All the Cheese in a World that Seems to be Coming Apart a Little

CW is on the other half of the world right now tending to a very emotionally taxing series of family emergencies and I'm here trying to figure out how to support Ms. J in her family health stuff, what the hell is going on with my medical job, my rejected student loan, life and a sermon I've been struggling to put into words. Oh how ironic.

I'm tired.

This long distance business is a lot harder than I remember it being - that could just be that X and I were only 3 hours apart and CW and I are 10 hours apart and there is all the emotional stuff, but maybe not...

I've come to realize this summer I need one damn job, not 4. I'm exhausted and I finally am starting to feel ready to really stand on my own feet and do some scary things. Well sort of. Preaching still scares me shitless but I feel that voice itching its way out of me like a butterfly but like a less cliche image...

This year is going to be tough, it's going to be hard and all the vulnerability, but in all the awesome crazy hard ways.

Friends and CW I'm so glad I have all of you.

Step Back - She's Going to Blow - Part 1 of Many on the State of the Non-Union

Which is a helpful warning that I'm going to be venting here rather than sending him NLLL word laced emails about what the NLLL is wrong with him.

Quite frankly as someone very used to one side of the counselling chair and a little on the other, I know he's got issues - hell we all do and I know that those are present right now, like his inability to own his own shit and so it's mine to deal with.

Case in point - and yes this will come as a surprise to some of you. We struggled with maintaining the line of "intimacy" which is polite language for sex. He has in each of his dating relationships and I guess I have too but well that's ones more complicated but whatever, lets just for the sake of owning things call it equal.

So we knew it would be a struggle, we started on the same page verbally but alas that didn't work - so needless to say it happened. We talked about the fact that while he could I couldn't ethically etc. we trying to work every angle of how to structure the relationship back to non-sex land. It did eventually work itself out and then abruptly in January he started asserting the other boundaries.  My stuff was no longer welcome, my drawer started to thin out, my food was no longer welcome and things changed. I figured that the lack of sex was the issue. Well I couldn't change that but figured we would ride through that.

Turns out the issue wasn't the lack, it was that there had been any at all. I am a grade A slutty harlot who stood between him and Jesus. And you know what I'm going to own that - not because I agree or that I am but if you cannot own that you initiated the majority, that you wanted that kind of a relationship than that's your shit but you cannot put it on me. I have mine to deal with and I own it as un-proud as it makes me feel.

I'm not proud - it was hard and having both of us effectively live alone didn't help - boundaries you are a challenging beast. But I will not be shamed or blamed.

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.” 

Brene Brown

Blindsided

I will say that I will be posting a lot in the next few weeks or even months as I try and figure out what just happened. I feel entirely blindsided. I just discovered that LG has been keeping an extensive list of all my faults. It seems like everything from my divorced parents, to the abuse, to my supporting of a woman's choice, to some of my hypothetical parenting situations to my preference of texting to my not driving, to how we would raise our kids to well the list goes on and on and on.

And this where I tell KAB to turn away because I might use some NLLL.

I fucking don't care - I know I care because my heart is a bloody mess on the floor and the hole where it was is currently full of all the salt rubbed into it.

My parents are happier divorced, I'm fucking sorry that you think it means that I don't value marriage.

Yes I'm a survivor of abuse. Yes and I have PTSD. You know what I cannot do a fucking thing about it - I cannot stop it and I cannot think that it doesn't effect me or anyone I love - but I came forward with this on the 4th date.

Yes in the hypothetical discussion about our teenage kids having sex, a conversation we had in the first few weeks of the relationship before we were even official,  because LG had an active time in his teen years - I said I would prefer not, but if my daughter was going to make that decision I would like to know and we would be brutally honest and if she was still determined I would prefer it was in a safe environment not in the back seat of a car because she felt like she had to etc. Apparently this means I will be a poor parent for his kids.

I do support choice not because I think that it applies to inconvienent pregnancies but rather because as a woman raped, the idea of carrying a child to term as the product of that action it is a daily reminder that my body was is continually being used against my will. And frankly I would much rather that birth control was widely available and then we wouldn't have to have this fucking hypothetical discussion.

And yes I swear - you know the ridiculous part when I wanted to tell him to fuck off for pulling away for the last month and a bit because he knew it wouldn't work and that he's fucked with my heart in a totally inhumane way, I couldn't do it. Maybe because I still love him or maybe because I've done such a number on it all and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I just I don't know anymore. I don't know how my preference to text because we both have busy lives and instead of having an hour long conversation in the morning all I say is hey I've been thinking about you is an issue. But it was because I would only to get a response hours later with no information, just a hey.

And yes I don't drive. There are plenty of people who don't own cars - how is a relationship determined on these grounds?

The part that killed me the part that just gets me is he wasn't going to bring this up and yet it was me the one that wanted to stay together who was trying to figure out how to get clarity on his supporting of me in discerning my call and then I get this bullshit, this list, this rejection on all my faults and a trite well you're nice, you didn't annoy me like my previous girlfriends.

