Dust Settles Over Wyoming.

A small black bear ran out in front of my Jeep last night on my way home from class. It almost looked like a monkey the way it ran with its long skinny arms. It went swiftly into the woods after crossing and I wanted to pull over and watch it but there was a car behind me and I didn’t want to cause an accident. The beauty of it made me cry if only because it reminded me of BFF and because we chased a bear encounter our whole lives. And the fact that those animals are somehow tied to us forever. Like nothing else can be tied to you except a soulmate. A best friend. A person that understands your life experience in an almost microscopic, one-sided way, support-you-no-matter-what blindness. Black bears.

The truth is that I knew I was renovating my room for a reason. But it all never seemed so final. It all seemed happy and exciting to de-wallpaper the lilac from my life. Take out the lilac carpeting that has been stained by a black and white puppy named Spike, who stole my heart at age 12 and after that had to wear piddle pants through the night. The ink cartridge that I inexplicably shook and splattered black across the white walls because I thought there was nothing left inside. The red, now-pink, pen that I wrote the initials of the boy I was in love with in, 4^th or was it 5^th grade? The notebooks that I kept from junior high study hall with names I don’t even remember in it. The dust. The past me. The younger me. The field hockey stick in the blue and gold high school bag. The flute in the black case. The photo albums. The passport. The mardi gras beads when I have never been to mardi gras. The necklace of an old boyfriend who taught me that I was so beautiful I could make an older man nervous. The unbelievable amount of dust on my past life.

It’s Official: It’s Break Up Season. First it was Britney and Kevin, the who-didn’t-see-it-coming-failure of Jaim/Josh, then the shock of VT Jay and Jaime, those folks from work who tell me all about their kids’ 6+ years failed relationships, Bri and Alexia’s de-coupling and re-coupling, then… I found myself in the middle of what I’d like to call: the black abyss. Last night, driving home to my mom’s house, I felt like I didn’t know where I was going even though my mom’s house has stood in the same place for over 27 years. I just couldn’t see that far in front of my Jeep – and it wasn’t tears. It wasn’t anything but this feeling of… how do you describe it? A crushing gut check that emits a billion questions all at once while your brain feels like its going to implode? Sound about right?

It was a silence that can best be explained with the blasting music of Roger Water’s live version of “Comfortably Numb.” Not that I was numb exactly. I just felt – everything all at once which of course equals out to nothing at all. You know the feeling. When the sounds of everything blurs in your brain and is so loud that it’s almost normally, quiet.

Other things you should know:

I don’t want to talk about it.

I’m fine. Almost relieved actually to have finally made good on something.

I need my friends to keep me sporty and happy. Golf. Tennis. Mountain biking. Kayaking. Hiking. Sign up sheets in my office. You all have to take turns.

I require my Sephora shipment before the wkd to really set me over the top in emotional bliss.

I woke up to the coldest, wettest wet nose of my life. And it made me happy to be home. I find that wherever I go, whatever happens in my life – I’m always happy to see that nose.

Thank you for my life, friends. My amazing, lucky life. I’m a better person because of all of you.

I’m off to go buy some Pledge.