Category: Wyatt’s Words

Six months ago I met a cute boy at a party.

I couldn’t have been at a lower point that night. I’d just been dumped by my boyfriend of over a year and we’d ceased contact. I’d been on a string of meaningless hookups and a complete bender and I just missed coming home to my best friend. I’d gotten into an argument on the phone with my business partner on the way into this dingy looking warehouse party downtown. I just wanted to forget the horrible place I was in and was determined to numb with every substance possible.

Our mutual friend introduced us, said we’d be “perfect for each other”. I was anxious and twitchy and this cute guy was completely unimpressed. I tried to cheer myself up and shake hands around the party, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I wanted to be anywhere but there. I felt like Jenny in Forrest Gump during the drug scene, or Ginger in Casino when it all started falling apart, and spent part of the party looking for screencaps corresponding to my mood on my instastory.

It was late as all hell and time to go, and this cute boy and I couldn’t get our mutual friend to leave. The cute boy stayed for another 20 minutes and cancelled two Ubers just to wait. Our mutual gave me the key to his place and said to meet him there.

The cute boy and I shared an Uber home in the back of a Civic. As we drove through Downtown, the skyscrapers glittering past the windows, I looked across the backseat and saw him there with some goofy grin on his face. He was trying to be coy. I wanted to take him home.

He had the car drop him off at his place and drop me at my friend’s. That was that. I’d struck out again.

Walking home at 530AM that morning in the rain in sandals was horrible. My mind raced a million miles an hour and I started bawling at all my terrible choices and in pity for myself as I passed the apartment I’d shared with my ex for over a year. I wanted to knock on the door and throw myself at him. Promise to start fresh, hell I didn’t know. I hit rock bottom. He never made me feel like I was good enough. I cried myself to sleep and woke up the next morning, early, hungover and pissed.

The cute boy and I messaged each other over Instagram in the following weeks and months. He saw as I bumbled along, through dates and such, job upheavals, tragedies. He watched from a distance, like a scientist. Observing.

I was on a terrible date one night and it happened to be by this boy’s place. He invited me over and we hung out – yet somehow, I got curved again. I drove home, furious. I felt like a fool.

I did see him again though. We went to a concert that was magical. We started FaceTiming occasionally, which turned into every night before bed, talking for hours on end. I giggled – GIGGLED.

We spent more nights together. We started going on cute adventures. Slowly, I felt the horrible experiences and habits of the past year fade away.

Goddamn we look so cute together.

When I got into a fistfight with my best friend, he came over. He held me, told me sternly about the consequences, but with warmth and compassion.

“You take care of everyone. But who’s taking care of Wyatt?” he asked.

I was stumped, and also floored at his gentleness. No boy had ever been this nice to me before.

The adventures became more elaborate. He surprised me on his rooftop with an incredible display, and asked me to be his boyfriend. Nobody’d ever *asked* me before. I accepted, wholeheartedly.

For the first time, I wanted to be better. I have someone to be better for. And I look forward to each day, because just his presence makes it better.

Six months ago I met a cute boy. He healed my broken heart and tortured soul. He’s made me a better man.

Six months ago I met a cute boy at a party. And my heart is soaring.

A year ago I was enjoying a quiet evening on a patio with one of my best friends, a couple cousins, and assorted company.

It was a local neighborhood place, the kind we’d been going to for years. We traded stories, and it had been a hell of a year already, losing my dad and all. But things were on the upswing again.

A few hours later my best friend and I were in the back of an ambulance. I looked like Jackie Kennedy as LBJ was inaugurated hastily on the Dallas tarmac – harried, bloody.

There was a flash of another car swerving by us, the brakes, the tire squeal, a moment where the world turned sideways.

I couldn’t get him out of the car and I remembered briefly that you weren’t supposed to attempt. He was responsive, but wedged between the seat and the steering wheel. I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head. My eye was swollen. Everything worked, and adrenaline forestalled the pain.

https://instagram.com/p/Bb6eBx4BnPd/

There I was, laid out on a gurney in the hallway, my cousin standing there as the doctor pumped 6 staples into my head.

