sigh

yesterday i:
* wasted my day away
* held myself back
* reneged on all those promises i made to myself about everything i was going to get done

today i:
* regret
* hate myself

five out of ten isn't bad.

i no longer want to

* use a headache as an excuse (no, i'm not talking about sex)
* use allergies as an excuse
* use depression as an excuse
* use anything as an excuse
* hold myself back
* renege
* break an appointment
* waste my day away
* hate myself
* regret

outlet

yesterday i poured my heart out. i got tired of holding back, and i was really burning (still am) over the lack of response to my previous communicative overtures. today, predictably, i'm fretting, worrying about the things i said. i'm tempted to write again tonight and back off a bit, explain that i was just venting and that i just need some time and that in the end i want us still to be present in each other's lives. i'm not sure if that means i'm coming down from anger, softening up, or if it means i'm being a chicken.

and my wish to write to him again tonight... maybe it's just my wish to express what i'm feeling. is there a 'right' way to handle things like this? let's try blog as outlet.

voice 1: you've said what you wanted to say. now it's his turn. and if he doesn't respond, he doesn't respond.

voice 2: shit, that's scary. the email you sent was a little harsh. what if he never responds? what if it just drives him further away? what you need to do now is recant, soften things up, make sure everything is okay.

voice 3: bullshit. don't be a simpering pandering wimp. don't be a needy insecure girl.

voice 4: still. i don't understand. why, why, why am i being rejected again?

voice 3: pathetic.

voice 5: hey... be nice. compassion, remember compassion.

voice ?: i hate him, i hate him, i hate him.

me: but no. it feels good to say, but of course it isn't true. unfortunately it seems i love him still.

day #7

today is day #7 of the voyage-at-sea. today is day #2 of the emotional shipwreck. i've stopped for a moment on an inhabited isle, but it's not sitting well with me, not treating me right. it's an isle of children, teenagers, and i need adult company. i've put in a request for a communicative event, thinking that we could at least digest the experience, see where we stand. so far, silence. dreadful, painful silence. so i'm packing up the lifeboat, reining in the tiger (who got a little bit out of control), and pushing off back to the sea.

freakin' out #1

so much to do in the next few weeks, and i have been sooo nonproductive lately. i've been doing really well with my personal stuff, making lots of progress and understanding more and more. but there's still a leap to be made, to put this understanding into practice. i believe that my recent insights will change my day-to-day life, will help me to flourish and to be as successful as i can be.

what will it take though?
* will power
* perseverance
* strength
* internal focus

i can do this.

fun #1

whee wii.

played rock band tonight with k. & j. and their friend s. and i had soooo much fun, drumming, playing guitar. i'm totally hooked, we played for about 3 hours, and i could easily have kept going. i can see how people end up with repetitive strain injuries from guitar hero.

it was great to have those several hours of pure, uninterrupted fun with people who know me well, people i really love being around. so glad to have k. back in my life!

yippee #1

ding, dong, the witch is dead.
it's done, done done.
all over.
free.



moving on.

now, again, free

the break up is now complete, solidified.

i hurt. because i do actually love him. this hasn't always been true in past breakups. i am sad but i feel that it is healthy to be sad. i would like to hide from being sad, but i feel that would not be healthy.

i am rekindling my love affair with myself. and thinking that a rebound might not be a bad idea.

taking a break

M. and I have decided to take a little break from each other. The anger and insecurities I wrote about sometime last month are not very well controlled, and it's becoming a problem both for me and for the relationship. I think we're both kind of worn down by all of the fighting we've been doing. So on Sunday we decided to take a break for a while. Don't ask what that means... we haven't figured that out yet. We'll talk, when he's ready.

I'm doing intensive therapy now, I wouldn't say it's specifically because of this decision, but rather a requirement given the whole complex of things that have been going on. Meds out of whack, diving into really hard stuff in therapy, M. adjusting to a new job and a new schedule. All of these things putting big stress on me and on him and on the relationship. And really it should be fun. We're supposed to be having fun together, enjoying each other. And I'm afraid that if we keep going the way we have been, we'll end up disliking each other.

One of the hardest things now is being patient, waiting to see how things unfold. I'm ready for some more cuddling, now. But I've got to give him the space he wants, I've got to respect that. In fact it feels vitally important that I respect that now.

On the other side, there's no question that it's vitally important that I resolve these issues within myself. I want to have a healthy relationship, I hope it can be with M., but no matter who it's with, I want a good, healthy, happy relationship. And it will be 8000 times easier to attain that if I can work out some of my fear and anger.

but yeah. i miss him. i love him. i'm crazy about him. i hope we can get us back. i'm optimistic.

valium #1

Therapy today was like taking a tranquilizer, in a good way. Oh to live my life with this feeling of inner peace...

life sucks

goddammit goddammit goddammit.

