Sometimes I feel like I'm in some sort of alternate reality.

Like I slipped on a sidewalk, hit the pavement, and when I stood... I was somewhere else. Maybe I'm off in a coma, and my brain is wandering around this alternate world where things don't quite make sense.

For example, for those of you who have been keeping up with my family madness posts, you might have noticed that a week ago this evening, I was sitting in the emergency room of a nearby hospital attempting to check my father into the psych ward. At this very hour, I was likely running back and forth in the hallways, attempting to keep my mother from breaking down, my father from escaping, and finding out the ways to get him restrained. The night before that, I was sleeping in a guest room across from my mother because we could not go home. And all those details I've blogged about.

Today, however, today we (my father) decided we were going to celebrate the Christmas we "missed". So I came home, slept in my own bed, and woke up to open presents.

And then my parents took me shopping.

And bought me a new car.

In case you missed that, here we go again:

And bought me a new car.

I didn't even copy and paste that sentence. I typed it again so you could feel the gravity of the statement. By gravity, I mean the "...wtf?"-ness of that statement.

I now have a 2010 VW Jetta TDI sedan.

Why?

I have no clue. I have no freaking clue. I've always had to work for everything, pay for everything. And suddenly: "Hay, here's a car!"

My brain hurts as life attempts to pack enough plotline for a few seasons worth of sitcom into a month and some change.

I... can't really even recount the events of the last month, trying to remember this last year seems even more of a feat.

But since I've yet to attempt this type of post before, let's go over some highlights:

In 2009 I...

~went to my first swing club and banged without mercy, squirted on an audience, showed a large group of onlookers how to really give head

~Snagged SFPlayboy, ended up spending some time in San Fran as well

~Did my first DP

~Picked up that delicious 6'9" cello player/stuntman

~Met GV8, learned more about myself and my life than I thought possible

~Flew across the country to follow a band for the weekend

~Moved out of the apartment I shared with Darkeyes

~Restarted my schooling, pushing towards entry into the Master's Program

~Let my hair grow long, near waist-length

~Broke up, reunited, broke up, reunited, broke up with GV8

~Chased a man for the first time in my life. Failed spectacularly.

~Finally found out the difference between "sex" and "making love"

~Made out with a hobo

~Got my right side tattooed in one eight-hour sitting, with three hours of touch-ups later

~Attempted to commit my father to a mental institution

~Had four friends kill themselves

~Almost had a nervous breakdown, which was stopped by GV8 a week after our final break up

~Applied to my first ever apartment not to be shared with another

~Lost 20 pounds

~Launched my car backwards down a hill

~Had my driver's side t-boned while driving through an intersection

~Spent 10 months couchsurfing

~Started this blog

~Helped a friend execute an emergency move at 2AM on a Wednesday morning that involved us balancing her bed on top of a minivan and walking it the x-amount of miles to her new place because we had no rope


If I wasn't feeling so tired and lazy, I would look up all those things that I forgot.

But it has been a long freaking week.

Monday: stayed in, cried, anxiety issues, cried more
Tuesday: apartment hunted, spoke with the boss-man, rescinded my two-weeks notice
Wednesday: found an apartment, applied (hoping I get it)
Thursday: came home to talk with the parents about my current life plan and their degree of involvement in it and then they bought me a car
Friday: cleaning, cleaning, cleaning
Saturday: packing, packing, packing
Sunday: sleeping, sleeping, sleeping

I don't want to go back to work on Monday. Save me.

So nervous about if I will get that apartment. So. Nervous. I hate when I want something really bad and I have to wait to see if I get it. Makes me jumpy.

Gyah. Going to bed.

Have a happy new year. I'm going to go sleep my way into unconsciousness.

It's raining.

It's also almost 4PM.

Another anxiety fueled morning that prompted me to force myself past the chemicals flooding my brain and go look at apartments.

I found one that I really liked. A fourplex that was a remodeled old colonial-looking cottage. Something like that. I don't remember the exact descriptors.

Huge. Beautiful. Underpriced for what it was. She could have easily been asking $1200 for the place, no issue.

But I couldn't do it. My panic set in. It was a privately owned property, the owner lived in one of the four suites. The one I would be living next to. I would be in constant fear that I would be monitored, made to feel uncomfortable, forced to have polite conversations, and eventually booted if the whim hit her.

So I left. Drove around and walked around in the rain, looking at properties.

Some were nice. Some weren't. I wasn't impressed with the way the management companies handled themselves.

And then I found it.

Actually, I drove by a place, called the number, asked to see it, was sent to the management office to get keys, met the management person... and I really liked him. I really liked the office. I loved the price on the place.

I drove back to the property, and as I was unlocking the gate, my father called me to tell me he wanted me home tonight because we are doing our missing Christmas morning tomorrow. And they want to talk to me about my future, about my schooling, about money.

I talked to him as I walked around the place. Beautiful. Told him I'd show up later tonight. He sounded almost like who he used to be.

The place... high ceilings. Wood floors. Huge closet. Vanity space. Interesting kitchen. All utilities paid except for electricity. Laundry on-site. Faux fireplace. Parking for $40 a month.

And as I mentally assembled where my furniture would go, I knew that was the place for me. A tiny but beautiful studio across the street from a very happening bar (not that I drink, but that particular bar is a favorite people-watching place of mine), only a few blocks away from C's place.

So I applied about an hour ago. I'll know if I got it on Monday. I'm the first applicant in (well, aside from one other who had to pull out due to financial trouble), so if I clear all their background/credit/employment/income checks, which I believe I should, the place is mine.

Yesterday, I went up to the office and talked to my boss. Let him know what happened with my family, what was going on, and asked if he could please please please disregard my one-month notice I gave him the previous week. That I'm staying on.

He said he would like to have me stay. I've worked there for over two years. I bust my ass for them. I know all the customers and some of them only want to talk to me, no one else.

So I still have my job.

Tomorrow, I have to sit down with my parents and turn away all their offers, all the money and hopes and begging me to let them support me for awhile while I go to school. I just can't quit my job. I can't be left drifting like that. It's too dangerous, especially with my dad being the way he is.

On January 8th, I need to drop all my classes that I already paid for and enroll in one class. Just one.

And then all the decisions will have been made, and I will have altered my course entirely.

Busy week.

Explained to my mother my plan for the coming months.

Picked out the two classes that I feel would fit my work schedule, if only my boss accepts them. I think he will.

Looking at apartments near C's place.

It really sunk in, why I was doing what I was doing, when my mother mentioned that she had to go and wrap Christmas presents. That my father was asking her when we were going to have Christmas.

