When Alice Came Home

What do you think it was like for Alice post Wonderland? Do you think she missed it? Do you think she spent her days trying to get back? Do you think she cried for days over the loss of it? The loss of her escape, her Wonderland with no boring studies no one to correct her grammar?

I can tell you with certainty she did miss it. I can tell you that once she was free of Wonderland she broke into sobbing at the least little thing. I can tell you it took her awhile to adjust back to life with no escape. She slept a lot in those days. And I can also say she was glad to be home, that Wonderland was a crazy place...yet she loved it, and she missed it, and she wondered how she survived it. She wondered at the complexity of it, and then she slept and cried some more.

I haven't smoked in 8 days. My Sweet Escape and I broke up a week ago. I am friggin' depressed. And not, a little down, I am not sure I'm gonna make it through this without Valium and weed sad. I tear up at the least little thing and lay in my bed for hours not able to motivate. Thank goodness for my Beasts or I would have bed sores by now. They make sure their Queenpin gets her ass out of bed because THEY HAVE NEEDS.

You know my whole history of smoking thing so I won't bore you with why I stopped smoking. But you might be wondering what happened to me and my Sweet Escape. Simply put, we changed the rules and then it didn't work anymore. After 20 months we both threw in the towel, and I am a mess because of it.

So here's the long and short of it. The abbreviated version, and the long tale. When I was 19 my Sweet Escape and I hung out with some of the same people. He was friends with the crazy, yet hilarious, guy that I dated (did I mention he was crazy?). My Sweet Escape and I were friends then, but I of course had a crush him. This blue eyed, long haired biker, who read good books, and seemed to see the larger picture. This rowdy boy, who didn't seem to care what anyone thought. This young man who could surprise you with his kindness and shock you with his brashness. After about two years those times ended with breakups and new adventures. We all moved on.

Every few years I would see him around town. We would hug and catch up for a few minutes and then move on. Back into our lives that had become so separate. I was married and fat with babies for goodness sake. He working around the US pile driving and iron working.

But then, right when I was happily single, my husband gone, my first post divorce boyfriend gone, me basking in single woman-ness, here he comes into my life again, and what do I do when I see him? My voice raises two octaves and I giggle like I'm 13. He and I exchange numbers. I call my best friend who lives thousands of miles away and I giggle into her phone telling her I've seen HIM. She actually went out with him once. She knows.

I told another friend about running in to him, not leaving out my idiocy, and she said, "It's him. It's your biker."....Huh? Oh yes, someone had told me this man was coming, I just forgot. A few months after my husband left I felt so lost I went to a psychic and she told me there would be a man coming into my life. Someone I had known before. This man was a biker, he was the one, and we had stuff we needed to work out. At the time I thought, I don't know any bikers, and I blew it off. Well, after 2 years I had forgotten, but my friend had remembered, and then I did too.

So to cut to the chase he and I started dating, and it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. In so many ways he was exactly what I wanted and in others I really wondered what in the hell I was doing. I have never been so honest with a man about how passionately I felt about him, and I have never fought with a man the way he and I fought.

Yep, it was like this. Sigh....

Sometimes things could be bad. I would come home from his house shaken from our fights. Not only because of his behavior, but because of mine and the unstoppable fire that would flare out of me and burn us both. But then things could be so good. When I folded up into him, when I curled up at his side, or he just wrapped his arms around me, it was coming home. And then there is the fact that my Sweet Escape knows me. He has seen through me like no other. There is a comfort, and a scariness in that.

We were actually in a great groove until about a month ago. We had to go and screw it up. We changed the rules and once we did that nothing could be the same. My Sweet Escape and I needed to grow if we wanted to stay together and for many reason we couldn't do it. We changed the rules from wanting to be each others' escapes to wanting to be each others partners, and then we realized with the way our lives are right now, that would not work. The realization was brutal for both of us, because once we tried to move forward and couldn't, we also realized there was no going back.


Last night he called at midnight, maybe to get closure, maybe just to vent, but after I hung up the phone I knew that it was over. Not like the overs we've had before that lastest 3 weeks max. I don't want to hurt him anymore, I like him too much, and I'd like to think that he feels the same way too. Somehow we had gotten to that point where you think, "Have I really been treating someone I care deeply about in this way? And how the fuck do I stop it?" Both of our feelings are so hurt we can't even communicate these days without snarling at each other like dogs.

The funny thing is. I know he's not out of my life. Not this man. He's been on the fringes too long and I really like him so much. I want to be friends with him. That is a first for the Queenpin. I have never, ever, kept an ex in my life by choice. Oh yes, some have reappeared years later and we have thankfully become friends, but I don't want to wait that long for my Sweet Escape and I to make peace. I need him in my life, especially as a friend, where I don't have ridiculous expectations, and neither does he. I think we're going to turn a corner where it will be less passionate, but a deep friendship. That's what I'm hoping for. How could I ever let go of a friend that taught me to embrace my inner badass? And who let me run away to his house for almost 2 years?

When Alice came back from Wonderland her life was changed forever. In Wonderland she had realized what a strong girl she was, and she had found that there was a large and amazing world outside of her very small one. She missed Wonderland, but she was glad to be home. Of course she was confused by her experience, but I bet she never wished it didn't happen. Just like me, Alice delighted, and relished in her Sweet Escape, but when it was over, she walked away because there was nothing else to do, except say, "Goodbye/hello and how do you do?"