Choosing The Price You Pay

It's difficult for me to say if my uncle was an introvert or an extrovert. Sadly, I can't ask him now. He did like to spend his time alone, would spend days at the lake, just drifting along in his boat. He loved living out in the country where he could be alone with the stars. But he also had many friends. Not just acquaintances, but people who were close to him. The sister of a friend of his came from 10-12 hours away, so she could help us out while he was in hospice, cooking us food, just being a shoulder to cry on. In those last years of his life, he had a hard time keeping up with all the people he wanted to talk to, between treatments and just being sick and tired, but he tried. 

I am not my uncle, however. I sit solidly in the introvert camp. Being around groups of people drain me. Even being around just a few people can be draining after a while. As the Professor, Ginger, and I plan on moving in together before our first child comes, I know that I will have to lock myself away in my room from time to time, veg out for hours to recharge when I need to. I'm glad we found a place where I won't have to share my bedroom with anyone, even my child. 

I have a few close friends. Two female friends who live in the metro, who I talk to more on facebook chat than anything else. Moneypenny lives four hours away, who I text with a few times a week (maybe) and try to see once a month. TyRoy spends his weeks 2 hours away and his weekends in the metro with his new wife, who I don't get to see very often because of our schedules and who I really should email more often. Occasionally, I'll talk or text with MP, more since I've been pregnant and he's concerned about how I'm doing. That's about it. Here and there, I will text with acquaintance-type people, but that's about it. It isn't a very large group.

I've tried branching out. Last fall, I tried to get out in the bdsm community as well as date through online sites. While I met many nice and fun people, nothing serious came of it. I stopped dating altogether just before I found out I was pregnant and then I stopped going to bdsm community events when my work hours changed and I started dealing with being pregnant. I was very overwhelmed and really retreated from more casual acquaintances, rather than have to expend more emotional energy on anything else. 

In the last few months, once I started to get adapted to this new 2nd shift schedule, I tried once again to find people that I could connect with through online sources. I was really lonely when I got off work, since none of my current friends are usually awake when I get off work. I just wanted someone to talk to, like you would with any friend after a long, tiring day. But I wanted someone who I had things in common with, who it was easy for me to talk to, who I didn't feel like I was always justifying my life to. I wanted someone it was easy to chat with, just like how it feels when you strike up a friendship with someone in any other context. But just like when I was dating last fall, I don't really have the emotional energy or the time in my life to expend on people I don't feel are a good fit for what I'm looking for. I know that sounds incredibly dismissive of other people and maybe it is. On the other hand, during neither period of time did I think that the people I chose not to have relationships with were not worthy people, in and of themselves. Even the people I had the worst dates with or the worst correspondences with still have good qualities and should have friends and romantic/sexual partners who they connect with. Hell, if I had unlimited time, unlimited emotional energy, and wasn't an introvert, I may have had successful friendships or other relationships with them. But I don't and we didn't. And, as much as I don't want to rob others of their own ability to choose to be in my life, I do feel like it is better for them to spend time with and on people they have a chance of a friendship or relationship with, instead of someone who probably won't be able to give them what they are looking for, or at least not for very long before she had to disappear again.

The older I get, the more I see the prices you have to pay for things, the trade-offs that have to happen. One of the big things you learn in DBT is radical acceptance, which is acknowledging how things actually are in this moment, so you can stop struggling with how it shouldn't be like this and start dealing with how it actually is. That means realizing your limitations and the limitations of the situation you are in, so you can either work within that or change how you see the situation. It's where you start to make the trade offs that you have to make to be an effective, not crazy adult. 

Sometimes, it means being selfish, knowing how much you have to give and only giving that to the most important people and things in your life, even when there are other people or things that are just as worthy or deserving. Sometimes, it means hurting other people's feelings, because they want to be someone you take a chance on, just like they are ready to take a chance on you. Sometimes, it means passing up a lot of opportunities, especially ones that you don't think are sure things, for ones you do feel more confident of, only to have those blow up in your face. Sometimes, it means being picky. Sometimes, it means being seen as a bitch or stuck up or difficult. 

And sometimes it means realizing that you'd rather be lonely because the price you'd have to pay to not be lonely is higher than the price you pay being lonely. 

There's one of those cliched self-help sayings that says that a person won't change until the pain they feel to stay the same is greater than the fear they have of the change they'd have to make, or the pain of making that change. For myself, this has definitely been true. I didn't put in the hardwork to change my life until the pain of that life was greater than my fear or change and the pain I worried I'd experience if I changed. Right now, I have to acknowledge that I'm not there in dealing with this loneliness. And I accept that I am actively making this choice. I'm not acting like there are no good people out there, for friendship or romance or sex. I'm not acting like there are not awesome people who would take a chance on me. I'm not saying that none of this makes me come off as a kinda shitty or difficult person, or even that I'm not those things. Just that I'm not willing to make this trade off. At least not right now.

On Being a Shitty Friend

I am a shitty friend. I try not to ask too much from the people that I give too little to, to make up for this fact.

It is not that I don't know how to be a good friend. It is that I don't have enough space in my head or energy in my body to give it to more than a few people at any given time. This means that, for the most part, I choose to give my time and energy to those I'm closest to and, selfishly, who give the most back to me, which usually means the people I'm romantically involved with. Even when I'm doing really well and I have more open time, I seem to only manage to see anyone about once a month. When I'm not doing well... well, you can just forget seeing me. Oh, and I don't go to parties or group gatherings. The few exceptions are when I'm going for or with people that I'm romantically involved with.

I am not always there for the people I care about when I should be, or when they ask me to. Sometimes I don't know how to be. Sometimes I don't have the energy to be. Sometimes I'm sure it seems like I'm selfish. Sometimes I am.

Sometimes I get a brief window in which I have the time and energy and head space to do what I think makes me be a good friend. But sometimes you end up doing what makes them think you are a shitty friend, even shittier than before.

