But online this time.

And it was easy. I already did it. Just now actually. I didn’t have to pack any boxes, take any measurements, or hire any cute Australian movers. You can send all your well wishes and housewarming gifts to www.normaleverydaythings.wordpress.com and eventually www.normaleverydaythings.com

GoDaddy is talking to WordPress – they’re working out the details of the great migration while I just sit back, drink mint tea and research for my next road trip.

You might be wondering … why bother moving domains? It’s the same content, just a different name. And it’s true. It’s the same, but different.

When I started blogging a year and a half ago naming the site wasn’t a really big deal for me. It was like when I worked as a reporter. I performed all the research and interviews, wrote the stories, but at the end of the day let someone else write the headlines. But moodswings doesn’t really fit the story anymore. I don’t have moodswings. I have opinions. Lots of them. And mostly about normal everyday things. It was time to write a better headline. And go from there.

So happy New Year all. Here’s to the first of many improvements for 2010.

The last time I was home was for a funeral. I knelt by my nana’s bedside and whispered my thank you’s then kissed her face and walked to my bed 10 feet away. A hospital bed she never used. She didn’t need the railings. She had us to support her.

In the fall, my parents made a bedroom for my grandparents out of our study. A room I remember writing papers in for high school. Being up all night. Clicking my way through the dark.

While home for Christmas I visited that room. Not a study. And not really a bedroom anymore. A part-time room at best. I sat on her bed. Her pink bathrobe still hung in the adjacent bathroom. Her medicine bag rested on one of the shelves. The commode was gone. I would sit on her side of the bed and think about what I wanted to say to her. But found nothing would come out.

December 26th was her birthday. She would have been 83. I spent the evening listening to recordings I made of her last conversations. They make me laugh and help me remember her. They help me remember more than just her last weeks. Weeks when my grampa sat with her in the dark and the light. When he would read the paper and sometimes nothing at all.

I remember how he checked on her as she slept. How he needed a job other than waiting for her to wake. So I made him peel apples – 7 lbs of them. And I made him help me bake pies. And crisps. Later, we did a hack job moving Nana in bed. She was lopsided on the pillows but said she was fine. At 28, I was still waiting for my mom to come back in the room to clean up my messes.

I remember watching my father give my mom and Aunt Dot a lesson on how to use a suction machine for when her coughing worsened. It was big and the tubes long and wide. I was afraid I would have to help use it. And then I felt bad for even thinking that.

In the midst of doing dishes one afternoon Nana rang her bell. I quickly dried my hands and headed to her room, but mom beat me. She crawled in bed beside her mother. I overheard Nana say, “I didn’t want to be alone.” I turned around so I didn’t interrupt, I turned around so I could swallow.

During those weeks, I began noticing how my mom and I cry exactly the same way. How pretty my Nana looked. And how tired. “Quality of life” became a phrase all too familiar. Then “comfort measures.” Morphine was added to my vocabulary. I was not ready to add others.

In the world of my parents’ house, I didn’t watch the news, read newspapers, and only left to walk the dog. I emailed work. Then returned to the kitchen to cook the meals, ordering only fresh ingredients. Thinking it would help. But she still lost weight. She slept all the time. Eventually there was nothing left to do but wear her out with love. Spend her last days laughing and playing cards into the night even though it made her tired.

Because we didn’t want her laying in the dark to salvage another two months. That is not a life. A life is everybody in her bed eating and watching the Red Sox. It is making the best pie you can and holding your mom’s hand when you see her chin quiver, and laughing when your nana rings her bell and you come running and she says, “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t go and die on me.”

I remember watching grampa retreat to a quiet place. That is to be expected of someone watching their companion of 62 years start to leave him behind. There was nothing he could do except sit by her as she slept and be there for the few moments she was awake. Maybe that is love. Swallowing your needs for someone else.

The process taught me a lot about family and love and dying and all the life you have in between. It was a circle coming to completion. Daughters caring for the woman who gave them life. During coughing spells Nana would go to a place none of us could reach. She closed her eyes and concentrated simply on breathing. That was the only time my mother and Aunt Dot teared up. Because nana was not really there to see it.

