Two Years Is Enough

Featured / Lesley Rebecca / Leave a comment

Two years ago right now I was on a flight to come and see you. To say I was nervous would be an affront to the English language. I was apprehensive, unnerved, timid…some things I can attribute to a relationship I was trying to get out of, but the rest I attribute to being so intimidated by you. It was feeling that would only be diminished by time spent with you. Two years later, it’s still in the back of my mind, whispering whenever you’re around.

I remember how nervous I was when I came to meet you. I was shaking and praying you wouldn’t notice. Even though you’d been vocal about your excitement to see me, I knew the truth. The voice that whispers now was so loud, telling me I’d never mean anything to you and my presence would probably be deemed a nuisance in time.

I went back to the hotel that night and waited for you to get done with work. I fell asleep at some point. After all, it had been a long day of travel. I woke up to find it was much later than I was expecting you and changed into pajamas. I’d left a room key for you at the front desk, but assumed you must have gone home. At 4:30am, I woke up to someone staggering in the door. With your actions you instantly let me know that I didn’t matter. The whispering voice had been right. It was more important to sit out with friends drinking until morning light than keep your plans with me. You knew I’d be there whenever you decided to show up.

You broke my heart a little that night. I could feel the first cracks forming even as I lie in bed with my head on your chest and your arm around me. I wish I’d listened to my instincts after that week, but I was so broken down that I didn’t have the strength to stay away from you, but I’m ready now.

In the time that’s passed, I’ve realized that we were better off as friends. I’m more than ok with that. It gave me a sense of peace and took away a lot of the intimidation I felt. I didn’t have to worry quite so much about what you thought of me. It was freeing…at least it was freeing until you quit keeping up even that pretense.

We’re nothing now and it’s taken me a while to resign myself to that. I’ve made my last ditch attempts at an olive branch, trying to keep my distance, but let you know that I’m still here, and I finally get it. You don’t want me around and I’m going to do what I should have done the first time you told me who you were and respect that.

I have so many incredible memories with you, some that you might not even remember. I will treasure every kind, quiet, private moment, and look back on the moments filled with laughter with adoration.

I’ll see you next week and, if we’re both being honest, I think we know it’ll be the last time. A poignant goodbye to somebody who reluctantly meant so much to me when I needed them. More than anything, I hope you find happiness and peace, but I’m giving you what you want and letting go now.

Two years is enough time to have a broken heart.

The Search for Everything – Wave One

Featured / Lesley Rebecca / Leave a comment

I feel like John Mayer has taken pity on me and my disbelief that I’m going to have to deal with DJT this year by announcing his intention to release an EP every month in lieu of a full album. Wave One of The Search for Everything was released a few hours ago. It’s early, so I’ve only given it a few run throughs, but my early favorite is Moving on and Getting Over. I’m not sure if it’s the message, a lyric, or the groove that I’m most in love with.

“Tell me I can have the fact you’ve loved me to hold onto
Tell me I can keep the door cracked open, to let light through”

The Night

/ Lesley Rebecca / Leave a comment

I found this piece in some old journal writing from September 17, 2016. I remember the night I wrote it, sitting on the sand across from an apartment that I adored on the beach. I wish I could go back there. I wish I could go back then.

I wish I could capture the view from where I am and share it with you. The harvest moon is beaming down behind me, illuminating the beach, made wider by the low tide. The powder white sand is almost luminescent under the bright light and there isn’t a soul in either direction. I can tell the tide is on its way back in. The waves are louder, more aggressive in their break.

There’s a cloud bank trying to move in from from offshore. It’s a little disorganized, like me, but still managing to show off a brilliant lightning bolt every few moments. For the next few minutes I’ll still be able to make out the stars as they hang in the sky. Perhaps one will fall and give me something to wish on.

The breeze coming off the water is the perfect combatant for the humidity and the heat. It is utterly perfect out here. The seagulls and the pipers do their part to make sure I’m not sleeping while I sit here, eyes closed, listening to the waves break on the shore, music playing lightly out of my phone’s speaker. I have taken nights like these for granted the last three years. I should have done this more often.

