Category Archives: Spring

Tumultuous is something that she says all the time, and she certainly knows how to create chaos in my head. These were the height of her push and pull throughout the spring of 2012.

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Worth it

I guess that’s what I’ve come to ultimately, and it’s that I want to be valued enough that when differences occur or there are some things that need to be addressed in this “relationship” that we just do it.  I don’t want to be criticized and definitely don’t want my son to be looked at like “a psych experiment.”  I think that when you are done, you reflect on things that you let go or ignored.  She actually said that once.  I think she is actually fairly fucked up and still hold that she is the queen of projection and displacement.

I had a dear friend over for dinner last night.  She is actually a lesbian too, and I only have one friend who is close to me who is.  She works constantly, so we aren’t super close.  The occasion was that she is moving out of state–to the West Coast.  It was so great to see her.  I told her that my ex and I didn’t really work and also told her how we met, and then casually chimed in about her having difficulties with my son.  Her huge eyes got bigger.  She told me over and over what an amazing kid he is and how lucky I am.  There are probably many reasons that my ex and I didn’t work out.

Of course she texted me during dinner and now has questions in her non-questions.  I briefly answered it this morning and although there is no salutation in text, I said, “Have a good day.”  She’ll never come down for dinner, and I know that I knew that when that is what I offered for us seeing each other.

I told my friend last night that I want more lesbians in my life, and she said, “Why?  They are cliquey and never respect new relationships.”  I told her my partner is not likely to grow out of straight girls who I have known most my life, and she said, “I don’t have any problem meeting women.”  Not that I’m in the market.  My heart is healing.  However, I remembered meeting (kind of) my ex’es’ friends and they were cold to me.  She has a group of lesbian moms who she hangs out with, and I could care less who likes me so I just ignored them.  If I was worth it to her, we’d have hung out with her friends during our 8-months.  We didn’t approach a relationship balanced at all.  I don’t want to contact her, know that she’ll continue to contact me, but will just let whatever fade and trust that I won’t run into her for a long time.  How odd what not only transpired, but what we have become.

 

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Golden Silence

It’s really golden to not get contact, and I know that because I said that she should come to me if she wants to see me, she won’t.  Want to know why?  I think that I do.  Because if she can’t control the parameters and things are not as she is used to, which is coming to her when you need something from her, she doesn’t feel comfortable or does she want it.

Now, there isn’t any intrusiveness.  I do my thing and she makes no contact.  It’s today that I realize that she won’t either.  She will contact me again in the fall.  When those colors abound and she remembers her son crawling through the leaves, mine throwing them with sticks and dirt, and us sharing that moment where we loved each other very truly and very deeply and looked at each other in another silent moment.  However, that one was different than the emotion that is yielded by silence now.

I love this song.  It is exactly what I’m thinking as of late as I can’t move much due to injury and am both contemplative and full of dreams for my future with the right woman.   I want to just be with a girl, and not overthink, and I definitely want a woman who takes what I say at face value and doesn’t dissect my words.  I have integrity and I embrace truth.  Looking back on my last five years, I have not settled, and I won’t.  There is a girl who is smart, sexy, fit, funny, and is ready to love me and my son.

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Momentum

I have some injuries that are external and what is interesting to me is that they both came to the surface today.  Today was the day that she told me that she just needs more time and that she doesn’t have it, so she has no expectations.  I think that is the let you down easy e-mail, but not to put a finer point on it, all I had asked is if she was still in love with me and would go to counseling?  I didn’t ask anything else and I drove home nearly three weeks ago when she was too “sick and tired” to have sex after we hadn’t the night before either.  It’s simple.  She does not see me as a priority.  That’s fine.  I can bounce.

So, my quadricep looks like someone has burst Easter Egg dye under it from the knee up, and my big toe is loosing the toenail on the other foot.  Both of these areas were killing me since last Wednesday, and today, it is obvious due to disgustingness and the pools of blood under the other that they are starting to heal.  I don’t believe in coincidences, so I know that it is me who was carrying around pain and now; although, it still does hurt to walk, I will heal.  I think that I can sit on a bike seat, so a friend of mine and I are going to take a long bike ride tomorrow.

She was shocked (again) when I said, “OK.  Glad that you have thought through as much as you have time for.  Best wishes and have a good summer.”  She wants to hang out, but I know that she won’t because I sure as hell will not drive up there and know that when the plans are not hers that she will not follow through.  I would be astonished if she came down here for dinner–although I am an excellent cook–so in a couple of weeks she’ll say, “Meet me halfway for a bike ride,” and I will tell her the truth.  It seems stupid to put your bike in a car, waste gas, and then have to drive back.  I’ll use the ample trails that I have which begin feet from my door, and I also plan on doing more road biking with my son’s Godfather who can mentor me.

We shall see…  I am pretty sure that I get her.  I’m going back to hang time to get over her.  Remember in “In the Bedroom” when the father’s hand heals?  Maybe when most of the purple fades from my wrecked thigh or I have new growth on the other injury that I’m sporting, I can say, “It’s over.”  Right now, I hurt, am still moving, but will be nothing but honest with myself.

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The Right One

I wonder if anyone truly keeps a relationship together.  I know one happy married couple, and they moved from here with their one son in 2008, and they have since had one more, so my boy and I lost some wonderful playdate potential when that occurred.  They still seem happy given posts on a social networking site, but I don’t really know because the days of our walks around the park and then coming home and watching our boys play until her partner got off work in the summer are over because they have been gone 4-years.  I knew another happily wed dyad, but they were in mediation last Thursday.  She fell out of love with him and he is behaving really badly now and has decided to sleep with her former best friend.  Their divorce will probably finalize before 2012 is gone.

I could have remained in that state of unhappiness.  We were not intimate and we were either silent or we argued, and this pattern lasted about 4 or 5-years, I believe.  Two separations and the final one was permanent in 2007.  That’s not what I’m looking for though, and I’d rather have some lasting connection that also includes sex.

She told me that we could talk f2f.  Having been angry with me because I don’t contact her much, she had left me a why bother VM while I was cleaning up on Sunday.  I had taken a quick 15-mile bike ride to warm up my body and then got back before church and jumped in the shower.  So, we talked for a sec when I called her back, and I said that I would call her in the evening and asked what would be a good time.  She told me that she couldn’t say and just to call her, but she wound up calling me when I left my kickball game early.  We made plans to see each other by meeting in between.

