silly girl." He grabbed his coat and headed to the car to head to the hospital where doctors would try and head off his wife's cancer.

I changed the baby out of her pajamas.

* * *

Beatrice eats a bowl of cereal sullenly on the couch. She gets up only to put the empty dish on the kitchen counter. The diswasher is broken so her husband and I have been doing all the dishes by hand. The cat meows though he's already been fed. That fat cat who pees in the baby's room and stinks up everything. "My mother's hired a cleaning crew to come in and give the house a once-over tomorrow," Beatrice says and sinks back into the couch, tired. "Thank goodness," I think. But they don't end up doing the dishes which they leave in the sink.

I let them in the house, and say thanks when they leave.

Gracias. Gracias.

January 16, 2011

I was reading this today and wondering if anyone will ever write this poem for me...

Wedlock Sunday" by Gerald Locklin

she is working in the garden,
facing away from me,
trimming the bougainvillea,
still trim herself and youthful,
relaxed and free of cares,
doing something she enjoys,
something that she always has enjoyed,
and having lost all conception of
the passing of the hours,

and i feel a tenderness for her
that i may never have felt during
the selfish passion of young manhood,

and i wish the bitterness that
have more than merely punctuated
our thirty years together
could be magically obliterated
(which will never happen-let's
not kid ourselves-but perhaps for the
rest of this afternoon and evening
they will be.

i resolve to do and say
only kindesses to her
over dinner and in front of
the pbs mystery that we've been following

and not to react to
any sarcasms or schemes
she may slip into out of habit, hunger,
merlot, tiredness, or contemplation of
the work week's rattling hours
of third graders, parents, colleagues,
homework, grades, and art projects,

lying once again in wait for her.

Of course they won't because as soon as they become bitter, selfish or sexually exploitative, I leave. I leave, knowing that I can do better. That I don't deserve to be treated this way. That someone, with tenderness, ought to be kind to me. And maybe even love me.

But I am thirty and men in their twenties (of whom the past three I've been with were) have no such tenderness, so such insight into relationships, no cognitive distance that allows them to step back, see a moment, a person, and treasure it... treasure them. I want them to. I pray they will. I suggest good therapists. But they too, like me I suppose, think they will find some other flower more beautiful, more agreeable, more submissive.

My boyfriend and I broke up a little over two weeks ago. I am plagued with thoughts of him daily. What is he doing? Does he miss me? Is he orchestrating some big plan to win me back? Will he say his sorry? Or has he already forgotten me? Is he already fucking someone else? How could he already be fucking someone else? Didn't he love me? Why did I believe he loved me? If he loved me, he would fight for me, say he's sorry, change. Instead, I probably don't even cross his mind. He doesn't talk about me to his friends. Doesn't brood over what he could have done better. Who am I kidding? He doesn't even think about me anymore. My sister's husband left her without even batting an eye. Six years and he was gone. Every day I wonder what the right course of action should be: stay my ground? compromise? go crawling back because i miss who i thought he was? And I try not to bother my friends, because, like I said, we're in our thirties now and if I'm tired of experiencing loss for over a decade over and over again, surely they're sick of hearing about it too. But when I do venture forth, asking for advice, they offer insight, experience, try to imagine things from his point of view and ultimately tell me to move on (he isn't worth it).

Even that makes me angry though, because I know the men aren't writing in their journals wondering where they went wrong. They aren't seeking advice or counsel from friends, relatives, older and wiser couples. They don't have therapists that the may now return to again for clarity, wisdom.

Men don't do any of the hard work to become better people, better partners, better lovers... All they do is turn 50 or 60 and write poems like the one above reflecting on a relationship: 30 years lying before them on a mattress growing older and wiser and even more beautiful because they stuck it out because they took the higher ground, because they didn't leave, because they chose to be with men they knew would eventually appreciate them. Thirty years later.

Thirty years later.

Dear God! I can't wait that long. I realize I won't get a man who goes to therapy, a man who treasures me and spoils me with surprises and romance, but I at least want one who can communicate (because the last one couldn't). I want a man who won't put his ex-girlfriend's mother's feelings above mine, or who won't cheat on me with his ex-fiance and deny it, who won't pick me up two hours late for our date week after week, or who won't leave me because I have a sense of self, who won't dump me because he chose to believe his drunk, republican brother instead of his sober, level-headed girlfriend when trying to discern events from the night before, who won't cheat on me when I go on vacation two years in a row, who won't come crawling back into my bed after things with his latest ex didn't work out and couldn't we give it one more try?

That's over a decade of failed relationships. And no, these weren't all pot-head, bartenders. These are ministers, lawyers, cartographers, musicians, students at acclaimed universities, good church-going men.

Is it too much to ask? Or are all the good ones already taken? Because I'm sure in response to this, I'll get a slew of... "I never picked anyone up two-hours for a date without even so much as a phone call." "I never cheated on my wife." "I never... I never... I never."

Well, I never dated you. Shockingly enough. Since I've dated more men in the last decade than I have fingers and toes.

And while I've written many a love poem about the man of the year who I've allowed myself to fall head-over-feet in love with, no one's writing any poems about me. And probably never will.

Because I can do better. Even if better means alone...

I think.

I'll have to ask my therapist.