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

sharpnpieces shattered

I wish he had just left me alone. I wish he hadn't written. There is nothing he has to say to me that he hadn't decided a year ago - and there is no way i could make him see that no matter how much talking I could do.

It has nothing to do with speaking the same language or not, what he said in the letter I had already heard in English. He never changed his point of view. He began to love me, he decided against it - and the rest was - oh heck, I don't know what it was.

All I know is that it bought up the same sorrow and frustration that I had been suffering with for a year....

The strange thing about this letter is that he wrote it when I had clearly packed my bags and was walking away. He seems compelled to keep me in it, just in case he changes his mind. He hopes he hasn't lost me :forever:... :he wants to be my friend - but not right now" "He dislikes children, but might want one someday" "He wants to be in love, but may not know what love means"

It would be easier if I really believed he was a bad person - but he isn't. He isn't trying to play me... he never was.

But all the same, he DID play with my heart. He was never my friend, he didn't know what this means.

My son was unfailingly polite and kind to him - so the "I'm not crazy about children" is nothing short of bigotry. Its insulting. My son is a human being, and deserving of hte same respect as all others.

I think women are also in the same category....

In fact, much of him seems to be based on bigotry and prejudgement.

I wish I could talk to him, but if he didn't hear me for a whole year, he will never hear me now. It would all be in vain. It would only hurt me. More.


This hurts, and I hate it.

I hope he gets therapy.

I miss him.

I went out last night on a date... with someone sweet, and rich, and kind, and innocent, and educated, and tall.... and British. Who called me Tuesday for a Friday night date. Who loves kids, and knows how hard being a single parent is.

NOTHING. I felt NOTHING. Because someone unworthy has taken up a place in my head, and right now, he is all my heart wants. He's nothing special. He's a child - a bigoted child raised by people who weren't particularly pleased by his arrival on planet earth. (golly gee... think this might be why they didnt manage to raise an adult?)

Sean admits to having 'baggage' - Ale doesnt wouldnt even understand what that meant.... but he smells right, and my poor soul is screaming out for him.

What is WRONG with me?????

swimming in the dating pool

Last night I had my first first date in more than a year. It was nice, he was nice - and it is unfortunate that someone else still has residence inside my head.

Speaking of, he wrote me yesterday - right after I cast a "goodbye" spell. Nothing new, nothing interesting - just more of the same. All the letter did was make me angry... so I will ignore it for now. I'll wait until my higher self shows up to respond, if I chosse to respond at all. He needs therapy.

Last night I dreamed of travelling on a boat, down a coastline... I passed italy, and spain, and the boat went somewhere into France, and then, the boat went into a town that was made up of canals - the boat went onto a hotel dock, and we went to a swimming pool. I wanted to go in the water, but I didnt have a swimsuit.... so I hung my feet over the edge, and the water was warm and lovely....

The other thing about this dream is how fast the boat was - it went at a speed that was a little terrifying.

We are made of dreams and bones....

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
Till the rain comes tumblin' down

Pullin' weeds and pickin' stones
We are made of dreams and bones
Feel the need to grow my own
'Cause the time is close at hand

Rainful rain, sun and rain
Find my way in nature's chain
Tune my body and my brain
To the music from the land

This morning when I woke up, I was made up only of bones.... dreams are too scary right now. Optimism feels a little dangerous.

I have been getting a bit better, day by day. Thursday I even began to work on the future again. But, just when I feel a little better, a wave of sadness hits, and my stomach hurts.

Its not about Ale (who really is kind of an asshole) - but about the dream he represented. (Though I must say, he treated me so well, and was so loving at times that the next man in my life is going to have a pretty high standard....). What Ale represented was a dream, a fantasy - about some future where I would not be so alone.

A couple of my friends have asked me "Why do you NEED a man".... and I deny "needing" anyone. Because honestly, I do need someone. I have been alone my whole life long - I have been the structural support for so many other people, the parent, the friend, the smart one. I have been someone others see as "strong"...

