farewell. I mean that: we will both fare well.

Today I took:
Hip hop.
Capoeira.
Yoga.

And learned:
A song for my voice lesson.

And had a conversation with:
My ex (I hate that word; I just do).

I think I am exhausted in every way it is possible to be exhausted. My legs are protesting the three class streak today. My body’s all like, “Gurl. If you wanna do this on the regular, you gotta feed me.”

Apparently my body is a little ghetto. This makes me glad; I like a little ghetto.

My mind is trying to figure out what just happened. All of it. Trying to remember the hip hop combination cause I’d like to teach it to a jazz class I’m subbing next week. And the new stuff I learned in capoeira so I don’t look like a pansy when it comes to the free form fighting at the end of class. This is difficult, because I suspect I am a pansy. Trying to remember the new song I’m wooing on. And working on. It’s a very special combination, what I’m trying to do.

And trying to feel whatever it is I need to feel about the conversation I just had. I think it was good; I think there was closure. I asked my questions. There was peace there in our words. That’s what I had wanted, so I’m grateful for that. I looked and listened and didn’t hurt at all. Not even when he said things that, not that long ago, would have devastated me. He told me things I already knew were true. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have done what he’d done. I told him that I was sorry for being gone so much. I was, too. I hated saying good-bye so much.

This good-bye was not so hard, though. We can both move on. We are. Actually, there is no ‘we.’ And this is good. Now, it’s good.

I left him at the subway station. I got on the A train and smiled at a stranger. I marveled over the fact that nobody in that car would have guessed what I had just done. We are all such marvelous stories. Some we hear about, some we never do. Every once in a while we catch sight of each others’ scars. We guess at the cause. We wonder at their ability to laugh despite it all.

“But you seem so happy,” someone recently remarked to me in surprise, after listening to a little bit of my history.
“I am,” I said. And that’s true. It’s also true that I’m sad. Sometimes. And I’m me. All the time. That’s what keeps surprising me the most. That what I think I need gets taken away and I find that, look!, turns out I didn’t need that after all. Turns out I’m me–even without ______ or _______ or even _____.

Who knew? I didn’t, but I’m learning.