I just don't get it - but I guess this is where I end this for now, as I go through all the stages of grief another dozen times before I fall asleep wish the one person I want comfort from, the one person I love would be here and knowing he doesn't love me. Don't know if he ever has, sure doesn't feel like it.

A Case of Empty Bed Syndrome

I posted a long time ago about this issue, here.  Most days I am too damn tired or just emotionally disconnected from that aspect of my sexuality, often intentionally delineated because I do not have the space and time in my life to wrestle with it and its feelings. But this morning, even last night, as I laid down all I wanted was someone in my bed, to hold me.

It is hard to deal with but thankfully often easy to forget in the swirl of papers and everything of the deep security of that human contact, of any really deep human contact, especially that from a man. And I will even say it's a little frustrating to be reminded that I do really need it and that it can make me feel all sorts of things I don't know if I really want to at this time. I don't blame the reason for these feelings. But it has given me big things to consider. Like why I felt guilt, like I was cheating on X. Now my brain and heart know it's been a very long time since X and I were a couple and I know he's not coming back around, and as much as I love him, he and I are slowly drifting apart in time and life - what either of us truly needs we are neither.

Now I know there will be questions of subplot/background, I will say only that MW stopped by for a visit during one of his many intentional wanderings across the country. It was crazy to think of the circumstances we had met under all those years ago in the Fall of 2007, even crazier to think that the date that ended with a handshake and a slightly bruised heart for me, became a great supportive friendship where hugs are safe place and a place of growth.

That growth? I realized something sad and profound about myself, the size of my partner/interest has since CEF, and even before him had a significant weight in my life. Not their weight but their height, their presence. It's this small place of fear that still somehow has a voice that says if he's bigger than me, he can hurt me. I realized that this semester when a new student being friendly struck up a conversation with me, and all I could think was you're too tall and at the same time why the NLLL am I scared.

I guess I'm always a work in progress - and who knows maybe that's why the space in the bed next to me is empty - it's where my brain needs to reside on mornings like today rather than the warmth of a safe man.

Postscript: Apparently I forgot to mention that now I'm fighting off the needies? The conscious understanding that what I want and what I need may be fine but the expectation that someone else can, should or even be asked to address those needs is beyond unfair... putting the head before the heart before the other h words too

Well this is a big mess

First of all RB did not listen to instructions, but he's a man so is that really any surprise?  I had asked him not to respond.  I've been on this planet long enough to know there is absolutely no good way to reject someone.  Sure you can do it directly and that's better than lame avoidance BUT there is really nothing to say that will not grate the other person in some way  you had not intended.  So ya, it kind of NLLL me off.  A part of me wants to post it but that's not really fair for him since I hope sure as hope he's being decent and not telling the whole bloody campus. So until the time he does that I will just sum up things - he likes someone else but isn't pursuing it.  His words not mine.  Which is kind of a red flag - I do believe that if a man actually, like really likes a woman and is not just infatuated or weak he'll do something about it.  You don't have to put a ring on it, but leaving her floating around the world is pretty lame in my opinion if you like her.  Two he said he'll pray about this whole thing.  Now quite frankly this alone almost made me want to chuck my phone this morning.  I believe attraction is something that on some level is primal.  Either you do or you don't - granted you can not have considered it, just like I've fought the whole RB process in some way or another until I considered it but DUDE, no amount of praying in this world should be devoted to convincing yourself to like someone.  To stay married to someone when you love them but don't feel that passion fine, go for it, not going to stop you at all but I am not a pity prayer or a spiritual arm twist.  It makes me feel cheap like you're only going to consider me because you think God guilted you into it.  Yes I might be all bitchy-mcbitcherson at the moment about the whole thing, BUT gah.

Just one more man affirming why I'm single and you know what it doesn't make me feel bad about myself it just makes me a little disappointed.

So now that is done, I spent today trying to hide from RB and he seemed pretty determined to find me.  Really I don't want to think about this, I just want to move on.

Not quite what I was looking for but it's a beautiful song and some of it rings true.

He's Moving On?

X may be coming up to visit me in about a month or so for my birthday.  It's a big one *gag.*  It made me realize how much I miss him and conversely how much I don't think I can stand to see him.  Go figure.  He's being stoic or cold or another option - saying that it doesn't bother him, he's okay with everything and me?  I've gone to complete and utter mush - weeping, sobbing mush.  He is currently the one I would move, do whatever for.  I phrase it like that because I know that while he is and will likely in some way always be that person - life doesn't always work out that way.  I want him to be that person.  I want it to work, and yet I wonder, in these talks we have, few and far between with school if he's being able to heal his heart where I haven't.

It's like the repetition of the pain in September, even worse, I feel like cursing that woman out most days for letting him go.  It is my own damn fault, and yes while Ms. J and others say I made the right "grown-up" decision given all our circumstances, it is days like today I don't feel like I want to be a grown up.

Moving Forward

I am slowly putting one foot in front of the other - literally and figuratively.

