Moving on

"Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
Til the rain comes tumbling down"

If I close my eyes I see myself with a rucksack over my shoulder... dejectedly walking down a new dirt road alone... leaving behind a shack that could never be my home. It looked like a palace while I lived there... but now, it is decrepit, and all fallen down.

I'm sad. Not heartbroken, not obsessed, no longer addicted. Just sad. Such a waste. Happiness wasted, and naught I can do.

So, I've packed my bags, and I am travelling into the future - and though I know this future has more people to love, and maybe a new home for me - and many many good things, I will miss the shack I have left behind.

I miss all the meals we won't cook together, all the cuddling on the sofa we never got to do - all the soccer balls we didn't kick around in the park. I miss seeing Paris with him, and I miss dropping mushrooms in Amsterdam, and going camping with Spike, and all the fights we never had, and all the make up sex we never had.

The why's dont matter too much anymore... he was stupid and wasteful, and didn't know what he had is sufficient.

So - I begin again. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time. I reassemble my life from the rubble and reassemble my soul - and allow light to show through the cracks.

I have so many options now, and all are good. Thing is, I was tired of all the options - even when they are good ones... and the vision of what could have been was just about everything I ever wanted. I am lazy, and I don't like starting over.

I liked being with just one guy who I adored. It was nice. It was easy. But - I was not the star in his sky...

So - I move along, and I date for a while - and I meet some new and fantastic people. I currently have some very good options, and we will see what happens. I start my theatre company, I start my counseling classes, I clean my house, I build my websites, I shine my sink, I love my son, walk my dog... and go to the gym.

Winter is here now, and there will be a whole new life come the spring.

alchemy

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Carl Jung

al·che·my (ăl'kə-mē)
n.
A medieval chemical philosophy having as its asserted aims the transmutation of base metals into gold, the discovery of the panacea, and the preparation of the elixir of longevity.

Something changed inside, but I am not so sure what. After seeing Ale last Monday (could it have only been a week ago?), I broke. I suffered one last intense burst of grief so horrifying that I was afraid for myself. I couldn't stop crying, and the tears came from the depth of a shattered heart.

And then, like a monsoon, it was over. The sun came up again.... and yes, there is still some debris to clear, but.... I'm fine. I'm tired, to be sure, I have taken on a nasty cold (uncried tears, unspoken words, too much going on at once...)

But, I have stopped asking "Whats wrong with me?", and - when I think about Ale (no longer every moment, or even every hour....) I think "Oh, poor baby.... what the hell is wrong with YOU? How could you have let someone like me walk out of your life. How tragic."

Would I still like a "do over" - sometimes I dream of it, because I dont like getting things wrong. But would I? I don't think so, no.

He was fun. He was loving. I miss him in my bed. But, I deserve someone who loves me best of all, someone who is profound and smart, and deep. As much fun as Ale is... its like the bible says....

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Well, not completely.... but Ale has been relegated to "once upon a time", and I am looking for "happily ever after".

So, have I changed? I don't know. I hope so. I feel the same, like all this pain did nothing, but honestly, I doubt it. Love changes everything, and we will just have to see what it has changed in me.

Tears in the early morning darkness

Someday, maybe, when I grow up, I will learn to control my thoughts without simply shutting down my feelings.

This morning before daybreak, I woke. Dog, cat, whatever. I looked up, and it was dark. And then the dark thoughts came, the recording of the last conversation...

And as I listened to Ale again, I began to feel stupid. I mean, really stupid. "I only saw you twice a week... I held you away... you should have known".... and I began to cry. I felt ashamed, and stupid, and ridiculous. How COULD I have let this happen... how could I have allowed myself to be treated in such a way.

I mean, Ale... were you really using me? How is it that I was apparently so mistaken? Your face would light up when you saw me, once upon a time. You would come up behind me, and embrace me.... and tell me how "comfortable" it was.... and I would see you rejoice in it....

And now, you justify the whole affair, by telling me that I should have known better.

And now, I think of you, and I cry. I cry a lot.

You mother fucker.... I asked your permission each step of the way. I told you I was falling in love. I TOLD you I was getting attached. I told you I was scared. You told me it would be okay, that I was safe... and now, you have left a 7 year old child to pick up the pieces, to be there in the early morning light, to wrap his arms around me and say "Shhh.... Mama, I'm here, its ok, I love you... shhh"

I hate you. My love is turning to hate, because it is the only thing I can think of to do.... and while I am good at love, I am really really bad at hate. All I want to do now is erase you, turn back the tape, and wish you out of existance.

A Vocation of Transcendence

My mind in like living in a maelstrom right now. It is stormy and gray and tempestuous, it is no wonder I feel exhausted.

Generally, when children grow, it is sequential, an inch a season, a first word followed by more, followed by sentences.... milestones reached in a certain predictable order.