Here I am, miserable again, making myself miserable and making everyone around me miserable. I'm torn between wanting to be rational and reasonable (but not knowing how to pull it off) and wanting to curl up in a ball and cry. I can't spend the day like this. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. M. is still sleeping, and I just know that once he's up I'm going to be disappointed, or I'm going to do something that he doesn't like, or things will get fucked up somehow. Maybe it's time to call it spoiled and toss it out.

How can I stop feeling this way? What can I do to make myself feel better? And this is my same old routine. I DO NOT WANT THIS TO BE MY LIFE. I DO NOT WANT MY LIFE TO BE LIKE THIS. I THOUGHT THIS TIME IT WAS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT.

latest revelations

Today's revelations are as follows:

1. cleaning can be fun
2. we are expecting too little of ourselves and of each other
3. i don't need someone who's perfect; i just need someone i can love

angry #1

I'm just angry today, spitting nails kind of angry. If I'm honest, I myself am the primary target. Another day where all seems wrong. Earlier this afternoon I had a meeting with a visiting researcher, and it was totally unsatisfying. Mostly I ended up feeling ill-prepared and like I had no interesting questions to ask. I asked what I hoped were interesting questions and got extremely boring responses. All of this not helped by coming in already with low confidence levels. And then he chastised me for missing his talk. Wait, talks. Turns out there were two, which I did not realize. The real problem? I hate myself today.

Hating yourself really sucks.

live in the world

I just had a revelation. I can look at the world with lightness and joy. Work is what I have chosen. And I have chosen what I enjoy. And I am free to let go and truly enjoy it.

current status

I've been meaning to get back to this blog for a while. here I am!

things have changed. work/school is going extremely well. the plan is to graduate in August and then on to the next city and the next phase of life. I'll be glad to get to a more natural (for me) climate. I'm single again, since just 4 months ago. and dating. which is weird.

I'm curious about the sense of audience when writing a blog. I dislike the extremely audience-conscious style taken by many writers -- this may be especially true because I feel I'm prone to it. This style often involves making apologies for time away/not posting, throwing in odd little asides meant to indirectly convey your point of view to a presumed-to-be like-minded readership, and trying to sound hip/cool/ironic/something. It also often involves the kind of self-absorbed confessional emotional excursions I'm also prone to (and also dislike).

Somehow tonight I'm sitting around, not concentrating, not doing much of anything. which is bullshit, because I will later regret this time spent in the dead zone.

The dead zone is like an intentional descent into a way of living that squashes me, sucks my energy out, leaves me feeling like I'm squandering my life. and at moments like these, I am.

depressed poetic

emerging from a dark place,
a place of stagnation and decline,
finding again, maybe for the first time,
how to feel happy, how to hope,
how to expect good things from life

then a good thing comes along,
or maybe it's a bad thing,
or maybe it's just an average thing.
maybe it's earth-shakingly remarkable,
maybe it's just ordinary, the way life
      is when you're not in a hole,
or maybe even it really sucks but just
      looks wonderful in comparison with
      what you *have* known.
and this is all a whirlwind,
      massive confusion,
      your feet no longer feel steady.
you feel like a child, confused,
      overwhelmed, lost.
and you realize that your hope and
      your happiness are horribly fragile.

the infrastructure you've built can
      support day-to-day life, the things
      you know and have dealt with, the
      familiar, the routine
throw in something new, especially
      something charged with feeling and
      slippery emotions and lack of clarity
the beginnings of a relationship, that
      notoriously agonizing but thrilling
      piece of life

and the supports start to creak and bend.
and you're falling.
and you're scared that you're heading back
      into the hole, the hell you've just
      fought your way out of

it's too soon
for anything too intense
yet intense is what you crave

so to do what is best for you,
      to step back and shore up
      those supports,
is also to deny yourself.
it's its own sort of hell.

busy #1

Today I thought I might translate yesterday's insights into change and action. Things are getting done, slowly I'm feeling more in control. There are still great possibilities for feeling overwhelmed, but I'm trying to pass on that temptation.

I was pretty tired in my afternoon class today, and doing that thing where I can't easily find the words or the structures needed to convey my thoughts. And so I stumble and hunt for words and produce some pretty convoluted sentences. Lack of sleep can do that.

poetic #1

Today I am in hiding -- my voice is subdued. But I'm not dark or blue, or dark blue. Rather a pale orange, I think, very pale, with outlines in grey. And I feel that I'm strong inside, but it's very far from the surface. I want to sing a song and awaken that part of me, entice it to come out and celebrate, to really live.

Always I feel this tension between good and bad, right and wrong, continually judging my own behavior according to everyone else's guidelines. Is it possible that the things I'm doing really aren't so bad? My first thought was that my fears lead me to do things which could harm other's perceptions of me, well really I thought that my fears lead me to do BAD things. But I'm starting to wonder whether that is part of the world-is-flat mentality.

