just bad timing

Tag: blogging

  • Book Two, Chapter Two – Change is Hard

    “I have to be mindful of the intention I’m gonna set for myself this year, it might just come true.” January, 2018

    Those are the words that ended my last post, the sad, whiney and impatient rant from six months ago. Remember the one where I blamed the world for my luck and then finally came to my senses asking: “Or am I the impossible girl?”

    Well, because life changes but not that much, I am back at my keyboard, with an iced coffee and my head full of questions for my heart. To you my dear reader, it is very important for me to say: I know I suck and I’m sorry. The last story I told you that wasn’t to promote something was… well, it was the Wolves in July 2017, basically a year ago.

    I guess I can’t blame myself for not giving you a lot this year, since I did give you 300 pages to digest… This is why I have to tell you another super important thing: Thank you. Thank you so so so much for reading them and sharing your lives with me. You are the coolest crew out there, my #jbt ride or die.

    Where do we go from here?

    I think I have figured out why I’m so scared to write anything. Every single wish I wrote down since the Wolves, has happened. Every thought or doubt as to why, or how, or when… was answered somehow. I’ve made these situations happen. Somehow.

    I’m just afraid now.

    Consciously, I’m afraid to write shit. I am afraid you’ll read the book, which is fantastic thanks to years of work, millions of re-writes and an incredible editor. And then what if you read this and go WTF Christine?

    Subconsciously, it’s a much, much bigger fear. It’s the fear of changes.

    I’ve been delving into my own consciousness and analysing my reactions to change since a few mind-boggling interactions on my podcast. But, the reality is, that in the back of my head, little Christine is still at the center, thinking: Oh my fucking god, I’m moving back to Vancouver, what if the big bad wolf gets me?

    I’m not referring to Liam, god knows where he is (certainly not in Vancouver) and he doesn’t scare me anymore. I’m referring to stability, to paid work, to paying bills, to sustaining sedentary relationships.

    The contradictions inside me can be overwhelming at times. On the one hand, I’m so exhausted of moving around. The things I’m most looking forward to are having my own bed and going to dance classes. On the other hand, those same things could mean that I might to have to stick to one place, potentially one group of friends, potentially one person, potentially one self. Obviously none of the above is true. Everything is moveable and there is tremendous change to be had in a daily routine. But the anxiety, the anxiety of the moment before the leap: it’s great and grand and perverse. 

    My little heart might just catch a break, and be soothed, even if just a little. That reminds me, it’s been a while since I’ve told you about my little heart, hasn’t it? Well, it’s not come off the rollercoaster. Once the meaningless flings got repetitive, the mind just got a little better at spotting potential. Let’s do this, then. Let me share with you four love letters, that I could have sent, over the last year since the Wolves. Some of these people you’ve had glimpses of, unbeknownst to you, across my writing. Some of them you’re about to meet. I don’t know which stories I’ll tell you for sure, but these letters will have to do for now. This is what I’m ready to share. Bottom line for today is: love is everywhere.

    Sometimes when you reach out, you can almost touch it.

     

    ***

    A.

    All it took was one look at me for you to say “I’m gonna marry you one day.” I puffed of course. I laughed at the ridiculousness of you, and your cute eyes. I turned to Mike with laughter in mine. He was thoroughly enjoying seeing you stare at me in disbelief, as if I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I looked like shit if you ask me. I had just finished Cannes and couldn’t be fucked with my appearance. White T, jean shorts, hair in a bun and a touch of mascara for good measure. Still. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” you said, still not taking your eyes off of me.

    I thanked you, perfect stranger, for the confidence boost and carried on catching up with Mike. He was telling me about this broad he fucked, turning and tossing her in the air in this acrobatic coitus he was so very proud of. “She weighs like 70 pounds, that’s nothing to be proud of hun. I could throw her around with one arm. Do that with me one day, then you can show off,” I chuckled to myself. Without me noticing that you’d heard me, you managed to slide your arm under me, throw me over your shoulder and take me away… We laughed so hard at you trying to bench me, that we fell down. As I stood back up and handed you my hand, I blushed looking at you with a strangely familiar compassion overtaking my stomach.

    And then you left into the night and onto the ocean, never to be seen again.

    Until that message shone on my screen, a whole year later…

    ***

    D.