Even my physical growth never followed such a pattern. I was the size of a 3 year old in first grade, the size of an 8 year old in 7th.... and in one year, I grew 12 inches and gained 25 pounds.

I had no words, other than baby talk... and then at 4 I began to speak as an adult, and soon after to read college books.

My physical and intellectual growth never went sequentially - so I suppose I have no reason to believe my spiritual growth should be any less violent and disorienting.

I am spinning around, reading Chodron, and Hillman and Moore. I am reading mythology, and popular self help books on broken hearts. If feels like the top of my head has been cut off, and things are pouring in... or that someone has shoved a funnel in my mouth, and water is spilling through with no chance to catch my breath.

My days are filled with lofty thoughts of transcendence, and meaning, and God, and archetype.... followed by teen aged love lamentation and the broken dream of a relationship that never was. I dialogue with the many Daimons in my own soul, each clammoring and speaking - so much that I have ceased to address myself as "I" and am now using the non-imperial "we". "We are proud of ourselves, we did good, we just need to calm down a bit, and we will be fine".

So much seems to be happening on so many levels... all underpinned by a deep seated fear that I am only the hairless ape of outdated anthropology... we are nothing but biological creatures, we are born, we die... nothing more. All the rest are dreams and bones, and thoughts nothing but synapses firing in an inexplicable void. Rationalism is as much a myth as imagination, as all is constructed for no other purpose than the propagation of a species that is destined to destroy itself.

The thing that seems to differentiate the dark night experience from simple depression and stress is just that.... it is accompanied by a crisis in faith. You do what you must, and you work towards transcendence, completely without any confidence that it counts, is meaningful, or that there will be any light at the end of the tunnel.

In the midst of all this turmoil, I am missing a love that existed only in my imagining of the future, I am in production for a play that may make all my former dreams come true, I have taken on two more clients, I am beginning to take the courses that will allow me to perform psychotherapy on others (in a language I do not understand), and I have a day job that is being woefully underserved. And a string of house guests are coming... the house is a mess, the dog needs to be walked... and most importantly, I am someones mamma.

And I am doing it alone. And I can barely get out of bed in the morning for the apprehension that has settled in my stomach.

Being a rather dissociative person, I can watch my life and myself from the outside, and I can see that this is all good. (Even maybe the broken heart thing... the catalyst for all that follows.) - but from the inside, this doesn't feel so great. It scary and confusing, and I wish I could be comforted.

I prayed to God the other morning at church, and I begged him to take this cup away... but not is such earnestness as to be very convincing I think. And then, I simply cried. Because God is not the cavalry, and in his eyes, perhaps there is no good nor bad, there simply "is", much like the "I am" - and ultimately, surrender is the only choice we really have.

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

I felt a bit better yesterday, after having gotten some concrete if confusing conversation with Ale (is it like an addict getting a hit of a drug?) - and I was fine in therapy today...

But as the day wore on, and the absolute hopelessness and confusion of this conversation began to sink in... I began to feel worse and worse, and more and more tired. And I've spent another day crying...

About this dead relationship, about the confusion, and about the "almost" nature of it all. I want a do over. I want my last year back. I want better choices, different choices. I want a home and a family and a happily ever after....

This hurts. It hurts so much.

I'm lazy... I'm tired of growing. I'm glad I have the capacity to grow, to find treasure in the pain and shit of everyday existance... but, you know? I'm tired now. It feels like just too much. I don't need so much treasure.

I know I am just feeling sorry for myself, and that being a warrior depends on keeping a straight back and not complaining. I know that railing about the unfairness of life is pointless.

But I cant help it sometimes. Other people got normal childhoods, and married someone they loved, and had a few kids... and simply get to live thier lives. Sure there is always pain, and there is always suffering, and everyone is stressed. And I know I am lucky and that I have been blessed in other ways... but sometimes, a normal everything... it looks like paradise to me.

I'm drying my tears. I am squaring my shoulders. I am trying to look into the future. I am trying to learn as much as I can about this incident, from this love, from this relationship as I can.

But - it hurts, I hurt, and I am really tired of hurting. My eyes burn always from crying. And honestly, sometimes, I just want to stay in bed.

The Hard Way Every Time

Yeah, I've had my share of broken dreams
And more than a couple of falls
And in chasin' what I thought were moonbeams
I have run into a couple of walls
But in looking back at the places I've been
The changes that I've left behind
I just look at myself to find
I've learned the hard way every time

'Cause I've had my share of good intentions
And I've made my share of mistakes
And I've learned at times it's best to bend
'Cause if you don't well those are the breaks
Should have listened to all the things I was told
But I was young and too proud at the time
Now I look at myself to find
I learn the hard way ev'ry time

But in looking back at the lessons I've learned
And the mountains I wanted to climb
I just look at myself to find
I've learned the hard way ev'ry time

'Cause I've had my share of broken dreams
And more than a couple of falls
And in chasin' what I thought were moonbeams
I have run into a couple of walls
But in looking back at the faces I've been
I would sure be the first one to say
When I look at myself today
Wouldn'ta done it any other way

Jim Croce

an object in motion

I was flying through space, in the blackness of the void, my own light and the swirling dust surrounding me being the only illumination.... and then I met my twin star, and I was pulled into his orbit... I circled him for 379 days... spinning around and around... Gravity keeping us together, velocity keeping us apart.

