A dose...

While this quarantine stuff is entirely insane, I gotta say I'm enjoying these live streams of some of my favorite artists. Ben Folds just finished playing, yesterday while beginning to build the desk I had to buy online I watched Little Dragon perform a live show. This morning I had a zoom chat with my mom and step father, and my twin and sister and I've had a handful of virtual happy hours with different groups of friends and more filling in my calendar, what a timeline we're living in. Not sure if I should be surprised that even during a time like this I'm finding myself busy. Went over to Shiloh's last night to cook dinner together and then stayed over, it was my first time seeing people I know in real life in five days, such a wild thing to acknowledge and I'm sure if I hadn't experienced this feeling before during many of my solo adventure trips I think it'd be freaking me out much more.

I know that before I deactivated my social media accounts I was always anxious I would miss out on things, but even before the craziness of all this, I found I was paying more attention to different avenues of communication with the people that truly matter to me. Now that the test has been cancelled I suppose my catalyst is gone, but I honestly feel like getting back on them is not worth my time, especially now, and perhaps I may be writing here more often, this at least feels productive. All the people I truly care about, I have contact with, the only person I don't, I had to block him on there anyways because I didn't have the self control to not try and stalk the shit out of his feed to gleam what I could about whether or not he was happy. As more people reach out the sadder it is making me that I feel like I can't reach out to to him. When things with the man first began we used this phrase "a dose of honesty" and it has been bouncing around my head all day today. Being brutally honest with each other was one of my favorite parts of us and that last go around I was trying so hard to listen to his desire of not wanting a relationship that I did what I could to not rely on him emotionally and kept a lot of things that were going on for me at the time, from him, and the fact that he so quickly re-engaged with his wife, I'm positive he kept things from me too. Now I wonder if that was what lead to things no longer feeling as special as they once did, that the choice to close off just a little, made it all change. 

There are times when I am deep in the sadness of it all and get so tired of how long I've been hurting because of this and I reach a little jolt of anger, just a glimmer of wanting to inflict even a semblance of the pain I've experienced onto him. Little play outs in my mind's eye of him finally realizing what it is that we shared and me saying it's too late. Those moments are so brief and even while those thoughts cross my mind, it is impossible for me not to feel my heart's elation at the idea of his acknowledgement that whatever it is we were, was indeed something worth having. Perhaps that is the root of why it bothers me so much to have never gotten a goodbye, the acknowledgement that what we had mattered. As soon as my pain begins to subside I just do my best to try and understand his side of things and at the end of that exercise I always know that if it was me, and after my own childhood, if I had the chance to keep my family together and it was a happy and healthy family for my children, I would do it. I used to worry that he didn't care about his own happiness enough, that maybe he thought he didn't deserve it, but I think I've begun to realize that once you have children and have bonded with them the way it is intended, your happiness is so intrinsically tied into theirs, it is impossible to purely think about yourself. I will always believe just staying in a marriage for the sake of your kids is not the right thing to do if that means it's a marriage of anger and yelling and creating a home that feels more like a prison and having to walk on eggshells. However if there's still a true partnership and love for one another's well being that is palpable, even though passion may have left, perhaps it is quite an honorable thing to give your children the stability they deserve during their formative years. My parents were never even able to figure out how to talk to each other after the divorce let alone co-parenting to any degree. The fact that they communicate now continues to blow my mind.

Perhaps he knows as well as I do that we could never be just friends and that for the sake of a happy life for either one of us, this silence truly is for the highest good of all involved. I think for a while there were parts of me that feared truly getting involved with anyone new because things with the man never felt finished, and I always knew I would never be able to say no to him and I just never wanted to hurt anyone, but yet I have ended up hurting myself creating a life of solitude far before this current global one was imposed. I have not allowed myself to rely on anyone but me for a very long time and as things continue with Shiloh I know I am definitely afraid to let someone in, and to let someone truly be there for me in that space of a significant other that really is different from friends and family. Even if what's going on right now never grows legs, it does feel like it's an important process of me learning how to actually open up my heart again to actually receive the kind of love I've been begging the universe for. I think I was right the other day, I'm never going to stop loving the man and wishing him well, but I am more than capable of allowing my heart to love someone else too.

