The Daily Durvy

When Alex dropped me off at the airport earlier, I realized that I don’t travel much without him anymore. In all honesty, I don’t do much without him anymore. When I was single (and when our relationship was not as serious as it has slowly become) I used to do all sorts of things by myself: travel, go out to restaurants, see movies. I used to love seeing movies by myself. It felt a little taboo, like a 20 year old woman wasn’t supposed to be at the movies without some sort of companion; like that sort of behavior was reserved for spinsters and widows.

When he dropped me off, it was sad but also sort of liberating, like I could go see a movie by myself again. Or I could drive from Davis to LA without someone in the car. Alex and I recently talked about this. When we move back to LA we each need to drive, and he didn’t want me to drive alone. I reminded him that I had made that drive by myself, with a broken radio and a dead phone, several times before we were even glimmers of hope in each other’s minds. He shrugged and said he just didn’t want me to be bored, but I think there is something deeper there, something that I have forgotten to foster while in the shadow of this powerful love between us: my fierce and undeniable independent streak.

Alex gave me a couple of 20s when he dropped me off with a kiss, to get myself a few magazines and some food in the terminal, which was really nice of him. I was at the airport almost 2 hours early, so I skipped the books and went straight for the wine bar next to the last gate in the terminal. Who needs books when you have over priced appetizers and bowl-sized glasses of wine?

So here I am, at the wine bar, sipping a lovely Pinot Grigio, waiting for my flight with a heavy heart. Yet, there is some clarity in this trip, a slow and somewhat belated rediscovery of something that went untended in these last years. While my return to my family unaccompanied for the first time in quite a while is tainted with loss and grief, there is also a small spark of something long lost awakened in me. I felt it as soon as Alex drove away: my sense of adventure.

I have never felt uncomfortable eating in restaurants by myself, and I have always loved seeing movies sans escort, and today that spark dictates my actions once again. No one but myself to keep me company, and today that’s the way I want it. Some time to spend with myself, in the small space between the awesome power of the life I share with Alex, and my role in that, and the relationship to my family that is about to change forever, alone with myself and what I want and need in this moment. It is a small moment of healing, and I am grateful for it. I am grateful for this small wine bar in the airport, hours before my flight “home” – my last flight of this sort.

I’ll take it, for all that this moment is, and I will cherish it forever. And hopefully, next week, I will go see a movie by myself, and buy myself dinner and another glass of wine, and kiss myself goodnight, in the space between the awesome power of the time I share with Alex and all the relationships I cultivate with the other people I invite into my life.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about regrets.

When I was very young, I made it my personal mission in life to avoid all regrets. I blame this particular life goal on my 12-year-old precocious self and her unlimited access to literature that was way above my head, if not in comprehension then certainly in emotional content. Of course, by the time I was 16 I had failed miserably.

My first boyfriend was a perfectly wonderful boy named Eric. He was a full year younger than me and also Jewish. I only mention this because even at the tender age of 16 I was basically dating Alex: a sweet, younger Jewish boy who cared for me deeply and loved me passionately. As passionately as a 15 year old freshman can love a mysterious (read: gawky) 16-year-old sophomore, anyway.

The whole love affair lasted all of four months and was extremely intense, so intense that it sent me running the opposite direction. The poor guy didn’t stand a chance against my early onset commitment issues.

I broke up with him over the phone, lying on my bathroom floor while my best friend was on hold on the other line. Not one of my prouder moments, I’ll admit, by one of the more necessary ones.

Almost immediately, I regretted what I had done.

About nine months later I worked up the courage to ask him out again, this time I was a senior and he was a (very handsome and popular) junior, and to my absolute shock and delight- he agreed. (There are some very embarrassing journal entries from this period of my life.)

About three weeks later, on a rainy afternoon, he walked over to my locker and dumped me. I would love to tell you that it was horrible and unceremonious and that he was just mean, but it was so heartbreakingly eloquent that I couldn’t find it in me to resent him.

I remember two things about that conversation: one: that I was wearing the most hideous sweater I have ever and will ever own. I thought it was adorable and made me look endearing and charming. It didn’t, I assure you. It made me look hideous. And second I remember the reason he gave me for breaking my fragile high school heart. He said that we had already had the conversations and the spark that made us special. We were trying to pull a Mulligan – start fresh, do-over. Redo. And that was just impossible. There is no redo button, even if you really, REALLY want one. And boy, did I REALLYFUCKINGWANTONE.

At the time, I’m sure I nodded dumbly and watched his ass as it walked away, because I am just not as smooth as those bitchy popular blondes in the TV high schools. And later that night, I came and wrote one final journal entry about Eric in my book and then cried like I had never cried before.

To this day, I haven’t cried like that over a boy.

Even then, in that moment, I knew that he was one of my more important high school lessons. I knew that the regret that he brought was not the last regret that I would have, but he was the first.

And tonight, as I drink a rather large glass of wine while revisiting this memory, I cannot help but think about other regrets, not the least of which is ignoring this blog for this long. Other regrets include: not reapplying for the columnist job for the Aggie, not taking visual art classes sooner, not traveling abroad for a semester, and not making out with the French exchange student at that party freshman year. Such is life.

I think I need to stop reading Oprah magazine. While it is a fabulous magazine for, say, super-chic working moms, 22-year old college students just end up wearing clothing that is totally age-inappropriate. Sometimes I will walk out of my bedroom all gussied up for going out and Alex will look at me and tell me that a full pantsuit with matte red lipstick is probably just a little bit sophisticated for a frat party. And then all I can do is look at him and go “BUT THIS IS WHAT OPRAH WOULD WEAR.”

So you can see where that might be a problem for me.

