Confessing Vulnerability Quietly

 

I’ve been having a rough year emotionally.  I’ve been hoping a lot of things would just resolve themselves and I would have found myself in a position of having been through rather than still trying to navigate but one thing in particular has weighed heavy on me for months now and I cant shake it or make it better. Losing a friend, while still interacting with them, has been emotional.

I reached out to another friend who is more involved in this persons life and I was rewarded with them telling A what I said and never having a meeting with me to discuss why I was upset or to clear up my concerns.  So I lost that trust and friendship as well.  

I am going to start at the point of eruption, from quite a few months ago.  A close friends father passed and I ordered flowers.  I told A to notify the rest of our close circle that this happened and flowers were ordered.  There began a back and forth of messages of her stating so and so wanted to pay. So I gathered she individually texted everyone instead of a group informational. I was working and busy but I looked up my app info and shared it with her.  To which she kept telling me so and so had other app or wanted to ask me something and I asked if she could relay that I would get to this when I was not busy.  She kept sending messages but not answering my questions at all.  To which I replied “we need to work on your communication” and she lost. Her. Shit. 

Found time to all caps and with swearing tell me to never disrespect her again or talk down to her.  That she was very busy with her work AND her bosses job that day to even deal with me.

That was her total contribution to that situation.

The funeral arrangements were shared with me, happen to be on a Monday, which is my day off.  I was offering to go in on my day off to do her a favor and my regular schedule was too busy to squeeze them in anywhere.  

She shares the information with me and in the very same paragraph says “That’s when you are doing my jobs, L will be dropping off around 9.”

I STILL get super angry about this.

I was shocked and appalled at this treatment.  

I let her know I was upset she couldn’t even think that I might want to make arrangements to go to support a friend but she made it clear my role and she replied “ok”. 

A third party dropped off the pets and said “I don’t know why they didn’t do this, they aren’t leaving till later this afternoon...”

Later that week, a mutual friend we barely know, his father passed and she sent me a link to the arrangements and said “I’m thinking about going, you?”

I messaged her friend/coworker and said I know it is a difficult time but I have deep concerns about A’s mental health, I was sick and tired of being disrespected and when he could find time to chat, I would love to.  My concerns stem from her mothers decline with dementia and her own struggle with mental health.  He never got back to me but I did find out, at A’s latest blow up at me, that he told her what I said.  

Her blow up? Accusing me of making her look bad or weak.  She also lied to manipulate me because she wasn’t getting a response she wanted when she wanted it.

I see and hear her spinning wheels where if there is a narrative of a story that makes her look bad, she wont share it.  She only talks of how she is the victim.   She says things of me that most decisions I make are based on how much attention I think I am going to get. She said I snapped at her in negative judgement over a menu item when I only corrected what she assumed she was getting, because I ordered the same thing.  If I suggest it, its bullshit but if someone else echos me, its what she thought all along. Very accusing me of putting her in a negative light, even of things that had nothing to do with her.  

Which is when I began to notice the coddling that occurs around her.  Like she does not drive herself places.   She does not make decisions and will do what she can to NOT be held accountable for things.  

I have asked for a year now for her time privately to have a friend/personal discussion, we used to all the time, and I kept getting blown off.  Unless it was something she wanted, I was totally ignored for any requests of friendship or time.  There was an opportunity in the summer but due to circumstances of a mild mushroom influence, and how I watched her flip flopping mentally on topics we were discussing, I opted to not make that the time to have a heart to heart with her about what was going on.  

I noticed that my invitations were being flat out ignored and invitations to me were not being extended. So, I have had to mentally move the goal posts of what this friendship means to me. When I sent a message of me having a difficult time, I received a response of basically “good luck with that” which is exactly what the narcissist I dated, responded with.

It’s been a bit of a grieving process and I’m reminded more and more of my loneliness in life. My depression has been pretty strong and steady now for awhile and I don’t think my system can handle it much longer.  

My fight to stay positive has been tested with overwhelming work, a month long hospital stay for infections and a 13mm kidney stone, minimal support system in my life and a constant reminder that I am alone and lonely for whatever reason; I’m not enchanted by more of this as a future.  

