I’m at MercBar, sitting exactly where you sat the last time we were here, except now you’re across from me in streets, towns, cities, countries, continents. Across the world with someone else, eating authentic foods with your hands, slurping noodles, sitting on floors, riding in buses. We were here. I was across from you talking to Tali on her birthday. You were across from me, near the window, talking with new friends, listening to their story. They’d been apart for a year. When you heard about their circumstances, you touched me and said, Ya see? One year is nothing. You’ll visit. Yes, I said, I will. But I didn’t.
Now, a year later, I’m sitting here in MercBar, on your stool, speaking to strangers. I’m here alone. No. My friends are over there, across the way. I came here to be alone, in this corner of ours, even though nothing is ours anymore. Even our memories are mine because you can’t share the way you remember. The strangers are asking me if I’ve heard of Sex & The City, say I look like Carrie Bradshaw. What? I ask as if I’ve never heard the name. Who?
It feels like yesterday, but it was last year, being here with you, hearing you tell your less than new strangers, Yeah, I’m traveling the world for a year. But we’ll visit. You thought it could work. Us. Like that. But you had to know it couldn’t, had to know I couldn’t experience new without someone else to share it with me. When I told you so, you said you knew it would come to this, knew I couldn’t. You chose. I chose.
The next time we went out together, when we were alone and not surrounded by couples who didn’t know what a key party was, we walked home thirty blocks. I was wearing thumb-thong flip-flops; my feet blistered. I was wearing all white. We said our goodbyes on the street. You left me at my door. I couldn’t believe it was over. I cried on the street, moved down the block and sat on brownstone steps, crying into my phone, into Smelly’s ear. How could he? Does he really love me if he can leave like this? I did but didn’t understand. I still wouldn’t have chosen the way you did, but you couldn’t have felt as I did. Because even our feelings aren’t ours.
I realize now you were honoring your spirit, and I hate that honor and spirit crap, but you were following what you knew you had to, right? No, you said, this wasn’t some dream of yours. I just planned all this before you, you said. Plans can be rearranged, but you chose to keep to yours. If you’d felt as I did, you’d never have gone, never have let me have the opportunity to be here, sitting here, where you sat, on the stool against the curtain, the one that kept us together, joined us in more than words, between friends, across the street from where we met.
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When you write about this guy, it always moves me in more ways than I can express. You are so passionate.
that was lovely
Stephanie,
Its posts like this that make me wish I was a better writer. There is nothing like having the ability to eloquently describe emotions and events. I should take up a writing class.
"Plans can be rearranged, but you chose to keep to yours."
My boyfriend and I were discussing our future last evening. He said that he had envisioned different plans for himself, but then he met me and now has new plans.
You are right. Plans can always be rearranged. Still hurts like hell when they don't change them for you though.
Can't remember how you defined "key party." Could you do it again?
That was touching.
Friendship is more tragic than love. It lasts longer. – Oscar Wilde
" Even our memories are mine because you can’t share the way you remember."
And that's part of the beauty of memories. For me. Nobody can correct them. "No, that's not how it happened." Nobody can change them. "We were eating fish. Not pasta." They are ours. Personal and precious and perfect. Eternal.
Carrie Bradshaw?
Wistful…vivid and wonderful. I could see each frame like a movie and flew overseas in my minds eye…
This is one of my favorites!
Mellissa
This is what your post reminds me of – The way that in some ways you can never truly connect because there are some parts that can't be shared.
http://www.slate.com/features/surrealism_slideshow/images/03_Magritte_TheLovers.jpg
Why didn't you change your plans and go with him?
so beautiful and with such truth.
This happened to me, he left, I stayed. My heart broke. And 9 months later he came back. I always think of that old saying, " if you love something let it go".
Sometimes just sometimes they will find you again.
How many moments and men have I foresaken to stick to plans! But one way or another, what I keep isn't always what I cling to and what matters most always finds it's way back.
I'm sorry, but you do not resemble Sarah Jessica Parker/Carrie Bradshaw in the least, save for the pathetic woe is me lovelorn drivel. SJP has a pretty face, but yours has an odd kind of potato shape thing going on which is emphasized by your forehead and chin. If people think you're attractive, which you seem to insist on stating in every other blog entry, then maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're just not photogenic. You're sister, however, takes beautiful pictures.
I hate this friggin kind of one-year anniversary. Unfortunately, I celebrate many of them. It may get easier as time goes on, but it's always painful, isn't it though?
A pleasure to read Stephanie! I love the trackbacks and enjoyed reading 'bowling for soup' as much this time as I did before, if not more. You invoke such clear images with your writing!
Dana? That was possibly the meanest, most petty and uneccesary thing I have seen written in the comments section of Stephanie's blog, which speaks volumes, as there have been some atrocities. Disgusting.
"I'm sorry, but you do not resemble Sarah Jessica Parker/Carrie Bradshaw in the least, SJP has a pretty face,"
SJP does not have a pretty face. She has a nice figure, if you like thin, but a very ordinary face. Carrie is not everly attractive either, although beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe Steph has similar hair to SJP, but that's about it.
