lately, every day has been either bad or numb

it gets difficult, finding ways to deal. or to avoid dealing. it's not easy to explain and I talk to very few people about it, when I talk to anyone at all.
art works, as long as I'm inspired. I'm able to lose myself for a while in creation and beauty. drawing, painting, sewing, crafting ... it all helps. but I can't do that all the time. I go to work and just exist. sometimes I'm happy when I'm with friends, but it's usually only fleeting. at some point I'll want to cry, unless I'm keeping myself occupied with art.
friday, in the dinghy, anu driving us in circles: I lay at the bottom of the boat, staring up at the clouds, and I missed my mom. and I started to cry. I don't think anu noticed, but I felt it for hours afterwards.
It's so hard for me to believe that she's gone.
I had no idea what a loss like this could feel like until it happened to me. I feel it all the way through my ribcage. I sob into my pillow but it doesn't feel like it does anything. I keep holding back. I don't know how to stop holding back anymore.
I hate these quiet, lonely break-downs.

it's a simple thing emeht elpmis a s'ti

I write haikus about the things I miss about you. I say 5, 7, 5 to find new ways to describe it. remember when we were first dating and frustrated by the lack of ways to explain what we thought about each other? remember how we turned to the thesaurus? I wrote about it. you read it. all those months ago.
I feel that now. it's the subtlety between mist and fog. it's something that seems to be one thing but is, in fact, another. it's needing so many different ways to tell you how I feel so that you can ignore more easily how I feel by my using multiple ways to express it.
like when I tell you that you're cute: I miss you
when I call you Face: I miss you
when I say "meowmers": I miss you
when I laugh: I miss you
when I cry: I miss you
when I talk: I miss you
when I breathe: I miss you
when I open my eyes: I miss you
when I sleep: I miss you
when I'm laying in bed: I miss you
when I'm at work: I miss you
when I'm petting my cat: I miss you
when I'm telling you about these things: I miss you
whenever. where ever. I miss you.

all my actions still involve the thought of you. when I take a shower, I imagine you there with me, hands about to wrap around my waist. when I go food shopping, I think about what you'd want or like. all day I think about things to talk to you about. I try to memorize moments so I can tell you about them later. I wish you were excited about me the way I've always been excited about you. you said you don't feel goofy or giddy about me. but I feel that way about you. I wish you could let go of whatever binds you to yourself. I can see you as more than you are [and here again is my fatal flaw but that which is also my salvation: my ability to see the potential of others to the point that I cannot see the present]. just let go.

let go of the things that first put you there. first set you down and walked away. let go of all the coping mechanisms. please, I would do anything for you.
I feel so at peace with you.
You feel right for me, to me. I wish you could feel that about me too. I hope I can wait long enough for you to come around. I hope you do.
But I hope you don't read this because I don't want you to be scared away. Do you still keep up with me? though we're not dating anymore, do you still read these posts? the only difference between then and now is I don't feel as hopeful anymore.

what's the difference for you?

what can we do?

you know where the meandering ends? I can't see it. draw me a picture.

writing works so nicely in conjunction with music. the feeling flows into me, stirs what has settled, and helps it pour out in the form of words.
I told you I'd miss you, and a few weeks ago you would have tenderly replied, "I'll miss you, too." instead you just kind of laughed and I quickly moved onto our goodbyes before it got awkward.
thing is, I don't know if you would have felt awkward. this is so straightforward to you, on the surface of what you let yourself acknowledge. you care about me, so you call me. but who else do you call? who else do you talk to even half as often as you talk to me? not your best friends, dear. they didn't know about me but I knew all about them.
longevity a relationship does not make.
I mean, you know that.
I know it from first hand experience. A 14 year friendship gone because of what? I don't even know. Because I spewed out how I felt instead of taking the time to explain it.
summer to summer and all throughout it, my heart has been slowly crumbling. you held it together for a while, but it's inevitable that it would eventually get back to decaying.
the things that keep me alive aren't for me. they are for other people. I stay alive for my sister, and for my roommate, because of how awful things would be for them if I died. I stay alive because I don't want people to feel guilty for having killed me with neglect. I stay alive because I don't want to hurt anyone. even though it's hurting me.
sometimes I'm a little jealous of my mom. she finally got to escape her pain. no more walking backwards down the stairs because she couldn't bend her knee. no more swollen ankles. no more hoarse throat or missing voice. no more acid reflux. no more coughing. no more aching joints, or puckered scars, or pins through bone. no more experimental shots or handfuls of pills just to gain some relief. sometimes I hope to get sick just so I can die. so that I can die guilt-free. so everyone will have something to blame it on other than themselves.
I have lost so much this past year. people that I never expected to lose. what more can I possibly do that I haven't already done? nothing. there's nothing.
I reach out and nothing grasps my hand.
I reach out and am silently slapped away.
I didn't know that being true to myself would make so many people turn away. it's too late now. there is no retribution.

