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~ Gigi, you're from another planet.

Cigars and Jewelry

Tag Archives: future

The Science Of Giving A Shit

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by Gigi Engle in This Thing Called Love

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Tags

advice, alone, anxiety, articles, bad dates, basic bitches, being in love, boyfriends, break up stories, breaking up, dating, experiencing sex, finding love, future, growing up, love, New York City, permalink, relationships, sex, single, single in new york, the new chapter, viral, writing

I woke up Saturday morning and kept my eyes tightly shut, consumed with desperate prayers that when I finally let my eyelids crack that I would be faced with the familiarity of my own apartment.

I didn’t get so lucky. Since I didn’t remember getting to this apartment I instinctively knew that something awful has happened last night. That I had had too much to drink, in all likeliness had acted absurd and obnoxious and was now going to be forced to face a situation I wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

—

I’ve been seeing Blue for a while now. I probably should have acknowledged his presence in my life on this blog before today but I didn’t expect that this was going to end up being something and figured I could just hash it out later as things would come to an end sooner rather than later. And I guess part of me didn’t want to jinx it. What did I do to even deserve an actual nice guy?

I’m a sex writer and have a blog where I openly discuss my life and the events surrounding it. What man in their right mind would want to date a person who does what I do? Obviously, I wouldn’t want to be with a man who didn’t accept my work and acknowledge the value that it brings to the world without dismissing it as vicious smut., but I didn’t really think there were many men out there who were actually understanding and, honestly, appreciative of my work.

But Blue is different. He cares about my writing and seems to care about me as well. I plan to post some of his writing here as he’s currently grappling with the realities of dating me: an emotionally unavailable millennial female.

I’ve resisted him as much as possible. I didn’t have any interest in having a relationship and certainly nothing serious. I guess reason has won out.

—

When the going gets tough it’s easier to run away and not deal with the situation than it is to actually confront it. I’ll openly admit that I am great at running. I could have a PHD in Running The Fuck Away.

Waking up this morning I laid very still for several minutes deciding what I was going to do and how I was going to make my escape from Blue’s apartment to the salvation of my walk up on the Upper West Side.

How far am I from the train, again? Is it too early to get home so I’ll have to explain what happened to PW? Would Blue wake up if I tried to sneak out? Shit, my backpack with all of my stuff was in the living room. Could I be quiet enough to get dressed and peace out?

My panicked thoughts were abruptly halted by Blue’s voice. He sounded somewhat annoyed, clearly perplexed and obviously frustrated.

We’d gone to a comedy show the night before, prefaced by a happy hour with my best friend from Paris, GH, and a bottle of wine with the steak we had at dinner. I didn’t need any more to drink at the show but I did—because I’m an asshole and have issues with limits.

Blue related what happened. A cringe-worthy mixture of obnoxious screaming and tears. I was mortified. I couldn’t even look at him.

Up until now I had nothing to lose. What the fuck did I care about this dude? Who was he to even get me to feel this shameful about my actions? I hated how vulnerable and emotionally raw I felt. I wanted out and fast.

“I’m leaving.” I declared and started putting on my clothes in a hurry, desperate to hightail it to the train even though it was raining and I had a terrible headache. “Why?” he asked. I explained that I was uncomfortable, that I didn’t want to be there anymore—the usual speech I give for why I don’t face my mistakes and instead run away and pretend nothing ever happened.

He asked me to stay. I kept getting dressed. I wasn’t staying there. Hell no. I looked at him lying there. He was confused and upset and asking me to stay despite the fact that I had been a complete jackass the night before. I didn’t understand why he was even asking me to stay. I brushed it off, curtly, as his being polite.

When he asked again I stopped in my tracks and just stared for a long moment, deep inside my head. Why was I running away from this guy? It was easy to run away before. I never gave a shit about anything enough to make it better. I didn’t have time to pick up the pieces. I just had to leave them there, messy and broken and move on to the next chapter, storing away those unwanted memories in the back of my mind. To admit that I cared meant that I would have to take action and set off on a course to (hopefully) remedy the situation.

What I felt next made my cheeks warm and sweat collect on my brow. Holy hell. I cared. I actually gave a shit. I didn’t want to run away. I wanted to mend the cracks and make it better. I wanted to fix it. And I wanted Blue. I didn’t want to never see him again as I had been planning only a few minutes earlier, as I lay plotting my escape.

