The unmistakable waste of regret

 

I wonder how he feels…what it must feel like to lose someone in that time, in that way?  It hurts inside me to ponder this as Mother’s Day approaches in spite of the fact that it’s a Hallmark holiday.  I wonder this all year really.  It just seems to become more pronounced at this time.

He said I was “so much like her”.  He said she was always doing kind things for people and getting hurt and taken advantage of.  He said it made him so mad to remember her standing at the sink doing dishes every day and how he wished he had offered to help or told her to sit down and let him do them.  It was the only time I heard regret in his voice, shouting through his soft and nonchalantly spoken words.  The only time ever when he was sober and before we ended. 

A few times in his late-night intoxicated visits after, I distinctly heard regret in his voice, in his words, and could even see it in his eyes.  His regret for the mass of hateful stories he told his friends and family about me and could not rescind.  His regret at the scars on my face which he readily acknowledged were not there until after we separated and after the torture began.  A few times of regret at his very arrival to me.  He is unlike me; he is not a man of regrets.  And I must wonder if those regrets were mere manipulations from a man who deeply understood how to get away with abusing my spirit….all it takes is to create the tiniest of  sympathies and my heart, no matter how angry or hurt even just prior, would soften to jello and ache for him.  It could even ache for how he hurt me, when he hurt me,  as he was hurting me…

Otherwise, he was never a man of regret, except that one time…about her.  So naturally I think of him this time of year and I think of her, the woman in his life who was so forgiving and so easily taken advantage and regretfully taken for granted.

I never asked him any questions about her.  I really didn’t know how to broach such a horrible subject of which I had no experience and no way to ease the pain, except with my love…with my devotion…  After such a horrible loss, these things didn’t seem to qualify. So I never asked…

I wish I had asked him questions.  I never knew here and yet she has visited me in a few dreams.  I can sense her thoughts it seems sometimes and I know that it can’t be, but I’d swear I can…  I miss her for him and I didn’t even know her.  I pray he doesn’t hurt too much today.  I pray that today he has a woman’s love and devotion whom he trusts not to ever hurt him, disappoint him… or leave him.

He has never been a man of regret, while I am nothing much but a regretful woman whose regret was never enough.

Spring morning and tragedy

After the long dead silence of winter, I love waking up, snug in my bed, to the sound of birds chirping… It sounds like renewal, a fresh slate.  Out with the old, wet, heavy, drudgery of snow and ice and in slides the hint of soft green grass under my naked feet and sunshine that longs to warm my skin.  It’s incredible!

This morning, I wake up just a few glorious moments before my alarm yells at me (and that is one of my favorites by the way…waking up naturally) and I think of the recent tragedy.  It’s ironically the beautiful renewal of spring which brings me to this horrible question…

Why would such a successful, talented young man with a beautiful young family, choose to end his life?  This tragedy weighs heavily on my heart because of my own fights against the tyranny of depression and the weariness that sometimes takes hold, telling me I don’t have  the strength, desire or reason to keep trudging along through this life.  Now, I think of him, where he is now, what created such a tragic degree of sadness in him…….and his family….  What he has left his family with gnaws at my insides like sharp little teeth of would-be guilt for my own indulgence in sometimes thinking of that kind of thing as a solution.

I wish I had known him better, although under the circumstances I can’t imagine that would ever have been appropriate in my society.  Had I known him better, would I have recognized the similar burden of dark thought that we shared, the danger zone we both visited?  Could I have made any difference? Would I have even seen or been able to help, if I had? 

This is the fourth suicide that has touched my life.  This one just hides along the edges, close enough to touch me, yet too far away still to feel any literal responsibility.  Suicide hurts so many, so much more than the actual victim.  Its like a ripple of darkness through an already messed-up world…a ripple of darkness so solid and massive that it trips all who merely know of it, like waking in the night and stumbling over an unseen object that’s not supposed to be there.  And although my own toe feels like I stumbled directly on it even just in my safe perimeter (a subtle throbbing my mind returns to again and again), I can’t possibly imagine how his family feels.