    We had six glasses of rosé on a Parisian street corner. I didn’t even know anything about you, other than your tattoos looked good in your Tinder photos. Before I got to the bistro, I was quite worried it was going to be a total bust. It was the biggest Tinder gamble I’d ever taken, but for some reason my gut said: “Go.”  I tossed and turned on my way there, almost turning back. But you were a dream. You were a perfect dream, sitting across from me gesturing passionately. My Parisian time travel, to the seventies and Moroccan deserts. To music concerts we would never go to, and trips we would never take. We shared 24 hours of sun, silence and love that gave us both a boost. I sang as you strung on your guitar, naked on the floor of your Montmartre studio, with candles and wine. It seriously was like a movie. You stroked my leg, looking at me through the cloud of thick smoke emanating from your joint. I puffed on my super slims, high on music and your touch. We enjoyed the unlikeliness of good timing. Things just fell into place that day. You took me to the metro, and French kissed the breath out of me.

    We made plans, perhaps knowing deep down they would never come true. That’s what fantasies are for, aren’t they? Dreaming.

    ***

    J.

    You already know what I think about our story. I think you also know that it’s over. You made me feel so good, so loved, so accepted. You never batted an eye at my ridiculousness, at my free spirit. Not even when it went against all of your beliefs, and everything you wished for from me. You never wanted to tame me, or censor me. But you put me on a pedestal. It’s like you wanted to persuade me you weren’t good enough. You are. I’m just not the one for you. I will never be happy in the life that will make you happy. And that’s ok. Some places will always be ours, and some words will always make me think of you. The perfect date will forever be ours to keep. This trip, it will be ours to remember, as unlikely as it always was. You were just as crazy as me for a minute.

    You will always be the one who made me understand that glimpses of happiness are just that. They are for taking, for enjoying, for embracing and living fully. Because life is short and honeymoons are just that: periods of time where everyone is pleased about something new.

    Thank you for the kisses and the cuddles. Maybe one day I will write our story, and let the world in on your generosity. Maybe one day, I’ll be ready to tell you what I truly felt when you held on tight at the airport. Fear, fear that I would never be the girl who stays. Fear that I would never see the really good men. Fear that I was fucking up. I just couldn’t help but feel like we came from different planets, and the stars aligned just for a minute, and then continued on their respective paths.

    For now, let me say, you are a good man. One day, someone will be very lucky to have you. Keep being vulnerable and open, you are special.

    ***

    V.

    I seriously don’t even know if I have the strength to type this story. You are the person who gave me the ending I was looking for, only to end it in the worst way possible. I more than likely needed it, so I have a hard time holding a grudge. I’m still confused over the meaning of you. I will likely know what it was all about whenever I bump into you again. Somehow I think I will.. I might not. The details of our story live in my notes, scribbled with infatuation… The intoxication was maximal; there was nothing casual about you. It was toxic addiction. That’s funny because you actually made me sick. You gave me more than I bargained for and I got burned. It happens, doesn’t it? I guess it has to, especially to me. You burned me, but we were reckless. It was quick, thankfully. The universe had mercy on me. But that bridge, those songs, will always remind me of you. I think the fact that we ended bitterly hinders my ability to process the meaning behind us. I can’t say that I will fondly think of you or that you were worth it… Because I don’t think so. 

    Yet you’re still there, like the night that looms over the morning, just before dawn. Maybe you’re the moon and I’m waiting for the sun. I just got confused after many dark nights. Thank you for not letting it go on, thank you for countering my crazy. I needed that, but I would never have had the strength to make it happen. I wasn’t fully myself yet, and for that I’m sorry.

    ***

    A.

    I don’t know why I’m lumping your story with theirs… It’s not over our story. It’s just getting started. I guess you happened a year ago, so you started all of this. Your timing is neither dreamlike, not nightmarish. Your crazy exceeds mine, seems to always have had. I don’t actually know you though. I am discovering the idea of you, and therefore I think these love letters, they come from you. You are making me face it all, unbeknownst to you. Maybe because words are all we’ve got for now. Maybe that’s why I’m here writing this. Somehow, you are the catalyst to the stories that need to come out, conceivably to make some room…dare I say, in my heart?

  • Christine In Twenty Eighteen

    On becoming Christine.

    It has been an interesting time, coming into 2018. Just Bad Timing is becoming a physical thing in less than a month and I think I’m going to have postpartum after it does.