About two-and-half-hours later she cancelled because she said that we didn’t have a toolbox for seeing each other and that nothing has changed.  It hurt.  In fact, I’ve been crying off and on at intervals anyway, because that’s what I do now, and that is hurt.  I found out later that she was worried that we would have sex in her car, and doesn’t want that element.  I definitely gathered the latter on Memorial Day weekend.  I don’t even fully enjoy social stuff and would rather either be alone or talking with my son.  One of my best friends took me out, and then we went back to her house too on Sunday.  She is cooking dinner for my son and I tonight, but I’m so weary of this dance after nearly 5-years.  I’m ready to cook and be cooked for and live with a girl.  Joan Osborne says, “And you ask me to convince you that you won’t blow away.”  That’s a tall order…  Maintaining love and connection.

I think that keeping a relationship together requires honest and open conversations that probably should occur a couple times a week.  What I’ve noted is that I piss a girl off, and she tells me about it later after I’ve already fucked more things up.  With the drunk, we didn’t really fight, because we were quickly stagnant.  We didn’t really have any passion.  I do understand that passion comes with a price, because you will fight like that too, but I’m looking for the ability to move through conflict and to just say, “Let’s do our best to stay together in this rather wild world.”

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Waiting game

If you say that you are going to consider something, by now, it should mostly be considered.  It’s been 10-days, and she thinks that she can tell me that taking what I wrote paragraph by paragraph is a new way, but it’s really a new way to push and pull.  That’s what it is, because frankly, it’s a new approach to keeping me in the queue.  The thing is that if some girl touched me, I’d shrink away, so it’s not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, but it does matter in terms of my feeling like I’m the one she wants.  I worry that I’m not.

I should have taken a picture yesterday.  We had a somewhat harrowing ride up a windy Mt road–at least it was paved–complete with good views, but tons of drop-offs and when my son’s Godmother and my buddy from work got out, we had trouble standing.  We were at the trailhead!  It was also freezing and I didn’t have either set of gloves and couldn’t keep my hat on to save my life.  We took the same windblown ride back down, found a park in a nearby town and did just over 8-miles of a hike.  If I dodge another Mt Biker this summer though, it shall be too soon.  I think that I’ll need to order new boots though, as I did something terrible to my left toe.  If I feel around in the footbeds today in my old, tried and true boots, and they feel compressed, I’ll order some today and wear one pair of socks on Wednesday.

We didn’t go to the top of the little peak.  We were tired and the day was odd and didn’t entail what we’d planned.  I swear if we summit on Wednesday, a snowstorm is going to come rolling through rather quickly.  It was pretty and good girl bonding.  They both told me to proceed with caution.  Here was one of our views:

I don’t want to be cautious.  I just want to know if we can go to couple’s counseling and if she thinks that we could get married NEXT summer.  That’s it.  I’m done messing around.  I don’t want to live alone anymore, as 5-years have yielded tons of growth and transformation.  Now, I am really ready for a partner, and would love to raise two to three kids.

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Gentle Cycle

I don’t know how exactly we came up with it when we talked for two-hours last night, but it’s true.  It’s not that we lost sweetness, it’s that we lost being delicate with one another and that certainly is mutual.  I explained to her that navigating January and February, which didn’t have that committed in a long-term feel to me made me unsteady, so it seemed sorted by March.  However, let’s be honest, if it’s June and I’m still grasping for the whys, it is not at all nipped or tucked.

I was talking about being delicate, and I said something like we need that delicate cycle and she made the washing machine analogy about being gentle.  That means that we need to rid ourselves of the old exchange too, and for some reason she hangs on to it.  I don’t get that.  It has that back and forth quality too, which as I have written, I can’t stand.  I get that we are a product of what we have seen and experienced in our family of origin, but I just think that moving forward based on what one wants is healthy and good.

I just come back to the fact that we need therapy to continue.  She doesn’t trust me, and has said so, which is based on an e-mail that I sent at the beginning of last October (before we had even slept together) and thinks that one more bad fight would destroy the chance for a friendship even.  I don’t see it that way.  At some point around the first of the year, she made the conscious decision to push me away, and then when she does, she can’t deal and misses me desperately.  We can work this situation out and learn to communicate well, or we can’t.  If she won’t go, we can’t continue with relationship contact and will need to just take some space.  I will hurt, but love does, right?

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Worn Out

I tried a longer than I should have hike with my climbing partner yesterday…  When we got to the ridge line and could see the peak, we didn’t have much left.  There were a lot of factors and his poor dog was actually bleeding on his pads, so we did turn back.  I was pretty rubbery in my legs given the stress that we had to get there, and really too unsteady on the ridgeline to continue, but I always feel incredible with that level of exertion afterward.  Right now, I’m groggy because we had severe storms last night and I was up for an hour in the middle of the night and was sore from hiking straight up 10-miles.  Coffee and doing very little will help, and then with my new found energy, I will clean and pay bills.  I’ll include some scenery here:

I had a good day with the guy who is like my little brother though, and hope for many more over the next two months.  I’m getting back up high on Saturday with my son’s godmother as well.  I ought to have a good focus for the next several weeks and hope that I can take this energy into August with me.

I wish that she would examine with me what can be corrected and get very real about what she wants.  I know that regardless of what would transpire this next year, that we need some professional guidance because of the level of dissonance that she is caught in with respect to wanting a relationship and then being unable to navigate the stress that being in one causes her.  I can’t explore anything with her unless a couple hours a month are spent in couples work.  I’d like to say that I can take her back, but I can’t with her lack of understanding that I just don’t want sex, I want connection with her and can’t see weekly a corpse.

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Through Memorial Day

I didn’t need the whole weekend, and I doubt that anyone is surprised.  I had my suspicions on Thursday when she made some omissions and didn’t know immediately that I would know that she changed the garage code and offered me her cheek instead of kissing and hugging me.  I wound driving home tonight because when she moved into her spare bedroom, and I told her and meant, “I’m not kicking anyone out of her own bed.”  That she left me countless HeyTells saying how “shocked” she was and how I withdrew too soon is just part of what is our never ending cycle.  I have a friend who describes this type of imbalance as beckoning a girl with your right index finger with your arm drawn close and bent at the elbow all the while pushing your left arm completely out with the palm up (Like the quintessential STOP).  It’s like, “Come here while I push you away.”

That we biked for nearly 30-miles today and then the “I’m too sick to have sex with you,” card was played left me hurt.  You can bike 26-miles, but can’t muster any energy at any point in the day to have sex?  No, you’re just not into me, and you rather like push pull because you are always in a state of grieving and stress.  However, sex will burn stress.  But, if you’re all mixed up in your emotions about someone you can use any excuse not to do it, you can still get a charge out of being wanted.

