I am

I wrote this poem several years ago for a Womens' Studies class. A stupid assignment for an accounting major. Nonetheless, I consider it one of my best works. I was recently telling a friend about this poem so I thought I would post it in his honor. Of all the people I have met, he is one with the gentlest of souls.

I am

 

I am Rachael Chitty

A name that challenges me

To hold my head high

To correct mispronunciations

and misspellings

A name that calls me to courage

To be proud of my history

To acknowledge my heritage

I am a girl who roamed the woods

Conquering the land

and battling intruders

I am the girl who brought home

every kind of flower in bloom

During spring, sneaking into

neighbor's yards and plundering

their natural treasures

I am a girl who took the abuse

But called it what it was

I am a wild horse

Roaming the land

Looking for fun and freedom

Running from capture mostly

I am a girl who picks at her nails

Who picks at her skin

Who picks at her toes

Who secretly picks at her nose

A trait I learned in Burma

They pick at their noses

And they love me

And I pick at my nose

Because I love them too

I am a girl who loves the sound

of her dog breathing

It brings a peace I can't explain

I am a girl who loves the smell

of her dog's paws

It leads me to remember

all of the Boston Terriers

I have loved before him

I am a girl who still

Hears the sound of her grandpa

Calling, “Bless your bones”

Though it seems strange

Now that he is gone

I am a girl who is a wildflower

Waiting to be found

And picked and pressed

Into a good book, possibly a classic

I am Rachael Chitty

Fickle Bitch

I turn the music off so I can hear my true thoughts tonight. Then, I turn the music back up so I can drown the loneliness of my thoughts out. Only lonely songs tonight though. I'm feeling sad and alone and mostly unloved. 

As I start to sink deeper and deeper into my lament, I remember. This is what I asked for.  2 1/2 years ago, I came to the conclusion that I could never fully commit to anyone unless I spent a season being single. I broke up with my long-time boyfriend. He moved out, and we moved on. In the bigger picture of my life, I was a girl who hopped from relationship to relationship never satisfied, always trying to wrestle myself free of it. So I decided to launch myself into the desert known as singleness.

And here I am. Free...and bitching about my loneliness. How preposterous and silly. It's enough for me to laugh out loud. 

I never had many girlfriends. I blamed my romantic relationships. Now, I have so many girlfriends, I feel like it gets in the way of dating. I'm such a fickle bitch. I'm a lonely fickle bitch.

So for the meantime, my loneliness is kept at bay and in perspective. Though, I've never truly felt like love has found me and walked alongside of me for more than mere moments, I am hopeful that this season too will pass...and I'll find a relationship to bitch about again.

Perfectly Imperfect

I had an amazing date yesterday. It was like something out of a movie. One of those great unplanned dates...I call it 'perfectly imperfect.'

The plan was to go fishing in the mountains. But I had a prior engagement that gave me very little time to get ready for the date. When he showed up at my house I was wearing a sundress and did not realize how extremely hairy my legs were. I climbed in his truck and hid my legs with my purse.

We arrived at the fishing spot, but it required us to hike about a mile to get there. I did not know this and only had the sandals I was wearing. Still, we trekked on. Upon arrival, we noticed clouds building that would eventually lead to rain. After he taught me how to cast, we both hopped into the ice cold water to get closer to the fish action. At one point he came over and gave me a strange look. I was in the middle of rambling on about some story not realizing he was trying to kiss me. I laughed and we had an awkward first kiss.

After about 10 minutes of casting and reeling, it finally began to rain. We ran for cover under a tree. He gave me his over shirt since I was cold from standing in the creek and the rain. He was shivering but leaned over for another awkward kiss. We found our groove and sat there cold and wet kissing under a pine tree in the middle of the woods with no one else around. I could not have asked for a more perfect moment.

(It was definitely better than getting murdered and buried in the woods. These were the types of jokes I made most of the day.)

It stopped raining eventually and started again upon my first cast back in the creek. We continued to fish for another 30 minutes before deciding to call it a day. My sandals were very slippery, and I was having a hard time hiking uphill. So he let me borrow his 'toe shoes' (aka skeleton shoes). At this point I had a sun dress on, a John Deer hat, his large plaid shirt, and now toe shoes. My curls had long since fallen out, and I'm pretty sure I resembled a drowned rat. Couple that with hairy legs and, needless to say, I was not feeling very attractive.

