Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 2)

This post, this piece of writing is different because I am writing this now and publishing immediately, instead of editing and rewriting.

Why?

Because…well, I’m angry at myself for even hesitating a microsecond to speak up about my abuse in the name of hopefully helping others. And I just now did that. That hesitation happens sometimes, and I don’t always know why. Sometimes I’m emotionally tired, and I simply can’t. Sometimes I’m still embarrassed and ashamed…actually that’s frequently and I fucking hate that I feel that way!!! If I truly believed I did nothing wrong, and that none of it was my fault, then why the fuck am I still ashamed?!

I wonder if that’s what people see when they look at me-a victim, someone who wasn’t smart enough to get it together and get out. Or if they think I’m pathetic and fragile and mental because of it.

The truth is sometimes I AM fragile; more fragile than I used to be and too fragile for my tastes. I take extra care those times not to react, to put a wall between myself and everyone else so no one can get to me while I’m so vulnerable. And sometimes…yeah, I’ll say it, I’m mental. I go down into the abyss…I freak out when I shouldn’t…and my bad days are bad. Really bad sometimes.

Sometimes telling my story brings all that up.  So sometimes I hesitate, out of self preservation.

and I feel like the world’s biggest asshole when I do…

I need to take a deep breath and calm down. I’m so frustrated at the moment, and I can’t believe it’s not showing on my face. I’m not sure if I should get specific…I mean, this IS the internet and my blog is public…nah, I think I can narrate around it all.

You can’t expect people to depend on you if you are incapable of dependability. Period. And you can’t get angry if people stop depending on you BECAUSE you are unreliable. It’s frustrating when someone’s unreliablity keeps you off-balance, too. Since they’re unreliable, you can’t predict with any accuracy if they can or will assist you, or keep dates…or really anything.

Oh bloody hell. This isn’t helping. The source of my frustration is that I feel like I’m taking care of a three-bedroom house all by myself. I purchased the house with my partner 11 years ago, and I feel like I am the only one who cares about the upkeep. Not just the day-to-day chores, but like repairs and shit I have no idea how to do. Mind you, when said house was purchased, my partner mentioned that they enjoy “doing things around the house, fixing stuff and everything.” I’m not finding this to be accurrate, and I’m having a difficult time getting my partner to understand that I need help.  Paradoxically, my partner is bothered by the fact that I do not tend to rely on them. Well…in my mind they’ve proven unreliable. Logically, it therefore does not make sense that I depend on them, correct?

As far as the house is concerned, I’m overwhelmed by the things that have needed to be done for years. I’m not kidding or exaggerating…YEARS. There are bigger/more expensive things, like a new front door; but there’s minor stuff, like holes in walls, door repairs, replacing ceiling tiles. Small stuff, inexpensive DIY things that might take time, but that are feasibly doable. They’ve gone un-done for a very long time.

Before you ask why I haven’t undertaken such things myself, I offer the following: I do most of the day-to-day care of the house, including the shopping and cooking. I work full time, and I do hit the gym three times a week. I honestly do as much as I can. It’s just that right now I am overwhelmed with it all. If I had known I’d be carrying the weight of the house myself, I would have opted for a smaller house!

I feel like this is the first chance I’ve had to sit and think and breathe in a long time. I’m off tomorrow, and my partner crashed in bed asleep about an hour ago.  I’ve been non-stop running since the end of October. That’s probably good; at the end of October I was close to the end of my rope. I’ve learned if I stay busy enough, I don’t have time to think. Because when I have too much time to think, I tend to brood. Brooding leads to wishing for things that cannot be. Some call them daydreams, but I’m too old for that shit. Maybe.

I try so hard to be a realist…but those daydreams sneak in. Sometimes I worry that those daydreams aren’t normal. Or that the act itself, of daydreaming, isn’t normal. I mean, I have a million things I could and SHOULD do…and yet…sometimes…there goes my brain. Always to the same topic. Always the same daydream. Always what might have been. What could still be. What’s funny to me is that I usually DREAM dream when something is on my mind. It permeates my subconscious and becomes reality when I close my eyes at night. This subject, this dream has never come to me in sleep. I wonder what that means, if it means anything at all or just a quirk of my brain.

So here I am, on my Friday night, in my pajamas, drinking wine, and writing in my blog.  The truth is, I’m struggling with the final part of  “Breaking The Silence.” I mean,  I want it to be the final part anyway. I went through so much gaslighting and other psychological abuse that I can’t necessarily write about my first marriage in a linear fashion. I tried so hard to forget about what happened, too. I guess in some ways it’s easier to speak about that marriage in flashbacks and glimpses.

So I guess that I hope that making this brief blog post will help me gear up for the final chapter. Although…there might be an epilogue.

I had an extra day off this weekend, and the “big plans” I had ended up being canceled, which really bummed me out. An extra day off with no place to go, no one to see, and nothing to do. I am restless. I need things to do, and I’m overwhelmed with the things that need to be done around my house. My partner isn’t as helpful as he thinks he is. It’s a lot for one person, to put it mildly.

I forced myself to rearrange the room my partner keeps calling “your room.” As in, the room belongs to me. Number one, that feels weird and condescending coming from him for some reason. And number two; it’s the worst fucking room in the house. It was never painted, so for eleven fucking years, it’s been bright blue and yellow, with mirrored switch plates and such. The cat box is in here. It gets dusty easily, and it’s really just full of junk.  But this is “my” room? Okaaaayyyy. Fine. I decide I’m going to make it my room. Literally put my stamp on it. Not sure how just yet, but it’s going to involve paint, and patching the walls. I ripped out the sideboard heat unit from the wall, which left a gaping hole. That’s patched, so I began rearranging the furniture. All I did was switch my vanity and my makeshift dresser.