The day was nice.  We had lots of laughs, time outside, the good bike ride, she bought me dinner, but there wasn’t any passion for each other.  She always tells me that I’m a sex maniac, and I don’t know how that can be construed because I had not had any in a week and that was initiated by her when she was sick and then she proceeded to tell me tonight how terrible she felt all week having not slept when she left my house.  I do want to make love when I haven’t seen someone in a week, and have not really connected passionately in 18-days, and I know that there is a woman who would not find that a dysfunctional request.

She is perpetually triggered by the way I say things, what my life is going to entail for the next 15-months, and gets cold and withdrawn.  I can’t navigate it.  All of her messages say that I gave up too soon and that she is an amazing lover, but the latter eludes me.  I hadn’t seen that since December.  We had a good three-months and the first five of this year involve too much of seeing what I can tolerate only to have her communicate with me and get me back.  However, I won’t go back no matter what the apology.  Honestly, I will be floored if she didn’t contact me in the next several weeks.  I will not contact her, because she is not what I’m looking for and makes me feel bad.  Tonight, she made me feel like she didn’t find me attractive too.  I just can’t.

I don’t want a friendship with her…  Period.  She lives far away and does stuff to the Nth degree, so I would even see her at sporting events or the like, because we wouldn’t compete in the same division.  Although it was fun to ride with her, I don’t want to spend time with her on bikes because it is going to take a lot for me to completely fall out of love with her.  I’m not one for self-abuse.  She said that I’m not ok with off days, but really, since January, that has been mostly what we’ve had.  The on days were rare.  It is good that we reconnected and decided that we don’t work, but I’m really looking for a bit more sweetness and ease.

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Genuine

I have sooooo much stuff to do today.  Looking back, I should have left my son with his best friend and his mother (She has a daughter too.)  and gone into work on Monday.  Had I done so, I wouldn’t feel like a ball of stress.  Because I’m not working with clients really means that I am buried with plans, billing, reports, and end-of-the-season progress on goals paperwork.  Plus, I will only have one office next year, so I am moving and combining two.  I slept well–uninterrupted–but I did wake up at 4.  I’m well awake now too. I will get everything done, but then I have to race to get to her, which will not be restful.  Or is deciding what to do with my bike while I use my truck to move all of this shit after getting paperwork done.

Because she took my not doing treatment as being free and clear, she is not sympathetic at all about what Tuesday – Thursday entails.  It is a 40-hour work week.  I have think that I have been to lend an ear about things that she can talk about, but she is so jealous that I will only now be working part-time through the end of July, that she basically tells me to get over myself and that I’m going on a vacation.  She didn’t respond to the details that I left about steps that I have and nuts and bolts.  I’ll be stressed when I finally reach her, but I don’t want to appear that way.  So, I won’t.

I’m not a good “stuffer.”  I need to be me and say what is on my mind.  It helps to be validated and listened to as well.  I know that Friday will be really fun.  Getting to tonight is a stressful, busy, and an overwhelming venture.  I will give myself some deadlines this morning.  Whatever is not documented by 11:30 will have to be at least addressed, so I will stop computer work by 10:45.   Then I need to move things and drive them over to the new site.  I will just make it so I must leave at 4:30.  Deadlines are good for me.  I hope to laugh and be light, and kind this weekend.  Those will also be my requirements, and if I am being completely honest with myself, without those things I’m just not sure if I can continue this at all.

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Synchronicity

I was thinking about Pat Benatar (Thus my subject line in this post, which evokes her box set.) earlier in the day because I’m going to sing on Friday night.  I am going to do that too, and am committing it to the Internet now so that I have accountability.  What could happen is just tons of sex and never leaving the house, but I want to go out, and think that if we can really make a fresh start, we should date.  Like really date.  We don’t do that.  With the infrequency that we can see each other we mainly wind up having sex for hours and hours and then not sleeping much, which kills her because she only gets two nights off and her son is MUCH younger than mine and has crummy sleep patterns.  My boy is at an easy and fun age.  I can sleep when I’m not nursing microbrews and staying up waaaay too late.  People who tell you that 0 – 3 is great should be at least maimed.  They are probably telling you that because they want to delude themselves into thinking that raising children is fulfilling 24-7.  Newsflash…  It is ANOTHER ft job.  That’s the plan for Friday (karaoke), but clearly the universe is putting ex’s and suitors into the lives of those who I know (and me) as of late, so I’m brought to my next topic, which in a slightly buzzed state shall be more stream of consciousness that my usual voice (fair warning).

So, one of my friends from MS who knows my real ex (not to be construed with the woman who I thought was my ex who I’d give anything to make love to tonight, but have to wait 2-more days to have) had this guy drop off the face of the earth for weeks and he just reconnected with her.  I don’t trust that he will stick though, because he presents like a flake per her descriptors.  My BFF who lives in the same state as my buddy from MS is falling in love with this guy (Sorry, many of my friends are str8.) who is being super casual with her right now and is at a breaking point with him–which was like my holding pattern in early 2010–with my real ex–and she is messed about him, but her ex in addition to several other “dark horses” not-so-much in the running, are suddenly and concurrently texting her.  And  while we were talking about that via phone last night, my REAL ex e-mailed me.  She e-mailed me because my BFF took my I-thought-you-were-an-ex off her Friends List and my real ex is kinda stalker-ish and scary.  No contact since Christmas Eve.  And then her e-mail comes through right when I’m talking to my BFF who is falling in love and doesn’t want to (with Mr. Casual).  Lovely.  I have never mentioned that my real ex is now armed, have I?  Even better!

So, I needed my girlfriend.  Not my ex.  She is my girlfriend, even if she is so scared of me and taking a chance.  She called me and we talked it through.  She thinks that I need to sleep on the unsettling, and not-so-out of the blue e-mail and then approach her with compassion.  As it is me, I don’t think I’ll engage, but I will know tomorrow.  I know in my heart that because my BFF took my current girlfriend off of her social networking friends list last week that my ex now thinks she can get back into dating me.  That is crazy.  1) She is a drunk.  2) She is pretty scary and I’m glad that she lives 6-states away from my son and I.  3) She thinks I am single and is contacting me now, and 4) She is armed.

No full moon, but ex’s coming out of the woodwork and suitors wanting to all get their game on with the women who I know.  My girlfriend’s ex-partner “dropped in” on her last Tuesday (We had reconnected intimately that Monday) and tried to talk to her about her failing marriage.  My girlfriend approaches her with compassion, but it is weird that she dropped in the day after we decided that calling it quits was not an option.  Furthermore, all of this relationship dissension is bizarre.  I’ll look at the patterns tomorrow after I sleep.  This week is weird, weird, weird.