Here come the drunk tourists for their nightly walk. They pause in front of me and I wish you were here with me to laugh at them, to drink this bottle of wine, to talk to me about everything, and talk to me about nothing. Part of me is glad you aren’t. I’ve done well this week in spite of your absence. I feel it, but I know I’ll be okay. I know I’ll never need you again just to spite you, but I also know it doesn’t matter. I’m as insignificant to you as the sand I’ll brush from my feet when I walk home. I’m glad you aren’t here to make me feel so little and small.

The clouds are beginning to break around me and the moon is climbing higher in the sky, its bright light obscuring the stars I’m so intent on making sense of. All I can make out are Neptune and Vega. Pegasus, Capricorn, Sagittarius, Hercules…they’re all hidden by the moon’s brightness tonight. I’ll have to remind myself that they’re there, still shining just as brightly, even when I can’t see them.

As You Wish

/ Lesley Rebecca / 2 Comments

HOW WE SAY GOODBYE

I don’t know where either of us will be come Monday. The thought of a world without you in it seems so foreign to me that I don’t see how it’s possible, which could be why the thought of it petrifies me. I don’t have many regrets in life, but I seem to have several that revolve around you and since it might be some time before, or if we see each other again there were a few things I wanted to say.

First, I’m angry. I know you don’t care right now, but I’m angry. We all make mistakes. I know you know that. We also rely on the forgiveness of our friends to learn from those mistakes and become better people. I don’t know that you’ll ever forgive me for stepping out of line this time and I don’t know that I’ll ever forgive you for leaving me to twist in the wind without any idea of what’s happened, but my fury doesn’t negate the friend that you were to me. It just makes saying goodbye to you a little more complicated.

I wish we’d spent more time together. It was fun to go out and run around town, but all I ever wanted was to be deemed special enough to spend time with you. I didn’t need anybody else around. I would have laid in bed reading books with you for days. When you were in a good mood and were enjoying my company it was like being bathed in warm light. On the occasion that I made you laugh, I felt like the funniest, most intelligent woman on earth. I wish we’d spent more time in bed and less time in bars.

I do not regret the moments I spent studying your face or running my hands through your hair. Nor do I regret the number of times I screamed out in ecstasy as you proved over and over again that you could own me whenever and however you wanted. I will always remember every time you gave me a look, made me blush, or stood behind me, whispering in my ear, reminding me that you knew who I belonged to.

I wish we’d finished more of the difficult conversations we started. I don’t know why we both hesitated, but I’d give anything for those moments in deeper conversation than the rehearsed banter we give to everybody else. I know they’re hard to have, but if we’d had one or two on the front end, we would have been on the same page, and things could have been a lot different between us. Every time I’ve lost my cool it has been a direct result of not talking to you about what was on my mind. I take responsibility for that.

Without knowing, you have pushed me to do things I wouldn’t have otherwise. I’ve become better at my crafts and want to be better still. I take them both seriously because of you. I wanted to be one of those people you bragged about knowing in the way that I bragged about knowing you. I still do, even though I’m furious. You are astoundingly talented and I will never stop believing that. Have you ever heard of Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons. I wish I could show you what I think you’re capable of.

I never wanted more than what you were willing to give and I will always be sorry I didn’t try harder to communicate that to you. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have loved more, but neither one of us were ready for anything else and I was happy to take what you offered without issue. Knowing fully that we would never be more than that didn’t make me love you any less.

And I do love you, but you know.

I would have done anything in the world to help you. I would have burned cities to the ground for you, but I will never forgive you for not giving me the chance to say any of this to you, for not giving me a chance to say goodbye, and for giving me one more thing to regret.

