But I've got a tendency to slip when the nights get wild
It's in my blood....
At night I come home after they go to sleep
Like a stumbling ghost I haunt these halls
There's a picture of us on our wedding day
I recognize the girl but I can't settle in these walls
-"Runaways" The Killers
Maybe I just don't watch enough female-, mother-, and/or parent-centric movies or watch that kind of tv show or listen to that kind of music but I rarely see / hear things in popular culture about ambivalence from mothers about having children and/or being settled down. At least not after they're already pregnant. Sure there might be the comedy aspects of a movie like Knocked Up, about not being prepared for what pregnancy is, especially when it is an unplanned pregnancy, but I can't think of anything like the songs above, only for or about a woman.
I don't mean to sound like I'm ambivalent about my pregnancy, because, at least at this stage, I'm really not. I know this is what I want, what I have wanted. I know I'll keep working hard to keep it. I know that we're all going to try to make this work as a family and I really do believe that we can.
But there is a certain unease with all of this. The restless in my soul didn't just go away when I found out I was pregnant. Of course, it should surprise absolutely no one that I'm restless. The defining characteristic of my biological father for much of my life has been the simple fact that he wasn't there. While my mom was more settled, her answer main method of clearing her head was going for long drives or trips out of town. And we moved more than most people I've known when I was a child.
I remember playing this song for my husband, to help him understand that restlessness:
Leaving - Indigo Girls
Jet fuel and traffic lines
Pulling up to the delta signs
Distant shape of my hometown
Black stain where the wheels touch down
I pick up the morning news
I pass the man who's never shined my shoes
Through security and to the train
That will take me to the aeroplane
Count the miles on the highway
The sum of all my days
There's a postcard, there's a call
And there's a picture for your bedroom wall
But do you ever wonder through and through?
Who's that person standing next to you?
And after all the nights apart
Is there a home for a traveling heart
But if I weren't leaving you
I don't know what I would do
But the more I go, the less I know
Will the fire still burn on my return?
Keep the path lit on the only road I know
Honey, all I know to do is go
A cup of coffee and my bags are packed
The same vow not to look back
Familiar emptiness inside
As the distances grow wide
And though I vow to memorize
The last look in your loving eyes
It's here dusk and there dawn
Oh it's like a curtain getting slowly drawn
But if I weren't leaving you
I don't know what I would do
But the more I go, the less I know
Will the fire still burn on my return?
Keep the path lit on the only road I know
Honey, all I know to do is go
But if I weren't leaving you
I don't know what I would do
But the more I go it seems the less I know
Will the fire still burn on my return
Keep the path lit on the only road I know
Honey, all I know to do is go
Early on in the dating the Professor, after a trip to St Louis was leaving me feeling particularly restless, I remember sitting outside on the bed of my step-dad's truck, smoking, texting with him about what he calls my "itchy feet," which he has too and understands but also knows never really leads you anywhere new, since you're still there no matter where you go, and that is what you are really looking for.
I think one of the issues when we all lived together was a sort of trapped feeling that I couldn't shake. No matter how much I did want to create a family and didn't mind what I took on by being with them, there was still that restlessness.
But nobody writes songs about pregnant but restless women, about the dialectic between wanting to settle down/raise a kid/have a family and that restlessness.
When my uncle passed away, he was living in a trailer. It was a fairly nice trailer, though it was out in the country so there were mice and the like. It was a double wide with three bedrooms, a decent sized bathroom and a good sized kitchen. There was plenty of room for his boat, travel trailer, and all his cars. It was on property owned by a friend from work and her and her boyfriend (now husband) lived in the trailer while they took care of an older family member who lived in a house on the property. When they moved into the house after the relative passed away, they sold it to my uncle. My grandmother visited him once there. Even though he was really proud of the place and all the work he'd done on it, and he loved being out in the country, I think he was also a bit embarrassed. My grandparents had worked hard to give all of us a better life. He is still the only one of us to have a Bachelor's Degree. Living in a trailer *gasp* seemed like a step down or a step back. But he was really happy there and living more within his means than when he'd had a house in the suburb my grandmother lived in, so was it really that bad?
I've been doing a great deal of thinking lately about how I grew up, what the good parts were, what I wish I could have changed, how things might have been different if I or my parents had done things differently. I think that's probably pretty natural for the state that I'm in. Yeah, I'm knocked up. Yesterday makes 17 weeks. I know I haven't written at all lately and that's largely because I either didn't have anything to say or I didn't want to give words to what I was thinking. Yes, it was unplanned and unexpected but not unwanted. It is the Professor's (well, I'm 99.9% sure it is, though I've been honest with him about that.) While he freaked out a bit at first, he's really excited now. Ginger is also on board. I still feel guilty that it happened like this, that she didn't get to go first, but she seems to be rolling with it and not very upset.(As I'm writing this, the Professor is also nesting. He went into the kitchen for something and decided that everything was entirely too dirty. He's currently using the broom to clear the cobwebs off the ceiling. It's super cute. Take my word for it.)
I started a new job last week. It is through a temp agency, though the company does hire on when their HR decides to make people permanent. It's a long-term assignment. Some of the temps there have been there for six months or so. It's in the warehouse for a mail-order pharmacy. Right now, I'm working in shipping but I'll be moving to the dispensary as soon as they get the paperwork finished to register me as a technician with the state. It's full-time hours, with overtime that is sometimes mandatory and sometimes voluntary. I worked 9 hour days since I started and I'm planning on working 9 hour days next week too. While it's not mentally taxing, it can be rough to stand on your feet in largely the same spot for 9 hours. I'm still trying to find shoes that won't hurt my feet, though I'm starting to suspect now that my feet are just going to have to toughen up.
It's also the highest paying job I've ever had. I'm making 50% more per hour than I was making at my last temp gig. I'm making what Ginger used to make at her last job before the shift differential. But there's a part of me that feels like my uncle did when my grandmother came to visit him in his trailer. This job only requires a high school education. Generally speaking, it is working in a factory or plant environment, complete with conveyor belts and rolling lines. While it is probably cleaner than the airplane manufacturing factory my grandfather worked in all his life, it's still the same.
I've been wrestling quite a bit lately with what to tell my kid as s/he grows up. Mostly, I'm glad I went to the amount of college that I went to, even if I didn't graduate and am doing a job that doesn't require a higher degree of any kind. My biggest regrets are that I couldn't manage the depression well enough to finish and that I currently have a larger debt load than was necessary. But I have always loved learning and I wouldn't trade the knowledge I have. On the other hand, like many people in my generation, I feel like I was sold a false bill of goods. I was told that all that mattered was that you went to college, not what you studied, because any degree was worth it, would increase your earning potential and open up new fields. Now, even basic call center jobs will sometimes require a four year degree. Why? It's not like anyone ever learned how to work in a call center from going to college. It shows you can show up someplace for 4-5 years and finish something. That's all. But now that so many people have degrees, it's become the equivalent of what a high school degree was for people my parents' age. The market has been flooded with degrees and it has little meaning anymore.
I've been thinking that what I want to tell my kid (kids, if you include the child Ginger has sometime soon that I'm sure I'll co-parent with them) is that what's important is showing up and finding what makes you fulfilled, whether that fulfillment is in your job or in your life outside of your job. I grew up hearing that you should do what you love. What is that quote? "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life"? Yeah, I kinda think that's bullshit. You can choose to work in an area you are passionate about, like Ginger does working in the mental health / social work field, but it will still be work. That's why they pay you. Sometimes you go into something you are passionate about, like The Professor and computers, and grow to hate this thing that you used to love. Maybe you just take a job that doesn't kill your spirit or your body too fast, be a good worker and show up, and walk the line your whole life between working enough to have money to do what you enjoy outside of work but not working so much that you don't have time to do those things.