Grampa would help us get her ready for bed. He braced her knees as we lifted her upward to use a bedpan. He did not cry. He did not look away. And I guess that is love too. I don’t think that is a scenario people envision on their wedding day. Flashing forward six decades and imagining having to coax their partner to eat something so she doesn’t disappear before your eyes, or helping her take down her underpants so she can pee. Maybe we would all choose our partners a little differently if we thought about who we want to end our life with rather than begin it.

Her last weeks, my Nana saw snow in October. Bright fall colors exploding in the backyard. Blue skies. It was as if the entire world was preparing for her departure and putting together one last show. Hundreds of ladybugs appeared. They crawled along the eaves of the house and held to the screens outside her windows. They dotted the walls of her room. They even hid between the lettuce leaves in the kitchen. I know science can explain why they came and stayed on the southside of the house. But it’s nice to think that maybe they were there because we needed a little luck.

It was as if our house was not just a house on a block where ordinary things were happening everywhere else but here. Houses where oxygen masks and O2 machines weren’t pumping 24 hours a day. Not a suction machine just in case. Houses that didn’t install doorbells on night tables for emergencies. Or have daughters who shared the burden of giving their mother her last dose of morphine.

“Winter came early,” Nana said looking out at the snow.

And it did. She died November 9. For years she was on blood thinners that caused her to be cold – even in the summer. She hated that. The night she died her hands were warm. Finally.

Sitting in her room does not bring me comfort yet. I’m not sure if the feeling inside is me realizing that I am not alone, or fear that I am. I’m not used to the quiet. Maybe in time I will be ready. Maybe I will one day find solace in that room, in the silence all around. Maybe once I am ok with the quiet – perhaps then, I will hear her once again.

In the months after my grandfather died, my dad couldn’t remember what his father’s voice sounded like, couldn’t recall what he looked like.

“It’s amazing what the mind can do,” he said.

And it is. What the brain can imagine. Can rationalize. Can forget. In order to get us through. The brain can trigger memory loss. Can protect us from ourselves. So that our hearts can continue beating. So that our lungs can continue breathing. So that we may eat. So that we may sleep and not dream. So that one day we can wake and remember. Feel a pain in our chest and smile. And recall all that we can never lose.

I have always wondered about the origins of an idea. How we arrive at them. If they are gifts we are personally selected to receive from some higher being. Or if they were always there, and we just finally acknowledge their existence. Especially because mine always seem to come out the quietest periods of my life when it seems nothing is happening and my creative grounds have gone fallow. When I’m bereft of words and all my originality is hibernating, or on extended vacation to a destination I’m not allowed to visit. Probably someplace warm. With cocktails.

I could feel a season of quiet emerging this spring. My thoughts began changing tack before completely losing steam over the summer. By the fall I was tapped out. And for the first time, I didn’t worry that I wasn’t producing anything new. I just enjoyed the silence. Every growing season requires a period of rest beforehand. So when people asked what I’ve been up to, and ‘nothing much,’ came stumbling out, I knew this was somehow inaccurate. Because something was happening. I could feel it, I just couldn’t describe it.

Eventually, whether I am ready or not, the idea surfaces and pulls at my sleeve. Come. Now. It’s time. And I follow, scratching whatever fragments I can decipher onto a Post It that I later stick to my bedroom wall so I don’t forget. Like I did yesterday.

But what causes one idea come to life while others die on the page? Are some ideas just better nags than others? Sure, there are a few that were never meant for anything more than just my awareness that yes, I created you. And no, you will always be impossible. Then there are those I tuck away to discover later, usually between the pages of a journal I know I will one day return to – hopefully during a phase when I have more resources to give.

But the sad thing is my best ideas are those I never attempt. I sat up in bed last night wondering why this is the case. The common thread? These ideas typically require planning. (And funding.) And I’ve never been particularly good at planning. Brainstorming and executing have always come easy, but plotting and waiting? That was always for people like my parents. But now I’m in charge of me. And I kind of hate that.

