Pathetic & who cares

It's quiet inside today. Gray overcast seems to muffle things outside to soft humming. The lone exception being the woman digging through the garbage, having a rowdy conversation with another woman digging in bins across the way, playing a music box she just found. 

I'm sitting here in a towel because I'm too lazy to get dressed after my shower. I'm posthungover from a wonderful night with a good friend.

I'm alone now. It feels weird. There is dull tension in my chest, as if to ponder, "Does this feel good? Or is this awful?" I'd venture with the three people I now seem to be simultaneously, it's likely both.

I emailed him today to ask him where the SD card is with all of our pictures and videos on it. He has not replied yet. He said he'd quit computers, that he was addicted and it led down our path to ruin. I see its contribution but am unsure of its weight in our breakup.

Anyway, if he vastly reduced his computer usage or connectivity through electronics, then I'll probably be waiting a while. 

That's not the only thing I emailed him today. I have achings to be with him again. The lure of his impassioned promises feed my malnourished emotional bank. I told him I miss him. That I love him. That I do contend with these urges to be with him again right now rather than wait. I nearly caved and called him in a particularly horrific 5 minute period of time today.

It's really, really bad.

• Chewed cuticles
• Excess snackings 
• Urges to indulge retail therapy (which I have given in to more than I'd prefer - and while most are justifiably "needed" items, a few have not been)
• Crying uncontrollably
• Alcohol consumption increase (I'm kind of okay with this one since I don't often have more than 1 a day)
• Depression
• Anxiety so bad it's physical
• Stress induced acne
• Less professional than I prefer to be
• Difficulty focusing

I'm intermittently numbed out beyond capacity which makes it difficult to get consistently excited or joyful for what IS going well. Fortunately I do have good friends and family and some interesting development with my career to grant me reprieve. They bring balance to my life and help me restore my focus.

My brother's birthday is Monday. I spoke with him this morning before he headed to bed for the day. He seemed so distant from me. I'm worried I let too much time pass between visits and that he resents me. His schedule flip flop of daysleeping and night wakefulness is worrisome too though not unexpected entering summer months.

I plan to stop by nonetheless, fears and all. My Pop agreed to accompany me to the Filipino bakery to get some birthday treats. He's a sweetie.

Suddenly, I'm being hit with a wave of exhaustion, like a brick to my chest. My head feels heavy.

This is all so pathetic. 

I don't think I care enough though and I'm nice enough to myself now to know it's okay that I'm not adulting as well as I have or could when feeling the equivalent grief to that of someone close dying.

Good or not

I am at least three people right now.

Person one pines and begs that I return to him right now. "It's not too late. It's been a short enough time that if I called, he'd be open to working on all the things he said he would. Maybe he could remain patient while I figured out this self stuff. The love is SO good. So special. Don't let it go."

Person two, assures I'm on the right path and recommends patience. "This is 100%  necessary. If it is meant to be, he and our situations will be ready to try again in the end. Focus. The sooner I get through it, the sooner I move to answers and living life and loving as a better person. Stay strong. There is selflessness in this selfishness."

The third is the beginning of who I am to become. I can't quite make out her words yet. She urges I don't sink back into being person one, suggesting like person two, that this IS the way back to healthy love that doesn't require me to be a detriment to myself. 

Life is messy. I vacillate from hope and excitement for the future to deep urges to pick up the phone tell him I'll commit to him this early on. It takes every fiber of my being to say "no", like a true addict.

He promised he'd do anything and everything for me. Change. Even marry me. I believe he believes that. The offer was huge, beautiful, everything I pined and dreamed for in 5 years. I said no, and now I've broken two hearts - the heart of a beautiful, loving man and the heart of a woman too incomplete to bear.

I'm not sure I'm a good person. Formerly my schema for a "good person" did not include crushing hearts and declining love. This means one of two things MUST occur: I adapt the good person schema with the lessons I'm learning knowing my intentions OR I accept I am not a good person at all. The latter sends me into the familiar spiral of hating myself - which is truly unproductive and self-absorbed in the most negative of ways.

I've never been stronger.

But I've never been weaker.

Between work, friends, music, reading, writing, driving around alone, and compulsive self development, I sit in this massive pool of grief. Now that we're really cut off, it's fucking intense. I haven't known such core crushing sadness since my mom died.

It's smile. Laugh. No filter. Anxiety attack. Drained. No filter. Laugh. Ugly cry and sob hysterically. Numbnumbnumb. Serious

I miss him. I love him.

My head hurts.

Three rules

Woke to 4:30 AM ringing in my ear. First thoughts were, "This is the day. Don't you fucking do it. Just get the fuck up. Fuck everything. GET. UP. YOU. WHORE."

I did. 

Stared my stress induced acne-marred face in the eye. "I don't care." 

Popped in contacts. "You're fine. Because you don't care."

Slipped on the yoga pants. "It's awful but you're still alive."

Shirt. "Fuck it."

Socks. One inside out. "Who gives a fuck."

Strapped my mobile phone to my arm like a gun. "Yes. You pathetic piece of shit."