But guess what? Im TIRED. I want to be someones baby, someones best friend. I want someone to hold me and love me when I am bad, and weak, and imperfect - when I am tired and defeated. I want someone to spend late nights talking with, to challenge my ideas and beliefs and help me grow too. Mostly though, I don't want to have to be strong and independant and always responsible.

One person alone, especially with a child - has got to be a super hero. I dont want to be a super hero every day. I want to be able to fall apart, and know that someone is there to catch me when I fall sometimes.

I want someone to cook for and watch out for - someone who is always happy to see me. I want a travelling companion.

And yes, of course, I have my son. But he is only in my keeping for now - my job is to make him into the kind of man who can be a loving father and husband... so, its not the same.

But, of course, I dont want these things at "any cost" - because there are men who DO want to be these things to me.... but not one of them is "mine" - and I know it.

I'd rather be alone than get it wrong again.

Today I feel sad

My internal voices are very loud these days. My emotions are very raw, and very near to the surface - and many of these emotions feel like strangers to me.

Last night, after my therpy session - I sat for a while, and I just turned inside to simply feel what I was feeling.... and I had this sensation of someone inside of me, wailing and crying in utter lonliness and despair. It felt so primal, and so beyone comforting....

The physical sensation is like someone pressing, hard, on my solar plexus - my throat hurt...

The visual sensation was one of absolute aloneness.... as if something inside me were floating in a void, and it was simply black. The feeling was beyond fear, beyond anxiety - it was a feeling of utter and hopless despair and lonliness.

I am practicing, and getting better at, simply FEELING these feelings, without feeding them with my thoughts - but its hard. I want to DO something about it, take some action, change it, deny it, shove it back down. I want to NOT pay attention to these broken bits...

After Spike and the puppy fell asleep last night, I was able to cry a little. It didn't really bring me any relief... my deep fear is that I will always be alone, with relationships that are close, but that will never allow me to "relax" into the arms of someone else, never fill up that feeling of companionship, partnership, or having a shared journey.

This may very well be the path I must be on, maybe this is my karma in this lifetime - but I can tell you, I am not happy about it.

My therapist is kind of weird. I like him, but - he is strange. He says I am presumptuous.... by which I assume he means arrogant. I said that I write well - he said that was arrogant. He gave me shit about my problems learning Italian, and thinks that this is arrogant as well (no - its not arrogant, its embarrassing).

I do write well - though I have no desire, at this point, to do it professionally (I write because its how I can express myself). I know my area's of competancy - and I know my area's of hopelessness.

I don't know if this man is a "fit" for the work I need to do now or not, and unfortunately, you never know if its a waste of time or not until you are really deeply invested.

I also think I shock him a little... because of some of my attitudes about sex and gender etc. (I am not the only person who is presumptuous in this interchange of ideas.... )

As to my broken heart... its still broken. I loved that boy - and I hate walking away so angry and bitter. He played with my heart, and worse than that - I let him. My eyes were open the whole time, yet I kept looking away. I wanted him to be someone he was not. I feel stupid for it... on the other hand, I think maybe I wanted to experience falling in love, but with no threat of a life long commitment.

I desperately want to find the good in that relationship, but right now, i think its good for me to be angry - and to hold him responsible for his behavior at the end. He was a coward, and that is, in my opinion, one of the worst things a human can be.

Last night, I had a long conversation with my brother, Charlie. He really doesnt quite understand why I am doing the work I am doing in regards to my internal processes, and trying to recover from our childhood. He wandered around lost, and then found Jesus as his personal lord and savior. In a very biblical sense...

I don't know that I can explain to him that my relationship with God is very different - and that I am doing Gods work as well.... I know that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing, and I know that there is a purpose in it.

I just wish I knew what it was. God sometimes doesn't tell me why I am doing what I am doing, but when I am on the right path, I have an internal sense of rightness with it. Which is, I think why I do not feel this incredible sadness and despair I am in right now to be "depression" - I think there is meaning in the journey I am in right now.

It would certainly be easier, however, if I was clear on just what the meaning is!

On anger

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.
Anne Frank

I read Anne Franks diary when I was the age of the author - and thugh I did not exist inside a prison camp, my life was pretty terrifyling. I clung to that sentence - that people are baciscally good, all of my life. In many ways it saved me.