    As you might know, Christine is my pen name. Except that some people now know that I am Christine. I’m having a hard time coming to grips with that. A lot of people have asked me if it’s changed people’s behaviour towards me, the facts they’ve learned here. Of course it has! Mostly in a good way. I get to have deep and meaningful conversations with more people than ever! Yet sexually, it’s done something a little odd.

    I did this insidious thing: I connected my personal Tinder to Christine’s Instagram. Talk about a way to get views and warp your gender stats! So now, on top of five super strategically angled pictures, Tinder dudes have access to justbadtiming. “Maybe I can be your next chapter?” I never thought this would be a recurrent pickup line!

    To be honest, I’m a little over the whole Tinder, ONS craze. I will never really be over it as long as I don’t pick a place to settle down, because you know, a girl’s gotta eat. I do however really feel tired of the whole game. I know I can pick up, I know the sex can be surprisingly good (or bad). It’s feeling like the same night over and over again, with slight variations. This is the problem with the game. Once you have enough market research under your belt, you spend your nights waiting for someone to surprise you.

    After trying so hard to be calculated, to be smart, to market myself over the past couple of months, I sit in front of this blank page again, drinking cold coffee, deeply unsatisfied.

    I don’t even know what to think anymore. Throughout the editing process for the book, I have had to go over my life, my decisions, my mistakes, over and over again. The rollercoasters, I’m told make for great story-telling. “Tell us more about that fight”, I’m asked. What is it about human misery, or about someone’s ability to take shit, that is so relatable?

    I have also had to prepare real people for some of the content in my book. No one prepares you for these conversations, especially when you didn’t expect to have to have them. In these conversations, I have had to defend myself, defend my choice to tell the story, defend my plea for vulnerability. How do you do that when you are presently uncomfortable with your own weakness? You push through it. You have to, no one else will.

    So you go home after a long night of explaining why you don’t have a house, why everything you own fits in your suitcase, why you have no money in your bank account, why you want the world to know your secrets… You go home and you sit there in front of a screen, ready to further the cycle.

    And all you can think about, while looking into your reflection, is how you wish someone was there to stroke your hair, to kiss your shoulder or the top of your head, and whisper: “you can do this.”

    It’s a stupid thought really. It’s not like I have anyone in particular in mind. And even if I did, what would I really do about it? Stay, go, leap? I’m craving those instant perfect connections which don’t really exist. The ones that do, they take a long time and building skills. I’m not that girl yet. I’m the girl with the suitcase, waiting to be swept of her feet in some hidden corner of her brain. Yuk, why?

    Why can’t I wish the rollercoasters away? I am trying really hard to be grateful for the glimpses of happiness, for the moments of connection. I am trying to take them as signs of hope, that it’s not so hard to find someone to connect with, that these people who get me, exist. But I’m failing. I’m failing, because I’m tired. I’m tired of having to go the hard way around. I’m tired of being one of those people who will have to go through hell to deserve what some people just stumble upon.

    Or is there such a thing as stumbling upon happiness? Do we just portray ourselves that way, not to let people glimpse into the hardships? After witnessing two “perfect” marriages this week, in their fifth decades of common living, I started to think it was just a relic of the past. Then, I spent more time talking to them, delving into said “perfect” relationships. Both of these women went through hell and back with their husbands. Liam and I’s relationship looks like a walk in the freaking park next to those. That made me feel even more defeated, a coward crippled by egotism.

    I can feel that “expected disappointment” rearing its ugly head and I don’t like it. I am sick of feeling like I need to reassess my decisions, my choices, my life. Can’t someone just want to fit into it? I know this wishful thinking isn’t helpful; I can’t help myself. Doesn’t everyone go through this?

    What are these glimpses for? What do these hyper-fast connections mean? What am I meant to learn from them? Fuck. Can’t one of them just surprise me, and be at least close to my level of crazy? My life feels like driving an old manual car in traffic: stop, start, stall, stop, start, stop, stall, start, stop, sigh. When’s the highway? When do I get to stick my hand out the window, play with the air, feel the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, while I grin stupidly, thinking: “how did I ever get this lucky?”

    “Why did I meet you now?!?!”, exclaimed the last perfect crush. He seems so perfect for me, it hurts sometimes. Dude, I don’t fucking know. I ask myself that on a regular basis, about many of you. Of course, I didn’t say that. I just asked when he would have wanted to meet me. “I don’t know. Earlier?” Well, yeah. But that doesn’t help does it?