Goodbye Seems To Be The Hardest Word

/ Lesley Rebecca / Leave a comment

My friend is going to pass away today. I haven’t seen her in years. Our adventures kept us in different parts of the country, and for her, at times it was a different country. We met when she was a short three-hour drive up the interstate from Nashville in Louisville. She had connected with my technologically savvy friend group through Twitter and came down to visit. I remember admiring her adventurous and independent spirit. I saw a person who reminded me of who I wanted to be.

Over the years we found that we had more in common. We both lived in Texas, were passionate Dallas Cowboys fans, and battled depression. And when I say “battled”, I mean it. Neither one of us ever intended to lose and there was never talk of defeat. She was going to fight it and win. And I knew she would.

She took a job in Curacao the year after I had gone to Key West. Like me, nothing turned out the way she’d planned. She found herself in a similar situation to myself the year before. She might be the only person who knew how hard moving to the Keys was for me. I understood what she was going through on a molecular level. Things aren’t easy when you find yourself that far from home, with no friends, no family. It was a scary and lonely adventure.

Over the last few years, her health was in decline. No matter what was going on, she would still talk about what she was going to do after. Even last week, she was making plans for the things she wanted to do post-recovery. She wanted to travel, see new things, and love. She was forever looking for the next adventure.

Denise was, and is, one of the bravest, kindest, most open and honest souls. I feel like she always knew life was too short for bullshit. From the first day to the last, she remains a person who will always remind me to be me. She may be leaving us today, but she is somebody I’ll carry with me. I will remember her when I’m scared, self-doubting, or wondering which path to take. I will take her on all of my future adventures

January 17, 2009

/ Lesley Rebecca / Leave a comment

It was eight years ago today. I can only easily remember the date and how long it’s been because I was supposed to have gone home to celebrate a friend’s birthday, but had decided to stay a little longer, hoping to go to Obama’s first inauguration. Honestly, I rarely think about it at all anymore. Certainly I think about it much, much less than I did in the year or two after it happened. I suppose another inauguration is what’s making me think about it now. I’m destined to remember this anniversary in four year increments instead of the traditional five, ten, or twenty that usually accompany the survival of some traumatic event and I usually don’t even remember those.

I had gone to DC for the resolution of a court case, the penance for one of my colossal missteps. When everything was resolved I had agreed to go out with friends and celebrate. I wanted to enjoy their company since my frequent trips would now become much more infrequent without a court appearance requiring my presence. I remember the night was fun. I’d stayed soberish for the most part, opting to spend most of the time texting “Emma” whose husband, “Phillip”, was a dear friend as well. Emma had stayed home with their baby and I spent the evening filling her in on the shenanigans of her husband and his friends. We played pool, toasted whatever ridiculous topics came to mind, and I enjoyed being surrounded by witty guys with thick British accents. We walked home, still cracking jokes and laughing.

When we got home Emma and I decided to play a prank on a passed out Phillip. He was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met and was always making jokes or finding ways to make us laugh. On any other night, he would have woken in the morning to find “wanker” written on his forehead in lipstick, a photo of his sleeping face uploaded as his new Facebook profile picture, and he would have laughed and begun devising a way to get back at us. However, this wasn’t that night.

A series of events that unfolded after that that aren’t mine to share. Suffice it to say that there was an argument, the mother of all arguments, really. I had brought the baby into my room at that point, hoping to shield him from whatever was going to transpire down the hall. When I heard Emma screaming my name and that Phillip had a gun, I ran into their room. I didn’t know what I was running into, but when I entered the room Phillip threw himself into the bathroom and held the door closed. I remember screaming, crying, and pushing against the door with everything in me, begging him to come out and put the gun down. Emma, who was about half my size, was standing on the other side of the room watching in horror. I yelled at her to call the police and she snapped out of whatever world she was transfixed in. I was pushing the door hard enough that he couldn’t lock it and with one forceful shove I could see the reflection of his face in the mirror. The gun was in his mouth. I have forgotten a lot of things over the years, but I will never escape the vision of that as long as I live. I dropped to my knees, hoping that if a bullet was fired it wouldn’t come through the door and hit me. I kept pushing against the door, pleading with him, and reminding him of the baby he had sleeping down the hall. I know that couldn’t have gone on for more than a few seconds, but it seemed like forever then and still does now.