It’s only taken me a decade to figure out, but being an adult also means project managing your life. As 2010 approaches I understand that I need to get my ideas on track if the good ones are ever going to be realized. I need to pick delivery dates that make sense. Do the research to make it happen. Stop relying on other people. And stay the course. Because it doesn’t matter where ideas come from, just that they evolve. And because my ideas are mine alone, so is the disappointment when they fail to fly.

Because when you stare up at the moon and stars and the smell of fire smoke is all around, you can only think about how what you are seeing is only the past catching up with you now. How the moment the light finally strikes your face it’s already old and continuing on to the next galaxy where it will change and be different for someone else. Plus, being in the dark always frightens you. It makes you think of dying and that makes you want to hold someone’s hand. And that is scary too.

But you are captivated by all that is above and the moment you are participating in that is somehow the past and the present and the future all at once. Growing up you were always fascinated by supernovas and the idea that something can go to pieces and turn into something else entirely.

Then you remember the last time you hunted for shooting stars. It was years ago and 2am and the sky was exploding with debris someone in the heavens decided they didn’t want anymore. And they made something beautiful in the process.

After awhile you stopped making wishes. There were too many. So you just watched the streaks burning across the sky and wondered if he saw them too, and what he asked for, if he asked for anything, or if he wasn’t the type of person who wishes on stars.

But you never asked. And it’s too late to bring it up now – he probably doesn’t remember anyway. But you recall how you sat on his rooftop, your hand in his, and there was just silence between you. And it was perfect. And then it wasn’t.

Only this time feels different. You are older and wiser and have stopped wishing on stars for things like love. Instead, you look to the stars for guidance. You see people you once knew and ask them how they are doing and what it’s like to be so far away. You look up and wonder if she still remembers you. Then you ask her to help you find what it is you are still looking for.

Besides, what you wish for now has changed too. It’s more about what you are in search of and less about him or any other boy. Or at least, you hope that is the case. You find yourself wondering, what will make you happy? When are you going to figure it out? Or are you ever going to? And then a part of you wonders if he fits into any of that.

So when he asks, ‘Don’t you want to stay here forever?’ You shake your head and say you disagree without really understanding why even though you know he’s only really asking about the geography. But it probably has something to do with the fact that he never holds your hand when he’s supposed to and you never reach for his when you want to. Kind of like now. And how you are on your back staring up to the left and he is standing up staring off to the right.

Instead, you wait in silence for the meteor shower you both know you are too early to see. You wonder why he always waits so long before kissing you. Perhaps it’s the same reason you never lean in first. You wonder if he ever notices. You wonder if he’s thinking about it now. You wonder if there are just some people you are supposed to know in this life. You wonder if he is one of these people.

And then you stop thinking so hard about why you are still there and begin feeling how cold the cement is under your back. You hear the coyotes howling in the distance. You notice how the air smells a little like snow and firewood. And you stop worrying about whether you will ever figure it all out. Because sometimes it’s just kind of nice to just stand in the dark next to someone who doesn’t mind standing in the dark with you.

Now, my father’s culinary skills have nothing to do with the fact that I haven’t returned home for the holiday since. I just live really far away now.

And truthfully, this was the first Thanksgiving for my family with two empty seats at the table. And I will admit, I was a little relieved to be driving down to LA to celebrate the holiday with Emily’s family instead. For a few days I was able to pretend that everything was normal back home. But I am not going to write about that. I am going to write about how after two years of attending Thanksgiving in LA, I think I’m finally getting a handle on the city, the holiday, and how to make the most out of being stuck in traffic for 10 hours. Here’s what I learned from the latest road trip with Emily.