We drove into town and grabbed margaritas. We asked about each others' families and friends. Throughout the whole day, we would make these jokes and look at each other with funny faces for awkwardly extended periods of time which made each joke funnier. After margaritas we walked down to the old school arcade. We played ski ball, talked to a psychic, and played air hockey. During the air hockey game he accidentally sent the puck rushing at me and smashed my finger. It is currently blue and purple.

In spite of this great date, I found myself holding back. I would stop short of sharing things or giving affection because I was remembering those feelings I once had for someone else. That someone else took my affection and broke my heart anyway. It feels hard to let go knowing I might get hurt again. Actually, the odds are pretty high that I will get hurt again. I found myself asking if I was really ready for this again. I found myself asking if I really knew I deserved love and deserved to be treated well.

It's weird because even as I wrote that last sentence I wanted to write “...and deserved to be treated like a princess.” Instead I wrote “well”. I felt weird about saying I deserved to be treated like a 'princess'. Gah! Why is that? I feel like using the term 'princess is a little overboard. I didn't really expect a guy to treat me like that. Are my expectations not high enough? Should I be expecting to be treated like a princess?

Either way, I will say my date was a complete gentleman. He opened my car door, let me order first, held doors open, untangled my fishing rod, gave me his shirt and shoes, paid for everything,and made sure I was comfortable. He treated me...like a princess. Maybe he knows something I don't. I think that says something about a man when he will treat a woman like a 'princess' even when she's satisfied with just being treated 'well'.  

Revelation Dating

I went on a date the other night. It wasn't really a date. It was more of a hangout. I asked him if he wanted to watch a movie at his house. I was told recently that “movie at my place” is always code for sex. However, I was purely interested in the quality surround sound and HD jumbo tv. Wink wink. Roar roar.

I originally texted him around 6 to make plans, and subsequently fell asleep. I called him at 7:45 to inform him I was going to head over. I finally arrived at 8:45 after a shower and quick conversation with my brother. He didn't mention my tardiness. He simply said that he had dinner waiting for me which consisted of barbequed chicken, veggies, and sweet potatoes. He even had a 'skinny' mixed drink prepared and waiting for me when I came in the door. I once told him I liked that particular drink. He even cooked veggies that I casually remarked I ate a lot of.

He pulled tv trays out and let me pick a movie out of his collection to watch. He didn't say a thing when I pulled out a movie he and I had already watched together. After eating he took my dishes and gave me a back rub and a foot rub. Upon leaving, he handed me some tupperware with leftovers in it. He explained that it was my lunch for tomorrow. I kind of laughed because it was something I would do, and have done many times to dates. I felt so taken care of. I left knowing he genuinely put effort and thought into the night and sought out to make me feel special.

As someone who has been dating and looking high and low for a relationship, you would think this would be a regular feeling. I mean, men go to great lengths to impress women. They clean up their cars, and wear their best outfits. They spray on the cologne and take us to fancy restaurants. Why did this evening feel so lavish and make me feel so special out of all the others?

It felt like it was a stark reminder that blasted me into a harsh reality. Most people approach dating asking the other person, “what can you do for me?” instead of seeking to display care and kindness to the other person. Just for clarification, I would like to believe I am the former of the two. I know most of you can't fathom that I wasn't always an upstanding woman. Through a lot of energy and soul searching I became someone worth dating.

But I'm realizing that I have spent so much time giving and giving to get a man's attention that I have forgotten to expect something in return. Am I trying to make up for my past mistakes? This might seem like a no brainer, but upon coming out of the fog I can't help but ask WHAT THE FUCK?!

Where along the way did I stop expecting anything? Where along the way did I start thinking it was ok for a man to treat me as anything less than special? I've always considered myself (as do many others) a strong, independent, no-nonsense kind of person, but evidence clearly shows that I am indeed not this kind of person at all. I will settle for less in a minute. I'm slowly waking up to realize that I have been settling for less for a long long time.

My married friends have been telling me that I expect too much from a guy. They tell me that it is wrong to expect a man to communicate his feelings for me and his desire for a future in a relationship. These are friends that are in healthy marriages and relationships, I might add.

