At the Other Side was Still More Anger & Despair

Who knew that I would wind up angrier still, even free.  Even feeling better generally.  So much better…

This came out in a rush of tears and rage.  It’s unfortunate that it rhymes at the end but it is what it is and I needed to put it somewhere… Cast it out and free myself of it so here it is.  It’s short and pretty silly really but here it is…

 

__________

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck your sadness. Fuck your tears 12 years too late.  Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.  I am so sick of being angry.  There is a hole at the centre of me so wide and deep that the only thing that holds me together some days is my skin.  My thin, thin, thin fucking skin.  And I loathe myself for letting you but you dug that hole and you wore down that skin so fuck you.  Just fuck you.  Fuck your tears 12 years too late.  Fuck the fact that you taught me to hate.  Hate myself and hate you.

I just need one solid thing to hold on to that’s mine.

One person, more like. One person who can give me support without stripping themselves of vital nutrients. One person to turn to first in confidence, with confidence that they care. One person threaded through the up and the down, the X axis of my roller coaster. I swear the highs would mean more and the lows would be higher if I could just have faith in one person. Rely on them. Not have to do all of this alone.

And I would be that person for them. However they need it to be for them. I want to be that person for someone. I tried. I tried too hard. I always try too hard and that’s part of why he failed but he would have failed anyway. If I hadn’t tried too hard he would have failed sooner. He did fail sooner. A lot. But I just tried harder so neither of us noticed until I stopped trying altogether and left a hole two full personalities wide.

And, I believe in community and I don’t think any one person can be the whole world to another but I really can’t help thinking that even in a community, even in a web of support, you still need to come home to someone who is there for you first, for whom you are there first.

And someone called me a “very self-contained person” the other day. And they were right but the more I think about it, the more I think I’m a self-contained person because no one else has ever wanted to help me keep my edges tidy. I’m a self-contained person because I have to be not because I want to be. I’ve had to do it alone for so long it actually, physically hurts and I don’t want to anymore and if I have to keep doing it alone then I want to be ALONE. I don’t want to give and give anymore without getting and even my kid feels like a drain right now. An exhausting one-way street tethering me to responsibilities I resent and I hate that. I hate myself for feeling that way because I love him so much. But I’m so tired. I’m so tired.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired and I just need one solid thing to hold on to that’s mine.

I Am an Idiot

I have a near-pathological need to feel special and needed.  I’ve been fighting it consciously since I was 14 years-old.  It keeps rearing it’s head in new and more insidious ways.  It makes me competitive in less than good ways.  It has inspired moments of both reasonably acceptable, motivational, inspirational levels of envy and jealousy but mostly it almost always sets me up to fail both myself and others.

And these failures happen in all sorts of wonderful ways.  It makes me over-solicitous at times, obsequious at others.  It turns people off and away.  Some of these people aren’t worth keeping around likely because lord knows the last thing I need at this point in my life is more people who are put off and alienated by even the most simple act of kindness.  However, it is also a way in which I smother otherwise healthy, lovely people with my need to be needed.

The side of it all that I figured out early was that if by some chance I found someone who needed to need as much as I need to be needed the net result was that I was sucked dry and couldn’t fill anyone needs anymore for anything.  This happened a number of times and I burnt out and into a hollow shell and ditched those “friends” right when they might have needed me most because I had nothing left to offer.  Drained.  Done.

I think this tendency of mine is at its worst when I am personally going through a lot of shit.  I’d always rather be thinking about someone else.  I’d always rather be dealing with someone else’s life, problems, challenges.  It can make me meddling and presumptuous.  Not always, but certainly often enough to make me an idiot who is always getting in the way by wielding my very best intentions.  

I am selfish in my selflessness.  Stupid in my inability to demand more from others so that I may need as well as  be needed.  I do not demand reciprocity and worse than that I pre-empt any need on the part of others TO provide reciprocity by providing them with excuses not to.

