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I am wiped, people. I don’t even know what to say about the last week.
I think I feel better. I’m still feeling around the edges of this. The edges feel solid, but it might be hollow in the middle.
However that I feel better (maybe) seems weird as this week has been pretty sucky. In reverse order:
Back at work after a to brief vacation. I got a promotion, but, wow, I was not prepared for the focus and energy I’d need for my new job. I feel good about my ability to learn it. And honestly I’m kind of glad to have it to focus on. Less time to worry pointlessly about things I can’t control.
My vacation ended, um, confusingly. Wait, I’m going backwards, so between work restarting and vacation I had a cancer biopsy on, well, I’ll maintain some level of politeness and say that my stitches make peeing awkward, sitting can be uncomfortable and at no time would I feel comfortable telling a coworker where it is. It was an unpleasant procedure, though the team that did it was great and made me feel as comfortable as possible. I’m (probably overly) concerned about keeping it clean while it heals and hoping the location means it will heal faster than say my foot or my back would.
I came home from the procedure more distressed than I thought I’d be. I tried to distract myself by cleaning up the post house guest untidiness. While doing the dishes a pipe connector broke and water started pouring over my feet. I got the water off, threw down some towels and stood at the sink and sobbed for my mom. Who lives 2500 miles away. As I pulled myself back together my amazing landlord and friend came and fixed the sink, cleaned the mess and even ran the heap pf wet towels through the laundry. Later my mom called and successfully distracted me until bedtime, with many reminders to take of myself since a removal biopsy is trauma, it seems small but a centimeter of flesh lost wasn’t meant to happen to your body.
The entire biopsy was misery, I still don’t have the results and the stitches are awful. This has been the delineating line between my vacation and my return to my new position at work. And my vacation ended confusingly.
I didn’t sleep with Cedar. But only because he had the presence of mind to slow it down before it went to far. But that was the last of our trip: we kissed, groped, fondled and pushed the bounds of intimacy. Then we slept and I took him straight to the airport with everything unresolved.
The thing is I decided before the trip started that I needed a friend more than I needed a vacation lover or possible complicated long distance relationship. We very much enjoyed each other’s company on the trip. It was a good trip. Mind clearing, beautiful, full of the small, good kind of unexpected. For days and days, nothing but sky and green and back roads and music. Silence for all the right long stretches of time, good conversation in between.
The trip was only marred by being a little rainy and cool, and the occasional text from Hawthorn expressing a previously unknown amount of jealousy about me being with anyone else. I tersely reminded him that he broke up with me and didn’t get to even comment on what I did now (much later, post trip, when he was consoling me I pulled out the big guns and meanly made him feel like utter shit about it).
In the aftermath of all of it I realized that what I’ve been wanting is Hawthorn back, things back the way they were. But now I know I could never accept that. It isn’t a possibility. I just don’t think I could ever trust him again. And ironically it was his expression of jealousy that made me realize this. Like he could decide not to want me and I could mourn and mourn and mourn, but if decides again after all that that he wants me then he’s untrustworthy. Because when will he decide again that he doesn’t want me? I couldn’t go through it again. I couldn’t even go through the possibility of being with him always filled with doubt that some unknown action of mine would make him change my mind again.
So I guess that’s a relief. I still feel sadness over the loss of our relationship, but in just a few short days I feel more calm around Hawthorn and less broken up by every interaction.
As for Cedar, I just don’t know. I haven’t really processed it all. In the short, I feel like I do need a friend more than a complicated romance. There isn’t more to say about it right now. I’m just giving it time. That last interaction we had was so sexually charged, but somehow it was only about me. I don’t mean that negatively. I feel like I gained power. Or like maybe I found power I thought I had lost forever.
Still it’s all very jumbled emotionally for me. I’m trying to just let it all go, all out into the universe. What returns, returns. I’m just to tired to worry about it any more. For now I want to be better at my job. I want to make my home more my own, not just filled with things, but filled with things I made with my hands. I want to read books and watch TV. I want to sleep late and get my chores done. Every minute of the last two years, every interaction with Oak, every second I spent longing for something else from Hawthorn has drained me. I feel like I’ve been struggling for so long, grasping for emotional straws only to keep getting shoved below the metaphorical water, where I can’t breathe. I’m not struggling and it turns out I float okay. So I’m just gonna hang here for a bit and breathe big lungfuls of air. Recharge until it’s time to actually swim for something. Until I know which direction to swim.
There’s obviously so much more to say, but that’s what this time I’m giving myself is for, right? Thinking it out until it’s clear enough to say.
I worked a long, long day yesterday. I went home, ate barely enough food and went straight to bed. I was exhausted and painfully lonely.
I really do like having my house be entirely my domain and my responsibility. I like having my own space, the sense of privacy that it brings. But man, I really do hate being alone. Or rather I hate being single. And it isn’t the lack of sex, or the pointless stigma supposedly attached to it. It’s just not having someone to call whenever I need too. Yes, there are about a dozen people in the world who say I can call them when ever and talk to them about anything, ask them for anything. And maybe 4 or so of those I’d feel comfortable doing that. I started to call Rose yesterday, but then I realized I had only about 30 minutes to get ready for my restaurant shift and there wouldn’t be enough time to talk to her about the things I want and still manage to get myself together for work. And of those dozen people few are in this county and even fewer would I actually feel comfortable talking too.
I recognize that I’m kind of isolating myself lately, but I’m not sure how to change it. I mean, I do talk to people, Hawthorn, my mom, some of my coworkers at the restaurant, my close friends (though not as often as I’d like). It’s just that something is missing. I’ve been dreaming a lot recently about my best friend who I, uh, ‘broke up’ with last year. I don’t regret my choices or actions in that situation, but it’s made me feel very aware of what I’m missing: someone to talk to who knows me well, isn’t distracted by children or by their own really screwed up problems, who will listen to me without judgment, who I don’t have to tell whole long back stories too, who will stroke my hair and hold my hand and tell me it’s going to be okay. Someone who is my partner in things, both good and bad. And I recognize how selfish it is, but a few of friends who meet most of these criteria have their own current deep emotional problems and I really would like to have time where some one is paying attention to me and not comparing it to their own situation or problems or turning the conversation back to themselves.
Yes, I see that some of what I’m describing is therapy and I’ve already rejected that. It lacks intimacy of the real kind (intimacy brought on just by telling your secret fears is kind of hollow in my opinion), it lacks physical comfort (even, or especially, the non sexual kind, hand holding and the like), and it lack immediacy (I can’t make an appointment and get myself to the place I need to be in to talk on a schedule, nor can I decide I need to talk and then wait hours or days for an appointment).
My need is for someone who can come right over and just be there to make me tea and hold my hand when I feel bad (mentally or physically). I can see how selfish it is, but I want someone to share the burden of how I feel, but someone who wants to help support me emotionally, who I don’t have to feel guilty about interrupting their life, because their life is already part of mine. And I really don’t think this is too much to ask for.
Maybe I’m not even ready for it yet. It’s only been 5 months since Hawthorn and I broke up. But I am very much feeling the lack of it lately. And if one more person tells me this is my time to get to know myself and become whatever before I’m ready to share with someone else I am going to punch them in the nose.
Understand, I don’t think a relationship is going to save me, or necessarily even help me get better. I just recognize that there’s a distinct lack in my life and that space is shaped like a boyfriend but could be filled other ways.
I’ve been having some weirdly inappropriate sex dreams lately. Last night I dreamt I was walking with an acquaintance (who is probably 50 to 55) and it seemed like he was hitting on me but I wasn’t sure. We got to the point where we were parting ways and I felt relieved but then my bus left with out me (passed me completely even though I was at the stop, on the curb and waiting) and so I went after this guy, intending to ask him to have sex with me. I caught up with him much later after many shenanigans of changing clothes and calling girlfriends, and when I did find him he was quite drunk and trying to sing karaoke to me. Fortunately I woke up before anything happened, but this probably the third dream I’ve had about having resigning myself to have sex with someone I’m only marginally attracted too who is also an utterly inappropriate partner. Okay, brain, I get it, just having sex with anyone won’t solve my problems, I’ll be selective. Jeez.