Look, this job is fine. It provides good money. I'm not doing a job that's reprehensible or kills my soul. While I might not have much energy when I get off work, I am able to get up early and do stuff before work and I have energy on the weekends to do stuff. Yeah, it's not a big career. It's not glamorous. It's not something bigger or better than what my grandparents or parents did. But right now I don't care so much about that. I care that I can be with the people I love and not still be miserable from work when I do it. I care that I can pay my bills and save up a little bit for moving and the baby. I think that younger me, the one who got so upset with her parents who complained about their jobs but weren't actively doing anything to change it and wouldn't move to a new profession, would probably be disappointed in that. Hell, I think my grandma would be a bit disappointed in it too. But a better life is about life being better, no matter how that looks. And the most important part of all of it, whether it be showing up to finish whatever degree you're getting and learning all you can from there or showing up to a job you hate so your resume looks good for the next one or showing up with your family, That's always been the hardest part of the depression- it's so difficult to just show up. You know you'll feel better if you do, or at least that you'll feel worse when you don't and the more you don't show up the more difficult it is to ever show up, but showing up is also a huge part of making it better. As this is something that both The Professor and I struggle with, I know it will probably be all the more important to impart on a child that is half of each of us. I think if anyone is disappointed about any of this, it should be that it took me this long to figure this out.
It'll be ok. You can do this. All we have to do is make is make this last stop at Walmart. You have to get the last of the things for lunches this week and we must get litter for the cats. Then you can start crying. You don't even have to get all the way home. I know that you don't really know what is going on. Maybe it is a bit of depression. Maybe it's some heavy ass pms. Maybe you're just super fucking tired. But it's ok. It's ok that you're feeling whatever you're feeling. And when we get home, you can do whatever pampering you want to do, or you can go to bed, or you can cry until you can't cry anymore. But you have to get this done.
I know you are strong enough to do, all on your own. This is how we'll get through this. Just us. I just need you to keep doing the musts. We'll work on the rest as we go along. Until there's someone else to do these things for, it's just us and we have to be as strong as we would be if we were being strong for a Master or Daddy. I know you can do this. Just get through Walmart. That's all I'm asking you to do.
What a difference a few weeks make. Just a few weeks ago, I was here approaching my latest slutty-phase while also trying not to hurt people in the process and now i have forsworn dating for the immediate future.
A good percentage of that has been because I would rather spend my time alone, getting the feel of being on my own again after so long, than to spend my time and energy talking to strangers. But I have also run into another issue that has made me take a step back from dating.
I don't want people to touch me.
It's not really an active thing. I don't walk around thinking that I hope no one brushes against me or being terrified of someone trying to shake my hand or hug me. No, it's more that when people are touching me I really wish they weren't and I'm often wondering how much longer they will be touching me and how I can get out of this gracefully, without seeming crazy or frigid, and without hurting the other person's feelings.
At first I just thought it was a dating thing. Or who I was dating to be more precise. I went on a few dates with a vanilla guy and, when we did start to fool around, I felt really uncomfortable and stopped things because it just wasn't turning me on. I just kept wishing it would stop. Or that I would start to feel something. I thought this was because it wasn't rough or aggressive like I was used to. We talked for a week about what we could do to make it work for both of us but, when it came time to go back to his house, I panicked and went home instead. This was the guy who I really liked otherwise. The most recent guy...well, all i could think of the whole time was how to get rid of him, how to stop him from touching me without being a bitch, how I was going to wash my face where he'd kissed. I still feel sort of bad about the fact that he was really into me and my instinct was to run away. It's not like he was a gross guy, not like he had poor hygiene or bad breath. Just this thing in my head was going crazy.
But if it was just dates, I could chalk it up to not being in a place for dating, perhaps subconsciously still feeling like I belong to the Professor, or some other thing like that. But it's not just with near strangers on romantic dates. Last weekend, Moneypenny was in town for some other activity and he managed to make time to hang out with me, to go out to dinner and see my new place. To be honest, I was hoping to cuddle with him. Because of illness and time constraints, I haven't been able to cuddle much with the Professor when I see him. Ginger and I are still working our way back to a platonic cuddly place and haven't seen much of each other either. Moneypenny and I have been able to be well-behaved lately, to not take things to a sexual place, and I've been cuddling with him for what is now almost half my life, so I thought it would be a safe and comforting thing to do. But no. It felt weird too. Thinking about it today, even hugging my folks lately has felt more like work than comfort.
While planning this post, I kept thinking about how I would know when it's ok again. I have a hard time dealing with situations where I might normally be fine with the touching, where it might be something I'd like to experience or get to explore, where it's with someone new or fun or interesting. I don't know how to tell the person that my mind might be interested but there's something broken. At first, I thought it was a lack of attraction, a chemical pheromonal thing. Still a problem I couldn't easily explain but at least it was a problem I felt would be fixed when I met the right person. Now it's pretty much everyone for reasons I don't know. All the sudden I'm that frigid chick I never wanted to be. And forcing myself to keep trying seems like a bad idea.
Of course, the Professor is the exception to this. *facepalm* I'd like to be getting over by getting some strange but even if I had the patience to deal with strangers I can't imagine enjoying anyone touching me right now. I'm not sure if I'd enjoy playing with someone else right now or not. Usually play for me is always wrapped up in sex and I wouldn't want to play with someone if I didn't also want to have sex with them. But maybe I could do play that didn't involve skin to skin contact. Right now I'm mostly just wondering outloud. I have no idea. I just know I really want to be touched but I really don't.
I can't believe I'm going to use a song called "My Monkey" but damn does it stir up the feelings, so here goes. Please watch/listen to the video at the end. It's not country.
I just started in the DBT aftercare group last week. The regular DBT group is mostly educational, not process, and is much stricter about "therapy interfering behaviors," so no one else can intentionally or unintentionally sabotage other people in the group. Aftercare is more process and allows people who have been through the educational course several times to discuss how to further use the skills in specific ways in their lives. Of course, I can't divulge anything about what happens in group or even who is in it, but I found myself talking a bit about how I have dealt with anger differently in my relationship with the Professor than I did in previous relationships. In fact, every time I talk about getting angry or upset in this relationship with Moneypenny, he asks me why I couldn't have done that with him. The short answer would just be that I grew up. This post is the longer answer.
My monkey gets busy sometimes
My monkey's got a lot of stuff he's gotta think about
My monkey gets tired sometimes
My monkey wishes he was something you could live without
Cause every monkey needs alone time
To eat bananas in the sunshine
It's feast or famine it's a fine line
It doesn't mean my monkey doesn't love you
This in part Moneypenny actually taught me while we were dating. I can't say that he actually said these words, but the general picture was "You need to learn how to be on your own. I have friends of my own and things I like to do that don't interest you and I'm going to continue to do them just like I did before we got together and you have to learn to deal with that." Sometimes I think I might have learned that lesson a bit too well because I think it can hinder me in dating but that is a post for another day.
I like my alone time. At least 25% of my decision to stop dating for the time being is so that I can spend time by myself. I like being able to do whatever it is that I want, at my own pace, or nothing at all. I like being able to choose the show or movie I watch, the food I eat, the music I listen to, or to read a book, without ever having to think about what someone else will want to do or what they will think of me.
This makes it easier to give other people alone time when they need it. When I was with Moneypenny and we would fight, I couldn't do that. At all. When he'd say that he needed time, I'd give him an hour and I had a difficult time even doing that. I distinctly remember one fight where i kept texting and calling him after he said that he needed time and he told me that "time" at least 24 hours. Oh my gods, that was a fucking eternity at the time. I know that I probably still do not give people as much time as they might need or I have to say "Ok, just so you know, the ball is in your court here" before I wait, but I'm not like I was with Moneypenny.