You know, since we skipped it and all.

The mere thought of returning home, seeing him, talking to him, sent me into more panic than the idea of moving out on my own.

I needed that. He finally pushed me off the deep end, where my anxiety regarding being on my own is outweighed by my fear of his instability.

My mother is concerned that I won't emotionally handle it on my own. That my depression and anxiety will get the best of me.

Maybe.

Probably not.

Too social now, too many people wanting to go out, be out.

Finally discovered where the money for my schooling is supposed to come from: my own life insurance policy, that I have to set up with my father.

I don't even want to talk to him. Possibly for the rest of the coming year. He corrodes me. Mom was trying to cajole me into calling him, talking to him, setting up an appointment with him to fill out all the paperwork, act interested in a process, let him lecture me for hours.

I can't even stand to be in his presence for fifteen minutes, much less let him invade my life even further on a financial level for several hours, tying me to him even tighter. Total terror.

When am I going to be able to face him again? When will this heal?

Will it ever heal?

Was this it? Was this last week the final blow to my shielding, the cracking vibrations shattering deep within me, where love, loyalty, devotion, and fear are suddenly overridden by the need to live, to be healthy?

I wonder what it would be like to be able to have normal sex with someone and be able to actually get into it. Actually let go. Relax. Stop thinking. Normal sex. Regular, everyday sex. No pain, no brutalization, no rape scenes, no domination.

The only things that make me stop thinking for even a moment.

Except for GV8. Making love with someone for the first time in my life.

God, I'm wrecked.

How far will I have to go to be whole and healthy? Have I ever been whole and healthy? Would I even recognize it?

Monday.

I believe that pegs this as the 28th. Not sure.

I went out with GV8 last night, after posting. I needed comfort.

Instead I got a kick in the ass.

Met up at a favored coffee shop down the street from C's place. I was early, so I did my usual by chatting up the barista. He was flirty, I smiled, probably pulled my usual chin-tilt, looking up over the rims of my glasses.

Of course, GV8 came in behind me and cockblocked my socialization by running his fingers quickly up through my hair and grabbing two fistfuls, tug-tug, his chest against my back.

The problem I've discovered we have is that the simplest hug becomes a monitored issue, placement of hands, faces, hips. Trying to not do what our bodies know is right.

It's hard, the duck and weave, fighting instinct.

Reminds me of a Patricia Briggs book, part of her werewolf series, operating under the idea that the wolf and the human are separately conscious, and the wolf chooses the mate. Two of the characters... mated by beast, but they dislike each other.

Not that we dislike each other, but it is bizarre for both of us to keep returning to each other, since neither of us has done that in the past, and both of us tend to have the control to stop unhealthy things.

But we keep pulling together anyhow. It's a fight to stay apart, even for him.

We talked, and he kicked my ass. Told me that the person who has damaged me the most, the person with the most amount of influence over into turning me into, what another friend calls, a broken doll, is the one that I am about to place myself under the control of.

But it's something I'm used to.

I grew up in an abusive house, psychological terrorism. It was my way of saving my sister from my father that helped her, allowed her, to grow mostly undamaged, at least until her later teens when I moved out. By then, she was okay.

But me, me, oh yes, me. I'm broken. I go into frozen, panicked shock whenever my father raises his voice. I can't function. He shuts me down, puts me into child-terror. 26 years old and my anxiety cripples me having a normal life, my anxiety spawned by growing up in his household.

I have never lived on my own. The thought of doing so sends me into a psychological shutdown. Shakes, paleness, spasms, no appetite, I lose my ability to function.

Broken.

So now, now when my family needs me, I can't function. I can't be there. He has scarred me so badly that I'm unable to protect my mother. A life of taking blows for my sister and mother, and I can't take this one.

Broken. Broken at 26.

So GV8 tells me to confront that anxiety. Stop rushing through school. Stay with my job, my decent job, and get a place of my own. Stop couchsurfing. Stop worrying about every dollar. Stop fighting adulthood. Have faith in myself. Live for myself, by myself. Get away from the man who has poisoned me for so many years.

It would be easier if I could hate him.

But I don't. I love my father. I love my mother. Family is everything.

So what do I do?

GV8, he loves me. He wants the best for me. He's afraid I'm going to spend the next ten years of my life devoted to school, living under my father's roof, terrorized by the thought of him going into one of his rages and having no real job, no real income, to save me.

He says that he would rather me be graduating with my PhD at 37 (or whatever), whole and happy, than graduate with my PhD at 32, successful, doing what I want to do, but still incredibly broken. That school will always be there. I can do one class at a time.

I'm terrified. This is fighting internal demons that I can't even identify because I was too young to remember when they were born. I can't even express my blind fear at this simple thing that everyone does, some before they even turn 18. It's this massive hump in my life. Taking care of myself. Being on my own.

Wish it wasn't so frightening.

Wish my homelife had been healthy.

Wish I could focus on school.

Wish that all these wishes were anything but words.

... ... ...

My mother and sister both have informed me that my father is doing much better today. Almost back to normal. But today is the day that he went to the doctor. Best behavior required.

They also brought the cats home.

Unfortunately, one of them had to be put to sleep today.

GV8 is doing his best to support me, to tell me what others won't. He's probably one of the few people I would listen to at this point, whose words rattle around in my skull.

C and I took a walk today, talking about my anxiety, fear, plans for the coming months.

She told me that she couldn't believe it took her this long to realize how damaged I was, how unsure I was of myself. That I put on such a good front.

I laughed, told her I knew. I'm amazing at pretending to be more confident than I am. It's instinct now, when before it was simply survival. I don't know how to act any other way.

He was sitting on the couch, off to the left of the stage, head resting back against the cushion.

I walked over to him, the man that helped compound the anxiety, the panic, the triggers that cause me to blindly run. I walked across the grey marbled floor, the soles of my boots at such ease, fresh from skimming across the dancefloor. I know I'm good, I know this is my home.

He raised his head. Sunglasses made it so I couldn't see if he was looking at me or..? Those everpresent sunglasses that make me call him Darkeyes. Even in a club, even at 130 in the morning, they're on his face.

Quick gestures, fingers moving through the air. You. Me. Go.

I walk off.

He follows.

Threading the needle, passing through crowds, dropping hip high, dropping low. I don't like touching strangers, even if they're the same strangers I've been seeing for years.

I reach the patio, glance behind me, and walk to an empty corner. Hips sway.

"Hey," I tell him, "You look pretty miserable."

His body language is uncomfortable. I can almost see his skin trying to move away from me, his feet shifting back and forth like I've caught him in some naughty act, hand in the cookie jar.

