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this period of time has felt comparable to December 2021 when i first got sober.
for those who are new around here, back in 2021: after being trapped in a car while my ex-fiancé was in the throes of weed induced psychosis, i crash-landed back home in LA days before Christmas. i moved in with my parents, ended an engagement, and got sober in a matter of days. my life changed at the speed of light and i wailed at the flip of a switch.
this time, though: i’m not the shitstorm, but i faced one. there were absolutely meltdowns and breakdowns, no doubt. but they were (semi) warranted. however, the difference between now and December 2021: the volatility of each newfound situation was not coming from within. it was just life happening on life’s terms.
tldr; i moved back home from Minnesota. we drove cross-country with a car full of our belongings, we got engaged, and then we found out my cat is in congestive heart failure.
Thursday, March 14, 2025
we were supposed to leave Minnesota that day. but packing up and cleaning our apartment proved more difficult than we initially thought. on day three of our move, two U-Haul pods full of our belongings had been picked up and were en route to Los Angeles. we were left trying to shove the stragglers into the back of our 2024 Subaru: four suitcases, a ceramic duck lamp, a few pieces of art, an electric tea kettle and a french press, miscellaneous shoes. i had convinced T we needed to get an overhead storage compartment, just in case everything couldn’t fit in the car. and so, before 7 am, before we even got to our apartment, we had stopped by Menards, Home Depot, and finally U-Haul, where we finally found an overhead compartment. as i steam-cleaned the inside of the oven for the third time, for fear that they were going to charge us a $500 cleaning fee (which struck me as OUTRAGEOUS), i watched through our balcony window as T wrestled with the comically short compartment straps, unable to get them to connect to the top of our car. we were each in our own private hells, trying to accomplish the task ahead of us. each time i came down to bring something for him to put in the car, i was hyper-focused on vacuuming the floor-vent heaters. over-stimulated, dissociated, i was unable to make eye contact, barely said a word. i continued to watch from the balcony window as T arranged and re-arranged the objects in the car, trying to Tetris everything in. he was working just as hard as i was, but i could not think about anything else but the counters, the carpet, the inside of the oven. getting objects downstairs to the car. scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing. one of the last times i went down, a wagon full of shit, he looked at me expectantly, waiting for a crumb of validation, but all i could say was: “You’re looking to me for validation, but I have nothing to give.” in that moment, i realized that love is accidentally showing someone the worst version of yourself, and them still choosing you. loving you, even.
all of this is to say: don’t move cross-country twice in one year.
Sunday, March 16, 2025
we made it to Spokane, Washington after three long days in the car: Minnesota to North Dakota to Montana to Washington. flat lands and billboards that claimed abortion is murder and that we are all going to hell if we don’t let jesus into our hearts. we had an hour before we could check into our AirBnb. T chose a restaurant at random. we drove there. we sat down. he ordered steak and eggs, which he admitted, “I don’t usually do this, but your dad would be proud.” i ordered a beet salad. the food came. he took a bite. then, he started regurgitating brown juice into his cup of water. i repeated, ARE YOU CHOKING. ARE YOU CHOKING. ARE YOU CHOKING. as he continued to try to regurgitate into his water glass. i shouted, IF YOU’RE CHOKING, DO THIS, throwing my hands up to my throat, grabbing my neck. he said, “I can talk, I can breathe.” the woman at the table next to us stood up, asked, “Do you need assistance? I work in the ER.” he said, “I’m going the bathroom.” i looked at the lady and said, “No, I don’t think so,” and followed T into the bathroom, where he was trying to vomit in the toilet. i came up behind him, tried to give him the Heimlich maneuver, but since he was bent over and a foot taller than me, it didn’t really work. irritated, he said, “OW WHY’D YOU DO THAT.” and i confessed that i was trying to help. when it seemed like he was very much breathing but the steak was very much stuck, i walked back to our table. the woman said, “Is he okay?” i replied, “I think so? It’s stuck in his throat but he can breathe.” she said, “I was getting to climb on top of him and do CPR.” i laughed, because she was no more than five foot and he is 6”5. i lowered my voice and said, “He’s embarrassed. Plus… I think he’s gearing up to propose to me.” the woman guffawed: “The poor guy! But HEY! If you need a funky bitch to marry you, I am ordained in the Church of Latter Day Dude.” i told her i’d think about it. i noticed he hadn’t followed me, so I went back to the bathroom, where he was still over the toilet, trying to throw up. “Where did you go?”
The Funky Bitch ended up directing us to a local ER. after binging The Pitt multiple nights in a row, we feared we had manifested this emergency room trip. feared walking into The Pitt. but the hospital was a very beautiful, clean and well-staffed. i called my sponsor, and she replied: “My husband did the same thing with a Cuban cigar! Burned his Uvula on the way down!” and suddenly i felt better about the situation. they administered a med, swallowed hard, and the steak went down, just in time for his Fantasy baseball draft.
