4. Walk with No Plan, End Up at The Grotto

I didn't actually plan my "first" this time.  It started in my chest,  a feeling so compelling that I almost mistook it for determination.  Determination it was not, however, but a broken heart desperate to find a distraction.  I knew I had to get out of the house, but didn't want to eat, didn't want to drink, and couldn't stop weeping.  I grabbed a book and my writing tablet, stuffed earbuds into my ears, and put the iPod on shuffle, hoping that an idea of where to go would come to me.

An honest picture of me being sad... and having a bad hair day.

And I walked, and I walked.  I knew I needed to walk until I didn't feel this pain anymore.  I found myself on Sandy, one of the top two ugliest streets in Portland, but the pain wasn't going anywhere, so I continued to walk.  I let my robot brain go to work on the processing of those repetitive thoughts, he always let me get my way, which proves that he is a better person than me.  He never understood me, our values were just too different...  I looked up and realized that I'd walked forty blocks and it felt like just the beginning.  I was still crying, but had also begun singing loudly, and continued to do so even as I passed the open doors of Asian grocery stores and gritty strip clubs.  The music continued to play, If I had a heart I could love you, and I just kept walking.

Sandy Blvd

Breakups: so ordinary.  sigh...  Such an ordinary source of extraordinary pain.  Like the quotidian sunset, they are an everyday and common human experience, yet indescribable in their emotional intensity.  How do you describe "broken"?

The Grotto

And I kept walking until I ended up at 84th and Sandy, at The Grotto, where I called on Trina to rescue me and I cried some more with her.  She always has a way of setting me straight.  I'm too hard on myself.  I will be happy.  It's natural to grieve. It's okay to be sad.  It's okay to miss him. It's not my fault that we weren't right for each other, in fact it's awesome that we could admit this and walk away from each other peacefully and lovingly.  Then she fed me a beer and a VooDoo Doughnut and you know what?  That pain loosened its grip on my heart just a little bit!  Trina dropped me off at home.  The sun was out and I walked some more, this time with Ralgh by my side.  Then I took a shower, crawled into bed, and fell asleep by 8:30.  Things are going to be okay.