Frustrated at never making contact, exhausted from the dance, I pulled away... using every ounce of my energy... to escape an orbit that I did not want to leave, leaving some particles behind, taking some of his along with me.

And now, I am hurtling back into space... spinning away, my trajectory changed forever by the force of our gravitational pull.

And my twin star remains, behind me... alone, confused, lonely, and at rest. With only some space dust to remember me by.

And an object in motion remains in motion, and there is no way back

___________________________________________________________

Ale came over yesterday to bring back my things. Because I thought it would be today, I looked like hell. Extra ironic, being that he was so flipped about my age that I actually spent money on having needles shoved in my face... and I look fabulous. However, there would have been no way to see how great I look, and how much wieght Ive lost, being that I was smeared in last nights mascara, with sweaty greasy hair - dirty blue jeans, and a sweaty nasty tshirt.

Actually - I love lifes little jokes.

So, he wanted to talk.

He looked like hell. He has been sick since the break up six weeks ago (its not related of course... just caught a long cold, I suppose)

He feels he made the right decision (to stay broken up) - though he is currently miserable. He was feeling bored, and that we had played it out alll the way.

He told me that leaving me was hard, and that he was confused, and unhappy... and that he needs to grow up, but he doesnt know how.

He tried to justify his ambivalent behavior, citing the fact that we only saw each other 2 days a week - so I should have known. I told him I did... but reminded him that every time I complained, every time I tried to leave, he told me to please stay... it wasnt me, it was the thesis.... etc.

I reminded him that I waited for the thesis to be finished, as I promised. Then I left.

He told me that he "really tried".... I asked him how that could be, if he spent a year, pushing me away.

He said he was confused.

I asked him why he looked so sad. He said he wasnt, just sad because I was.

Finally, I told him that I don't believe he intended to hurt me.... so... what exactly was his positive intention in all this. THEN he dropped the bomb...

"I wanted to find some way that you and I and Spike could be a family"

Oh. My. God.

In all this year of ambivalence, of never knowing where I stood, of trying to be cool when I was being held at arms length, of being patient, because as slow as progress was, there was progress... he never ever once said this to me, he never ever stated that this was serious (until the end, when he began to run in earnest....) - he never once behaved in any way that would lead me to believe that his intention was in any way serious.....

And I told him... if ever once you had said this, it would have been so different. I would have relaxed. I would have been completely honest. I would not have felt I was losing you, so I never would have held on so tight that you felt the need to push me away..... I wouldnt have spent a year in love, feeling lonely.... because we had a common goal... and I never knew it.

He loved me. And he didnt know it.... and now he is suffering, and I am actually moving on.

This is all so sad, and has been all so unnecessary.... and all because he had a hidden agenda, and didnt tell me... because he wasnt certain.

I must say though, it was nice... to see him so unhappy, so confused, and to see that I havent been alone in hurting, and to see that I am actually handling this far better than he is.... and that I am actually far closer to being able to move on than he is.

Wow. It takes my breath away.

Girl: Interuppted Girl: Rejected

Gosh Golly Gee Whiz. Therapy is so much fun. Proof positive of my masochism, not only does this shit hurt, but I am paying money I don't have for the privilige.

But what is here today is important. How do I know this? Because, as I was trying to engage in an inner dialogue, as I was trying to puzzle this out a large hard blister formed in the front of my throat, just where I could reach it with my finger. It made swallowing immensely painful. So, for a few minutes, I stopped thinking, and the blister vanished. Scary multiple personality stuff, you know?

Ok - so let me try and begin from the beginning. Well, not the beginning beginning, but from the beginning of todays delightful experiment in head shrinking.

The Doc puts me in a trance state, first to begin working on the viscious dream and wine induced migraine I was sporting. After working on sensations for a while, he instructs me to tell myself that I love myself. Here is where I cease cooperating, but I tried. I couldnt do it. I just couldnt. So, he has me continue breathing, and tells me to keep working while he leaves the room.

The first thoughts that float into my mind is the words to the order of confession that we christians perform before holy communion... "I confess that I have sinned against you in thought word and deed. I have not loved you with my whole heart. I have not loved my neighbor as myself...."

After a few rounds of that, "She" began to appear for me. The little girl. The inner juvinille delinquent. The inner character who should be living permanantly in a psychiartic ward. She is wild, out of control. She doesnt accept comfort, nor affection, she lets no one touch us. When strangers reach for us, she not only reacts.... she is prone to hit them. She has no words, just need and desire and fear. She is dirty, and her eyes are ringed in black, and her hair is all over the place.

