More than a month has passed. In that time, almost everything that has been remotely stable or secure in my life has crumbled into rubble, turned to butterflies and fluttered away, leaving me standing alone with a memory of mountains, with an image of a thousand colors burning on the back of my eyes. Blue sky. Open field. Ariana. Alone. And standing. I do not know the way, so I shall have to choose a direction. I shall have to create a path for myself. Create one. Create. One. Alone. Ariana-who-chooses. Standing.

This is what has happened:

Andre and I have broken up. She, sweet and kind and warm and soft and still so much in love, ended the relationship. I, exhausted and ready to embrace change, seconded the motion. Grateful, so grateful for her love and her continued warmth. Grateful that she was standing, that no doors slammed, that her message of release was full of open door. That her arms still welcomed me. That we might come together again, when the time is right, when I’m ready. Grateful. Grateful. Grateful. Sad and murky, gasping and grasping as I look back. But easy in myself in the present. Light and free. Delighted to look forward into the great wide open anything can happen future.

I made the decision to move out. This was not a foregone conclusion. For a couple of weeks after the break-up, our cohabitation situation seemed actually to be really good, really peaceful and easy in the absence of argument. The warmth between us is strong and has kept us close. We would cuddle and laugh together. We would eat meals, discuss our other loves, our hopes for the future, how we hoped that we would be together again. Sometimes we would cry. I had to decide what I wanted and needed for myself. So often I have abdicated responsibility. Have waited for Andre to make a decision which I either railed against or embraced. It was time for me to be proactive about my needs and desires. It was painful. It remains painful. The decision to leave. To really leave. To move myself physically from the home that we have built together. To know that I will not see Andre’s beautiful face everyday. I chose. To leave. To move forward, forth into the rest of my life. I committed to move in with a dear friend of mine not too far away.

My financial situation grew tense. Moving is expensive business. Especially for me, Ms. Paycheck-to-Paycheck-Can’t-Budget-to-Save-Her-Life. My rent will increase by a hundred dollars per month, more when I consider utilities. I have not had a security deposit here, so I have to come up with it, magically, out of thin air. Quickly, by the end of December. (I’m moving earlier in the month of December.) When I’m also trying to figure out how I will come up with the rent for January, especially given that it is a short month. I’m going to Pennsylvania December 21st and not returning until New Year’s Eve. My teaching job (which customarily pays just exactly the rent) ends on the 13th. A regular client of mine is out of commission due to physical ailments and will remain out of commission for quite a long time. I had no idea how I was going to pull this thing together.

In the meantime, the cooperative has gone to hell, as far as I’m concerned. I work for an organization that, once upon a time, had a traditional (oppressive) management structure, replete with alienated labor, fucked up power dynamics, people at the top making all the money off the people at the bottom, etc. What kept me there during that time was that I really loved my co-workers. I enjoyed the work well enough, but the camaraderie of my co-workers (and their brilliance and dynamism and their sheer sexiness) was what held me there. We were all in it together. We had each other’s backs. Now, several months ago, we bought the business. The management said, we’re selling it. The workers said, we’ll buy it. And we’ve been working like crazy to make it happen. And it did. And it was so exciting and so fantastic and liberating-feeling and joyous, all hooray and we did it and what we’ve always wanted! Oh, how quickly the universe turns upside down. We elected a board of directors and an office team and somehow, over the course of the last several months, my work environment has become really, really awful. It feels much worse to me than when we were run by a sleazy external management structure. Rather like America, power is held by only a few people, who make all of the decisions and who are not necessarily representing the needs or desires of the membership. They are not welcome to feedback, to input, to advice (either from others inside the organization or from external sources). They are not welcome to the participation of anyone but themselves. They want to maintain multiple levels of power, multiple offices at the same time. Their opinion of the regular member appears very low (at least from the way they speak about members and the way they denigrate ideas other than theirs); and they pass down very punitive messages to the other worker/owners. The membership is alienated and increasingly apathetic. Morale is extremely low. Perhaps because they believe they no longer have the power to affect meaningful change, they no longer try. Another member and I created a committee to revise the policies that we voted in on a trial basis when we bought the business and to try to keep the cooperative moving towards greater and greater democratization; we’ve been attending every Board meeting (and they happen weekly), we’ve been creating and distributing surveys, and compiling the results, in order to get the widest amount of input from the general membership body. Though the Membership had decided that this was work that was vital and would need to be done and though the Board approved the creation of our Committee, neither body has supported the work that we do. Somehow, the two of us (and those in our committee) have become ‘the bad guys.’ I am burnt out. I am overworked and underappreciated and underpaid and voluntarily sacrificing huge amounts of my free time for a cause that I believe in, but that does not believe in me. I am not affecting meaningful change. I am not feeling empowered by this process. And worst of all, I no longer love my co-workers. Work is no longer a fun place to be. I have realized that I have learned all I have to learn there. That I am stagnating. That it is officially time to move on. To go on to all of those bigger and better things the universe has always whispered in my ear that it had planned for me. To pick one. To close my eyes, spin in a circle, point in a direction, open my eyes, and go.