I hope you are not too mad at me, or that with time you might stop being mad at me and see that I was trying to do what I thought was best. While I can't say I know exactly what you are going through, I have felt hopeless and had a friend stop me from doing the only things that would actually take all hope away. Hell, I've had the same friend do it on multiple occasions. I know what it feels like to think that the world is better off without you or that you are better off without the world and not care what it is like without you. But I've also been at the funerals of two people who committed suicide, seen firsthand the toll that it took on one of those people I am a shitty friend to. There have been times that that thought was a large part of what kept me not doing the same. Even if your family is horrible, there is someone in your life who doesn't deserve that. When speaking philosophically, I don't feel like anyone should get to tell a person that they must continue living an intolerable life. When it is a terminal physical disease, I'm the first to argue for their right to end their life with as much dignity as possible, at the moment of their chosing. But mental illnesses are not so clear cut and, especially when it comes to someone I know, I have a much more difficult time giving up the hope that their life can be better. Though maybe that is because if I do that, then I can start letting myself give up hope that my life can be better. And without that hope, I am lost.

So today I'll be a shitty friend.

"All of my change I spent on you"

What bugs me
Is that you believe what you're saying
What bothers me
Is that you don't know how you feel
What scares me
Is that while you're telling me stories
You actually
Believe that they are real - "As Is" Ani DiFranco

Sometimes i think this cycle never ends
We slide from top to bottom and we turn and climb again
And it seems by the time that i have figured what it's worth
The squeaking of our skin against the steel has gotten worse.

But if i move my place in line i'll lose.
And i have waited, the anticipation's got me glued.

I am waiting for something to go wrong.
I am waiting for familiar resolve.

Sometimes it seems that i don't have the skills to recollect
The twists and turns of plots that turned us from lovers to friends
I'm thinking i should take that volume back up off the shelf
And crack it's weary spine and read to help remind myself

But if i move my place in line i'll lose.
And I have waited, the anticipation's got me glued.

I am waiting for something to wrong
I am waiting for familiar resolve
I am waiting for another repeat
Another diet fed by crippling defeat
And i am waiting for that sense of relief
I am waiting for you to flee the scene
As if you held in your hand the smoking gun
And on the floor lay the one you said you loved.

And it's strange
They are basically the same
So i don't ask names anymore.

Sometimes i think this cycle never ends
We slide from top to bottom and we turn and climb again
And it seems by the time that i have figured what it's worth
The squeaking of our skin against the steel has gotten worse.

The squeaking of our skin against the steel has gotten worse - "Expo '86" Death Cab for Cutie

So I know that a lot of people are not going to get why I'm so mad. The Professor even gave voice to this earlier this week: "It's not like he cheated on you." Well, no it's not. You cheated on a (very very nice and amazing and lovely) woman you'd known for a year who you were already feeling like it was over with because you couldn't fall in love with her. But you broke a promise to and lied to your best friend, who's been in your life for 13 years and who's lived through you doing this multiple times, with you promising that you've changed after each time. The person who let you work your way back from all of those trust deficits only to have you do this same thing. Though at least you had the good sense not to involve me in the cheating part this time, even if that would have been pretty hard since I set up several safe guards against that. The other difference is that she, amazingly, seems to be willing to try to work through this with you and forgive you and help you change, whereas I'm not sure I am this time.

I hear the tiniest sparks in the tenderest sound. 
Diving music, drowning the sound. 
waltzing with the hairs upon my arms. 
And your final flight alarm, and you tremble, and you stumble, and you scrape up your palms. 
I can't stay here to hold your hand. 
I've been away for so long. 
I've lost my taste for home, and that's a dirty fallow feeling.
To be the dangling ceiling. 
From the roof came crashing down. 
Peeling in the heat.
Vanish in the rain.
The next time you say forever, I'll punch you in your face. 
Just because you don't believe it, doesn't mean I didn't mean it.
You never know when I'll show you the never.
You never know when I'll show you the never.-"The Next Time You Say Forever" Neko Case

Last time this happened, I felt like we worked through a bunch of shit, both with each other and that you were able to see things that you might not have liked but that you needed to see, that maybe you needed someone else to see with you so that you couldn't just ignore it anymore. Even though I wasn't sure that enough had been done, I thought that maybe at least you wouldn't repeat the same things in the same way as before. And I would have warned off this girlfriend if I had thought that you would do the same thing over again. But all that work seems to have been for nothing. Now you feel like you are really actually ready to make changes because this time the hurt in other people was enough to push you to really change, to really grow up and be a man. But it's the same old story I've heard again and again. Last time, I told you that if you just owned this as who you are, I could probably just accept that. I could put that label under your name along with all the other things I know about you, good and bad, and act and expect accordingly. But you didn't. You refused to believe that that was who you are. And now I'm not sure I'm willing to or will even be able to work back from the trust deficit this time or to accept that I just can't trust to tell the truth in matters such as these, ever. The Therapist pointed out that it appears that I had moved from criticism to contempt, criticism being "I don't hate this thing you do" and contempt being "I hate this thing you are." or "I hate you for being this thing that you are." Yep, that about sums it up.

I'm at a payphone trying to call home
All of my change I spent on you
Where have the times gone? Baby, it's all wrong
Where are the plans we made for two?

If "Happy Ever After" did exist,
I would still be holding you like this
All those fairy tales are full of shit
One more fucking love song, I'll be sick.-"Payphone" Maroon 5


There's another thing that's been bugging me though and it might sound petty. One of the times that we overhauled our past romantic relationship and talked about why we didn't work, you said that you couldn't be with someone that you didn't trust to make, if not the same decision that you would make, to consistently make a decision that you would be ok with. Back in December, by which time you'd already cheated on her, I remember expressing my frustration to TyRoy about the fact that I felt like you might have actually found someone who was that kind of a person, someone who could make all the practical household things work, even if she wasn't as deep and philosophical as you might have hoped your long-term partner to me. When I told him about that whole "decision" thing, the divorced man scoffed, "No one is ever going to be able to do that. Everyone is going to make decisions you don't agree with or like." Ginger's response when I had told her about your statement was about how I feel, especially after having been in this relationship, "The best you can hope for is that they make decisions you can live with and, when really back, can come back from." But this belief of yours, that I can't be trusted to consistently make good decisions, has seeped into my beliefs about myself. Looking back, I can remember that each time I've met someone knew after you, I took pains to express how much this was true, how I wasn't actually a very good person or even a very moral person. That was because I knew you and you believed you to be this paragon of virtue. A 'virgin' who didn't drink and had never even wanted to try drugs, who'd been a 'good kid' and never stolen or cheated or lied. (Well, except when you did, which I always seemed to conveniently forget about.) Next to you, my wanton hedonism and habit of doing the exactly what I knew those I loved would disapprove of most demonstrated my complete immorality. And obviously that my decision-making was not to be trusted.