Hooked the earbuds into my ears. "That's more like it, bitch. IV the loudest, fucking electronic station into your stupid, beautiful, fucking skull. You hear me!?"

I did.

Then, I ran. I kept running. 10 minute mile. Maybe less. My best one yet.

It pleases me. And yet it doesn't matter.

Today is the day. Finality rings louder than the alarm. 

As I sit in evaporating sweat, here to write whatever comes to mind, the rules come to mind.

What rules? More principles. But I am going to think of them as rules. It's survival, you understand.

I've been asked to contemplate. These rules are bullshit. Because absolutism is bullshit. 

But, absolutes are talismans. Tools to projectile me out of muddy empathy, emotion, uncertainty, duress. The rules I was given are:

Rule 1 - You're a whore.

"Are you a high priced whore? Or a cheap whore?"

Rule 2 - No ONE gives a fuck about you.

"Who the fuck cares? No one. What matters to them is THEM. So I ask again - why DO YOU care so fucking much? Think about it."

Rule 3 - You are ALL that fucking matters. You mean EVERYTHING.

"You ARE a THEM to them. What matters to YOU is YOU. Fuck 'em. Since you are all that matters. What the FUCK do YOU care about? Really, really?"

See? All lies. Incomplete. Totally stark. Skeleton without flesh. 

But it's all true. For every single human that pops out of a womb somewhere. 

I want to be a high priced whore.

I want to give a HUGE fuck about LIFE.
Transcend a legacy because I'm strong enough to see it for what it is and call it unacceptable for me. Then, create a new one from the raw, untouched path before me.

Eke out an existence - not out of some exciting adventurism (although, I can wear that filter for limited periods) - but out of pure necessity. This is required to live.

Anything else is NOT living. NOT living = dead/might as well be dead.

Survival. My depression near suicide years ago taught me the same thing. If nothing about me matters, I can DO anything.

It's freeing. It is life. I found it again.

And why the FUCK would I waste life?

Fun with hormonal surges and the spectrum of life

I wasn't sure I wanted to keep writing here - and I may stop and find another place to do this.

Shawn told me he has shown it to others. That they judged my choices in the most negative light. That I'm doing the wrong things. Friends old, or new, shared or not, I'm not sure. I suppose it does not matter. They know only a % of HALF of the equation. And as friend to the man I've put in such misery and pain, they really should be doing and saying whatever they can to support him and his healing with whatever information they've got.

And they are right about the selfishness. I am a malnourished soul/mind who has finally, become self aware enough to understand dramatic change is necessary. Tectonic shift to make way for something so long neglected. I struggle calling this selfishness self nurture and care when I see the wounds it causes.

This is battle between the old and the to be. The casualty I grieve most is Shawn. And at times, the old Chance.

I feel ill today. In the past I would have chucked this up to my brand of insanity just digging its claws into my prefrontal cortex (fucking right between the eyes) and my heart. Maybe that is true.

But after a long, emotional Father's Day weekend, I invited myself over to a friend's where I ramblestumbled into the realization my hormones have gone out of whack. I should have known with the trend I've seen in the past 48+ hours - uptick in anxiety, panic, anger; voracious appetite - for chocolate/mindless snacking; bad headaches; and my skin reverting to that of a brain chemistry afflicted teenager.

I'm ever grateful to my friend, and not just for yesterday.

He's been an amazing support through all of this - I worry, to his detriment from time to time. I've certainly had good people in my life but I have held nearly every one of them at arm's length.

It's rare to let others into the Chancebubble.

But, he's been so extraordinary in providing safe and accepting space for me - to the point that the level of intimacy verges into a territory I'd reserved for my partners or very best friends (the former of which I do not have/am not in a condition to have and the other questionable).

He has been patient. Never overbearing about "coming in", just expressive, clear, gentle. He's like the Chance Whisperer and somehow traversed the bubble barrier without setting off my epic alarm system.

I can tell him - I think I have in various ways - but he will never grasp how powerful or remarkable he's been or what a feat it is to get through the way he has without being eaten alive or sonic boomed into mountain rock.

I will never be able to repay him and I'm not sure I have much in offering anything comparable back. But I have grown to call and think of him as a real friend. When people make it to that tier in my life, I there for them, always, as loving as I can be in the way they need - gentle to brutal, so long as I'm not in peril myself.

I see various experience types in life as belonging to these spectrums of possibilities and degrees. His Chance Whispering abilities - combined with two other mentors, a therapist, a book, and my own relentless determination have helped me see new degrees of those possibilities.

One such spectrum starts in my childhood. My roots took hold in dismissive soil comprising rejection, dismissiveness, shame, emotional abuse - all repressing or murdering self-expression and joy. I write this not to wallow in the negativity and baggage, but to help release my grip.

Because that baggage has no place where I'm going.

Since my childhood, I've ventured out, drawn to people who took me down the experience spectrum where these things grew less in severity. Until I started seeing things like acceptance, love, caring, appreciation, joy.