1. Offer to do the dishes. At your family’s house you look like a schmuck if you don’t scoop the last of the poultry fat from the serving tray. At a friend’s house, you are damn hero for even asking.
2. Always bring a pie. You never hear, ‘Oh, that kale casserole you slaved over for four hours was a-maz-ing’. So save yourself the trouble and get some cans of condensed milk and pumpkin filling, a pie crust from Safeway and call it homemade. No one cares.
3. Make sure the car you rent has at least a CD player or an iPod dock. And actually bring CDs. Otherwise, you’re going to be stuck listening to Jesus music, mariachi bands, or slow jams for the duration of the trip along highway 5. Unless you have an Emily. In that case, you will be serenaded to soft rock from the early 90s.
Side note: Why do we need DJs on the radio anymore? We have computers. You can make playlists on them. And they don’t talk. I like that.
4. Visit the Getty. It is free. Even if you don’t like art. Or architecture. Or pretty things. You will come out on top every time.
5. And the beach. There is a reason people think attractive people live in LA. They do …
6. Consider changing occupations. You will inevitably meet people who work on sets of movies and television shows that you actually watch or wish you did. You will think, hey, that sounds cool. I want to write screenplays. I could produce stuff. But then you realize, you don’t have any ideas and you don’t write fiction. Then move on.
7. Appreciate the cost of food. It’s cheap(er than SF). And tasty.
8. Appreciate the moments you aren’t stuck in traffic.
9. Appreciate the moments you are. You can listen to Emily sing.
10. Fly. And complain about how you should have driven. Drive. And complain about you should have flown. Then watch Louis CK’s ‘Everything’s Amazing’ on Youtube from your cell phone while bitching about the traffic, how your iPhone has limited reception in the valley, your bag of rasinettes is too small, and how your life is totally unfair. And then look out the window. The view is amazing.

View from the 5.

I have flown to the East Coast to visit with my grandparents every weekend for the past month. Although, I am not certain ‘visiting’ is the best term to use under the circumstances. Especially since I was traveling to say goodbye to one, and to comfort another. But it shows just how quickly your life can change.

One day you are fixing someone’s breakfast, pouring silver dollar pancakes and dicing peaches, and the next, you are writing their obituary. I have never felt such loss. But rather than crying in the car, the shower, in airport terminals, or while listening to Ingrid Michaelson sing, I am trying to focus on the things I have learned over the past 30 days instead of what I have lost. (Although I have done all of those other things too.)

So, I guess what I am saying is, I imagine the next several posts will talk a lot about death. I hope they do not make you sad. I hope you do not find them particularly dark or inappropriate. But the morning my Nana died, my aunt Dot said, “You haven’t lived until you’ve helped someone die.” And I think she is right.

The truth is, the deaths of my Nana Dot and my grandfather Charles have taught me a lot about what love and family look like – in all their forms. And I would like to share some with you.

Lesson 1 – Play the hand you are dealt

I played cards for the last time with my Nana October 23. We played Kings in the corner – her favorite. The earliest memories I have of her involve some form of gambling. God help you if you screwed with her Bingo markers, God help you if beat her. You see, my Nana played to win. Even against 6-year-olds. Even at UNO.

My Nana thrived on competition. And she always cheated. Though, I never caught her. But we long suspected there was some validity to my Grampa’s claims. The first real evidence came the day my parents moved my grandparents out of their home and into theirs last month. My dad flipped over the kitchen tablecloth and found a lone queen tucked face up underneath in front of Nana’s chair.

But in addition to always playing to win, my nana taught me how to shuffle and deal. How to play the hand you are dealt.

She grew up poor. She was born the day after Christmas in 1926. Her mother was taken to Quincy City Hospital – the same hospital where I was born – in a horse drawn sleigh. Her father died when she was 15. She and her mother learned how to make do living off $33 a month.

“We survived. I had a pair of shoes for church, a pair for school,” she said. “I had one coat. The Salvation Army helped a lot. We had to pinch pennies. We used to tighten our belt. We went without clothes we didn’t need. We used a lot of hamburger, a lot of oatmeal.”

My Nana saved tin foil for as long as I can remember. And butter cartons. She didn’t believe in charge cards. If you couldn’t pay for it, you didn’t buy it. My grandparents paid for their last Crown Victoria in cash. And my Nana carried about $3,000 in cash on her at all times in a purse that was probably older than me.

She cooked clams, pulled ribbon candy, and worked in the press room of the Patriot Ledger stuffing inserts into newspapers. She worked hard her entire life. Even after her retirement when she had emphysema and struggled to simply breathe.