The one thing I always ask myself after an epiphany of this magnitude is “what do I do with this information?” If NOT doing this came easy, I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. How do I change? What are the appropriate expectations for a woman to have of a man (and visa versa)?

I guess that's the next phase of this whole thing. This year is defintely shaping up to be the year of epiphanies. I feel as though I am waking up from a dream to realize that the world around me is not pretty and perfect but evil and ugly. What is even crazier is that I am discovering I am not pretty and perfect either, but I might be one of those evil and ugly people too. 

Goodbye

One thing I hate most about dating is the part where you say 'goodbye'. Obviously, as you date someone, you get to know them. You become more and more apart of their life. You are apart of the ups and downs of someone's life. You laugh together, have inside jokes, you're even naked together. 

It seems that no matter if I've been dating someone for 2 weeks or 2 years, goodbye is never easy for me. It feels so final. There's a sadness within me about it. I feel like I'm mourning a loss. A loss of hope, a loss of what could be, a loss of a life of possibility with that person. If it's someone I really like, I think about what our kids would look like. I say my first name with their last name in my head. I imagine how they would fit into my family, and I in theirs. 

But when 'goodbye' happens, eventually that person will become nothing more than an acquaintance, a memory, someone you used to know. Most times, they become a stranger. We're taught not to like strangers. Those things you dreamed about seem ridiculous and crazy. You can't believe you ever even saw that person in that way. Doesn't this idea feel so sad to you? 

Last night I said goodbye to someone I had been seeing off and on for 6 months. I hadn't even realized that much time had gone by. And again that same sadness and mourning came over me. It really wasn't about him. I knew he wasn't right for me. I knew that he would never change. I never felt like I could truly be myself around him. I was constantly trying to be what I thought he wanted. And he...didn't seem to try to do anything. It seemed to me that I was just a matter of convenience for him. I realized that I hate the feeling of being convenient more than I hate goodbye.

So I told him that he was fake, and that he made me fake. He didn't seem to like that very much. So our goodbye was a mutual thing I suppose. It still feels sad though. 2 people who don't believe in giving up gave up...on each other.

This is why I'm single. 

We weren't broken

I have always loved writing poetry. I don't consider myself exceptionally good at it, but writing in general is a big outlet for me. Most people don't know that about me. I have found that my best work happens when I don't try so hard to use fancy language, but just real words. Normally, a phrase comes to me and I use it over and over again and write my other feelings around that common thread. Tonight I wrote the poem below. Again, I don't consider myself a genius, but it's simplicity speaks to me.

We Weren't Broken

We weren't broken. 
Where'd you go?
Why'd you leave?
We weren't broken!

I stepped and then
You stepped and then
I fell
But we weren't broken
Just mending

My Return

I'm returning after quite a long hiatus. I haven't been un-single, just away from my desk.

I'm still single. Still dating. Everything in my life is pretty much the same as it has been for the last several years. The faces might have changed. Some of the details have changed, but my life is still basically the same, honestly, since I was 20. That was when I moved here. 8 years ago.

I will say that my heart is different. Someone reminded me of that the other day when I said this to them. 

I know I'm stronger than I was 8 years ago. I'm smarter. I'm more loving. I'm more honest. I'm more forgiving. I'm more accomplished. I guess if you look at it that way, I am more. 

Anyway, I've decided to make some changes to this blog. I've decided that instead of being funny, I just want to be honest. That can sometimes be funny. And sometimes not so much. 

The truth in this moment is that I'm on the mend. I just had my heart broken for the BILLIONTH time. I'm confused and frankly scared of becoming desperate. Nothing is uglier than a desperate woman. I am by no means desperate for a date. I go on plenty of dates and have never struggled to get the attention of men. However, though some say I've become a serial dater, I am truly looking for someone to spend my life with. I'm looking for passionate, all-consuming, inconvenient, crazy love.

In the meantime until it comes my way, I'm busy dating. And looking under every rock and hiding place for love. That might be ugly and not funny. In the middle of it, I'm learning how to let go of it. I'm learning how to be ok with the idea that it might not ever happen. I'm learning to be strong. And being strong in this situation means not becoming bitter, not losing hope. No matter what.