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.

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 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.

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.

*sigh*

That is all.

All These Kisses

Are killing me. TV is full of them right now because it’s into the end of the first half of the season – heading into Christmas bullshit and then into sweeps so romance is a buddin’ on all these TV shows. Girls do it. Boys do it. Even lovely little vampires do it. I wanna’ do it. I want to fall in love.

And I’m not supposed to want that. I’m in a relationship. I have a child. I’m supposed to be in love and I’m supposed to get kissed and I’m supposed to give kisses and I’m not supposed to watch these shows with all these kisses and pine and yearn and hit rewind to torture myself again…

I tell ya’… Mostly I’m tired of pretending that this is the way it’s supposed to be. This kiss-less mess of whatever. I’m tired of telling myself that it wouldn’t matter who I was with – that they are all the same jackass after a while. The same crippled and crippling man in different skins with different voices. I’m tired of believing that I couldn’t do better, that even if I deserve better there isn’t better to be had. I’m tired of pining for the kisses that never come and thinking that somehow it’s my fault.