I’m made of tough stuff, and I began the slow process of recovery.

A week later was our holiday party at work, something I’d been looking forward to. I’d never actually been a *part* of an office before and it seemed like such an adorable idea. It was an evening where the wine and laughter flowed freely. Sure my then-boyfriend yelled at me on the way home for having a little too much wine, but I was part of a group at least!

The next week I was fired. A few months and arguments later I was dumped.

I lost more jobs, relationships, and loved ones and I just kept losing.

Everything I’d put my trust in kept breaking down, and the worse it got, the harder I fought against the inevitable.

But I wasn’t gonna get rehired by the same place again and I wasn’t gonna woo back my boyfriend.

They weren’t meant to be.

I’d made a huge mistake – I’d let all these other things define my life.

I was defined by who I was with, my work, my possessions, my family. Everything was my relation to them, because I didn’t feel the confidence to be myself.

Since I’ve been writing and posting, I’ve been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support. I (begrudgingly) went to my 10 year reunion last night, and couldn’t believe all the love I received from people I’ve known almost all my life but haven’t seen in a decade.

I have the most amazing boyfriend I could ever ask for, who likes me for who I am, who drove six hours in the rain to join my family for a legendary Thanksgiving. It was the deepest act of sweetness.

It’s been a year of loss and of letting go, of being forced to say goodbye to the things that don’t work and being forced to learn life’s hardest lessons.

None of the things I’d surrounded myself with were meant to be. I can’t explain it though I’ve lived it. Whatever it is – an invisible hand of Providence, a karmic benefit, an algorithm silently executing reality – I don’t know.

But for once in my life, it seems like I’m living as myself, sitting on that same patio with loved ones, in an existence where everything’s meant to be.

“I’m gonna fuck it up!” I scream at myself, internally, not using my inside voice.

There’s recurring thoughts and then there’s that blaring sentiment, skywritten through my consciousness every few minutes.

Sometimes it’s sneaky. It creeps in and you wonder why you were happy and now you’re anxious. You can be hopping along to Lil Fentanyl or whatever you kids listen to and then you’re paranoid: “does everyone hate me?” It comes from nowhere and never quite leaves, like an enchilada fart when you had a sandwich for lunch.

And now I’m sitting here, shaking my legs, and wondering just how I’m gonna fuck this next good thing up.

I think part of it is because I subconsciously blame myself for everything short of weather patterns and sometimes even then if it pours enough.

I blame myself for every breakup, every penny lost, every job that didn’t work, every argument, every time I’ve been blindsided by the disaster du jour.

My teeth grind, my legs twitch, my nails are chewed to the beds – all because I live in fear of the next failure.

It’s a swelling orchestra and the violinist plays me like a fiddle every time.

I probably don’t have to feel this way all the time. But until I don’t, it’s impossible to have an honest assessment of which way is up, what my actual limitations are, and what I can do better.

I just…don’t wanna fuck that up too.

“I’m gonna fuck it up!” I scream at myself, internally, not using my inside voice.

There’s recurring thoughts and then there’s that blaring sentiment, skywritten through my consciousness every few minutes.

Sometimes it’s sneaky. It creeps in and you wonder why you were happy and now you’re anxious. You can be hopping along to Lil Fentanyl or whatever you kids listen to and then you’re paranoid: “does everyone hate me?” It comes from nowhere and never quite leaves, like an enchilada fart when you had a sandwich for lunch.

And now I’m sitting here, shaking my legs, and wondering just how I’m gonna fuck this next good thing up.

I think part of it is because I subconsciously blame myself for everything short of weather patterns and sometimes even then if it pours enough.

I blame myself for every breakup, every penny lost, every job that didn’t work, every argument, every time I’ve been blindsided by the disaster du jour.

My teeth grind, my legs twitch, my nails are chewed to the beds – all because I live in fear of the next failure.

It’s a swelling orchestra and the violinist plays me like a fiddle every time.

I probably don’t have to feel this way all the time. But until I don’t, it’s impossible to have an honest assessment of which way is up, what my actual limitations are, and what I can do better.

