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.

How do I answer that question?

He comes and sits beside me on the sofa.  Conversations have been mostly peaceful if awkward and marked by momentary flare ups.  We are mostly on the same page as regards our goals for the separating of our lives, the care and sharing of our child.  But he comes to sit beside me on the sofa.  I say, “What’s up?”  He says, “I don’t know.  I guess I just felt like sitting here for a minute.”

After a while he says, “Are you worried?  Are you worried about the future?”

I say, emphatically, immediately, “Yes.  Of course.”

He says, “Are you sure we are doing the right thing.”

I say, emphatically but less immediately, “Yes.  I am.  As sure as I can be in a situation like this.”

He nods.  I feel a flash of guilt.

“I mean,  generally I’m sure but I have no real gift for true certainty, but yes, I am sure.”

I feel the stronger me take hold.  The one who doesn’t go on guilty rambles.  The one who really is perfectly sure even if she has to contend with the doubts of all the other me’s.  The one who has been checking in with herself every day to find fear without sadness, to find a sense of pure liberation twinned with terror.  The me who is holding all the other me’s together.  The me who wishes he would stop asking questions like this even as she understands that he must.  That we are not on the same path.  A path that wore all the other me’s down before we quit it and dragged him along with us.

She knows that he is still catching up and that this new path is cluttered, full of twists and brambles.

And, yes -  I am worried about the future.  But there is no going back.

I am as sure as I can be in a situation like this.

And I have to grow up now.

This Is All Very Strange Indeed…

He is kinder. He is more generous. He is more thoughtful. He has told me he isn’t trying to suck up to me. He has told me that he accepts the situation. He has told me that he is not destitute but sad. He has told me that his main priority is our child. Our child who needs a father and he will bend all the flexibility of his schedule that he would never bend for me for our child.

He is behaving better enough that I keep waiting to be sad. I keep waiting to think, “I don’t need to leave. I can get what I need here. Look how well we share our child. Look how nice he is being.”

And then I think. Could I have those hands on me? Do I want to risk my emotional needs on this man? Could I bear being failed again? So badly. So egregiously. Is my lack-of-love a defence mechanism? Is my lack-of-love real? What will become of me if I follow-through and leave this place?

I often joke to friends about winding up old, alone with a zillion cats waiting for me to sit still long enough to have excuse to eat me. Am I sealing that fate? Am I turning that almost-joke into a destined reality?

I am afraid.

But every time I check in with myself I am not sad. I am merely getting what I wanted.

I’ve never been good at getting what I want. I doubt it. I fear it. I question it.

But this is what I wanted.

I wanted us to be friendly. I wanted us to share our child with openness and joy. I wanted us to let each other go with grace. This is what I wanted and I would do well to keep reminding myself of that fact.

The saying goes that “when the gods want to punish us they answer our prayers.” But I am not being punished and I am getting what I said I wanted. I am fairly certain I am genuinely getting what I want. I just need to let it happen. I need to be better at letting myself get what I want. I need to allow myself to feel deserving of getting the things I want.

I am prepared for – though not happy about – the idea that I might die alone.

I am prepared for – though not happy about – the idea that this all might be a mistake and I will have wreaked havoc for nothing if I want to “come back.”

I am prepared for the possibility that even if I have made a mistake and even if I do realize it and own it and decide to “come back” I may be rejected. Yet again.

The truth is, though. I keep trying to figure out if I am sad and I am not.

I do not want his hands on me. I do not trust him to support me.

I am getting what I want. (I think. I really do have no gift for certainty)

And this is all very strange indeed.

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.

I May Be Out of Love

My head is messy and cluttered and today I was writing in my journal to find some peace, to set free some of the more persistent, nagging, questions and musings that plague me of late. I was writing and writing. Writing around things, writing a lot of things but the things that it would help me to write about. Writing and writing and writing along. And then I stumbled upon a strange patch of calm. A strange, surprising sort of calm. Inside that calm there was a thought. A strange surprsing sort of thought. Inside the storm and chaos, the fears and doubt – there was a kernal of something oddly solid, oddly solacing.

I don’t think that I love him anymore.