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Expectations

I think that this time around in addition to being more free and easy, we need to maximize seconds that we have with each other and really appreciate the gift that it is to be in each other’s company.  I don’t think that she knows me that well, which is funny, because when we leave for our little break, we will have been together for 8-months less our two week (and some change) hiatus.  She thinks that I distract myself with girls when I have had a breakup and has no clue how funny I am.  At this point, showing each other a good and fun side of each other is critical, I think.

I hope that we go out…  I think it will be good for her to see me interacting with other people, and if I run into girls who I know, I am witty and people tend to keep me talking.  I know that she hasn’t been exposed to a girl like me and her two partners needed her.  I want her and sometimes really need her arms around me, but I’m independent and really fine on my own less the libido issues that I have.  Is this approach and manner that I operate confusing?  I’m sure it is odd.

Spending time down here is a good thing too.  I’m glad that we will be in the city and can crash at my house.  I don’t love driving long distances or being in my car.  Not my thing.  My things are:

1. Laughing

2. Playing outside

3. Keeping things neat

4. Talking to my friends

5. Having some alone time for contemplation each day

Above all though, I want a woman to want me above all and have complete passion for me.  I would not say that the barrage of complaints have already begun, and thank God, because it’s been one week, but she was short yesterday and still jumps to conclusions about me.  I’ll just see.  I want this date–and I’m grateful that it is a real date that won’t be cancelled–and then when we go away, I want to see what comes about.  However, if I feel even a slight push-pull or that I am a partial punching bag, I’m going to bounce and be firm about space.  I like falling in love.  I want to stay there.

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Looking for difference

So, she had texted and HeyTell’ed in the morning, and while I responded she figured that since I was unable to sleep after we talked for two-hours the night before, that I would want nothing to do with her.  I think that a major difference between she and I is that she goes with a particular and makes all kinds of assessments based on it and then quickly derives a decision.  I might do that with shoes, a dress, or even my bike, but I don’t do that in any other area of my life.  I knew when I woke up that I was still in love with her.

So, I called her and we talked all the way into my work and then I sat in my parking lot for another 45-minutes.  I won’t lie and say that the convo was without tension.  She really came unhinged when I told her that I talked to a girl and got her number.  (Later she did realize that reaction was strange as we were completely broken up, and she apologized.)  Again, because I’m writing I must be honest.  I liked that she was still so very much in love with me, and that she missed me so desperately.  Later she admitted this in  a raw and naked e-mail.

I went back to saying that we could not share space because it would be sexual.  She e-mailed that maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with that, but that we had to consider things.  I had completely accepted her apology and continued to think about what had happened to three sisters who I know when they lost their mother.  It is just not normal to loose your mother or father until you are in your 40s or 50s and if it happens when you are young, you do some things that are uncharacteristic afterward and most especially within those first few weeks of shock.  Could it be that she was right when she had told me Sunday night that she really is that person who I fell in love with last fall?  Could the first few months of this year be truly colored by grief and then our mutually-fed fervor of future?  The latter should just organically work out after a year or so, right?

God, I did want her.  There is an intimacy that we share that borders on something that is pure and is otherworldly.  I had e-mailed her yesterday about our lovemaking–I will point out was after Monday–which borders on transcendence.  And it does.  She is on business this week, but didn’t fly out until yesterday morning, so she said that she could meet me at my house Monday afternoon.  I took two hours of sick leave and held her for a long, long time in my livingroom.  I could feel her muscles under her thin and soft leather jacket and after a long period, I kissed her neck and found her mouth.  That level of passion is like nothing.  I used to think that things like that were bullshit made up for media (movies, songs, etc.), but with her it is a derivative of our connection.  We had about an hour and used it well.

Now, she is not here, but we have gone back to contact.  But, she’s different.  There is no jealousy and resentment.  I think that we can get something new that is not spurned on by what we’d like five-years from now.  Immediacy is the only area in which we can operate.  I will certainly honor that and do believe that with distance it is hard not to hurt, but the trade-off is passionate love.  Who can really say that they have that?

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16-days

I hadn’t seen my ex in 16-days, and I hadn’t had a single interaction with her in 12-days.  She kept up the contact, and I knew that she was being driven slightly crazy because I would not respond to anything that she texted, e-mailed, or HeyTell’ed.  Then I had something very odd happen to me, which occurred in church.

Having woken up on Sunday morning, and realizing that despite my “single” status, I was not going to be able to date anytime soon, I decided that the girl who I met was a mere distraction and someone who I could tell my friends that I could date if I wanted to, but wasn’t ready to do the leg work.  In truth, although she texted me later that morning, I don’t have it in me to pursue and do all the “getting to know you” stuff at this juncture.  So for that Sunday, I was going to work in my yard, and then spend sooooo much time in church.  I texted the girl who I had met that right away too.  So, it was then the day of church.  I had mine–I read stuff for the service there–a class at my church, and then was attending a night service in a dear friend’s church.

My friend goes to what is a traditional and progressive church in an fairly upper-class neighborhood.  I did like how easy it was for me to fall back on what had been familiar to me in terms of my original faith, but I found it academic and political in terms of how “queer” focused it’s parishioner-base clearly was.  I had a good time though, and the minister is beautiful and charismatic.  I was clearly “the single girl” there with my friend and her husband, and women were looking at me.  I suppose that always feels good.

During the service, I prayed for my ex and her son.  I knew that I had forgiven her of her treatment of me.  I wanted her and her son to be happy and healthy.  I got done with my participation and time there and I got in my car, because my own son would be home soon, I had to rush out and could not stay for the community dinner that they were hosting.  I will do that sometime.  I was angry, because she had called me.  I assumed that she had left a VM too, but that turned out to be a wrong number.  (How does one leave a message for someone who identifies herself in the greeting?)  When I got home, my landline was flashing an indicator and I knew that it was from her.  She had left me an apology and another plea for friendship.  Her admission that she had been “awful” was what made me realize that my having broken up with her and not talked to her at all again was the right thing for us.  She needed to be free of me and our contact to reflect.  I HeyTell’ed her thank you for the apology and that I wanted us to really extend some space and time.

Then, I went outside and weeded.  Having gotten back into my yard and planting, seems to help my mental state.  I create and have a beginning, middle, and end that I can see.  Relationships are not like that.  While reflecting, I realized that there were two people in our relationship and that my definition of space until fall was merely a limit that I had set, and that she had not say in it.  I decided to send her a text to invite to talk on the telephone based on her schedule.  About half-an-hour later she texted back another apology that she was not by her phone, and that she was not trying to manipulate me into talking based on my need for space, but she knew that she had been critical and was apologizing for her part in our end.  Again, she explained that she was just genuinely sorry, and figured that I would never choose to speak to her again.  So, after I got my son down, I called her.