I just…don’t wanna fuck that up too.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything of substance. I have notes written, dated, with titles, subjects, and phrases, but I’ve yet to bring myself to thread a needle through them and get them finished. They’ll get written eventually, I hope.

So, as I sit here, crouching on the edge of the tub, it’s a good a time as any to pick this up.

It’s been a weird week or so – at some point I got off my game a little, and November has felt like a sojourn between whirlwinds of attention, and even though none have been debilitating or, well, even difficult, it’s just felt a little dissociative and a lot draining.

Missing one day of writing was an “okay, I’ll get back to it, and do two today” moment and then that turned into three and four and so on. Wasn’t it just November first, and now we’re nine days from Thanksgiving? When the hell did that happen?

An underlying current is the vicissitudes of the heart. Finding someone who likes you as you are is jarring juxtaposed to the fact that you don’t even like yourself as you are. I’ve thought before I’ve had that only to find that they never really liked me or themselves to begin with. Well, I did it first, bitch!

The one buoyant thing is I am happy. The typical despondence that creeps in this time of year and has stalked my mood like a low-grade fever for the better part of two years is gone.

It feels good to be liked. And be happy. And I’m trying to understand it. When you’re used to sadness, you replicate the conditions of sadness, so that sadness becomes safety and comfort. Happiness becomes disquieting, unusual, strange. But it’s here, and it’s palpable, and it’s real.

They never tell you how much your cheeks can hurt from smiling.

No mother deserves to wake up to her child missing in the morning, the same as no mother deserves to see her child return from war unrecognizable.

Thousand Oaks is a sleepy community full of retirees and peaceful suburban life. It did not deserve this.

I’ve spent a great deal of time there. My best friend lived there and I was there every day for a good year in 2012. It’s a place where people wake up early, pay their taxes, drive their Buicks to Sprouts, and coexist with Los Angeles as if it’s thousands of miles away even though it’s a short jaunt down the 101 where you hope you don’t get caught in traffic near Encino.

My heart is broken, as someone who attended Pepperdine, as someone who loves this area and knows it’s one of the safest places in the world to raise a family, and as a viewer of this hell. I can’t imagine what these parents must be experiencing. There are few places open past 8pm in Thousand Oaks, and the ones that are definitely aren’t open past 10. On an 18+ night these teens needed a safe, local place to go without driving into town for 45 min. They ended up here. They ended up dead.

They ended up dead because a young boy sent to Afghanistan came back a changed man, and our leaders and healthcare providers didn’t see fit to help him. His mother lived in a house with holes in the walls he punched in. His local police force knew him, had been called out multiple times. “Known to law enforcement” is the new “homegrown terrorist”.

We don’t have a solution and anyone who thinks they do is pretending. He shot with a .45 magnum, “the world’s most powerful handgun”, a weapon you’ll find in many American homes. With over 300 million American guns and over 300 million American people, they won’t go away.

He used a “bump stock” of some sort which allowed more than the allowed rounds to be shot. You can ban those stocks, sure, but that covers one hole in the ground. A mole can find another.

Maybe we shouldn’t be in Afghanistan anymore. Maybe two decades is enough, with children born during deployment going to the same war as their fathers, a first in American history.

Maybe our veterans deserve health care, mental health care, so readjusting to civilian life isn’t a jarring experience.

Maybe armed guards should defend every venue with more than 50 people.

Maybe the media shouldn’t serialize those who kill.

Maybe evil shouldn’t be in quiet, sleepy towns just over Malibu Canyon.

Maybe another parent has to sleep at night without a child.

Maybe we’ll have some rest from this endless cycle of violence.

Maybe we’ll do better next time.

Maybe.

Folks, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I suck at naps.

They always seem so enticing in the moment: just 10 minutes down, right? And I’ll be refreshed, recharged, and we can totally ignore the 8 cups of coffee this morning.

It never happens that way.

You awaken, three hours later, like you got into a fight with a wolverine: disheveled, sore, exhausted, confused.

But folks, I found the secret to the PERFECT nap:

Don’t take one on a day when you didn’t wake up on your own that morning.