Through our experiences we develop ways of thinking about the world, some of them surprisingly rigid, so rigid and so all-coloring that we may not even know our perceptions are being transformed by our underlying thought patterns. I've had an aha moment -- an eye-opening moment when I saw the pathway my thoughts were travelling and I also saw another possible pathway. And I experienced this feeling of awe, and I almost felt my brain remapping. World-is-flat gives way to world-is-round. Or at least the suspicion that the world might be round. So -- maybe I'm not so bad after all.

two blogs

rather than continuing this blog I decided to start a new one. I have the notion that I might actually put the new one out there, let people read it and so on. And I don't want people reading the stuff from this, my agony blog.

and then I thought... sometimes I still have agony. why not keep writing?

Today I am feeling intensely impatient. I feel like telling b. that if we can't move forward and take the next step, there's no point in even continuing to see each other. evil, no? I don't think I really feel that way, but I *do* really feel frustrated with this situation. I feel that my eyes are opening (this is often a bad sign) and I see now that I'm not getting what I deserve from this relationship. That he's still not sure enough about me to take such a chance... If he's not ready for this after two years, will he ever be? Then again, the two years have been pretty rough. In many cases I was not nice to him. But. Through all of this I felt that hesitation. Maybe because of the three or four times he tried to break up with me. And I didn't let him. Maybe I should have. I want a relationship with that certainty. It seems to me like the first requirement almost. A solid desire to be with a person, a commitment to pursuing a future together.

And for the first time in my life I'm feeling the biological imperative... the desire to get started on having children. Why hold back? Why wait? There's no such thing as a magical right moment. WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR? WHY ARE WE STUCK IN THIS HOLDING PATTERN???!!! And it's me on the down side, the weak link is his feeling for me. The other weak link is my wondering whether he's really the one for me. Sometimes (like today) I think about our time together and I wonder if he's exciting enough. I wish he would be more spontaneous and inventive. I wish he would be more aggressive, that he would talk to me unbidden. Yeah. What the fuck is up with that? Does he ever start the conversations? I wish I would hear things like this:

-- hey, today why don't why drive to West Texas and check out the stars at night with no city lights to interfere?
-- hey, do you want to go see this movie... it looks like something you would like.
(instead of... I want to go see this movie, I want to do this, I want to do that... what do you want to do? .... why is it so rarely about we as a unit?)
-- I've been looking at various schools... are there any places you think would be better for you? what do you think about living in Boston? (instead of... I love Boston, I know I would really like living there... I'm not in the picture)

-- I don't always feel like I am me in this relationship. I'm so quiet when we're together, I don't feel like myself when I'm so quiet. But I don't want to be the only one talking. And silence isn't so bad really... but too much of it is. And where is my energy, my pep, my joy for life? For that matter, where is his? Have I driven it out of him? Have we driven it out of each other? If so, why do we stay in this relationship? Are we happy? Are we in a sinkhole? Or are we just on a pause? Am I just in a funk? Is he happy? I wonder...

two weeks and counting

Two and a half weeks on Wellbutrin. First week was fabulous, I felt wonderful, I felt energetic, I enjoyed talking to people, everyone! Everything felt soooo good. Second week was a hellish emotional rollercoaster. I spent several mornings disconsolate, unable to stop crying. I've been irritable, edgy, easily annoyed. QBF and I are on thin ice. We've realized that neither of us is happy, we both feel underappreciated, we both feel like we've suppressed our identities for the sake of the relationship, and we can't stand the thought of going on in this way. But we both say that we want to fix the relationship.

Only I'm not sure if I really mean it. Friday night we went out to a show, he was pretty tipsy, I was drinking water only. Something he did irritated me, made me feel unloved and angry about it, and I tried to tell him that, and things generally went downhill from that point. The lowest point was him trying to storm out of the bar, and when I caught up with him, he said that I should just find somebody who likes me and who want to be what I want him to be. That he's not what I want, that I want him to be somebody else, that he can't be what I want him to be. That I don't love HIM. That I only need him in some way, but don't really want him.

And the truth is that there are some things about him that really aren't what I want. He's not the talkative, vibrant, outwardly creative person I sometimes crave. He doesn't dazzle me on a daily basis with his conversation. He doesn't spontaneously write me poems or bring me flowers or tell me his deepest thoughts (or even his semi-deep thoughts, for that matter). The things he tells me unsolicited are usually simple, factual things. Or random (boring) thoughts about his two pet topics, topics which we only share in the most limited of ways.

We're playing for keeps, mind you. We both want a stable, long-term relationship. But do I want it with him? I just don't know. I've been spending a lot of time comparing him to everyone else I say. This, I know, is a dangerous pursuit, as the comparisons are extremely superficial and incomplete. They don't consider all of the things that I do love about him. I guess it's at least partly a question of balance. Which things are most important? Do the things that I love make up for the things that I miss? And in the world out there.... is there anyone who is a perfect balance of all the things I desire?

My past relationships have been so bad that I don't have a very good standard of comparison. Do I love QBF for who he is, or do I love him for how much better our relationship is than the ones I've had in the past? Is there a better partner for me, and a better partner for him? Can we be happy in the long term? Could we last a lifetime?