So, I try and comfort her. I try and love her. I tell her it will be all right, that I am there for her, that it isnt her fault, that she did not - ever - deserve what happened. I imagined cradling her in my arms. I touched her face, and pushed the hair out of her eyes. I repeated over and over and over - you didnt deserve this.

The Doc comes back into the room, and asks me to share. I tell him I dont want to, because he, being a psychiatrist, will just assume I am crazy. He assured me that he has already come to this conclusion. I tell him what I can, and we begin to speak of parts integration.

I told him I had tried to work with this part on several occasions, but her reaction to integration was that of terror... of being further rejected, and she just shuts down. He said maybe I am asking her the wrong questions, going to quickly... and that may be so.... and my hour and money was up.

While walking home towards the bus, I started exploring this encounter with this other. Now, most of these broken parts have been integrated. But, her - well... no. She is there, right underneath, near the surface, and in quite a bit of control of my life. Elaine posited that perhaps I am holding out on growing up, but... as I began thinking of this ungrown part, it occured to me that this goes a bit deeper than that.

I hate this bitch. I have done to her what every single person she has ever encountered has done. What every person she has depended upon has done. I have rejected her, betrayed her, blamed her, and scapegoated her. She lives in my soul in this state of isolation and need... and I have locked up all my fear, anger, pain, suffering, and everything everyone ever said was "wrong" with me into her.

You see... I went out and I constructed an alternate personality. I created this person the world sees - competent, intelligent, wise, caring, together, attractive, funny, socially acceptable. People generally like me, I am relatively successful. I am sleek, and groomed, and seductive... (not perfectly, but competently) - and this other person, well... she threatens the thin membrane of acceptability I have managed to fashion.

She is the girl who got left. She is the one who Daddy raped. She is the one who never had enough food, failed to thrive, couldnt play sports - the one who other children hated and who other girls picked on. She is the one who mom hated.

She is the one who believed her brothers, when from her ealiest memory, the would taunt her with

"Poor Shaun, nobody loves her, think she'll go in the garden and each some worms"

Yeah, they were teasing. But I beleived them. I took it to heart. Nobody loves me.

So I became someone else, and I left her behind in the dirt.

What is it about victims that makes us all hate them? She was never responsible for this... she got fucked. And when she turned to people for safety, they fucked her too. When others saw how fucked she was, they reviled her, shamed her, used her as a repository for all thier stuff, like the little sacrifical goat that the jews put thier sins upon and ran off the cliffs.

And I have done the same to the most innocent, helpless, and purest peice of myself. I don't WANT to be that girl... the girl nobody wanted. I don't want the girl that everyone betrayed in my life. She's got atrociously bad luck, if nothing else.

So, here we have the last piece... the biggest part of the puzzle. And I am like one of the other girls, picking on the weakest member of the tribe, in order not to be cast down myself. Doing to myself something I would never in a million years do to another person.

This is new information for me, and I dont know what to make of it... but "she" has the power to drive me to bad decisions, to prevent me from recieving things that we need to survive, and apparently the strength to raise blisters in my throat. So, WE had better find some solution to this... because this simply isnt fair, to either of us.

a year of limerance

Its been 40 days since I last saw him. It has been 12 days since I last heard from him. Its been 20 days since I heard his voice. I've stopped counting in minutes and hours, but the days are still hard to get through.

I miss him so much. I miss Saturday nights. I miss making dinner together. I miss the long talks, I miss the dinners... I miss him in my bed (more than anything, I miss that). I miss his smile, and his basic gentleness. I loved that boy - so very much.

I wish there had been something really wrong. I wish that I had lost my passion for him, had gotten bored. I wish we had fought, or had conflicts, or something. I honestly don't know what when wrong. Because there was nothing "wrong" specifically, the ending just felt so violent. Someone important was just ripped from my life, and I am still bleeding.

But still, I need to remember that I just wasnt happy most of this past year. He wouldnt let me in - he wouldnt be my friend. He refused to allow himself to get close, and whenever he felt "closer" he pulled away. I wasn't "it", I wasn't the one he has in his mind, and he did not want to love me. (This is where I start to cry, because I dont understand - you get along, you like each other immensely, you cant get enough of each others bodies, you enjoy spending time together... so .... why? I don't get it....)

I wonder if I hadnt cared quite so much, if I had been different, if I had been less transparent and obvious, more disciplined, if it would have come out different. I wonder if I hadnt loved him if he would have loved me. If I had been always just out of reach, would the tables have been turned? I wonder how one learns to get ones heart off ones sleeve.

I had so many hidden objectives here... things I hid even from myself. I said I didn't want more... but that was a lie. When he said his ideal relationship would involve seperate apartments my heart dropped (though, to be honest, for me for a while this would be ideal too...) I dreamed that we would have a future together, even though he was always clear that this wouldnt happen. Its just that it was so good when we were together, I wanted that all the time. I wanted to fall asleep with him more, and wake up with him every day. I wanted to make more dinners with him, and see more movies, and go for more moto rides. I didnt want it to end, and I alwys knew it would - and because of this, I was always nervous and anxious, and unhappy.