Having made that decision, I got suspended. At least, I think I’m suspended. I’m supposed to be suspended. In a month full of stress, I accidentally maxed out my points. (You get points for tardiness—it doesn’t take much.) I haven’t gotten an official call, but that doesn’t mean anything. The office team can be a little disorganized about some of the finer points. (And I haven’t dared to call in to check, because if it’s been overlooked, that’s fine with me. It probably hasn’t been. They’ve probably just forgotten to call.) After all, I had requested the week off, because my mother was (is) visiting. Suspended. From my most stable, reliable, I’ve had it for two and a half years, bread and butter job. For six weeks. The six most financially stressful weeks of the past two and a half years of my life. This is the worst possible moment for the universe to call my bluff about moving out of there, up and away.

I am choosing to trust. That I will find another job (or two or three) immediately and easily. That money will come out of nowhere into my hands. The universe always takes care of me in situations like these. I suppose it’s a little bit like believing in a god, this believe I have that the universe has a benevolent facing towards me. This belief that I will be taken care of. But it’s terrifying, just the same. Maybe that’s how it has to work.

And my mother is visiting from Pennsylvania for the first time in two and a half years. For ten days. Because I invited her. Because I believed that Thanksgiving would be the best possible time for a little one on one with my mom. Because nothing else would be going on.

Now at the same time, I am committing assiduously to following the path of my greatest integrity. It is challenging, but I’m learning and growing so much. Also, I’m spending time (about once a week) with a very sweet lover-man friend I’ve known for a long time and it’s really low-key and really easy and wild and fun and delightful and I’m so so grateful to be able to connect with someone with my heart and with my body in a way that challenges me to be in my integrity, but that doesn’t challenge me too much, and that doesn’t require a *relationship* of me. I am writing morning pages every day and it’s *amazing*! I’ve spent so much time hiding from myself and hiding from blank paper and I’m not doing that anymore. I am sorting through everything I’ve been terrified for years to look at. I have seen extraordinary art, which kicks me into inspiration (even as it makes me confront myself with the mammoth question of why: “Why, Ariana, have you been so silent? Why have you been stagnant? Why isn’t it you on that stage? What have you been doing with the creative spirit in you? Where is your voice? How did you grow so small? How will you climb yourself out of this coffin you’ve built for your wild audacious creative heart? Why why why why why why why?”) I am slowly learning how to calm the part of me that wants to bludgeon me for everything. I recognize that the realization that I am not creatively where I want to be is something to celebrate, rather than to mourn. It is the beginning of my journey forth. I have chosen to teach Poetry for the People again this spring. I am one by one reconnecting with friends and deepening my ties with people that I love. I have gone from feeling entirely alone, from believing that I have no one in the world I can talk to about all of this turmoil and tumultuousness in me (full of shame for the ways in which I believe I can be a terrible friend), to opening up and realizing that there are hands that will hold me, fingers that will dance with mine, hearts that will still hear me. And for all of them, and for all of you I am extremely grateful.

I have also realized that I can ask for help. (More to the point, I’ve been told over and over again enough times that it’s finally begun to sink in.) So, humble and full of gratitude for everyone who has ever loved me, I ask you all for help.

Firstly, I need a job. (Preferably a fabulous job.) If you know of any job opportunities, or job hunting resources that I might not know about, please let me know. If you need a copy of my resume or something, let me know.

Also, I’m going to be moving from approximately December 9th through December 20th. I could really use assistance and moral support. I’m kind of freaked out about packing up my things in boxes and taking them out of this place that’s been my home for so long. So, if you want to help me pack or carry boxes or sit and talk and laugh with me through the process, I would welcome it. If anyone happens to have a truck or a van that they could lend me for a day or two (or trade with my car for a day or two) in there, that would be really cool. I have some bigger furniture items and I will probably have to end up renting a U-haul, but if it’s at all avoidable, I’d like to avoid it. Money is kind of tight, you know. I’ll also be painting the room I’m moving into and I’d love company, if there’s anybody out there who might like to help me paint. I think it will be yellow. Also, if there are folks out there who might like to exercise or do yoga with me, that would be amazing. I’m particularly partial to yoga (ashtanga, iyengar, and kripalu, but I’m open to other styles) and jogging, but whatever we do, I really just need to move my body and by myself, I’m not getting myself enough exercise for my own mental/emotional and physical health. Um, hmm . . . I could also use a massage. Hee hee! Just thought I’d mention. =) Furthermore, if you're up for it . . . A sweet word. A hug. A big smile. Infectious laughter. Encouragement. A nudge in a good direction. Book recommendations. A poem in my mailbox. A finger pointing out a gorgeous tree, sunlight catching in it’s leaves. The knowledge that there are people out there in the world who love me. I get so lost sometimes. Help me remember who I am. Please.

Thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks for all of the love and all of the patience and all of the kindness you’ve shown me.

It is a wild time of exceptional change. I tremble before it. But I shall not turn away . . .