The door flew open and I stood up. Phillip took a step toward me and a sense of relief I can’t accurately describe washed over me.

“Emma, get out,” he said, brandishing the Smith & Wesson in her direction. “Lesley, you’re staying with me.”

Thank God, I remember thinking. He wants to talk. Then I noticed the look in his eyes. They weren’t the eyes of the man I knew. Phillip had always been kind and compassionate, but these were the eyes of a man who blamed me for the world he saw crumbling around him and I didn’t know the person behind those eyes. I suddenly understood what “bone chilling” felt like as I realized the gun was pointed at me. Emma was on the phone with the police and closer to the door. I started backing up, away from the person whose life I’d been pleading for a moment ago and realized I should needed to start begging for mine.

“Phillip, you don’t mean this.” I tried staying calm. “You’ve got a son down the hall. Don’t do this.” The tears were welling in my eyes.

“Emma, get out,” he said with more authority as he kept the gun trained on me.

I kept backing toward Emma and the door, each plea out of my mouth becoming a little more desperate. She and I eventually found ourselves backing down the hall side by side. She was still on the phone with the police. The barrel of the gun was getting closer and closer to my face. I kept backing up, trying to buy myself a few more seconds with another plea. I’d always thought that I’d be calm in this sort of situation. I believed without a doubt that I’d be the person that remained composed, but I wasn’t. By the time we were nearing my room I was hysterical and I was imploring him to not to kill me. I was almost out of the hallway and knew I couldn’t bring him into the room where the baby was sleeping. He must have known it, too, because he stopped and pulled the hammer back on the gun with the barrel six inches from my face.

“I fucking said now.” Phillip was gone. In retrospect, I can only surmise that the eyes I was looking into were the eyes of the man that had been deployed to the Middle East twice and had seen things that would have stopped him or any of us from laughing ever again. I watched his finger tighten over the trigger. In that instant I knew I was about to die.

He can’t shoot me in front of her. I don’t want her to live with that. I took a step forward.

“Okay, okay. I’m coming with you.” 

Please God, just let it be quick. Don’t let me suffer. Let him miss so they can save me. I wish I could see my mom again. How much will I feel? Will it hurt as much as I think? A choir of thoughts erupted in my head simultaneously, each one was reminding me of people I could now only hope I’d adequately expressed my affection to.

Emma threw her arm out in front of me. “No!” She’d maintained a calmer demeanor than me, but then there hadn’t been a man with a gun focused on her head for the last several minutes. Phillip wanted her to stay. He blamed me for being the reason she was suddenly threatening to leave him. “The police are here, Phillip,” she said.

I took my eyes off the gun for an instant and could see the blue and red flashing lights illuminating the windows of their bedroom. Please, please come inside and save me. I was panicked imagining him shooting me seconds before they were able to breach the door and get into the house.

Something registered with him and he lowered the gun. Emma was giving him instructions from the police dispatcher and within a moment, he’d walked down the stairs and laid down, face first in the living room floor. He waited for the police while we waited for word that it was safe to come down.

I can honestly say I’ve never been more afraid in my life. I’ve never been so sure that I was about to die, never felt terror consume my body so completely before or since.

In the weeks that followed, I spoke to Emma and I even spoke to Phillip. They’d been two of my best friends for years and I adored them more than I had ever been able to convey to them. Phillip and I had many conversations about that night and I received more than one heartfelt apology from the man that I’d come to know over the years. I’m sure there are more complex issues that helped shape that evening, but I’ll always blame the vast majority of it on combat related PTSD.