You see... it was ALMOST perfect.....

Except; He doesnt know what he wants to do with his life. He doesnt love kids. He doesn't get up in the mornings. He thinks soccer is important. He has no spiritual base. He doesnt read books. His parents never told him how proud they were of him. And, he didnt want to love me.

I don\t know how to let go of this almost perfect dream. My soul screams for him, because on that level, we really were so well matched. But on the mundane, day to day level, I don't know, because he refused to even try it. He crashed his motorcycle into a chain rather than try it. (That is the moment that I knew it was over.... I can't let someone I love hurt themselves out of that kind of fear....)

So, I try and unwrap these tendrals from my heart, gently... piece by piece.

I wanted to end this with love... but I have to end it all alone - I have to lt go all alone (never fucking again will I allow THIS to happen) - and somehow, I know that I have to walk away and let love remain, or I will be inauthentic, and I will dishonor myself.

And still, I wonder... if he had loved me back, if he even knew how much I loved him - would anything have changed? It never had a chance, he made up his mind early on, but still - and maybe always - all these what ifs are futile.

I want him back. I want it different. I miss him.

The Gilmore Girls

One of my favorite TV shows is called "The Gilmore Girls"....

Its dialogue is smart and funny - and I wish I'd had a mother like that.

In this show, the teenage daughter is at yale, and she is dating this rich kid named Logan... who just suddenly goes off of her, and stops calling. The show ends with the girl drunk, sick, on the bathroom floor crying in her mothers arms "What did I do Wrong?"

The next episode, the boy is back in her life... and she is talking to her mother - who is now dead set against this relationship... and she says something like:

"There is something fundamentally wrong when my brilliant, beautiful, educated daughter crying her eyes out on the bathroom floor over some guy who doesnt have the decency to know what he's got... not the least of which is I havent washed that floor in months...."

I'm kind of feeling that way myself -- there is something fundamentally wrong with someone who would walk away from someone like me.

I know that sounds a little bit arrogant... but... seriously....

Magical Thinking

Each night, I fall asleep, and Ale plagues my dreams. Its one thing to try and control your thoughts when you are awake - I have been working hard on this - but there is nothing I can do with my dreams right now. This is not to say I havent been trying, because I have... but each night, he is there.

Day and night, I dream he calls - he says "I'm sorry - I thought I didnt love you, but I cant get you out of my head" - I KNOW this is magical thinking, I know its not real.... I even know he is wrong for me, yet, the thoughts wont stop.

I also realize I've been lying - was lying all along - or, at least, half lying - to him, to myself, when I would tell him things like "I dont see a future for us, I dont want to live with you, I dont want to marry you" etc. Because, intellectually, I always knew it was wrong - but inside, I wanted him to be my home. I wanted him to change, just enough, to make it possible.

Then, I wonder about all of these out of control feelings - and I wonder what exactly it is that I am REALLY trying to avoid thinking about? I feel like these thoughts are a drug, a distraction, and avoidance of something really big that I am refusing.

I know a lot about love - its something I am pretty good at. But I dont know anything about romantic love. I feel like a kindergartner... I dont know exactly what I am supposed to be doing, feeling, thinking - I dont know how to get through this and put it aside.

All I know is that there is a little girl piece of my soul that wont stop crying out for him, and wont stop her wailing and crying out, and I cant seem to console her and calm her, and I feel like she is ruining my life and I wish she would just shut up and grow up already. Now, I know this is counter productive, and I know she is already feeling rejected, but I am tired of thinking about this stupid boy - and I am angry at him for jerking us around, and I am furious that he was so stupid not to love her.

Dark Night of the Soul

The pain I am in right now is nearly unbearable. I loathe myself for feeling this way - I feel this entire blog is nothing but a book of complaints and whining - a testament to my immaturity and inability to suck it up. Yeah yeah - I know, its just feelings, and they are transitory - and I shouldnt be hard on myself, and its the human condition - but my sense of personal responsibility and my culture tells me that if I am in pain, in misery, if I get hurt - I have done something to deserve it. I am feeling sorry for myself, and if I were a better human being, my life wouldnt be like it is now.

Yesterday therapy was particularly brutal. Since the beginning, thgis Doctor has tried to get me to see myself in the future.... each time I have resisited. Yesterday, something just broke. I suppose in theraputic terms, it was a breakthough. In real life terms it feels like a break down.

Even writing about this now is bringing up these primal feelings of terror. I am having a hard time moving from word to word. I am being distracted, and it feels like it is almost from an outside source. Something inside is screaming "don't look here".... I am trying to recall the events that happened, and I am getting confused.
I cant quite remember what happened, and every time I try and recall it, my chest hurts, and I can't think.