Monday, March 17, 2025
The ceramic duck lamp broke.
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
we woke up at Tenzen, a luxury cabin in rural Washington. our first full day without driving, we planned to soak in the Japanese soaking tub off the back deck and steam ourselves in the steam shower on repeat. but i could not relax because i had decided that he was going to propose that day. i knew it was coming, he had told me it was coming. in a panicked moment while driving, talking about our futures, he had said, “I wouldn’t be thinking about this stuff if I wasn’t proposing in 72 hours!” counting down from the second he said that, i had counted 72 hours: Tenzen. and i was doing my best to be patient, let him follow through on his plan. but of course, i couldn’t do that because i am the least patient person on planet earth. i know this about myself— my character defect— and so i tried to keep my yap shut and let the day unfold. by 11 am, however, the anticipation was too great, so i finally said, “I know that I struggle with patience, but I am in a lot of anticipation…” he said, “About what?” i paused. “Today? Is today the day?” he cut me short: “Not today.” disappointment and relief flooded my system. i nodded, took off my clothes, and took a book into the soaking tub. later that day, we drove ten minutes into Oregon and got smoked salmon po’boys and fried shrimp.
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
my mom called to tell me the cat was sick, acting weird. we had been with T’s parents for two days in Bend, Oregon, and the panic of her voice made me panic. the call went out as i turned onto a snow covered road. a sign above it, demanding chains be put on our tires, but we had no chains. no service, no idea if the road was worse ahead, we drove forward. while listening to “Fourth Wing” on Spotify, i directed my irritation towards the amount of uses of “Oh, shit” and “Fuck” in that book. i mean, the chick could world-build an entire universe filled with fire-breathing dragons, but she couldn’t come up with an alternative to those curse words? “Oh, gods,” was as far as she could get? my rage and resentment at the author of Fourth Wing kept my mind off of my cat. gripping the steering wheel, the towering pines to my left and right, i let the Subaru take on the snow-covered roads, trying not to fear that my cat— my best friend of almost a decade— was dying and i was nowhere near home.
Thursday, March 20, 2025
we made it to Eureka, California, after driving through the most beautiful landscapes in the country (imo, don’t fight me). towering craggy hillsides plunging into sloshing water, green and green and green. pops of color, flowers peeking out to say hello. we were staying for the night at the Pinc Lady, a victorian home restored as an AirBnb. the woman who runs it and lives there gave us a tour of the home, showing the hand-molded crown-molding, “Made from liquid molding”; the spindles on the staircase, one turned upside down so as to no affront god with perfection of the craftsmen— for only god could be perfect. a deliberate mistake, to show humanity. we got dinner at a local restaurant, where we sat at the bar. i ordered squid ink pasta. as we waited for our food, i couldn’t help but notice the increasing volume of the woman next to me. “The schools are doing nothing about the school shootings!” i looked over after her, drinking her glass of wine. “My husband is martial-arts minded, and when he approached the school board about training the teachers, they weren’t interested— didn’t want the liability.” i twirl my black noodles on my fork, stab a calamari before shoving it in my mouth. “The private school my mom works at liked the idea, said: bring it on!” i’ve gone silent, non-consensually listening to this wine-drunk woman’s solution to school shootings. i wish she would shut the fuck up. or just, take it down a notch. but i couldn’t help but notice that all across the country, no matter where we stopped, there was one common theme: fear. and even if the fear was justified, fear makes you act stupid.
i also couldn’t help but remember the times i drank wine and talked too loud in public. i couldn’t help but decipher whether i felt rage because i just wanted to eat my squid ink pasta without thinking about school shootings or because she reminded me of myself.
Sunday, March 23, 2025
sitting at Burma Superstar in Berkeley, he said, “I have a surprise for you, but I think I have to tell you.” i had been planning to see anyone and everyone when i got back to LA the next day. i said, “Tell me.” because i can’t handle a secret. i can’t be patient. he said, “I got us a reservation tomorrow night at the Madonna Inn.” and that’s when i knew: he’s proposing tomorrow. i replied: “I need to get a haircut.”
i’m not like other girls, i didn’t get my nails done. i got my hair professionally cut for the first time in a year.
Monday, March 24, 2025
having dinner at the Gold Rush steak restaurant at the Madonna Inn. pink booths and giant matte and translucent goblets in every color imaginable. we ordered shrimp cocktail and a cheese plate to start— pre-celebrating. he ordered steak, i ordered lobster. for all of my impatience in the months preceding, i felt strangely calm, at ease. i finally was going to let him do it (even that language, letting him propose smh). my phone buzzed next to my thigh: Mom. text from my brother: Jack isn’t doing well. i looked up at T: “They’re calling me about the cat.” panic flooded my system.
paid subscribers get to read the gory details of my engagement — feel free to upgrade just this month to find out! it involves crying on FaceTime to my parents on the toilet!