All around me people are celebrating success and love and family and futures and happiness. People that I used to reach out and ask to do things with, tell me stories of how they go out and do things with other people. I go home and try not to fall asleep before 8:30 surrounded by solitary monotony. 

When you go into the hospital there are various points where a nurse will ask if you are depressed or have thoughts about harming yourself etc, and all you have to do is say “no”. It’s super easy.  

It’s a hell of a lot easier than word vomiting how your mom passed Christmas Eve 18 years ago on oxy and how you recognize all the reasons for why it was for the better. About how you are unfulfilled and live in a bog of stagnancy. 

So the contrast of other people and who they are surrounded by and me is pretty staggering. I am proud of my ability to take care of myself and not rely mentally/emotionally/financially on others, but after years of alone and no one even remotely interested romantically, its been crushing.

It’s difficult to just need someone to talk to that you trust. Someone to help sort life out, someone that can assure you.  Give you that positive energy, take the burden of some of the bleakness. All the while you are required to exude this for everyone else, in every aspect.  

The holidays are fast approaching and I’m doing my best.  I’m decluttering and one step in front of the other, I don’t know why.  I don’t see a future and I can’t seem to make any goals.  You are supposed to see your future in 5 years and it be in a different place.  Even if its not what you imagined it to be, you are almost guaranteed it will be different than what you have now.  Mine hasn’t changed for 7 years.  

It’s frustrating and defeating. 

I understand people come and go.  It’s the being reminded that everyone has someone, even many someone’s, and I have to lie about my state of mind and being taken care of. It’s deafening...

At this point, I know this is very self pity but I had to release it.  It’s been giving me a cancer having it all bundled up in a thought cloud of anger and confusion and hurt.  I understand I accept the situation for what it is, how I am treated is about how I respond, blah blah blah...

I am just at the point of needing to put this out there.  Take a step in releasing something, however it be.  The only thing I can do at this point for myself is to do my best to emit positivity to others and trust that maybe someday it comes back. I just cannot be some sort of dedicated filter system as my role in life. I refuse to believe I just live to serve, I just don’t know where the path diverges. I don’t know how to fill from an empty cup. 

My Old Friend

I have depression and I have learned how to deal with it by acknowledging I have it and that it will never go away.  This does not mean I spend my life in the doldrums, weepy eternally on the inside with despair and negativity towards everyone else.  I have good days.  I have great months.  I have really shitty weeks sometimes.

The way it works for me is depression is like another soul.  I can feel the presence of this entity.  She sometimes hangs around in the background and I just try to ignore her.  I acknowledge that she is there, I respect her, though I do not care for her visits.  She never tells me how long she’s staying.  She never has a plan to work through. She makes things mentally difficult and I feel like I don’t have a choice.  She literally steps in and takes over the controls. It can feel violating. When depression is ready to step from lingering to my left, I absorb her and its like I am viewing the world through my eyes and I can access what is going on mentally that she is going through but I don’t know why.  

I spend a lot of the time in depression now just seeming to walk around in a fog trying to pick up a bunch of shattered pieces to make them whole again.  And I do so like a concerned mother.  While I can ‘see’ what is happening to me emotionally, I literally can’t do anything to overpower it.  I have to just let it happen.  I have to just end up sobbing in the bathtub for twenty minutes over something that happened earlier that day.  I have to do my best to control the massive irritability that comes with it because its exhausting.   She sets up camp and I try to help her through whatever she thinks she needs to go through. 

I can see her out of the corner of my eye sometimes and I can tell her firmly to go away.  It works mostly but its temporary.  She’s letting me know she’s coming and with a mutual respectful relationship, she needs to respect my boundaries as well. 

I was recently triggered by seeing a former uncles name on facebook supporting his sons recent troubles by offering to ‘come on down there with a baseball bat”. He’s 60+ years talking about beating trashy 30 year olds.  It’s small town shit drama from the undereducated and idiotic.  So I told cousin not to invite other bullies to the playground because thats just stupid.  Then I publicly posted how “if you think children are too young to remember someone who beats the crap out of women, you’d be wrong because children see, hear and remember garbage.”  Shut off the app and walked away for two days.  When I was a small child this piece of shit used to beat my aunt and my mom.  He belongs rotting in jail and as far as I’m concerned it makes me sick to my stomach he calls his sperm donation “son”. Any of his kids.  He’s a foul asshole and I was severely triggered by his presence in my world. 