Speaking of boys, I have been seriously trying to sort out my feelings on that front. I don’t think I’m ready to tackle a relationship, even a fairly casual one. Still, I’m determined to have sex, as I don’t think it’s fair to be denied that just because I’m single. But then I don’t want to come across as the low self esteem party girl who is up for anything. And I guess it’s harder than one would think to find a guy to just have sex with you. Or not hard at all, but hard to find one who isn’t inappropriate and wouldn’t leave me feeling a little skeezy later.
Additionally I still have my sort of Junior High feeling of boy crazyness. For instance there’s a guy who comes into the bar where I work, often earlier in the evening, by himself, to eat, have a beer and read his book, but he ends up talking to me someone of the time. Lately he’s been coming in more often and I swear I keep catching him looking at me and looking away. Now, most of the guys I know that are my age are married or coupled off, so I generally don’t give them a second glance, but this guy and I recently because Facebook friends and I know that an FB status as ‘single’ doesn’t necessarily mean that, it does mean that he’s not married and bothered to list a relationship status rather than none at all. ANYWAY, he commented on my Facebook last night and suddenly I was all giddy and dorky like I was 13 and exclaiming that he noticed me! Wheee! (Luckily I was home alone so no one had to witness this.) And I feel like this is just a distraction, but definitely a welcome one. If my choices are panicking and thinking too much about bad things I can’t control, focusing and studying meditation and relaxation techniques, or thinking useless giddy thoughts about a cute boy, then I pick #3, you know? And I maintain that this isn’t the need a man to rescue and rule me thing I was bitching about yesterday, this is more like thinking about Domokun chasing kittens in a field. Not serious, just fun.
In that same realm, Cedar and I are still emailing nearly every day, long long emails and it is still very much the high point of my day. His overt bad (and good jokes) make me laugh so much and stay with me all day. I feel like I’m getting the subtle nuances of everything he says as well. I was thinking last night about communication. I think I tried to talk once here about the study where couples that used the same language quirks got along better than those who didn’t. And how I often feel like I have no idea what Hawthorn is talking about, like his references seem so out of left field, or he’s talking in something that seems like it should be shorthand almost code that partner would get that just goes right over my head. But with Cedar it’s like we’re on exactly the same wavelength. Which makes sense since we had similar upbringings in the same location and knew each other when we were much, much younger, in our formative years, as it were. But it isn’t just the language, I feel like he’s taking me really seriously in way no one has in a long time. Like no matter what I talk about, flaky astrology talk, or having prophetic dreams, or my anxiety or whatever, it’s like he weighs and balances each thing and knows when to joke and when not too and seems to regard each part of me as something valuable and worth hearing about. I never feel condescended too or like he doesn’t care about what I’m saying, no matter how personal or how other there whatever I’m going on about is. Indeed he also seems to be full of as many random facts as I am, with some cross over. So if I make an offhand reference to Freya’s Day, I’m treated to a Viking Saga story in return. I am very much much looking forward to the trip he and I are taking in May. I’m still maintaining that there isn’t a romantic thread in what’s happening with he and I, but I suppose I’m not willing to completely discount that yet either. Still every interaction with him leaves me feeling very supported and hoping that I’ve done the same for him. So there’s that. I’m not sure what to do with it.
I was driving home from work a little bit ago (second shift at the bar) and thinking about how lax I’d been in posting here and how I should come home and write up my week (nothing special, or really out of the ordinary) and how I’m feeling (tired, just really, bone tired, worn down, wore out–in general not just tonight) and about good friends and how much better making time for them makes me feel. But then somehow in the 8 minutes it takes me to get home I was so filled with rage and wanting punch Hawthorn’s smug fucking face in that I almost started crying in the car. I pulled it together, got home, took off my make up and brushed my teeth and managed to calm down somewhat in that time. I’m not sure if it’s PMS or entirely my residual anger at the whole stupid situation, but man am I mad at him this week. I keep coming back to the fact that he’s never apologized to me. He’s apologized for his fucked up personal shit bleeding into mine, he’s apologized for my suffering (“I’m sorry your feelings are hurt” which by my reckoning doesn’t count) but he’s never said, “I am so very sorry for what I did. I am so very sorry for hurting you.” And while I’m sure I cold talk to him about it, I just don’t think it’ll have any meaning to me at all if I have to ask for that apology. It doesn’t help that this week he’s been dumb boy bullshit inconsiderate, and done some dumb work stuff that makes my life a little harder (and was really just an extension of dumb boy inconsideration).
Tomorrow morning I’m going to get my haircut. I decided it was better way to spend my money than going to the flea market even if I still do need furniture. Then I’m going to spend the day doing chores at home and puttering and putting things away until I have to go do another shift at the bar, which will hopefully be busy, distracting and full of cute boys who want to flirt with me. And maybe when I wake up Sunday, I’ll feel rested and content and happy at home, not full of anger that borders on violence.
So yesterday, after my whining here, Hawthorn asked if I was mad at him. I told him, quite clearly that I hated being asked multiple time for anything, that his refusal of initial ‘no’ in any circumstance was invalidating of my choices and that he’d already taken enough of my choices away by breaking up with me. I told him that I reserved the right to be mad at him whenever I wanted over anything I wanted because I was still hurt and within the bounds of responding however I felt I wanted too. I told him that he needed to take me less for granted, remember that I wasn’t his girlfriend and acknowledge how good and generous I’d been through the months following our break up.
He apologized, but I’m not sure how much of it was him understanding why I was mad and how much of it was the “I’m sorry you’re mad at me” apology which I loathe, as it leaves me feeling less understood and in a position where the offender is sure to re-commit the crime. Still After spending too much of the day trying not to cry at my desk, I’d softened up ad let go of most of it by the evening. Which I spent assembling furniture, cooking, cleaning, watching TV and writing letters. A nice calm evening, which would only have been better if I’d figured out to turn on the A/C before it got swelteringly hot in my house.
I’m very tired of the rollercoaster of emotions in regards to Hawthorn. I get it, it’s actually reasonable, it will surely be tempered and toned down with time. But I am just so over it. I would actually like to just move on, though I recognize that I can’t quite yet. I think I’ve forgiven myself for the choices I made, I think I’ve accepted the consequences of both our choices, but I haven’t forgiven him yet and I’m pretty sure this isn’t over until I do. I don’t think that’s a release I’m going to get any time soon. I think I need to really feel he’s accepted responsibility for his actions in regards to me, that he’s genuinely sorry, that really understands the effect it had on me and why his timing was so selfish. But I don’t feel ready to sit down and specifically have that conversation with him, I don’t know when I will, even if I know I won’t be satisfied until I do.
Probably part of the answer here is to start filling the spaces in my free time and in my head with other people, with other activities. Still I’m a little stuck in sort of negative cycle in that I want more time to myself, I feel like I still need the relaxing down time/alone time, before I set out to be crazy social again. And yet taking that time leaves me with little to think about but past events and all the things I’m trying to move on from. As with every part of this, it comes back to balance, an even amount of down time and new experiences. Honestly, everything would be easier if I could back to being my usual, patient self. I feel like I’m too anxious and eager for change that only comes with time and I can’t let go enough to let it come when it will like the first flowers of spring.
Despite my whining last night I did have a good time with Oak yesterday. It was a nice, open conversation and I am actually happy for him, should his new potential love work out. Even moreso, I’m amused that I figured it out before he did (girls don’t invite you to drive 2 hours to visit three weekends in a row and comment on ALL your FB posts if they don’t like you). “I guess she was flirting with me,” he said, “I guess I need to be hit over the head with that stuff.” Having the conversation about all that seemed to finally relax him enough to be teasingly flirty with me, which was wonderful, though a little bittersweet.
It was an enjoyable day, all the way until I was walking home alone from my afternoon with Oak. Partly because we’d talked a lot about how mad I am at Hawthorn and because I was mad at Hawthorn still and because my experiment of asking that guitar-playing boy out ended in two rejections (one more subtle and open to interpretation and the other pretty outright, though he still insists he wants to go get a beer some time. Whatever).