like always, this has taken a different turn. I miss my brother, and my mother, and my lover. I miss my former best friends and former good friends, and former long-term acquaintances.
I've done what I could do. if it isn't enough, then it ceases to be my problem. I can't give people what I don't know they need. I tried telling my niece that. "You need to tell people what you need and what you feel, because they can't read your mind. even the things that seems so obvious to you aren't that way to other people."

I'm so tired of being sad.
everything is in the process of change. I have so many major adjustments to make. people say that we are never given what we can't handle. I disagree. people cease handling their shit all the time. that's a break down. that's a suicide.

I just don't want to hurt anyone.

I just want everyone to be alright.

I'm trying to remember again how to be alone.

why couldn't you stay?

one of my library friends came over tonight and brought me cake. I walked her downstairs and before she left, she asked if she could pray for me. I said yes, so she took my hand and spoke a prayer.
I got that feeling in my chest that I used to get when I would ... well ... when I would have spiritual encounters. When I talked to dru after he died. when I would use visualization as a way to heal people or myself. it's a kind of lifting. a lightness, but still full-feeling. it was really nice.
I don't believe in god, but I do believe in the healing power of faith, whatever that faith may be. I believe in visualization. I believe that if you can convince yourself that something will happen and see that it already has happened, then it will.

This goes back to shiny, now. I think one of the reasons that the break up has been so hard for me is because I did visualize us as together. it faltered sometimes. I doubt myself. I doubt others. I lose my confidence. but I had convinced myself that this was going to work. that's what happened with ex-otter, too. I thought we would be together til death. I thought that the shit we were going through in the present would eventually not matter because we would work it out in the future.

for so long I was the one that did the breaking-up. for so long, I was the one that didn't really try hard enough. now that I am, I'm discovering how it must have felt for those people to whom I said goodbye. of course, the last laugh is always on me because when I want to get back in contact with them, they refuse.
I want to look forward and see something. I want to regain that sense of fullness that I felt when that prayer was said. I want to really feel like things will be ok. I want my mom to not be dead. I want shiny to come home to me.
I had such wonderful fantasies. so many plans.
it doesn't matter now. they go the way of all my past dreams. soon I won't remember them. soon it will just be journal entries to read over. five months isn't very long. I was looking forward to it being so much longer.
I was looking forward to our life.
the problem is that he didn't see it the way that I did.
the problem is that he wasn't ready, but I was.

just sayin'

sometimes I'm glad he left, but mostly I want him back, and always, always, always do I miss him.

it hurts so much because, in my mind, we had such a quiet and beautiful future. simple, supportive, nurturing, honest. but I don't think he was entirely honest with me. I don't anymore. and I know there were things he wasn't telling me. otherwise this would not have come as such a shock.
I thought I was being paranoid, thinking he would break up with me, so I put it out of my head. that's nothing new. I frequently fear for the worst and then talk myself down. this isn't a matter of ignoring my gut. it's that there are some times when I know I'm right and other times where I'm not sure. probably because the other person isn't sure. he wasn't sure. he thinks he is now, though.
he is stubborn. so stubborn. not as bad as others. but when there is something where his mind is made up- then it's hard to change it. life hurt less when I was the one calling the shots. but you open yourself up to others and you invite the risk of damage. I love him. I want him. but there's nothing else for me to do.
and if he reads this, I think he'll shake his head (even if not externally, then the feeling that motion expresses will be felt). I am a lost cause. I am a romantic. I believe there is someone for me. maybe I made myself believe it was him. maybe there are many people for me. I seem to be going down the list. maybe the next one will stick.
I don't want to go back to how I was before I met him. I don't want to sleep around and use others to validate my existence. I was happy with shiny. I liked our monogamy. I liked the security. I liked feeling like me again. I liked just being me.
I liked not feeling like a predator.
trying hard now, consciously, to continue to be that way. the truth is that I still don't think there's anyone for me in this city. I'm not looking anymore. not anywhere. in providence or boston or online. I found who I wanted. now there's just waiting for this sensation to go away.
how long will it take?
I don't know. it's an equation with no answer. impossible to predict.