I have been feeling very emotional about being alone.  I really thought after COVID eased up I’d be out and about and be around people and it has made me realize, people just don’t want to be around me.   I take off a day two months in advance to be told three weeks later they have other plans and can I move my day off?  That takes two months to plan?  I mean I literally have no plans and they know it.  I tell them all the time how open I am.  I make suggestions for things I want to do with them and then I see them post pics on facebook of them doing the activity, with someone else.   When I have a long, bad day at work, I get to walk into my apartment and sit and cry before I have to do all the things I need to do because I have no help.  

I am watching literally everyone around me celebrate success and happiness and achievement and I am sitting here just thinking I’m supposed to feel grateful nothing bad is happening to me right now.  

And its bullshit.  

No one would be able to afford any of these life goals on their own. NONE. I can’t even plan a vacation because I have no one to go with. It’s so awesome watching everyone else get to go on trips and get new cars and take vacations, buy new furniture, have a fucking companion to share and talk to.  A coworker and my boss just got engaged as well.  Everyone around me gets to be happy.  I’m truly happy for them, I am.  I don’t want them to have less, I want to know why I have to fight for everything and just pray it doesn’t blow away while trying to tell myself there isn’t something glaringly hideous about me that makes me completely unattractive to others. 

Tried the very forward flirting thing, its a no. 

It’s always a no.

  

So I know why depression is here now.  I went from being triggered to a piece of shit human to reflecting on how right after that my aunt found a forever love. Someone that supported her and was her partner.  Raised her kids and had his own.  How even that piece of shit has a companion.  Someone who I am sure misguidedly cares for him.  Sure, I am very well aware i have friends that love and support me but if you think that is the same or a replacement, you’d be pretty ignorant.  

Before I always had that little ray of hope or belief that I would find someone in my future. I was going to be happy alone or with someone regardless but it sure would be nice to have at least one healthy relationship in my life where i wasn’t being controlled. I felt I was an attractive, healthy woman.  I don’t see why I should have to settle.  My bills are paid by ME. 

I have been relearning to trust my instincts over the past two years because the last narcissist really did a number on that realm and I can honesty say, that feeling of hope that I will have another relationship in my life, is non existent.  When I reach out my feelers to that area, its just            Gone.  Not a negative space, just like looking at big empty space.  As if that path I had in my life, all the achievements have been unlocked for what I need and the universe just swept away that road.  I can look at the space and still define its purpose though.  

I have to be ok with this.  I don’t have a choice. I can continue to put myself out there and I will hold on to what I feel my value is.   I am learning to try to find ways to be satisfied without human companionship but its never a replacement.  I now have difficulties imagining a man touching me physically and the word ‘asexual’ has been floating around my head quite a bit more than I would like.  

So this time when I noticed depression hanging about, I watched her for a minute and felt irritated because things were going SO well.... but when I broke down sobbing with that overwhelming emotion of being sad and angry and jealous and self pity and no one to turn to, 

She listened to me. 

She held me. 

We cried together and she reminded me that it was ok to feel upset, to feel angry and to feel shit on.  All very valid emotions to acknowledge and use to make ourselves better overall. 

I knew it was going to be a long difficult weekend for me with my depression but she is a valued friend of mine.  

Endings and new Beginnings

Well, we’ve had a plague.

We had a plague and my life has changed very little except I am busier at work more than i have ever been.  

It has been drilled into me in more ways than one that I have no option than to open my own business for my own future health, so mentally, I am pretty firmly wrapped up in asking the universe to open up for me to have this because I have been sitting on some serious stagnancy.  While reaching for other things that just won’t come to fruition, while trying to follow my instincts more, it is my last option.  

Literally for my survival.

 

And I fucking hate that.

I feel like the asshole kid who has to come back and clean up a mess they made while left to their own immature decision making abilities.  

I mean, I’m only 45.  People have been telling me to open my own place for 15 of my last 25 years of the job.  Ive wasted a lot. 