It was nice to tell her things that have gone on for me.  I received an award at work, and there were some funny things that had happened over the course of the past two-weeks as well, which I relayed to her.  After some time she told me that our talk was not going how she had imagined it.  I asked what she wanted?  I said that we could reconnect in the fall.  She told me that she was going to come and sit on my porch and hope to get a piece of quiche.  I told her that I would leave my son and hop the fence and with my old bike and get out of Dodge.  We laughed a little.

She kept trying to pin me down on when we could see each other, and I told her that we would have to come up with a compromise, because fall was obviously not working for her, and now would not work for me.  Then she started getting flirtatious, but I didn’t bite.  She told me that she couldn’t lie and was still in love with me, but was confused and didn’t know what she wanted, and that she didn’t understand why I didn’t miss her.  I told her that all I really missed was our fall.  It is probably not surprising that after we hung up after two-hours that I didn’t sleep a wink.

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Coming down the world turns over

I’m doing well today and was during this week in general.  Monday she just couldn’t leave me alone.  I kept my line mostly firm: we should take a real break with no communication, but she continued, and I just didn’t respond.  One of her HeyTells was awful too.  I think that a small dog bled to death in her arms as soon as she got home on Tuesday night, as it had been attacked and stripped from it’s owner.  I couldn’t get follow up information because I don’t want to give mixed messages–no communication means just that.  So then of course she texted me at 5 in the morning yesterday and HeyTell’ed me too, but since we have all of our shit back from each other it’s not necessary to communicate and she is going to have to get used to that.

What’s distasteful to me, and is at least somewhat responsible for my firm line of no communication now, is that she not only continued telling me how selfish and negative that I am, but on Friday, she said, “I was creeping her out,” and that was a direct quote from her most recent partner who sent that to her in a text when she thought that she was cheating on her.  She just does not seem to sort much out, and lets previous experiences color who she is currently dating.  However, we must note that she has not ever dated…  She has had long-term relationships.  That’s all.  I’m looking for one, but won’t force it with a woman with whom I constantly fight.  She is my ex-girlfriend and we need this strict space, but I’m incredulous that we will ever have anything.  A Christmas card style relationship is comfortable for me right now, and I don’t see much shift.  She said simply horrible stuff to me and it frankly makes no sense that she’d want a friendship.

I know that she will contact me more.  If I’m so creepy, selfish, and negative and her life is perfect with all kinds of support, why can’t she leave me alone?  Also, I found another thing really unsettling.  She told me that she could be the best friend who I have ever had.  I guess that she never heard me say that my friendships are concentric circles and there are just a few people in that center circle who are truly my family and in my heart.  I had a dinner party when I turned 37 last year and every friend who is part of my soul was there.  It was amazing and the food was fantastic.  I love cooking and feeling the energy in my kitchen as my friends and family are conversing and vibing off each other’s actions and words.  That’s my life and I’m grateful.

It does give me pause though…  The timing…  To be very happy to get home early from work, hear “Help,” and see a woman running.  Then having your work clothes covered in blood from a little dog who you are trying to save.  That is macabre and frightening.  The timing is strange though, and knowing her as well as I do, she will say that because I didn’t reach out and connect to her when she told me what had happened on Tuesday night that I’m selfish, negative, etc.  That’s good, because she is not the best friend who I have.

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Over and out

Wow, last night was one of the most miserable nights that I have ever had.  Honestly, it evokes a breakup hiking date that I had in 2009.  I will reproduce that here, as I want to get lighter after sleeping next to nothing last night.  Then I just want to meet someone and actually fall in love again.  That was a great lesson from her.  I finally actually fell head-over-heels completely in love and gave my heart to her.  It started hurting after the second of the year.

This morning, I was deleting drafts in my e-mail and came upon a thread that she and I had written to each other at the end of November, and she told me that she was always ready to wrap her body around mine.  I loved that!  Yesterday, during the time that we never really had a date, she finished up her chores and not only did I never get a kiss, I got pushed away when I finally hugged her after being with her over 5-hours.  It still evokes the hike breakup:

“Wow!  What a piss poor hike yesterday was.  First of all, she called me when I was lacing up my boots and sounded so sullen–much like every conversation that we’ve had on the phone after she canceled via e-mail three weeks ago.  Then, when I get up there, she gives me a hug that you’d give in greeting to a wedding guest or colleague.” (me, 2009)

Both of these women wanted a friendship with me afterward and did push and pull.  Honestly, could it be in the water?  My now true ex lives 5-miles or so from where this woman lived when we dated.  Jesus.

I went up there.  She was repairing her son’s bike and looked totally hot, but she is not all that out in public; although she has had two long-term partnerships, so I just brought stuff in and gave her space to finish up.  No, we didn’t wind up hiking or going to a movie.  With her, I don’t know why I ever made date plans, because nary a one of mine was ever honored.  The funny thing is that she suggested a picnic two weeks ago and for the last two months she said that she just wants to do “normal” stuff like see a movie.  But, hell, we didn’t wind up seeing a movie either!  I never know what she wants!  I’m wondering if she does…

Very odd, but she honestly has to feel like she is driving the bus at all times, so I let it go, but yesterday started off bad when she HeyTell’ed me and I could tell that if I didn’t pack my bike that she was going to chalk this up to my being an asshole.  I’ve been sick, so I didn’t want to bike until later in the weekend.  I just didn’t have the lung capacity.  That aggravated her as it did that I wasn’t hungry.  I wanted to hike!  She said yes to that on Tuesday, and that would have helped my appetite after being sick and not feeling hungry.  Additionally, walking is easier on the body than biking is.

She told me that we should get some mineral water and get massages.  She left, got a pedicure, and I got a massage that did move all the toxins out–I’m not at all sick today–but made some old injuries that I have very sore because the guy could not speak English and it was a clothed one.  Not my preference.  I pay for a guy who I have known 8-years for the regular kind, so this was really just moving a cold completely out and spending $70.  Of course that didn’t make me happy.  Plus, then we were an hour apart on what was supposed to be a date.

Still no contact in the car.  I touched and caressed her arms and leg, but she told me that I was negative.  I still don’t get why I should have been happy about yet another complete departure from the dating plans that I made.  I wanted to look at her across a table, as that had worked when we had fought before, so I asked her if we could go to a bar real quick and talk and that is what sent her reeling.

Last fall in both September and October, we had a glass of wine and talked and it ended nicely.  It helped us to reconnect, and is decidedly better than trying to have conversation in the house of your lover where it is not neutral territory.  Last month I had a beer in the very cool brewery that she took me to in her town, and it was fairly nice too.  We actually connected intimately the following morning too.  However, she basically said that I may not be an alcoholic, but she’d never go to a bar.  Made no sense to me, so I said that we had been to the brewery very recently and she said, “That’s why I wanted to go on the bike trail, because we would have ended there.”  I didn’t want to bike last night!  (I didn’t say that.)  She followed this comment up with, “And something else you should know about me is that I’m not a bar gal, and I’m not a hiker.”

