life, love, the gym & other stupid shit.

these past days have been more full of bullshit than i care to even think about, but it's all that i can think about.

everytime that my phone rings, it's more of what i can't tolerate right now.

acclimating to a doubling of estrogen in my hormone replacement therapy has been hard. right when i thought that i was getting adjusted to my moods and how the medicines alter them, i'm right back to edgy, hormonal, irritable, easily hurt, the place where even to leave the comfort of a storm is too much.

and then my grandma calls to tell me that she's picked out her casket and her tombstone and arranged for it all to be taken care of with her life insurance, typed up her funeral instructions to the minister, set up the Power of Attorney and Living Will, and she's ready now. she picked out everything so that i wouldn't have to. she appreciates me helping her pay for her life insurance policy and she doesn't want me to have to do the rest. and she's ready. jesus. okay. just breathe through it. hide the tears and accept it. tolerate. breathe. absorb. apply more cream.

and then lose your best friend. accept that the compromise isn't going to happen. try not to lose my temper and say heated things when my hormones are raging in me and i'm already at the limit to what i can endure. tolerate. breathe. accept. hang up and sob. take more pills.

rent the truck to go and pick up the furniture. go to the gym. dump all of my hurt and anger and frustration there. focus. go agro on those machines. heart rate climbing. sweat. cry while doing cardio. push myself past all pain and hope to reach numb.

and then, while on the machine, notice that i'm being stared at...hoard. and notice that the person staring is an actor. a very attractive working actor. stare back because fuck it, what else is there to do. when my legs feel that they can't go any more, heart pounding, every inch of me sweating, climb off. and go upstairs to do strength training and weight machines. and he goes upstairs too. places himself across the room on machines where he can stare blatantly at me. and when i move to ab machines, he comes to the machines directly behind them and starts doing reps with ridiculous amounts of weights. staring. smiling. even a wink. trying to pull me into something that i don't have the energy or strength of heart to do. but he stares. and i stare back. i won't be broken by another person today. i won't admit defeat, my weakness, my inability to relate, to another person today. and so when i come off of the ab machines, having pushed so much and so hard with so much weight that my workout partner can't keep up, he stands up, takes out his iPod, and tells me that he's enjoying watching my sexy ass work out so hard...to know that i'm being watched. i laugh and go to the mat. plank, 8 minute circuit training, plank, side plank, other side plank. at other side plank, i look up and see that he has placed himself at the machine where he can see everything that i am doing and is making, yet again, no bones about the fact that he is enjoying what he's seeing.

and so, i stand up and walk over to him. say, 'i'm angie. i hope that you're enjoying watching me try to break myself.'
and he tells me that it's my fault, for being so sexy, and that his mind is wandering, thinking of all of the things he'd like to do that tattoo. has anyone ever licked the ice cream cone? has anyone ever traced it down? how sexy my legs and body and the tats that i've chosen to adorn myself with are, and what they make him think of.

he is a sex symbol. he is attractive and oozing sexuality and confidence and in those moments, it is more than what i need that he has chosen me. while staring back, i have seen the other women approach him and try to talk to him, and watched him be dismissive as he reaches his head around to keep me in his line of sight. i have watched them walk by me on my machine after that and stare me down, and watched him laugh about it. i have listened to my workout partner talk about how fucking fine he is and how it's obvious he wants to fuck the shit out of me. i have watched the light reflect off of the massive diamond that he wears. in my place of rawness and hurt, trying to push my body to its breaking point, i have seen and heard everything, i have maintained eye contact, i have not waverred.

i have decided to offer myself up to the gods of helping me forget the things which are causing me to ache and want and cry and hurt. i have decided that whatever it takes to keep living, keep breathing, keep knowing that i am alive and desired, i will do it. i will do as i have always done and evolve past the moment of everything and everyone that i have loved falling away from me, choosing to propel themselves in a different direction. and so, when he reaches for his phone and demands my number, i give it to him. as he dials and lets it ring, i tell him that my voicemail is full and so when he hears confirmation, he tells me his number and to program it in because i'll be hearing from him again. i smile the smile of cynicism and 'uh-huh'. he laughs and tells me that i am funny & beautiful, that in a land of the bitch who won't eat and won't engage in sarcasm, i am what he has been looking for, and that he is glad that this is the gym that he was close to tonight and so, out of his pattern, stopped there. that it is the universe.

it is rare to meet someone so candid, so frank, who also speaks of the universe. even more rare that i would have the benefit of knowing who he is and so therefore have the knowledge to doubt him. i know his world, have been a part of it, and so do not believe that someone with access to the kind of women that he has access to truly would desire me, but i go along with it. pretend to believe that he is sincere. verbally spar with him, tease him, finish my workout and leave. as i'm leaving, he makes it a point to call to me across the room...every woman who has been staring and trying to talk to him or get his attention now even more angered that i am the one that he has chosen. i have come in braids like pigtails, no makeup, cotton shorts and a tiny shirt, no appearances, no faking it. everything that i am, raw, unaltered, undone, visible. and that he has chosen this fucks with them.

by the time that i have gotten back to my phone, he has text me that he's still thinking of me, that i am perfect cuteness and that he can't get his mind away from the places that it has wandered while watching me go hard in the gym. while i'm at the grocery, he calls me. he tells me that he is grown, tells me his age which is a full decade over what i believed it to be, and that he is at the place in his life where he doesn't fuck with not going after what he wants, and that what he wants is to spend time with me. do i like italian food? do i like soul food? he's from the east coast and is a cat that wants someone who likes what he likes, who will be an intelligent date and eat good food and be down for being woken up at 5 a.m. to spend some time before he leaves to shoot his movie. and it is flattering. i talk back, let myself be carried away into the feeling of being chosen by someone that everyone else wanted. he laughs and laughs, tells me that i am funny and sarcastic and smart and perfect. he wants to see me. will i see him tonight? when i tell him no, will i see him tomorrow? when i tell him why i can't, he laughs at my plans and tells me that he will wake me up on friday morning then. to expect to hear from him again. that he is not easily put off from what he wants.

in his words, there is the promise of distraction, of a steady stream of compliments, of probable physical gratification. it is flattering. it makes me feel good to be so desired, so blatantly admired and wanted. but also, there is the danger that would come with giving myself even remotely to someone when my heart lies elsewhere. as much as i want the distraction, i do not want to fuck with someone else's head or heart. i know the danger too much of having head and heart fucked with, and i feel that i can't even begin to do something only for my own pleasure, my own distraction. that i must remember that he is a person with his own thoughts and feelings, and be responsible for that. even though it is hard. because what i want to do, what i am tempted to do, is say fuck it and let him be a distraction for me, let him make me laugh and cum and feed me dinners of italian and soul food and tell me over and over again of my cuteness and my sexy and my beauty.

and so i breathe. accept. focus. continue. go to get the furniture...finally. finish the laundry. make the seasoning mix to toss the scallops in, cut the potatos, sautee the spinach. all the while, crying. being easily flustered. and yet continuing on.

life and all this stupid shit. the desire, the ache, the sadness, the loss...it all remains. and so i just soldier on.