Ok, anyway - he asked me to close my eyes, and start seeing a future - where I want to go, what I want to do - and I shut down, and began to cry. I felt terrified. Then, he told me to try and touch that fear, and see where it was coming from - and I touched it - and she / it was loud and clear - at which point it was as if I was forcibly ejected from my own body.

He probed me futher - and it all came up -

It doesnt matter what I do. It doesn't matter what I achieve. Planning a future - dreaming of a future won't matter, because no matter how successful it may be, I will lose it, it will be taken away from me, and I will never be loved - I will never find home - I will always fail and I will always be alone.

He tried to ask me where this was coming from, my mother - my family - etc. He didnt seem to quite grasp it when I was telling him that this was coming from me.

And of course, there is no science involved in seeing "where" this comes from. In my quest to win love I became an overachiever, vain, ambitious, manipulative, successful, overly sexual - I have tried every approach, every book, every form of therapy. I have put needles in my face, invested in the finest cosmetics, achived artistic and intellectual success, ran away from home, moved a million miles away... and not one thing has brought me to a home where I am safe, and loved, and wanted. Frequently my successes have done nothing but drive people away (in the definitive experience, my mothers jealousy of me caused her to attempt to kill me).

So - what good is it to plan a future, what good is it to want anything at all, when ultimately, I will lose what I have gained, and what I most want - to belong - is something that I really don't believe I will ever have? It is this wanting, this striving that has put me where I am right now, and hope seems to be the most dangerous place for me to ever be.

The worst of this, under the fear, under the anguish, under the desire to want and gain something - is a certain knowledge that I really have touched on an exhistential truth. Nothing we do really matters. We cannot gain love. We cannot earn it. Ultimately we are all alone, and it is all essentially hopeless.

I do not know how to proceed forward with this knowledge. Imperanance is the nature of life - security is an illusion, and everything we gain we lose. Existance is ultimately pointless.

For those of you who have read this far - no, I am not suicidal (thats pointless too...) But - right now, I am hopeless.

As to what I want? I want happily ever after. I want to fall in love - and have it last the rest of my mortal days. I want to make art, and travel, and have enough money to be comfortable. But - I thought I had those things... and I lost them all.

I want to feel joy, to feel safe, to feel loved. I want companions, and love, and comfort - I want a home, with people who adore me. I have, of course, my beloved son - but even that I will lose. It is the nature of things.

So - yes. I am in a dark night of the soul. I have lost all faith. I have lost all hope. I am alone, and abadoned, and deeply alienated. I sit in a state of barely contained terror. And there really is nothing to be done. Nothing at all. There is no rescue, no escape - and I really have no idea what happens next.

I will meditate. I will eat and sleep. I will read. I will work. I will continue writing. I will sit with these feelings. I will put one foot in front of the other, because there really is nothing else to do.

What I want in a man....

Okay - this is my therapy assignment, and it was hard for me. I still have someone else taking up my heart space, and it is difficult for me to seperate what was great about Ale with what it is that I really want. It is hard to look to the future when what I want is something that is in the past - (and never really existed in the first place!)

So - I am going to try and answer this from the point of view of someone who really loves me, from a place of unconditional freindliness with myself.

The kind of man that I would want;

Smart and thoughtful
A lot of fun and knows how to play
Always happy to see me
Emotionally available
Knows himself and his mind
Self Confident
Sexually playful and very inventive
Joyful
Loves kids and dogs
Works for him money
Well educated
Politically liberal
Spiritually Grounded
In good health and good shape
Sexy and good looking
35-45 years old
Well traveled
Loves food and wine
Likes making things
Makes things / creates things for a living
Adores me, and loves my son
Likes motorcycles
No bigotry
Reflexively kind
Funny
Exciting and adventurous
Likes doing housework, and doesnt mind that I don't
Spoils me

And then again...

Sometimes, you think you are spinning out of control, down into the depths that you thought you had swum free from - you spend the day miserable and crying and you think its because you simply cannot control your emotions....

And you discover that you were just getting your period.

We can add this to the 101 reasons that I'm planning on coming back male next time.

This morning I cast another goodbye spell, though I think that it might have been a little bit fuzzy in it's intentions... part goodbye, part come back, part "I surrender this to god" - The last spell was obviously working (or he would not have written to me...) - but then I broke it by re-engaging in pointless conversation - I hoped hitting the send button would make me feel better, but of course, it was just dumb. I rehooked myself.

As I am getting a little distance I am starting to understand why I am feeling guilty. I feel like I sold off some of my authenticity to stay in this relationship. That makes me feel a little bad. I do this with men, sell my own authenticity to be acceptable. This weakens me, and I need to be loving myself more than I love him.