But you are the one who blew up your relationship, who hurt a good woman who you've been using these past 4 months or so to prop up you and your ego while you went through your seasonal depression, even though you felt like there was no future and you had promised her that you'd let her go if/when you felt like that. It is you who lies. It is you who can't be trusted to make the right decisions. I took pains to set up almost all of our interactions so that nothing inappropriate would happen, hanging out so much with your girlfriend present, that you stayed at my house with my people and not with us alone at my parents' house like we usually would, not laying with my head on your shoulder when being comforted because our faces are too close and I know what generally happens when that happens, setting up extreme punishments for myself from Professor if I did anything inappropriate with or to you. I feel like I took more careful considerations and pains with your relationship and monogamous fidelity than you could be bothered to. In my own relationship, with the exceptions of one thing I didn't remember us talking about and a minor freak out early on which pushed me to intentionally and flagrantly break the rules, I've not stepped outside of the boundaries of it. Those times that I have, I was quick to confess, be punished, and mercifully receive a clean slate. Though I tried to be as honest as possible about how shit of a person and a partner I could be, I have consistently been met with the same response in this relationship, "Though we appreciate your attempts to warn us, you really aren't as bad as you make yourself out to be." What makes me angry, what makes me furious, is that my relationship with you has led me to believe that I am way worse of a person than I probably am, especially because I have this false image of you and how good of a person you are. When you are not that good of a person.

I'm supposed to talk to you tonight and I want to say that I'm done. All of these things above lead me to say that I'm done.

But, after my significant others, you were the first person I wanted to tell about my interview on Monday. The person I want to share good news with first and the person I want to cry about bad news with first.

Fuck.

Yeah, I, I know it's hard to remember
The people we used to be...
It's even harder to picture,
That you're not here next to me.

You say it's too late to make it,
But is it too late to try?
And in our time that you wasted
All of our bridges burned down- "Payphone" Maroon 5

"Show Me How To Fight For Now"

Weekend with Moneypenny & his new gf, taking my cats to live with him.  Visited with friends of my uncle's,  ppl I grew up with.  Cried on the way back to Moneypenny's house from the suburb I grew up in, knowing it would never be home again.  I can't even drive by gram 's old house.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it, this brokenness inside me might start healing. Out here it's like I'm someone else, I thought that maybe I could find myself. If I could just come in, I swear I'll leave, won't take nothing but a memory from the house that built me.

But going back only tells me part of the story.  An important part but still only part. The part that is who I was and where I come from.  The part that with each mile under my wheels I'm getting farther and farther away from as I get closer to who I will be, to who I am becoming.  In many ways the person I thought I would be someday, the person I couldn't figure out why I wasn't yet when I was in my 20's. I didn't know then that what I needed was more pain, real pain not just suffering. And time. And hard work. So much more hard work. Hard work that I have to remind myself to do everyday if I can ever hope to get what I want. Well, all that and a little bit of luck.  

I also never knew that the pain would change the color of whatever joy would come. Or that all that "being an adult" that I always wanted would be so hard.  You know it's funny how freedom can make us feel contained when the muscles in our legs aren't used to all the walkin'.

But this weekend, spending time with my bestfriend and his new girl and having an amazing time, feeling that joy for him, for them, something I'm sure neither of us thought I'd ever be able to do as his ex, and thinking about Ginger and the Professor and how lucky I was to have them and how I wanted to work harder on being a better partner brought so much joy to me as I was driving home, when I heard this:

'Cause with your hand in my hand and a pocket full of soul
I can tell you there's no place we couldn't go
Just put your hand on the glass, I'm here trying to pull you through
You just gotta be strong

'Cause I don't wanna lose you now
I'm looking right at the other half of me
The vacancy that sat in my heart
Is a space that now you're home
Show me how to fight for now
And I'll tell you, baby, it was easy
Coming back here to you once I figured it out
You were right here all along

It's like you're my mirror
My mirror staring back at me
I couldn't get any bigger
With anyone else beside of me
And now it's clear as this promise
That we're making two reflections into one
'Cause it's like you're my mirror
My mirror staring back at me, staring back at me.

I just want to hold on to that joy and hope to reflect it back to the people I love.



"House that built me" Miranda Lambert
"Waste" Foster the People
"Mirror" Justin Timberlake

"I'm not a 'good man.' But I'm prepared to be an honorable one."

No I can't change my mind. I knew all the time that she'd go. That's a choice that I made long ago.*

Peeking through the blinds, I just wished he would drive away already so I could start my crying. I'm not sure if it's harder on me when he or I leave after we've had a good visit or when we part after we've been fighting. No, actually, I'm sure that it's harder when we've had a good visit, because I'm sad that we can't have that whenever we want. 

In the last two weeks, I had to say goodbye to my two bestfriends after our official holiday visits. It sucks. Of course, anytime I get to see Moneypenny or TyRoy I know that I'm going to going to have to say goodbye to them, not just "see ya later" to your friend who lives across town, but "goodbye" to someone who is hours or half a country away, who you won't see for a month or several months. Yeah, I know that this is part of the package. And, yes, I'd rather have them in my life in some capacity than not at all. But it sucks. 

It sucks especially when there was a time that you spent all your free time with this person. Because they were your significant other. But you fucked it up. There is nothing you can do about that now. No amount of acceptance makes that sting less. Especially when you're finally back in a place where you would like to be in a romantic relationship again. 

I gave in to the loneliness, but I didn't give up nothing else.**

With every step of the therapy process, I have a little mini-meltdown about the changes I'm about to make, what they might mean for me. I always started questioning if I would still be "me" if I changed this thing or if I will be becoming someone I never wanted to be. My latest meltdown was about how uncomfortable I am with each step I take closer to being an adult. I'm finally at a place where I feel I'm ready to start working a full 40 hour work week at this job and I want to so I can start saving up to get a bit more education and so I can get my car repaired or get a new-to-me car when the time comes. But I never wanted to be an adult, at least not like the adults around me, who were all trapped by the things that they did to be adults. Of course, it's silly. Just because many (most, all) adults I've known have been like that doesn't mean I will be. More importantly, my experience has been that, despite my anxiety to the contrary, I always feel better when I make these positive changes and feel like I've become more myself, with fewer encumbrances and obstacles. 