But still, I unconsciously gravitated toward people and situations that, when combined with my combo of experiences, personality, and brains - still kept me too heavily weighted on one spectrum to truly uproot myself from the past.

General depression/anxiety and mood disorder doesn't make it any easier, either. A fact of which to be aware, not a pity party.

As linear as the spectrum analogy sounds, my progress is so cyclical, albeit at least in a general direction.

I cycle. From strong to weak, weak back to strong, over and over. Every time I cycle back through weak, the old judgment creeps back. If I let it in, I maul myself. Savagely.

But I've gotten better. Way better. I pull myself back, reserve the my urges to perpetuate the attacking I learned as a child. As I grow, it's easier to observe the judgement, dismiss IT instead of myself, and allow compassion for myself until I cycle back toward strong again.

I don't always succeed or do so gracefully. Normal hormonal flux in my literal menstrual cycle always make me prone to relapses in to the depression, mood, and panic issues I already contend with.

Anyway, ,y friend saw this struggle last night (probably at other times too, since I'm pretty transparent with folks I trust). So far he's still there. Just patient. Accepting. Gentle. Smiling.

Not a crutch. An encouraging, positive force, for at least this part of my journey. I keep checking in about that too. Because I don't want to end up where I began.

Combined, these people and efforts are like a cast holding, embracing a broken limb to encourage the bones to mend as straight as possible. I tell Shawn it's like I am this half person and my relationship with him as good as it was at its best, was like a growth inhibitor for me. No one's "fault" - just a shitty reality of our particular combination.

I'm sad that Shawn could not be a part of that at this point in the journey. I'm not sure he will ever understand nor any of his supporters he might be sharing this with. But none of that matters now. I'm going to accept that and let it go.

Trigger Warning & Ultimatum

On Sunday he gave me an ultimatum.

To remain faithful to him. Re-establish some form of US.

I had told him I missed him. Missed us. What we used to be.

It's true. I still love him so much. He's a good man in so many ways. Will be for who ever he ends up with.

But he repeatedly called me selfish and evil. Boiling the conflict down to monogamy despite us being broken up. He repeated that I'm leaving him to "get more dick."

No. Fuck that nonsense. But, I know why he says that. I know he focuses on this one possibility because - outside of the breakup itself - the idea of me being intimate with anyone other than him now is painful. It's interpreted as a threat. To his security, his sense manhood. Humanness.

But it's NOT about that or even him directly.

It's about me. I don't know if he gets that. I am not sure I expect him to at this point. Maybe it isn't even fair to expect he could really, knowing how much we love each other.

Him calling me selfish and evil for my choice to pursue myself is a knife in my soul, slicing through my deepest of vulnerabilities. I'd always thought pursuing anything for me was deeply wrong. Stupid. Pointless. Selfish. Worthless. "Like me."

It triggered all of the old tapes to play at once in the grandest of orchestra. It brought me to my knees over a lake of fire. I was ready to throw myself in.

"I can't."
"I don't want to live anymore."
"Please come over and end it. End it for me."
"Kill me."
"I want to be dead."


"You will never find a guy who will treat you 99.9% as well as I have. You will regret this for the rest of your life. I won't be here for you again. You made this choice. NOT me."

Translation - You fucked up. You are not lovable and you are not worth pursuing this identity search. You are responsible for my choice to close you off forever.

I recognize that I am making the most adult decision I've made in my life.

He is asking me to compromise it, try another route that seems least likely to support my goal, and all because he thinks I'm out fucking other people. Or one other person. Either way. It isn't about fucking or sex.

It's about discovery. He can't understand it. I've tried. It was so important to me that he understand it. But I'm so traumatized by my suicidal scare, I don't know that I have the energy to care about that or consider other paths other than those that are most supportive and protective of my soul.

Because I do want to live. I want to survive. Then, thrive and kick ass.

Queen replaces king

Just like that, the new bed is here in the space. The space is the same. But it looks massive.

The mattress is softer. Yielding. Warm. Embracing my body. Queen replaces king.

It's strange to feel so heavy with sadness yet bursting with potential energy. Deep, dark, the air seems pregnant, waiting.

She's smiling. I know this. Even though I can't see or touch her. She's there. I feel. Sense her squatting, head down, thighs tensed. So kinetic. Snakey and springy. I wonder what she'll be like when she's here? If I'll like her. If anyone will like her.

But their preferences don't matter here anymore. I've got a big Fuck You cast hold me together until these soulbits finish transmuting all this life and death into some fucking amazing tapestry I dance with in the sunlight and wind.

Yes. Some day. And only I must like her. Love her with all the ferocity with which I love others.

The song on this playlist lets the truth in my heart come out to dance. I let it undulate its private show. Just for me, for now. Soft. Tentative. Tender. Vulnerable and a bit shamed and proud of how intense it feels to love, to care, to desire. It is the stuff that animals guard with all of the fight and flight.

It is also the stuff of amazing fucking beauty. I want to call it beautiful, give it room to breathe, uncoil like a bellydancers limbs revealing a body in glorious sensuality and richness. So I do.