Reset

The one true silver lining of this madness is the reconnecting with so many people in my life. I just got off the phone with my first everything. He went through a rough af breakup in the summer of 2018 and we ended up spending a decent amount of time together the second half of that year and a lot of 2019 and he is finally in a relationship again and it,  from the convo we just had, seems to be a good and healthy one and I love how happy knowing that makes me. The way my first love ended was dramatic and hurtful and extremely painful for me. There was a time I thought he and I would never speak again. However the summer I got married we found our way back to friendship and honestly he might now be one of my oldest friends that I feel legit close to. I've spoken with old high school people, college, grad school, former colleagues, and even Gray, the man's best friend. An article of his was recently published and I had the chance to read it after it popped up in my LinkedIn feed. It was so nice to chat with him, I've missed it more than I realized. I can't decide if it's hypocritical of me to be slightly bummed the man hasn't reached out even though I've said nothing to him either. It just definitely feels like I can't, that it would be wrong of me to do so. It continues to be hard to love someone this much from so far away. The song "Oceans" by Seafret always makes me think about this feeling...

More silence from the man  aside, there have been about five former flames that have reached out, and even that has been really nice, cuz even though some of these people are no longer actively in my life it's not like I've stopped caring about them and wishing them well and it's reassuring to know they feel the same for me. Only one of them started down the conversation of "what could have been" and I found myself wondering do I still consider myself single at the moment and I struggled to answer that. When the more than a friend and I first met years ago there was a short time frame where I had hoped it would become more and I remember journaling about him then. Back then I dubbed him Shiloh and I guess perhaps that nickname is still apt. I really don't have a good read on the situation but he literally just in this moment messaged me. I definitely have pulled back a bit this week cuz I'm trying hard not to get ahead of myself, but I'm excited to see him tomorrow.  At the end of the day I'm looking for someone to grow old with, someone that during a time like this I'm gonna be so fucking grateful they are who I am stuck with as my primary human connection. I like how easy things feel with Shiloh and I know part of that is because we've been friends for as long as we have been and he knows all about the things I'm sure I tend to initially shy away from sharing...I still miss the man more than I would like, and he still misses his girlfriend and we're both aware of these things and perhaps that's part of why there isn't a lot of stress to it. Neither of us has expectations on the other and I think that's a good thing.

I'm pumped the sun is out today and I think I'm going to go for a run, I haven't seen a human I know in person since Sunday morning and I think it's making me stir crazy. It's not often you know you're living through a historical moment, but we certainly are and I just hope I do my best to use it as the opportunity to reset that it truly is.

Counting

I know I should already be sleeping but I have the itch to write... it's always best to just accept it than fight it off and lay awake. I've been feeling a lot like the me of my youth, the one that was always lost in a book, enthralled with another world because I didn't care too much for mine. Major difference is that this past week though instead of books it's been webcomics. I'm now thoroughly invested in seven different worlds that update on a different day of the week, I wanted to give myself something to look forward to every day. I really can't tell if that line of thinking is something to be worried about...

My twin has finally come around to recognizing this program I found is his best shot at rebooting his life, however since we were out of state recently, they're not accepting him until he can provide documentation he's coronavirus free... apparently nothing can be easy. I barely worked last week and I really don't want to use PTO... I hoped to get some work done this weekend but Saturday was spent participating in an international dance party on zoom which was awesome, and then waiting to find out if the center was going to let him in, and when that fell through, my more than a friend brought over Chinese and we watched Onward together. He really has become my person over this past month and it's starting to make me worried. I really don't think I'd survive if one more person decided I'm good for fun, but nothing more.