But I wear the face of his guilt.

No cookies stolen.

"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable." More shuffling. It's hard to believe I dated this.

I loved him once. Even through what he did to me, I loved him before it happened. Cared for him before he did what he did.

Something in me, while I was engaging with my family, with my father, these last few days, realized what little he mattered. What he had done... it wasn't worth it. The anger. The holding on. The memories that cling to my brain no matter how hard I scrub at them with words.

"I heard you and Steph broke up."

He squirms, ducks his head. He remembers her role in how things played out. "It was a mutual thing..." he mumbles at me.

"It still sucks. Holidays and all. It hurts. I'm sorry."

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"I only wanted one thing from you. I wanted one thing, voluntarily given. But I realized I'm never going to get it. I just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry for your pain. I'm sorry things didn't work out." He nods, tight, sad smile. "Have a happy new year, Darkeyes."

I walk away. I hear his voice following me, "Have a happy new year, too..."

The DJ picks a track I used to listen to during our break up. Smiling, I hit the dance floor.

... ... ...


In less pleasant news, my father relapsed today. Unbearably so, for me and my "issues". Mostly, my insane driving need to have a safe place to reside where my belongings would not be touched.

This is something my father has created in me due to his behaviors over the years.

Darkeyes, on the other hand, helped create an obsession/anxiety over money, over having enough money to last for months and months should something go wrong, and to never be dependent on someone you don't fully trust.

As I've said before, I haven't trusted my father in over a decade. This simply makes it worse.

So, when my father went on his manic rampage today, one that lasted all day, and will likely continue, I managed. I dealt. I went to Starbucks, sat on the fountain, and silently cried because I couldn't keep it in any longer.

When I got home, my game face on as much as it could be, I discovered that he had, once again, violated my space. This time, it was a film camera and lens set that he dug out of my stack of things in the garage, something I had inherited from his father, my grandfather.

Fix it, he said, or I will sell it.

The light meter is broken on it, you see.

This camera was not in his way. It was likely on the top of a stack of boxes full of books and it caught his eye. But he needed to punish me, probably for going out last night, so he took it.

I stopped my tears, but I could not stop the spasms that ran up my spine as my body jerked to accomodate the emotion of the violation I fear and hate so much.

My sister stood up for me. She distracted him from me. And then I relocated to the couch to sit down. He raged and he raged, incoherently. I went upstairs and slowly packed, waiting for my laundry to finish drying.

And this, this was the amusing point.

I was so afraid all week of doing my laundry because I was terrified that I would be in the middle of doing it and something exactly like this would happen, and suddenly I would be trapped by my clothing.

Which I ended up being.

So I went upstairs and slowly packed. Made the decisions of what goes and what I was willing to give up.

When you only have two duffle bags and you are armed with the knowledge that anything you leave behind may be sold, hidden, or destroyed, you have to turn off emotion and take what you must have if you have to start again somewhere else.

I packed. Laundry finished, I took what I needed from there, then hung the shirts and pants I was not taking, kissed my mother and sister goodbye, and left.

I feel weak. I feel so weak. That one simple thing can get under my skin and shred my brain. I was going to break. I knew I was going to break if I did not leave. And I keep trying to justify leaving my mother and sister alone with him by telling myself that I need to get my feet under me, need to be healthy again, need to be strong and whole so that I can help them when they need me. That I only left them physically, not mentally, not emotionally, and if they call, I will be there.

I'm at C's now. Two duffle bags instead of the one I usually live out of. In two months, I will have been couchsurfing for a year. I only expected it to be the summer. Now look at me.

Trying to come to terms still, with giving up school. With giving up what I was so desperately hoping for. A semester of my own, a semester to work on my dreams and education without worrying about a job or money. A chance to do it right, instead of doing what I did with my Bachelor's.

I suppose that's what happens.

I worry about my mother, my sister. I worry what this will do to my mother, what it will do to all of us.

We took down the Christmas tree today, the decorations, packed up the ornaments.

It was almost as if the holiday did not exist.

My thighs are aching.

344AM, December 27th? Is it the 27th? I think so. Separation of days when you are living hour to hour... doesn't quite work. You brain ceases to think that far ahead, so you don't really fixate on the tiny details such as whether or not it's Monday or Thursday, much less the actual date.

I can't remember.

I can't remember if it was this morning or yesterday morning that found me crying in my bed.

Maybe both.

I do know that today, for the first time since this started, I was able to take some time to myself.

I went to one of my oldest friend's place and cried into his chest, near hyperventilating sobs, half-seconds apart as I tried to let go and bring myself back together all at once.

He massaged me. Back, shoulders, neck, head, jaw, feet, calves, knees, for a little over two hours. It was the first time I was at any sort of peace.

But my father called, the wave of nausea rolled through me and I clutched a pillow to my chest as his voice fill my ear and I tried not to vomit. He was not happy. I should have been at home, staying with Mom, helping her, keeping her sane.

Eventually the nausea eased. I went to Starbucks and read Black Coffee Blues because Rollins is one of the only writers I can think of that near immediately set my mind at ease. I read and drank coffee in the sun, sitting on a circular fountain, scooting down the rim as the sun moved behind the building.

I went home and I walked, trying to get the blood going, trying to release some endorphins that would help me get myself out of bed in the morning, which was so hard for me today.

I called GV8.

We talked for a long while.

I think I might have to let him go.

Out of my life.

This isn't working. How he is talking to me now... he has good information, good opinions, good ways of operating... but it's as though now that we aren't dating, he views me as lesser and no longer has to hide it.

My father barbequed steaks. I shook and tried to act normal.

I feel like some sort of trauma victim.

I barely managed to get out of the house, fighting guilt and fear, to do the one thing I had been focusing on as an escape, as a night out, an illusion of a normal life: go dancing at my favorite club.

I got there. I can only hope that my father is not mad now. He thinks I should be home, with the family. I think I need to scramble for sanity.

But I quickly determined one very unexpected and undesirable thing: Darkeyes was in attendance.

He knows better than that. The scene we run in has a few separate... eh, I want to say regions, but that's not right. It has very specific boundaries between clubs and the people that go there. Stereotypes and cliques within a stereotype. Further division.

He knows that the club I went to tonight, that club is my stomping ground. He hasn't set foot in it, to my knowledge, since we broke up.

And he was there tonight, of all nights.

But it's rounding on 4AM, and I want to be coherent for this. Maybe I'll actually have a normal day tomorrow.


I doubt it.

1056PM. Christmas night.