But it isn't just during fights that I know people need time and try to give it to them. Yes, when I'm visiting the Professor and I want attention, especially sex, or when I'm texting him to try to find out what is going on, I do bug him when he'd probably rather me not. On the other hand, I could, and still do, leave him to do his own thing. During the first bout of him falling in the hole last fall, he would apologize for not doing more with me and I would shrug it off. Yeah, I'd have been more than happy if he was jumping my bones that whole time or even just talking to me, but I was usually able to keep myself busy. I was an only child after all. I also knew that it had nothing to do with me, which I think is the real key. I knew that there were and are plenty of times when I'm happy to be by myself, which has nothing to do with how much I love the people I don't want to be around, so the same thing is probably at least partially true for the people I love who need alone time.
My monkey gets frazzled sometimes
My monkey has an ulcer and a stressful time at work
My monkey gets bitter sometimes
My monkey's not the only one who's acting like a jerk
And while he doesn't like to name names
And he's not trying to assign blame
It's hard to focus on his own game
It doesn't mean my monkey doesn't love you
From the first time I heard this song, it just stuck with me. This guy I went on a few dates told me to check out his nerdcore and nerd comedy spotify playlist and most of the music can help put me in a better mood at work, on days when my music is pissing my off for some reason. I kinda think that it could be from the Professor to Ginger and/or me, from Ginger to the Professor and/or to me, and from me to ...well, lots of people.
When I look back, I think that most of the moments in my life that really changed how I saw the world and how I thought involved it being pointed out how selfish I was being and had it demonstrated how different the other person in the situation experienced things. Couple this with my writer-ly desire to know what is going on in someone's head and I am often trying to see situations from the other viewpoint. It can get much harder when I am arguing with someone because my own anger can overpower my desire to give a shit about their view point or experience but sometimes I can still keep it in mind.
Two things that men have said stick out in my head. Now, I can't remember what exactly we were talking about, but I remember a conversation a few years ago where Moneypenny told me that he just lets go of about 90% of things in relationships that bother him because to him they aren't a big enough deal to bring up or to fight about. Of course, that means the things he does bring up are actually the most egregious 10% of the things that bother him, so it kinda sucks if the other person does nothing about them or won't budge on any of them. From being the one sitting on the other side and not budging on most of those things, I can say that when he brought up the 10%, I thought they were everything he had a problem with so I wasn't going to give in on everything. The bigger point though was that he didn't bring up every little thing that bothered him and he asserted that this is what most men do.
Recently, I was listening to the afternoon radio djs where I live, both married men, and they were discussing the recent study from Rutgers and University of Michigan that said that a husband's general happiness was directly related to how happy their wife was in the marriage. While researchers said this might be in part because a wife happy in the marriage might do more for a husband, the quoted researcher said "Men tend to be less vocal about their relationships and their level of marital unhappiness might not be translated to their wives." The older of the two djs definitely agreed with this, talking about how rarely he brought up things about the relationship that upset him, while his wife generally will and it feels like to him it is almost always what she thinks he is doing wrong. And here's what he said that stuck with me the most: "Who wants to hear nothing but what they are doing wrong all the time?" That was another one of those slap in the face moments for me. I'm pretty aware of a good deal of my shortcomings and I sure as hell don't want to hear it. That really got me thinking about how the things I say when bringing up problems either are what's wrong with the other person or could be perceived as such and how often that is the conversation instead of something positive about them.
When I was with Moneypenny, we had several arguments that lasted until dawn. I couldn't sleep on my anger. I couldn't keep my mouth shut. Hell, with him, I often still can't. Early on, probably from observation and trying to do things differently this time, and in large part just because Ginger allowed me to benefit from her years of experience, I learned that attacking the Professor head on just made him retreat. He wouldn't fight you back but he also wouldn't come back for quite awhile. Now, I won't even claim to fully understand why this is, though I can guess that some of it has to do with how he was raised, but I knew that what I had done before wouldn't work. At first, it was the roles that kept me in check. And sometimes the desire to be able to discuss things without being so angry I would cry, since somehow me crying means that people tend not to listen to my words. Through trial and error, I've learned that sometimes I need to do a "reasonable mind" activity, dishes worked well when I lived with the Professor, to bring me out of emotional mind, or to just sleep on it. What these things really give me is enough space to calm down, let my mind process everything and figure out what was justified, and then find a better time to bring things up. After all that, usually I can say it in a better way, hopefully one that is about the situation or about how I feel and not about him.
A few weeks ago, over text, the Professor and I got bitchy at each other about the weekend plans and how we were going to plan out things going forward. Finally, I said that I thought that at least one of us was cranky and needed a nap (he said probably both of us) so I was going to go and I would talk to him later. When we talked about it two or three days later, the discussion looked more like "I'm worried about how this is going to go. Knowing the things we know now, what can we do to make this work better for everyone going forward?"
My monkey gets angry sometimes
My monkey says a lot of things he doesn't really mean
My monkey gets lucky sometimes
My monkey thinks that you're the bestest girl he's ever seen
He says he'll stay with you for always
It doesn't matter what the job pays
Cause everybody has their bad days
It doesn't mean my monkey doesn't love you
One day I came home from a short morning shift and Ginger said, "You should be really glad you had to work this morning and you weren't home because I thought the Professor and I were going to have it out." Apparently, the Professor got up, all grumpy and cranky, like he is when he first wakes up. When he went into the kitchen to get himself a cup of coffee, she heard him yell, "Goddamn it, who the fuck left the bag of coffee open?" [There are a few things that drive the Professor crazy and Ginger doing forgetful things is one of them. Ginger thinks, and not wrongly IMO, that she ignores alot from him so he can just deal. I'm sure you can guess who left the coffee bag open when she kindly made me coffee before i left for work.] Ginger was cranky and tired after working all night and her, quite uncharacteristic, response was to yell back "It's just the coffee. If you're going to be a dick today, I'm just going in my room to read." When the Professor's unreasonable anger is met with anger, he tends to be taken aback and reevaluate the situation. This was no different. After her response, it was no longer such a big deal. Sometimes we say stupid shit in the heat of the moment, not always even big stupid shit, but just little stupid shit.
When sleeping on it doesn't work and I end up playing out all day in my head all the pieces of my mind I'm going to give the Professor when I see him next, I tend to have one final thing to help me not act like a complete bitch- seeing him. This probably sounds like sappy honeymoon phase shit, and maybe it is, but it still works. When I see him, it is much harder to be mad at him. Mostly because I'm trying to figure out how to maneuver things so that he'll be taking my clothes off and being a bitch can backfire spectacularly for getting me that goal. hehe. But seriously, it feels like the anger is a fog that is burned off by the appearance of the sun.
When they got together, the Professor needed a place to stay and Ginger made him promise to stick around for a year, though she was somehow surprised several months later when he called him her boyfriend. She told me that at first they'd have blow-outs every couple of months, but that those had gotten farther and farther apart, until it's more like once a year. It was a release valve on the relationship and in the end, they would both say that they cared more about the relationship than about not being vulnerable.
For both of them, being vulnerable is a much bigger deal that it is to me. Most days I still feel like I'm a walking open wound. Less than I used to, but more than most people, I think. While neither of them have said directly to me that our relationships, even the different ones we have now, are more important than being vulnerable, I think that they've shown it. Right about the time we started talking again, Ginger wrote a post on Fet about her shortcomings in relationships, that she wants a lot and thinks in the moment that it's possible but often has to retreat when it gets overwhelming, because she doesn't realize that things might not be working until it is already overwhelming. While she didn't write that post just for me, I know she laid bare things about herself that aren't pretty in a place where I would be sure to see, so that I might understand. She made herself vulnerable. Things with the Professor ended as a primary relationship when he flat out said "Yes, all the things you say you expect this to be are valid and justified and what I promised and what you deserve, but I can't give them to you." Just the fact that he said that outright was a big deal for him, given his history. That honestly could have been the end of it. But when I came to get my stuff, he cried with me, admitted that he didn't know what it would be possible for us to have but he didn't not want me in his life. Recently, as we tried to talk about what we wanted in this iteration of our relationship, we admitted that this 'breakup' was different because usually we kinda hate our partners by the time we decide to end it. Usually his relationships end with him being either mean or distant, "but I still have alot of love for you and I'm trying to do things differently this time." Once again, I can't judge things based on how vulnerable that would feel for me. Things work much better for me when I focus on what that feels like for them, where that comes from, how difficult that might be for them.