It already feels like it's more but I truly don't know...I hoped to get some work done today but I've ended up being sad and mopey a good portion of the day. I've been frustrated that my experiences with others are causing me to doubt the intentions of someone who has been nothing but kind to me since the moment we met. I find myself hoping that should things not become more that he will not choose to ignore my existence too... it's something awful when someone you care deeply for looks through you like you're glass. However for the first time I've found myself hoping that things really are done with the man because every time the last three years I've started to find just a little bit of happiness, he has always popped back in. I had once prayed that we would find our way back to friendship but honestly this last year he never treated me with any semblance of kindness and I'd be a fool to give any more of my energy to someone who clearly doesn't care for my well being.  I was scrolling through my notes just before starting this entry and found this poem of sorts I don't even remember writing but apparently I did some time in early 2019.

"Everything Dies"

You hold me close during stolen time. You fuck me hard but then slow. Your eyes are bright with desire but sometimes I'll see a flash of love. It was love once, years ago. It's something different now, something deep but not the same.  I can't remember the last time I heard you call me beautiful. I can't recall the last time you did something nice for me just to see me smile. It used to feel special, but I guess everything dies if you stop feeding it.

_______________

I'm still counting the days it's been since I last touched him, since I last saw his face, since I last reached out. I really hope soon I won't feel the need to keep counting because that will mean I've truly stopped waiting for the man to come back.

Roller Coaster

Times like these make it harder to forget there's someone you love that isn't dead, but isn't in your life. However times like these remind you that while you may be worried and wonder if they and their family are ok, none of that is your business, even during a time like this.

COVID-19 aside, the last few days of my life have been a roller coaster. Sunday night I was supposed to finally drop off my twin to the inpatient facility. I had initially hoped to do it early evening but he stalled, asked to do dinner together and watch the debate. So we did and it was a really nice night despite feeling how on edge he was. Eventually I got him to agree it was time and we drove over to the facility around 10:30. We then proceeded to sit in the parking lot for an hour and a half. He completely freaked out and was incredibly torn and I did my best to just be calm, to listen, and let him know I wasn't our parents, that if he didn't do this I wasn't going to be disappointed in him and laud it over him. That all I wanted was to make sure he finally got the help he deserved and has been asking for and this was an option, one I didn't see any negatives from. It was a draining and exhausting experience, but in the end I think an important one. He kept saying that all his life he just went with the flow of what everyone else was telling him to do, and was the right thing but that acquiescing to our father having deduced him down to nothing more than an addict, wasn't it. He was like "I need professional help, mentally and physically, but allowing  dad to spend the money for a stay like this when he could spend that on paying down one of my student loans, I'm just going to seethe in anger". I have no idea how much of what transpired was him manipulating me or him finally putting his foot down and accepting he needs help, but on his own terms. At one point he said " I hate the life I've carved out for myself" which broke my fucking heart...We also talked about how he was feeling a lot of shame at the idea of needing rehab...I think everyone struggles with asking for help, and I'm sure needing help to that degree is harder to wrap your head around. He acknowledged that so many of his struggles stem from his low self esteem and he was afraid that going through a program like this would strip him of what little he had left. I tried to encourage him that this would be a safe space and that part of the reason I was in support was because they acknowledged addiction is just a symptom of often various underlying causes and he was like "I know what my problem is, it's my chronic pain", to which I responded "Well then great you have a leg up on everyone else. You've been begging to have access to doctors and psychiatrists and here you go, you have a whole week to have their audience and you could come out of this at least with a diagnosis. Yes, you could go see a doctor and psychiatrist outside of something like this, but getting appointments and enough of them to reach a diagnosis can take months in a regular functioning world, who knows how long it will take right now and Dad is only paying for one year of your health insurance."