When I write my journal entries down on paper, though I'm not supposed to be writing due to the injury, I always timestamp them.

It lends an odd sort of reality to things.

We're home again tonight.

I did not expect to be here. I expected my father was going to lose it again and I would be spending this evening in the lobby of a mental institution, or exercising as much control as I could muster and not crying my eyes out while a police car drove him away, holding my mother, telling her not to look, that she did not need that image seared into her brain.

But... it was okay.

It was not great. Things are barely stabilized. He wavers back and forth between the man he was weeks ago and the man he became. Walking around on eggshells, doing odd requests, listening to his rants and responding in a supportive manner.

I can't get my hopes up. I can't.

Things will not go back to normal.

I can't imagine this settling so I can go back to school this coming semester. I can't see it. Out of the four of us, my income is second highest. And the disparity between my paycheck and my father's paycheck is high. Planning finances, knowing that I would have to, at least temporarily, support my mother. Find her an apartment. Pay the bills. Continue couchsurfing and find a way to make it work.

And that still might happen.

She snapped at me today.

I went up for a nap, exhausted. Exhausted like I am now. My father was flipping a bit, looking for an item I borrowed for C. I hadn't brought it back yet. She woke me and asked for it, when I told her I left it at C's, she snapped at me.

I lost it.

One of the major ways I've been keeping sane is by burying myself into my mother. By ceasing my identity as much as I can, by ignoring my needs, my wants, my fears, and being everything for her, much like I do when I enter sub-state. Her happiness, her lack of stress, her lack of pain, is mine.

When she became angry at me, my mind cracked a little.

It reminded me of a time, years ago, when I was watching a BDSM performance at a favorite club of mine. The dom, someone I've had a crush on for years, was deep in session with one of his many subs. She was far gone off into sub-state. For some reason, a security guard came by and started yelling in her face... I don't know what for.

She broke. She bolted off the stage, ran outside, and hid in a corner, shivering, until her dom was able to calm her down. You don't do that to someone when they're that vunerable.

I couldn't keep it together after that. The stress of the last few days caught up to me and, this time, my mother held me while I cried. I felt awful because she immediately regretted snapping at me. I had been taking care of her, doing everything for her, and she lost her temper for a moment and I cracked and she felt so bad.

I'm supposed to be the strong one. I'm always the strong one. She relies on me not to be weak, relies on me to be her emotional rock. When I lose it, she knows that it is bad, and that makes her lose it more.

Of course, then I called GV8.

And, yeah, he was mad.

Great.

Because, last night, when I called him and asked him to come down, and he told me no, that he was too tired, I suddenly told him I had to go and hung up on him. Because my mother and sister had rounded the corner with the information on the decision they had to make: to declare my father 5150 and have him restrained and moved to a psych ward or not.

He felt I had been short with him.

And then, to top that all off, I did not call or text him after we decided what was going to happen. So he was worrying.

Yes, I did not text him. Purposefully. Because I was hurt and exhausted. Because I felt let down and rejected. Trust betrayed. If he wasn't going to be there for me when I asked, then he could call me if he wanted to know what was going on. I wasn't going to make him do something he did not want to do.

So he was mad about that.

And then, when I told him how hurt I was about him not coming down, about how that damaged my trust in him and I wanted to talk about it so I could get over that emotional hump, he got upset because he felt I was being irrational in expecting him to do the impossible. His schedule was not permitting him to drive across town to hold me while I cried if my father did end up in the mental hospital. He got upset because he feels that I should trust him absolutely. Hadn't he shown he was worthy of it by now?

I tried to explain how I felt. How difficult it is for me to trust someone. How hard it is for me to ask for help when it inconveniences another person. How he constantly pulls all-nighters working, or only gets 20 minutes of sleep and brags about his productivity, and he couldn't do that for me. How he's so good at doing the impossible.

The conversation ended up with me apologizing a lot and crying a lot.

Then realizing that I was simply terrified that I would piss him off with what I was saying and he'd disappear, which was why I was apologizing so much. Me, being the open communicator that I am, told him this.

Which simply served, of course, to piss him off more.

He said he'd call me.

He didn't.

I texted him a couple hours later, wishing him a Merry Christmas, that I was thankful for all of his patiences and support. He sent me back a one word response.

I called him several hours later, because I said I would call him if I did not hear from him.

He didn't pick up his phone.


Typical. He hasn't been this pissed at me since I asked for contracts if I was going to be working for him, so many months ago. And he still brings that up whenever he's going after me.

I don't know why I bother with this. Trying so hard to trust, to have faith. Trying to believe in people when they say they'll be there. They'll only be there to a point. A level of inconvenience reached, they step away.

GV8 can't stand that I don't fully trust him. It angers him. It shoves him away from me.

And that behavior is supposed to make me want to trust him more??

We're not even sleeping together, much less in a relationship. How much trust can he expect me to have and maintain?

He says he's disappointed in me. I hate that. I'm pissed at how he's acting. I hate how, assuming we remain friends, whenever he gets pissed at me he's going to bring this up, just like he brings the work contracts up, even though he says he has forgiven me for that, that he understands, he still brings it up.

He was supposed to be my rock. He said to call him anytime, that he would be there for me.

So here I am. Sitting in bed. A phone full of Christmas messages sent en masse. GV8 has yet to wish me a happy holidays, a merry Christmas, whatever.

Who am I supposed to turn to when I want to feel someone's arms around me, when I want to feel safe, protected, for just a little bit so I can gather myself and dive back into this shitstorm that my life has become?

He's fucking AWOL. Pissed that I don't trust him to be there. Pissed that I think he'll disappear if I annoy him too much. Disappointed in my behavior for not texting him before I passed out at 330AM this morning.

How the hell am I ever supposed to trust? What man is ever going to step into my life and want to do battle with my epic trust issues and win me over? It's a hell of a lot of work, and as the years go by, it just gets harder.

I suppose I should get used to it. Suppose I should just get myself together so I can do for myself, so I don't have to worry about trusting my partner. Strong, capable, needing no one. Pulling hard.

Hurt. Annoyed. Sad. Disappointed. Expecting it.

Self-fulfilling prophecy?

Probably.

1118AM. Christmas day.

Exhausted.

Went to bed at 3, 330 or so this morning, got up around 840. Not bad, not great.

If you don't add the emotional BS that has been draining my energy.

We're still at home. My father is acting edgy. It's something that gets worse as the day goes on. I've already repacked my bags, not that I really unpacked them in the first place. I was just so tired that instead of putting everything back in its place last night like I normally do, I just left things a mess.