    Just when I’m okay with being alone, just when I decide I don’t have to have sex all the time, I can take a break, that’s when I make an impulse decision to take a chance and end up on a perfect date with an impossible guy. Or am I the impossible girl?

    I’m sorry, you’re catching me on a bad day. Most of the time lately I’m good. I’m strong and ambitious and convinced I will succeed. The other twenty-five percent, fine, forty percent of the time, I’m pushing through. I’m putting a smile, my reading glasses and my brave face on.

    “Let’s do this, let’s conquer the world,” I say to myself, as though talking in the plural makes me less alone. I have to be mindful of the intention I’m gonna set for myself this year, it might just come true.

     

    “What is it that you want?”

     

     

    ***

     

    Welcome back my darlings, thanks for still reading. Watch out for the upcoming pre-release of Just Bad Timing, and for cool marketing stuff. 2018 Christine is here to get more naked than ever!

    Yours with all my heart,

    C.

     

  • Book Two, Chapter  One – A Romance For the Wild Ones 

    He undressed me as the wolves looked on from the distance. It all seemed too unreal. I was feeling numb for days until his tongue hit me like the sun hits your eyes on a summer morning through the mist, unexpected and unforeseen. So many unsuspected eyes might have been preying. My head was hanging off the wall, while my hair danced over the abyss. My lower back rested on the big bricks at the ledge, where his head played to music only he and I could hear. I was naked under the stars, as he toyed with my emotions, with my goosebumps and my heart, all confounded by the signals of my clitoris. He was as free as I was; it was part of the thrill. I could feel my back grinding into the stones, but I couldn’t ask him to stop. It was too good. Until the wanting was too much to bear. Swiftly, I was on my knees, with his perfection in my mouth. My hands were everywhere on him, around him, inside him. He pushed me onto the concrete floor, to nibble at my neck, while our bodies rubbed against each other in nonsensical rhythms. I finally slid him inside me, as my knees scratched on the rubble. I caught a glimpse of the wolves, as my eyes rolled back into my head. He was so perfectly thick, and slender, and nimble, and slow. He grabbed at my shoulders, he clawed at my waist. He stopped to look at me. “Should we take this to my place?”

     ***

    I promised myself I wasn’t going to go out. I promised myself. I even stopped at the pub straight from the train station with all my shit with me, so that I would have to go home. That’s when April invited me over for wine.

    “I’m so tired honey, I’ve been working like crazy this week and I have to be up at 8 am tomorrow.”

    “No sweetie, you don’t get it. You have to come to my house tonight. We aren’t going out on purpose, we’re just chilling,” she said.

    “I’d love to, honey. But that’s how it always starts.”

    “When I tell you, you have to come, I mean it. There’s gonna be a guy there, you have to meet.”

    “Alright, here we go. Who is it?” “A friend of mine. See?” She said, holding up her phone to my face. I have to admit, he was looking pretty delicious.

    “Fine, twist my arm. I’ll go home to shower first, I’ll pick up some wine and I’ll come over around 9.30pm.”

    Of course, I only got there around 10 because the guys were home so we caught up, and then I chatted with the girls at the wine shop. They picked out this “natural” more-than-organic Chardonnay for me, and I was weary because I really don’t like Chardonnay.

    I got to April’s and because I knew the others already, I assumed the last guy was Sebastian. He didn’t look quite like his profile picture, but he was cute. A little less manly than I usually pick them, but cute. To be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed. For about 15 minutes. When he guessed the Chardonnay without looking at the bottle, I was sceptical. I mean, I was already thrown to like the wine myself. When he started talking, I felt myself smiling more. He was surprising me with real talk, and comfortable body language. He oozed confidence, in the weirdest of ways. Later somehow, they all did a bit of drugs and decided to go to the bar. So much for staying in tonight. I was definitely not going to jump on that bandwagon, but I wanted to know more about this guy. I sat across from him at Smiley’s and got him talking. Very openly. Upon discovering his investigation into the pleasures of the male G-spot and his reluctancy to hiding the fact that he was supposed to be on a different date tonight, I was a little hooked. We had the most bizarre conversation and didn’t even notice that everybody had gone back to April’s for more drugs by this point. We then silently decided to pretend we were going to go check up on them. That’s when we detoured by the walls.