I tried so hard but to no avail and I'm struggling so hard to shake these feelings of failure.  The friend now more came over on Monday and made us dinner and we watched the rest of the Mandalorian and holy cow does baby Yoda give me baby fever. I was really grateful to have him here, for the support and the distraction. He mentioned at one point that he talks to his mom about most things, and I actually met his mother, step father and sister on Friday when he invited me over for dinner and to stay over. A little while later I was like, "So if you chat with your mom about everything, what does she have to say about you hanging out with me so soon after everything you're going through". To which he replied well I haven't talked to her about that, and asked me why, and I was like well "I want to know what you think about it and this felt like a good segue to bring it up". He basically said that he hasn't thought too much about it but that he's really enjoying hanging out, which I was like yea me too, but I'm moving to Maryland and he was like I know. That was the end of the conversation...I have no idea what is going to come of it and I'm trying for once to just not worry about the eventual. I've really needed someone to be there for me instead of worrying about everyone else in my life and he has certainly been that. Friday night in his bed he told me "You have such a genuine smile", and I responded "It's easy to have a genuine smile when you're genuinely happy". I've felt cared for in a way I haven't in probably a decade and I keep telling myself no matter the outcome I deserve this right now. It was so fun to be in his childhood house and see photos of him as a kid, I really like his mom too...but it sucked that there were moments where I remembered how badly I wanted to reach this place with the man... how badly I wanted to know all about his childhood and where he came from...

Perhaps once I leave for MD whatever it has been will fade out, hopefully in a more conscious way cuz I'm not sure I could handle losing another friend that means this much to me. I've been reflecting a lot lately on how things with the man really never were much more than a physical thing that was pretty much always a secret. There have been times where I have wondered if when I asked for space to pursue something with someone else who was willing to try if I just pushed him back into his life when he had made such progress... he had told his family, friends, and boss that he was getting a divorce. He had even filed paperwork and when we were last in regular contact he had been apartment hunting. Apparently two months after my request they got a new dog, and by the time I came home from my trip I had to ask him if they were giving it a go again. While part of me knows that with having never been anything real he didn't owe me anything, the side of me that has always been his friend, not the side of me that is the woman in love with him, knows I did deserve a goodbye and I did deserve to have him tell me himself that he was choosing to stay in his marriage. The moments I wonder if I made the right call I go back to my old blog and read through my thoughts and I remember in full force how fucking worthless the situation made me feel and no matter how much I may still miss him and love him, I was so very right to end what was going on and to give myself a chance at letting go and finding someone that values me. Lately I've been trying to focus on the fact that I only ever heard a very one sided story of his marriage and that perhaps it really was something worth saving and that he is happy. Perhaps all we were ever meant to be was secret lovers, and nothing more... Reminds me of a quote that I love and used to have hanging on my quote wall.

Scattered

Sometimes it feels like I'm disproportionately surrounded by sad men that I can't actually help.  All I want to do is fix it, make it better, take their pain away, but it feels like all I do is listen, and is that enough? Burdman texted me stupid late on Saturday obviously in the midst of another drinking binge, but this time he actually said the phrase " I don't want to be alive".  I didn't see them right away he sent them at 3:30 in the morning, but luckily I was awake and as soon as I did I asked if he needed me to come over and he just said no and then stopped responding, and wouldn't answer his phone. I spent the next hour convincing myself that driving over there was a gross overreaction. I so badly wanted to reach out to the man to ask him what to do because I truly didn't know but in the end I decided that perhaps I was wanting a "valid" reason to reach out to him and there was no point. So I wrote in the blog that no one reads... the one I use when the urge to talk to him is too much and I just need to get it out of my head...it helps, it really does, but this situation is different. This isn't just me missing him and still wanting him in my life, this is me still thinking about that night and wondering if our mutual and close friend truly needs help and how do I help them?