I bought a six-pack, drank one in her kitchen and had a bizarre convo.  At least we took a nightwalk and saw the moon on the lake.  So, we walked awhile and then she said that we are just too different.  First, I wanted two different ex’es back, then I had too many close connections where I live and could never move, then we don’t have timing right, and now we are too different!  I was upset, but tired of the litany:  You are not into me, and that is fine, and I’m totally sick of push and pull.  I wanted my guitar back when we got to her house, and she said that I was creeping her out, so I didn’t touch her, got as much of my shit as I could, and left.  I emailed her when I got home because her son is always elsewhere on Friday nights (emails are quieter on her phone and don’t force her to look because her son’s caretaker only calls or texts if she needs her), but she had already texted me twice about how she loves me, but we are too different, and that she wants a friendship after space and time.  I was grateful that I had ended my email that I didn’t know that she would even get last night with this:

“So, let’s just take some real space, do our things and see if the fall brings back all the wonderful memories and the possibility for friendship.”

I will need that much time.  My falling out of love started last month when she said that she would never leave her house.  It continued.  Our last intimacy, which was incredible, was two weeks ago.  That will be the last too.  I do think that she’ll contact me this summer.  I’ll be conscientious, but I don’t want to see her until after I turn 38 (at the end of summer).  The only thing that I will do is send her a birthday card in the mail when she turns 38.  I don’t want her as a close friend, because although my group is not homogenous, we definitely have things in common and don’t lead with what is wrong with each other or how starkly different we are.  She and I aren’t that different, but we will never live together and I wanted her to be my partner, and I know that she wanted that too, but required our potential journey to be all on her terms.  I can’t do that.

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Chillax

She always says that to me when she is finally heading home and we are talking on the phone.  Admittedly, she doesn’t do it really during the week, and I know that because she doesn’t, so she tends to deeply resent our situation and sometimes me too.  I was livid the day before yesterday when we hung up because it was like talking a corpse.  Why bother?  Three-and-a-half-hours later, she HeyTell’ed and apologized and said that she didn’t have good coping skills during the week.  I said that I think that it is more that she wants someone shoulder burdens of life with her and I’m hobbled from 40-miles away, which is true.  Of course, she took that as that I want out soon.  OMG!!!

I told her that love her and I want to have some conversation about shared meaning (what we value about life), but not for a couple of months.  And, I don’t.  We should date.  We never have dated.  She is completely tanked by the weekend, so we eat and sometimes watch part of a movie on a Friday night.  We have also done some Sunday night connection time when she doesn’t have hers, but I have always had mine less two nights.  We parent and half-assed date.  Time to enjoy dammit!  I’m making a quiche tonight–where the hell does one find a picnic basket that will accommodate a pie plate–and putting together fruit and stuff.  We will hike and then I have a little entry that I decided not to blog about being outside, cooking, music and adventure.  I’m going to read it to her under the trees and then we will actually catch a movie.  We haven’t done that (just the latter) since December.

Sunday would have been hot for about an hour, but my son decided that cleaning our living room was above him and acted like a total ass.  He slammed his door on her son and got his finger stuck in it.  He was contrite, but I’m tired of his tantrums.  We have had a good week, but the expense was that he did something in a fit and hurt her boy on Sunday, so the outcome is that he is guilt-ridden and well-behaved this week.  We wound up playing in an indoor playground in a mall by my house and it was fun, and she was really understanding.  I’m grateful that she has raised two other kids and understands that sometimes kids are in foul moods and have tantrums.  Not fun though.  We would have hiked, but it was too windy so we had to switch gears.  I wasn’t expecting company so my house was too messy, but we made it work mostly.  My son did a bunch of good stuff last night and asked me to call and leave a message for the psychologist who we saw twice and will work again with this summer.  He knows what he should be doing, but is too smart sometimes and admittedly manipulative.  I would much rather co-parent him with someone.

Tricky business, that.  I haven’t known her long enough honestly.  Breaking up with her directly was the best thing that I could have done though, because she is reflecting more and certainly not leading with what’s wrong with us.  There is something wrong with everyone and most kids; although much of the latter can be due to developmental things that kids have going on for them.  Finding your common ground and seeing if you want to build something takes time.  I have to be down here for another 15-months because of school and my work contract, so we have time.  IMHO, she will have to adjust to the miles because I can’t pop over there much with the exception of summer, and it’s not impromptu or “Hey, I was thinking of you, can we have dinner together?”  She will have to adjust to being completely alone, and ultimately, that is good for her.

A friend was talking to me on the phone last night and reminded of something that I said five-years ago and had honestly completely forgotten.  When I did my final separation (We had been separated for four-months three years previous), I told my friends, “It is going to be hard to be alone, but ultimately, I know that is what I need and how I will grow.”  That year was the hardest one that I’ve had, I think.  At least it was top three for difficulty, but I learned so much about who I am.  I think that she needs to miss me, think about things, and get stronger on her two feet without the distraction of taking care of another woman or just having one around fairly easily.

So, now, onto tomorrow.  I want to have a beautifully romantic date.  I want to enjoy her turquoise eyes and laugh tons.  That’s the intention that I have for Friday.

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Empathy

I get so angry all of the time and want to play the bullshit card, but I need to work on my perspective taking.  This week was more informal than last and this one started with fantastic lovemaking and tender exchanges.  It just fades away by week’s end and drives me fucking crazy.  I want to say, “Then why did you call me and ask me if we could just be light and easy until after Memorial Day when we get to go away kid-free and afterward make some decisions?”  Light and easy to you translates into infrequent contact and really being put in a friends’ queue.  I honestly think because she thinks that she is the best friend in the world that I will want that at some point.

Redefine as friends is the ultimate bullshit anyway, is it not?  You didn’t work as partners so you’ll work as friends?  That analogy is poor.  Very poor.  Especially when one is admittedly judgmental and is the queen of unsolicited advice.  I listen to it now, because I would prefer to go to counseling and then take the plunge to live together.  If we had our “friends hats” on and she started in about my parenting, I would say, “Hey, I didn’t ask, so I really don’t want any unsolicited advice.”  She’d be smoking pissed at me, but my BFFs seem to think my son is not too bad, and that I do the best that I can.