We're hoping that in the three days it takes for this drug to clear out of his system, he'll get better. Until then, my mother is clinging to him, attached at the hip like I was to her. Placating him so he doesn't rage.

On the hope that it's only the drug.

We have, at minimum, three days of living on the edge. Moments of clarity, of our father, her husband, being himself, before he switches back into drug-mind.

It's incredibly difficult.

You forget. You forget so much how bad it is, when he is good. You start hoping that the future will be okay. And then a sentence slips out of his mouth, his facial expression changes, and you plummet again.

GV8 let me down last night.

The first time he had done so, when I needed him so badly.

That hurt my budding trust in him badly. I don't know if I could ever want to date him again, or if I did, if I could ever regain that trust with him. He was too tired to come to me, too tired to be with me when we determined that the best place for my father was a mental facility, and the security guards were coming down the halls, waiting by the door, to restrain him and cart him off.

I called him, crying, telling him this was going to break me and I needed him. Because he told me if I needed him, to call.

That he would be there.

Apparently, he did not mean physically.

So I called, I called and asked him if he would come down if I started falling apart, if I broke like I thought I would when the guards took my father away.

And he said no. He didn't want to drive tired.

This from a man who has gone days without sleep. From a man who will push himself, push himself into the ground, into doing what needs to be done, no matter what, hop on a plane and fly to where he needs to be, who will wake up in perfect alertness in times of an emergency and get things done, drive wherever he has to go.

And he would not come to me if I asked him to. He would not come if I was mentally breaking down.

That shattered part of me.

That shattered the growing bulb in me that would flower with trust and love for him, for the future men in my life. I was suddenly without the anchor that kept telling me to trust, love, focus, relax, he would be there for me.

That he loved me, even though we couldn't be together.

So I inhaled, exhaled, pushed away emotions, and clung to being strong, to getting my mother and sister through the evening.

Knowing he had left me alone to deal with some of my worst fears.

Knowing that even he would let me down in the end.

217AM on Christmas morning.

Got back from the hospital a short bit ago.

It's really hard to put everything together right now.

We almost committed him.

Still might.

I'm at home. Something that I wasn't sure I'd ever get to experience, at least with this house, again. Each time I snuck in to see how things were, what he had done to the property, to grab clothes or documents for my mother, I would look around, look into my room and say goodbye, fully aware that I may never see it again.

This may, for all I know, be the last time I sleep in this house as it is.

Or it may not.

It depends on if the diagnosis was right: that the medication my father was given to deal with his incredible sleep issue was the trigger point that caused this extreme manic episode, or if it's just him cracking under the stress of how life has been lately.

I held my mother while she sobbed too many times in the last few days.

My sister was in a state of avoidance/denial that made her almost useless except for running errands. She is not sleeping here tonight because her boyfriend's child is going to have his fourth Christmas tomorrow/today and she wants to be there for it.

We almost just committed my father to a mental institution, we've been at the hospital for over ten hours, my mother is barely holding together, and she has more important things to do.

It blows my mind.

But that's how she copes.


It has been incredibly hard. Monday night, I came home because things were so bad. My father's behavior was so aggressive and erratic, so out of character. And it's difficult for us because my mother doesn't work, my mother doesn't challenge, my mother has no control that he does not give her due to their emotional bond. So... if he goes nuts, we're a bit screwed. Our lives aren't over, but they are drastically shifted.

So I come home, maybe around 7PM. I call my dad and he says he'll be home by around 830-9PM. 10PM rolls around. 11PM. My sister calls. He freaks, aggressively. He gets home at 330AM. Talks to my mother for a bit, who calls me immediately after she gets off the phone with him and tells me to get my sister and myself out of the house.

I go downstairs. He's up. Putting notes on everything. Re-arranged the kitchen. Angry, almost incoherent notes. The cats... even though I had already fed them and told him that I would take care of them while my mother was gone (I had told her to go stay with a cousin), he dumped out the heavy bag of kibble all over the floor so they could eat, he said. Even though some of the cats have special diet needs.

God, there's so many things, so many random things. I could write them all out, taking hours. The crazed phone calls. The tagential rants. The threats. The lack of coherency, of reality. His aggression. The fact that he got a total of seven hours of sleep in three days because the mania was pushing him so hard.

I could talk about walking into the guest bedroom of a family friend's house and finding my mother crying on the floor.

Or all the other times she fell apart in my arms and I would stroke her back, kiss her cheek, the top of her head, and tell her how it would all be okay. Watching her call him and cry, about how she was missing her other half, how it felt like he was dead. Helping her write a pleading love note that asked him to seek help. Her phone ringing at 1230AM and him angrily blasting her with his insanity.

I could tell you of how all the pictures are down in the house, stashed in the garage. Or the paint missing off the wall, where he duct-taped the fire extinguisher to the wall and then ripped it down. Or how the kitchen counters are suddenly empty. Or how all the kitchen chairs but one have been placed elsewhere, and the couch and armchair have been blocked off so there is only room for one.

Or the piles of clothes on the bed and the floor.
The mismatched shoes.
The duffle bags full of random items.

His threats of filing a police report because we hid the gun from him.

I could talk about going to bed on Monday night, knowing that something was going to happen. Warning my sister to pack a bag. Her barely listening. Looking around my room, determining what I had to have if I was going to be homeless and unable to access any of my belongings for, at bare minimum, a month. Jacket, sandals, week's worth of socks and underwear, one set of dress clothes, one pair of high heels, jogging shoes, one set of pajamas, week's worth of shirts. Two blankets. Pillow. Bathroom bits. Plastic bags for dirty clothes. Folded and put in a duffle bag. My two laptops were packed, as well as my emergency cash, phone charger.

Then the psychological needs. When I stop moving, when I settle somewhere, what do I need with me to a) not miss and/or b) keep myself sane? What will I turn to, what will I cry over if I leave it behind? Two movies. All of my books by Henry Rollins. A teddy bear I received on my first birthday, a stuffed animal I bought when I was little that I saved and saved for, the first time I had managed to save for anything. A little stuffed green monster GV8 bought me, as well as the long coat he bought me on our first date. The robe that still smells like him.

I left out a change of clothes, loaded my car, showered so I would not have to worry about showering in the morning... and slept until I received the call I knew I would.

You need to leave. Get your sister and get out of the house.

We snuck out and I called her to let her know we were okay.

I went back later, after my father went to work, and took pictures of all the notes he left around. Maybe that was the next day? It all blends together.

My mother and I stayed with a family friend, my sister's best friend's parents. They had twin beds in their guest room, so my mother and I slept across from each other, exhausted and jumping each time her phone rang in the middle of the night, going back to sleep shaking with anxiety, not knowing what he would do next, to himself, to his future.