Ironically, I was paying lip service yesterday to how much better I’ve been at letting things go and not getting riled up over things I have no control over or things that would seem otherwise inconsequential. And yet, I spent the whole evening riled up over things I have no control over. As the anxiety and fear start to ebb, I realize that I am just so filled with anger all the time. More anger than I’ve ever had in my life. And I still really lack any sort of control over my emotions and emotional responses so anger more often than not means tears and frustration for me. Honestly, I’m so tired of crying that this in itself makes me more angry and perpetuates the cycle.
As a result of how I felt at the end of the day yesterday I spent some time trying to dig out why I am so mad at Hawthorn. Certainly it’s obvious on the surface, the poorly timed break up, the incredible upheaval to my life right when I really needed to feel stable, the obvious selfishness of his actions all the way through. But I think that bigger picture stuff is actually too much for me to deal with, it’s more how it plays out every day. I do enjoy his company and some of the time we spend together. I just feel like he takes it for granted that I’m going to go see a show or do something with him. And that combined with his repeated asking if I’m going after I’ve said no, leaves me feeling like he doesn’t recognize any of my boundaries. Plus he often fails to come through when I do want him, leaving me feel like we only do his things on his schedule and once again I don’t matter, or what I want doesn’t matter. Plus when he knows he’s angered or annoyed me he goes out of his way to try and appease me which just further frustrates me. I don’t want offerings and presents after the fact, I just want my own needs and boundaries recognized right up front.
Of course I recognize the need to separate myself from Hawthorn, that will be the best way to limit these frustrations. But even that is limited, since I have to work with him everyday. And obviously I am in a very lonely place right now and he’s easy to call on to keep me company. Which of course isn’t necessarily the best option, but we don’t all always pick the best options, you know? And I still maintain that having sex with someone else will surely go a long way towards helping me let go of the current attachments, I’m just not sure how t make that happen without things getting messy and more complicated. Or, in fact, I just need to meet new people who will think I’m charming and take up my time.
And when I’m feeling like this, I reach out more into to divine and unknown to try help understand what I’m feeling. This mostly takes form in meditation and much in depth exploration of my astrological chart and where my signs are sitting right now. A very simplified example of that is my current horoscopes, which have for the past several days, mostly looked like some variation on today’s projection:
Physical passion
This influence arouses a strong attraction to and desire to be with someone. You will be much more aggressive than usual in going out and finding a partner. This influence is often a sign of physical passion. Under this influence a sexual relationship is very satisfying to both partners. Even without sex, you will be very happy with other people. You feel more vivacious and attractive than usual and may well be the life of the party. You will work hard to gain the approval of others during this time, so strong is your need for affection. Artistic activity is also indicated, for the general significance of this influence is self- expression through creativity and love.
It’s not like it’s telling me anything I don’t know. More it simply affirms what I already know I’ve been feeling. I recognize how much positivity there is in all that. I do feel more attractive. I do want to go out and socialize more. I am much less locked in by my negative emotions and ready to get back to living in the world. Still following through on getting out more and seeing more and different people is work, even when it’s positive and my available energy for dealing with things, even positive ones, is still pretty low (although admittedly the positive social interactions do replenish that energy to some extent).
(An aside: hahaha! While I’m typing this, Hawthorn just stuck his head in my office door and offered me coffee and told me he brought something he knew I wanted from the old house–see? Offereings and gifts because he knows I’m pissed off. ARG!)
In other positive news, I got a kitchen table in this weekend and hopefully the rest of my office furniture arrives today, which means I’ll be able to get everything except the books put away. The apartment has been rapidly becoming more comfortable (the recent additions of a reading lamp by the couch, small stereo for the living room and getting the bed room fully unpacked have really helped) and much more like my own sanctuary. It’s nice to feel like I have a place I’m supposed to be.
What I did today, two versions.
Version 1:
I woke up too early for a weekend, but couldn’t sleep. Cleaned, did laundry, ran all my errands, watched a movie, did more decorating and enjoyed my house, went for a walk with a friend, drank beers on a patio in the breeze on a warm day. Walked home and made a good dinner.
Version 2:
Didn’t sleep enough, did too much work, watched a sad, too-close-to-home movie, got overheated, spent an hour drinking beer and a second hour learning all about Oak’s new girlfriend and convincing him that I was very happy for him. Got rejected for the second time in 24 hours (I’m persistent) by the cute guitar playing boy. Made and ate a lonely dinner that was too nice for one person.
I had a mostly good weekend, with some ups and downs. Most of the downs involved leaving my house a dealing with people. On Sunday I cancelled plans to walk with Hawthorn in the park in favor of day long isolation. It helped, I guess. Although today I don’t think it was necessarily alone time I needed but non-Hawthorn time. And honestly I don’t know what to do about that. I have to deal with him. I work with him and there’s really no avoiding him in that situation. I’d rather work him and be friendly, than simply be professional. And I actually do like his company some times. I like him as a person. I just feel like he’s pushing my boundaries in a not pleasant and perhaps wholly unintentional way almost all the time and I do not know how to make him stop. Whatever it is about him that’s so irritating that it’s rubbing me raw isn’t going to go away. I can’t not work with hm. I essentially can’t not socialize with him. Even if I stopped doing that, I’d still have to see him at both my jobs and around the neighborhood, so it’s preferable to keep it amicable. I am completely open an honest with him to the point of being brutal and still he does such asinine annoying little things, that I guess are nothing, but taken all together make me crazy.
I’m just continually left with this sense that he is not listening to me, nor interested in what I really need unless it matches with what he wants. This was true throughout our relationship too. It’s extra upsetting because I don’t think he’s doing it on purpose and I can’t tell if it’s forgetfulness, utter selfishness and self involvement, stupidity, complete lack of concern for how I feel or some combination of all of those things.
For instance, I say I need alone time and that catch up with him the following day. The response to this should not be three texts asking what I’m doing over several hours followed by an invitation to eat much later in the day. Or if he invites me to an event and I decline, it should be left at that, not followed up with two subsequent offers just in case I’ve changed my mind. And I know in the instance of the last example, he thinks he’s being nice, he’s being good generously offering more chances, but really it just frustrates and angers me. In the case of the first example, he simply forgot that I’d asked for alone time earlier. When I have to decline on offer of a bagel FOUR TIMES in single morning before pointing out that I’ve already reminded him twice this week that I don’t eat wheat and don’t want the motherfucking bagel, thank you very much.
I guess part of the problem is that about 50% of the really annoying stuff he does is actually him trying to be nice, which leaves me feeling really mean and petty when I get frustrated over it. And the rest of it is so careless that I feel insulted. And trust me, it’s not like I’m bottling this up. I speak freely about it with him, both when I’m annoyed with him and when I’m clam and just trying to set boundaries. I recognize that the answer here is to simply take a break from him, but as I mentioned that’s pretty much impossible.
The other part of the problem is the more obvious: he broke up with me at a really vulnerable time in my life. He justified by saying it would surely become clear later that it will be best for both of us. Which is all well and good, except that I’m still well inside the very reasonable window of my feelings being very, very hurt over the whole situation. No matter how clear it is that we would never have worked out doesn’t stop my feelings from being hurt.
I don’t really even know what I’m trying to say here. Here’s what I know: I worked just fine with Hawthorn all day, with only the minor (very, very minor) irritation of being invited to lunch at some place I can’t eat, but I was genial and pleasant about it. Then he did something slightly more annoying and work related (with started with him texting me to tell me to call him, AUGH, just call me yourself in the first place!) and I did the work thing and finished my day. I got in my car and spent most of my drive thinking about funny things Cedar has said in today’s email and smiling to myself. And then I remembered that I’m going out with Hawthorn tonight (it’s a ticketed event, it’s something I really want to see, and I backed out of a ticketed event last week, so there’s very little wiggle room here for “I don’t think I’m going to go,”) and suddenly my bad, bad mood was back. So I thought I’d come home and try and write it out before we went out tonight. But no, I feel just as frustrated, I feel like I can’t even adequately express, describe or pin down the specifics of my irritations. I feel annoyed with myself and with him. And maybe I can just chalk it up to the still raw wound of the break up, or simply his seeming insensitivity in the face of that. But if you read a news of the weird article in the near future about a woman bludgeoning her coworker with a bagel while screaming, “I don’t want anything from Panera,” over and over, even if names aren’t included, you can probably guess who it will be about.