And since this space is specifically for my relationship journey, or lack thereof, it has come to mind a lot how much of myself I wasted on others. 

I look back at any, literally every, relationship I have had romantically, and see how it has held me back.  It’s a painful reflection. It means I have to confess the people I loved, were not nice people. 

In between relationships i have recognized where I was taken advantage of, in some cases on a criminal level. 

Rape.  

Theft.

Physical damage. 

Something happened recently where my ex husband “ranted”?, to my ‘son in law’ about how he was upset I went to marriage counseling with an ex but not him. 

SO. MANY. RED. FLAGS.  

I NEVER went to counseling with anyone other than HIM. 

We went to a counselor named Jennifer who was pregnant and the office was located behind a salon I worked at. 

We paid $50 a visit cash.  

I. Was. Floored.  

As was my daughter who was disturbed and felt it necessary to drop words like “incel” and “uncomfortable” in the way her father made her feel towards women. 

Emotions echoed by my son living with him who is, quite frankly, “done listening to him rant about mom”. 

we have been divorced over 15 years.

I NEVER cheated on him and you would be shocked and appalled at what that fucking asshole has put me through over the years I was with him.

We were married for 10 years, I was 18, 22 when I became pregnant so this was no, “emergency” wedding.  I left being born and raised in the Bay Area of California to move to St  Louis, after 20+ years, I STILL am having culture shock......Jesus Christ these people..... all for him.  

In the process he lost a set of Marine Corps dress blues, NOT my fault by any means.  

Bit of a refresher on the ten year span I signed up for....

He wanted to move back home after serving, ok.  I can do that.  California is expensive anyway.

He reenlisted and we end up in Fort Hood TX, baby on the way.

Baby comes, guess who I find having secret conversations online with women on Webtv? 

Me.

He is getting ready to get out on disability, I’m taking my baby home to California for the two months it will take for him, for us to “get right”. 

Surprise

I get a phone call from St. Louis, he isn’t coming, he ditched all of our belongings, he doesn’t want to do this.  

Oh hell no. 

 

I grew up with a father that didn’t want me and I was gonna be damned if my daughter was not going to know her father either did or did NOT love her.  

I feel really fucking stupid for believing after all those years he just didn’t “know” me. 

My dad did not want to be a part of my life and he showed me in SOOOO many ways.  This is a literal theme in my life now.  

This is what we label “daddy issue”, so thank you for giving that to us....

I knew K loved her and so yet again, I made a plan, I needed to save up some money to move back there. 

I had had custody of our daughter for 18 months and I needed two months max of pay to get where i needed so he took our daughter to his parents in St. Louis for the time.  I made him sign a paper in front of a notary public saying this was the deal.

I was visited at work one week later by a court server, telling me I was being sued for “child abandonment”

My bank account was wiped out for over two grand I had been saving up because he was still on the account. 

My mother at the time was a meth addict.  On disability taking care of a mentally retarded son, she was a “functioning” drug addict, a life of darvon addiction and severe psoriatic arthritis, she was hitting yet another bottom and another reason I needed out.  She also during the time did her best to spread rumors that I was on drugs and needed to be contained, I did none at the time, not even drink.  

People bought this.  

I did for me.  

I needed to protect my brother and her so I felt I could not fight back. 

So I move back to St. Louis, after a year we end up with another babe, i am full mom mode.  

We buy a house, we are doing life shit, he is talking to women online. 

I am 200 pounds of woman who just had a baby three months ago, who finds chatter with the bag boy at the grocery store and as were are leaving, I get asked “how long you been fucking him?”

Are you fucking kidding me?

I am taking the kids to *enter family fun place here* wanna go?

“No, I have blah blah blah to do.”

So I fill the kids and the wagon and head off for the day with the kids to come home to find blah blah bah hadn’t been done.  

Ok

We are done. We have grown apart.  I want out, you wanted to be tied to something. Got it, we are grown now.

We have a discussion in the garage, its mutual, it sucks but we love our kids, we can be mature.  

I tell him we can get this done with a mediation.  Easy. Peasy. 

