Genuine

Welp I should definitely be sleeping already, I have to get up early to do work stuff I should have done this weekend and just didn't... I honestly thought I'd have a chance to work for a few hours tonight but I got completely sidetracked by my family. My youngest brother just tested positive. I haven't had any direct experience with COVID, just distant stories of people that someone I kinda know, knows.  My dad visited with him and my other brother on Wednesday and I saw my dad for the first time since February on Friday with my sister. At the moment, my brother thinks he was exposed after his visit with my dad, but it's hard to know, so now I'm in this weird headspace of did he give it to my dad, and have I possibly caught from my dad?? I had to come to PA for a bunch of obligations and my twin is freaking out. I've been secluded to the spare room and the basement. Based on when others have been able to make appointments, I should know rather definitively if I've been exposed by Thursday. It's definitely nerve wracking all around, wondering about how serious do I need to be about isolating and how sick will my brother get.

I think I'm here because my brain is going a mile a minute and I know I need to just get some of it out if I have any hope of getting to sleep soon. I know there's really not much I can actually do to change the situation but that acknowledgement doesn't seem to help me relax about it. Additionally I have my second session with my new counselor after work tomorrow. She's not a licensed therapist, but has other certificates and I just have a good vibe about her and the first session went well so I'm leaning into it. Our focus is healing the trauma and the pain from the off again on again mess with the man. It had been a long time since I had told the whole story especially the beginning, and how it had felt to fall for him. Most of the time now that I ever acknowledge it is in a super truncated way with romantic prospects when I explain part of why I've been single for six years. Since the first session I've been doing a lot of thinking about what is my goal, what do I want for myself in more concrete terms than just the vague "I want to be healed". I don't write in the blog dedicated to the things I wish I could say to him nearly as much as I once did and the urge has most definitely decreased in a significant way. I know that's progress for sure but in the last entry which was a little over a week ago I said that I just don't want to feel the sadness anymore and I think I need to expand on that idea more and what that means. Like if I were to ever see him again, what would be the ideal outcome of that interaction? What kind of a woman do I want to be?  I will never be able to control or anticipate his choices and actions, but I can 100% control my own. So maybe if I think about how I would like that to go down, I can more accurately identify the place I want to reach, to be able to handle that interaction the way I want to. 

There definitely have been times where I've thought of that chance, and there are moments where I want to treat him like he's nothing, the nothing he makes me feel like... others I just want him to regret his choice.  Mostly though, the idea that he could possibly interact with me like we are friends would piss me off, and I envision myself rebuking and saying something like, we are not friends, please don't put on a show like we are, which most likely would cause a little bit of a scene because the only time we'd ever run into each other again would be at a social networking type deal for my profession amongst other former colleagues. I think that reaction is very much tied into the anger I still have that he chose to no longer acknowledge my existence and the idea he would be so casual feels insulting. But that reaction would just reinforce this idea that I cause drama and I make his life harder and I'm so fucking done with that narrative especially because in all actuality that man is the one who has repeatedly chosen to re-enter my life when his life was chaos and brought his drama into mine knowing full well I loved him too much to say no. Instead I want the interaction to reflect my truth, and no matter all the pain and the hurt and my bruised ego, all of me knows my truth is that I love this man, more than I've ever loved anyone and I wanted to share my life with him more than I have ever wanted anything. I never got to a place where I believed him not to be the kind of partner that I have been holding out for, and even though he never fully chose me back in subsequent rounds, I never forgot how it felt in the beginning, and was so convinced that once he put the work in to reclaim his life, we could have that level of connection back. I would catch glimpses of it across the years, in these moments where it seemed he got out of his head enough and all the things he felt were what was expected of him, and was just there with me. It just continued to fuel my hope and belief that we were perfect for each other and it was so worth muddling through the mayhem of the circumstances. By the end of the 4th round my belief about what we could have together hadn't changed at all, but I no longer felt the we of it, I felt so fucking alone, more alone than just being on my own, and it felt clear that whatever he had to go through, I couldn't be a part of it. I want a life partner and he wasn't even open to the idea of us ever trying again and I just couldn't continue breaking my own heart. 

I think what I want is to be able to act in a way the aligns with my true feelings which are I love him, and I always will, and I just want him to be happy, even if I'm not a part of it. You don't have to be with someone or have a future with them to feel that and want that. When he thinks about me, I want him to just always know that's a person that loves me and wants what is best for me. So if that's what I want, I need to get to a place where if I ever see him again I can warmly greet him the same way I greet all the people in my life that I love but still respect the boundary that he is married. There's definitely a lot of hurt to let go of, but I really do think I could get there and I mean genuinely be in that place. I don't want to fake being nice and cordial, I want to be genuinely happy to see the face of someone I love and care about and authentically wish them well on their life endeavors.