#34 WHEN LETTING GO FINALLY DOES

My grandmother's china cabinet just left my apartment. Last week it was the peach chairs she and my grandfather sipped coffee in every morning.  Her Waterford crystal is now lined up on my end table.  Their life seemed so peaceful to me. So put together. Their "stuff" always gave me a peace. A peace I am now letting go of. A peace that wasn't mine to begin with.

As each piece leaves and as each box is packed I am overwhelmed.  Twelve years ago I moved here with a man I no longer speak to. A dog who has long since died. A turtle who is now free in a lake in New Jersey. These walls have had many roommates come and go. Many tears. Many laughs. Many celebrations. These are all things that make a home. Right? Memories. Reasons to stay. History.

Yet I am leaving.

The couple who took my china cabinet are in their 20's and newly married.  To them, this is just the beginning.  The beginning of the rest of their lives.  They are living the same dream I lived at their age.  I felt so lucky. I thought I had it right.  All lined up.  And I did, to be honest. I had it all lined up if I had planned not to grow, work, evolve and be different.  If i hadn't decided to be an award winning comedian, an entrepreneur, a native New Yorker, a feminist, a humanist...if I hadn't been all of those things, I'd have been just like them.  Right.

As I sit here feeling melancholy about tearing up my "home", the saddest part is the saying goodbye to something that was so terribly wrong for me.  I look back now and know my choice to move out of my home and in with my boyfriend was the wrong choice.  For me.  At 27 you would think it would've been the exact right thing to do.  But it wasn't for a very specific reason- my talent. 

My talent. It sounds so pompous. But it isn't really. Let me try to explain what it's like. My talent. When I was a kid and through my 20's my talent was very on the surface.  I could be in the middle of some conversation with my family, for example, and then I would need to suddenly get up and go to my room.  It got to be that my family understood my abrupt exits as normal.  My talent needed a moment alone with me and it wouldn't take no for an answer. It was aggressively vocal.  It didn't care what "life things" i was trying to do- when it needed to speak it wanted my full attention.  It was heavenly to be needed and used that way. It still is.

Back then, I would go into my room and immediately begin creating. I'd write stand up, a new character, try on on a costume, rehearse a monologue, write a song...seriously. I was a creative machine.  I was a slave to it. Whatever it wanted it got.  It's the same talent that's making me write right now.  It will keep me here typing all night if it needs to.  It uses my body parts to channel itself.  Hours and hours of writing and singing and talking and acting and painting. It's an inner voice.  It's the deepest part of me.  It's a delicate birds nest of blue eggs and inside are red-eyed falcons.

So, in my 20's i was the girl who had 3 jobs.  I never went out to drink after work because I needed to save money and I needed to go to sleep.  I was serious about my artistic work. I never drank and performed.  I didn't sleep around.  I didn't take drugs. I was present, kind, receptive, intuitive and gloriously naive.  People loved my work but I wasn't invited to their after hours parties.  Ever. I was lonely sometimes.  I was lonely a lot. But I had my work and making people laugh was what I was passionate for. I have made alot of people laugh in my life. It's better than anything. Anything.

But I gave in eventually. This life I'm leaving was the culmination of me trying to fit in.  I was trying to be "grown up". Trying complicate and distract like everyone else. I took on other people's problems.  I created many of my own. I kept working my art but with the energy of my 20's and 30's I thought I was able to take it all on. Endlessly.  Or so i thought. Moving out of my home was the most immature move I've ever made.

Artistic talent isn't something to take for granted.  Ever. It needs protection and safety.  It needs no pressure. No distractions.  It needs love and safety.  It needs to go out into the big bad world and devour it it, and then it needs to go home and have a hot bath.  It needs a warm meal and to go to bed early.  It needs love. It needs to be first. Always.

So I am moving back to my home of origin- the safest place I know. To let go of all that I thought I was supposed to do as a female.  My life now has to go back to being extraordinary. It's the only way I know.

#33 - MY DOG DIED

-->

                                          Photo by Andrea Reese 2011

My dog died.   He died an abrupt and swift death in slow motion. 

The vet injected him with a tranquilizer and his body veered to the left…towards my mother, who caught him.

When his head rested on her arm- with the first relief he’d felt in months – I told the vet it was time to let him go and she ended it. 

He was a dog. A dog! For eleven years his schedule scheduled mine and in the wee hours after I'd come home…from performance spaces and places…he'd greet me like I was the Easter Bunny.  It didn’t matter how my set went. It didn’t matter who had broken my heart. It didn’t matter what bills I hadn’t paid yet….To MAX…I was the sun and the moon. 

I named him Max because my boyfriend at the time hated that name for a baby.  I loved it!  He said, "Since you love that name so much, use it for the dog".  The same day Max died my ex had a baby he named Dashielle…

So, here’s the truth.  Relationships matter.  We aren’t tough. No matter how little or insignificant our fleeting times are together….they're heart wrenching when they are over.  And they resonate.  Deeply. 

Sex matters.  It can be once…It can be eight years. Man or woman the vibrations of that person stick like glue.  Don’t fool yourself. 

A late night conversation about art over really great Irish whiskey….matters.  It sticks with you.  A connection…on a whimsical trip to Europe with an unattainable person…matters….it sticks with you.  It defines you. 

My eleven years with Max the dog made me who I am…a little…I’m a person who will schedule her life around the well being of someone I love.   I am a person who will feed pills to someone I love by covering my hand in peanut butter…twice a day.  Ill wash poop off of them, wash them in lavender soap, blow dry them and wrap them in a blanket…Ill wash them before washing myself…over and over.  Ill push them in a carriage in central park…and it will do me good to get some fresh are. 

After Max died I was in my apartment. I decided to throw out his toys.  After that I efficiently called my super to schedule him to come and fix my sink.  After we agreed on a time, I said I had to tell him one more thing….Max was gone.  I expected a nice response…so sorry for your loss. Instead he said “NOOOOOO…Max was my friend.” 

Turns out Max did some damage on this earth. While he was so busy loving me, turns out he loved all of the people in my life who had met him.  He'd made an impression.  He validated the people in my life as part of my family…without me knowing.  He left me with some damage control.  People are sad hes gone.

Max showed me how much the people in my life love me.  The people outside of my family who want to know me….he bridged them in…perhaps when I wouldn’t.  Couldn't …didnt see

My dog died.  His name was Max.  I will never forget him.