But my mother is the most important thing in the world to me. My father and I... our relationship has always been hard. We're too similiar, but not quite enough. When she hurts, I switch into protector mode, and it was a losing battle to not see my father as a beast that needed to be neutralized at any cost- even if that meant getting him to physically attack me in a public place, which was what I nearly tried to make him do.

My mother was the only thing tethering him to us. I had snapped him free out of a need to survive.

Things are... okay now.

There's more to say, but I'm so very tired. Tomorrow, things might be better.

Or they might be just as bad, if not worse.

If that is the case, then a lot will change.

But I need my sleep to survive it. I need my sleep to be my best, to support my mother and react well. My friends, both in life and online, have been wonderfully supportive. GV8 has been a godsend, almost. There was a rough patch earlier this evening that I have to discuss with him later. It hurt. He hurt me. Unintentionally, I know.

But that's another night.

It doesn't even feel like Christmas. It might as well be February right now. I am not 100% certain what day it is, actually.

What a blur.

It's another drive-by blogging.

I really wish I could sit here and do more. Write more. Tell you all what is going on, what this is like. Submerge myself in the memories, the sensations, the experiences, and let it flow.

Maybe I will, later tonight, once my mother goes to sleep.

But I can't leave her alone. I ran out to get coffee, food, and take pictures of the state of the house.

But we're locked out. He's locked us out. I can't get in. Even the second story windows are locked.

We're probably calling the police tonight, to have him committed if we can.

If he convinces them, and my father is a very smart, manipulative man, that he is perfectly fine, then we're screwed. We're screwed for life.

Doctor is of little help. My mother is in pieces. GV8 and a few other friends are keeping me strong, as I have to be strong for my mom and my sister. I don't feel like I'm going to break anymore.

We'll see how things go.

My future, my schooling, is in jeapordy. As is my sister's. As is my mother's. Future, that is. No schooling worries there.

That's really what I'm focusing on, what is upsetting me. I know I've just detached because I hate seeing my mother in such pain. My father has always been a little off. It was a matter of time and circumstances before something happened, though he had been getting better. I was hoping it was over, that he had stabilized and would be able to finally learn to control himself.

And then this sleep medication.

Phone call. Gotta run.

Drive-by update.

Spoke with the doctor. He wants my father committed. My father can't be committed until he proves himself to be a danger to himself or others. My mother is coming back from San Diego, we've moved the family pets to one of my good friend's place, we're supposed to have an intervention tonight and try to get him to voluntarily commit himself to the hospital.

It's not likely to go well.

We've been told to remove any guns from the house and take away the sleep pills he's been taking.

I'm taking off work shortly.

I don't know what is going to happen.

I'm going to run by Border's and pick up Eat Pray Love and hope it keeps me sane for the next few hours, as we have no idea when he is going to come home, or what he is going to do.

More, of course, later.

Thank you for your well wishes, everyone. When things settle down, I'll get back on my regular vaguely-social track.

Quick update before I go back to work:

House has been evacuated. Sent mother off to San Diego to stay with a cousin, sister to boyfriend's, myself to C's. Cats' living situation is TBD. Woke up at 5AM to find my father in a state of raging anxiety, reorganzing, throwing away, accusing, putting notes on everything about how he wants things handled because we are all children and can't run a house and want him to get miserable enough to kill himself.

Something something something.

Don't think I'm going to be able to go back to school.

Don't see how things are going to work out without committing him or him killing himself. Doctor is currently no help. Dad is planning for divorce. Nothing is getting through to him. No logic, no rational.

I emptied my room, my life, of anything of value to me last night, put it in my car, took my extra key from his possession, took my sister's extra key as well. He'll probably change the locks.

But I am able. I am able to leave. I can take this life and ditch it and start again if I must, if we all must.

I have a duffle bag with a week's worth of clothes, some cash, a tank full of gas.

I can do this.

I can do anything I need to survive.

And I will protect my family, even if that means ditching my father to his madness and, at least temporarily, giving up my dreams.

Watch me go.

Another wonderful way to start off the week:

Waking up wrapped in a fraying, thin blue blanket on the living room floor of an apartment in Venice Beach in a (huge) puddle of your own drool because the sliding glass door was open all night so you ended up with your nose alternately plugging up and running you had to sleep with your mouth open next to a pile of toilet paper because there was no kleenex your sleep deprived self could find at 240AM when you were woken by your own shivers, bleeding everywhere because you must be reminded that you are female once a month, lest you forget.


My life is so glamorous.

So. Glamorous.


Oooh, ooh, an update!:

Continuing on this week's wonderful birth, then you receive a phone call from your mother, in tears, because your father has been on a sleeping medication which is obviously altering his brain chemistry and making him act like he's constantly inebriated, which wouldn't be that bad if your father was a cheery sort of person. But he's not. Also wouldn't be that bad if your mother's father wasn't an alcoholic all of her childhood that would occasionally beat her mother.

Probably isn't that great when your mom is so upset she slips up and calls you the name of her best friend, which makes you realize that you've transcended the normal mother-daughter relationship and gone into that place of equality where both of you are quite human and very lost.


Second update, an hour later!

Better continuing. Called my father. He's going off the deep end. Continues to be convinced that I am the only person who understands him, the only person he can talk to, that the rest of the family is against him, and he's basically going to punish them by punishing himself by taking himself off all the anti-anxiety and anti-depressants and everything else he is currently on so he can revert to his baseline and drive himself into the ground/suicide.

My mom is in pieces. My father is ignoring the doctors. I am the only person he will talk to, and I can tell he's still holding back. He is trying to keep his reality strong, that he is not imbalanced, that his behavior is healthy, and the rest of the world is trying to kill his newfound happiness.

I'm going to leave work in a minute. I might be away from the internet for a bit.

Spent the morning with my father, running errands for his business.

Drove the road that runs by the freeway, past the recovery center where his mother died a couple years ago.

Followed the freeway up, past the swing club that GV8 took me to earlier this year, provoking memories of laughter and tumbling across mattresses, of love and control, of meeting my sexual match, my mentor, my lover.

Drove past the neighborhood where my father's parents designed and built their dream house, something that my father now refers to as "the rental property".

Kept up the freeway, through the desert, past the exit that leads to the cemetary where my father's aunt was buried, a cemetary set against rough dry mountains, stark and clean.

Took the exit that led us past the hospital where my father's father died when I was in my early teens, and I asked him to drop me at the diner where we would eat between shifts of sitting with him, waiting for him to come to, bouts of consciousness.