But what does that mean? If the alarm got me up, then I can’t take a nap?

That’s correct! And I’m sure in 20 years, sleep science will be so advanced that we’ll find out that alarms were slowly killing us all along, and being jolted awake in the morning is tantamount to a heartattack a day.

On a morning when you wake up naturally, you’ll enter and exit a nap naturally. I tested this theory today, and goddammit it works.

The other thing to keep in mind: if you’re going to take a nap, it needs to be unstructured. A 10 minute nap where an alarm blares in your ear to awaken just repeats the cycle of abuse.

So try it out! If I was smarter, I’d market this as some kind of MLM wellness fad, but why bilk you for the consequences of my crazy ramblings?

Historically, I’ve always been bad at waiting on/for things.

I always thought of it as wasted time, and it’s a completely warped sense of reality when you arrive at 7:59 and someone comes at 8:05 versus waiting an hour and a half in a doctor’s office after checking in appear to be identical in terms of duration.

I recently stopped being that person who follows up incessantly to make sure someone’s on time. They’re busy, I’m busy, it’s LA, there’s traffic, and I’m late more often than I’m early. Me transferring my anxiety attack onto someone else does nothing for anyone.

Also, as the frequent “late person”, I know that someone breathing down my neck to arrive on time is never a welcoming moment. I’m so bad at time planning that things that take 30 minutes I swear I can do in 10. And then don’t execute them…ever. Showers are a BIG offender.

So there’s a simple joy, a meditation in waiting. It’s anticipatory but think of all the things you can get done in that moment.

Like writing this.

Historically, I’ve always been bad at waiting on/for things.

I always thought of it as wasted time, and it’s a completely warped sense of reality when you arrive at 7:59 and someone comes at 8:05 versus waiting an hour and a half in a doctor’s office after checking in appear to be identical in terms of duration.

I recently stopped being that person who follows up incessantly to make sure someone’s on time. They’re busy, I’m busy, it’s LA, there’s traffic, and I’m late more often than I’m early. Me transferring my anxiety attack onto someone else does nothing for anyone.

Also, as the frequent “late person”, I know that someone breathing down my neck to arrive on time is never a welcoming moment. I’m so bad at time planning that things that take 30 minutes I swear I can do in 10. And then don’t execute them…ever. Showers are a BIG offender.

So there’s a simple joy, a meditation in waiting. It’s anticipatory but think of all the things you can get done in that moment.

Like writing this.

I’m open about my sudden fondness for to-do lists, but it wasn’t always the case.

Like as a kid, I loved the concept of to-do lists.

And, as with most things, I took it too far. I’d put everything in my planner: take a shower. Get out of bed. Everything short of wiping my ass was itemized.

And it became crippling, and a job within itself just to maintain those lists. I’d fall short of expectations, add things I already did just to cross them off, and eventually abandoned the whole thing altogether for years.

The day my dad passed, the first thing I did was break out a new yellow pad and just start putting down everything. It was one of the few things that kept me tethered to sanity in those first hours. I made notes of which calls to make, funeral planning, meetings, people to notify – and it just added a calming sense of structure to the unrelenting chaos.

Workwise I was still reluctant to make these lists until a month ago when I read an article about Sheryl Sandberg’s success. As Facebook’s COO, she was doing what I was doing at the time, on an obviously much larger scale, and she said her secret was making, quite literally, to-do-lists of to-do-lists. I mean, if she can run a billion dollar company and oversee every department and project with regarded execution, why can’t I do the same?

So I started documenting everything for the end of September I needed to do. Rent. Car repairs. Phone calls. Bills. I noticed I was more successful the smaller and more specific the task was, large projects needed their own lists (like there’s literally an entire one for cars).

I also discovered a huge to-do-list flaw: planning out things at times. The secret is to put things in order that you can do them, but not attach specific hours and minutes unless you want a full fledged panic attack in the Marshalls clearance aisle because you’re 15 minutes late for your own unreasonable expectations.

It’s a guideline to help keep me focused. And I also make space for days where I do just a few things on the list as well as days where I do large chunks, and alternating them.

It’s working for now. And I’m happy.