Now, of course, all this about how well I deal with conflict with my partners is in comparison to a me that was 15-12 yrs younger, differently medicated, and much more still an impulsive teenager. This is also mostly a Moneypenny vs the Professor comparison as I am still rather clueless about handling conflict with Ginger and, oh man, don't even get me started on how poorly I handle conflict with TyRoy. I largely attempt to avoid conflict with both of them, though I think that method would still be preferable to Moneypenny. Sometimes, I think that I'm just too tired to fight anymore, at least like I did with Moneypenny. I have a long list of things I'm supposed to do, half of which I don't get to, and nowhere on it does it say "fight with the Professor." When I walk out of rooms instead of fight, it's not so someone will run after me, though I have to say checking on me after awhile is appreciated. No, it's because I don't want to have the fight right then and I need to get my shit together. It's about me acting right. Generally, I think the biggest difference in the fights are about me acting right, instead of just acting on how I feel at the moment.
So here's the full song for Jonathan Coulton's "My Monkey"
Ok, and now for the funny geeky shit- For PAX, Jonathan Coulton changed "My Monkey" to "Wil Wheaton." This video has shots of Wil Wheaton cracking up too.
So I'm trying not be so overly picky that I end up never dating ever. If you read regularly, you know that I don't necessarily feel like I'm ready to date and I have a set of guideline, but I'm also trying not to use either as an excuse to be closed off. This is especially true because I'm still seeing/fucking/playing with the Professor, but I'm trying to keep in mind that it is an on the side thing.
I have a profile up on a free dating site that says pretty much what my profile & writing on fet does. Last weekend I got a very thoughtful and honest response from a (cute but in my looks - range) man who wants an open relationship and is trying new things after just getting out of a sexually unadventurous marriage. He's from the same hometown I am, likes music I like too, blah blah blah. His message was so much different from what i usually get that I read it immediately to the Professor. Before we even looked at the profile, he said,"You have to message this guy."
We've had one date, gonna have another on Saturday. I had asked him at some poibt about his "sexual bucket list" and last night he shared stuff, though in a tit for tat way. Mostly it ended up being him saying that he'd like to do x and me saying that I had done it a bunch. I had mentioned the fetish list on fetlife. He's not on fet so last night i just copy & pasted my fetish and curious about lists to him. His response? "With the exclusion of polyamory, all the stuff that you're curious about I would say I'm not curious about at this point. And half the stuff you're into I'm only curious about. Things like whipping and impact play may be beyond me, but they don't color my opinion of you."
This is the danger in giving people chances. So far the guys who would be willing to have a LTRR either don't have much experience or think they're "not vanilla" because they like nipple clamps and want to try anal sex and the guys who seem like they just might know what they're doing and have a good deal of experience don't want LTRR or a kid. This is why i don't want to give people chances. By the time i realize how much they don't fit, i kinda like them. At least enough to not want to stomp on their hearts.
And it's strange They're all basically the same So I don't ask names anymore. -Death Cab for Cutie
When I took BT to my grandparents' house, my mother was dismissive of his presence. When my grandma was pointing out his flaws, my mom just waved her hand. "They never last long. I hardly ever meet any of them anyway. It doesn't matter. He'll be gone soon enough." My grandma disagreed, said that this one was going to stick around awhile. She was right. I married him within the week and, though he was deployed for much of that time and we never truly lived together, we were married for a year and a half.
Of course, my mom couldn't have known that known that this one would be different from the others. Once I finally came out of my shell after the end of my LTRR with Moneypenny, I really hit the ground running. I was dealing with the beginning of the illnesses in my family, which was stressing me out and provoking the crazy, which I hadn't really developed effective coping skills for. And Mon Parrain had opened my eyes to the fact that I could easily and openly fuck without having to have a LTRR with the person. So I was doing quite a bit of that. There were many people my mom never even knew I had seen. Of those she did, they weren't usually anything serious and they faded away within a few weeks.
I have found that it isn't uncommon for the rebound process to involve a brief but intensely slutty period. Even if you wanted to start a new LTRR, you still have too many feelings for your ex to turn it on to a new person, especially for monogamous people or people looking to find a new primary partner. On the other hand, you want to feel wanted by someone new. You want to feel like you are desirable to someone other than your ex, who obviously doesn't find you as attractive anymore. You want to meet new and different kinds of people. You probably feel like you've spent the last bit of your previous relationship pushing down or ignoring parts of yourself, so you want to let that out to run wild, whether that be eating at places your ex didn't like, working on hobbies you might have ignored, or fucking in ways that your ex didn't like. And hell, you're just lonely. You had this partner for quite awhile and you were used to having someone to do things with. Now you're alone. "There's an art to life's distractions. Somehow escapes the burning weight, the art of scraping through. Some like to imagine the dark caress of someone else I guess any thrill will do."
But there's something more. Maybe it's the crazy. Maybe it's the way I'm wired. Maybe I've just been lucky enough to have this many people be interested in me when maybe others don't. No matter what it is though, I can have a bit of a fickle heart. It's a small part of why I prefer open relationships. (Note I'm not saying polyamorous.) I know that most infatuations are just that and won't last very long, so most bits of strange are just that, a little bit of strange. "Don't take this the wrong way. You knew who I was every step that I ran to you. Only blue or black days, electing strange perfections in any stranger I choose." Sadly, when I'm looking for a relationship I only date other people who are looking for relationships and I have hurt people with that fickleness, despite my attempts to tell them who I am and keep a bit of a distance. I get all wrapped up in this new person and their new-ness and that they like me. It can come off as me liking them more than I end up liking them, because I truly do think I like them more in the beginning.
For the past month or two, I've dealt first with not having much of a sex drive at all (except for with The Professor because, well, what can I say? He does strange things to me) and then with my sex drive coming back but really only wanting to have sex or play with him. A big part of it has been the comfort and trust factors. With play, I obviously haven't developed that kind of relationship with anyone. With all of that in general, I just haven't had an interest in anyone long enough to get there. But I'm trying to stay open to new people. I do want a new primary, ideally one who will also be my new Dom/Master as well as primary boyfriend, or even husband, and baby daddy. I can't do that if I never give anyone a chance. I don't have the time or stamina to give everyone who crosses my path a go, but the right people, the people who interest me, the people who seem to be a good 80% of what I'm looking for, should be given a chance.
But as I start to talk to more people, have more dates, explore new relationships, I do worry about my fickle heart, especially since it is also rebounding. This song has been playing in my head for days now, makes me want to dance around, even if that does seem like too much of a celebration of what is really dickish behavior. Anyway, I thought I'd share.
Someone New- Hozier
Don't take this the wrong way
You knew who I was every step that I ran to you
Only blue or black day
Electing strange perfections in any stranger I choose
Would things be easier if there was a right way
Honey there is no right way
And so I fall in love just a little ol' little bit
Every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
There's an art to life's distractions
Somehow escapes the burning weight,
the art of scraping through
Some like to imagine
The dark caress of someone else
I guess any thrill will do
Would things be easier if there was a right way
Honey there is no right way
And so I fall in love just a little ol' little bit
Every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I wake at the first cringe of morning
And my heart's already sinned.