     It was strange, I felt like I had already kissed him when he kissed me. I felt like all night we had been touching, when we actually hadn’t. I guess the assumption that it was going to happen sort of took away from the mysticalness of that first kiss. It did not take away from the heat though. He kissed me and grabbed me by the little hair I had left at the top of my neck. We were almost eating each other’s faces out when his phone rang. I told him to pick up, it was his date. “Go on, cancel.” I teased. When I took mine out to check it, I had a message from one of my prospectives I had told I might see that night. I had forgotten about him. When I texted to cancel, he called. Sebastian and I looked each other in the eye as we both told people we were supposed to be fucking that we were “tired” and “going to bed”. It was such a turn-on, the blatant honesty between us. It’s a little fucked up that I felt special that I was given the curtesy of truth whilst accepting the assumption that all the others got lies. It made me feel good in a way that we both felt it was special enough to tell each other we were liars, in demonstration.

     Because I couldn’t bring anyone back to the house, I had to be creative. When I hung up, he was still talking to her. So I kissed his neck, stroking his arms, grabbing his ass, hovering my hand past his zipper. He pulled at my hair and kissed me passionately when he hung up. He took my hand in his, and motioned me to take a walk with him. So we strolled around the walls, and where the pathway is usually closed, it was magically open that night. The buildings up above would be the witnesses to our wilderness, as the unsuspecting strangers walked under us, past the bridge to the port. I didn’t even know he had a place until my knees were officially broken, and my head was fucked up from the art installation that had sprung up around town. The artist had placed random black sculptures of wild animals everywhere around town; it was incredibly spooky. When we euphorically walked back to his, I couldn’t believe the sweetness in him. It almost didn’t make sense, and that’s what he was running on. The total understanding, the likeness of our beings, but the chaos and the madness that reigned. I had to have more, I had to know more.

    The passions were soaring. Before the door was even shut, our clothes had flown off. We did it everywhere in his house. We fell off the sofa and continued climbing each other on the floor, contorted between the couch and the glass door that led onto the patio, where we later smoked, seeking each other out in the darkness. There was this silent, unbreakable, unwavering tension when we looked at each other. It was almost like hunger. We broke his bed, and swam in our puddles of sweat. He promised to teach me yoga one day. I promised we would dance one night. A few hours later, I couldn’t hide the bruises under last night’s clothes at work. A few days later, we would drink wine on the walls, feeling the beats of our hearts speed up as we played with the space between our bodies. I was soaking wet for hours, from his words in my ears, from his kisses on my neck, his hands off of my body. The touch was one of real intimacy, one of mutually wanted romance, without fear. Without fear, because we were the same peas in two different small pods. The road was unsure and adventurous, and of course individual. Yet there was this admittance to mutually restored faith, faith in connection, faith in realness, faith in two spirits singing the same tune. I think, to a certain degree, that we both silently admitted that the lives we chose lacked a bit of love, and we uncovered a source in each other that wouldn’t sour, like milk and feelings do. The rules were simple, because we both knew, that rules are obsolete.

    I drank a bit of the red wine he had picked out, looking at the sea, thinking there wouldn’t be a better way to remember this person and this moment. Until he held me under the running water, so I wouldn’t collapse as my legs gave out from under me. The orgasm he gave me in the fifth and final hour of our bodies speaking in tongues, it shook me. It was the small, subtle noises of his pleasure, the bruises on my ass cheeks, and the strength with which he pulled my hair, combined with the wetness of the shower, that took me out. If there are no further memories to be had with him, then he will always be the one suspended in time and space, the one that made me feel like I was flying, or falling, never quite tied to gravity. The big bang I needed, to finish the last chapter, and start with a whole new book, where timing would be irrelevant.

  • Chapter Twenty One – The Big Bold Move 

    The decision fell, almost exactly a year later. The plan is set in motion and we are doing it. We are really doing it. I cannot believe it is actually happening and will probably wait for something to screw it up before we are on the plane. 

    Yet, here we were! In FRANCE! Can you believe it? We moved to France. What a sigh of relief. I felt like a little kid the night before Christmas. I had two weeks until my new job was due to start and we had to deal with the unbearable bureaucracy that all who have moved to France are all too familiar with. It was challenging but it was blissful. We had gotten ourselves out of our rut in Vancouver, sold everything we owned, and shipped only a handful of suitcases. During the first days, we walked around, tried to get a bank to accept our application, struggled to get a phone plan, and enjoyed having some time to ourselves.