God, please wrap that family in love, compassion, and a massive healing light of  white and an energy of warm, yellow hope.  Please send them the hope of hummingbirds.

Different kind of nightmare…

Truck was in the drive yesterday  and curtains opened in middle of the afternoon.  It’s been a few months since I saw that…  I have to admit, I was a little hopeful that it meant something good.  And I felt badly that I felt that way as well…  Do I not love him enough to wish him happiness?  That is too selfish to be love and it’s not who I want to be on the planet, but it might be the plain and ugly truth…  Eww…

Heavy on my mind, I just woke from a dream that they were moving in together.  It was a dream where there was so much going on at once within the deream that I can’t recall any more details than the main premise, which was the moving in thing.  She had lots of money and I think they were quite happy…  It burned inside me so much that it was shameful to acknowledge.  And I’m left wondering…dream/nightmare or premonition?  Certain that the basis for my dream was the underlying chronic fear that this is going to happen soon.  Wishing I could recall more of the sbtle details within it though…but I can’t.  Perhaps the details are too painful for me to allow myself the details?

I’m willing to admit how hurtful the concept is, even though it goes directly against my concept of love and is embarrassing to me to acknowledge.  Yet, with this situation and thought, I do feel the tiniest release of the bonds chaining me to him .  This is part of what I’ve prayed for for so very long.  So I should be grateful for the answered prayer, really…  and in  some awkward way, I actually am.  I just hate the sick feeling that’s coming with it! 

AW says this is what she told me a year ago that had to happen before he came back for good – for real and of course, I long to believe that’s the case.  Simultaneously, I almost hope it’s just over and done (???!?!!) so I might have the chance to move on finally.  And what do I love there anymore?  I’ve not been with him since early June.  This is the second period of time in the past four years that it’s gone over a few weeks wwith him staying away.  I get that mild sense of hopeful comfort that this time it’s really over.  The same uncomfortable “comfort” I got once before, just before he returned as usual, shocking my world and my delicate balance.

Embarrassing to admit that I can’t truly fathom it’s genuinely over, while I hope that it is AND desperately pray that it’s not…all at the same maddening time!!! 

Taking baby steps (for me – leaps) to start over.  Spend a lot of time with Greg.  Met Eric Friday and liked him okay.  Saw JC and wonder if that’s anything at all, although I did not speak to him.  All in the name of deperately trying to start over and open myself to the possibility that it realy is finished and done at last.

Angie devastated our lives yet AGAIN.  In such an ugly way that we are reeling from it still!  The girls are struggling to understand such utter deceit and ugliness from someone they cared for so much.  I’m trying to help them through that, while feeling the same way myself AND kicking myself that I let myself believe in something better than that  from thet likes of her.  She has wrecked our home, thrown filthy lies and senseless deceit all over our hearts, and then threatened and accused me for good measure.  Amazing!  What a mess.  I’m tired of being the hopeful optimist and can’t stand the thought of losing that quality entirely at the same time…leaving me open to the fear that it’s still not the last time I let someone do this to me – to us.

I also feel sorry for her that it must be terribly difficult to live life within a web of lies constantly fearing they’ll be exposed and juggling people and places to keep them all in the air.  And in some ways, I wonder if she’s better off that she can do that and avoid the painful truths that hurt?  As opposed to the blatant harsh realities of myself that I’m forced to accept?

Rinse and repeat

1. So, that’s a good start!!  I went through with it and he was every bit as terrific as on our first date…

The red car was suddenly there Thursday morning and stayed for some time.  I can’t help but wonder and wish so much I didn’t even know.  I have no interest in knowing these things because I’m way too interested…so much more than I want to be.  Interesting that the car’s presence itself was not all that difficult, just the length of time it stayed…  Brought back memories and I don’t want to think that (a similar scenario?) is happening!  How many Wednesdays there have been spent in random sexual encounters anyway?  I’m sure too many to count, but then I remember I was originally a Wednesday too…so I have to accept that anything can happen.  No matter how unlikely it might seem to me.  It’s really not at all that unlikely.  That is wishful thinking and I do not want it. 