That being said, I do know that there is a world of difference when your son has never had to share your affections and is with you and a love interest.  I was with the drunk for 11-months before I even introduced her to my son, and he had a colossal meltdown on the sidewalk of a busy street in an overstimulated state when we transitioned from a city cultural event fair that he didn’t want to leave right in front of her.  She took it as kid behavior, which it is.  You know the kind that you witness when you are childless and go, “Wow,” and either think that the parent should not have taken the child out in public or you want to disappear into a sudden chasm in the floor or earth because of how embarrassed you feel for that parent.  It’s fantastic when it happens to you!  However, she was cool about it.

There is nothing cool about the way in which my current works with my son when he melts down.  And because he knows that I love her and sees us hold hands, he gets what a six-year-old should get, and that’s jealous.  When I do settle down with a partner, he will have to adjust.  I do get that.  However, I don’t need to hear how it’s that he is a mess.  He’s not.  He is fairly well-adjusted and listens to most adults.  He just doesn’t always listen to me, but we work on it, and with a soon-to-be psychologist as a parent, he will always probably have to “talk about” it.  Tee-hee.

So, she has lost a caregiver.  I’m sure that it’s painful.  I have had lots of losses, but not that one yet.  I have also had a bizarre loss right before I started high school, so I’m different when it comes to grief.  Sublimation has made me very good at children’s grief work too.

She has the weirdest job in the world.  It does pay.  I will never make what she does.  But, the levels of stress are unreal and because of the nature of the work, she honestly cannot talk about it at all.

She has a tiny child.  Although he can walk and has begun talking, he is little and not regulated with his patterns.  I remember that, and honestly never would have dated seriously when my son was that age.  He was about 6-months older than hers is now when I had a coming out affair, but, I knew it would not be serious.  She is looking for a co-parent, but because of the last two paragraphs, that is a tricky business.

I do feel better after venting.  She pisses me off and I don’t do casual.  It will be interesting to see how family time is tomorrow.  I want a time warp to October, dammit.

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Little less rough around the edges

A friend who I shared a mental health office for a year-and-a-half told me once, “You are really loving although you are rough around the edges,” and my ex-husband said, “She’d be cool if she could tone it down a little.”  So, I just hung up with her, and I get what those two statements mean.  Maybe her purpose in my life has been to see how I really do come off and what I can do to soften even more.  She can really be tough.  It’s amazing to me that two weeks ago a friend had dinner at my house and said, “I can really see how you have changed and are much less direct.”  Again, after you date and spend many nights alone for five-years, you tend to see what you’re like.  You have to evolve.

A major difference between she and I is that if I’m meant to walk this earth alone, I don’t mind at all.  I sometimes feel that I’m trapped in the body of a 17-year-old boy in terms of my libido, but that can be remedied like I did in the summer of 2009.  I could do that.  Please know that my preference is to find a partner, but if I don’t, I will be just fine.  I always am fine.  I don’t really need anyone with the exception of my son.  I used to have stronger social needs too, and those have subsided as well.  If I have adult conversation over dinner once or twice a week, I am totally fine. Mainly because I spent the first at least five-months, if not a full year, of 2008 totally crazy, but I did get good at the solo gig.  I’m very good at it, and the derivative is that I won’t co-habitate until nuts and bolts are mostly tightened.  I don’t want bullshit day-to-day without groundrules.  Time-outs are also critical.

I do need to say that she really needs a good lay right now.  She’s pretty transparent.  I’m at home pretty sick currently so we spoke when I was heading back home from dropping my son at school and she was being kinda bitchy.  I think that both of us feel that when we do have intimacy that we tend to wanting more.  It’s only been three days, but we’d be ready and it is tender and passionate.  It was funny that on Saturday night it didn’t have that make-up sex quality.  It was intense, but loving.  We just need to take some time.  The one thing that I won’t bend on is the whole couples counseling thing.  I will walk if that is not honored.  I will ask at the end of next month or the beginning of June.  I hope that she consents.  If she doesn’t, I have to stop our sexual relationship and go back to the dating pool.

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Things we do

I have to admit, and it’s NOT easy.  I can’t give up our intimate life.  So, I told her let’s do the FB thing.  I think that she was offended.  But, I was totally serious.  Because she has hurt me so much and with great frequency this year and she mostly says that she’s just irritable because of her loss, I have really hardened my heart.  I love her, but the whole in love thing has layers of caution surrounding it.

I did the “let’s just see when we can feasibly be friends” on Friday night and then she called on Saturday.  She was furious with me because I’m doing well, and I am.  Namely because I’m out of the doldrums.  That place is not a good one for me to be in, and just saying it and explaining that waiting around for a break-up is not what I’m able to do anymore with what I’ve got going on in my life, willed her angered beyond belief.  In fact, she said, “I look forward to the time that we can be friends.  Bye.”  And I said bye and left for my son’s soccer game.  She called me about 20-minutes later and asked if I got her message that she had left for me on my home phone and told her that I was heading to soccer.  She said that she wanted me in her life, that I didn’t have to listen to the message, but she doesn’t want a break and wants our friendship to be always.

After soccer that changed to flirtation, which does, get me hot.  I’m telling you, making love to her is not like anything.  I mean it too.  So, I told her, “When you want to add me to the mix, consider me for an FB.”  She said, “When you get tired of mediocre sex with other women, you let me know.”  Then when we texted and confirmed, she said that she’d tell me where she was at when we were together.  My picture is not in her bedroom anymore, and frankly the two of her and her son are not in mine in addition to some other things she has given me, but Dear God, what great sex.  Wow.

So, she said, “Let’s leave it at light, but remember that I’m in love with you.”  So, I’m not in summer swing of things, but I don’t have to loose the best intimate connection that I’ve ever had.  I’m glad.  I told her on the phone that we don’t have to define it.  If she does start pinning me down on that–likely after Memorial Day or in June–I’ll say that NOT without counseling.  Our relationship has gotten really fucked up regardless of the reason.  If we continue this summer, we’ll need professional guidance.

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Fade Out

Ah, this request is familiar…  Trade-in aka two-for-one that makes me feel like the blue light special.  Meet me halfway somewhere?  Fuck that.  I was the idiot who went against what I said that I would be doing and that was not make any plans with her, so I’m getting what I deserve.  I should have held to it too.  We probably won’t see each other for quite awhile.  That’s just as well too because time will be healing for me.  I sure as hell don’t want to drive all the way up there on Tuesday either.  So, I’m not.  I will say what comes natural when we talk next and I won’t call.  In fact, I won’t do much of anything.  We will fade away.

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Stairsteps

I’m nearly positive that she wants it to be over.  We had a terrible conversation yesterday.  We have our face-to-face on Friday night.  She still flies off the handle and gets really stern and short.  And, honestly, that she doesn’t think that she does the back and forth is truly bizarre to me, but I guess that there’s two sides to every story.  When I listen to her talk about her ex-partner (She has had two.), I can hear that break-up / make-up in it too.  However, I can’t do that.  I think and observe, and when it’s over, it’s over for me.  And I’m pretty sure that’s where I am too.

