On Cohabitation

Too much stress to blog. Will leave you with this...


Nation's Girlfriends Unveil New Economic Plan: 'Let's Move In Together'

Zero to... that L word... in no time

Today my dad asked me if Rachel and I were moving in together. Wow, EVERYONE knows about about the crazy gays moving fast, huh? We're not. But the thought certainly has crossed my mind. Because, well, smitten. And who doesn't want to save $600 a month?

Today I also found out that my former babysitter/nanny-like person's daughter is living with her girlfriend. Rock on.

"My Heart You Won't Have It Again" / Postmortem

I was not unphased by the date of May 6th. The date that would have been Philip's and my six-year anniversary. Six. Years. And now we don't speak.

His presence in my life was profound and, in many ways, positive - give or take March through July of 2008 - and I have been changed. I've written ad nauseum about this. But, when this day will always remind me of the good, allow me just this one more post.

Its possible that no other person has been so influential in my life. But I like who I am much more now than I did last July, or, honestly, at any point last year. In fact, I may even LOVE who I am now. I am me without you. Many parts of me, though, stem from your influence. This Ashley still digs indie music and jazz. This Ashley dragged her girlfriend to see Wolverine opening weekend and is even pysched to see the new Star Trek movie. She's a Buffy fan, albeit a late bloomer.

Aside from a shift in media tastes, I am also a more guarded person - there I learned by example - and do not open my mouth to whine immediately when something is bothering me. I'm bitchier. Or, maybe more direct is the PC way to say it. In any case, its a good development in my personality.

I've learned that it takes a lot of time and effort to make a real relationship work. And even if you sometimes feel its time wasted, its worth it even in the smallest ways. I tried harder to be my best self in that relationship than I ever did at my fulltime job or trying to pass Calculus. And Calculus was seriously tough.

Sometimes I still can't believe that I spend an ounce of my energy analyzing a relationship that was officially over nine months ago (and even longer to one of us). I've mourned signifcantly - perhaps too significantly - the loss of the future I had tried to built, that I thought I wanted. But the process has grown tremendously easier and I've come out of it having learned better who I am, what I can accept and what I need to keep me going.

I Used to Complain, Now I Don't

I complain a lot about living and working in New York. Some may say more than I should. I know its often looked upon as a privilege to live here, and perhaps, it is. But there's not a lottery to live here or anything. You just go. Make it happen. But, since I never really imagined living anywhere else post-college, I see it as less of a choice, I suppose. It's just where I was always going. Now, of course, I imagine living somewhere else all the freaking time.

So, now that I'm here, I complain. You probably complain about where you live, too. Don't be hatin'.

But sometimes I still really love it. One of those times occurred on Friday evening. I was riding to my apartment on the subway with the lovely Rachel, and, unfortunately, I felt terrible. I was not feeling like myself all day because of some enchanted evening before, my dinner had not settled well, and I was PMSing. I was a disaster and contemplated getting off the train and sleeping in the subway station until I felt better. I felt that bad. Just, you know, BAD. Then, somewhere around 36th Street in Brooklyn -- almost to the promised land where I had a bed! and a bathroom! and Tylenol! -- the woman listening to her ipod across the aisle from me and Rachel offered me a brownie from her 100 calorie pack. She leaned over and said, "Would you like a brownie? Brownies always make me feel better." I nearly cried because, WHO DOES THAT?!? First of all, she's totally right -- brownies DO make everything better. And secondly, it was just the nicest thing, um, ever. Unfortunately I did not take her up on her offer for fear that I would vomit the brownie on her. Not a very polite way to say thank you. But, wow, such a generous thing to do. I mean, she WAS eating a 100 calorie Entemann's so, really, it probably only had two brownies in it. And she offered me one! Because I felt obviously terrible! And that would make me better!

And it was a magical New York subway moment and I loved it. Exclamation points!

* My post title is a very fun song by The White Rabbits, by the way. You should know them. They are from Brooklyn like other cool people.

Go Team!

Since so much of this blog has been discussing a failed relationship, I'd be amiss if I didn't share about my new and, so far, very successful one. (With permission, of course.)