I read an article in this month’s Oprah Magazine about a woman who is committing the next 60 days to the Bikram Yoga Challenge. She basically goes to yoga everyday, and not just any yoga. No, that would be sane. This woman is going to HOT yoga. The studio is heated to 105 degrees or higher for optimal toxin flushing and facilitating flexibility. You basically drip sweat, and it is nasty.

I read this article, which chronicles this woman’s first 30 days of her challenge, and I made the wild, ridiculous decision to take the challenge as well. So today was Day 1, and it pretty much sucked. I’m not going to lie to you, it was hard, it smelled really bad and I came home looking like I took a swim, which is beyond gross.

I have always been a skeptic of the bullshit that surrounds yoga and meditation. “It’s so therapeutic” or “it’s so calming” or (my favorite) “Yes, you can loose weight with some sissy stretching” have always seemed like drink-the-koolaid behavior. However, as I was going through the poses something incredible happened. My constant inner voice was silent. Begrudgingly silent, like she had been hit upside the head and was stunned into an inarticulate pile of mush. And that was nice.

During the rest periods, you are supposed to lie in what is known as the “corpse pose” – on your back, silent, unmoving, just gazing up at the ceiling. What is noticed is that I felt very much alive (and beat up – maybe there’s something to this sissy stretching nonsense) in those moments. My heart was pounding, my breath was calm and the inner bitch was absent. Lying there, all I focused on was leaving the bitch out of this moment, and I did my best to take her criticisms floating around in my head and leave them in that hot, smelly room. It worked, if only for that moment, and suddenly the last 90 minutes of “toxin-flushing” was not in vain, but rather – dare I say it – therapeutic. But don’t tell my inner bitch I just said that because she thinks yoga is dumb.

I pee like a pregnant lady. When Alex and I first started dating, but after we got over the too awkward to speak to each other phase, he told me that he was worried that I was knocked up because I went to the bathroom every 10 minutes or so.

However, it was still the part of our relationship where I didn’t tell him that the constant peeing came at the point in pregnancy where my stomach would blow up like a puffer fish. He would KNOW if I was pregnant at that point. But it was sweet of him to worry.

Normally, peeing all the time is nothing but mildly annoying, though a never-ending source of material for my friends to make fun of me. But, when I’m in the middle of something fun or relaxing, like a movie or a massage, my pee non-problem becomes my pee huge problem.

During movies, especially movies I’m not sure I wanted to see (*coughIngloriousBastardscough*) I tend to have to pee like a race horse. It is most certainly linked to nervous energy, but c’mon. Can’t I have normal manifestation of anxiety, like heart palpitations? I suppose the grass is always greener, but when you’re nick name in high school was “Special D, Gotsta Pee” heart murmurs are a freakin’ cake walk.

Seeing Inglorious Bastards was preceded by a week-long marathon of Quentin Tarantino movies, beginning with Pulp Fiction. No, I had not seen Pulp Fiction before that, yes I am aware that is somehow a sin. I am going to admit to you that I was afraid of seeing it. Afraid. Because you know what? Blood and guts scare me. Guns scare me. And the prospect of a human being killing another human being for money or sport makes me sick. So after a few days of psyching myself up and a few bribes from Alex (a new season of Sex and the City and the promise to watch it with me, thank you very much) I shut up and watched to damn movie. And I loved it. In fact, I am going to be Mia for Halloween, and I’m trying to convince Alex to buy a wig and a lariat tie to be Vince. Because that would be cute, RIGHT?!

Right.

After I saw a few Tarantino movies I agreed to go see Inglorious Bastards with Alex. In the hour leading up to the movie, peed no less than 10 times. And during the previews I got up and went to the bathroom and then about 15 minutes into the movie I went again. Finally, I told myself to stop being such a beezie and sit the fuck down. Once I stopped being so worried, I started to really enjoy myself. I liked the movie, I even really liked the movie. Go figure.

And while I am not totally comfortable with guns and guts and blood (so why would I want to push a baby out of my vagina?!) I can understand the value of gore in a story line.

But the gore still makes me pee.

I was biking to my AA meeting on Friday (another perk of moving in with Alex – the apartment is much closer to my meetings, my sponsor, and the parts of campus that I actually have classes in) and I fell off my bike.

While this is not a rare occurrence, this one was because of a real estate sign. I recently got contact lenses, which is more like saying I recently got in a war with my eyes and I feel that by poking them on a regular basis I let them know who’s boss. While it is extremely liberating to not have to wear glasses or more accurately have to remember where I put my glasses down, oh shit they’re in the restaurant, we have to go back, thank you so much, OH LOOK THEY’RE ON MY HEAD. AGAIN.

Anyway, getting used to my contacts is an… ongoing process and as such I often get slightly disoriented. So I was on my bike, not really paying attention to what was going on around me. Off in the distance, I see Dr. Phil’s face on a real estate sign. As I got closer, I was sure that it was Dr. Phil but all I could think was WHAT THE FUCK IS DR. PHIL DOING ON A REAL ESTATE SIGN? He does not sell houses. I mean, I’m sure he could, however I feel like he’s a little busy filming his awesome talk show and generally NOT being in Davis. But you never know.

When I got right up on the sign, I turned my head, still sure that it was Dr. Phil on that sign. I turned my head all the way around, Rosemary’s Baby style until I realized that I was riding directly into the bushes. They just snuck up on me like BAM bushes and then it was BAM pain and then BAM huge scratch on my shin and then BAM fuck my life. I hopped off my bike and swore profusely for a few minutes, all the while examining Dr. Phil’s real estate sign.

It turns out that it wasn’t Dr. Phil after all. But DAMN it sure looked like him.