It's pouring rain and my backpack is full of strawberry kefir.
I think when we decided to take a break,
you took half my brain with you.

Kefir is a delightful crossbreed of Yop and Perrier. Creamy sublingual fireworks. A single tablespoon is sufficient to send a conga line of 5 billion probiotic bacteria boogying through your innards. But like most things I enjoy, I cannot successfully covet in small, measured portions. Which is why I went for the litre in the first place.

I imagine your face as I rinse my strawberry saturated belongings and imagine the microscopic bacterium hoopla happening between my fingers (you would laugh at my conga line comparison, because you are one of the world's only people who knows how much I truly despise conga lines).

Oh God, the water is just diluting the yogurt. It has become the great Sea of Kefir.

You would have the solution to this. When it comes to logic, you manage to beat me every time without ever making me feel intellectually inferior.

But I need to figure these things out for myself.

Luckily my other groceries were sealed in plastic:
-chia seeds
-goji berries
-cacao nibs
-wheatgrass

These were spared.

As you can see, since we have decided to embark on our own paths for a while, I have tried to be "HEALTHY!". The bathroom is a small library of moth-bitten self-help books (Thanks, Mom) and my bedtime is close enough to twilight to high-five the sun on its way down.
I've started to work out again with a little more addiction than conviction or even common sense.
And because you aren't here to regulate me, I've busted my knees (aaaa-gaaaain.)

And all notwithstanding, as I wandered down 13th avenue with my organic Hippie super-loot, feeling very smug and self-possessed in my birkenstocks, I passed by my favourite breakfast joint, and my kale-fertilized stomach was very persuasive: No, I insist.

Proceeded to savour three enormous pancakes that I could have stitched together to form a roomy buckwheat overcoat. Drowned them with a 3pm coffee. I thought nothing of it, but after all we've been through when it comes to food, you would have been so proud of me, babe. When I admit that I've got a broken heart (-darling, I know I broke my own) people are far too kind to me. 110 minutes and three sacks of flour later I float in a sweet gluten haze from my free (and freeing) lunch back to my apartment.

Which is when I discover the Sea of Kefir.

I think I'm trying too hard.

I think, really, the Art of Becoming One Whole Person isn't so much about us becoming the Perfect People we've always wanted to be. That's not why we strapped a hundred helium balloons to our otherwise incredible relationship and tearfully waved as it disappeared over the horizon. I think it's really about just learning how to regulate ourselves.

Here's one Truth: We will never, ever be perfect. And we will never find our perfection in each other. We have to let that go. We have to stop fighting against the invisible standards we create in each other.

But we can get over ourselves enough to be Pretty Great.
Just make peace with the Pretty Great folks we are. Have the 3 pancake- sore knee- kefir backpack afternoons, and still feel Pretty Great.

And when we do, I think our relationship will feel Pretty Great, too.

Because I'd rather be able to remind myself that I'm Pretty Great,
than rely on you to convince me I'm Perfect.

Yikes, there it is.

So that's my homework. It's full of errors, and there are countless agitated holes worn through by pink erasers, self-doubt, and heartache.

But I know, darling- that by the end of this, you'll give me a sticker-

(and by then I wont need it)

I'll put it right next to the one I've given myself.

the hardest surgery is the one you perform on yourself.
Steady?
Ready?
No anesthesia but a chuckle of nervous humor
the first incision across your heart.


When you finish (many months later)
you put the scalpel down, wave weakly
to the clapping colleagues hugging each other in disbelief
from the observatory, sterile and eager
you give them a wan grin
and hope they've watched closely
so that now they know how...
how to do this.

At twenty-something, I was taught by Fear
who said nothing matters
and then at twenty-something-else I was taught by Faith
who said anything matters
And she wasn't the Sunday kind of Faith that you find
clasped between your palms, clasped like you're afraid
that if you let go the Faith will just tumble out and break.
No, she was the Faith that was bigger than God and so intimate
that sometimes I was the Faith, sometimes you were the Faith,
and sometimes the Faith was me.
So really, Faith doesn't have a name.
But Faith and Fear, they both breathe, they're each lung
and when I fill one, the other billows, after all
you need two to breathe.

And so then I, feeling bold, learned about Bravery.
I had heard about it in newspapers and history book indexes
and in our local volunteer firefighters.
Wondered if I could buy it.
Wondered how much it goes for.
But I couldn't find Brave until the moment I gave up on it
and said, ***** it, I'm so scared but I don't care anymore,
I'll just do it, Brave be ******.  
And surely enough, it was hiding beneath the tremors.
So really, Brave was the Siamese twin of I'll Just Do It.
which, by the way, wasn't in the glossary of this or any history book.

Everything changes, you know?
I'm changing, you're changing.
Oh, it storms me like the sea!
I secretly raise my glass to stasis, my faraway frenemy.
Don't tell the other Sagittarians, they'd exile me surely.
Change, letting go of my old faces
feels too close to dying,
feels too close to leaving you behind.

And I'm not ready to leave you behind.

Oh the West, keep your Mountains.
If only for a little longer.

I've excised my soul again and again
transplanted and sutured
but there's just no time.

Even with these visions from under the knife-
there's just no time to heal
before I'm laid on the table again.

Faith hold me-
Fear teach me
so I can...

Steady.

Please- stay with me.

*Ready?