When I first started dating again, I was both anxious and hesitant to consider a new relationship. But, I am a relationship person. And I knew, for as much anxiety as I had about dating, especially dating in New York, I had to do it again. First, I thought it unlikely that I would find someone I would really like. I would constantly complain to the BFFs that I would NEVER find someone who favors home to a bar on a Friday night, let alone that person plus an adoration of my sparkling wit, desserts and sleeping on the right side of the bed. There was NO WAY that person existed AND didn't live in New Jersey. My friends reassured me that someone I could like did exist, even if the person wasn't exactly who I was anticipating.

The person I happened to find is a she. And she is awesome.

When I first discussed the idea of me dating girls in therapy, my therapist was surprised. Which I thought odd because she knew I had an interest. She claimed she just didn't expect I would try it. Because, apparently, I come off as uber straight? Hmmm... So we discussed; I agonized.

And then I met Rachel. And it became easy.

There are many qualities about her that I admire and adore. But one in particular pairs so well with me. Rachel is, by far, the most supportive person I've ever encountered. And while she will claim that she can be lazy, she's my cheerleader, my friend and support. We say "go team!" to each other as a silly form of support. But I find it motivating. She motivates me. So much so I even left my apartment last Saturday. She's THAT good.

For the first time in a very, very long time, it is blatantly obvious to me that the significant person in my life really cares about me. Even if she never told me, I know that she wants to make me happy and fulfilled. And I, her.

Of course I still have considerable anxiety about dating within the same sex. I am me after all and anxiety is kind of my middle name.

She is my epilogue to what had been a very tumultuous story.

On a hysterical side note: My entire office smells like syrup. Payback for a sickenly sweet post?

All About My Mother

This morning, on the first day I was permitted to sleep in past 5:30am all week, my stepfather calls and wakes me at 7:55am. To ask me where his and my mother's tax return was. BECAUSE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO ARRIVE TODAY. I HAD TOLD THEM TODAY. APRIL 24TH. THAT'S TODAY! Where the fuck was it? And, naturally, I was the only person who could answer this question. At 8am on the only morning I could sleep in all week.

I did my parents' taxes for them this year. I was able to get them a larger refund than last year, and I felt incredibly accomplished. I know that they are counting on this money to catch up on bills, and, rather than me contributing my own money to help them make ends meet, I was able to help them in another way.

My relationship with my mother and stepfather has changed quite a bit in the last year or so, and I am grateful. I feel more comfortable when I travel back to my hometown to see the family because not only do I witness them all actually trying to make their family work, but I've adjusted my expectations on them as well.

I still don't know where their tax return is, though.

I Walk the Line

Since being diagnosed with chronic depression, I feel like much of my life is spent walking a fine line. The line between light and dark. This is a line that I’ve straddled for a very long time, but it’s only recently that I had a medical term to associate with it.

Thankfully, because of a medication that works for me and my own efforts to improve my daily life, I’ve been pretty firmly planted on the light side of the line for a few months. I haven’t had even more than a dark day since the new year began. I’m extremely grateful to the people in my life who have supported me during this time. I’m grateful to me, too. To the part of myself that is well enough to recognize when to ask for help in getting through a difficult few hours or difficult few days. I’m not embarrassed to ask for help. I’m not ashamed that I need medication to help my brain cope with life. I know that the stigma of mental illness has lifted considerably in the last few years, but it’s not gone. But, I’d rather be alive with the assistance of medication and talk therapy than having succumbed to my depression without it.

Since I am so open to talking about my experience and my current state of wellness, certain members of my family have judged my decision to accept the help of medication. I often ask if they were diagnosed with a serious illness that required daily doses of chemicals to be well – diabetes, for example – would they refuse it? Probably not. So, in my opinion, why should I suffer because of my brain chemistry?

Walking the line can feel like taking on a balance beam or navigating a wide river. Lately, I can do it with ease most days. Other days, it’s impossible not to feel like I am going to fall at any moment.

Often the hardest part of walking the line is getting out of bed in the morning. I still have nightmares frequently – sometimes several nights per week – that force me to relive some of the experiences and emotions that got me to my lowest point last fall. Those nightmares can be so fresh in the morning that I’m afraid to put my feet on the floor for fear that I will walk back into those months of paralyzing emotional and physical pain. So I have a choice to make – allow the darkness to take hold or fight it off. Some mornings it is as easy of a choice as it seems to be. I have the ability to make the positive, healthy decision to remind myself that it was just a nightmare and that time is over now. Other mornings, though, it does not feel like a choice. As much as the healthy part of me wants to fight it, it can consume me and I live the day as I would have months ago. Scared. Sad. Dejected.