How pure, how sweet the love and you would pray for him
Cos God knows I fall in love just a little ol' little bit
Every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
Love with every stranger the stranger the better
Love with every stranger the stranger the better
Love with every stranger the stranger the better
Love with every stranger the stranger the better
Love with every stranger the stranger the better
Love with every stranger the stranger the better
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
It's amazing how easily people will ignore when you are crying. It doesn't matter how large or small the group, people will still chose to ignore when there are tears in your eyes. Or rolling down your face.
You're all alone.
I cry alot for a person. Alot. Alot alot. It often gets ignored.
The second greatest gift I got from being with Ginger and the Professor was that I had to decide to take on my share, and maybe even a little bit more, if I wanted to be with them. I had always been in relationships where, at least at some point, my partner was gonna be able to shoulder the financial burdens, so I could let the crazy debilitate me if I wanted to and the bills would be paid. (I'm not particularly proud of that and it isn't fair, but it is honest.) But in this particular relationship, I was gonna have to keep my shit together to a certain extent and pull my weight. Once I decided to do that, even when I wasn't with them in that way anymore, and I was once again back to just having me to answer to, me who would be out on the street, I still kept that mindset.
But even more than that, I realized I was on my own. When I was with them, I was on my own to make enough to contribute. But also, they were already a couple. Maybe it was me that never fully let go enough to be three together. Maybe they are just too solitarily paired to be three. Either way, I was always still a bit on the outside. It had been my biggest fear going into the relationship and, self-fulfilling prophecy or not, I stayed a bit on the outside and I'm alone now. Looking around my apartment last night, my cute, safe, comfy, little hobbit hole, it hit me again how alone I was. That if I was gonna do this, I was gonna have to do this alone. The Professor and I might be lovers and/or play partners and I'll still be close friends with both of them. My folks will help out with money when needed or practical things when possible. TyRoy helped me move. Moneypenny listens to me. But in the day to day, I am on my own. No Daddy or Master or boyfriend or girlfriend. Just me.
Addendum written just before posting:
The day after I wrote this, I told the Professor about my very bad night and all these feelings I had about being alone. I hope that I was able to convey that I wasn't trying to make him feel bad or make him do anything, just that I was explaining to him how I felt. I've since had two realizations about this.
First, doing this myself also has an upside, namely that it is ME that is doing this, that I can be proud of what I'm doing and what I've done, and that it is my fuck-ups that only effect me.
Second, I'm not actually doing this alone, because I have the help and support of those people I listed, and then some, but I still feel alone. Maybe I'm always going to feel alone. While the point I was making was about it feels much more alone to be doing this without a partner, while many things might be easier if I had a partner to do this with, someone all in with me 24/7, maybe I would still feel alone on some level.
If a person wanted to be real crafty, they could easily seduce me with what i write here if they wanted to. I'm always amazed how little my writing get used against me.
I love the relationship between the Underwoods on House of Cards. The end of the second season episode where he brings out "the real thing" at her behest, a cigarette he's squirreled away, hidden under a lamp, and she asks him to sing to her. Gods, to have someone sing to me. Not a big production number. Not very loudly. Just softly, inder their breath as we lay there. Mockingbird sings in the middle of the night, all his songs are stolen so he hides....He sings them for you special. He knows you're afraid of the dark. Come on, sorrow, take your own advice, hide under the bed, turn out the light. Stars this night in the sky are ringing out. You can almost hear them saying, Close your eyes now kid... (-neko case)
I've always been happy just to have someone who'd sing with me. But it would be nice to have someone who'd sing to me.
Talking about barely scraping by and he says "Hell, I have a roommate and a good job and I'm barely making it."
Knowing a bit about his money situation, I'm still a bit incredulous. "I could totally get us both by on only what you make."
"Well, I'm sure you could but I'd have to change how I live."
Ah, and that's the crux of it, isn't it? You've had long - long-term relationships but you've never lived with someone. Living with someone is different.
It's more money until one of you hits a rough patch and loses their job or gets ill. It's someone being scared shitless about the bills and another person pretending they aren't. It's telling someone to quit that job that's dangerous, that you'll be able to get by until they find something else.
It's sacrificing your guilty pleasures to the budget. It's "fuck the budget, you're pms-ing and deserve fried food and chocolate."
It's "I never get chinese because he doesn't like it." It's "I can't keep chips or ice cream or beer or crackers (fucking crackers!? ) in the house for more than a few days and stuff is never there when I want to eat it because someone else always eats it first." It's someone else doing the grocery shopping on pay day. It's "Daddy, can you make me carbonera?" And he says yes but he has to look it up online because he doesn't actually know how to make it. It's bacon and fried eggs that put every restaurant to shame on mornings when he's up before you go to work.
It's not being able to get yourself something without getting something for them. It's either eating your Taco Bell really fast & throwing the wrappers away in the dumpster before you get home because buying for two or three means spending $20 for a single trip. It's knowing which their favorite candy bar, beer or wine, and fast food order. It's the look of surprise on their face when you bring it to them, even if you really only got them something because you wanted something.
It's cleaning up the kitchen only for it to be dirty an hour later. It's "I just cleaned this sink. Do you not see all these little beard trimmings you left here?" It's "that doesn't go in that basket!" It's someone else scrubbing the tub, with baking soda not bleach like you would have used. It's someone else walking the trash out in the dark. It's someone else helping you carry stuff to your car so you don't have to make two trips. It's someone appreciating that clean kitchen. It's knowing they look forward to hearing whatever new album you are currently obsessed with and how you sing softly to yourself while you do the dishes.
It's never enough sex for one of you. It's fucking when you dont feel like it beacause you know they are feeling deprived or unloved. It's cuddling or petting their aching head or rubbing their cramping belly, even though you really want sex. It's sex that lasts all weekend the first time you get a full two days alone and finally feeling reconnected. It's them diving between your legs until you cum when you poutingly refuse to get out of bed to go to work without sex.
It's not having that extra money so you can go to every concert you want to, or fly across the country to visit a friend, or take off work half a week to see your team play in the college club hockey championship. For awhile, it's just visiting family for holidays, having to put up with theirs. It's going to their friend's wedding and staying in an allergen - filled house because there are no motels nearby, as if you could afford one. It's planning trips on the cheap around the hobby of one of you that the other doesn't really like. It's finding a place you've both always wanted to go and dreaming and saving for it. It's showing them the California coast because they've never been. It's an Alaskan cruise for your 25th. It's your kids taking you to Ireland for your 40th. It's taking your granddaughter to Disney.
It's having to put up with someone else's crazy family, watch them hurt that person and you dont get to just say "tell them to go fuck themselves." It's weird foods and traditions. It's people getting in your business. It's someone forcing you to spend Christmas with your mama before you deploy. It's someone standing with you at your father's deathbed. It's simeone holding down the fort while you stay with your brother in hospice three hours away on family leave. It's someone who buys a two duplex building so you can move your parents in next door and help care for your ailing mother.
It's more money but still never enough. It's an extra set of hands but a pain in the ass. It's someone else to shoulder the load but it's constant work. It costs more than you have, in ways that you can't see on a spreadsheet, and it's worth every penny. But you'll never know that if you don't stop worrying so much about what yoy lose and ignoring what you gain. It might not have worked out for me this time but I'll still do it again. And I'd even do this one again.
I'm not used to being done with someone before they are done with me. Because of the crazy they usually leave before I would want that. And if or when they do want to come back later I'm usually fine with that too because I never wanted them to leave.
I also try really hard to see where other people are coming from and, when needed, forgive them. Some of it just comes from an overabundance of empathy. The combination of the writer in me, the fuck-up in me, and the crazy working as a mirror all make me work really hard to see what might have been behind someone doing something. Also one of the few things I learned from Oprah and still keep with me is the idea that a person needs to forgive not because the other person deserves it but because the forgiver doesn't deserve to hold on to things, to carry those things around with them all the time.