My own natural disposition (I think) - and my earliest training has handicapped me in a way. Anger at my mother was dangerous (to express anger was to suffer a beating) - and later, anger with Nick would only incur abuse.

So - I learned to be reasonable. Patient. Soft spoken. My anger, when expressed, tends to be only of the political variety.... or in frustration, or in tears - and the more someone really hurts me, the less able I am to respond with real rightious anger. I assume that they are basically good at heart, and have the best intentions, and are not trying to be hurtful... and this is in the face of some seiously outrageous mishebaviors.

So - I turn the anger in. I become sad, and depressed, and if I get hurt - I tend to blame it on myself. If I hadnt created it, chose it, it wouldnt have happened.

However - sometimes, people are really shitty. They do bad hurtful things to each other, they hurt each other on purpose, and sometimes, the intentions really dont matter. Sometimes people suck.

Last night, the fact that Ale had been advertising on a dating site finally occured to me. Since he has 2 accounts, and had blocked me from the one..... (as I figured out...) it could be that he was being a lying jackal the whole time I've known him.

My first response to this knowledge was to be hurt, but benevolent. To say - ok, fine - he saw the end coming, and he didnt mean for me to know. I didnt get hooked, or so I thought.

But then... last night.... it suddenly occured to me... he was stupid and cruel and unthinking. He was in a relationship, and was not looking for friends... he was ACTIVELY looking to start fucking some one else. His profile contained things that are a lie (ie - I am molto romantico...). THREE weeks ago he claimed "I am not a romantic... I hate all that ooh ooh ooh stuff"

And I thought - being calm and serene and giving him the benefit of the doubt... no matter how "enlightened" my approach, was an inappropriate response. He fucking jerked me around. He was using me, witholding, and lying.

The PROPER emotional response to this is ANGER. I shouldnt be "hurt, sad, and depressed" - I should be rightously pissed off. THAT is the HEALTHY response to have when someone treats you disrespectfully, badly, and breaks thier word to you.

My sweetness and gentleness - while a good quality is not enough.

If someone did what he did to someone I love, I would punch that person in the nose! I would tell my friend "he is a fuckhead, lose that bastard." And I would cast a spell to give him syph too.

So, I wrote my anger. And I sent it. Fuck getting my keys back. Fuck a sweet gentle reconcilliation talk.

Ale is a rat bastard, and I hope that the law of karma hits him in the hardest and most nasty way. With any luck, in his next life, he can come back as an islamic female and get sold into the sex trade.

Fuck him, and fuck his entire act. So there.

Im embarrassed!

Last night, with Steve's help - I wrote a letter to Ale, basically saying "hey - are you REALLY sure...."

I am such a moron! OK, actually, its kind of funny - (my sense of humour returned today....) - but, man - he is not going to understand anything I meant...

I'd send a text message saying "please dont read that!!!! PLEASE!" - but, then he's going to think I'm a pyscho. Ok, more of a Psycho.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.... But, in last nights dream, I recieved my answer "Lady, its too late...." so now, its just redundant.

Now, when I recieved that answer in my dream, a little piece of me panicked. So, I went into a trance state, and followed the emotion. And found the baby in the orphanage. I picked her up, and held her in my arms, and I asked her what her positive intention was behind inspiring me to send that letter.

What happened next broke my heart.... this child collapsed against me, and began to cry - inconsolably. Not in rage, not in terror, just in complete and utter sadness, confusion, and surrender. I do not know I have held a being before who was so inconsolate. It was such a raw emotional state - pre intellect, pre verbal - just a baby confused as to why no one loves her and no one wants her, trying to be perfect in order to survive.

I tried to tell her of the future, of the great big life she was destined to lead, how there would be men, and love, and children, and family - and the worst, scariest parts would be over soon - that God loved her, and she was more special than she could know...

But then, I had to put her down and leave.

This "part" needs to be reintegrated, but - I'm afraid to. I am afraid for now that an attempt on the reintegration of this part is going to seem to be and feel like a new abandonment - and acknowledgement that "she" is unloved, unwanted, unvaluable - and destined to always be rejected, abadnoned, and thrown away.