“I would really like to hear from you [request for reciprocity] but I know you are really busy at work and that your mother is in town so don’t worry about getting back to me until you have time [defensively providing them with an excuse not to write and myself with a reason for not hearing from them when/if they don't write]“

Like I said:  I am an idiot.  But I don’t have the first fucking clue how to STOP being an idiot except to just stop writing to anyone, stop calling anyone, stop participating and wait for people to find me for a while.

Solitude will be hard at this point in my life but I think my dignity and well-being require it.  And it’s not a test of my friends and their friendship – it’s a walk of fire for myself – to test myself.  To test myself to see if I can handle not being “helpful” and “generous” for a while.  Because right now, all it’s doing is stressing me out and it’s also a large part of what got me into this mess of separation and stress and stress-induced nausea in which I currently live.

I need a change.

I need to change.

I just need to figure out how.

I Can’t Tell

I can’t tell relief from regret.
I can’t tell pity from affection.
I can’t tell the real from the surreal.

I have ended a 12 year relationship. I have devastated a man I have loved and who has loved and devastated me. I feel liberated. I feel surges of kindness born of this liberation.

Suddenly.
Set Free.
I have more to give and even he can benefit.

But then I worry. How cruel is that? Kind to him after kicking him to the curb? But isn’t that all that’s left when the other shoe falls? Kindness? I mean, if it isn’t where you started, shouldn’t it at least be where you wind up?

And then I worry. Is it kindness born of freedom? Is it kindness born of newfound hope? Or – do I care more than I thought and so am being drawn back in?

I don’t want to be drawn back in. I don’t want this. I don’t really want him.

But –

Leaving this is daunting. Huge. Enormous. Momentous. In many ways unbearable.

I keep telling myself I am not a cruel person. I keep telling myself I am a good person pushed over the edge. I need to clamour back and I have made the first real move. I had one pinky clinging to the edge for a while there. For too long. Hanging on with too little for too long. But — everything is so huge that I cannot tell.

I cannot tell whether I am full of relief or regret.
I cannot tell whether I’m full of pity or affection.
I cannot tell what’s real.
What is surreal.

I don’t know how to reconcile these two thoughts:

I need to learn to be more independent.

I am so sick of having to do so much alone.

What do I do with that hey? Both of them are true to a fault. Both of them make me tired and sad and worn just thinking about them.

Clearly, I rely too much on other people for inspiration and drive. Clearly, I spend too much time wishing for people to partner me in my various endeavours. Clearly, I need to learn to be more self-motivated. Clearly, I need to stop using the absence of ‘help’ as an excuse to not even try. Clearly, I need to learn a little more about boot-straps and their like. Clearly, these things are true.

But where does it end?

How much are human beings supposed to do alone? How much are we supposed to do relying only on ourselves? Where does community fit into this equation? Where does love fit? Connection? Collaboration? Any of the many variations of “family”?

And what of the shady regions between these two thoughts?

What of the fact that sometimes the worst place to be is having to do everything yourself without ever getting to be alone? What of people who become so dependent on their independence that they cannot let anyone help them even when they need it?

The truth is that every time I think about the second thought, about how tired I am of doing so much alone, feeling so alone, I cry. Doesn’t matter where I am. Doesn’t matter what I’m doing or who I might be around. If I let myself think about how tired I am, how lonely and tired, I cry.

And that is often one of the reasons I start to think about learning to be more independent. Perhaps, I think, I would not feel so lonely if I were more resourceful? Perhaps, I think, I would not feel so tired if I expected less and did more?

And then I bounce back.

Expect LESS? Expect LESS?

How does anything ever get better if we expect LESS from it? How do any of us get any better if we expect LESS from each other? A lot of the time it takes more than one person to do anything that’s really worth doing and none of those things get done if the only person we expect things from is ourself.

I don’t have any answers. I don’t know how to reconcile these thoughts. I barely know how to cope with them. They hurt me whenever they touch and they touch often.

And I’m so tired.

So tired of never being strong enough.
So tired of doing so much alone.

