slowly, endlessly

It has turned cold here. When I wake up, the ground is frozen, frost sparkling in the stiff grass, crystalized fractals on the windows. I sleep fully clothed, curled into the fetal position and don’t wake up until the morning. I dream of things that haven’t happened yet, that will likely never happen. I am shocked when my alarm goes off.

Yesterday I clocked 15 miles on my bike, which is pretty high for the winter time. I bundled up in long underwear, leg warmers, multiple sweaters, gloves, hat, scarf. I rode my bike into inner southeast and then across the bridge over to the west side, where I was handed a granola bar by a man in an orange vest while I waited at a stoplight. I ended my journey at PSU, where I met with a graduate school advisor to talk about different programs I might be interested in. We talked about my education, my professional experience, all the volunteer work I’ve done in Portland. She is bright-eyed and hopeful. "We have over 70 programs—surely there is one that is right for you," she tells me, but really I want someone to tell me whether it’s worth it. Whether I need graduate school to begin with, if it’s a good idea. She suggests everything from English lit ("You could be an adjunct professor!" she says.) to theater and film school to public administration. I tell her I am concerned about finding a job, that I want to be marketable. Either way, she encourages me to keep working while I attend graduate school, which is incredibly disappointing to me. I don’t want to keep working. That’s the whole point. 

I leave feeling defeated, knowing that I naively hoped this meeting would somehow enlighten me, set me on a course toward a different future. And of course it doesn’t. I feel skeptical, no more certain of what I should be doing than when I arrived. I bike to the IPRC, climb the stairs to the loft, and lie down on the couch up there with my laptop to apply for jobs. It is warm in the loft, much warmer than the rest of the warehouse, and I am very sleepy. But I do not sleep, just look at endless websites of different nonprofits in Portland, thinking about what I could be doing, what I want to be doing. I apply to one job and spend a lot of time looking for pages that eventually tell me "There are no job openings at this time." 

Lastly I bike over to ADX, another ‘maker space’ in Portland where you can become a member and use things like laser-cutters and circle saws and machinery to make things. I go by myself but see lots of people I know there as soon as I walk in. "Portland is such a small town, I feel like I know everyone," I think to myself for the millionth time. People from various sectors of my life converge in this one space, for this one evening, where the whole point is to get together and make things. I draw in my sketchbook for the first time in too long, a picture of me lying on a couch applying to jobs and riding my bike. I talk with people I don’t know well but whose faces are super familiar. I listen to an on-stage interview of one of my friends and am completely inspired by her. 

Afterwards, I pack up my pannier and bike home in the crystal cold. Even though it is (literally) freezing, it has been sunny all day and the night air is clear. I am not tired anymore, but my heart feels heavy. I miss Eric with every fiber of my being, every bone in my body. I feel like crying. I feel like I want to disappear. I feel like I want to ride my bike forever, until I am far far away. In one week it will have been three months since we made the decision to separate our lives, to detangle our selves. It feels like so long ago when we sat on the back porch together, breaking up in the summer heat, listening to the raccoons chatter in the darkness, while I cried and cried. It feels like the four years we spent together went by in a flash, the blink of an eye, while these past three months have dragged on slowly, endlessly, painfully long. It all feels wrong. Everything feels wrong. 

I get home and put my bike in the shed, pulling the rusty doors closed. My roommate gets home at the exact same time as me, and we meet in the kitchen as I unwrap myself, folding my scarf, removing my gloves. I retreat to my room and watch the latest episode of the Daily show before I go to sleep, and I am surprisingly OK, just cold. I wrap myself up in my comforter the best I can, leaving a little space around my nose to breathe, and I am asleep within minutes.