I ate at the diner, a booth by the window that faced the hospital, and read.

Read one of the books that GV8 gave me the last weekend we were together. When I was so convinced we were it. This was it.

And then he pulled away. I felt it over dinner, that last dinner. And I was too tired to realize what had happened, the same feeling when he split with me the time before.

But this time, this time he isn't coming back to me.

I finished the book as my father called, letting me know he was done with his meeting and would be picking me up shortly. I stood outside by two white mailboxes and stared at the mountains.

I miss him.

My body misses him.

I ache.

Last night, C and I threw a small Christmas party at her place. I went out and got a tree, decorations, drinks, and she cooked. The group of us went out to let me finish my Christmas shopping and to look at the holiday decorations.

One of the boys, he kept touching me. My lower back, my arm, trying to hold my hand. Hugging me.

I'm normally very physically affectionate with all of my male friends. It's just how I am. And this one, he knew that I had no interest in him. He asked me and I flat out told him no.

He was just being affectionate.

But... it hurt me. It hurt me that it wasn't GV8 who was touching me, walking with me, trying to hold my hand. It made me squirm, made me feel horrible, trapped, molested, assaulted, hunted. I kept.. pulling away. Limiting contact. Hoping he would see that I was not returning his touches, that my body language was denying him.

But he didn't.

Until I took him aside and told him he needed to stop. Told him I could not handle it. That he wasn't GV8 and it was making me incredibly uncomfortable.

So he stopped touching me. And started holding doors open for me. Acting "chivalrous". My skin crawled, writhed, winced. When I tried to ask him to stop, he spent the rest of the night being avoidant, not participating. Sulking.

I left early.

It is Christmas week, and I am lost. It is Christmas week, and I wish it wasn't. I've been wishing so much lately. Wishing the different realities, the things that could have been, wishing last night I was in the reality where GV8 and I were still together, and instead of driving home for the evening, I would drive to his apartment, let myself in, crawl into bed, and have him wake me when he got home from the family function he was attending last night.

I let my brain carry me, the scents, the lighting, the temperature. Finding parking, dodging potholes, fiddling with the key, the slam of the white metal gate behind me. The color of his sheets, the look of the apartment when only the bathroom light is spilling into the room. My cellphone resting on the arm of the couch next to his. The sink of his weight into the mattress waking me, his arms pulling me to him, wrapping around me, his skin damp from the shower he always takes before getting into bed. The strong squeeze of his arms around my shoulders as he rolls me back and forth in his embrace. The weight of the comforter on my skin, tangled up behind me. The hardwood floor under my feet.

And waking up in the morning next to him, a whole new day in front of us, a day with no plans but to wandering and love.

Instead I wake up to a knock on my bedroom door. I wake up in a cold room. I wake up with no GV8, with a schedule set, places to be, and with him will never be one of them.

My period started today. I felt the cramps, knew it would be a matter of time before the blood. Hoping a sign from some sort of deity would have spoken, would have given me a piece of him, would have confirmed what I feel so deeply.

But I'm an atheist. There are no signs. Only luck. Only the things that happen and how we interpret them in hindsight.

Explanations in a reality that knows no options, as it has already happened.

And wishing for something to have been different... pointless.

I do it anyhow.

I sit here, on the edge of my bed, typing. Wishing. Daydreaming for another lost life. Knowing, knowing so strongly that I should not have lost this one. This should have belonged to me. This was my future.

It was.

He was so good.

I hate it, when things feel so wrong, so gut-level wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it. There's no more I can fight. No doorstep for me to show up on. Nothing I can say, nothing to forgive, nothing to forget.

Nothing to do but let things slide further and further away from you. Sucked away as time passes.


"Are we going to spend the rest of our lives together, V?"

...my father just informed me that he's giving me $50K to pay for my schooling.

You'd think I'd be relieved. You really would.

But, if you knew my father, you'd know his temper is explosive, his mood swings are legendary, and promises are not always kept.


I can't cling to a dream.

The money isn't mine until it's in a bank account that only I have access to.


Welcome to my life. My justifiably paranoid life where I can't believe in the offers that are made to me, and gifts are to be denied as reality.


GV8 did go through with his vasectomy yesterday. Part of me was fantasizing that he wouldn't, that he would change his mind at the last minute and realize he should be with me.

But he didn't.

Snip, snip.

Friday night in. Another one.

Gods, how sad. How much I miss him. He should have been, should be, in my life.

So close to perfect. So close.

On Wednesday, as I mentioned, a spiral towards nervous breakdown hit me a little before lunch. I called him in barely controlled tears.

He cancelled his business meeting(s?), cancelled his day, to drive to me, to take me to lunch and hold me while I cried for nearly two hours, cried into his lap, his chest, his shoulder, all the things that have happened this week.

When I asked him to drive me to my class that evening, because I was so exhausted, because I needed to be in his presence for longer in hopes of getting myself under control, he said yes and cancelled the rest of his day. Everything.

He picked me up from work at 5PM, then took me on the two hour drive to my class.

He brought his truck, the big one. So I laid across the front seat, my head in his lap, and talked with him for length of the drive while he alternately stroked my face, stared into my eyes, and rested his hand on the skin of my hip underneath my shirt.

He told me jokes, told me stories, listened to my fears and worries. He touched me and soothed me in a way that I've allowed no other man. Tapping straight into me, through the pain, through the loss.

He waited while I took my final, ran an errand to prep for his vasectomy today.

He wandered around the small campus until I was done, exploring and chatting with staff and students.

When I stepped out of the classroom, first done as always, he was staring up at me from the patio downstairs.

Beautiful hugs. Full body linkage, every curve, every angle, fit together. Lips resting on his neck. Hands held, I love you's exchanged.

He drove me back to work to get my car.

We talked.

We talked about us, about his decision, about actions I had taken, about how leaving him at the beginning of November like I did was what allowed him to determine that we would likely not work, allowed him to think, though he would have come to that conclusion anyway, he said.

I could hate myself for allowing that fear and panic to dictate my actions without thought like I did that day.

We talked about how I showed up on his doorstep the day before Thanksgiving, and how he found that mildly offputting. He doesn't like suprises. But he found it ballsy, admirable.

I suspect he said that last part to make me feel better.

He warned me not to push the relationship with him, that it would never happen. And I told him I knew, that I would respect his decision, words carrying up to him from my head in his lap, his hands on the wheel above me. So strong, so confident.

When I mentioned that Darkeyes and his girlfriend broke up, he near shouted with joy and kissed me on the lips.