One of the most interesting aspects of coping with walking this line is that, very often, when I am standing on one side of the line, I find it difficult to remember being on the other side. When I’m in the light, I can feel so good, so positive, and so content that my brain will not allow me to remember anything else. The flip side of that, of course, is that when I am in the dark, I am consumed, too. And not being able to remember what its like to feel good can only make the slip into depression last longer.

But now that I have had such a positive experience over the last few months, why would I want to remember feeling the weight of my depression? Sometimes I don’t. But occasionally, I have a strange, overwhelming desire to recall how I completed even the most basic tasks of the day. At this moment, I don’t remember how I got myself up, dressed and to work for much of last summer and fall. I had refused medication and spent nearly all of my non-work hours alone in my apartment crying. I remember the crying. Always with the crying. I also remember watching a lot of House as a method of escape. Hugh Laurie was oddly comforting. But I really don’t know how I physically went to work and completed any assignments. I was on autopilot. More than just wanting to satisfy my own curiosity, I think being able to remember how I accomplished these things could be beneficial to me next time I backslide.

Of course, I had been depressed several times before my most recent episode. And, actually, I think that the reason my last was so severe and last for so long was because I had nothing and no one to focus on but myself. In my case, misery certainly loves company. For three years, I lived with someone—someone who had the capacity to be wonderful, caring and giving—who spent many years very depressed with little to no relief. And instead of me feeling consumed with my own depression during that time, I usually focused on his. I tried to make light of it at times – everything’s always harder for you, isn’t it? – but I usually felt that question to be true. And, for a while, my capacity to put him and his condition first probably saved us both from being committed or worse.

It wasn’t until my father was sent into a war zone and I prayed – I actually prayed even though I didn’t know who or what I was praying to – for him to come home safely that I began to resent his depression usurping mine. Even though our relationship went on for years after my father returned home in relatively good health, hindsight tells me that was my breaking point. I would be able to overlook most of the other girls and the silly arguments and “wanting different things,” but I would always remember how alone and helpless I felt when my father was fighting a war. He was walking a line in one of the most dangerous places in the world, and I was afraid to step outside.

I’ve learned so much about what I need from a partner and a relationship from that experience. I wish, though, I had learned to forgive. That may always hold me back from being vulnerable, particularly when I’m experiencing an episode of depression, to someone I love again.

But I certainly do not underestimate how crucial it is to have supportive people around me when I am in the dark and even just walking the line. Everyone from my closet friends to the person who smiled at me crossing Sixth Avenue to my coworker/friend who was the only one who remembered the day that could have been my darkest. I am standing on the bright side of the line now.


***

Ed. Note: The above post is the first of a series of personal essays about depression that I've been working on. I'd love to hear any and all feedback you have to share. Really! You can even tell me I'm an asshole. Although I'd appreciate something a bit more constructive than that.

Hey, I know YOU!

Everyone in my biological immediate family now knows that I have a girlfriend.

I told my dad in person yesterday. After picking me up at the train station, he took me to lunch and said, "so what's up?" Funny you should ask... I said that I had something I wanted to discuss with him. He asked if I was pregnant. He's now the fourth person to ask me that. Is there something about me that screams I'm a slut who opposes safe sex? Then he asked if I was engaged? To whom, exactly, I wondered? Then I told him. And he was quiet. He asked if I was happy. I told him I was. After an uncomfortable tangent into "sexual realtions," as he called them, we moved onto discussing the quality of our lunches. Where every good father/daughter conversation should lead. He said he wanted some time to let it sink in.

A few hours later, driving me to my mother's house, he said, "this may sound strange, but I think I knew." I asked what he meant, and he said that it just made sense. I'd always been accepting and open and... he said something else that I can't quite remember now.

And I thanked him for seeing more to me than just what was on the surface. I had thought it would be my mother, but my father never ceases to surprise me. He knows me better than I expect him to. He's always been the parental figure in my life. Necessary. Supportive. Honest. I didn't even think my dad would know what bisexual meant.

Thanks, Dad. I feel much better now.