There was quite awhile where I thought that I needed to forgive my biological father for not being in my life before I could work on myself. And I tried but I just never could get past it all. I was too angry and hurt. And I still had too many questions. At one point early in my therapy, I told my therapist "Well, if I need to do that, then I think that I'm just going to have to stay broken, because I don't think I'll ever be able to do that." Thankfully, she assured me that I didn't necessarily need to do that for this kind of therapy.
It's not as if I I hadn't wanted to understand and forgive. During my teen and college years, I started countless stories where he would show up at some important event in my life, my graduation, my wedding, and have a good explanation for why he had not been around in my childhood. One that did not involve demonizing my mother. And one that included a book with the times I'd shown up in the newspaper and pictures of me getting awards. (Not that those happened often, but this is my fantasy.) A few years ago, I had a some realizations about his absence, including that there would never be a good enough explanation for why he was voluntarily absent from my life for over 20 years.
Of course, just a few months after that, he started to initialize contact. The first thing I got was a Facebook friend request from his wife. There was no message with it. My response was less than cordial. In between, there were messages from a woman that he works with on Facebook, though I didn't find those until later, as they ended up in my "Other Messages" box. A little over a month ago, I received a letter from him. I had to go to the post office and sign for it, so he'd know for sure that I got it, though it was sent with a return address that wasn't his home or his name. Yes, with all my insistence on honesty from people in my life, my biological father chooses to try to contact me through all manner of subterfuge.
At the time I received the letter, I was not in a good place. I did not have a job. I did not have a place to live lined up for when my parents started renting out the house we were living in. And I had just found out that my relationship was not going to work out how we had wanted it to. After a night of freaking out and crying and freaking out some more and vomiting up my dinner because I was freaking out, with the advice of my therapist and the Professor, who reconnected with his father when he was 18, I decided that what was best for me was not dealing with it right then. I sent him a message telling him that I needed time and not to contact me, especially not through third parties.
Now things are somewhat better. I have been working steadily. I like the mindless data entry job, through a temp service, that I'm working and can imagine working there for quite a while. As long as I keep doing well there, even if the data entry job no longer needs me, the temp service will probably find me something else pretty quickly. I have an apartment lined up and I move in two weekends. Hell, I even have most of my stuff already packed up. I still don't know what is going to happen to my relationship with the Professor and Ginger, but I know that I can work against my worst and craziest impulses during a breakup or transition, so maybe we can come out of this in a healthy way. So every few days I think "Well, now I have to decide what to do about that fucking letter." But I have as yet been pretty baffled as to what I want to do. Usually, when I start fantasy-writing it, I end up going on an endless diatribe about all the ways that he wronged me and fucked me up. That seems less than helpful.
Then Friday while I was working and letting my mind wander, it hit me that I didn't want to hear his story. All I wanted was for him to hear just a little bit of mine, to know how hard it had been growing up feeling like one of the two people who should have loved me unconditionally felt there was something so wrong with me that he had to be completely absent from my life. I also realized that I did not want to give him my forgiveness. It might sound extremely petty, but I wanted him to know until his dying day that he would never have my love or forgiveness.
In DBT, we learn how to validate ourselves, to just say "yes, this emotion is here and I am feeling it." That includes emotions that we might have been told growing up are destructive or not ever appropriate, like anger. We're also taught that anger can be both justified by the situation and a very powerful motivator. I don't want to not be angry at him. I don't want to hear his side of the story. I don't want to forgive him. I don't want this to ever be okay. I don't want a relationship with him. And I want HIM to have to carry that around for the rest of his life, just like I have to.
I still don't know exactly what I want to say or in what medium I want to say it. I do know that I want it to be short and sweet. I don't want it to be about comparing him and my mother or my step-father as parents or people in my life. I don't want to allow him room to argue or debate. And I don't want it to be about anything other than him not being there, because that is the only thing that I actually experientially know he did TO me. In DBT, we have a skill called FAST, which creates a guideline for keeping our self-respect when dealing with another person: Be Fair, No Apologies. Stick to your values. Be Truthful. I want to be all of those things. But I don't want to hear his side. I don't want to forgive him. And I want that to haunt him as much as him not being in my life haunted me.
This was originally posted to my fet account last night but I wanted to share it here too. Idon't think it's any more sexual than anything else I might typically post here.
I have been accused of being overly picky, too dismissive, or just an outright bitch in the early stages of dating. On the one hand, that might all be true. On the other hand however, I don't want to waste anyone's time, nine or yours, and I have a pretty good idea of what I want and what I don't want. Though I'm willing to excuse some things based in chemistry, I also know that chemistry only seems to happen when many of these things are in play.
As of writing this, I'm newly single and I'm trying to get out in the community more, meet more people, see more of what's out there, hopefully find other s-type (and maybe D-types) that I can form closer friendships with, particularly so that when I am in another relationship and experience new or weird feelings after play, I have someone to help me work through it. (Yes, I know that sounds selfish. I'll try to bring something else to the table for my new friends.) But even though I'm barely out of my last relationship, still trying to figure out how you get your heart back out of a M/s relationship actually, i have still had men interested in me. I thought I'd write this so that those men can see if we might actually be compatible before ever wasting anymore time.
The first thing that has to be there is the ever elusive "chemistry." That is something we wouldn't know before being around each other, but I want to make sure I warn people that if I'm not feeling it, I won't date you. It's not just getting along kinda chemistry that I'm talking about. It's that "even your sweat smells good" and I don't have to try to want to have sex with you. It's a pheromone or biology or whatever, something I can't explain and we can't do anything to create. And if I don't feel it, or you don't feel it, there's no point in going further.
Next, I am not looking for any casual play partners, or casual partners at all. The kind of things I want to do and the kind of relationship I want to have requires more trust than I could give to just a casual play partner. Also, while it is still a possibility, I would like to attempt to have a biological child as part of the family I am trying to create for myself. Yeah, I know, I'm probably scaring off a good 70% of the men out there off, but that's kinda the point, right? If that's not something you want, then you shouldn't try to date me at all. I'm actually more worried about men who'll try to use that as a way to get out of using protection. Haha. Nope. That's a surefire way for me to not date you as well.
I haven't even touched on kink or roles, have I? First, i wanna make sure you get past the above things because if you try to use the things I'm about to write before im serious about you, I'll be the one doing the slapping. So what kind of kinkster am I looking for? Well, I'm greedy. I want a Dominant Sadistic Daddy Master. More than ever I realize that the dynamic between two people is developed between the two of them and no two dynamics will be the same. But I like a Sadistic Dominant in the bedroom/for play. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach when it comes to masochism but I would like to keep pushing my limits, deepening and widening my experiences. My idea of foreplay is making out while you pull my hair, candles are for pouring wax, I can make my own bubble bath, and I do not 'make love,' no matter how much I love you. I like scenes but I like even my sex on the regular to have some bit of that dominance to it. In our everyday out of the bedroom I have found that I do desire the stability, consistency, challenge, and accountability that a 24/7 power exchange relationship affords, though I don't have particular protocol or hard and fast rules that I believe must be there. I don't need micromanaged. I don't need to keep traditional gender roles. In fact, I can't cook worth a shit, so I'm hoping you can. I don't need, or even want, for you to make all the decisions, especially without consulting me, but when I follow your orders or rules, I have to be able to trust that you are making decisions that are ultimately best for us and for me, not just whatever is best for you. I kinda also like a little bit of Daddy sprinkled in there. Baby me when I'm feeling sick, pet my hair when I'm down, have me call or text you when I get somewhere so you know I'm safe, be proud of me when I reach my goals and support me getting there.