Another thing I'm working on, after months (years?) of letting my actively ignoring how unhappy I was with it or making rationalizations for why I shouldn't even try, it getting my weight and body under more of my control. I've started off by setting a small goal, hoping that when I achieve it, I'll feel more motivated to keep going and set another goal. But that is life, right? You keep setting new goal posts. With any luck, the goal posts are achievable and you are motivated to keep working. Sometimes the area the goal post is in will change. Maybe at first your goal posts will be in your career, then it will be in your personal life. But when you stop having goal posts, I would think life would become really shitty really fast because all you're doing is struggling with no light at the end of the tunnel, even if the thought of working towards something more or changing your current situation scares the crap out of you. 

My reflection, in the window when I ride, could not save us, but I swear to god I tried.**

In my DBT notebook, at the very beginning of the book, which gives the newbie an outline of what the therapy is trying to do, it lists "Assumptions about Clients with BPD and Therapy." Number 1 is that clients are doing the best they can. Number 3 is that clients need to do better, try harder, and be more motivated to change. That these things are both true at the same time, that we are doing the best we can and we need to try harder, exemplifies what this therapy is all about. With each marker I hit, I still have more to go. 

The real thing behind my mini-meltdowns is that the resulting change is in direct conflict with the story I've told myself my whole life about who I am, what I want, what I can do. Though it's getting better daily, I've always believed that I was this really shitty person, so of course I'd do really shitty things. But reading this quote below by Ta-Nehisi Coates really flipped the script for me. Though it is in a follow-up post to one about guns, it is really about who we are versus what we do (emphasis mine): 

I've been with my spouse for almost 15 years. In those years, I've never been with anyone but the mother of my son. But that's not because I am an especially good and true person. In fact, I am wholly in possession of an unimaginably filthy and mongrel mind. But I am also a dude who believes in guard-rails, as a buddy of mine once put it. I don't believe in getting "in the moment" and then exercising will-power. I believe in avoiding "the moment." I believe in being absolutely clear with myself about why I am having a second drink, and why I am not; why I am going to a party, and why I am not. I believe that the battle is lost at Happy Hour, not at the hotel. I am not a "good man." But I am prepared to be an honorable one.
This is not just true of infidelity, it's true of virtually anything I've ever done in my life. I did not lose 70 pounds through strength of character, goodness or willpower. My character and will angles toward cheesecake, fried chicken and beer -- in no particular order. I lost that weight by not fighting the battle on desire's terms, but fighting before desire can take effect.
These are compacts I have made with myself and with my family. There are other compact we make with our country and society. I tend to think those compacts work best when we do not flatter ourselves, when we are fully aware of the animal in us. 

That one line just kills me: "I am not a "good man." But I am prepared to be an honorable one." For a long time, I've told myself that who we are is what we do, that I can ignore or work past my own feeling that I'm a shitty person if I just do good things. I suppose this is in that same vein except that it doesn't say that doing good makes you good. It seems to imply that being good is not the point, in fact we aren't good, but that we rise above not being good by being aware of what we are doing and truthful with ourselves about why we are doing it. 

Of course, that means trying. Maybe I'm not prepared to be honorable quite yet, but I am prepared to keep trying. 

Where there is desire there is gonna be a flame. Where there is a flame someone's bound to get burned, but just because it burns doesn't mean you're gonna die. You've gotta get up and try, try, try***

*Mandolin Rain, Bruce Hornsby and the Range

**Almost Honest, Josh Kelley

***Try, Pink

When your best hopes and desires are scattered to the winds

I want to write. I've had a post on alcohol rattling around in my head for two weeks and another about leaving my hometown for a week. But all I can think about is you.

You as Lisbeth, girl with the Dragon Tattoo

You were found dead on Saturday, of an apparent suicide. The "life celebration" is Thursday. Your Facebook page is full of people talking about how much they loved you and how much they'll miss you.

I didn't actually know you very well. About this time last year, I attempted suicide. Like most people in that situation, I absolutely did not want to be hospitalized afterwards. And there you were. This cute little baby-dyke ball of love and energy and acceptance and welcome. And all at once you look across a crowded room to see the way that light attaches to a girl. You made me smile, just to look at you, so young and fresh and pretty. You got me to play that stupid Settlers of Catan game. You and the big guy were spots of promise at a really desperate time, when I felt like I'd fucked up the couple months of therapy that I'd been working on, felt like I'd always just end up back in the same place. Afterwards, you created a secret FB page for those of us who were in the hospital at the same time. The group even met for a few dinners, though I was only there for one. I have ended up becoming real friends with another member of the group. Though ze's moved several hours away, I still see zir whenever ze comes back to visit other friends.

Our dinners stopped when you went into an intensive in-patient program in the Large Midwestern City. You stayed there after the program was over. Through the summer, I'd see pics of you at famous locations all around the city, particularly the baseball stadium. You seemed happy. Then again, you always seemed happy, which must not have been the case, considering how we met.

But I hoped that all of us were doing better. Through FB I knew that another person had dealt with medication abuse issues and was back on zir feet. The person that I'd become friends with has found a job ze loves and likes the new city ze is living in. Though it took me until August, and two failed jobs, I finally found a job that I think I can stick with, that I really find rewarding. I finally feel like the skills from therapy are becoming second nature, not "ok, what skill should I use here?" I'm really feeling good.

I'd seen that you'd been back in the hospital a few weeks ago but you said that you were fine, no worries. But sometimes the toughest part is when we get out of the hospital. And holidays. And fall/winter.

I don't presume to tell people that they should stick it out, no matter how much they are suffering, because life is sacred, because it might get better, because of their family and loved ones. I don't know their pain and only they can say if it is bearable. I've read that 10% of major depressive disorder is treatment resistant. I have no idea what the stats are on bipolar, mood disorders, or schizophrenia. Even when medication works to treat the mental disorder, the side effects can make it difficult to continue. These are diseases. Like diabetes. Sometimes you just take some meds and are more mindful of things in your life. Sometimes they take whole parts of you.