I don't care how selfish this sounds – PLEASE take this as a compliment…I get to work around 7:30am CST and you're blog is the first place I check each morning. I like to enjoy you with my cup of tea, before really settling into the day. But, Stephanie, you are really not getting your posts out there quickly enough for me. I will try to be more patient though. I just love reading you! Thank god you are an hour ahead of me, otherwise I'd have even longer to wait! So do ya think you could maybe post late night so that it's there for me to enjoy early morning? ;-) Have a good day, Stephanie!
Dana, unless and until you are willing to post a picture of yourself, you really shouldn't comment on the looks of others. It's quite ugly. On second thought, you've already shown you are without beauty.
Dana might be a true nasty-ass toad girl (guy?) but no way s/he takes the vilest post award. The true psychopaths came out of the woodwork after the NYT piece a few months back.
Mellissa/Ladybug,
I know, I know! But it doesn't hurt to ask! =)
My boyfriend and I just broke up. Your post made me cry. It's so hard to miss people you love…
After reading both posts, I just wanted to say how brave you are for charging forward and letting yourself love again. I am going through something awful right now (BF dropped off the face of the earth, may have been involved with someone else for the past year we've been together, the works) and it's hard to imagine getting past it.
Also, I wanted to say that when I read comments like the one from Dana, it really doesn't reflect on you at all. I wonder what is so wrong in Dana's life that she (he?) has to come on the Internet and (anonymously, I might point out) trash someone whose life is going well. It's a little pathetic.
Um Sarah,
It is art and creativity….not the daily news. Ha ha. It has to present when it is fully baked and ready to be cut…
Ladybug
Steph,
as I saw in your Jan17 blog in Row5:
'Everyone can see it on you' I thought
I like this sentence, but when I saw
Feb08 in Row25: 'Because even our feelings
aren't ours' I'm sure I do like both &
the other blogs too
take care :-)
and with every goodbye you learn…
Yeah but you're moving forward. Perhaps your issue of getting hurt by a man made you subconsciously look for someone who would not be unavailable. You wouldn't be the first person to do that. One year, my boyfriend moved to MN, 1 good friend moved to SF, and another to Ireland, so I know a thing of two about it. Anyway, looks like you've gotten over that. Cheers!
Dana,
You must be one unattractive human being. You're certainly ugly on the inside.
Ok, whatever, fine!
Maybe my comments were a bit harsh. However, in my defense, I did read this blog for several days before I actually decided to post a comment.
And my comment was only meant to point out that SK might be just a little too hung up on her looks. And she shouldn't be. That's all. It seems in every other entry she's trying to impress upon us she is sexy and people think she is sexy. I just have a different opinion, that's all.
And furthermore, it really isn't necessary. I think those of us who read her blog consistently don't really care about how she looks. Its what inside that attracts us.
So with that said, I think SK is incredibly talented–a true writer and artist. And I enjoy reading her blog. However, this whole bit about "I'm too sexy" just detracts from her lovely, wholesome persona… and my reading pleasure.
Just saw the cover for Straight Up & Dirty on Amazon. How excited ARE YOU?
I'm very excited about Straight Up & Dirty. There are several temporary covers floating around on Amazon (three different covers actually). The US cover was never meant to be a sketch/cartoon, but rather it served as an idea for a photograph. I'm insanely against smoking and can assure you the cover will not have a cigarette on it. I'll see what I can do about losing the shoes, too. But it's a give and take operation.
It´s so true. Everytime when I split up I hate to go to "our" places. To remember. But years later you´ll visit them again and the feelings are gone.
Dana,
So often we, as women, are taught to downplay everything about ourselves. "Don't toot your horn, be demure.." Bullshit!! Go on out there and feel it, tell it and stand behind it.
I read Stephanie daily and have her linked on my Blog and I never thought she was vain. There is a difference between celebrating what we love in ourselves and being bitchy and hateful. I will let you do the math on which side you seem to fall in… I, for one, love a confident woman. She is a credit to our gender.
Furthermore, if you wanted to share your opinion, perhaps the second comment would have been the way to go…
Not hatin' just sharing….
Ladybug
Ohhhhh….the misery….still no new posts….
;-)
Wow, only just discovered your blog (very backward me) and am enjoying it soooo much! Congrats on the book deal etc…you really deserve it all.
Dana, that was some Bush Administration-esque backpedaling. If you're going to make a snarky comment, you should own it (at least, I do when I make a snarky comment).
This hit so close to home right now. You're so lovely.
"Even our memories are mine because you can’t share the way you remember." — That line gave me chills.
Sorry Dana, I think it is YOU who is hung up on Stephanie's looks… not the other way around.
Just my 2c.
Steph,
I feel this way every time I fly back over Manhattan, cross the Queensborough and make my way back to the City. Its memories upon memories that seem like a lifetime ago now. Some, I wish I could trade, but I know that they make me the woman I am now. By trading them, I would be more like the girl I was then.
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Emerson
Love the here and now- its really all we have for certain.
OH-P.S. – I'm a ESFP! ;)
Amydell~