This is a holding space for tonight. To be continued.
Tonight is a full moon and I am starting to wonder what I will do for it. I have some candles. I have jars for water. But I don’t have the purpose just yet. Forgiveness would be nice but I don’t really feel I can ask for that. The thing about forgiveness I wish my mom would have known is that you’re entitled to not giving it out.
It would have kept the person who assaulted me from standing outside my bedroom door years later, that’s for sure.
…
I keep playing our last phone conversation in my head. Wishing I had recorded it.
“I wish you had taken me into consideration.”
“I’ve never seen you like that.”
“I probably won’t reach out again”
The last time I blacked out from drinking, I realized I was queer and I wanted to live alone. That was 2 years ago. I never thought it would happen again. I didn’t grab water. The next thing I knew I had my head in the toilet. The purse was forgotten at the bar. I asked the girl I went with if she could tell me what happened. She never responded.
The next flash of memory I am on a stool in a kitchen and a loop is playing in my head: “it’s so bad Sarah you gotta get home. You gotta get home.” I realize that I’m also alone. And that I also probably smell. I focus.
I can do this.
You need to leave.
It’s so bad, girl.
Count to three.
Talking myself down to take care of myself is something I’m good at. I don’t want to be so good at this, at crisis management alone. But after all, I was the one that did this.
Did you know the nape of your hair in the back if it’s really nappy is called “the kitchen?” I’ve asked my ex-partner to shave mine after I’ve cut his hair. Grab the little coils and naps that peek out under my wigs. “It’s a Black thing,” I told him.
I apologize to everyone the next morning, but maybe that wasn’t enough. I want to try again but I don’t want to make anything else worse for her. More awkward.
I hate not remembering. But, here I am. I poured out all of my alcohol at home. I told my therapist I was curious about my relationship with alcohol. That I could focus on special occasions. That it’s possible.
“People do this from time to time. Especially if they’re having a bad night or week. So what’s wrong?”
Everything. I told her about the end of my relationship. That I picked a day for it. That the voice in my head telling me empty feels good was louder and louder and it won that day. That I need to try harder to know people. That chatting with people would come easier if I had another.
I called my friend that same morning and he said,
“I wish I could have been there.”
I read my old things. I remember writing:
“The worst thing that could happen is that she stops talking to me. Everything outside of that feels like luck, you know?”
He smiled because he knew how I felt. About wanting to have moments with people while we’re still here on earth. The lucky ones who are still breathing.
So now that the worst has happened, what do I do? I’m hurting and maybe there is no “doing”. It’s just sitting. I keep hurting the person I care about. It’s hard to write that.
My brain, when it’s not looping the call, the moment where my memory skips, or the back of the Lyft, is quiet.
Tonight I will host a queer open mic. I feel empty but happy. The thing I’ve wanted so long, to belong and to share that sense with others in a creative way, is happening. Whitney has always treated me like a creative and has been a big reason why I believe that. That I am one.
There is a Halloween party I’ll help host. I was indirectly invited to another but I’m no longer going. My fear is that I have lost friends before I made them true friends that night, but I am learning to look fear in the face.
I can’t bear to read the emails again but I do it anyway. With coffee. And a smoke. 9 hours until I need to get ready.
I am speechless.
We thought we might only have 13 people in the space. Our signup list stagnated at 4 out of 8. I woried. I was stone cold sober and my shyness crept around me like a veil. Whitney, who’s invincible, got our featured artists chatting while I was trying to come out of my shell.
And then,
The fucking heavens opened and people poured in. We had to grab more chairs (!) I perked up and had one beer and lots of water. People performed things for the first time. A hip hop artist got up and did several songs, one about a sneaky link, doing a duck walk at points. He thanked us for having a queer space. Other people thanked me for the night.
I am buzzing. I feel impossibly expansive and held. I feel like I have been waiting for this moment. This opportunity to help others feel seen and heard in a queer space that I have never felt before.
I met internet friends for the first time. I got advice on how to honor an Aeries full moon. My name is Rainn but fire feels sacred to me, so I will save any thing with burning for the Sagittarius full moon. Tonight. Just tonight.
I held firm to boundaries. I told my partner that if he wants to stay in chicago, if he wants this with me, that’s fine but I’m living alone. I’m not confident that things will work out, or if this is the push he/we needed to overcome the stagnation in our relationship but I’m not choosing my happiness as a second option ever again.
My casual partner surprised me with a giant care package and flowers. A new friend said they felt mesmerized by my reading. People from Lex came up to say hello.
It was everything I needed and more. I am dizzy from the 180 from despair and crying until my head hurts to feeling like the sun is in my chest.
I am so impossibly happy.
