It’s spring in Boston. The tree outside our house is finally unfurling tiny white blossoms, and today thousands of people ran the marathon. Today Laura texted me a video of my nephew cheering on runners from the sidelines and she reminded me of my worst Marathon Monday to date.
Six years ago, it was raining on Marathon Monday and the person I was dating was running.1 Just the day before, he asked me to meet him halfway through the course to hand off dry sneakers and a change of clothes partway through the race. I felt like I had no choice but to say yes, even though it was a hassle and he waited until right before to ask.2 I felt like I had no choice but to say yes, even though I knew I no longer wanted to be with him.
So I did it, resentfully.
In the morning I took the commuter rail to one of the stops west of the city and waited dutifully in the rain, tracking him until he came through the section where I was waiting. He changed his shoes and shirt and continued on his way. Later, after he was out of sight, I took an Uber until I could get close enough to take the Red Line the rest of the way, to meet him at the finish line.
He was surprised when I got to Copley Square. He wasn’t expecting me, and I watched as he tried to make his face look the way your face should look when you see someone you think you should love. We were very good at going through the motions.
Later we sat in the nurses station at the hospital where he worked, and waited as one of his friends set him up with an IV for dehydration. If this sounds like it would be against the hospital rules, yes, I agree. In fact it was against the rules, and later would be part of the justification for firing him from the hospital.3 The next day, I ended it, and felt relieved.
The whole thing is just kind of puzzling to me now. I remember feeling very angry at the time — ruthless rage, the kind that little kids experience, fists balled, the anger that hits you at your sternum and radiates to the tips of your fingers. I was so irritated at him for assuming that I would do his bidding, even while I did exactly what he asked. My own culpability in the whole situation was invisible to me.
Saying no to him in the months after we broke up was when I began to understand the freedom that comes with good boundaries.
I have been feeling a little peevish, a bit resentful and irritated. Not at anyone or any one thing, just in general (somehow worse?!). Easily annoyed. A bad humor!4
Of course there are many reasons to be angry5 but I don’t want my resentment at the world to calcify into something I can’t work with and shape into something more useful. And of course, as with everything, there are ways that I’m contributing.
Am I baseline doing the things that keep me functioning? Mostly.
Am I keeping good boundaries around the things that I can’t control? Not so much.
I am still in better shape in this regard than I was in 2018, but how annoying to be reminded that there’s always room for improvement. Growth. Ugh. What boundaries are you working on?
The Sew Zone
Since last I wrote I have successfully deconstructed and hacked my Zero Waste dress into the beloved #peppermintwrapskirt and yet another Romy top!
I’m really loving the top-secret quilt I’m working on!! The quilt reveals itself to me with each passing day! I can’t wait to share!
Consuming
Reading
Here After by Amy Lin, an absolute stunner of a grief memoir
The Lost City of Z by David Grann. Interesting!
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
I think I want to reread War and Peace?!?
Watching
Arrival — whew picked this one over the weekend, first time rewatching it. I have to go back and reread The Story of Your Life which it’s based on. I still love this movie so much.
Listening
Lingering by Allegra Krieger — I heard this song for the first time last week and I immediately had to check out the album.
xoxo
mvp
Not my boyfriend! He was never my boyfriend. Someone who could only tell me he loved me after we had stopped dating, a whole separate topic.
This change of plans necessitated a new iPhone, an iPhone 8 that is now in need of replacing.
A detail that I only know because, even after I asked him to please stop contacting me, he contacted me.
I have to apologize to the two creatures who live with me, only one of whom reads this newsletter because the other is a cat
Genocide, pandemic, eugenics, climate change, capitalism, etc etc pick your poison