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Beginning SXSW

March 29, 2013 By 1 Comment

The night I arrived in Austin my friend Lanie and her coworkers let me tag along to dinner. It was good to gather myself up and pretend to be a human for an evening. Out in public. We walked from the parking garage to the the convention center to get our badges, then to the restaurant. 

In.

What do you call it when you walk past a specific place where you had a specific memory? Or hear a specific song? Or taste a specific wine? Let’s call them ghosts. I saw about three ghosts, heard about six and one or two were mentioned in dinner conversation. I held it together nice and tidy like a champ. I was the valedictorian of post break-up composure. All on the outside, of course. 

The first day of the conference was overwhelming. I read somewhere that 40,000 people officially attend SXSW when it’s all said and done, plus all the extra people in Austin to support the conference. 

So. Many. Peoples.

We had met up with my friend Blake for lunch at one of my favorite Austin spots, Home Slice. Of course it was full of ghosts, too. Loaded. It was where we had watched showcases the previous 2 years. But the pizza was good and the company better.  

This. Is. Perfect.After lunch we headed downtown. We saw a bunny van. I Vined it. I don’t know how to embed Vine…

Once we arrived to the downtown area I realized that the session I wanted to attend in 20 minutes was so far away it required a shuttle that was a 10 minute walk from where I was. And thus began the struggle to actually participate at SXSW. I wandered aimlessly with my head in my phone, scouring the conference app looking for ANYTHING to sit in on. Something that 500 people hadn’t already beat me to (which would turn out to be a common occurrence that week). I stopped to cry behind my glasses then shook myself enough to keep moving and eventually found something to attend that wasn’t terribly far away on foot. It was called, “#ageofdamage: Be the Company You Want to Keep” presented by David Jones, Co-founder of One Young World and author of Who Cares, Wins. With my iPad open I “scribbled” notes and listened to his talk. Some of the nuggets I took away were things related to what he calls Radical Transparency. He said that the Industrial Revolution empowered companies and that we are in the age of a Social Revolution that is empowering people. People don’t expect perfection but they do expect honesty and transparency from companies. He shared a case study of Patagonia that was fascinating. Here’s an article that gives a nice overview: Don’t Buy This Jacket.

 From there I headed over to “How to Rank Better in Google & Bing” where, literally, 1,200 people beat me to a chair. At least. I bounced next door to a presentation from PBS that showcased a crowdsharing video service they had developed. Neat, but not terribly useful for me. A good spot to recharge all of my devices, though…something one always needs to be on the lookout at a technology-heavy conference. From there I missed “Technology, Imagination & Exponential Thinking” but got incredibly lucky upon my return as I learned it was filmed and made available online. Carve out an hour and have your mind blown.

 I sulked at the failure of the day. A year and a half ago when I learned I was coming to SXSW ’13, I thought I’d be storming the castle of awesome. Back to back to back sessions of genius-level techy brain food. Instead, I attended one session that was useful to me. I worried that each day would be like this. 

But they weren’t. They got better. 

The next day I put on my Chucks, went downstairs and pulled a Twitterati move to rescue my peers and I who were marooned at our outlying hotel. 

Then I summoned The Universe for Amanda Palmer. The Universe provided.

 

Then I attended a session on Creativity and the brain.

Then I went to the Google House and got free food and swag.

Then I went to some other place and got more free food and beer.

A little later I shook the hand of Al Gore.

Then even later I saw Band of Horses at the Samsung Galaxy Experience launch party.

Then EVEN later I pushed past a doorman and three hundred people to join my friend Jessica at the Gary Vaynerchuk secret wine party.

 

Then I decided not to temp fate. I sloshed through the rain and caught my hotel shuttle at 1:30am, went to bed and slept…hard. For the first time, in a long time, I had a GOOD day.