This afternoon I am going to see a gestalt / NLP guy who has actually worked with this shadow work and parts integration stuff.

I am proud of myself - so proud - of the exquisite care and attention I am giving myself right now. But - man - I wish we hadnt sent that letter, I hate feeling dumb!

Finding Grace

First, the daily report; I had another dream last night. He keeps coming to me in my dreams, and I wish that would stop right now.

A little background here. A few years ago, when I was working with John Michael, I was hired to consult on building a dating site. So I now belong to every dating site in known humanity. I;ve met some pretty great folks through these sites, including Ale - but I never resigned from these sites because I like online chat, and - well, watching trends and technology is my job.

The day after Ale decided to send me a text message, and completley fucked me up - I get a mass email from one of the dating sites. And there, listed in "Men in your area" is Ale. Being a masochist, I clicked. He joined the site 2 weeks before we split (confirming absolutely what I thought was going on). His message said something like "Im sceptical, but I might be interested in falling in love".

Ouch.

Then day before yesterday, I get another email from them, with him at the top of the list as an appropriate partner for me.

Ouch Doppio.

So, in last nights dream, I get this letter from him, looking for love. Somehow, though I take no pains to hide my identity, he doesnt seem to know me. He's looking for a serious story.

I have intellectually let go of him, because he is simply not ready. If he follows the pattern of my life, I fully expect that some many years down the road, I will get a letter from him that says "I loved you, I just didnt know it then...." - because somehow, without fail, my long absence tends to make men nostolgic.

However, my emotions and subconcious aren't releasing this yet. My prefontal cortex seems to be at war with my limbic system. In English: We have some work to do.

Now, whatever happened with this boy was triggering my subconcious all along. Life was working with me, trying to help teach me things, get me through some stuff that I hadnt yet resolved.

I was having physical symptoms all along - this part is where I get confused; I loved him, but was not really happy - logically I should have left this time last year... and I am not sure why I stayed. But, he behaved in such a loving manner towards me, and so much of this was so good.... yet I felt pretty fearful most of the time. Yet, arguably - in many many ways this was a very good relationship. Sad thing is, had I kept my cool - maybe it would have worked out the way I hoped. I have no idea, but I do know that love and relationships should not make you feel fearful. I am usually pretty consistant in acting in my own best interests, so what was going on here?

My conclusion is that he was confirming some unconcious or subconcious core belief. Somewhere beneath the surface of logical thought, I must have imagined that if I could win his love I would somehow get "healed".

When he abandoned me, I spun out. Things I thought pretty well done with got triggered, PTSD, Panic disorder, generalized anxiety....

I hate "labeling" these things, and pathologizing my experience, but first I needed to cope with the physical symptoms of what was going on. Then, I needed to make a plan - becuase this is a learning experience I do not wish to repeat.

This all came together for me the day before yesterday, when I woke up - for the first time in at least 7 years, with a full blown panic attack. (For you who havent had them, it feels like a heart attack). Now, clearly, this had nothing to do with Ale, and everything to do with my amygdala (the part of your limbic system that stores emotional memories of fear).

So, I allowed myself to follow the emotion, and I started getting clear flashbacks - of being 2 or 3 years old, and of being put in an orphanage, and never knowing if I would ever see my mother or brothers again. Of trying to be perfect and compliant so that someone would take care of me. Of being afraid, but pretending to be fine all the time, never crying, never showing fear.... These memories came back clearly to me, including my pajamas, the bath I was given, the smell of Ivory soap.

It isnt that I have ever forgotten this stuff, not the physical part of it.... but I never really "related" to this. I never really gave myself any sympathy or empathy around this. Its one thing to be afraid of abandoment if you havent ever been abandoned, but I was - in a very real way.

The more violent and frightening experiences of my later life are very well healed. But the little stuff... having a mother who could be loving one moment, and then dangerous the next... being left alone as a baby for days without food... being dressed like a doll, and then being tossed aside to fend for myself, that stuff is still very present I think. I see how it manifests in my choice of relationships, in the pattern I have of insecure relationships and preoccupied attachment.

