Since December the amount of physical contact I have had with another body that is not a plant or a chicken is about .002% of my usual. 

No more doing massages. No more hugging. No more fist bumps. No more, well, no more of a lot of stuff that involves skin and heat and thank god I have this body so I can feel these things. At least not for a Turkey Wrangler living out COVID on a farm basically by herself. 

So guess what?

I went online and got a date. 

I went on said date twice with said date and realized I am still a complete mental case. I say one thing (sweet, nice, agreeable Anne) and think another (raving, pissed off lunatic—like a sharpshooter at a range: I hate you and I hate this and I hate that and I want to blow a hole through the center of it all and get back to me being alone and sort of lonely).

My friend Pam Cordano pointed out that I have a pattern of giving as a kind of test: Here, I’ll overgive, and let’s see what you do. If you don’t give me the same amount back, I’m going to get really upset and want to run away from you while yelling over my shoulder how fucked up your behavior is.

The last person in the world I would want to date is me. 

And therein lies the problem.

How can you be a bitch and like someone at the same time and have them like you back? By bitch I mean How can I be the person I am in my head and not attract anything better than a maggot?

I generally avoid the word bitch. I think it’s too easy a way to try to take someone down at the knees for, essentially, being female. I could say How can I be a dick and like someone at the same time and have them like me back, but dick is so…pointed. 

Neither word is right.

I guess what I am asking is how can I be myself and like someone at the same time and have them like me back?

I just don’t see it. 

How can a person who is so anxious in her own skin find the center resting point of the holiness of love with another person when she (I) is so busy trying not to be present?

The irony is that I have been working on all this stuff for a long, long time. I thought I had changed, and yet, there I was last week, doing exactly the things I’ve done on every date I’ve gone on. 

Fake Anne here. Hello. Do you like me now? What about now? What about now?

I have found going to a life coach more helpful to me as a person in the last decade than going to a therapist, because when I go to the therapist, I feel I am presenting as a problem: either I have one or a I am one, but when I go to a coach, I am going as potential: What am I not seeing about myself that would help me show up in all my power and glory? What tools are you going to teach me? 

Katie Peuvrelle was my coach for years. She helped me get a divorce. She helped me find the guts to risk everything and go to New York to write a book.

Katie helped me find Door D again and again.

Door D is what you need when you have worked yourself flat up against a wall—you have figured out and gone through Doors A, B. and C, but still, here you are, pressed against the wall. I am there—against the wall— with dating. I have used up all my tricks. It’s quit or find Door D. 

The wall is a misunderstanding. In the hero’s journey, the wall is the point that the guide arrives and helps the hero find Door D, the door that, to the hero, was wall. 

Our political and social and planetary situation is beginning to feel like a wall to me. I watched some of the debate last night between Trump and Biden and felt desperate and sick. Our planet is catastrophically suffering and the two men who might be able to do something about this are calling each other names. 

What is Door D here? Today I looked for it by it planting mustard and cauliflower because feeding Mother Earth seemed better than just walking on her, but planting felt more like a gesture than anything significant. I’m waiting, trying to figure it out. Being against a wall is frightening. That’s when you can get attacked. That’s when no growth happens.

 It occurred to me today as I was riding my bike that Door D happens when the truth is spoken. So many times truth feels like it is unsayable, dangerous, maybe not true. The truth can feel like a death stroke, a deal breaker, a hate magnet.

 How I ached to know if either Biden or Trump was saying something true. I imagine a soldier walking across a minefield: is this solid ground or a bomb? Is it safe to be me right now? 

The irony is both men may well feel they would lose the election if they were completely truthful. 

 I cannot imagine going on a date and saying what I think. It feels like playing with knives to me, dangerous and mean. It feels like being an older sister, bossy and confident and real. Who would like that? 

Isn’t it funny how accessible Door D can be? I think this…I want this…I like this…I don’t like this…Could you…Would you be willing to… 

Imagine a two-year-old boy walking into the kitchen and wanting to ask his dad for some water but worrying that it’s too much to ask for because the dad had a long day and is busy cooking dinner. Imagine the boy thinking he might die if he doesn’t get the water and knowing he will be in trouble if he tries to climb up to sink and get his own. Imagine the boy deciding one way to avoid asking his father for what he needs is to go to hate. The boy hates his need, hates himself for needing, and walks back to the living room coach to lie down and suffer and quietly fade away. 

Door D was the boy saying, Dada, can I have some water?

What do you think would have happened if the boy had asked?

What are you not saying as you stand pressed against a wall?

What I am not saying to my date is I am scared to exist here with you. What I am not saying is I am so busy trying to get you to like me that I can’t tell whether I like you.

I understand saying things like this can be a lot to say to someone when you are new to each other, but even saying the truth to yourself alone illuminates the cracks of the newly found doorway. The door may be shut, but the light is beginning to show itself.

What if you made a list of everything you believe you could never say but carry inside of you like a kicking baby?

What’s the worst one? 

What makes it the worst?

Say it.