I put down my things, climbed back into bed and legitimately had a real conversation. I admitted I was wrong, that I was red hot with embarrassment and sorry I behaved like such a petulant child. And what was crazier was that I meant it all.

He forgave me, which made me like him even more because it showed an amount of character uncommon in most of the men I’ve dealt with in my (almost) 24 years on this earth and nearly 5 spent in New York City. I acted like a dick, he was angry, I apologized and we both cared enough to make it better.

I call that progress. Progress for my maturity and progress for my sometimes-unmanageable pride. To admit defeat was the first step. And admitting defeat didn’t mean that I was defeated. It meant that I was a human being and human beings are flawed.

Anyway, I guess I have a boyfriend now. This is territory I haven’t been in in a very long time and I’ll admit I’m terrified while still being excited.

I’m grateful my heart wanted something enough to master the science of giving a shit.

lost and found. home and the missing pieces.

23 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by Gigi Engle in Single in New York, This Thing Called Love

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Tags

family, future, home, learning, love, plans, relationships, self discovery, sex, thoughts, travel, writing

I have spent these (nearly) last days of waning summer in my hometown in Chicago, in our old David Adler house which has a whole lot of rooms, zillions of spider webs and even more character.

Sitting on a couch we’ve had since the 80’s with its lining tattered, almost in total, its cotton innards, frayed, rough and exposed. We watched the Count of Monte Cristo, I was wearing baseball themed footie pajamas that are the relic of some party my parents had way back when.

I was sad and happy at the same time. Delighted that I was going to spend the weekend in South Hampton at Grey’s high school chum’s beach house (always know the right people!), but also sad to be leaving my sisters and brother behind. Sad to be leaving our seemingly endless conversations, all lying next to each other like pigs in a blanket, our eyes closed but listening to each other’s voices. It was all very calming.

–Even the most pleasant of moments seem to be slightly over shadowed and tainted by the creeping knowledge that things of an unpleasant nature are creeping in my direction. So much about the future is uncertain. Where will I live next year when my roommates and myself no longer have parental help with rent and loans to pay off? We can’t possibly stay in our current apartment, where we’re crunched in like rats as it is. What will happen next? PW has Silver and that’s a viable plan B but my only plan B is abandoning New York. I cannot possibly do that, or my heart will explode into a million pieces and everything I’ve worked for will surely be lost just like so many other post grads who move home and get comfortable in a cushy, uninteresting, un-stimulating existence. That won’t do for me.

Why can’t I just live in the moment? I wish I could embrace every moment completely. I wish I could look at that sunset and absorb it into my soul instead of thinking “this would make a really great insta” and turning it into a shallow snap shot seen through an Instagram filter. —

These last few days at home have been so amazing and rejuvenating. 14 hours of sleep a night, the only worry any of us had was if the DVD player was going to skip. It was nice for a few days but I am ready to get back to the city, back to the crazy ADD nature of it all.

I love the quiet of my home in Chicago, the smell of the fresh air and slightly mildewed carpet in the hallways and generously furnished rooms, but New York is where I belong. I don’t want to face a reality where I have to leave it.

Being home reminds you what your life to used to be like, and good or bad it makes you see how much you’ve really changed and how much that place, and those people have changed and shaped you

Those feelings can be overwhelming but they aren’t the kind of emotions one can just turn and run from. They are a part of you.

Being home brings you down to earth, in the most basic of terms. Whatever big shot life you have made for yourself, it doesn’t matter; home really is where the heart is, after all.

I loved the tenderness of the familiar, the old movies crackling on VHS tapes because my parents are too retro and in love with the vintage to cave to flat screens or cable. The smell of the moisture in summer soaked cushions in the living room, looking at the white stonewalls of our house covered in green ivy. It’s all these things that make home. They are the stuff of my childhood, of my being. I wrestle with my past and I try to be as thoroughly individualistic as I can possibly manage but I have to love these tiny pieces, these small fragments that have contributed to making me the woman I am and the woman I am becoming.

I love seeing how the pieces of our pasts have made my siblings so very much like me and how their own experiences have made them entirely their own people, my brother, CWE, so sharply witty and clever, my sister, CSE, so sweet, down to earth and ruggedly idealistic and CNE so street smart, loyal and brave.

I love coming home and I finding missing things I never even knew I didn’t have and I love coming back to New York, with those tools in hand, to find the rest of me that this ridiculous, overwhelming, exciting adventure called life has yet to reveal.

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