Why should any base substance inside of me care one way or another?  That is so unfair, I could just whine like a baby over it till the day I die!   And who on earth would I waste so much time and energy doing that?  I will not.  I perceived the situation, thought of a million scenarios (good and bad) and then let my feelings wash over me like a heavy cleansing rain, hoping they would subside as soon as they were acknowledged and allowed to flow…  That didn’t so much work, but I’m proud of my effort!

I lose all elements of creativity and inspiration when I suppress these things.  And it only hurts terribly when I let them flow.  Where is the middle ground for someone like me in this position?

I am really trying and although I question why I’m still in the position to have to try this hard, I want to be grateful that I completed a second date with JK and tell myself that IS the baby step in the right direction of change that I’ve been praying for.  …tell myself over and over and over…until it might become real….

unbelievable

It is April 1st, 2009 and I’m still chasing it all away.  It will officially be three years come Mother’s Day.  I can still feel a lingering stinging sensation on my skin with a mere thought.  The hole inside me hasn’t even begun to close.  I’m every bit as broken as the moment I sat there listening to him in disbelief.  I can’t believe I’m still like this!  I never imagined anything could or would heal so slowly as to literally feel it will never heal.  I fear I will never heal completely and it sickens me.  In disgust, I scoff at myself for this ridiculous eternal hell this situation has placed me in.  Do I even conceive of hell?  If it’s a fraction of the past three years, I know I would do anything to keep from it.

How is this possible?  Who allows this to continue in such fury and pain?

A safe place to breathe

Like an alarm clock has been planted in my brain, I wake at 3 am.  3 AM….the witching hour?  Such irony!

I wake because I love him.  I wake because I don’t love him.  I wake because I’m angry at his cruelty or furious at my stupidity..  Or I wake in fear at the slow death I am living…  I do not know much of anything any more.  Most likely, I never did.

Jared says maybe he is just a distraction from “him”.  No!  I have feelings, I just can’t get them in order.  It all feels very sick and unhealthy and I do not wish to draw others into it as I try to clear it out.  I tear myself between running to Jared and running from him.  I slept past 3 am for a few weeks and that was exciting, so imagine my frustration to see 3 AM this morning!

I have so much to offer and yet I really have nothing.  I know how to work hard and can’t muster the energy or focus to do so.  I know how to love and not how to parent.  I know how to defend myself and don’t.  I can’t be a daughter of the very thing I need to escape while attempting my escape.

I am lost in translation at communicating.  Somewhere along the way I’ve lost my rights to humanity and I piss myself off with my weak attempts to reclaim them.  Perhaps we are not all granted these at birth?  Perhaps some of us are only intended as vehicles for others’ self expression of their rights?  What if I am that girl?  What if all I’ll ever know again is 3 AM?  And confusion?  And fighting to defend myself at all the wrong times in all the wrong ways for all the right reasons?  What if that is all I’ll ever be as I desperately push to define myself beyond that?

I have the clay in my hands.  I feel the power of formation.  I am uncomfortable with power.  I never wanted it because I can’t trust myself to be worthwhile.  I squeeze and squish….  I languish for hours forming my soul and at 3 AM,  I carelessly and intentionally destruct all I struggled to create only hours earlier.  Smashing the clay back to a blob of formless muck!

I live a slow death and do not wish to draw anyone into that.  Yet, I am lonely while lost in translation.  And I ache for trust.  And I have enough love to feed half of the world.  I bleed from the neck as I ever so slowly chop off my own head.  I wish for life!  I wish for death!  I don’t know the difference between that ending and this beginning.  I only know how to feel.  I was born to feel…  I feel you.  I feel him.  I feel her.  I feel them.  I feel it all.  I feel everything until I can’t feel anything anymore.  Feeling is life and feeling will be my death.  I don’t want that any more, but if I turn it off, am I not already dead?

Are you not dead once you can no longer feel?  Or is that just a different way of living?  Is there a safe place to breathe at 3 AM?