Last June, you turned 20 days after I turned 30. Time doesn't always bring wisdom though it does bring experience. It might not have changed your mind, but I wish I could have told you a few things before you were gone. I would have told you that you might not be able to change who you are, but you can find ways to manage bad behavior. I wish I could have told you that life is both longer and shorter than you could ever imagine. It is long enough not to spend it miserable. It is long enough that you'll get more chances than you'd think. It is long enough to find and lose love over and over and over. That it feels neverending when you're watching someone go, but like the time with them went in the blink of an eye once they're gone. That hard times come and hard times go, hard times come and hard times go...just to come again. That they do go. That so much of this will pass, yes the good, but also the bad.

But I'm sure people had told you all those things before. You decided to do this. It's not my place to say you didn't do the best thing for you. Even if I did, it wouldn't change anything. So I'll put these thoughts out there, with hopes that you'll hear them and hopes that they might help someone else. Maybe me on a day when I really need them. And I'll mourn, for my loss, for your family's loss, for your friends' and lovers' loss, that half the world don't even know what they could have had. Whatever comes after this, I hope you find peace or at least reprieve.

Bonds

When I turned 15, as we walked around our local mall, my friend handed me an object wrapped in a plastic bag. My birthday present was a vhs tape, Goldfinger. "It's the best one and I wanted to start you out right," he said. I rolled my eyes. What a waste of a present, I thought. There was no way I was going to watch a movie centered on an egotistical male chauvinist. But I had a huge crush on my friend, Mike, so I didn't act too serious when I teased him about his obsession with James Bond. By the next time my birthday rolled around, not only would I have seen all the James Bond films, but I had copies I'd made of his movies and could recite the names of all the movies, in order, along with the actor who starred as Bond in each other them. Most of us, to some extent or another, will attempt to get interested in things that the people we are close to like, especially when we are crushing hard on them. I already liked movies and, what can I say, his enthusiasm helped me to see more in the movies than just some egotistical male chauvinist.

We aren't friends anymore. After high school, we drifted a bit, but it wasn't until the last time I moved back home that he stopped returning my calls and emails. I didn't realize it until just recently, but I think that all my crazy got too much for him. I understand. At least now I do. When I try to put myself in his shoes, I wouldn't want to be friends with me either, especially the me I was back then. Also, I think that our bond was probably one of proximity and lack of connection to other people as much as anything else. We didn't really fit into other groups at school. We were in honors classes together and shared some interests, like movies. I'm sure that we both wanted friends and to feel like we fit somewhere. It might have fizzled out more quickly if I hadn't been so persistent, which I only was because I thought we might get together romantically. Of course, we never did. He is gay, came out our freshman year of college. It is probably better that he ended our friendship. We had less and less in common as time went along after high school. I truly do hope he's happy and has the life that he wants. Every time I see a Bond film, I think about him. Every time a new Bond film comes out, I wonder what he thinks of it.

TyRoy is the first person I've met since him that was so into James Bond. When we were 15, Mike presented James Bond movies as the ultimate in male wish fulfillment, the toys, the cars, and most especially the women. Of course, I've since wondered how much Mike's talk functioned as a beard and how much he watched Goldfinger to see Sean Connery with his shirt off. TyRoy, however, really does love James Bond for those things, just like he pines to live Don Draper's life.

I saw the last James Bond movie with him. Because of our shared love for Bond, I was sad that we wouldn't get to see it in the theater together, as he's now on the West Coast and wouldn't be back for a trip long enough to see me until Christmastime. But as his girlfriend still lives here, he does come out here to steal some time with her whenever he has long weekends, like Thanksgiving.

And this weekend. It didn't occur to me until, on the way to the movie theater, I saw the field of flags for Veteran's Day that he'd have a long weekend this weekend, which is why he warned me that it would be hit or miss to contact him this weekend. Just before the movie started, I got an email confirming what I had suspected. He's here in this city, probably seeing it right now in fact, with his current girlfriend.

I can't say that I am not a little bit sad. In earlier emails, we'd both said that we wished we could go see it together. I thought that ours was a problem of geography, but I see now that it wasn't. It is a question of time and priorities. But it is not that I do not understand. They do not get much time together, which means that he does not get much time in which to be very happy.

During a recent conversation, TyRoy had asked me the difference between BPD people and regular people. In thinking about this, I had to frame it in terms of how I was before I had my BPD under control and now. I am sad. I miss him. That is as it should be. But I am not mad at him. I do not feel like he abandoned me. I am not crushed. My day isn't ruined. The movie isn't ruined. I do not feel like our relationship is ruined, like our bond is anything less than what it is. I know that in his shoes I'd be watching that movie cuddled up with the my significant other, my lover, taking advantage of every moment that I could get with her. I am just a little sad.

And regretful. I recently told my own Moneypenny that I would never go back in time to change anything because I know what I have now and I can't bring myself to say that I wouldn't want them, which is what that amounts to in my mind. I still wouldn't change anything. The ways in which I'm messed up are what brought me to TyRoy, so saying that I wished I had been better in the ways that might have kept us together would probably have also erased that we ever were together. And it might erase his happiness now. But I regret that I wasn't those things enough that it makes continuing to improve all the more important. You never change for the one who left. I don't want to be in the same spot, several years from now, saying that I could be watching the next Bond movie with my bestfriend, if only s/he wasn't with someone else because I was too much of a burden as a partner or a friend.