I start a new job because I want to get into nursing. This is a career shift of ten years, its rough.  I have worked two jobs while he went to school to get a degree in networking,   

I befriend a guy at the work that I start to confide my unhappiness in.  

He is gay.  

K has been logging my keystrokes on the computer.  

Again.  

Tracking phone info.  

Like some kind of fucking asshole. 

I don’t care.  I’m out.  I’m done.  He can have the house, yeah, Ill take on that debt, I just want out.  I cant’ be a GOOD parent if I am unhappy.

so this asshole.....

Shows up at my work one day telling me our divorce is ready, I need to PAY HIM to get it finalized.  

Wait.

Listen to what this dick did.

He went to a lawyer an ordered that I have to pay HIM for health care insurance for our kids.  

He bitched in front of the lawyer that I should have to pay him for a month of rent while waiting for me to move out.

I shit you not, the douchebag lawyer himself laughed at that...

When he tells me I have to pay for this when NONE of this was necessary? No.. YOU pay for it.  

so to say 15 year later, he has had NO relationship AT ALL and to come up with this? And to scare my kids? 

To act like I didn’t give 110% or more ever didn’t exist? 

I was catapulted into a fear wrapped bomb of what the fuck he is doing to my son? 

K and I were together 9 months before marriage, its a shitty competition, believe me.  when my daughter voiced being upset by her dads words, i was taken instantly to a memory of when we were dating and he had happened to read my diary. He had gotten so pissed off and jealous of something I had written before I even knew him, i told him I was devoted enough to him he could burn it.  

I took my hello kitty diary out into the backyard and I doused it with lighter fluid in the bbq pit.  I handed him the lighter and solidly stood there. 

My moms boyfriend at the time, the one who would leave her for her best friend of over 20 years and cause her major breakdown, was at my moms window trying to tell me not to do this, it was stupid and K needed to calm down, i overheard my mom saying ‘Just let her do what she thinks she needs to do...” talking Ronnie out of intervening.,,

I burned that stupid diary.  and it didn’t matter. 

I was constantly accused of cheating.  Of looking for another.  Of finding better companionship,  we drove through Yellowstone national Park at one time while I sobbed the whole way while he yelled and accused me of NOTHING. I had sought a relationship with my kids. 

When I was working at a nursing home, caring for others who needed it, I got a call from my then husband at the time telling me he was throwing all of my belongings out on the street, after we discussed we would be divorcing, I had to leave early.  I had to leave that career. Because I was talking to a gay man. 

Four years later i enter into what would be a VERY controlling covert narcissist relationship. 

Which led me to the ultimate, narcissist.  

And I am still ashamed to say, still controls me.  

I am consistently being told the same message and ultimately i came home today with a message that seems pretty familiar.  

Me talking to me, reassuring, alone is ok.  

yeah its great to have someone to talk to , have someone to reassure you, have someone you support that supports you in what you want to do.

I mean yeah, you get to log onto Facebook and have it bombarded to you how great it is to have a love and support and special and a cheerleader and a lover all while recognizing that even after spending literal YEARS with people that I provide this to, if has not been provided to me. 

All I have to look to for inspiration in my life has had inspiration and support from others like myself. 

I don’t have that.  

I’m pretty scared and shameful. 

It’s pretty clear i don’t make great decisions.  

Did I tell you about the time i went out on an internet date with someone who years later asked how we knew each other when he began heavily trolling me, 

again ? 

I overtly flirted with a man today who has not interest in me.

Again.

Still hurts even though you know your just destined for failure.  

Deaths

 “Think of your biggest mistake.  Be grateful you will never make it again.”

Several months ago, I thought I saw my last mistake at the gas station by my home.  I didn’t look back, I didn’t turn to verify, I just said the word “NO” and kept on.  A very close friend had died recently so later that afternoon I received the text from Mistake saying he was sorry for my loss.

I let him know that during my time of grief, the last thing I needed was to hear from someone who treated me like shit and who reminded me of how low my life decisions had come to with him.  I was not appreciative and he rebuttals with his blah, the conversation ending with him saying he never lied to me and I said “yeah you did boy, many times”. 