I don’t know exactly what happened in the coming months, because Emma eventually disowned me for talking to him and not pushing to press charges that would have seen him deported and separated from a son that I knew he worshiped. They’ve managed to work things out and have another child. I ask a mutual friend about them from time to time and he tells me they’re doing well. In the end I guess the only thing she couldn’t forgive was my forgiving him. Or maybe I’m just a very vibrant reminder of something they’d both like to forget.

I’ve almost forgotten. Not the details, obviously, but I don’t think about it like I did at first, or even a few years later. In the year that followed, I couldn’t handle watching anything on TV or a movie that depicted someone being held at gunpoint. I would start shaking and dissolve into tears. For a couple of years I couldn’t even stand a water gun or a kid with a trigger finger pointed in my direction. Most of that has passed, although discomfort occasionally still creeps up on me.

For a few more years I would still get so angry with him. A few years ago I even sent him an email to an old address I had for him telling him I hated him. Not for what he did to me, but for costing me two of my best friends and the chance to get to know their children. I know they have to think of me, too, from time to time. They wouldn’t have met, dated, or gotten married if I hadn’t been there. I am an integral part of their origination story and they can’t erase me from that. I missed them more than I was mad at him, but with time I’ve come to understand why we can’t be in each other’s lives. There are some things you just don’t come back from.

A few nights ago I dreamt about him for the first time in nearly eight years. I was seated in a small plain room and he walked in, dressed in his military fatigues with a friend. I immediately started to panic and cry, remembering the face of the man that had wanted nothing more than to kill me. As I began to shake and generally come undone, he didn’t speak, but shook his head and looked at me with such remorse that I could feel it across the room. With his eyes he told me he was sorry, that he’d never hurt me, and that I had nothing to fear from him. His eyes told me he was sorry he’d ever done anything to cause me pain and suffering. He was disappointed in himself and worried that people he knew would find out what he’d done. He was ashamed. I know that’s a lot to say without words, but it was my dream.

I guess this is my way of saying that eight years later, I’m okay. It changed me a little, but that’s what scars do. And while I may not ever totally forget what happened that night, I’m not angry and I’ve come to a place of peace and forgiveness. I won’t ever know for sure, but I like to think he’ll stumble across this one day and realize that he’s found it, too.

.38 Special

/ Lesley Rebecca / Leave a comment

I’d say this year has felt like a marathon, but it was more akin to one of those 10k mud races with the insane obstacle courses. Seven trips, two jobs, 700 miles moved, 100+ karaoke songs, one restraining order, two broken hearts, and maybe, what, 10,000 drinks poured? And basically everybody died. I’m serious. George Michael died just after I started writing this. Then I went out for my birthday, came down with the plague, and while I lie in bed for four days, unwilling to do much more than press buttons on my remote, a woman I’ve admired, looked up to, and aspired to be my entire life passed away (That is another post altogether). Then grief took her mother.

Having a birthday at the end of the calendar year has always been interesting in that it’s always given me the gift of reflection on the year as a whole, never broken up by age. It gives my year a sense of closure beyond the date on the calendar. Given that 2017 will mark the beginning of my 38th year, a fresh move, and new job that I’m beginning on January 3rd, I’m hopeful that it will bring rejuvenation and growth. I’ve spent the last part of the year in the dirt, weeding out the garden and clearing out the underbrush so new growth can take root and hopefully soon see the sun.

This year was not an easy one, but eventually it may be looked on as a banner year in my history for having survived it on my own without any major catastrophes in spite of the asteroid field I was dodging most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all bad. I can’t totally complain about a year that saw me living on the beach, visiting Key West and New York twice, watching one brother graduate college and another get married. I was hell bent on enjoying myself in spite of everything around me and that’s something I plan on carrying into 2017 along with some unforgettable moments. There is joy to be had, sometimes you just have to fight a little harder for it.

I’m hopeful for the coming year. I’ve cleared the path and am ready for it to bring good things without tripping over itself and spilling its basket on the ground. Cheers to a magnificent 2017 for all of us and (selfishly) a wonderful 38th year for me.