The extent to which the weather affects my mood seems really extreme. At this rate I’m going to have to move to San Diego or some other place with no weather to maintain positivity. It’s been rainy and grim for two days. I feel dreary and grey and wiped out. One wonders how I managed to survive similar conditions int he Pacific Northwest for so many years. I just feel stuck and stifled and desperate for the sun like a plant that’s all stretched to and pale and trying trying trying to reach for the light. After two days. It’s supposed to be cold tomorrow but I’ll take it if it means the sun shines a little.
I spent most the day doing chores and paid projects for other people. Satisfying, I guess but it got my house no closer to being livable. I need to use this as serious Buddhist exercise in letting go. Nothing will happen with the house until I have furniture there is very little I can do to speed that up so I need to stop fretting about it. Still, life will be better with a couch to sit on and I firmly believe that thinking that is just truth and not more of my looking forward to something rather than enjoying the moments. I will enjoy moments much more when I have somewhere to sit.
Oak and I went to Rowan’s for a bit tonight and then went to dinner. I didn’t have fun. I don’t know if it’s the weather or my heavy yucky period or just my need for more down time/me time, but Oak is soooo much work. He’s just always unhappy and even broken up and even after everything I still sometimes find myself of falling into the trap of wasting energy trying to make him look at things more positively. And if I ever thought this was in my mind r some convoluted complication of our relationship, I know it’s not. Rowan is one of the most positive, outgoing, friendly people I know. As we driving to the restaurant Oak commented that he always forgets how warm and welcoming Rowan is. How positive he is and how he puts that into other people. He went on to say that he wished he was more like Rowan, more positive, more outgoing and nice. It was actually really frustrating because Oak is like that and people love him for it, but it’s like he turns it on and off and he rarely turned it on for me after we were dating, I only ever got to see him charm other people. And he can’t seem to remember the joy he gets from interacting positively with people and just reverts back to curmudgeonly and cranky. I feel after spending the evening with him tonight that I was right when told him during our break up that we would just end sad and depressed together, blaming the other (the external) for not making us happy. Just so exhausting.
Now I’m tired and lonely and I found myself thinking as I was driving home that I wished I had Hawthorn to curl up with against the cold, grim night and the loneliness. I’m sure if I called him he would come over, but I know it’s a terrible idea. For both of us.
“Always be mindful of the kindness and not the faults of others.” ~Buddha
I’m trying harder and harder to heed this advice. I’m tired of feeling angry and hurt. Throughout my life I would always rather see the good in people, but right now it seems too much to even try and contemplate the bad, like it will only end in pain for every one. I mean, not to be all Pollyana Sunshine on you, but let’s all look on the bright side, okay?
I am a silver lining person. Some times I lose sight of it, or forget to care about clouds at all (the last couple years maybe this has been true) and I certainly can’t snap right back into it. I was contemplating my positivity the other day and I have to admit that prescription drugs, therapy, moving and a work promotion are all well and good. But truly, despite an occasional left over chill, it’s spring here. And nothing, nothing, nothing in the world shoots me back into positivity faster than the first cherry blossoms, the first bluebells, the first daffodils. I want to shout hello to the fuzzy new chartreuse beginning buds on tree branches. I know, most everyone likes spring, but I truly feel that people born in spring have special relationship with it. I feel stronger, better and like I can do anything. I know that will fade in summer heat, and all but sizzle out by the end of fall, but oh! Spring! Spring! Spring!
So I’m pretty sure the biggest problem with being single is not having easy access to sex. Last night I dreamt I was talking to Princess Bride-era Cary Elwes and he was trying to tell me about all the ladies the “Dread Pirate Roberts” had before he came back and how there should be a movie about his exploits. I suggested that maybe people didn’t want to know that, that they only wanted the great romance of Buttercup and Westley. He offered to show me how he wooed ladies (he was dressed in his slim pirate all black) and pulled me into his lap and tried to kiss me, but my hair was tangled over my face and we both got a mouthful of it. So I push his back, straightened and pulled back my hair and started kissing him in earnest.
Now, I’m not one to do too much interpretation of my dreams, but seriously? A) this is too easy, I mean:
Westley: I told you I would always come for you. Why didn’t you wait for me?
Buttercup: Well… you were dead.
Westley: Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.
Buttercup: I will never doubt again.
Westley: There will never be a need.
Hmmm, what could my brain be on about? And B) I’m almost embarrassed for myself for being so obvious and easy in my dreams. However, let me just say, I really do wish I was still asleep and kissing a young Cary Elwes. Also speaking on behalf of my entire generation and the tail ends of thos eon either side of me, I’d like to say that this movie has ruined us all for realistic expectations from our own handsome princess. As we wish, indeed.
pee ess – I know you all are reading, why does no one comment here?
No, I didn’t die in last week’s storms. Yes, I have been very lax in posting. I got a promotion at work which means much less time to screw off. And well, still no couch at home and when I’m there I feel like I should be actively involved in unpacking or organizing, or something, and thus, not writing. Of course I’m not really getting much unpacking organizing done either since I don’t have shelves or much of place to keep things besides in boxes. It’s getting there, though, slowly.
I had therapy yesterday for the last time for a while. I’m taking a hiatus. I just can’t seem to settle into making it as useful as I want it to be. Partly because I’m thinking of my larger problems as something I’ll deal with when I’m settled and I’m not settled yet, so it feels like it’s taking up time that I could be getting settled with, or relaxing or taking care of myself. And therapy doesn’t feel like taking care of myself right now, it feels expensive and useless. So, I’ve discussed it with my therapist and I’m planning on starting back around May 1, unless I decide I really need it in the interim. I don’t think I’m in a place to just stop, so I really do intended to go back. And honestly, if my insurance was covering it, I might just go to go, but since it’s crazy expensive, out of my pocket and all, I’m gonna hold off for a bit.
Also I really need to get on the physical therapy for my shoulder and neck. The work promotion is great, but I can’t be going to a bunch of different appointments during the day all the time, so I’ve also opted to use what time I can flex out during the day for physical therapy appointments.
All that said, I actually got some work done in my therapy session last night. I have plan for dealing with my further dental surgeries, and permission not to beat myself up to make it happen immediately but, I think a good way to get myself through it, so that was comforting to walk out with in my head.
I feel like I spent my whole weekend moving things, in furniture stores or at Home Depot, which was boring, frustrating and expensive. And still I have no couch. On Saturday Oak went with me to pick up Hawthorn’s chairs for my temporary use. And then we went and had lunch. I haven’t completely gathered my thoughts on Oak being back. After I broke up with him I told myself a lot of stories about his bad qualities to justify my actions. When things were bad with Hawthorn, I think I really romanticized Oak’s good qualities to punish myself for choosing Hawthorn. Now, I think Oak is still exactly who he ever was, the same mix of good and bad. And I enjoy his company, but I can safely say that I only enjoy it limited amounts and for certain activities. Because while many of his ‘bad’ qualities aren’t really bad, his no-nonsense practical approach to everything can seem really dark sometimes and kind of brings me down. And if I don’t catch him in a good mood I find I spend all of our time together ineffectively trying to cajole him back to good humor and it never works and just leaves both of us exhausted and annoyed. But when he’s up and chatty and we’re just taking a walk in the park I do love his company.
Almost all of this is true about Hawthorn as well, though in a different way. When I’m not his girlfriend and his thoughtless, selfish actions don’t directly affect my life, then I do enjoy his company. I like to go see music and art with him (both things Oak never seems to want to do) and I like talking him. Despite everything, I feel like he’s actually listening to me now, when I talk.
So yesterday, I swung by Hawthorn’s house, with some friends who want to buy the shelves I have left there. And after they left I was talking to Hawthorn, just BS about the day and he gave me a hug and started to tear up. And you know, I really do feel bad for him, banging around by himself in that big, empty house. Yes, of course he did it to himself, but it was his own thoughtlessness and lack of foresight that did it and not any maliciousness on his part. I had to be somewhere to meet someone, so I told him to come over to my house in an hour and I’d make him dinner.