We Are What You Say by Dead Sara

You gotta sink to learn to swim
These are the rules that they teach and they want you to live
Apologies will never do and I know that way too well
Brought down by somebody else's lack of education
Shouldn't be you that it hurts
But I took all the advice that I could take
Before I thought to give up

I bet you thought I'd give up

And this is what they told me…

These are the lies you gotta believe
They'll give you everything to lose if you disagree
Apologies are over used and I'd be cutting the line way too thin
I'm aware of this bitter behavior
I lost myself somewhere I never wanted to beNow it's time to start all over - we were held to the light
But we never went blind

Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh
You can't back down kid, back down kid
Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh
You can't back out now, back out now
We are what you say
We are not what you think

Too lonely to survive the loss that was staring back with bloodshot eyes
I almost fell below the ground that I was standing on
Oh no, you said it yourself, you're disappointed
And I'm ashamed and embarrassed to say that
I was a failure, a failure
But not matter how low

Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh

You can't back down kid...back down kid
Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh

You can't back out now

Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh
You can't back down kid...back down kid
Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh
You can't back out now...back out now
We are what you say

Some Kind of Madness

I don't want this. I don't want to be less close. I don't want to not be sexual with you. I don't want to not sleep with you. I don't want to not be held by you. I don't want to not be able to touch you. I don't want to set up barriers that I don't have with other friends. Thinking about it makes me crumble. Just thinking about it already seems to be putting distance between us, distance I don't want. I don't know how to be close to you without these things. I don't even want to know at this point. I'm not sure I can will myself to want to know right now. You say that nothing has to be decided right now, that nothing between us needs to change right now, but it's all I can think about. And as I sit here alone, all I can think is that I'm never going to be held again and how I'm losing my closest relationship.

I want to not want you the way that I do, when it's not reciprocated. I want to be able to do the same things I do with my other friends, from which I don't catch feelings. I want to just be able to enjoy it. I want things to be non-confrontational for more than just one weekend. I want to not be the problem that needs to be solved.

And I want someone else. I want a lover and partner who loves me back, who has my back, and who isn't just the runner-up to you. I want to feel like I'm not alone. I want someone I don't have to feel like I'm "on" all the time with, but who can challenge me when I want it or need it. I want a dynamo in the sack and in conversation. I want someone I don't feel judged by and who I don't have to feel only wants a "better" me. I want to find someone who wants me that I think is worth wanting.

I wish I felt less like this:

The XX-Chained: I watched you breathe in and I wished you'd stop, only for long enough, long enough. It's hard to say, separate or combine. I ask you one last time, Did I hold you too tight? Did I not let enough light in? If a feeling appears, If your mind should sway, It's not a secret you should keep. I won't let you slip away. We used to be closer than this. We used to be closer than this. We used to get closer than this. Is it something you missed? Winged or chained, I ask you would you have stayed? Did I hold you too tight? Did I not let enough light in?

And more like this:

Muse-Madness: I can't get these memories out of my mind and some kind of madness has started to evolve. I tried so hard to let you go, but some kind of madness is swallowing me whole. I have finally seen the light, and I have finally realized what you mean. And now, I need to know is this real love or is it just madness keeping us afloat? And when I look back at all the crazy fights we had, like some kind of madness was taking control. And now I have finally seen the light, and I have finally realized what you need. And now I have finally seen the end and I'm not expecting you to care, but I have finally seen the light. I have finally realized I need to love. Come to me. Trust in your dream. Come on and rescue me. Yes I know, I can be wrong. Maybe I'm too headstrong. Our love is madness.

Oh, wait, no that guy wants a reconciliation too. I thought that what he realized what that ze would be better off without him and their fucked up relationship, but obviously not. What the fuck is it with all this music? Can I not find a song where people are just happily broken up? I really didn't think I'd still feel like I was in a perpetual state of trying to get over you after...what? 6? 7 years? Gods, this shit is getting so fucking old. Even I hate how what a whiny emo bitch I'm being at this point. And if getting under someone else really got you over someone, well, then I should be long over you. 

Everybody Leaves

I can't seem to help other people without also digging into my own life, my own past, my own motivations, my own soul. In our current situation, where everyone keeps asserting that I did nothing wrong, even the person who did me wrong asserts it, it would seem like it would only be that person who's soul would be laid bare, but I can't help him, help us, if I don't understand him, and I can't understand him until I grasp the differences between us. 

One of the big issues in this whole thing is lying. Look, I've watched enough soap operas and tv dramas to know the reasons that people lie. But on a personal level, it's much more difficult for me to understand. Maybe it's because I am so familiar with those soap operas and tv dramas and I know what the results are of lying and secret-keeping. 

For those who don't know, I've been struggling with mental illness for as long as I can remember. What sticks out most in my mind is the sadness. From the time I was 12 or so, I remember that, unless I was secretly reading under the covers, I cried every night. I felt like I couldn't tell anyone. I knew that when I cried but couldn't explain why, hell even when I could explain why, I was told to get it together, that I was being too emotional, looked at like a freak. As if I didn't already have enough that made me feel like a freak. But I longed to tell someone. I played out the conversation over and over again in my mind. When my uncle and I had to share a room when my family visited, I laid awake at night going over and over what I would tell him when I woke him up and told him how overwhelmingly sad I was all the time. I never did though. 

I was never very good at keeping secrets or having much of a sense of privacy. A lifetime of watching those "very special episodes" where a secondary character comes out of the closet with the help and support of one of the main (straight) characters taught me that the shame was in it being a secret, not what the secret was, and that anyone who made you feel differently should be kicked right the fuck out of your life. The only other kind of secrets, or things one lied about, were when one did something wrong, knowingly transgressed, and that seemed to have an easy solution- to not do wrong. 

In the recent troubles, this other person told me that he was very afraid of disappointing people because then they would dislike him and then they would leave him. So he lied. But the lying isolated him from any help or support he might get from those he loved and was so afraid of disappointing. While I could technically understand that, personally it feels completely foreign to me. 

My biological father left my life when I was five. By the time I was nine, I knew that it was absolutely his choice that he was not in my life. Right around that time, a few other people in my life also died. Not people I was terribly close to, but people I knew. My friends started to move away, their parents choosing to move them to even farther, and thus safer, suburbs as they entered middle school. This is when I realized that everyone leaves. Whether they choose to or not, everyone leaves. 

I'm learning that some of the crazy behavior that bpd's exhibit within relationships stem from abandonment issues. When bdp's manipulate, lie, bareknuckle it to keep a person in their life, it's because we are so afraid that they are going to leave us. But, as crazy as it seems, on the flip side, when we do things that we know will push people away, we are doing it because we are so afraid that they are going to leave us that we do the dirty work for them. 

