Cut short...

My sister was in town this weekend. For my 30th birthday, I asked for both her and my mom to come visit me in San Francisco. That's all I wanted.

So come she did. I had all kinds of fun things planned for her, and she was all excited. I was going to outdo the good times I showed her last summer, on her first-ever trip to SF.

And the trip started off great -- birthday parties, good food, convertible rides up Highway 1 in glorious weather, splashing in the waves on the beach at Point Reyes, eating oysters by the docks, colorful SF neighborhoods and SF nightlife...

And then Sunday morning, as we were getting ready to walk out the door to go to Zeitgeist, her favorite bar, where a crew of my friends were assembled to spend the day reveling in the sunshine with pitchers of beer and tamales, all at her request...

Her phone rang.

Her friend Sean, back home in Detroit, was dead. He'd died in his sleep the night before, while we were partying at the 500 Club on Guerrero. He was 27 years old.

She stayed for 2 more days, and had her bittersweet Zeitgeist Sunday, and went to Alcatraz on Monday, before I put her on a redeye a day early so she could make his funeral. I know this boy was special to her. But still, I couldn't help but feel...

Jealous.

I really wanted my sister this week. I really wanted to do all the things I wanted to do. I tried really hard to banish my ludicrous jealous thoughts, while I told Sarah it was totally okay, I understood why she wanted to go home early... And yet I still couldn't help but silently scoff, "How could this kid go and die right now? Couldn't he wait just four days? Seriously? I've been struggling with starting my life over, living with MS, a million miles away from my family, for the last 2 years, and I don't get ANY TIME with my sister, and NOW THIS? What ARE the odds?"

Does this make me a bad person? I think it does.

Because today she told me they got the results of his autopsy. He died of a massive heart attack. He apparently had a heart condition his entire life and never knew about it. One of his arteries was completely blocked. He was a walking dead man from day one.

There was no waiting.

Sean, I only met you once, but I owe you an apology.

Rest in peace, brother.

And just like that...

I'm over it.

Him:

Andrew.

Andrew emailed me back today, to apologize for not telling me himself that he was getting married.

But I don't care.

I don't care that he said he was sorry. He's sorry for passing off that most sensitive of duties to Anna. He's sorry he was too late, because I'd already heard it through the grapevine. He's so sorry it hurt me -- he never meant to hurt me. He's not trying to forget me, or make me disappear. He will always care about me.

So what. It's over Andrew. I'm done now.

You did me a favor. For the first time in years, I truly feel free of you. I'm 30 years old, and I now can have my own life.

It doesn't matter if Andrew's sorry. It only matters that I'm okay.

But he'll never know. Because I deleted his email. I deleted all my sent mail. I emptied my trash. And then I REALLY did it:

I deleted the "Never Over Andrew" playlist in my iTunes.

I mean it, people.

And just like that...



He was gone.

Nothing lasts forever...

My ex of ten years is getting married.

I would be happy for him (as much as the ex can be in this situation). Our story is complicated. I've never harbored animosity toward Andrew.

But I can't be, because I heard about it through a friend's boyfriend.

Of course there are other reasons it hurts, but I think that makes it just about as shitty as it can get.

I just wrote him an email. I pretty much called him a chickenshit. I told him he made it harder for me than it had to be. Thanks a lot...

You know what would have made it all easier? If you'd just told me yourself. If you'd just broken your "silence" and talked to me about it in a way that made me believe you cared. You cared that it hurt me. And you know why it hurts -- that's the very reason you avoided doing it.

When an actual good friend called me last night to tell me for what he and she actually believed would be the first time (ha!), she told me he "couldn't do it." He asked her to.

I say...

Fuck you.

Or more precisely, I said...

I don't know why, after everything we had together -- which is more than you've had with this woman -- you couldn't give me that one last thing. Spared me that one little bit of pain. Why am I not worth that? Why couldn't you suck it up and just sacrifice that much for me?


Do I sound selfish? Well, I don't care. No one knows this relationship but him and me. And all I'm asking for is one last thing.

One last thing for the women he spent ten years with, whom he claimed he couldn't live without, whom he professed he would love forever...

Except nothing lasts forever.

Not him, not me, not us.

Welcome back Saturn?

This year! What a crazy year.

The last week in April, I went home to Detroit. It was the best trip home I've made since moving to San Francisco over two years ago now.