The strangest sense of serenity

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can

and the wisdom to know the difference.

It is just as Morgana predicted.  I am not devastated right now.  There is a peaceful sense of all is as it should be.  I am a little hurt and disappointed.  I am unsure as to how to respond from here on out.  Love is the answer.  It is good that he can be so accepting of others’ faults.  I used to wonder why I don’t get that same grace and mercy.  Is it because he only sees my faults, but is truly blinded to others?  Why would that be?  Because his heart opened to me.  He allowed love to flow freely and expectantly.  Does he do that now with her?  My voice says, not if he has a lick of sense, but am I clouding that with my own selfish desires?  Are they even my desires or is it merely habit and stubbornness which leads and guides me?  I have wanted whatc I lost for so long I don’t know what I lst anymore.  I’ve forgotten what it was.   Let me see….my keys?  my right shoe?  My hairbrush?  What was it I lost?  What was I just looking for? 

I loved his high standards!  I wished I hadn’t disappointed them.  So now he’s willing to accept that on a level all its own?  If the standard isdrunkenness, promiscuity and cheating, then there can be no hurt or disappointment.  Is that really safer than opening the heart?  My heart, my existence has everything he once claimed was important for love.  Required, actually…  So, we lower our requirements in order to prevent being hurt again?  I hope that is the right path for him.  I hope she doesn’t do what she’s always done and break him down further.  Is that possible?  I wouldn’t think so,  if he knows her and he should know her.  She has hidden herself in so many ways from him, while being so up front.  Please don’t tell Dave…  Why should I not?  I won’t tell Dave…because I’d not want him to think badly of you.   He shouldn’t know the truth.  That way you can deceive him.  Okay.  I’ll never tell.  In fact, I’ll even color everything beautifully so he’ll be completely naive to who you are, while thinking he knows you best.

Honesty.  Why wasn’t I more honest?  Would it have made any difference anyway?  Is real devoted love just too blind for it to make a difference?  Is what he has for her real love?  If so, then it makes sense that he can’t or won’t see, but was ever so eager to embrace those qualities in me.  She has those qualities.  Well, she had them.  I don’t know her today to be able to say with confidence.  Maybe she has changed and is truly a devoted, grateful person who will be the faithful, perfect love that he claimed to believe I was?  If that’s what he has for her, then I can only hope that she can somehow become something that will value him and not repeat his pain.

Why was I so willing to hide the truth about her to him?  Why is he so willing to have it hidden?  While harshly exposing every tiny flaw in me and putting it under a magnifying glass to make it so huge as to blind him to seeing anything else…  She gets the rose colored glasses, while I got the magnifying glass.  Is that real love?  If his love for me was real, would I have gotten the rose colored glasses?  Or is it the other way around?

It’s a good thing I decided to look.  The pain that burns through me is healthy.  Perhaps it will free me from my heart?  Perhaps it will be strong enough to finally break the cords that bind us?

If I can just be still inside this pain, then I will be enlightened…  Be still.  Serenity.  Breathe into it.  The most frightening part is that it’s not even all that painful anymore.  What has happened when the soul can be stabbed and it feels like a minor scratch; the kind that you hardly notice until you look down and think, Hmm….I’m bleeding!  Now, how did that happen?

What does that mean?  That my love is less?  That my love is more?  Or that I am just hardened to the pain?  Numb to hopes crashing.  Accustomed to it all like an old faithful chair.  I sit in the chair, even as the sharp knives of its broken coils pierce my flesh and as the lumpy cushions envelope all around me, I merely say Ahhhh….I know this…

I have been ultimately conditioned for this all my life and finally it’s complete.  I can’t feel it anymore.  I know he will realize.  That is inevitable.  I don’t choose to feel the pain of thateither.  That just might be the un-doing of every moment of harsh conditioning which has been leading up to this very moment of knowing peace with pain.  Then, I would be in danger once more and it is good to be comfortable now.  Finally.  After everything.  Ahhhhhhhh….I know this.