So this is just an emotional shit storm because I had been doing soooo good.  My depression was clearing out, I was happy, feeling good and then I am hit with the idea that even in MY neighborhood, that he normally would NEVER EVER go into, he would be there. Anywhere. Anytime.  It pissed me off and it made me have major anxiety. 

My karma caught up with me almost instantaneously when a couple days later I am told by my friend, his sister in law, that his mom passed a few months ago unexpectedly.  So I humbly sent the text I knew would be ignored, saying I realize I looked like a fucking lunatic but I was truly sorry about the loss.  

I had no issues with her, he did not love her.  He hated her.  This woman is the very reason The Mistake is the way he is today because she did not love or care for her children in a motherly way, AT ALL.  So needless to say I always fully knew Mistake had mother issues, deep ones.  We talked at length and drunkenly about the topic, many times. 

I do not expect to ever hear from him again as I have blocked his number.  Something I should have done two years ago instead of trying to believe there was something more to a legitimate psychopath.

A few weeks go by and my son sends a text saying he saw the Good Christian at his work.  To which my daughter replies to the group with a “well, never going there again”.  Which I fully, immediately related to. It being a grocery store in our immediate neighborhood.  I tell the son if he ever happens to ask about us, you just say “no thanks”.  I was informed he was also there the next day and that he actually goes there quite frequently.

I immediately had a couple flashbacks.  When we had first met, when I shopped, I didn’t really buy meals for the whole week.  I mostly would stop by the store on the way home and the kids and I cooked what we wanted, when we wanted.  It was drilled into me by the Good Christian when we moved in together, that he “wasn’t going to live that way” and we had to meal plan and shop weekly because he needed to make lunches to take and whatever.

So this fell to me to meal plan and shop for a blended family of 6 trying to incorporate everyone’s choices on a shoestring budget. These meal demands eventually over the years came to a point where I was literally yelled at and he threw a FIT because he would have meat at EVERY meal (I served a vegetarian dinner) and then later it was demanded he have his dinner by 5 pm every night because that was HIS schedule.  

There would come these phases where he would insert himself into the process, pretty much as a total take over of the operation and I would spend one week under his dictation of food and preparation.  One week because we would go to the grocery store, he would get physically angry and upset, lecturing me about how I loaded the grocery cart wrong as we were shopping and decide the process took too much out of him and he wasn’t going to participate anymore.

Having these memories flashback on me from years ago, is painful and depressing.  I know for a fact I had another flashback during this recollection period that I had blocked out.  It was him literally screaming in my face.  It sets in place a domino effect of recollections and events that make me realize how weak and stupid of a woman I was for so very long.  How I could physically and emotionally watch myself crumble over the years into something that was not recognizable as me.  I had developed legitimate health problems because of his abuse.  I had to rely on mood stabilizing medication because I was ALWAYS DOING THE WRONG THING.  Constant criticism, becoming worse and bolder over the years.  I saw instantly when I decided to stand up for myself, his hatred of me come to a full boil.  He was unhappy with this woman he demanded her to be in how she led her life and thought her thoughts and now he decides I’m not what he ”wanted” me to be? 

I did a quick google search because I do not want to know anything more than I have to about this asshole, but I want to know why he is in my neighborhood when I was very happy under the impression he was over an hour away with his super wilderness woman who loved and worshipped him.

Apparently that went to shit and he has been living in my area the past yearish while I’ve been nestled in for five.  

It pisses me off and for awhile it made my anxiety run amok every time I left the house.  But i was reminded if its been this long and I haven’t run into him yet, there’s a good chance I won’t. 

I don’t want ANY fucking chances.  

I fucking hate him. 

The intensity of the constant fear and anguish has died down, which is why I finally felt it was time to get some writing done and out.

Especially because I had a dream last night that The Mistake had died, and it felt like a relief to me.  

I often had tried that theory of just pretending someone was dead and you could ignore or move past trauma that way but I can’t fool me.  It was never going to be a thing.  The dream wasn’t graphic, it was very matter of fact, he was dead, I was in his apartment which oddly had WAYYY more light in it than normally would, and I was like “ok”.  Just let it set in.  My brain went to the trying-to-fool-yourself idea again but instinctively it went back to being ok.  So thats not a normal feeling.  It was a good feeling.  A healthy feeling. 