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Leaving for SXSW

March 26, 2013 By 3 Comments

I arrived in Austin, TX on Thursday afternoon in a fog. A few hours prior I stood on the airport curb and curled into the chest of the man I love deeply. We said our goodbyes as if I were only leaving for a business trip but the shaking in my core still had not stopped. I almost forgot to take off my sunglasses before I looked in his eyes one last time. I’m never in daylight without sunglasses and forget that people can’t see all of me when I’m wearing them. I wanted him to see all of me. It was the last time he would. 

The people of Will Rogers World Airport didn’t get the same privilege. Once I passed through the rigors of security (guess who forgot she had a wine tool in her purse), the glasses went back on. No one else needed to see me that day. I wandered for a while and then remembered I hadn’t eaten. 

Sheri. You’re alone now. No one is here to feed you or take your hand and lead you. You’re on your own.  

I shuffled all pathetic-like over to Schlotzsky’s for a breakfast sandwich and some coffee. After I ate (raising my blood sugar is crucial to stopping tears, I’ve learned), I found a gift shop to stock up on packets of Kleenex and bottled water for what I assumed would be an embarrassing plane ride of weeping. I spent the last few minutes in OKC texting friends for support and thinking of the last things I’d left unsaid to him. Then saying them, knowing that when I got back in a week life would have moved on. 

I may have emo-Facebook posted. Maybe. Then deleted it because I am heartbroken, not 12 years old. Then I remembered that I’m allowed whatever I want and this is my life to live how I see fit. I also decided to white-knuckle it as soon as I landed in Austin. That I needed to get my Sheri in order as much as possible in the air because when I landed, a full-on sensory overload awaited me. 

In my Houston layover I remembered to call a shuttle service to get me to and from the airport in Austin. I had earmarked the week before my trip for break-neck, procrastinated preparation. One more lesson learned about waiting until the last minute, huh? The lack of shuttle was an easy fix but I also still had a week’s worth of SXSW Interactive Sessions that had been half-planned, at best. There was no embarrassing weeping on the plane. I drowned my emo thoughts moving from Patty Griffin’s Living With Ghosts to Impossible Dream to Ben Howard’s Every Kingdom. Then repeat. 

By the time I got to the hotel I was properly numbed out. My shuttle left me at the airport because I had been waiting in the wrong spot. The $20 I tried to break to tip the driver had come to me Vegas-style in a landslide of gold dollar coins. I met someone from Oklahoma City in the shuttle and we had mutual friends. And she follows me on Twitter. There was conundrum after distraction and I was glad for it.

After checking in I slung my body across the hotel bed and began reading official SXSW stuff about sessions and transportation while I snacked on the gift bag goodies and eyeballed the free vodka that looked about as good to me as a hole in my head. I broke out the iPad and checked the neighborhood for food or tea and found both, but after a short walk I discovered that two 6′ fences and a railroad track separated me from my destination. Around the same time, though, an angel from OKC tweeted that they were within an hour wrapping up their drive to Austin. 

Back in my room I stared into bathroom mirror, took a deep breath and put on makeup for the first time in a week. The white-knuckling began.

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Heartbreak hurts, a lot.

March 18, 2013 By 13 Comments

I feel I am now approaching a master level understanding of heartbreak. Don’t get me wrong, I am very sure there are people in the world in much, much more pain than I’ve been in the last three weeks. And I know that there are a lot worse things in this life that can break your heart besides a former lover. And they are terrible. And I am sorry those things exist and keep on breaking hearts. But I’m not writing about those things tonight. I’m writing my experience.

Don’t get excited, there’s not going to be gossip-worthy stuff here today. Probably not future posts either. I have too much respect and love for the entirety of this now departed relationship to ruin the ending even further with a stream of specifics. I am, however, writing it all down offline in as much detail as my scattered and broken brain can muster. There’s some really good stuff flowing onto the keyboard and maybe one day I can find a way to use it to help someone else through their own broken heartedness. 