If my authentic self, my age, my child, my "stability", my past, my impulsiveness, the way I am is ever any problem to someone - well - what is that to me? I'm not perfect, but - I'm pretty terrific. If someone is finding fault, they should be invited to take the next train out of dodge. Its really silly for me to try and "change" my basic nature in order to be accepted. I mean - if there is something I do thats annoying - its one thing. But, who I am? Who I AM is pretty great, and I want to be with someone who assists me in becoming MORE of who I am, who helps be bring out the BEST of who I am...

NOT with someone who has a problem with the BASICS - like my motherhood, my age, and my personality.

In any case, I did spell work, I did meditation, I did my therapy homework this morning, and I'm a little less shaky.

I will post my therapy assignment in a seperate post.

The Wisdom of No Escape?

I have been reading a lot of Pema Chodron these days - trying to find meaning in my current state of misery.

Her point is, I think, to simply experience what you are feeling. Don't run away, don't fix it - just sit still with it.

I'm starting to think that maybe I am misunderstanding this instruction. I don't WANT to feel this. I am frightened, anxious, exhausted, fed up.

She says this is the place wisdom starts; With a raw and wounded heart.

I'm trying very hard (and not so successfully, I think) to stop stuggling, and just sit with these feelings, without judgement of myself, or blame for others. I can get here about 2 percent of the time....

But instead of experiencing any sort of relaxation from this practice, all I feel is more despair (and this is while working hard not to "feed" this pain with thoughts of all that went wrong - how he is wrong, how I am wrong). I find this near to impossible, but as I said, I get moments.

But all I feel when I do this is trapped in a nightmare, where there is no escape, where I cannot wake up. I am acknowledging to the best of my abilities that these fears, this terror I feel is "just thinking". I am trying to view it all as a dream, as an illusion.

But the more I try and find this buddha mind and this open heart, the deeper into a disassociated exhistential vortex I find myself. The path of no action (my letter of yesterday is proof of my inability) is nearly impossible.

And even with action, I cant change anything.

Spike asked me yesterday if there isnt a pill I can take just to forget Ale. Oh boy I wish there was. Too many of my deepest needs got met, and far too many of them went unmet.

I wish I needed nothing. I wish I wanted nothing. Sometimes, this manifests in my mind somewhere along the lines of "I wish I were dead".

Im not depressed, I am just sad. But, I have spent 30 days in sadness.... and I am tired. I want out now. I want it done. And nothing seems to lift it.

I am made to feel bad and wrong, left and right. My culture says "Only losers dont have someone to love them" and then my culture says "What is WRONG with you if you cannot be alone - there must be something WRONG with you to need another person"

EVERYTHING in our culture tells us something is wrong with us. We are wrong to be alone. We are wrong to not want to be alone. We are wrong to need something. We are wrong if we dont have it. We are wrong because we are too old - we must be unattractive if we are too old.

Im tired of being sad. I am tired of being alone. I am tired of wanting what it seems I cannot have. I am tired of hopelessness. And I am tired of trying to investigate all these feelings I am having. And I am so fucking tired of people telling me that there must be something wrong with me, that the next person who even suggests it again is likely to find thier face shoved down thier own throats.

Lonliness and Alienation

Last week, I cast a goodbye spell. The day after I began the casting, I heard from Ale (of course I did). He repeated, in Italian, the same things he had said in English.... I guess in case I didnt understand everyting that was wrong with me the first time.

I should have left it alone. I should have deleted it, ignored it, burned it. Of course, that would have been the mature thing to do. Of course, being not particulalry self controlled or mature, I responded.

Now, of course... I care about the response.

I have been alone and lonely my whole life. One would think I would have become accustomed to this sense of lonliness and alienation by now. I have never felt I really belonged... I have rarely been associated with my life...

Last night, as I sat listening to music in Santa Spirito, watching Spike play - I had the sensation of being so far out of my body that I felt I was watching the scene from overhead. The sensation of aloneness, of being a stranger in a strange land overwhelmed me. I wanted so badly to be home...

But, I have no home. I have never had a home. There is no where to run to, no where to hide, no comfortable skirts to hide behind. There is no ground beneath my feet, and I do not like it.

My coach sites theism as an answer... but while God may always be with me, he does not exist to hold my hand. The truth is that the human condition is that we are all one in our profound aloneness, on a small insignificant planet that is hurteling through space.

I feel like the only sane response is to embrace this truth - but my fear is that if I give into this reality, I will die. If I stop struglling against this exhistential truth - if I give up all hope - if I surrender to this inevitability I will cease to exist.

I look around me now at all the happy couples, the people pushing the baby carriages, the men and the women strolling contentedly hand in hand. Those who seem to belong, to have a home.... and I want what they have.

This is not to say, of course, that I do not have my son, and do not thank the Universe every day... but I am only keeping him safe until he learns to fly away. He does not belong to me - he belongs to himself and to God. I belong to him, no doubt - but only as long as he needs me.