My nana taught me how to create opportunities out of nothing. Bluff if you have to. Don’t give away your hand. Play as though the game means something – even when you aren’t playing for anything at all. Celebrate the victories. Even the small ones. For the record, she won her last game. And she didn’t cheat.

Nana playing Kings in the Corner.

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time with the old people in my life. Every weekend this month I have flown 3,000 miles to the East Coast to listen to them recap the stories of their youth. I have listened to them talk about love and family, love and disappointment, love and everything else that comes secondary – or at least should. And I’ve come to the conclusion that old people lived during a time where people loved each other a little harder. Let me explain.

My Nana Lois says back then it was a “sweeter” time. Sure, you had the great depression and WWII and both my grandfathers grew up so poor one collected manure and coal chips from the streets at night while the other sold bread his grandmother baked to survive in the dust bowl. Maybe I’m romanticizing the whole thing, but life was hard. Love made it easier.

What I have gleaned from our conversations is that back then it was a time of candy and telegrams, standing on train platforms waving goodbye and waiting for the next time to say hello. There was wanting and longing and distance and sadness. And maybe with all that longing, it made everything seem so much more beautiful and meaningful when the two of you were finally standing in the same room.

“Back then boys carried your books for you, you know,” Nana told me over the weekend.

Boys threw pebbles at your window. They asked for permission to drive you home. They gave you promise rings. In sum: they made it clear that they liked you. They were bold. Not only do I appreciate the romantic aspect of it, I like the efficiency of it all. Back then, dating was the ultimate time saver. Think about it.

Scenario 1
Boy: Would it be OK if I drove you home?
Girl: Yes, thank you.
Message clear: I am interested, I might let you hold my hand.

Scenario 2
Boy: Would it be OK if I drove you home?
Girl: I think I’ll just walk. But thanks.
Message clear: I am not interested, you should move on.

There were standards of etiquette and communicating that were clear and easily understood by all parties. Kind of like ordering coffee at Dunkin Donuts. Everyone knows a small regular is two squirts of cream, two teaspoons of sugar. I like this method of operation because I enjoy understanding what people are asking for from me. With dating nowadays, I feel like it’s more like ordering at Starbucks. It’s confusing, I’m forced to speak a vocabulary I’m uncomfortable with, and leads me to suspect I’m not always getting what I asked for in the end.

Technology is just mucking up the clarity standards of communication and etiquette provide. If someone asks you on a real date – which entails dinner, is arranged at least 24 hours in advance, requires transportation and a change of clothes – that’s different from “hanging out.” It’s harder to ask for up front, but if you both agree, you go into the evening with intentions understood. It’s the ultimate green light that yes, I kind of like you, and yes, I kind of want to kiss you.

When my Nana Lois was dating, boys and girls operated within certain societal and economic constraints. And it was awesome. Back then most families had one telephone if one at all. So it was a big deal if a boy called you. And if someone took the train to see you it took days. It meant they liked you. Now, if someone is willing to pick you up at the airport and sit in traffic for 30 minutes after you’ve traveled 3,000 miles it means they like you enough to want to actually sit in traffic with you while they plug in their iPod. It’s a sweeping gesture of romance.

Upon returning from Boston last week I found myself admitting that since moving to the Bay Area I have never felt more lost in the dating world. Why is this?

Did I somehow lose my game in baggage claim five years ago? Is the dating pool that much more attractive here? (Answer no. Here’s a tip gentlemen: if a girl can bench press you, she probably doesn’t want to date you.) Is it the proximity to Silicon Valley and a culture of serial upgraders? Or is it because I am in the middle of a city that loves its social outcasts and the fact that it does not have to play by the rules? I suspect this is the case. And I, unfortunately, am a person who loves rules and etiquette.

When I was in college not everyone had a cell phone and Facebook was just rolling out to the first wave of selected schools. Six years later everyone over the age of 7 owns a mobile phone and even my dad is on Facebook. (He still won’t friend me.) I’m pretty sure the rapid proliferation of these tiny pieces of technology is ruining my love life.