I wasn’t going out of my way, since I made exactly what I would have done with or with him there, but he seemed very grateful. And so we just sat (stood–no kitchen table or chairs yet) and talked about both mundane and serious things. He expressed several times that he couldn’t believe I still anything to do with him at all after everything. And also how tired he was about feeling angry and toxic all the time (from his divorce, not from me–his son is applying to college and this is forcing Hawthorn into a lot unwanted interaction with his ex-wife). And I was sympathetic and as supportive as I could be, since I don’t think being mean gets me anywhere in situations like this, hurt feelings or not. And then he helped me hang my mirrors (I can leave the house knowing if I look schlumpy or not now, yay!) and hovered a bit trying be helpful in any way he could, but left before he overstayed his welcome. And you know, it was a nice evening with a friend. I’m sorry that it’s still tinged with so much suffering for both of us, but I hope the real parts of our friendship endure through all these hard parts.
I hope the same for my friendship with Oak as well. But as I told a friend this weekend, I am going to want to have sex again and I will probably want to have sex with someone I’m not in a relationship with, haven’t been in a relationship with and am not going to get into a relationship with. And there’s a good chance this will be someone I know and our social community is small enough that conceivably either or both Oak and Hawthorn would find out whether I told them or not. And in the wobbly balance of my current friendships with them, I’m pretty sure having sex with someone else would reveal how true the intentions of either of them are for friendship. I suspect Hawthorn would be jealous but would get over it, and Oak would lecture me on the inappropriateness of it and then, perhaps even unintentionally, distance himself from me, but people are unpredictable so I could be very wrong on both counts.
It’s all about perspective, folks: a story in three parts.
(1) I went out for a post work beer with Oak last night. He texted mid-day and I was dirty. Like should have showered before bed and decided to wait til morning, and then, you know, hit snooze 7 times. I rushed home, washed and blew out my hair, realized I didn’t know exactly where my make up was packed, decided I didn’t care and set out to meet him. Which was huge, right, no make up? It actually made me feel way more confident to realize I looked pretty good and came across as some one who just didn’t care.
It wasn’t awkward exactly. We just talked about work and moving and job hunting and my apartment and my family. Come to think of it, mostly I talked. I offered to walk in afternoons with him, as we often did when I dated. I left with a sense of having enjoyed his company but not exactly with the sense of longing that I anticipated. I actually feel like all my saying I don’t want to get back together isn’t lip service, which was more of a relief than I expected. However, I can’t say exactly why, but I think maybe he isn’t as opposed to the idea as I am. So I guess that could get weird, but I’m not going to worry about that unless it presents itself. All in all it was pleasant and I think I’m very glad he’s moved back here.
(2) Hawthorn came into my office this morning and offered to borrow a work truck at lunch and bring his chairs over to my house. He said he wasn’t trying to dissuade me from borrowing them, just he didn’t want them sold or ground up for mulch. I pointed out I wouldn’t do that and reluctantly I agreed to let him lend me his chairs. 🙂 I actually feel vaguely paranoid that he is reading this, but I suspect it came more from my very vocal complaints everywhere about not having anything to sit on. My incredibly adorable, wonderful landlord is putting up shelves for me today, so the end result should be TV and place to sit, which is pretty exciting, I think!
I’m actually only annoyed about the chairs now because last night I was thinking about writing up a post about how angry and bitter I am about Hawthorn and I swear every time I start feeling like that, he shows up and does something nice. It’s kind of frustrating.
(3) Through an odd and really random set of circumstances, I reconnected with one of my closest friends from high school yesterday. I have actually literally been trying to track him down for years but even my very powerful google-fu hadn’t been able to unearth him. Yesterday I stumbled across some key info (the city he lives in and the industry he works in) and was able to pull him up pretty quickly.
We’ve passed back a couple emails in the last 24 hours and what really strikes me is what becomes important when trying to sum up that past 20 years. Like in that perspective my divorce, now 11 years past, is still a looming spectre, but the entirety of my relationships with Oak and Hawthorn barely merit a mention. Rose gets props (24-ish years of friendship!) and Dahlia gets lots of time and storytelling on being the best/smartest sister/kid one could have. Travel matters, both past and future. When I talk about my current job, I realize I like it even more than I thought I did and recognize how much I’ve hated most other jobs I’ve had. Anxiety gets mentioned under the guise of the oral surgeries and the robbery, because it’s still a focal point but even it puts things in perspective for me now. All in all it was a good and interesting exercise for me. I don’t know how long I can hold onto the feeling but I feel lighter and more positive about things, although my entire lack of future plans stands in sort of sharp contrast to the past years of my life.
Life really does sometimes feel like I’m being offered a flower from a chipmunk.
I woke up today thinking about chairs. Partly because I have none. Well I have one, but a cheap, well used rolling office chair doesn’t exactly make for good home comfort. Ironically one of the first posts I made elsewhere after moving in with Hawthorn was about having a space with a chair to sit in that was all my own in a comfortable place. I guess I’m still trying to get to that place. Space at my new house is limited and it is my intention to buy three chairs (something like this, for use for sitting both at my desk and not at my desk, and two dining chairs for when I get a table) and a couch for maximum sitting comfort.
When I got divorced a decade-ish ago, we had a couple used couches and a love seat and matching chair from about the 1940s. The love seat and chair set were given to us by a friend when that friend’s mother went into long term care and sold her house. When we separated I took the chair and left the love seat. It was a big over stuffed armchair in fuzzy deep green fabric (something like this but not leather). At some point my ex-mother-in-law decided she needed to complete the set for display while showing and selling the house my husband and I had lived in. I refused to give up the chair. I took nothing in my divorce but my own clothes and this chair. It didn’t belong to her family (I left thousands of dollars worth of china and furniture that were given to me by my exhusband’s paternal grandmother–not as a wedding gift or anything, but given specifically to me, as a gift, before we got married–I left it because it belonged with his family, heirlooms as it were), it wasn’t worth much, had no sentimental value, she just wanted it because it matched. I had many horrible, mean phone call fights after my divorce, mostly centering around that chair. I refused to give it up unless it was replaced with a similar or better one. No one had any more specific claim to this chair than I did! This many years later and I actually have no idea what happened to that chair, but I have for years wished I still had a similar chair.
Now Hawthorn has a couple midcentury Danish modern chairs (something like this). I am quite sure that he told me, when we started dating, that he bought these at an antique store immediately after his divorce and was waiting to have a house to put them in (they were in his office at work for a long time). He has sat in one of these chairs exactly one time since I moved in with him (they are awkwardly placed in the far corners of the large living room of our old house). When I was preparing to move I asked if I could borrow the chairs, just for two weeks or a month, until I got a couch and had else where to sit. He agreed that would be fine. Since then I have been treated to several discourses on how those chairs are the only thing he got in his divorce and how he gave up the chair he wanted and how important and sentimental those chairs are to him. 1. Our house was filled with pie-safes, wardrobes, an expensive sofa, several antique tables and a huge TV, all of which he had when he was married, all of which he took with him after his divorce. 2. I’m not asking for them as a gift. I am a careful, conscientious person who has just had her whole fucking life turned upside down by this guy and all I want is place to sit for a few weeks until I pick out and get a couch delivered. I’m sorry I didn’t get right on the incredibly expensive couch thing, but I did have to outfit a whole entire household and pay extra rent and a deposit etc. (Yes, I recognize there are thrift stores, but I’m really allergic to animal hair and paranoid about bedbugs and I just want new upholstered furniture, damn it, everything wood can be bought used, but not if it has stuffing.) Anyway, suffice to say, Hawthorn never said he wouldn’t lend me the chairs, yet the chairs are not at my house and he keeps offering to bring over some of the shitty dining chairs to sit on. Man, I have a shitty chair, which for my present purposes is still preferable to your rickety dining chairs.
So, I woke up thinking about chairs. My recent (pre-Hawthorn break up) desire for a good one, my need for one now, my exhusband’s mean-spirited chair fights and now Hawthorn’s chair dickery. If the absence of desire is the end of suffering, let me tell you, I am suffering over chairs. Grrrr.
