7. Don't Talk for a Whole Day

Born with the gift of gab, I was.  There's just so many things happening all the time that are worth sharing!  Look around you.  Look inside.  Look underneath.  Listen.  Feel.  We're so immersed in sensations: physical, emotional, auditory, visual - shouldn't we be relating these wonderful and terrible things to each other?

I think I talk to bridge the gap between myself and other people.  We people tend to keep our relationships superficial, especially during the beginning stages.  We limit our conversations to our occupations and our pets, which, mind you, is a perfectly acceptable way to start.  But I want to know you and I want you to know me, the real me.  The real me leaves her job at work when she clocks out.  The real me explores feelings and asks lots of questions.  The real me has a lot of demands of the world and ideas that run so so much deeper than the average conversation goes.  I think most people can say the same, so why are we being so... secretive?  I think that if I share some of those deeper thoughts with you, maybe you'll feel safe enough to share a little more of yourself with me.

We have to talk about things which are important to us, so we can evolve as a society.  We have to talk about the funny stuff so we can have a little laugh in this crazy stressful world.  We have to talk about the meaningless stuff just to pass the time on a hot day.  We have to talk about sexy men just to make sure we all agree!

On Friday, I accepted a challenge to not speak for the whole day.  I made it all the way until 4:00.  I was silent through my visit to the grocery store, when the cashier tried to start a conversation only to be met with silence and miming.  I was silent at the gas station, when the attendant asked me what I wanted and I could only point.  Both of these people thought I was deaf, I think, because after they realized I couldn't talk they looked me right in the eye and enunciated very well, moving their lips clearly just in case I needed to read them.  Which I found to be very sweet.  I could hear though.  Just couldn't, no, wouldn't, talk.

The story of my failure isn't a very interesting one, I'm afraid.  Of course, I'm going to tell you anyway.  We've already established that I'm a sharer and this shall be no exception!  When I fell off the wagon, I simply forgot that I was on a wagon and began my normal chatter with Ralgh.  It was exclamations of joy over making it to the Oregon coast, mixed with disciplinary commands, mixed with questions.  Yes, tons of questions.  "Do you want some water, Ralgh?"  "Are you a good boy, Ralgh?"  "Do you want to go for a walk, Ralgh?"  A half an hour into our gabfest, I interrupted, "Shit!  I failed!"  And Ralgh totally didn't care.

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.