I took my boyfriend with me. I introduced him to my family and friends. I'd been kind of worried about doing that. My mother, after all, has a habit of forming attachments to the men in my life (hell -- not just the men: EVERYONE in my life). I knew she still missed my ex badly enough after two years, and I was about to supply her with a fresh target.

But there were no glitches in the introductions. Everyone welcomed him with open arms -- from my immediate family to family friends and neighbors, from old high school pals to former coworkers.

I was worried that he wouldn't quite "get" the Midwest, full of classic rock lovers and people who've never had real Mexican food, where everyone cares more about professional sports than progressive music and they still smoke in bars. AND restaurants. He couldn't get it because he's from California. And people from the West Coast don't get us people from the heartland. Even if I'm in love with them. Sorry -- they just never really can.

But he got it. And he liked it. So much that he nicknamed Michigan "Mittenshark" (it's a mitten, after all, topped by a shark) and kept asking when we could go back as soon as we got home to San Francisco.



He drank cheap macrobrew beer in a smoky bar with my friends...



And danced to a band at my friend's wedding covering Bon Jovi...



And urban spelunked in an abandoned factory on the riverfront...



And... Coached the photographer taking our family photos and drove through a UAW strike and honked for the strikers even though he didn't know what they were striking about and drank beer with a lineman on Michigan Avenue in Corktown.

This person that I thought could never understand the place I came from became the reason I actually understood it better than I had in years. He made me experience Detroit with my eyes open wider than ever before.

So I came back to San Francisco and the homesickness and general out-of-sorts-ness I'd been feeling lately was just gone. I was cured. I no longer had anything to feel sorry or wonky about, because here I was: I had a beautiful new home, and a beautiful old home, and I could travel between them and be happy in either place. And my problems from the old home and the old life wouldn't follow me to the new one, but they hadn't poisoned the old one so much so that I couldn't go back there and enjoy it anymore, either. It didn't have to be dead to me.

I was still Lisa from Detroit, with friends and a family there and places to go to that I loved and a past I could treasure and revisit. But I was not doing it or them any disrespect by loving the life I'd worked for here.

And so I started the month of May -- the last month of my 20s -- feeling very empowered. Feeling like I knew who I was, where I belonged, and what I wanted. I righted some difficult situations at my workplace and racked up some accolades. I cut off my hair. I crossed a lot of things off my to-do list. And then, as the month closed, I...

Turned 30.

Something I'd always worried about in the past, but when it arrived, it just arrived. I was just fine. It just washed over me, and I went from a 20-something to a 30-something. I had a moment, lying there in bed on the morning of June 2, thinking back to my 20th birthday and realizing I couldn't remember it, and I began to feel a little overwhelmed by the quantity of my life, but more so than that, I just felt proud at all I had accomplished.

You know -- statistics. Like...

I've lived in two countries and three states...
I've traveled to 13 countries...
I've loved three excellent men...
I've buried one parent and two grandparents...
I've beat the diagnosis of a life-altering illness...
I've been financially self-sustaining since I was 18 years old...
I've been the first to create work in my field to critical acclaim...

All things that have amounted to a lot of life experience.

All before the age of 30.

And I got up and out of bed and walked three miles to Chinatown for lunch at my favorite vegan restaurant.

So, for my 30s, I've decided to go easier on myself. I think this is the end of my Saturn Return, and so far, I anticipate smooth sailing ahead...

The Saturn return is a regular astronomical occurrence relevant to the practice of astrology which occurs in a person's life at approximately 27–30 years of age and again around the age of 58–60, with the third and usually final occurrence around 86-88. The planet Saturn takes approximately 29.5 years to orbit the Sun; when it returns to the exact degree along the ecliptic it occupied at the time of a person's birth this is referred to as their "Saturn Return".


Saturn is symbolically/astrologically associated with time, challenge, fear, doubt, confusion, difficulty, seriousness, heaviness, unwanted burdens and hard lessons, among other more positive things such as structure, significance, accomplishment, reflection, power, prestige, maturity, responsibility and order – this is why astrologers believe that the thirtieth birthday is such a major rite of passage and is considered by many astrologers to mark the "true beginning" of adulthood, self-evaluation, independence, responsibility, ambition, and full maturation."



You got me at 27, Saturn, giving me MS on my birthday. But I have to admit, so far, my 30th year looks like a pretty good make-up call...