I am speaking here about the hurt. Holy shitballs, people! I had no idea that broken hearts could feel so terrible! For a week it was really, really hard to get out of bed. I couldn’t really work. I couldn’t really eat. Sometimes I couldn’t really walk. I shook. I shuffled. My chest felt full of bricks. When wailing was at its worst, my whole body hurt like I had the flu. It was freaky… in a way I was totally flipping out with sadness but there was a compartment of myself that was all, “Whoa. WTF? You have body aches from sadness??” I cried and cried and cried. He and I talked and talked and talked. I ran for the comfort and logic from my friends and therapist. And my friends who ought to be therapists. Friends made sure I ate at least once a day. Friends hugged me and petted my hair and let me ramble on for hours. Friends made sure I understood how valuable and loved and special I am during a week I didn’t feel very valuable, loved or special. 

He and I have 4 kids and they have had a friends-turned-sibling relationship for over 2 1/2 years. We lived together for 8 months. They are all very sad. He and I are very sad. We all wish it could be different from our own particular angles, but it isn’t. This romantic relationship is over. He’s lost his best friend and I’ve lost mine. Beyond us two, the reasons why it’s over don’t truly matter, it just hurts like hell and I’m finally getting a glimpse into what real grief is like. 

Grief sucks. Grief is unpredictable. Numb/angry/sad/rinse/repeat. But never in the same order. Never for the same triggers. Never at the same time time of day. Never at the same place. 

The support I’m getting from my village is breathtaking at times. My gratitude cup runneth over. I have one friend who encourages me to show up on her porch whenever I want for whatever reason. Another friend texts me stern logic that sures up my self-esteem enough so that I could bear to participate in the most menial tasks of life. Several others take me to lunch. Another goes with me to a movie. Another texts me insults about him because they know I’ll laugh at the absurdity. 

I wish I could turn my love off like a switch. But I can’t. Instead I have to endure the shut down. The breaking. Every day is different. There can be a really, really happy day happening and I will remember the tiniest little memory and I’m in a sadness spiral. Sometimes for days. Sometimes I am filled with bravado and “Fuck him! I rock!” and then I realize I’m standing in a place we used to go or hear a special song and I start to shake. There are days when am eerily and uncomfortably calm, which seems to be how my particular ‘numb’ manifests.

I remember reading on www.dooce.com and www.blurbomat.com when Heather and Jon Armstrong were proceeding through her separation and eventual divorce. I don’t know/remember the reasons for their split, but I do remember their reactions. I have this mental image of Heather crying on the bathroom floor from scenes she described of her grief. Jon would create posts that always ended in affirmations and it was clear he was trying to work through some heavy internal stuff. My other internet idol, Maggie Mason, spoke only briefly of her divorce. I appreciated them acknowledging their life changes on their blogs at whatever level they were comfortable with. I also appreciated them not pretending like nothing happened, tra-la, nothing-to-see-here-folks. This is my attempt at that.

Yes, this isn’t a divorce. But it feels like it to me. Or worse. I’ve been through divorce and break ups. What’s worse than divorce? Let’s call it Soul Obliteration, Level 6. Higher levels of Soul Obliteration include losing a spouse or child. (Level 9 and 10, respectively….I imagine.) When I returned from SXSW (tales coming soon), I had two trusted friends walk with me into my now 1/2 empty, 5 bedroom, 3000 sq ft house. We walked into each place and space where things looked different so I could touch or comment on them and cry. They sat with me as I absorbed this new space. Another friend is coming next week to burn sage and smudge the shit out of this place. 

I can’t stay here. I can afford the mortgage without too much sacrifice, but this enormous house is too much for 3 people, two of which only live with me half of the time. My daughter wept on the living room floor last week after I chastised her about being behind on her book report. As I urged her to pull it together, I’m not that mad, she said she wasn’t crying about the book. She was crying about the house. “Can we please move? I don’t want to live here. There are too many memories. I miss my sister and brother.” My mama heart was so proud of her for expressing her feelings, something she is historically not able to do very well. But, I was also so very sad for the pain she and her brother are going through. When my kids are crying over my failed relationship, the knife…it does twist. I promised them this will never happen again. It won’t. Of all the things my heart doesn’t understand in this situation, this is one thing it does understand: This won’t happen again.

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