I think that's a pretty good primer on what I am looking for which, with my profile, should eliminate us wasting each other's times. As rude and dismissive as this might sound, I would like to add that i dont think that men that don't fit what I am looking for are bad men or people or partners. I just don't think they are going to be good partners for me, nor me for them. And that is ok. The choices I make do not reflect on if someone else is deserving of love ir a relationship in general or of if they are doing their kink right or wrong. It is just what I think is best for me right now. I'm a big girl who has friends and loved ones to protect her already. I don't need a savior or a knight in shining armor or for you to tell me that I don't know what I want. But if you're still interested after all this and all the above doesn't disqualify us from each other, then, when my heart is a bit more healed, maybe we could date.
I think I miss her more. I mostly don't have to miss him. A part of me feels like I might never have to miss him. If I'm still a good and respectful girl who doesn't bring crazy into his house and is stubborn enough to be around through his crazy, and will still give porn star head, a part of me suspects that he and I could wander in and out of each other's lives forever, even if he can't be a primary or secondary partner for me or be my Master.
But she is different. I feel like just my presence might stress her out. She and I make plans to do something outside of the house, at this point once a week, but early mornings are best for her and I am notorious for oversleeping. Because he is largely stuck at home, she has seceded that realm to him. So I can come and go as he pleases to spend time with him, which is usually while she is asleep or at work, and I largely avoid encroaching on her time when I am there.
Last weekend I was out on a date with someone who knew a bit of the breakup and that I was still un-tangling myself from things. He asked me where I wanted to be in a year. One of the multiple things I brought up was wanting to be in a larger family. It was a date and I didn't want to scare him off by having him think anymore than he might already that "I'd like to be more on my way to having a child," which he already knew was something I wanted, meant "In a year, I want have trapped you and be popping out little You Jrs." But I while answering the question, I realized that it wasn't just that I wanted to be having a baby sometime in the near future, but that I wanted more of a family than just my parents (and my step-father's parents who don't really see me as their grandchildren.) I know we can't have the family we imagined, but does that mean we can't have the one she talked about wanting with close but not sexually-involved friends? Living near enough to help each other parent? Just because the three of us, and by extension the two of them and me and whoever my future baby-daddy is, can't be a romantic grouping, why does that habe to eliminate the other dreams we had of a poly-family?
I miss that dream and feeling like someone had my back and I had theirs. I miss cuddling and watching our tv shows. I miss waking her up at night before she went to work. I miss getting to do things for her, feeling like I eased her load. I miss getting to hear her beliefs and ideas, many of which are vastly different from my own. I miss seeing her be amazing and wishing other people could see it too. I miss getting to feel natural around her, though now I'm always so worried that I'm gonna fuck her up that I'm not sure that's in the cards for awhile.
I should have known it was a lie. Not an intentional lie, but a lie nonetheless. I thought I'd always have them, that they would be there to help me. I made myself believe that. And that we were gonna have this messy little life but that it would be together. That my crazy was gonna be just fine with them and that the dynamic was the best one for us. Now I feel so alone and my crazy is too much and the dynamic is too much. Im trying to find a place all on my own when the only place that I might be able to afford with the job that I'm just praying I get is one in their building! Jesus FML! And I didn't do anything super psycho. I had myself convinced that as long as I didn't do something psycho, I would be fine. They wouldn't leave or not want me. I can't believe I forgot the first rule. Even before House's Rule ("Everyone lies") is my rule- Everyone leaves. I don't know why I thought it would be any different here. Stupid girl.
How we feel when we want to end a relationship but we don't want to hurt the other person: Bad Goodbye- Clint Black (feat. Wynona) http://youtu.be/XLA8sUvCLeU
I've been bound to leave you, We've known that for awhile I'm sure it's something I can't do If I can't leave you with a smile I don't know how far I'll have to go 'Til I'm sure those eyes won't cry And in my mind I've left enough to know that I can't leave you with A bad good bye
Goodbye, easier said than done
Goodbye, there's no good when you're the one Whose goodbye you swore would never come
And in my goodbye you're finding none.
I'm still bound to leave you,
I surely don't know how
My heart won't let me put you through
What my mind says should happen now.
I don't know where we'll go from here,
there may be no way to fly
And the cloud I'm in just makes it
all too clear that I can't leave you
With a bad goodbye.
Goodbye, easier said than done
Goodbye, there's no good when you're the one
Whose goodbye you swore would never come
And in my goodbye you're finding none.
How can we be so far between Where we are and one more try
And any way I look,
I've only seen that I can't leave you
With a bad goodbye...
How it feels to know that someone has been putting off breaking up with you:
Break Your Heart- Barenaked Ladies
http://youtu.be/11AnXGIwXa4
The bravest thing I've ever done
Was to run away and hide
But not this time, not this time
And the weakest thing I've ever done
Was to stay right by your side
Just like this time, and every time
I couldn't tell you I was happy when you were gone
So I lied and said that I missed you when we were apart
I couldn't tell you, so I had to lead you on
But I didn't mean to break your
And if I always seem distracted Like my minds somewhere else That's because it's true, yes it's true
it's this stupid pride that makes me feel
Like I have to follow through
Even half-assedly, loving you
Why must I always speak in terms of cowardice?
When I guess I should have just come out and told you right from the start
Why must I always tell you all I want is this?
I guess 'cause I didn't want to break your heart
And you said Whatcha think that I was gonna do, Curl up and die just because of you? I'm not that weak, you know What'd you think that I was gonna do, Try to make you love me as much as I love you? How could you be so low? You arrogant man, What do you think that I am? My heart will be fine Just stop wasting my time
And now I'm over you, I'll be OK,
and that I've got what I want,
and that's rid of you
Bye
And it's not 'cause I'll be missing you
That makes me fall apart
It's just that I didn't mean to break
No I didn't mean to break
No I didn't mean to break
Your heart
And how it feels when you're still standing there afterwards: What Makes You Stay- Deana Carter
http://youtu.be/PgB0Iuui3w4
Look at me
I'm in a place
I never thought I'd be
Don't have the strength To fight anymore Or a reason not to leave
So tell me why I still keep holding on
To something I just cannot see
What makes you stay
When your world falls apart
What makes you try one more time
When it's not in your heart
At the end of your rope
When you can't find any hope
You still look at him and say
I just can't walk away
Tell me what makes you stay
I'm not afraid Of living alone I was alone before he came
I've been in love Many times before But this time's not the same
I've always been the first to say goodbye
Now it's the last thing I can do
What makes you stay
When your world falls apart
What makes you try one more time
When it's not in your heart
At the end of your rope
When you can't find any hope
You still look at him and say
I just can't walk away
Tell me what makes you stay
When it goes this deep And feels this strong I can't convince myself That this love is wrong
What makes you stay
When your world falls apart
What makes you try one more time
When it's not in your heart
At the end of your rope
When you can't find any hope
You still look a him and say
I just can't walk away
Tell me what makes you stay
I think I'm going to get an apartment and never come out.
Ok, so that's an exaggeration. Of course I'll come out to go to work. I mean, I'll have to in order to pay for the apartment. But I think I'll be doing a great deal of staying in. Read all my baglog of magazines. Read all my books so I can get rid of the ones I don't think I'll reread. (Hahahahaha. Like I'm ever going to get rid of them. See, I haven't lost my sense of humor.) I'll keep my hulu queue down to one page. (Again, hahahaha.) I'll try to work on my Netflix queue too. I'll watch all the movies on the top 100 lists and all the movies that have won a best picture Oscar.