    On a particularly sunny day, we sat down at the only beach bar open in January and drank rosé with our happy feet in the sand and cigarettes in our hands. This bar was a little hut, literally on the beach, in Juan les pins. The waiters were handsome and smiling (a feat in France) and some awesome electro-chill beats were playing. The sun was strong even though it was soon setting. I could feel it hit my skin and could have sat there with my eyes closed until the end of time. We smiled at each other like blissful idiots. I’m not sure it if was the vitamin D, the sweet sweet wine, or the surreal actuality of the situation, but it felt like we had succeeded at life, like we had gotten it right if just this once. There was another couple there, and the four of us seemed to be the only ones in on a very important secret in this world: the secret of the little things in life.

    I will always remember how we looked at each other in the car at the first sight of the sea arriving on the riviera and sang our lungs out. “I’m so proud of us bébé; we made it!” We had made it this far and were so confident that it was going to be amazing, super hard but amazing. We picked out an apartment that was too cliché to be true, with colourful tiles, an arched hallway, creaky doors and high ceilings. I could just picture us dancing there, to some jazz, in our beautiful kitchen. It was one of those kitchens with a big white farmhouse sink and an old gas stove. It looked onto a small courtyard, where a old palmtree died and a orange tree grew. It was just like a movie. We lived above a tea shop for fuck’s sake.

    We spent those first couple of weeks eating on patios, strolling down pedestrian cobbled streets and watching old men walk around with baguettes under their arms. It was the dream come true and I couldn’t wait for life to unfold, for us to meet our new French friends, for us to go dancing, for us to live the lives we thought we were destined to live.

    I eventually started my job and Liam ventured into town on his own, texting me to inform me of the new words he had learned. “Une autre bière, s’il vous plaît.” Amazing stuff. My job was alright, intense. I was working from 8am to 8pm to sustain him not having a job for a while. It felt odd working that much when all I wanted to do was explore the scenery and revive the passion we had somehow lost in the incumbrance of the stuff we had accumulated in the past. But it was all worth it, as it allowed us to live out the dreams we had made up for ourselves.

    To be perfectly honest, it was all a bit surreal. Everyone in Switzerland thought I was mad to move to France. “You got it the wrong way around my darling. In this day and age, there is no money to be made in France!” Yes, I know. Thanks. We picked it because it allowed him to get a visa rather easily and it allowed me to finally see some sun. The French Riviera… The dream! I get to live inside the same city walls within which Hemingway drank and Picasso painted! How do people forget this? How does society not allow for those kinds of musings to matter, for art to become an integral part of your life, for money to come last? As I have said before, I can handle a lot, as long as I see my happiness indicator moving up. No matter how hard it was going to be, I was ready to take it on. I was ready to work as hard as physically possible, because we were creating a life worth living for ourselves. In that instance, I was so proud of us.

    I was proud of how easily we de-cluttered, of how committed we had become. We were unhappy with our lives in Vancouver and we did something about it. Everyone warned us; this was going to take a lot of effort. He was a man who was going to depend on a woman. I have to admit it bothered me that in 2015 this was something that I had to worry about, but they were not wrong. It was part of a bigger thing that he would have to face. Just as I had been faced with all of life’s uncertainties in 2009, he would now have to face his internal music and create something that he would be proud of for his own little self. I thought it was magical that he was brave enough to do that, regardless of his age and status. It was no big sacrifice for me, but admittedly we are not made from the same cloth. It was a huge achievement for him. I knew it was going to make us or break us, but I had been preparing to take that risk. Taking the risk is what made us in that moment. I could not be more excited.

    “- I love you bébé. – I love you too. – I can’t wait to see what this year has in store for us.” With those words, I fell asleep peacefully and dreamt about champagne glasses and passionate kisses.
    ***
    March 1st. 

    I sit here, on my so-very-cliché patio, drinking wine in the dark. I am trying to decipher the words that best describe my current situation. Let’s see…

    Single?    Yeah, that one definitely applies.

    Unemployed?    Yep, that one too. I quit my job. Out of desperation and exhaustion.

    Aimless?    Yes, absolutely. Perfectly, decidedly, aimless.


    How could this have happened? What’s next?     Oh my poor heart. The carousel never stops turning. My life currently looks like an episode of Grey’s Anatomy and Bridget Jones has become my spirit animal.

    So I take another swig of that delicious red wine and light yet another cigarette. I watch the amber as it shines through the darkness, perfectly still and shivering all the same. I have been here before.