A device that is supposed to make communication with people easier has only made me more confused. (Save for the GPS function.)There is an ever increasing number of ways you can contact me using it. My iPhone has an application for Twitter, an app for Facebook. You can contact me via text, or email on one of my three accounts. You can contact me over Flickr. I’m certain during the time I began writing this post until now, that yet another method is gaining traction that I will have to play catch up on.

These tiny key to the universes have altered the way we speak to people, when we speak to them, how we speak to them, at a rate faster than we have been able to devise a proper etiquette of interaction around. (Or at least faster than I have been able to adapt.) And because the methods keep changing, so do the rules. For instance, texting isn’t just because you need a quick answer anymore. It’s the way. Phone calls are for old people.

And that may be the crux of my problem. It’s too easy to contact people now. You can zip a text over to someone while sitting at a red light. You can forward a link while waiting for your latte. You can comment on a status while popping into the elevator. With so many ways of getting in touch, I really don’t understand why people contact me anymore at all. I think some folks are just bored. Maybe someone needs to write a user manual. Maybe that someone should be me.

While I’ve always known that old people are wiser than me, I’m starting to think they are geniuses. My grandparents are amused by my generation. And I deeply suspect they think ours is a bunch of idiots incapable of the level commitment they had. My Nana Lois laughed when she heard how we communicate with each other now. “We didn’t have texting and the Twitter back then,” she said. “Matters of the heart are too important … Be bold.”

BE LOYAL

After a 30 minute coughing spell, her breathing steadied, and gasps subsided. She opened her eyes, clasped her Boston Red Sox blanket, and focused on my face. “What’s happening in the game?” she asked.

OLD PEOPLE ARE WISE

Jen: Nana, what is the best and worst thing about being a woman?
Nana: (Thinks.) The sex.
Jen: (Jaw drops.) What about for a man?
Nana: The same.

KNOW YOUR PRIORITIES

Nana: There’s God, and then there’s Larry (my dad, her son-in-law.)
Mom: Then who?
Nana: Your father.
Dot: Then who?
Nana: The girls. My daughters.
Mom: Dot, we got promoted!

CHOOSE YOUR PARTNER WISELY

Nana: How are the boys?
Me: I don’t have a boy.
Nana: That’s OK. It’s not all a bed of roses you know – unless you find the right one.
Me: Well, what do you have – a bed of roses or weeds?
Nana: I got lucky.
Dot: (eyebrows arch) Really?
Nana: Sometimes your father can be an ass. And a slob. But he’s a good guy, he has a good heart.

These moments, in a word, suck. They creep up on you like creditors – leaving messages you only listen part way through before erasing. They must have the wrong number. Besides, they’re never getting back their old sweatshirt.

Sometimes you are more prepared and it’s more like an amusement park ride winding down. You know it was fun. You can remember it being fun. It just was! Wasn’t it?

But suddenly you changed speeds and now you’re noticing the rust on the bolts, the scratches on the seats, the unnerving grating of metal on metal as the brakes go on – and he does too. So you both ignore the attendant reaching for the door and sit there wishing the ride would last a little longer. Partially because you recall really wanting to get on this ride with this person, partially because you don’t want to have to find another line worth standing in. You already did that. Now you have to pee. Plus you’re hungry. And now you don’t feel like being turned upside down.

The other type of heartbreak is when you face losing someone permanently. Like your Nana. And these moments are, in a word, scary.

Moving forward, there is no checking her status updates on Facebook to see if she’s feeling tired or feisty or somewhere in between. You can’t email her out of the blue wanting to know how much butter to put in the frosting for her Italian cookies. Can’t call just to hear her clear her throat and tell you about the damn dog she loves so much. The latter type of heartsore feels more like something foreign that has taken up residency in your chest. It just sits there pulsing and existing and you wonder if it ever goes away.

With your ex love interest, you know he or she is going about a daily routine that no longer involves you. Or you at least hope they are. At some point your neurotransmitters will rewire and you will stop connecting this person to everything in your life. Eventually, a fire truck will just be just a fire truck again. Eventually, you will stop wanting to call her after you hear something funny. Or not funny. But you wanted to share it with her anyway.

This second type of heartache is different. And I suspect it’s because we can’t imagine a ‘what next’ scenario. Or at least, I can’t.

