I cried after the party, on the drive back to JodiAnn and Tim’s. When my partner left the contra, I was left to the sidelines, watching partners do-si-do and satchet, mourning the loss of my partner.

Jen says the 108-month of struggle is ending for Aquarians. Has it been that long?

“You’ll see, when you’re older. Why, in ten years…”

“TEN YEARS?! I want it now. I want an answer now. I need one.”

God I fucking hope so.

I hate bearing the water. I’ve never went out for the Zodiac, or really anything that would tell me who I am and how to be. Don’t you reckon I know what I’m about? Don’t I generly know what I’m about? (James would say, typical Aquarian…) But damn it if it doesn’t seem that people seek me out, asking, hoping, demanding to pour themselves into me. A one-man bucket brigade, putting out fires.

In this season of sorrow it has felt that Others are coming out of their wood work to ride my coattails. And that’s the thing. THAT’S THE THING. When I’m in my strength, people are attracted to me as if it will rub off on them; as if my joy and confidence will pull them up, too. And when I’m climbing out of the pit, this pit, they grab onto my pant legs and expect to be pulled out. “Throw me the idol, I’ll throw you the whip.”

108 months of struggle. That puts me at March 21, 2016. A month after James and I got together, a couple weeks after Seth was my date to the Leap Year party.

A year before, I went on a walk with Seth and she told me she liked me (how many walks have I been on like that?). The truth is I liked her, too, but I was afraid of the electricity sparking between us. I was afraid I’d get bowled over. And I sensed this: that she wanted me to hold her water. She was moving to Colorado, she was starting to grieve the loss of her people, and I felt that weight; I felt that she was pouring her love for her life and time and chosen family there into me. We had a spark, we definitely did, and I was afraid of that, and I felt the yolk of her love for the Bookmine, for our game nights, for everyone else. Is that right? Is that not just my own feeling?

I was an idiot for asking her to be my date to the Leap Year party, and for not telling her myself that James, her roommate and close friend, and I, her crush, her vessel, were sleeping together, even relating together.

Everything swirls together, you know? Fucking A. At the party a guy from college was talking about climbing at Yosemite, and I recalled that 9 years ago, James and I stayed in a caboose outside the park. She wore a lingerie set with a short skirt and sat on my face. I made pancakes and she played “Sunday Kind of Love.” We drove into the park and hiked to Mirror Lake. We drove home, she got carsick, resented me for taking a selfie in the bathroom when she had an upset stomach.

We started that trip with Jen and Levi at the hot springs. Jen and Levi, who cooked me dinner this Friday night–I told Levi I wanted to build a bath house for hot soaking, and I thought of their breakfast view of my pasty white ass flashing across as I moved an umbrella in the chilly drizzle, 108 months ago.. Jen, who says my 108-month struggle ended yesterday.

Goddamn I hope she’s right.

I cried on the way from the party. I cussed and cursed. My tears, my memories are like drops from a bucket leading back. Drip, drip, drip, miles and miles, drip, drip, months and months, drip. 108 months back. (I can’t carry your water.) Everything is everything, a knotty tapestry, tangled up in blue. Pull this thread and just walk away.

All the people we used to know
They’re an illusion to me now
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenters’ wives
Don’t know how it all got started
I don’t know what they’re doin’ with their lives
But me, I’m still on the road
Headin’ for another joint

The karmic cylce, the 9 years of struggle ended yesterday, I’ve been told. Yet the earth has cracked open, hasn’t pulled me under. That would certainly end it.