I have been thinking a lot lately about listening and paying attention. This post (especially the comments) identified a lot of things I’ve felt about being a woman. I think men often hear only what they think I am going to say (and this isn’t limited to men, I think my mother does this to me too). With Hawthorn I have long felt like he was never listening to me. Much of this, I know, is because he would ask me 3 or 4 times in an evening if I wanted to do something, as if he never listened to my answer before or he assumed I’d change my mind. I’m not sure which but it was VERY frustrating. Indeed it would have killed our relationship eventually, although hopefully in a less dramatic and shitty fashion than it did end. This post on communication with partners has had me thinking a lot too. I often have no freaking clue what Hawthorn is talking about. Like he’s using some shorthand that is all words and cues that I just don’t get (or he starts in the middle of a thought, I guess unaware that I can’t read his mind) and now that we’ve broken up and spend even less time together it seems to be getting worse and worse. And then today Tiny Buddha told me that love means attention. And let me tell you not being listened too and not understanding sure does feel like a lack of attention.
This is all to say, I guess, that I’ve long recognized the signs of why things would never work out with Hawthorn in the long run. And perhaps most my hurt over all of this is his hideously terrible timing on the break up and his seeming disregard for me and what I am going through in relation to be rejected at just this time. Also if he was really listening to or paying attention to me, he would know that lending my his damned chairs would go a long way toward repairing my anger about his assholishness.
Almost everything is moved into the new place (like almost as in, I’ll go back for the coffee table when I have a couch to put it in front of, you know?). I am pleased at how much got done, without incident. Got up early Sat. morning, moved a couple loads myself, went with Hawthorn and got a truck, friends came, loaded the truck and unloaded it. Rowan came and mostly distracted me while moving (he helped too, but I think he helped keep me on an even keel while we did the hard parts). Then there was some fuckery (resolved, don’t mess with me when my blood sugar is low) with the truck return, then Hawthorn and I stopped for lunch. His choice of place for helping move and the place was packed (and on a good day this place is slow). Cue Star Chickadee meltdown. Hawthorn asked if I wanted to go somewhere else. I snapped that by the time we figured out where else, go there and ordered, we’d have food from the place we were already in. While we were waiting for our food I leaned on him and just started crying. I don’t do well on low blood sugar, it had been a long day already, plus the added emotionally charged crap of the move. I called Violet and asked her to come over and help me get the rest of the stuff in our cars. By the time she arrived I’d eaten and pretty much recovered (also taken the only Klonopin of the weekend). We got the last bits packed up and out. Calantha came over and unpacked and pushed things around for me until I hit the limit of needing to be quiet and alone.
Sunday I shifted boxes around a lot. Made curtains for the front windows. The landlord came and fixed and did lots of things for me (like new grounded outlets, rather than the scary old 1940s outlets). I went back to the other house to pack up the kitchen stuff. I managed to get there while Hawthorn was out and be nearly done and ready to leave just about the time he got back. He tried to get me to take a few more things, saying he could just buy new ones, but I took pretty much everything I wanted and got out as quickly as I could.
I canceled my regularly scheduled therapy appt for today on the assumption I’d be way more interested in unpacking and being at my house, which was probably a good choice. Especially if I can manage to get out of work early to go shift more boxes around. The real question is why did I even come to work? Why didn’t I just plan to take today off. SIGH.
Oak moved back to this city yesterday. He got in some time late yesterday afternoon. Moving has kept me busy and tired enough not to have given this too much thought. I assume I’ll see him some time this week. Probably in some neutral location. I guess I’ll worry about that then. Although my vanity is making regret not having gotten my haircut last week, but I’m sure I can pull it together to look decent for this inevitable social event. Still to that end, here is a poem for Oak:
Clenched Soul by Pablo Neruda
We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.
I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.
Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.
I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.
Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?
The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.
Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statue
Happy kitchen is happy and my new kitchen is as happy as this one!
Ugh. I feel wrecked and overwrought. I think I would feel better if I was taking the time to dilligently and thoughtfully write here, but it doesn’t seem to be in the cards right now. In moving week you prep for moving, plan for moving, freak about moving, relax and let it go, freak again, prep some more, do some more, blah blah blah. And I feel this way after having paid someone to come pack everything! (Seriously all I have left to deal with really is clothes, toiletries and a handful of kitchen things and framed pictures. Hooray!)
Therapy is weird right now. I feel like maybe my therapist isn’t convinced I need therapy because I seem to be doing okay, so I spent today trying to explain that I simply cannot do the deep emotional work I need to until I get moved and get through this part. I just can not rip open those wounds until I have a safe place to go lick them after. And then I tried to explain about how everything has been back to back to back to back to back for the last couple years and I need therapy but I need to just talk and be calm in a safe place too. I don’t know. It was good, I think, but weird.
Then I came home and was PISSED OFF at Hawthorn. I can’t say exactly (yet) but basically he told me something at work (last week) that was unprofessional for him to tell me, he shouldn’t have told me and I wish I didn’t know. It’s been seriously stressing me out. So after packing was done tonight I told him that he owed me and apology and that he’d seriously fucked up. He said he didn’t know what say except sorry and I said that was enough. We both went about our business and later he came back and told me that I was very right to demand that apology and I surely deserved it and he suspected there were a few more apologies he probably owed me. I said that for now understanding that apology was enough and we’d worry about the rest later. So that was good.
I have nothing in my head, it feels like that isn’t moving or decorating related. I’m tired and I’ve definitely been over taxing myself. Still taking the St. John’s Wort and I think I’m going to start adding the 5-HTP back in as that really was helping with sleep before all this medication hoopla.
Oak is moving back to town the day after I move into my new apartment. I don’t think I’ve at all processed what this means to me or what it will be like to have him here. I feel like I really need him as friend right now but I can easily cross a line with him where he thinks I’m asking for too much, or he misunderstands my intentions. I suspect it’ll be wobbly for a while
I had a pretty good weekend, although it says something about my mental state that the high point was discovering that a mini/half-size pair of pants I made (an experimental design for baby pants but made very small) fit my teddy bear from childhood. Then I took a picture of my teddy bear wearing pants and sent it to my mother. Also the pants the bear used to wear fit my hippo so now everyone has pants. This development is way more interesting to me right now than my emotional problems.
Happy Valentine’s Day. Have a picture of a puppy.
I have a bad attitude today. Everything single thing Hawthorn is doing is really irritating me. Despite that he’s gone out of his way to be nice and helpful, even his nice and helpful is annoying to me today. I’m tired, despite having gone to bed relatively early and slept in late. I slept restlessly, had disturbing and distressing dreams and generally don’t feel rested at all. It’s ‘normal’ insomnia for me, I guess, but it feels worse maybe because I haven’t been experiencing it as regularly. I’m still taking the St. John’s Wort, but I haven’t taken Klonopin or anything to help me sleep in, uh, I guess three days. I imagine tonight I’ll take something as I can’t take another day of feeling this rough. I’m a sort of punching, kicking, mood to burn bridges mood. The snow, ice and single digit temps aren’t helping, although Hawthorn did drive me to work so I didn’t have to overwhelm myself attempting the terrible road conditions.
I have in my inbox an unread email from Oak. I’m not sure why I’m resisting reading it. I realized the other night that it had been a few days since I’d heard from Oak and that our last few interactions had been brief and unsatisfying. I decided that he probably had thought better of maintaining friendship with me and that was okay. I mean really, I broke up with him, destroyed both our future plans, reset both our lives and then expect him to be supportive caring and helpful to me now? It does seem like too much to ask. Of course with in an hour of me deciding this he called, just to chat and check up on me. So last night I made my post about wanting to go home or having a home to go too and after I email Oak a poorly thought out email on the same subject. Trying to express how both my relationship with him and my breaking up with him were related to my need to have a home, or a place to feel safe, and how sorry I was about how it had turned out but that maybe it was for the best that my emotional melt down hadn’t happened after he and I moving across the country together to someplace where I had a much smaller support system. And thanking him for being so kind and so good to still be supportive of me and to let me lean on him now, even after everything that happened. And how glad I was he was moving back here, giving us a chance to start over as friends. Anyway, I can’t bring myself to read his reply.