You can’t imagine not hearing this person say things like, “You know, you don’t have to marry a young man,” after you express enthusiasm for Vice President Joe Biden – a guy who should have access to a take back button shortly after opening his mouth. Kind of like you. And you harbor a deep fear that you will never hear someone else say, “Love goes where it is sent – even to a monkey’s ass,” and suspect no one else will ever cook you Shit on a Shingle, or know how to burn the chicken cutlets just right. You worry that you have not asked all the questions you have for her. You worry that she is afraid.

You wonder, will you ever be able to look at your hands as they type and not see someone else’s? In time, will you look in the mirror and not see a frown all too familiar? Or when you laugh will you suddenly stop because you hear someone else in the room? I ask, because I only know how to deal with the first type of heartsore.

And though I’m no expert, they generally go something like this: You collect your things. Try not to forget anything on the field, meet in the middle, and shake. You say good game. You vow to find a more worthy opponent next time and exit towards the street. You look both ways before crossing. Then you go home.

I’m lucky. So far I have never lost a grandparent I remember. Selfishly, I think about how I do not have much time with my Nana, rather than the other way around.

In a break up, it’s OK that it’s all about you and the loss of something bigger than yourself. Because it belonged to you. It existed because you played a role in creating it. But this is altogether different; this time it’s not about you and what you’re losing. Because this person made you. This person shaped you. They enabled you to go forth and allow your heart to find another person’s to rub up against for awhile. And when it broke, they were there to tell you: better things will come. And she was right. And you want to tell her so, but that’s making it all about you again isn’t it?

So I am going home tomorrow to not talk about me. I am going home to hold her hand. To sit next to her and just watch the birds on the deck or leave her alone with the damn dog if she so desires. I will not burden her anymore with questions about her life. That is, unless she wants me to. And if so, I will just listen.

I can’t say I’m surprised. I’m not heartbroken. I’m not really all that disappointed. In fact, I can’t even say I’m mad. (I say this now. But maybe this is the denial talking.) Because, in truth Tito, we really didn’t deserve to make it to the ALCS. Or maybe even the ALDS.

We played without heart, without brass, without that little thing that makes a championship team a championship team. We began the 2009 postseason without it. It’s not something that got lost on the flight to Los Angeles last week. It didn’t fall out of one of the ball bags. It didn’t get traded, injured, or left at Logan. It was just never there.

So I can’t say I’m all that sad. Sure, I’m going to miss you and the way you ignore me all season. And I’ll admit. I thought we were on our way to Game 4. Maybe even a Game 5. There was a tiny shred of me that thought … maybe we do have one comeback left in us. But I guess that is what being a Red Sox fan is all about – remaining hopeful when everything’s gone to pot, and exhibiting sheer bewilderment when everything hasn’t.

Tito, I listened to the entire game yesterday. While doing laundry I caught myself murmuring to Clay Buchholz, willing his tiny shoulders to carry the load of Red Sox Nation one more day. Walking home from the grocery store I was that crazy person smiling to herself, throwing a tiny fist pump on the sidewalk – a passing celebration strangers around me couldn’t comprehend.

And then as I began chopping tomatoes in the kitchen I was suddenly flashed back to the dark days of old. I was yelling at my phone. Cursing at Pap. Wondering what would have happened if it was Tek behind the plate. And frightening my new roommates as I hollered at no one in particular.

Afterward, I sat alone and dejected in the living room staring into the gray sky above Golden Gate Park. I didn’t say anything for awhile. Eventually I made my way into the kitchen, rummaged around in the cabinets and gnawed on anything chocolate I could find. I opened the freezer and sucked on a spoonful of ice cream and continued staring into the nothing. My roommate emerged from her room and asked if I was going to be OK.

And Tito, the answer is yes. I found myself telling her it’s good for the kiddies. They need to learn that you don’t win a championship every year. That you don’t always deserve to. They need to learn that suffering is what being a Red Sox fan is about. You need to be able to watch your team fold in storybook fashion, hang your head in shame, gather the pieces of you that remain, dust off your cap and be willing to ante up again.

See you in April Tito.

Kristen