As I grew up, of course, I was afraid of disappointing the people that I loved. I worked my ass of in school to prove that I was worthy of the love of my parents and to not disappoint them. When I got a new friend, or wanted someone to be my friend, I would learn as much as I could about what they liked so that they would like me, or like me more. I tried to always be the friend who was there anytime they had a crisis, because then it was even more important to not disappoint. But if someone was going to leave me anyway, they should at least know who they were leaving. I might have learned about stuff that they liked, but I also tried to be me as much as possible, often as loudly and even offensively as possible. I often made it downright impossible to love me and stay with me. But if a person did stay, then I felt like that meant that they really did love me and accept me, all of me. Still, there was always the irrefutable truth that they would eventually leave, even if it was not their choice.  That knowledge can be very freeing, though. It allowed me to do all kinds of things, be all kinds of things, fuck up in all kinds of ways, because, unlike my friend, I wasn't overwhelmed by a fear that those  I loved would leave me. 

My friend had an intact and functional family. One of his sets of grandparents lived just down the street. His family lived in the same house from his early grade school days. Other than a beloved grandparent, I don't think he's lost someone close to him from his life that wasn't his choice to this day. While that's a place I'm very envious of, always have been very envious of, it also means that he doesn't know what it's like to live through those kinds of loss and come out on the other side, to know that you can be left and survive. And it's not a lesson I was able to bring myself to teach him this time.

I don't know if it's like this for everyone, but I suspect that for most people it is. When I met TyRoy, the marriage he would have done anything to keep together, did everything he could to keep together, was ending. He told me that he wasn't going to change for anyone and that if someone wanted something different they could keep walking. He was blatantly boldly honest about who he was, what he wanted, the things he knew he couldn't do for others people, for a relationship, and didn't care if I or other people thought that made him a bad person. Before writing this post, I asked him a little lying that he did in his past. Though the reasons he gave for lying in previous relationships were his own, different that what I might have assumed, he did write "most people are more afraid of the loss not the lie." I'd still posit that he couldn't be as honest as he is now if he hadn't gone through such a great loss and come out on the other side of it knowing that even even losses that great, that painful, do not kill you. 

Emptiness

As I drove away, headed back home, I felt a great emptiness rising up inside me, one I hadn't felt in some time.

I had spent the day in one-on-one contact with other people, people that are new to my life, that I am still getting to know. But when I transitioned from their presence back to my solitude, I was left empty.

Suddenly, all my life felt rather empty. Boredom is not something I have felt very often lately. There is always something more to do. I have lists and lists and lists of things I could do. Some of my time is spent simply avoiding the the things on the lists that I have to do. I know that the lists will never be finished and I bounce between pushing too hard to get as much as possible of the lists done and then giving up what seems an overall futile task.

All along in my now air-conditioned car, with the windows rolled up tight, I was lonely. I wonder how often I am lonely but do not realize it because I fill my time up with so much other stuff, because I do not let the alone-ness sink in long enough for me to ask myself if I am also lonely.

Last weekend, Moneypenny was visited. We spent almost every waking minute together, as well as some sleeping moments. I felt so comforted to have him with me, someone who knew me, someone I didn't really have to try for. It is the same feeling I have when TyRoy visits, though our visits are often shorter. There are so many people and groups of people around who I can still feel both alone and lonely, but not them. But what is better about Moneypenny and TyRoy is that even after they leave, I still feel sated. Maybe not overflowing, but satisfied. (And I don't mean that in a sexual way, or at least not only in a sexual way.) I'm never happy to see them leave, but I'm happy that I got the time I got with them. Where seeing or talking to most people is a chore, even if they are people I like, or love, or am excited about getting to know better, my relationships with these two men, even when they aren't sexual, have that extra something. I still get butterflies just talking to Moneypenny on the phone about how our week has been going. I get warm and smiley, like a good wine buzz, as I read TyRoy's daily email.

This isn't to say that there is anything wrong with any of my other friends, including the two I spent time with today. It isn't to say that I won't someday feel that towards either of these friends, or other friends currently in my life. But I long for that heat, that pull to and fire with another person. (I was about to add ",even if it's only in a platonic way," but who am I really kidding? Even when I feel that pull with people that I can only have a platonic relationship with, I don't think it is ever a platonic feeling for me. There is always some romantic and/or sexual longing wrapped up in it, even if that will never be fulfilled. I don't want my friends who clearly aren't interested romantically or sexually in me, whether because they're gay men, straight women, or just not attracted to me, to think I'm only interested in sexin' them up, because I'm not, that's not what I mean.) I know that it isn't something you can have with everyone. I"m also sure that feeling empty unless I'm being consumed is a very bpd thing, that most of the times that I do feel that intensity there is actually something either wrong with me, with the other person, or the way we interact, but I haven't gotten to a place of wise mind on this yet. Rational mind says all the parts of that last sentence before the "but" and emotional mind yearns for more of those relationships. There is no happy medium as yet.

So I keep working on things on the list, to the point of avoiding sleep  just so I don't have to feel that emptiness for too long.

All Along The Road

Have you been feeling that pull?
And are you hearing that call?
Cause you've got everthing that you need to make a start...
And I would love it sometime
If you would walk by my side
Going I don't know where to sing beneath the stars...
And when the world's laying you low
Why don't you let me carry your load?
When things get bad you know you'll have a friend
All along the road
...And when the world's laying you low,
Don't you let it rattle your bones
Sometimes the dream itself can keep you safe
All along the road

(Video embed might be too wide for the blog and you might not be able to see all the lyrics. If you want to go to a link to see all of it, a slightly more visually interesting video is here, and it has lyrics if you hit the CC button.)

In life, you can miss much if you're too dogmatic about anything.

In my DBT class, we don't just learn one skill for one sort of problem, because nothing will work well for every person or even for every person in every situation. During the interpersonal skill section, we learn a skill for trying to get what we want, another for trying to keep our respect in a situation, and another focused on keeping the relationship. We also learn way to evaluate which one might be best to use at any given time and with any given problem.

Lately, especially when looking to start new romantic relationships, I've been attempting to avoid relationships that I know will be chaotic. And, in the not too distant past, I've left friendship situations that I know to be particularly chaotic or that create instability in me. But sometimes you can't do that. Or at least I can't. Sometimes it's a relative that drives me up the wall but is part of the little blood I have left and who has done so much for me. Sometimes it's that friend that you keep re-enacting the same chaotic, hurtful patterns with, but who has always been there, all along the road. Sometimes the chaos and craziness is worth having someone, but most especially worth having them. Hell, I wouldn't have any friends if my friends didn't feel that about me.