Just because you don't drink every day, doesn't mean you don't have a drinking problem... does he drink to the point of not wanting to be here, or does he always feel like he doesn't want to be here and the drinking allows him to admit it? I genuinely don't know the answer to that, but I know neither is good.  Luckily that night as I was crying in my bed freaking the fuck out, a friend that has recently become more than a friend, happened to respond to a text I sent him. He helped me calm down and I was so grateful that I had someone, even if what's happening right now may not be anything more than a rebound situation. We met up a few weeks ago after I learned about things imploding with his gf of over two years that he was living with... Funny how right before this I had decided to give up on dating entirely for the moment, and now someone is asking me about my day, offering to make me dinner so I don't have to worry about one more thing, and cleaned all the dishes from a meal I made us. I really am such an acts of service kind of person, I'm not sure anyone has ever done the dishes for me and the fact he did it without me even saying anything, without even grumbling about it, it meant so much to me.

I have no idea if he should be one more moving part to be considered as I make my decision about Maryland... I don't even know how to ask him that. We've been friends for nearly five years now, and he's been a wonderful friend to me. When I was in grad school he used to let me crash at his place and take naps, or use his printer, he even picked me up from the airport at 1 in the morning and his car broke down! He so hasn't finished processing what he's going through, this last gf was the longest and most serious thing he has been in so far and it ended with cheating which is such a mind fuck. He seems to also be a bit lost in his professional life and dealing with some health issues and frankly just a bit of a mess. I have no idea if it could become more, or even if I want it to, I just know that I'm so sick of being a band aid for men's egos. I want to share my life with someone and I'm getting so fucking impatient for that person to show up.   

I feel scattered as fuck lately and clearly not focused at work nor have I been dedicated to studying and that's a real problem. With my twin continuing to capitulate about everything and my dad now cancelling his trip to the mainland my focus has been elsewhere...my life feels relentless.

Love is not Pie

An interaction with a married friend  yesterday who currently feels undesirable and knows what I've been through, caused me to admit that I have a subconscious belief that I deserve to be alone because of what I did. That I am only good for inciting desire, but not worth building a life with. That this deep loneliness I feel is my punishment.

When things imploded the first time the unavailable man I had fallen in love with intimated that he didn't care about his own happiness. I remember telling him that of course there would be consequences for his actions, but by no means did he deserve to spend a lifetime being unhappy. It's wild how much easier it is to have compassion for others versus compassion for yourself.  I've missed him more lately and have been yearning for him to reach out and I'm sure it has a lot to do with it being the anniversary of it being over, and knowing it's the anniversary of him learning of his wife's infidelity. I remember dates in a way that I'm not sure has ever been healthy... I give meaning to everything in a way that feels unhealthy but as I'm thinking about it now in a removed headspace the fact that I can give meaning to the littlest of things makes my life quite rich.  I can be quite spontaneous and often am winging it, but everything I do has meaning, has purpose and I know I prefer it that way. It's just a double edged sword when it comes to integrating the past. I know quite firmly that love is not pie, that having feelings for one, does not diminish the feelings for another. I know that relationships change and grow, and wax and wane but nothing now erases what was. I once told the man that the love I have for him could never be a mistake and I still feel that way with every fiber of my being, even though there are times my sad heart wishes to forget all of the memories.

I had the privilege of experiencing an all consuming love, one that filled me with such joy and an eagerness to be here, to live loudly and excited for all that was to come. Some people never get to feel that way and even though it didn't last, and even though it never became the someday we once talked about, I am grateful for the experience. I think I've known it all along, but a love like that will never truly leave me, but it doesn't mean I can't love someone else. I think I've been wanting the love to go away, to not still miss him, and then it would feel like I had let go and moved on. I'm not sure it works like that, I think it's going to be more of an acceptance of this love and allowing my heart to expand to love others.

The conversation about a move to Maryland has progressed and seeming more likely but it feels right. It feels like the next step to keep pushing towards a life of abundance and I don't even care how fucking cheesy that sounds. I cried myself to sleep last night and am surprised at the way I'm currently feeling but I think there's such truth in acknowledging that we are meant to experience our emotions in their fullness so we can then be released from them. If you try to suppress them, they end up trapped inside you and eventually manifest in a way that is very rarely productive.