So I’ve been slightly in my head these last couple days. I think my brain knows I’m going home very, very soon. Home in my mind means wonderful things like my sister and my nephew. It means the warmth of familiarity and of the golden sun of Maine that is just the right temperature. It’s my hips swaying to African beats while I pound cassava to make traditional Togo dishes. It’s fumbling around on my first day at my new internship. It’s driving on the right side of the road (literally and figuratively).

It is also going back to a place where men do nothing but disappoint and hurt me. As you can see, the negative list is far smaller than the positive list but my mind can’t seem to look away from this teeny tiny list. It’s sad to say but it’s brought on some tears and some very panicked moments recently.  I am comfortable here now. I am comfortable knowing that no one knows my past here. No one really knows anything about any of the pain I have been through or have been a cause for any of my grief or sadness. I think the thought of going home and eventually going back to school to such an environment where the option of anonymity does not exist is what frightens me.

Sometimes when I get stuck like this I listen to music (I’m looking at Coloring Book). Other times I read. I read and read and read in hopes of escaping my worries. I pick novels or books filled with poems and grand stories to become enthralled in the troubles and adventures of characters who seem so far because they’re not real but also so close because their emotions are real. I finished a book the other day and I recently went back and reread a classic from my childhood, Love that Dog by Sharon Creech. I loved her as an author. She was someone whose work I read and instantly fell in love with. Granny Torrelli Makes Soup and Heartbeat are two other favorites.  In Love that Dog the main character, Jack, rewrites many classic poems like The Tiger by William Blake and Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. I thought to myself that maybe that would be a fun exercise to get me out of my head. However, I felt that I had to do it with songs just because I feel more connected to music. Unfortunately, the song I chose, ‘Summer in the City’ as is by Regina Spektor couldn’t sum up my thoughts more if I tried.

‘Summer in the City’  is a sad song. It’s talking about a woman who misses a man and castrated men who miss the rush of lust that comes from seeing and being with women. I’m not particularly missing anyone. On the contrary, I’m actually trying to avoid certain people. I’m not ashamed of my feelings anymore. It’s perfectly normal and ok to feel this way. The people who broke my heart, all of them – romantic or not – are happy in their lives. Every single man who has ever broken my heart is happy. My father is getting remarried to some woman I don’t even know who also has children. My brother is gallivanting around doing goodness knows what with his girlfriends and his other boys. Michael and Paige are probably still going strong (this one is speculation because we’re not friends anymore but their relationship status is still together so I’m going to assume that it’s working out). Matt traveled up to Maine to see his girlfriend graduate.

I guess I’m not missing anyone but I am “missing” that guy who will not hurt me and be present in my life. I haven’t met him yet…I think? I don’t think there is one guy in my life, friend or otherwise, who I trust enough to let into my crazy head yet. I guess that’s why this song appeals to me right now. It’s not the lyrics that do it for me. It’s the mood. She is sad and longing for something but there isn’t too much she can do about it. She tries in vain to replicate the emotions on her own but it don’t work. She recognizes that others are in pain too, on the other side but again there is this sense of hopelessness. She knows this person isn’t completely gone but they’re not close enough to help her and that makes her sad.

I have tried to open myself up to other people but I get so scared that once I start opening up they’ll hurt me. I usually have very strong faith in people but never has this not been the case as far as guys I’m so close to I tell them about my family (my family is a touchy subject so if I trust you enough to tell you how fucked up it is, it means I really, really trust you). Every last one left. I guess that’s why it’s hard for me. I want to open up to more people, especially more of the fantastic guys in my life, but I fear they will leave if I open up to much. In that way, they’re so close but also so very far. I try to replicate this sense of trust by creating a wall of trust that is mostly one sided but alas that doesn’t really work out for either party. I’m not just this way with men, it’s my girlfriends too. They have been less likely to leave but I feel I can’t trust some of them for other reasons. I trust my girl Rahma completely but she’s so physically far away (right now and when we go back to school) that it’s hard to communicate everything over text or spotty Skype/cell reception. I have surrounded myself with superficial relationships in hopes that they will fill the void of the trusting relationships I so desire.

This post has no resolution. I apologize for that but sometimes I think it’s good to just ramble/ record a stream of consciousness in order to show that even when one is doing well, they also have their “bad” or sad days. Those days are fine too. Below are the lyrics and the video to ‘Summer in the City’

Peace. Love. Cleavage.

-M

Summer in the city means cleavage cleavage cleavage
And I start to miss you, baby, sometimes
I’ve been staying up and drinking in a late night establishment
Telling strangers personal things

Summer in the city, I’m so lonely lonely lonely
So I went to a protest just to rub up against strangers
And I did feel like coming but I also felt like crying
It doesn’t seem so worth it right now

And the castrated ones stand in the corner smoking
They want to feel the bulges in their pants start to rise
At the site of a beautiful woman they feel nothing but
Anger, her skin makes them sick in the night nauseaous, nauseaous, nauseaous

Summer in the city, I’m so lonely lonely lonely
I’ve been hallucinating you, babe, at the backs of other women
And I tap on their shoulder and they turn around smiling
But there’s no recognition in their eyes

Oh summer in the city means cleavage cleavage cleavage
And don’t get me wrong, dear, in general I’m doing quite fine
It’s just when it’s summer in the city, and you’re so long gone from the city
I start to miss you, baby, sometimes

When it’s summer in the city
And you’re so long gone from the city
I start to miss you, baby, sometimes
I start to miss you, baby, sometimes
I start to miss you, baby, sometimes

—– Regina Spektor