Notice what isn't in there? Dating or fucking or romance. That's because it isn't going to be. I've hit that point today where I feel like I'm never going to be able to change enough to have anything close to a functioning long-term romantic relationship. I can be the kindest, sweetest, compassionate, most generous person I can possibly be and I can even be with people who I love and who truly do love me but I will never not be too much. Find a sane person and they'll either never understand or I'll make them crazy. Find other crazy people and I'll make them crazier. I can try to hand the times that my feelings are unjustified on my own but I won't always be successful. I'm not sure I'll ever not be more upset by more things more often than most other people. I work hard for these times to be further apart and less intense and to take them out on the people in my life less often. But I will never be a normal person. I will probably always need more handholding, more reassuring, more sex and play, and more tolerance. And in the end, no amount of those good things about me is going to make up for that.
So I'm going to stop trying. I'm going to try to sublimate and forget.
Maybe I'll use all that energy to keep track of my calories, down to the last one, eating healthier and smaller. Work out daily. Go for long walks in my new neighborhood, no matter how good or not good it is, refusing to be afraid to walk around my home again, but also not allowing myself to be vulnerable again. No skirts or heels for me. And no pink. Even if I get thinner, I will try to make it so I am also stronger.
Or maybe I'll eat as much as I want of anything I want. No one looks twice at the disgusting fat chick, right? I'm still not seen as the first & easiest target. Well, except for a mugging, since it's not like I could run after you. But I won't have to worry about sex or romance then.
Maybe I'll go back to devoting much of my time to caregiving for my family. My step-father's parents will be moving here in August and his mother has dementia and lung cancer. I'm sure they'll need help. If I devote myself to that, I won't have time for romance. And no one really wants the baggage that comes with that situation anyway. I don't remember if I missed having sex while I cared for my uncle. I was usually able to get it with TyRoy when I was in his area, but it's hard for me to remember what I did or didn't feel, especially during the time I was on the Lithium.
Recently, I've told other people that what I appreciate about DBT is that it doesn't really ask you to focus on the bigger picture things because right now you are probably having a hard enough time just getting through this minute, this hour, this day. It seems to be if more use to me than other things I had learned. I remember when I was 15 the therapist my parents' sent me to asked me what I would want on a deserted island with me. Since no one told me it was a trick question, I answered honestly. I wanted some books and some cds and my cd walkman and some batteries and a journal and some pens. (I didn't say it then but I had read Lord of the Flies and the book they made into the movie where a teenage Brooke Shields has sex with her brother because they are the only ones on the island. I know that you can find food and water on deserted islands.) He acted like I was the dumbest kid ever. He pulled out Maslovs Heirarchy of Needs and told me how I needed to focus on the bottom layers, Physological Needs (food & water) and Safety & Security Needs (shelter) before I focused on the top needs. This was entirely unhelpful at the time. I was 15 and my parents took care of my food and shelter needs.
But right now, I think I need to combine the two, DBT and Maslo. I need to work on getting a job and my own roof above my head, as the time I will be able to depend on others is quickly running out. And when I get overwhelmed, I need to do whatever I can to get through the next minute, next hour, next day, until it is bearable again, at least bearable enough to work on getting those base needs met. Right now, that is venting here until I can go to a movie with my friend Marcy so I can stop crying for awhile. Then, it will be time to take my night pills, including a sleeping pill, then I'll try to get up early and work on those needs. Maybe I'm overeacting about the state of my current relationship or about my future relationship prospects, so don't hold me to it. But then again, maybe I'll get an apartment and never come out. Don't say you weren't warned.
"I've been thinking about a problem." Moneypenny and I are sitting in his living room, while I'm on my visit to larger Midwest City from Smaller Midwest City. "If you are working from a many worlds theory, where everyone's life is their own world, then you basically create your own world. What do you think people would do differently if they realized that they created their own world?" I wasn't sure if this was a poke at how I had been feeling all weekend, so mired in the lack of a clearly, overwhelmingly good decision that I feel unable to make any, or was coming from his own place of wanting to make a better life for himself. Either way, it still put me on the defensive and I went on a five minute rant about how no matter what changes in life or attitude people may make there would still be things in their life that they couldn't change and that would still suck anyway. Then I felt guilty for not being able to add anything to his conversation. I ended up leaving an hour earlier than I might have originally because I couldn't stand to sit there anymore as I fought both being angry and wanting to cry.
These kinds of thought experiments used to be fun for me. Even when I couldn't completely understand or envision them, the seemingly kooky ideas that pop up in quantum mechanics always blew me away and I loved thinking about the possibilities they presented. When I was studying Buddhism and how we create our own realities, I could easily get carried away in those possibilities as well, the ability to unravel so much of the suffering that we have created in our own lives. Stone-cold sober, he and I could have the kind of conversations that people are only supposed to be able to have when they are on some sort of mind-altering substance.
But in recent years, I've drifted further and further away from those kinds of discussions and, on the drive home, I was plagued by the question of why. I used to love those kinds of thought experiments, would come up with at least half of the places we would start on my own. Now it rubs me the wrong way to even things of them. I'm trying to work out why. I'm going to try to arrange my thoughts as best as I can, but I'm not sure how good of a job I'll do, so bare with me.
I think part of it is that with the stuff that has happened in my life, it has felt less important. Who cares about the possibilities of the multi-verse or unravelling the cycles of suffering in our lives when we're caring for ill and/or dying family members? Or even when we are just trying to get by, paycheck to paycheck? When you're spending all your time trying to figure out how to pay the next bills or how to afford to move out or you'd be able to someday go to school to be able to get a better job so you don't have to worry as much about paying the bills, you don't have as much, if any, room in your head for thinking about more esoteric things. Or at least I don't. We had all these conversations when I was 21 and in college. Yes, I only had a part-time job and I had to think about my schoolwork and being able to pay bills, but there were much fewer of them and I was convinced that soon I would have a decent enough job that I wouldn't have to worry as much about paying bills. I was convinced that my near future looked brighter so it wasn't as much of a chore to worry about the bills then. Now I'm 32 and I'm hitting this wall where my future doesn't look any brighter, where my best case scenario is having a future that is this same shade and not a shade darker. As much as I might want to, I just don't have it in me to give a shit about that stuff any more.
But I think that a big part of it is the crazy. I read this article last week from the Atlantic's website that was about the link between creativity and mental illness. Near the end of the article, she writes about talking to another colleague about creativity and schizophrenia (emphasis is mine): "Heston and I discussed whether some particularly creative people owe their gifts to a subclinical variant of schizophrenia that loosens their associative links sufficiently to enhance their creativity but not enough to make them mentally ill." Her end conclusion in the article is : "Some people see things others cannot, and they are right, and we call them creative geniuses. Some people see things others cannot, and they are wrong, and we call them mentally ill. And some people, like John Nash, are both." This really hit home with me. Now, I do not have schizophrenia, or a family history of it, nor have I ever been a creative genius, but I do think that the ways in which I think of things that many others might not come from a different way of associating things. But I think that that much of this is tied to letting the crazy drive the train more. Now that I am not letting her drive the train as much, the less I have that. It is not as bad as I had hoped that it would be when I first started down this road of improving my mental health, but it is there and it is enough of a difference that i notice it. I also have to deal with the long-term side effects of psychiatric medications. My memory has never been the same after I took lithium. Being on a mood-stabilizing medication that wards against the brain chemically induced suicidality as well as bringing up the low parts of the low side and down the up side of the ups means that I don't have those periods of creative hyper-energy anymore. (You know, mania.) As we speak, I'm also having weird things happen which I'm not sure are mental illness or medication related (or neither), like spacing out and losing time, and increased light sensitivity and black floating spots in my vision occasionally. But if you take this and add it up what you get is less memory to cull from, less energy to make associations, and a quieter and more orderly brain with less loose associations. And a woman who is very sad and more than a little angry that she has to make the decision between living life at all and having an interesting brain, though she is pretty sure what decision she will keep making day after day, even though it means she doesn't get to have those conversations anymore.