The new perspective has already made a difference, and I haven’t even moved my shoes to their new spot. No, I’m not kidding; they’re still shoved against the wall as I type right now….but I digress. My vanity is actually an antique desk that belonged to my great grandmother. And the item I’m using as a desk is my grandmother’s old Singer sewing machine cabinet. It’s closed up, but I can always move my computer and open it up to sew…which I fully intend to do.  I feel better sitting here. The shift is subtle but I can feel a change in the energy. If I can just harness it…and mingle it with the fleeting feeling I had this morning….

I woke earlier than I have been on my days off, actually ate breakfast, and then decided to go for a walk. It wasn’t chilly, but there was a breeze. A perfect sunny fall day. As I walked, the sun hit my face and I smiled. I had the most fleeting thought…it reminded me of a time when I felt on top of the world, that I could honestly do anything. It was just a few years ago I felt that way, and I’ve kind of missed it. Today, for a minute or two, about five percent of me believed I could do anything.  I grabbed my favorite visual…Ryan Howard slamming one out of the park…and tried to hang on to it…

Can I pull myself from this black hole; free myself from the so-called gilded cage? I don’t know.

I do know I have at least one more story to tell, and for me it’s an important one. Now my writing space is ready. I can speak. Stay tuned…

I’ve had so many things swimming around in my head the last month or so that it became impossible to try and write them. So many thoughts, so many things I felt like I could have easily written about:

-Whether passion and security/stability are mutually exclusive, and if so, how can you possibly choose between them?-The death of my beloved Gilmore a little over a year ago.
-Love. What it means. How it feels. The different kinds of love, in my eyes anyway 😉
-More on love-what not being loved feels like, or not feeling loved anyway.
-Survival, and how I lived to tell about two abusive relationships

And numerous other things that I can’t think of right now.

What brings me to the keyboard today was the apparent seamless transition of fantasy into reality, and then back again, and how the spell of the fantasy wasn’t broken. At least to me. I’d never experienced anything like it before. I wonder if it will happen again.

I admit to living in my head; probably more often than I should. So then it’s no surprise that, I guess, I have a “rich fantasy life.” And that fantasy life includes thoughts of the life I might have led had I made different choices. I was lucky enough to get a tiny glimpse into that fantasy life, and the way it seamlessly meshed with everything at that moment literally took my breath away.

I wish I could speak in detail about the incident; but to do so would violate all sorts of tacit private agreements. I can only hold the memory close in my heart and reflect on it from time to time. I can smile to myself with the knowledge that the reality would be every bit as fulfilling as the fantasy, and wish and wait for another opportunity for the worlds to collide again.

An excerpt from ‘The Secret to Letting Go of the Past’ by Kimby Maxson via Elephant Journal, 5/11/16:
“So how do we do it? How do we let go (of the past)?
The secret is, we don’t. We don’t let go. We loosen our grip. That is all.
We accept that every experience that we have ever had and everything that we have ever done or that has been done to us and every person we have ever known, every place we have ever been, every decision we’ve ever made and every thought we have ever had is part of who we are, and whether we understand it or not they all serve a purpose.
So we don’t force it. We don’t insist on letting go. We don’t forget the past. We don’t silence the ghosts.
We acknowledge and honor everything that is our past, we forgive ourselves and others, we take a deep breath and we slowly, simply, loosen our grip, finger by finger, thought by thought and what’s meant to slip away will, the rest we embrace.”

Sayeth LJG~This begs the question of how to let go, or to even loosen the grip just a little.  Or what about when you think you’ve let go…and then the person or the feeling comes back. And you’re helpless.

So are these the things to embrace? What if the things that keep coming back also hurt? Are we meant then to embrace the things that hurt??

Seems counterintuitive.  But it happens.

I sit at work wondering what, exactly, I’m doing here. Not here at work; just HERE in general. Existing. Living.

I love my job; I truly do. I have a passion for the work I do, and I want to be successful. But in the face of what seem to be insurmountable odds, it dawns on me: I am tired. Actually, I’m exhausted.

Not from the job, but from the fight. Or all the fights. My entire life has been a fight, a swim upstream, against the flow and the established “status quo.” And I am so tired of fighting for everything. My heart is heavy on a daily basis; not just for the community I serve, but for myself. Because I know I no longer have the fight in me. I simply do not have the energy.

I am tired of being told I am strong and I will somehow muddle through this. I have been strong my entire life. I’ve had to be, because the only person I’ve been able to rely on is ME.  I am tired of friends who say they’ll be there for me…and then they aren’t. Especially those I have humbled myself before, and made myself vulnerable by asking for their ear, their time, companionship-anything, really-and been ignored. This only reinforces the knowledge that I have made no difference or impact in anyone’s life, and I will not be missed when I gracefully exit. This strangely is a comfort to me-because no one will hurt or even miss me.

I suppose this would be the part where I list all the things I’ve had to fight for, the struggles I’ve endured alone. But I’m even too fucking tired for that. And to what end? What good would it do?

My only regret is that I have never known love. I have given love, generously. But I have never received it in return-or received it in a way that I felt it. Anyone who has claimed to love me has not really loved ME. It’s what I represent, or what I can do, or something. It’s never me and who I am. Finally, finally….my heart is broken beyond repair.

The thing is, I don’t want to go on another 30 or 40 years-being this tired and being alone.