I’m supposed to forgive myself for making the bad decisions of staying with someone who used me and gave nothing back, for not thinking better of myself and assuming I deserved that somehow.  And I think I do, not really, but I remind myself all the time that that is what I have to do.  The dream didn’t resolve that but for some reason, the notice of death put a calm over that time period,  I can’t explain why the weight feels lighter.  

I live my life pretty much how I want right now.  I go where I want, I eat what I want, when I want.  Work is successful and while I worry about my future and still need to come up with a plan for a career change, my health is great, my finances are within normal ranges, I buy what I want....  I really cannot complain about anything.  Life has been pretty awesome.  I am lonely as hell, and I haven’t dated since over several months ago and I had a terrible date with what I can only describe as a “wet paper towel of a man”.  It was just simply fucking ridiculous and I actually felt angry the asshole wasted my time and knowingly so being that he had literally NO interests, NO hobbies, NOTHING to talk about.  I got tired of leading the conversation, watching him hamster sip his vodka cranberry (he held with both hands), that I watched the clock go by a full two minutes before he said “so, uh, you live in an apartment?”

I had to physically turn my body away from him and put my arm up on the bar as a barrier because he kept poking his knee into me.  Blowing his vape smoke at me.  We were to meet at 7 at the bar, I was inside waiting when I checked my phone at 7:20 to find he messaged at 7 to say he was here.  I said “you’re waiting in the parking lot? For over 20 minutes?”

Yeah, I was pissed off.  I made an attempt to at least have a night out, maybe of interesting conversation (prior dates both went on in great detail about their depression issues on our first and only dates), and the universe gave me THAT.  I deleted all dating apps and said “never again”.  

So I made an attempt to flirt in real life.  Pretty openly and obviously only to find out with one, I wasn’t even on the radar  and the other also, just no interest.  

It makes me uncomfortable to have my friends say “you’re so beautiful, you’re the best chick, blah blah blah, don’t know why guys aren’t interested in you....”

Well, I don’t know either and I guess I can be ok, with NOT being with yet another asshole, I don’t have anyone to share anything with.

The other day I was curious and tried mentally fantasizing about being physically close to an attractive man I saw.  Maybe kissing him.  The thought of it seemed so foreign to me, you may have asked me to start building a bookshelf right then and there.  I couldn’t see it.  It made me physically uncomfortable to be that physically close to someone.  To be so intimate.  So that made me cry..... 

I’m in this arena where I am constantly alone and I am viewing everyone else’s relationships.  Watching one leave an 11 year one to just walk gracefully directly into a new relationship in a matter of months. 

I can’t have a conversation with a man that at some point doesn’t involve him saying “I was testing you” on some stupid fucking idealistic topic.  FOR FUCKS SAKE.

*sigh*

Healing is happening, I was in a very dark, very bad place for awhile.  The stress and constant change in the world itself at this time has been chaotic at best and I am coping with that on a “it is what it is, be safe” basis.  I’m still figuring out what I want for the future but treading knowing I can’t really make plans because we rarely end up where we thought we would be anyway. 

Forgiveness

I started crying today.  I fought it.  

Fighting it,  I don’t want it to be here.  

I’m cooped up in a snow bound house for day two and likely will be here tomorrow with my thoughts and while yeah, I’m used to spending a lot of time alone, I’ve been watching this show about young women.  Young women who are struggling to get their shit together and grow up in the big city.  How they navigate relationships and change and love and truth...

None are very relatable to me as half have the support of money, family or partner and the others are those wild free spirits who no matter crawling through a field of cow shit, come out smelling like vanilla and daisies.  The men they are with are just typically awful, and one is definitely a conglomeration of every single asshole I was ever with.  It makes me cringe with embarrassment and deep shame.

But as I’m watching and becoming emotionally invested in these girls, absolutely judging risqué behavior, it dawns on me that i am also jealous.  Which is pretty stupid.  

What gets me, every time, is they show the boy showing up for her.  They show the man riding up on the white horse coming to make the poor lost little one feel safe and secure.  They can be an atrocious mess and even they know the value of what love means in their life and are WILLING to show up for her.  