Time Is Love

A good friend will bail you out of jail. A great friend helps you bury the body. -TyRoy


Another one of my strongly held personal beliefs has always been that a real friend is someone who is there for you, no matter what the hour is or how inconvient it is. When I had few friends and lots of time, it was really easy for that to be a two-way street. But I know that I haven't been the best at this in the past couple of years. I really haven't been there like I should for the people that I really care about. I've also found that the high level of expectations I have for a "real friend" is perhaps a bit to high, or leads to too much black & white, "you're either with me or against me" thinking on my part, especially as we all grow up and have other burdens on our time. This isn't to say that I excuse the behavior I talked about in a previous blog post, where people just f'n disappear forever. Just that I know I have disappearred or just taken longer than I would have liked to get back to someone, because I was being stingy with both my time and my love. But I am working to change that. I hope that other people in my life are too.

I thought I'd share this new song that I really like and that made me think about all this. Here's the official video, but it's not hugely interesting so the one I've embedded is something someone else made with the lyrics.


For those who can't watch the video/listen to the song at the moment (but who absolutely should listen to it as soon as they aren't at work and I don't care if it is country), here are the lyrics:
i know i gotta put in the hours,
make the money while the sunlight shines
but anything i gotta get done,
it can get done some other time

time is love, gotta run,
love to hang longer,
but i got someone who waits,
waits for me and right now
she's where i need to be,
time is love, gotta run

i only get so many minutes,
don't wanna spend 'em all on the clock
in the time that we spent talkin',
how many kisses have i lost?

time is love, gotta run,
love to hang longer,
but i got someone who waits,
waits for me and right now
she's where i need to be,
time is love, gotta run.

gotta fly
fly
before one moment
gets by

time is love, gotta run,
love to hang longer,
but i got someone who waits,
waits for me and right now
she's where i need to be

time is love, gotta run,
love to hang longer,
but i got someone who waits,
waits for me and right now
she's where i need to be,
time is love, gotta run.

time is love, gotta run

"She's not a friend. She's a hostage."

"People love that cliche, time heals all wounds. But live long enough and you'll realize that most cliches are true. It's amazing what even the smallest passage of time can accomplish, the cuts it can close, the imperfections it can smooth over. But in the end, it comes down to the size of the wound, doesn't it? If the wound is deep enough , there might be no way to keep it from festering, even if you have all the time in the world."

From an intro voice-over on Being Human, US, emphasis mine

I keep finding myself coming back to the same old questions. How do we know when it's time to give up? Where is the line between sticking to your guns and just being stubborn? How long can you ignore the advice of people you do think are wise, wiser than you? How do you figure out if your wound just needs time to heal or if that wound is just festering and will never heal?

Last week, my favorite afternoon dj's had a discussion about staying friends with ex's. (It's the third section down, with the offensive Asian caricature. The first streaming audio is their overall opinion. The rest are discussions with callers, the final caller being the most interesting to me.) Lazlo, the older, more experienced man, who I usually, begrudgingly, agree with, asserts that no one can be friends with their ex because that ex will always have some control over you and your emotions (or vice versa), your current friendship will interfere with one or both of you's current romantic relationships and one of you is always more emotionally involved, (unconsciously) only does it because you still LOVES that person. This is why Lazlo says that an ex is dead to him. Slimfast, the younger, more idealistic of the two, wants people to call in and prove Lazlo wrong. Lazlo makes some exceptions for people in open relationships and people who have children with ex's and keep a cordial relationship with that co-parent. Of course, Lazlo rips all the callers excuses to pieces. The first two callers were men who still hung out with their female ex's and the ex's new boyfriend/husband, men who couldn't say what positives they got from their friendships with their ex's. Lazlo declared that these men were the ones who still cared and that they needed to cut the cord and move on. The last caller was on the opposite end. He was the only close friend that his ex-girlfriend had. She had not had a serious romantic relationship with another man since they'd broke up, though he'd had other girlfriends and even been engaged for a bit of time. The caller was on his way to have an after-work drink with this woman and Lazlo asserted that the best thing the caller could do for this woman was to not show up to it, to, figuratively, kill himself, so she would be forced to move on. "She's not a friend. She's a hostage," was Lazlo's closing salvo.

And I'll be damned if that didn't ring true. One of those harsh truths that you want to deny, deny, deny, but the words get under your skin, play on a loop in your head.

My friends and relatives don't get why I'm still friends with you. They think being friends with you is so hard that it might not be meant to be. They see that we have very very different values systems, goals, and outlooks on life. And for everyone of your friends or relatives who thinks I'm a crazy unstable jealous bitch, I have a friend or relative who thinks you're a moralistic asshole who needs to take the stick out of his ass and live a little. And I'm pretty sure there are times we agree with that assessment. We also have complaints with how the friendship currently is. Ok, well, I know I do and I'm pretty sure you do, though I couldn't say what yours are at this point. You're great in a crisis, but you kinda disappear for the everyday, though you keep saying that isn't how you want to be. In your own words, "A man shows how he feels in his actions." Though I'm trying to get over it, I know that I'm the ex who stayed on, at least in part, because I thought we'd get back together. And I know I'm the person who feels more wounds more acutely, because it's in my nature to do so.

She's not a friend. She's a hostage.

Now I don't feel that with my other bff who's an ex. But our romantic relationship was far from traditional and we both kept our distances, for a variety of reasons. And while neither of us have plans on being in a romantic relationship with the other, we still relate to each other in much the same way as we did when we were involved. I guess neither of us has felt rejection from the other just because we aren't pursuing a romantic relationship with the other. Maybe my parting with him was not as brutal as my parting was from you.

I thought it would be easier than this, you know? But few things are easy, at least not with me. I had lots of reasons for accepting you back. I have lots of reasons for keeping you in my life. But probably none so strong as sheer stubbornness, the idea that this is one thing that I can make work through the sheer force of my will, that the things we do have are stronger than all the obstacles that lay in our way, that I want to see who you'll be and I want you to see who I become.

So I'll find antibiotics for the deep festering wounds. Call it Stockholm syndrome. I'll be your hostage, at least for now. Gods know you've been mine before. And you can be the symbol of my rebellion, even if you never have one of your own.