Gmail lets me see the first line: “StarChickadee, I think it’s going to be a great thing for you to have your own place. It’s…” Oak is subtle and full of minute cues that you have to know to watch for. Our names start with the same letter and when we were dating we addressed each other in email only by first initial, capital for him, lowercase for me. I recognize that for him this was a special part of our communication, a secret code between us. But I started it and when I started it it was partly because I often simply sign my emails with my lower case first initial and it seemed right to give him the upper case, simply to distinguish. So now I continue to sign emails as such, but he goes out of his way to sign his first name in email correspondence with me, and generally doesn’t address me by name or initial at all. So the fact that he started this reply with my full first name is meaningful, though I surely won’t be able to tell you exactly how until I read the email. It is for this reason, I guess, that I’m simply dreading opening this email. I have relied heavily on him in recent weeks. He has been a kind, generous, king among men to allow me to do so. And yet, our current status, even as friends is very precarious and strange and undefined. I often find myself wondering if I’ve crossed an unrecognized line since, as I said, he is very subtle and sometimes his cues can be missed. I wonder if my continued signing of emails with my small initial irritates or upsets him and yet I continue to do it with defiance since it is mine choose how I represent myself no matter what and I want to keep that signature as mine and not only representative as something we shared. And I recognize how silly it is to be so stubborn about a little letter, but I see it as indicative of how tenuous our current connection is. I am sure that once he gets back here and we can talk in person I will feel better about the whole situation, as then I can read him easily and do not have to worry about small cues in language usage alone.
There is not enough coffee int he world for em today, it seems. Lunchtime already and I feel slow, sluggy, lethargic and worn down. Maybe I’ve just once again hit my ‘too tired emotionally to deal with anything’ limit. I keep forgetting how close that limit is and knocking up against it until we’re both bruised and battered.
Nine days until I move, surely I can keep it together until then, until I can get home?
I had a rough day. It’s hard to even say why. I went to therapy just feeling exhausted, worn down emotionally and pretty much unable to deal. I spent most of the time talking about things I am worried about, but are mostly a deflection from my own problems. Then we talked about faith and that was good. Mostly I left with her telling me basically to live int he moment a little more, and, you know, stop and smell the flowers. Notice the color purple. I actually left therapy feeling really uplifted. I don’t know that we did any “work” on my actual problems, but I left with a sense that I had some tools and some goals of who I want to be.
Of course it was snowing when I left. I’m so over this miserable winter. I drove in the snow to the paint store where they were really nice and really helpful to me. I got a great discount on the paint for my apartment (the painter had a contractor’s account there and my neighborhood is kind of like a small town in the way that people will take your word for it on stuff like “he said it’s okay to use his account”). Then I dragged Violet out to help me make one small choice about wall color. We were going to go out after but we both kind of lamed out, which was fine as I think we both really had other things we wanted to be doing. I came home and put the last coat of primer on the sewing table and the first coat on the side table. I am seriously obsessed with refinishing all my furniture to exactly the way I want it. I guess maybe it’s because it’s something I can exert my will over, some small amount of control and I know it’s going to toward making a home for myself that feels like it’s really filled with MY things.
Hawthorn invited me to see my favorite hockey team play our team here in town. I declined on the basis that the timing is bad based on my moving schedule and that this game is essentially an anniversary of our first date (same teams playing) and that it didn’t feel appropriate to go relive our first date the day before I’m moving out of our house. He replied, “I understand. I am sorry for having upset you on so many levels, but I know it is best in the long run; I will talk about this (us) at whatever level you want to, if you want to, but I don’t really know what to say about it unless prompted…” I spent some time thinking about that this evening while I painted and I think I really do need to talk to him about all of this. Just not yet. After I’ve moved and settled and we can literally do it on my turf. He’s right, it surely all is for the best in the long run. Just I need to get over my sense of being abandoned, of being rejected, past how raw the hurt is. Until then I’m gonna go along with our somewhat superficial companionability and focus on my furniture and my moving plans and wait for the right time. There’s been enough bad timing in this whole thing already.
Right now I will breathe, and be thankful for the world. I will think about mindfulness and I will be glad to be alive. Even when it sucks. I will go to sleep thinking about handsome princes, fictional and real. I will dream about butterflies and fairies.
Ugh, I went looking for this picture to post (the Japanese Garden in Seattle, taken Sept. 2009) and what I stumbled into was a folder full of pictures of Oak and I together. I am still determined to dream about butterflies and fairies, even after that surprisingly jarring experience.
Well I’m rather pleased with myself that I’ve managed to keep up with this blogging thing for a month so far. Eleven more to go! I tried to do an emotional inventory or progress report on myself last night. I’m not sure if I was doing it because I had insomnia, or if I had insomnia because I was doing it. So we’ll start there.
Insomnia: This has actually been a lifelong problem for me. I have clear memories of my sleep troubles from when I was eight or nine. It does seem to come in cycles and it does seem to be vastly amplified by stress. The muscle relaxants definitely exacerbated it the couple of times I tried to take them (might experiment one more time with taking them during the day). The Lexapro actually seemed to help with the insomnia, but left me dull, fatigued and lethargic during the day (plus the intestinal problems made it a no go anyway). I think that now that I am off the SSRIs, I will add the 5-HTP I was taking back into my regimen as it really seemed to help before and I believe it shouldn’t have ill effects with the St. John’s Wort (indeed they are often recommended together).
Sometimes I think if I could just get the sleep thing together I’d be much better off over all. Possibly that’s true, but there’s so many other factors that I don’t think I should give too much sway to the power of sleep (though it is healing a and good).
Panic attacks: These had increased dramatically for me in Oct, Nov and Dec of 2010. Now I am mainly back to having them only at night. Which doesn’t help the insomnia much but is better than getting them while driving or being out socially. The Klonopin does wonders for the panic attacks. I have mentioned (to folks for sure and probably here) that I understand the dependency possibility with benzos like this but you can pry my Klonopin from my cold, dead hands because this stuff is MAGIC. I think currently I am most relieved at the lessened panic attacks. This makes all my other problems seem less insurmountable.
Therapy: I think it’s only just beginning to dawn on my how much long, hard work therapy is going to be. It’s a bit intimidating but I think I am up for it. Planning on continuing it until I think I don’t need it. I do hope that this isn’t a forever thing. I’d like to start setting limits and guidelines for it. Like can I overcome my hysterical sobbing at the idea of going to the dentist? Can I learn to ask for help with out feeling like I’m doing something horribly, terribly wrong? Can I create a relationship with my mother that feels good most of the time instead of half of the time? Can I verbalize what I need out of relationships and set guidelines for continuing my trend of increasingly healthy ones (yes, I know recent events make them seem sucky, but both Oak and Hawthorn are Prince Charmings compared to previous dating history–I think I have already been making strides here and I’d like to continue that). So within the bounds of all that, I can’t guess how long I’ll go to therapy, but I’m glad to have it as an outlet and a support and I think it’s been helpful so far, at least in showing me that there is a path and there is help.
Blogging: Writing in this space has been incredibly helpful to me. I feel like it’s given me a place to order my thoughts and shake some of the chaos out of my head. The vague anonymity of it (I mean I know you’re reading and I know you know me, but I don’t see you) has freed me from feeling judged about what I’m writing and I think I’ve done an excellent job of not self-censoring. Ordering and writing down my thoughts here has really helped me with being able to later verbalize feelings and opinions on my health and my situation when I am talking to my friends in real life and I think has actually facilitated me being comfortable being much more open with people in person (therapy has helped with that as well). So even if I am sort of parroting myself in person, I at least am using my own assessments of myself and feeling less confused and more likely to talk about how I’m feeling.
Medication: Clearly it’s been up and down. I think my decision to make the leap to go on medication was the right one. I don’t think it worked for me and I glad to find myself in a place to start trying more natural remedies. However I think there’s a psychological impact of simply having taken the drugs. I feel better. Period. I doubt the SSRIs made me feel better in 8 weeks. Maybe they did, but perhaps just the choice to have taken them, the asking for help and the actively starting to work on my problems is what’s making me feel better. So sort of placebo effect as it were (with terrible side effects). It hasn’t been easy, but I am glad to have the Klonopin and I am glad to know I have other options if I get to feeling where I am not doing as well as I’d hoped.
