I find myself with an excess of time this morning. I think it's because I'm not being too forceful in putting myself to work on anything. The reason behind that, in turn, is a current of emotion.
Penelope is leaving New Mexico tomorrow; she'll be gone for two months. Our relationship is not going very strong right now. In fact, we've decided to leave things open, to take things more casually.
There seem to be volleys of affection and distraction, back and forth between the both of us. I stayed with her on Tuesday and woke up Wednesday not sure how to feel, which was a good thing. Feelings moved me; not the other way around. I felt raw and open; sad and hopeful; pain of loss and the prospect of loneliness; the joy of freedom and the prospect of solitude.
I was ill that morning with a migraine, and I took the morning slow (I had the day off from work). Rather than cooping myself up in time and space, with the walls of my apartment and the walls of my schedules and plans, I simply went from task to task and from place to place. I meditated, then wrote a note to Penelope, divulging the contradictions in feeling I was experiencing that morning. I went hiking in Placitas; then went to my favorite used bookstore in Bernalillo; then grabbed some lunch at an awkwardly near-empty Chinese buffet on the West Side; then got an oil change; then spent the afternoon doing homework, wasting time, taking care of other things.
Penelope called me that evening, after reading my note. She apologized for being distant, for being distracted and not having time to talk about us very much.
Then, yesterday, we agreed to meet in the evening, after my JavaScript and her yoga class.
It was a disaster. I don't really want to rehash everything in detail(naturally, I already have and have deleted what I typed). Basically, we planned to go North. My class is in the North. Her place is in the Far North. Her yoga class is in the South. I had assumed we would meet somewhere in the North then drive off to the Far North together. However, she got exceptionally hungry after yoga and did not want to drive North, so she asked me to drive South. I got angry, because I was tired myself and did not like the idea of driving South, when I had just driven North and was going to drive North again. Her solution was that we would not go North; I would just meet her South, she would go home afterwards, and that would be that. This conversation was, of course, conducted in far less simple and calm terms. There were a number of solutions we could have come up with, but she was too hungry to think clearly, and I was too concerned with processing my own anger to come up with a good plan, so I just conceded. That's what I do.
In retrospect, I think it was the fact that we weren't going to the Far North that distressed me the most. But I displayed my annoyance throughout much of the very, very short evening we had available to us, which led to a very sour time indeed. When we finally did calm down, I was too exhausted to really offer much of myself to her (not that I am a shining example of that in the first place), and the whole affair was pretty depressing.
There is a small chance we might meet one last time. I have at least made the offer. But I understand it is not very practical for her.
I know we will see each other again; and I know that, as good as things have been with us, we do not satisfy each other very well. But it still hurts when she leaves, to see things fall apart (once again) and not know what will come next.
At the same time, it is exciting not to know what will come next.
More on this later.
Dream well.
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