I want a sense of connection with another adult human being. This is why I so miss Ale... not because I ever had him, not because I ever belonged to him, or him to me... but because he was the first man - truely the first, with whom I ever had the experience of being INSIDE my own body. He is the first person who I remember from a first person point of view, rather than from somewhere outside looking in.

Ultimately, it was not meant to last, and I always knew this - and I wasted an entire year struglling against the inevitable. Part of me feels stupid, because I dishonored myself. But the most of me cannot blame myself - because the state of being in my body was something I most wanted.

I wish he would change, I wish that magically God would open his heart and he would discover his love for me... but this is what it is: magical thinking. He is not for me, on so many many levels. He never was. Maybe some other lifetime, some other incarnation.

Still, it hurts, and I am tired of hurting. I am tired of living in pain. There must be a home for me.... somewhere. There must be. I am not ready to give up hope - because as much as a warrior as I would like to be... I am not ready to face the utter annhialation of hopelessness.

Yet another pretend response...

Ale's letter to me is staying on my mind. It really is more of the exact same thing, and so frustrating.... "I made up my mind, but I feel so conflicted" - beyond my anger, I feel bad - because I know he really IS conflicted. Its osrt of like his decision to not believe in evolution; if something contrary to his decision arises, he gets confused. But damn it... he's decided.

In any case, response is kind of futile - though this one I may have translated and sent, because - I dont know. Maybe it would make me feel better.

Dear Ale -

I feel as if any response I make to you is futile - because for the entire last year, you have never seemed to hear me. It is as if I ask you for hamburger, and you give me a weather report, or I ask what your favorite book is, and you tell me what the fashion is in Zanzibar.

Please - if you can open your mind and your heart for just the length of this letter - try and understand me now.

Ale - if at any point you had ever truly offered me your friendship, if you had ever been my friend - this all would have come out so differently. But - your heart was hard. You had made up your mind. I have spent a year knocking at the door, because I see something in you that is so fantastic, and I wanted you to see it too.

"Innammorati" is a myth from books, and its lovely - but it is irrelevant, because it doesn't really last. We "fall in love" with ourselves when we fall in love with another. We see something in them, that we love within ourselves - As you said, I am not sure you are capable of "falling in love" - because I don't think you like yourself very much.

True love, true friendship is when we open our hearts to another human being. Its so very very simple. It is something that stands outside of romantic love - all you must do is open your heart, and love is there (and its why, as you say, I am able to love so many people).

Very early on in our affair, you made decisions. The decision you made was to shut me out. I didn't fit a predetermined check list, therefore you would not love me. After this, there was nothing to be done. You had made up your mind, and if any feelings arose for you that contradicted your original decision, you shut them down or disappered. You felt "confused". You simply got "harder" and more fixed. There was never any hope, because you had made your "decison" - and no other "choice" was ever possible.

(This is the same decision you make when you say things like "I don't care for children" - after this, no matter how kind my son was to you - no matter how sweet - your heart was hard because you had already decided to shut him out. He was a child. You don't like children. Therefore, you didn't like Spike. This is a tragedy for you, because he fully and openly offered you his friendship. Life is far too short to not be taking all the love the world has to offer us. Why don't you KNOW this? How can ANYONE NOT KNOW THIS??????)

Ale - I have observed you for a year now - and I see this same thing at work through out your life. You make a "decision" - after which, any contradictory evidence or feeling is denied. This is not "stability" - it is "inflexibility" and "rigidity". You face your life by "shutting down" - you "disappear" - you drink, and use drugs, your run away - your "decisons" rob you of all freedom, all choice, all love - they keep you trapped JUST WHERE YOU ARE NOW, FOREVER.

No magical day will come when you are an adult. Your doctarate didn't "solve" your life. Neither will getting married. Neither will having a child. This is not a rehearsal for the day your real life begins. This IS your real life, Peter Pan.

As someone who will always be your friend, as someone who will always love you - please, Ale - get counseling. Find your faith again. Explore and recover from a childhood that gave you no room to be a child.

If you do not, you will always be as you are - cold, afraid, disconnected, unable to have true intimacy with another human being, and stuck with fixed decisions that serve as a cage.

I have never not been your friend, but you have never been able to offer your freindship to me in return. I am sorry for it, for all the missed opportunity - for the fact that your spirit loved mine, and you thought it was 'just sex' (and that I had had thousands of lovers, or the sex wouldnt have been that good... sheesh!) I hope and pray that you find a way to live your life with an open heart, and open mind - and you find your way to love.

I didn't want to marry you. I didn't want to live with you. I only wanted to love you, and to be your friend. And, like all human beings - to be loved in return. I wanted a companion, because - as you say - we stayed so well together.

You tried your best, I suppose - but you couldnt, because your heart was closed. What a tragedy for you - because I'm older than you, smarter than you, and wiser than you - and had you invested in this - you would have gained so very much.

But instead of being here, where you were, in the present moment, you were busy studying the fashions in Zanzabar.

Good luck to you. Ti volgio bene.

Shaun