I know that I’ve written what I want.  What I don’t want is someone who can’t take me positively and from the point of what she wants.  Remember that line in “Beautiful Girls,” when the heroine from “Goonies” who is no longer a teenager says, “One makes a decision based on what one wants, not what one doesn’t want.”  I would stay with her if we could meet half-way twice a month and do couples counseling.  That’s it.  Otherwise, I don’t think that we are doing well enough to stay together.

Yesterday, I wanted to make love to her.  It sucked.  Physically, she is really consuming.  The thing is that when you have two or maybe even three kids in the house, that stuff becomes less frequent, because you’re really tired.  So, if you have that classic Avoidance-Attack pattern in the mix too, you would probably never have sex again.  So, we can choose at the six-month mark to work through our large problems with someone who we pay or we can bounce.

I’m at that point where the push and pull for me is more part and parcel of my grief.  I’m reasonably sure that we can’t do anything about our problems without getting an outside perspective.  I just miss her a ton and remember all the good that we had the first three-months that we were together, and I think that if she was more solid about me, we’d have more.

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Day 2

Well, last night she texted.  She told me that I was being sterile and basically forcing her into my definition of “space.”  I don’t know what else taking space and time is.  But, I did text back and told her how sad and furious I was.  Then, this morning, we actually spoke, and I read her my e-mail.  She was quiet.  She always is when I express tons of emotion and when I ask her what her reaction is she always says the same thing, “I’m listening.  I do that a lot.”  The implication is that I don’t.

So, I did leave her a VM tonight which is unacknowledged right now wishing her and her son goodnight and good sleep.  My own son is not here again and my house feels so empty.  My nanny had a conflict and I don’t have two anymore and I can’t take tomorrow off because it is required day to get paid.  My father can take him in tomorrow for me and I’m grateful to have their help.  My Mom will make him a proper breakfast that I never have time to do because I have to be in my office by 7.  Honestly, it will be good when next week comes and I have a full week of work and some space of my own back into my typical routine.

I think it’s just the assumptions that have made me so pissed.  She says that she just wants me to tell her things without asking questions, but usually what it amounts to is that she tells me how I am.  I am fairly open.  Not completely open, but it is a derivative of trusting her so fully and then having to pick of the pieces of my heart in Jan and Feb.  March helped me sort it all out myself.  I’m sorted.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m still in love with her, but I don’t want all these conclusions about me to be drawn without simply first asking me how I feel or why I reacted the way that I did.  She thinks that she is the expert on everyone who she knows and that just isolates people.

It is interesting to me that after I told her that my e-mail was full of rage and I read it to her that my anger mostly subsided.  Then after my own real therapy session (Meaning one that I pay for.) was over, I felt pretty good.  I still miss the way that she smells and feels and our intimacy.  I don’t miss her assumptions and the way that I feel like she sees me.  Also, I am not sure that although she doesn’t want to be alone (She admitted this to me today.) that anyone will ever meet her standards or simply be good enough for her.

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Day 1

Won’t it be funny and a good therapeutic exercise to post days after being newly single?  I think so.  So, after the shitty convo I left three messages (not psycho dialing), but with HeyTell, and that’s all that I wrote.  I’m good.  I got a love letter last night.  I was at the Club.  I had a good time with my friends too.  I’m not going to respond.  Actually, I did already and some of it was really sarcastic.  I just didn’t send it.  I’m not impulsive.  I’m not going to send it either.  She and her best friend have a “pet theory” about me.  Just goes to show that when she fills in the gaps and is the expert on me that she doesn’t know anything.  Here is something that I wrote in the e-mail that I didn’t send.  I like it.

“You seem to have me all figured out.  It’s not a charitable view of me either.  I don’t approach you like this, and I’m looking for a woman who takes me for what I am.

All your love?  WTF does that mean?  If this is how you talk about your loved ones, then I really don’t get it.  I just don’t.  I’m not sure what our future holds.”

I guess that I’m in the Anger stage of grief right now.  It’s because she can be cruel.  Tori Amos says, “Don’t give me respect.  Don’t give me a piece of your preciousness.”  And it’s not.  Her terms of endearment are for everyone and she says, “I love you,” to people that she freely talks shit about.  It’s like my local BFF told me once, “Don’t ever assume that people are any different with you as they are with others you see them with.”  Got it.

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Done and done

Bad to do it via phone, but as I have had a break up text a couple of days shy of three months ago, and an awful weekend exchange that lead to semi-hiatus at the beginning of February, this worked for me.  I can’t.  Just can’t.  It’s like there is this approach to me as if I have all these weaknesses and drawbacks that makes it awful to be around me, and that is not partner connection.  There is overt and covert aggression too.  I can’t navigate her moods and don’t want a friendship right now either.  I’m just going to fade.  We may have just been a six-month thing.  It is too bad that the first three-months were so good.  They were.

But, she doesn’t do holidays well at all or does she seem to stay connected with me through tough times.  I don’t want that.  I’m glad that I see my psychologist on Monday.  I want to tie this up as neatly as I am able.  It is definitely good to be able to reflect and move on.  In particular, it is good when I have as much free time as I do coming up in two months.  Back to the drawing board and getting closer to finding what I really want.  I think that I learn more each time that I date and what works for me.  This particular instance could be attributable to bad timing, but I think that I still like a softer sort of approach to everything in life.

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Learning to listen

So, maybe I don’t listen fully.  I think that I have been rendered so much on the defensive–honestly, it’s like warding off blows–that I’m probably just talking to deflect.  I know that I’m not a bully though.  That is complete shit.

I have this book on keys to a strong and loving marriage, and I think that I do a lot of the things in it that are good, but I obviously don’t listen enough to her.  That seems to be her strongest complaint.  That I’m selfish and don’t listen or do I respond to her needs is what she says when she is telling me why she is not sure that she wants to invest any time in it.  There are these A’s that you can follow when you have a chronically angry partner.  They are to agree, apologize, and then add.  So, it would look like this I think, “I can follow through on making sure that I have tied up loose ends that I promised this weekend.  I’m sorry that I didn’t make it a priority.  I felt like I would get around to it, but things were so shaky in January and February that I went remote.”

I think that it’s hard to listen well all the time.  However, I do want to give this a fair shot over the next two months.  I do love her.  I don’t know if we can or if she would even like to do so.  I can’t control her, but would like to see if we can rebuild our foundation and get back to what’s important, which is simply loving each other.