I am still holding on to a lot of anger.  A lot.  I know this.  I heard something the other day about forgiveness is not wanting bad things for someone anymore after you’ve been hurt by them and it struck a chord in me. Not as an epiphany of forgiveness and how I need to let go of my anger because its really hurting me and blah blah blah.  

I instantly had the thought in my head, “I am not done.  I am not done being mad.  I am angry and upset and i have been hurt and I am not done being angry and bitter.” My journey this far has been to tell myself its ok to hurt and feel pain.  To cry and be sad or angry.  I have those rights to feel that way and I should. I need to. As if it were a cleansing aspect.  So I have allowed myself this instead of shoving everything deep down, calling myself ‘over emotional’ and assuming its not healthy.  

So I was driving home the other night.  I worked a very long day and while I was in a good mood, I was tired.  I had been imagining what it would be like to come home to someone who would do as I would for them and I was just going home to take care of the animals and myself as usual.  It made me feel emotional and my thoughts wandered to (who I am now going to refer to as the asshole), and remembering I didn’t have that with him.  Remembering that when I ever told him I was having a bad day, his response was to ignore me or to say “well try to have a good night with that.” And when I voiced I needed him to be there for me, I was treated to a fight where he would turn everything around to be my fault.  I spend a lot of time having thoughts enter my head of memories of him and what a fucking asshole he was to me.  How shitty he treated me.  How he really absolutely did not give a single fuck about me at all.  I acknowledge this is all on me. Totally.  I allowed this to continue for so long, I made the excuses and I turned a blind eye hoping and praying there was something more underneath.  

And there wasn’t. 

Ever since this ended, ever since I had to read the words “I wouldn’t even have a hate fuck for you right now” on my phone from him, I have wished for bad things to happen to him.  I didn’t even do this when the good Christian disposed of me.  That was a situation where he yelled at me and molded me to being someone else by giving alternatives and then told me I wasn’t what he wanted.  This with the asshole, was just him saying I wasn’t enough for him ever at all and he was not willing to give me back anything but he felt I had to be there for him whenever HE chose.  While I know the blame lies on me for staying, it doesn’t give him the right to be an asshole to me.  So in all truth and honesty and standing naked in front of anyone, I have wished for something bad to happen to him.  Not out of my imagination mind you, i don’t obsess about ways he should suffer.  Just, if i hear about a bad accident, my literal first thought is “i hope he’s in that.”  I don’t wish death, I don’t know what I want.  I would never know and it wouldn’t make any difference in my life but for some reason, this is what my brain thinks of first.  It’s very automatic.  I literally can’t help it.  

So I wonder. I wonder when I will be able to forgive and I wonder who I am needing to forgive.  Because I tell myself all the time, even though I allowed this to happen, to continue, to not listen to my instinct, I have to forgive myself. I have to know I did everything with an open heart and I really really really thought there was more to him.  Not even for my benefit, but for his own.  

I don’t forgive him at all and I am having a lot of trouble forgiving myself apparently.  I am not ready to forgive.  I still have a lot of pain and anger and I honestly wish it would just go away.  

So I’m overwhelmed watching this train wreck of a man come to the aid of this flailing woman having an emotional crises and I just start bawling.  I make it stop distract myself and roll my eyes at me.  “Carry on, were not doing this today” style and it won’t go away.  So I gotta say, ‘it’s ok to cry, its ok to feel pain and hurt’ but god damn.  I don’t want to.  

I’m so sick of feeling like this huge failure. I am sick of feeling like I am the one who is unlovable here.  I’m sick of wondering what the fuck is wrong with me when I know there isn’t anything wrong.  I’m so sick of having shitty thoughts in my head all the time of good memories that are followed by “the oh yeah and then he did that bullshit” memories. Somewhere deep down inside I have to be wishing bad things to happen to him only because I want him to feel as much pain.  I want him to be fucked up mentally and emotionally, probably physically too since I acknowledge he does not have normal human emotions, and that maybe it would feel better for me.  

I don’t want to go into another abyss in my life full of self destruction but a distraction is needed and I just want him erased.  

I feel he literally was the worst decision in my life to ever be involved with him.  

I should have known better.