[Content warning: friends-breakup, loss, grief.] “Yeah, I’m sure he’s a good guy. But if he’s stuck in a toxic relationship with a manipulative woman, that says something about him, too. You cannot be around toxicity without some of it rubbing off onto you…” My buddy’s words from ten days ago echo in my head. He’sContinue reading “More loss — Making space for the new”
Tag Archives: friendship
Deep wound
“ Wolf mother, where have you been? You look so worn, so thin You’re a taker, devil’s maker Let me hear you sing, hey-ya, hey-ya Wolf father, at the door You don’t smile anymore You’re a drifter, a shapeshifter Let me see you run, hey-ya, hey-ya Holy light, oh, burn the night Oh, keep theContinue reading “Deep wound”
How much courage does it take?
Nearly two decades ago, I went through one of my most painful breakups, my first really painful breakup. At the time, I was in grad school and had been in a very intense and complicated, mostly long-distance, more-than-platonic relationship with a guy I loved very deeply and who sincerely loved me back. He was veryContinue reading “How much courage does it take?”
The unbearable pain of betrayal
Friday was Jack’s birthday. Exactly three weeks after the loaded conversation we had, initiated by him telling me not only about his sexual attraction towards me but in great detail about his sexual desires & fantasies involving me, despite his still being in a monogamous (& toxic) relationship with a woman that has been makingContinue reading “The unbearable pain of betrayal”
Mid-life crisis?
I’m not sleeping well. I wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back asleep because I start ruminating — or my ruminations make the whole night restless. A lot of the rumination comes from practical issues making me anxious right now: politics, my own financial instability, looming work deadlines. ButContinue reading “Mid-life crisis?”
“Friends fall for each other”
“Yeah, at surface level what’s happened between you guys seems weird or even impossible, but if you think of it, it’s actually quite a universal experience: friends fall for each other, because they like each other as persons”. Ron’s words yesterday evening brought me some respite, some lightness, almost a sense of things being “smoothedContinue reading ““Friends fall for each other””
A moral question
“Where were you when your father needed you?” is something my mother has asked me full of venom almost every time we have talked since my father’s death two & a half years ago — which is one of the reasons why the times we talk are so few and far between. Where was myContinue reading “A moral question”
Hard week
This is a hard week. On the one hand, there’s the realistic, almost chemical, fact of coming down after 2-3 weeks of almost steady high, nonstop go-go-go — hence the ensuing physical tiredness and also a sense of emptiness. But what makes this particular “low after the high” so hard is that it’s Thanksgiving week. Continue reading “Hard week”
Trust: the most fundamental form of love
We were swinging freely almost twenty meters above the ground. The 9-mm climbing rope went through the two rappel rings at the top, 100 feet up from the ground, a “free-hanging rappel”, i.e. a lowering technique where there are no walls around or adjacent to you: you’re lowering from what is basically a hole inContinue reading “Trust: the most fundamental form of love”
Desperate urgency & holding the line
I’ve been trying to understand my unwillingness to keep up a friendship with the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up unless he also takes concrete steps to initiate our meetings/plans. Why am I drawing such a hard line with him that I don’t necessarily draw with other friends? After all, isn’t friendshipContinue reading “Desperate urgency & holding the line”
The Little Prince and the Fox 