You Have an Office

It’s downtown. It’s all yours. It’s inside a building with many bathrooms so that you needn’t knock on the door to ours as soon as I’ve sat down and ask “Will you be long?” like somehow it’s your right. (I write that full well knowing that I stood up, zipped up and surrendered the john enough times to pretty much make it you believe it is your right but – honestly – it really fucking isn’t.)

We’re supposed to be separated. Separated with a view to reconciliation still means “separated”. It means you’re not supposed to be around all the time when you are not on duty with the boy. I don’t have an office outside the home but I can assure you that if I did, for this period of “separation” I would use it because it’s the right thing to do. The respectful, honourable thing to do – even if it weren’t comfy or cozy or what I wanted to do.

We’re not supposed to always be around each other.

You’re supposed to use your office.

You’re supposed to give me space.

You’re supposed to be sacrificing things. We both are.

To see what we miss. To see what we learn.

And, frankly, over the last few days, it would seem that nothing at all has changed for you and my life has gotten just a smidge worse.

You still come and go as you please only now you do it with impunity. Now you do it knowing EXACTLY when you are actually responsible for the boy and when you are not. You needn’t offer to help at other times. You pop your head in, make faces at him, play old games with him, make all your jokes and it’s almost like we aren’t separated and you are “just working from home today.” You do this even though I asked you not to. You do this without realizing that all it does is make me want to be with you less. You do all this like you forget we are supposed to be separated and that you have an office.

YOU HAVE AN OFFICE.

And if you’re not going to make my life any better by working from home then I don’t want you at home. I’m sick. The kid is sick. You’re not helping “because it’s not your turn” and you continue to demonstrate no real initiative for being loving and helpful toward me so – honestly – I get it. I do. I always have. You have work to do. So do it.

IN YOUR OFFICE.

If I’m going to wind up doing this gig mostly by myself then I might as well get the practice and I could sure as hell use the space.

I Am Learning…

That I don’t have to hate him to leave him.

That I shouldn’t hate myself to love other people.

That there might not ever be another person or – heaven help me – the “right” person whether or not I stay and no matter how much I don’t hate myself.

That – essentially – a life without this sort of love, a life of one, is something I must simply accept as a possibility in order to take whatever my next steps will be honestly and with dignity.

That I write poorly when I am hedging.

You Wouldn’t Think It Would Make a Difference

So little is missing. So little has really changed. It’s really just a handful fewer words here. A few less smiles there. There weren’t really any hugs before. There weren’t any kisses. There was almost no conversation and any laughs were shared on one subject only: our child.

And then we started a “trial separation in view to reconciliation”. We’re still in the same house. Only now the chasm between us has its edges clearly defined, sharpened. Now I do not feel obligated to say “Play well! Have fun!” when he leaves to play hockey. I needn’t say “Have a good day.” I don’t tell him how my work is going and wait for responses and interest – even feigned interest – that never comes. There will be no hugs. There will be no kisses. There remain a few laughs on the one subject we still share: our child.

I never wanted to live my life alone. I require solitude. I require space and time to myself but I have NEVER wanted to live my life alone. More than anything my entire life has been about finding someone with whom I could lovingly, thoughtfully, reciprocally share my life. Only I made dumb choices. Choices born of insecurity and fear as much as anything else and so I was, basically, living my life alone. I really was.

And now.
So little has changed.
So little is missing.
You wouldn’t think it would make a difference.

But it does.

An Expression of Self-Pity

I would watch hockey for someone who really loved me.
(I hate watching hockey)
I would try eating green curry again
(Green curry makes me feel like I’ve been burned alive
and then covered in liquid nitrogen)
I would dance naked.
I would be a better housekeeper.
I would fly across a continent and into another country.
(Oh, wait, I did that and it turned out
he didn’t really love me)
I would be my best self, my most loving
and generous self
for someone who really loved me.
I would move halfway around the world leaving
everything and everyone I know
for someone who really loved me.
(Oh, wait, I already did that and it turned out he
doesn’t know how to love me)