There are 4 primary types of attachment, generally established in the first years of life, and depending on your primary caregiver. If you had excellent parenting, you tend to form secure adult attachments. My care was crazy - and though I am not avoident, I am very preoccupied and anxious in my attachments. From the words I have heard from Ale, and from watching his family - he seems pretty dismissive of strong emotions and attachments.... thats a pretty bad combination, really.

What I want, more than anything, is a solid, loving, stable relationship with someone I adore, who adores me back. I want a secure, healthy attachment... but clearly, I must be prepared for having that. So, I think its time to do something about this non integrated part, and the attendant out of control behavior.

Over the last couple of days, I have created a plan of action.

First, I am taking medication for anxiety and depression. I dont currently - at this moment in time - have the tools I need to stop my nuerotransmitters from being over reactive and hyper stimulated.

I found a therapist here is Florence who specifically works with the type of work I need to do right now - specifically Eriksonian Hypnotherapy, NLP, ShadowWork and parts intergration. He has trained directly under Bandler and Dilts... and he speaks English.

Life teaches every lesson you need to know when you need to know it, and when you are ready, the right teachers appear.

Do I hope Ale sends me a letter, saying - "please, I miss you, can we try again please?". Sure. I love him. There was a lot of good there. But he is NOT the point. He cannot, ultimately make me happy nor unhappy - that power only rests in me. Whatever the outcome of this story, as sad as I am now... I know that ultimately everything is always for the best - if you let it be so.

another pretend letter....

I miss you so much. I don't know what happened here, or why this didnt work.

We absolutely adored each other. When we didnt see each other for a while, our faces would simply light up.... when we touched it felt so right, so easy, so comfortable. It was fun, we were gentle with each other - we treated each other so well... we were almost always happy to see each other.

So WHY did you decide to put me in the "temporary" category? What happened between "This is going to be a serious story" and "I don't think this will be a serious story?" It ended up being pretty serious anyway.... But, somewhere, early on, you changed your mind, and the reasons were - well - dumb. And I couldnt ever really get you to give me a clear reason, and your actions and face belied your words.

Why did you want out? You were pretty damn happy - and it wasnt that you wanted out "now", because you didn't. You wanted me to stay with you, because I made you happy, but you didn't want to be my friend. And I just can't make much sense out of this.

You always said we didnt love each other "the same" - well, thats because of the dynamic created when you put me in the temporary category.

I am, regardless of your fears, plenty emotionally healthy - but honestly, we all have baggage we bring to our human relationships.

My "baggage" is my response to emotionally inconsistancy - you want me to be instabile? Do this: Be very very loving, happy to see me, and clearly adore me. Then, do this: Withdraw, pull back, and say confusing things like "I dont know how I feel, but you are the most important thing in my life".

Guess what happens then? I get clingy, I get needy, and I get scared. Then I push, because I don't like feeling that way. It felt like home. I can deal with indifference, I can deal with hate, I can deal with most everything life puts in front of me. Inconsistancy in the people I love turns me into someone I am not.

And, Ale, no - I honestly didnt think much about the future with you - as much as I loved you. That you may have grown into a life partner was a hope, because so very much of our relationship was so very very good.

Oh boy - I miss you so much. Had I known how much I would miss you and how painful this would all be, I would have put up with your crazy making mixed signals for a whole lot longer.

I'm not sure what more you were looking for, and I wish I could have given it to you - I really do.

I hate the fact that we cant talk through this - I guess this is supposed to be normal, but its new to me. I have never ever given up a relationship - I work through them, til everyone is OK.

I think the worst thing of all is that we were never friends, you never trusted me to be a friend with me. And I never understood that. I guess it was your way of keeping me at arms length....

My friends take care of me, and I of them. We pick each other up at the airport, we help each other do dishes, we rent movies and watch them. And that was what I wanted from you - and it was what you wouldnt give me. You gave me love, you gave me sex, you treated me like a princess.... but you never ever gave me your friendship, and that makes me saddest of all.