I pick courses this week - trying to decide if I trust RateMyProfessor more than I trust my barista.
I start training - very slowly.
I start studying for the GRE Lit exam this week - in theory trying to figure out a schedule - like Mondays - Math, Tuesday - Vocabulary, Wednesday - Verbal etc.
I start making a list of who to humble myself before - I have one TA in mind who is now a PhD - got an A+ in his class - granted it was an intro class and ages ago - don't think it will fly - Ms. J claims I have nothing to lose, funny I still think I do, darn pride.

Work is more stressful these days now that my least responsible employee is back from her extended leave, making more work for me. I am sniffling again. Someday I am sure I will be healthy, just not today. And yes because he really needs more blog time around here, I am trying to make active steps away from AB. You know I never realized that having sex with a person would make the tearing yourself away from that person seem like a battle you can never win. If it isn't the sense of loneliness, then it's the sense of shame/guilt and if it isn't that it's the frustration/anger at a person walking away not because they don't love you, it's because they can't grow up (his words not mine - not ready for commitment).

Anyways, apparently it's Monday, so I have word problems and geometry to get to - I love the GRE, I love the GRE, I don't love the GRE. Boo.

Saturday Morning Musical Distraction...

What If Im Right - Sandi Thom

So It's Been Quite the Morning

I got my nose scoped - and to borrow AB's comment - Listerine would have been my preference too, but well it wasn't and it wasn't like that either - but my nose hurts now. My heart though, is numbish - like I wish my nose still was... but I guess I don't get what I wish for, or get the reason behind my facial challenge.

In other news more related to the blogging - I have decided to separate myself from AB for about a month - post first run to try and let space and time reform the friendship and remind myself that I can't kiss AB or let him kiss me, because the last time I checked my definition of friends didn't leave room for that kind of activity, especially when AB has his heart and head in one place and his hormones elsewhere. That dynamic as I said to V last night puts me in a place where if he pushes one more button emotionally and he will see the part of my personality few know - I may be an intensely loyal, a bruise easily type of person and that I'm fine with, but I have this part of me that can be unwilling to forgive you if you cross a line, I have a tendency to write you out of my life - I don't want to do that to AB. So I will be spending my monthish running, cleaning and getting used to a new person in my life. I also plan on seeing a new member to the discussion (see the list) for coffee - per AB's suggestion, attending one of OM's torturous parties, and basically making sure I keep my hands off my cell phone - I know I'll be better for it - hopefully AB will be too - I know his phone will be a lot quieter.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fizzybenilyn/429476399/

Wrestling

Let's just say the whole pain in the side business has found it's permanent place in my blessed mouth, and no amount of wishing seems to get it gone. So again I'm learning you don't get what you wish, pray, hope and beg for, awesome no Louboutins for me in this lifetime I guess. But you do get more surprising brain activity than you could ever expect. I've been thinking, a disastrous idea, thankfully I've been sober, or not thankfully, on that thought, could someone pass me a Cosmo?

I've been trying to figure out the future, yes because I know that is firmly within my ability to do so. I've been trying to figure out how to find the balance where I've never seen the necessity to do so before. With BI, I stepped away, and he quickly moved on, and who knows maybe AB will do the same, maybe some day next week, the week after, the month after or so on and so forth he'll run head long into someone who makes all the questions and hurts and uncertainties seem not all that big, someone who makes it worth more than the risks. I know that it isn't in any way sane for me to try and be that person in the hopes that things will change, because that would mean I've denied all the months of beautifully painful self discovery and so on and so forth and yadda yadda. So then how exactly does it work? We remain friends who support each other, spend time with each other within reason and yet in everything find a way to make sure that either individual is available to the dating public, when the kind of scary thing is I'm totally up for a break from all this insanity and AB is apparently not looking... I'll leave that hanging there.

On another note BB (Barista Boy) has thankfully been sated, and I don't have to worry about dealing with all that right now. To be honest, I've found myself groaning as I mumble, they're not AB, for the love of Pete, they aren't AB, and what the hell has happened to me. Goodness maybe I'm up for those drinks Ms. J after I spend a day visiting my favorite uncle... or maybe before so I can help the freezing that I am completely immune to...

Let's Review The Past Posts Now Shall We?

I've had some amazing talks, 8 miles of purging, support and yes a healthy dose of grace and compassion too. I have also received laughter, and the reminder that it's okay to cry, while I maintain an almost self destructive propencity towards self preservation, that it isn't necessary, except within the walls of my office, there I have to find something else other than either of those options.

But since I've got bigger pains right now to cover the deeper slower healing ones, I am going to leave y'all with these older words of wisdom for all of you out there AB included:

http://singleandpicky.blogspot.com/2009/07/where-are-fireworks.html - there is a moment of clarity in there that shocked me looking back at it, who knows how insightful it will be towards moments beyond this.

http://singleandpicky.blogspot.com/2009/07/thanks-gib.html

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nattyk/2473073706/