Relationships: Well, what can I say? I feel confident that my inability to deal with things and see things for what they are (my anxiety and mental illness, basically) caused the demise of my relationship with Oak. I’m sticking by having made those choices in good faith while I was looking for safety and comfort. I feel that at the time Hawthorm was genuinely offering what I thought I needed. I did originally seek help not only for own sanity, but because tiny cracks had started to appear in my relationship with Hawthorn and I thought if I could get better I could save the relationship. Clearly that didn’t matter since Hawthorn had the bad timing to accidentally coincide his break down with mine (or his precipitated mine, or something). Despite their tragic ends, I think both relationships were good for me and I hope both were signs of a continuing trend toward someday having a strong healthy relationship or toward feeling free to not have one at all and still be happy.
Driving: I don’t think I’ve talked about it a lot here, but I used to love driving. Every instance of getting into the car, even to go to the store for milk was an act of freedom, was the possibility that I could just keep driving and go where ever I wanted in the world. I loved the control of it, the power and that raw, open sense of possibility. In the past two years I’ve had one car totaled while I was in it, been pulled out of another at gunpoint and forced to the ground, and stopped 18″ shy of dying in a really horrific accident that happened around me like a tornado but somehow left me unscathed. Even taking an easy, low traffic surface street route to work was becoming cause for increasing panic attacks and incredible tension in my body. I often wanted to cry when I got into and out of the car. Recently I’ve noticed that my confidence is coming back while I drive and I feel much more comfortable and relaxed doing it. I can even feel the sense of freedom and possibility starting to tickle at the back of my brain, like it’s getting ready to come back too.
Moving: I think this is going to be huge for me. It has sort of happened rather more quickly than I had planned, but so far it seems int he realm of doable. Yes, getting my own space to heal and be in is good. On the one had living with Hawthorn post break up hasn’t been a party but it hasn’t been as toxic as it could have been. However, I HATED our house. Of all the ones we looked at I wanted it the least. Hawthorn chose it for the porch, the location and the architectural details. I hated everything about it. Nothing was functional, it was clearly remodeled for looks when it was flipped and not at all for functionality. The landlord is a lazy jerk and repeated dealing with water POURING in from the ceiling, from light sockets, from door jambs and window sills has been severely anxiety inducing all on it’s own. The interior colors actually make me angry in some rooms, the space just doesn’t feel psychically clean, either. I was talking to a coworker (who as far as I know knows nothing about the Hawthorn situation) about moving to my new place today and how it seemed good even though I just moved six months ago. And my coworker commented that she was so glad I was moving because she felt like I hadn’t been well since I moved into that house. And it’s true, my allergies have been awful (as have Hawthorn’s), I can’t sleep for the noise the neighbors make, I fret about the ceiling falling on me, and besides the dust, age and other problems, I’m fairly sure the inside of the walls and airducts are crawling with mold. So here’s hoping that the new place is just healthier all around. It has a new roof–so no leaks, it has a brand new HVAC system and new ducts–no mold or dust, no past or future pets in the house at all to aggravate my already delicate allergies. The only health concern really is that the new landlord has a pest service come once a month and I don’t know what kind of chemicals they use. However since the trade off is no mice, no poisonous spiders and no roaches, I’m very willing to take it as a risk.
Body health: So far I am failing in this category. I’m giving myself a pass because there has been so much stuff going on (all my recovery efforts plus the unplanned break up and moving additions) that it’s been hard to add even more to it. I have been walking more and doing a little yoga. My future plans include much, much more exercise: walking, swimming and yoga and maybe hula-hooping? I really need to make a physical therapy appointment and get going on that. Just, you know, time and planning &c. I am probably going to wait on the PT until moving is done. I will get going on the exercise thing definitely (the community center and neighborhood gym is three block from my new place, no excuses). I will try not to beat myself up on this and rather congratulate myself as I get going with it. I know it will help so much to have less pain in my body. I know it will help my mental health so much just to get the exercise. I know it will help my outlook to look and feel better. I could only just get so many duck in a row at once and I’m still herding these little wild running exercise and body health ducks.
I think once the chaos of moving dies down I am going to start working devoting a (certainly boring) paragraph of each of these entries to details sleep, exercise, panic attacks and the like, just so I’m keep better track of it and little more accountable for it. Seems sensible, yeah?
Astrology: While I give only limited value to astrology, and at that only as a descriptor not as a predictor, Free Will Astrology has always done wonders for me. Even if it is just words that tell me how to frame my current thinking, it’s helpful. This week for me we have: Taurus Horoscope for week of February 3, 2011 — I’ve found that even when people are successful in dealing with a long-term, intractable problem, they rarely zap it out of existence in one epic swoop. Generally they chip away at it, dismantling it little by little; they gradually break its hold with incremental bursts of unspectacular heroism. Judging from the astrological omens, though, I’d say that you Tauruses are ripe for a large surge of dismantling. An obstacle you’ve been hammering away at for months or even years may be primed to crumble dramatically. Yeah, I’m definitely feeling this! Thanks, Rob Brezsny! I will also continue to consult my father, who is an astrologer, about things like this Saturn transit of my Fourth House, as I’ve said, I feel like it gives me a framework to work in and understand things and I’m glad to have that.
I have cramps so bad that I feel like I might die. My period was 12 days late and it feels like 12 extra periods worth of cramps. The lady at Target cheerfully told me to have a nice day. I just looked at her balefully as I walked out clutching 3 boxes of tampons, a box of pads and bottle of ibuprofen. Gah.
So I signed a lease yesterday on my own small apartment. Now I can redirect all the energy devoted to being anxious, depressed or otherwise upset toward freaking out over getting packed and getting moved. To my own space, which I am very excited about.
Therapy yesterday started with cheerful glee over getting the apartment (I found out about ten minutes before therapy) and then we talked a lot about Hawthorn. I mentioned a few days ago that I have gotten over any guilt I might have and am pleased that he seems to be owning the consequences of his actions. He has been very supportive of my move and of finding this apartment even though it’s detrimental to his financial situation. I was really prepared to stay in our house through April if that’s what it took to find a good place, but now, having found a place, I think I will heal much faster from this situation than I otherwise would.
Calantha came over for a celebratory glass of wine last night and a catch up evening of girl talk. She said I seemed really balanced and reasonable about the whole Hawthorn situation. And I guess I am. Don’t mistake me, I am still mad as hell that it came to this point. I am hurt and while I am functional there is certainly a lingering sense of rejection, of being abandoned, of even being discarded. I think once I’m settled in my own space and don’t have to be confronted daily with his (very much) unintentional slights, then I can start to work on my other stuff and maybe even eventually repair my friendship with Hawthorn.
After I felt resolved with the Hawthorn situation in relation to therapy we talked for a while about what I want out of therapy and I totally broke down over my utter inability to ask for help when I need it most. I guess next week we are going to delve deep into recreating the feeling black hideous dread that consumes me when I find myself in that situation. Sounds fun. No really, I can’t wait at all. But I need to get past the things that are blocking me from talking openly, from asking for help, from feeling comfortable in situations I should be fine in, so this is good. This good. This is good. Therapy is good.
Overall though, I do feel mucho better-o, despite cramps of doom. No more SSRIs. I feel more upbeat and like myself over all. I’m trying to keep it slow and in relaxation/recovery mode as much as I can still. I’m waiting a few days for the SSRIs to clear my system and then I’m switching to an herbal anti-stress remedy (no, not pot) and St. John’s Wort to help keep my mood stabilized over the next couple months. I’m curious about how this will feel and work, but I am definitely feeling good about the prospects for it. Panic attacks have certainly lessened, although aren’t gone and there is this weird looming sense of anxiety just out of sight when I turn my head. But I feel like I’m a good way toward shaking off the black depression parts, and the bloody nightmare stories in my head. I don’t know that necessarily feel more stable, but I feel more capable and the possibility of feeling normal does appear to be just over that hill, if still out of sight.
Blue Star Chickadee 