please come back to me.

stressed distress, doesn't stress any less. just follow through and fall.

went to my bed at 9pm last night. read for an hour, then wrote an email to buttercup. he rarely replied when we were on good terms. why would he start now?
woke up earlier than I'd like today. hurt my shoulder doing nothing. wrote an email to shiny. expressed my concern with him basing the future of our relationship on the past stress-filled month. I'm sure it's more than that. but what about all the promises we made to each other for better communication? what about everything?
I don't know. maybe I ask for too much.
I don't know how to make things better when I don't know what's wrong.
I don't know what to do with myself.
life doesn't feel real anymore. this is a slow-motion crash. I'm not crying myself to sleep every night or crying myself awake. this is a more mature sort of suffering. this is a longer-reaching loss. as much as I loathe to admit it, it was good that ex-otter left me. maybe not the way he did, or how he treated me afterwards, but we weren't really right for each other.
what about shiny?
I mean, if he doesn't think we are then we must not be. it takes the decision of two.
in my brain, we mostly are. in his brain, the part that isn't right for each other trumps the part that is.
I prefer a majority rule. there's no such thing as unanimous when it comes to love. there's always a piece that doesn't fit. there's always something that rubs. the trick is to be aware of it and to let the other person know, too. that's my philosophy. the trick is to stick with it.
I just want this out in the open. maybe we shouldn't be together. ok. but I'd prefer it if we were.
and maybe this will take a long time.
I'm so sad. I don't know what to do.
I understand more than I admit.
There are so many things that can't be acknowledged right now.
I just need my piece of comfort. right now I have so little.

I miss him. so much.

I remain

try to hide how broken you are. just do it. just try.
I want to be angry, but I can't. I'm just sad. deeply, deeply sad and let down. heart-broken is the wrong word. heart-sore. sorrowed.
everything is so disappointing.
just sad. not enough words for it. not enough depressed sounds. not enough emptiness. nothing with the right kind of hollowness. nothing so that I can explain this rotten tree trunk space in my chest.
I have to stop myself from talking about him. I'd grown so accustomed to it. "shiny this" and "shiny that" and "shiny and I." future plans, past events, hopes, anecdotes, happiness, excitement.

I don't feel much about anything right now. put on your brave face. put on your game face. don't show anyone how you really feel. don't let anyone know how much it hurts.

purge my world of him.
why does this feel so wrong?

writing as processing

I want to write you away. pour the poison out through my finger tips. type away my sorrow. dead mom was too big for me to express, but this break-up is just the right size to feel. it's just the right size to immediately hurt.
dead mom left me in shock, like a broken bone. shiny's like a paper cut. initial numbness followed by pain that seems too big for the size of the wound. a clean cut. swift blood.
and when I see the looks of sympathy, I say, "I got dumped yesterday" and people are outraged. there is no good time to get broken up with, it's true, but there are definitely times that suck less than others. I am so hurt, and I miss him, but I haven't tried to contact him.
this is new to me.
in the past, with every single break up, no matter who initiated it, I have tried to talk and talk and talk to the person. I just don't see the point this time.
What amazes me about the past month [the death of my mom, my brother ceasing communication, and shiny leaving me] is that I still have not been as broken up as I was when dru died and ex-otter left me. however, I think that that situation gave me callouses that are now allowing me to survive the shit I'm wading through now. if I hadn't had to go through that hell, then I think right now I would be drowning or dead.
more than anything right now, I am hurt. I feel like I was finally doing things in what I perceived to be the "right" way, and I still got fucked. maybe that's why I don't have anything to say this time; I've already said it all to him, as it happened. finally.

headache.
I would have done anything for him, if he had just asked.
the problem is that he never gave me the chance.
like so many others, and like I used to do, he waited until it was too late.

and all my communication? what did it do? nothing except clear my conscience of blame.