It was sad too. And because it is so stormy, so chaotic, so awful inside my head right now, I don’t entirely trust this thought. I feel it. I sense the calm that’s wrapped around it. But, I can’t know for sure that it’s true. I’ve never been very good at absolutes. I’ve never been good at being certain that I know anything about anything about how I feel. I doubt. I wonder. I question.

It’s partly how I got in this mess in the first place.

And, now, some neutral self at the centre of my storm has whispered to me that I no longer want to even try to build a life with this man. It may well be a life-long sentence to solitude. He may yet become a man I want to be with and if I don’t give him that chance I may well live a life-long solitude. Part of me is okay with that. Another part is terrified. But, if I really don’t love him anymore then there isn’t a choice. There isn’t a way back. There is no way to reason around being out of love.

I’ve never thought that “in love” lasted long – the crazy delirious part – but there is supposed to be something special. Something that exists between you two that is yours and yours alone together. A desire to be each other’s first. To turn to each other first for a laugh, a shoulder, for sex, a sounding board. It’s not always going to be magic and dewey and wonderful. There will be fights. There will be days you let each other down. But you still choose each other. You still choose each other first. You find your way back because it’s where you feel most comfortable, most yourself.

And the thing of it is, I don’t think we ever did really turn to each other. Neither him nor me. And so much time is gone and so many opportunities wasted and there is little malice and much less real anger at the centre of the storm than I thought there was because what’s there is just simply that I am done. I believe as far at it is in my power to believe anything with any kind of certainty – that I am done.

That I am out of love.

I suppose, though, that we shall see what we shall see.

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.

It’s Been At Least Eight Years

Since I fell in love with a pair of shoes.

I’m not much of a clothes person, really. I appreciate pretty things but there were too many teenage years where I didn’t think pretty things were for people like me and then years of food service where I had to wear uniforms that always wound up smelling like feta cheese, olives and various kinds of mustard… Not to mention the more recent years of stay-at-home motherhood where “nice” clothes are pretty much a waste of time… I’ve just never really gotten into the whole girly clothes scene.

The first pair of shoes I fell in love with were red suede Diesels. I didn’t know the brand name would make people’s eyes light up until well after I bought them. I liked that they were red. I liked that they were suede. A perfect red too. A blue-red. They had a square toe, a broad velcro closer over the instep. They weren’t much more than a glorified running shoe but they were an exquisite glorified running shoe and I used to be set free from my early shift at a deli, take a bus downtown and just go visit them. I would visit them. I would covet them, go see a movie and then go home.

I did this for two months. They weren’t cheap. I finally bought them. I cared for them. I tended to them. I wore them everywhere and with everything. I built a whole new me to wear with them too. I wore different colours and wore my hair differently. I got a step closer to being a “me” I really wanted to be. Just a bit funkier. Just a bit more alive. I loved those shoes. I fell in love with them and loved them and wore them into the ground. I still regret that I never brought them to a shoe repair shop to see if they could be fixed after I wore them out. It took a year to finally let them go even though I couldn’t wear them anymore and I haven’t been in love with a pair of shoes since.

Until today.

The courtship was shorter and the price was smaller. They were new shoes on consignment. A perfect fit and once again they represent a step in a new direction (no pun intended). They are not the shoes for a stay-at-home mother. They are shoes for a woman who thinks pretty things are for people like her. They are two shades of soft green, open-toe, scallopped pattern over the toes – like a stained glass window with my skin as the light shining through – a four inch stacked heel beneath a shapely heel strap and a tiny little ankle strap with a tiny little buckle.

I’m going to wear them first chance I get as soon as Spring comes and the snow disappears. I’ll wear them with jeans and a t-shirt and go out with a friend. I’ll wear them with a dress. I’m not even sure I care if the dress matches the shoes. I’m just going to wear them and see what kind of life I wind up building around them.

But the most powerful image I had as I walked home with them, peeking at them in the bag and grinning every few minutes, was a sexual one. I often have images that come into my mind which are sexual. I have fantasies. But they have never been this vivid before. This clear.

I saw those beautiful shoes at the end of my naked legs wrapped around a man. I have no idea who that man is. I barely recognize myself in the image. I love it though. I love the image. It’s the beginning of something I think.

I could use some beginnings and at least I have the shoes to go with whichever one comes next.