I can write about this. I still can't write about my mom.

this is going to be such a long fucking road to walk alone.

is it a good sign that I don't even want to write to tell you these things?

I hope you sleep easy tonight now that you've gotten rid of me.
you kept yourself up, didn't eat, made yourself sick and tired. but you didn't tell me.
I hope you can put your life back into its accustomed order now: the one I so blithely disrupted. you can be alone with your computer and books. you can lift weights whenever you want. you have no one to answer to; no calls to make.
now your weekends are free and you can eat how you like. pump protein and take long bike rides. I won't be there to distract you. you're the winner in this situation.
feels like I'm the one with all the loss.
probably because I was the one with the investment.
I was done with dating once I met you.
now I guess I'm done with everyone.

haven't eaten. can't sleep. headaches, stomach aches. you took your affliction and made it mine.

I can't imagine you crying.
I can't imagine you crying over me.

I feel sick.

you've gained everything. me? I lost it all.

just pain.

he said he doesn't feel silly and excited about me. I said that the nature of relationships change as we get older. he still leaves me.
I told him he's an asshole. he says he knows.
but I don't really think he is. I think he's broken. I said that, too. he's broken and doesn't even recognize it. I said that at least I know how I'm fucked up. and at least I'm working on it.
I said that relationships are hard, that they are never easy. he said he can't get close to people. it takes a long time. I said I know. I do know. but I opened up myself and trusted him. he was the only one I cried on. he was the only one I could talk to about anything. I finally felt comfortable.
he said he's comfortable with his friends. they're like his sisters. I guess he's not comfortable with me.
I hate this and I don't understand it. he doesn't love me like I love him. I told him that he loves me like people love kittens. you look at them and you love them, but it's not really love.
why didn't he just take the chances he had before to leave me? why'd he have to wait until now? or why could he not have waited longer, until after my mom's wake?
c'mon, shiny.
how selfish can you get?

still not awake.

I want to cut myself into pieces. one by one they leave -- mother, brother, lover.
I feel nothing in between my crying fits. just empty and confused and feeling like I'm the butt of some horrible joke. like the universe wants to see how much shit it can pile on me before I collapse. before I kill myself. I don't know.
my strength wavers. I do nothing. won't give it the satisfaction.
I guess this is just about survival now. this isn't living: it's just not dying.
I was happy with him.
I thought I'd reached the end of my search. but he says he can't imagine a happy future together. he says that breaking up with me feels wrong, but not as wrong as staying with me.
I hate this. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.
I hate the pointlessness. I hate how I can't imagine finding anyone else as close to perfection as he is. I hate that I even feel that way.
my friend asks, "can you be single for a while?" and I reply, "of course. I don't want to date anyone other than him. That's what makes this suck more. I was really happy with him."
I thought I'd found my happy ending, but really it was just an ellipse between stories. Can't stop reading over the last chapter. don't want to turn the page.
I don't want to see how the story ends.

it's just the way it is

tired. not "bone-tired" or anything so trite. Just tired. sleep-deprived. bored with dealing with life. nothing matters right now. nothing feels like it matters.
late to work. some tiny inner part of me cares but most of me says "so what?"
tiny twinges of guilt worm their way to my brain, saying "hey. you used to give a damn."
some day I will again. just not today.
trying hard not to draw myself into a shell. trying hard to stay in touch with things. difficult when people don't reach through my defenses to touch me. difficult when they take me at face value.
let's just say -- I have no face. everything seen is a lie.
I am so angry. I feel nothing. I am so angry. nothing matters.
try to find the root of the cause.
dead mom trumps everything.
dead mom wins the hand.