I tried to dodge. Told him not to do that again. That I know he meant it friendly, but I would have a hard time being his friend if he did such things.

The second time, hours later, he could not reach and I told him again to stop.

He has made his decision. We are never going to be intimate again. I have to accept that, I have to heal, and then I can more forward.

He told me that he expected me to call him when I needed help getting my wedding ready, stamps on hundreds of envelopes he said, and he hoped to be the godfather of my future child.

That maybe, once I had been married (and assumed divorced), when we were older, maybe. When I got kids and marriage needs out of the way.

I can only assume he was joking.

I think.

Call me for the next crisis? he asked.

I told him I would. That he would only hear from me in a bad situation because the pain of him being in my life but not In My Life would have to be outweighed by the pain of the situation. Until I got over him.

He told me to stop convincing myself I was just fucking to fuck. That I needed to not engage in those habits. Imagining, fantasizing, more than was there so I could get through the months.

It's hard to imagine having casual sex again.

He asked, though he knew, that I liked the violent sex because it was the only time I ever got to stop thinking.

No, I said, also when we make... made love. He knew.

I realized when he said that, that once we got into the intense emotional connection/trust territory, when sex turned to love, I no longer felt the need, the urge, for rough sex. It wasn't there. I was submissive, I pleased, but I did not need or want the pain and the bruising.

I remember the headlights flashing across his face, sliding over the ceiling of the truck. His sure, perfect movements. Wonderful behind the wheel, something that I admire.

We talked about the things I need in a partner, the things I found in him that I never expected to find. And how unlikely it was that I would find those things again.

And we talked of balance, of my willingness to sacrifice some of my life goals to be with him. Because I function on supply, because those who I am willing and able to be with are so uncommon that if I find one that fits most of the way, even if major pieces are missing, I find it worth it.

But he doesn't. Because he thinks he's a single male by design, forever.

I told him I didn't believe that. That around 60 or 70, he'd want steady, committed companionship. He'd mellow out and crave it.

I watch him. I know. He does need it. But he needs freedom more at the moment.

He came in on Wednesday and saved me. When nothing else was working, when I thought I would have to walk out on my job on the spot in order to calm down, to relieve that one source of many of anxiety and stress so I wouldn't break, he came to me. He held me, listened to me, let me cry. He got me to laugh. He touched me.

My white knight.


And then we drove our separate ways.

I've been putting off emailing Glasses. Mostly because I did want him so much when we first met, when I wasn't coming off of GV8.

So he emailed me, apologizing for flaking out on me, explained why.

I replied, thanked him for his apology and his explanation, informed him that I was just coming down off of an intense relationship and that I would need some time to gather myself before possibly engaging with him on a sexual level.

He responds that he understands if we need to keep things platonic for a bit, should get coffee, drinks, dinner, whatever. Or that I could come by his new house that has a heated pool and some various other things that would help us fight off the mildly cold weather.

Ha. I'm onto you, Glasses.

So I wait a few days, wondering if I would be able to have a casual relationship with such a man. If I could drop from having such an intense, emotional connection, to occasionally sleeping with a man who is constantly out of the country on business. He's a good person to know in the BDSM and club scene, a good dom. He's possibly one of the most attractive men I've ever gone out with. He's got a PhD in nuclear or molecular or something something. Very smart. And he's extremely well off.

But he's not looking for a relationship. He doesn't want kids. He's rarely in town, much less the country, and I know it's likely that he has a girl (or a few) at every city he goes to regularly for business.

Which isn't my scene.

I thought about it, discussed it with some friends who know me fairly well, and finally replied.

Mildly proud of myself.


I'm not actually sure what I want right now. I was cruising through life, completely content with the casual friendly sexual relationship, and found that I actually can emotionally bond with someone to the point of trust and respect. Something I didn't think I'd ever be capable of.

And now I'm wondering if I could ever settle for less. Because sex and play... it's fun, but without that connection, it's not worth much. And I can't connect with someone I'm not going to do the long-term, emotional commitment with.

It might be a temporary thing, once I get out of this mope, and I'll realize that it's going to take a long time to find the man I need, so I might as well enjoy myself with others but... I'm not sure. I'm in a weird place. Not sure when I'm going to get out of it, or if I'll even emerge with the same values and mindset I started with.

I do like you, I enjoyed spending time with you, enjoyed what minor physical interaction we had. It worked. But I don't know if I can a) ever take a casual again or b) do something casual with -you- because of your schedule. I don't like being one of a series of a girl in every (air)port, nor do I like not being able to call my partner and meet up spontaenously.

So, that's where I am. I doubt it's remotely ideal for you.

If you're up, as I said, for waiting and possibly getting LBJF'd, then I'd love to grab coffee after the holidays. My schedule isn't exactly permitting until then.

And you can always give me a call. The number is the same.

V.


Whether we end up hooking up down the line is not the point, as much as I am setting my own terms, knowing I'm likely going to be rejected, and not feeling awful about it. I'm not molding myself around him, to his desires. I'm not being a pleaser.

This is where I am. Do what you will, but I will not give.


Look at me, not engaging in self-gratifying rebound sex. Bwah.

Silence.

Falling apart. Panic attacks, feeling my impending reach toward mental breakdown causes me to call GV8 and curl up in his lap for an afternoon, sobbing my heart out over everything that has happened in the last few days that had nothing to do with him.

It was good to see him.

I still feel like I'm going to break, but I've pushed it back a few days.


I don't know.

Since Friday, I've had four men ask me out. Two of them while I was at a coffee shop.

The first of the two at the coffee shop interrupted a conversation I was having with C and proceeded to completely ignore her as he tried again and again to get my number, email address, anything. He did not seem to understand that I was not going to change my mind about giving him any of my contact information. His behavior enraged C, as she has no patience for social retardation, and she spent the ten minute conversation of him near begging for my attentions glaring off to one side with him being completely unaware of her presence no matter how often I tried to draw her into the conversation.

This amused me more than anything, especially after he left when C turned to me and said, "Fuck you, V, with your man-magnetism! Fuck you!"

She cracks me up.

Sunday night, I spent working on my final paper, and managed to strike up a conversation with one of the men sharing the table with me at the coffee shop, as I kept having to get up and leave my things to take care of various things (phone calls, more coffee, fighting off tears in the alley behind the place after GV8's texts, you know, the usual).

I mentioned to him that I would be back, working on another paper, on Monday night.

So when I showed up the next day, guess who was sitting there, reading Chomsky, with an open chair next to him?

We talked for about an hour, about what we were going to be doing with our lives next year (his application to the PhD program at UCLA for linguistics and his alternative plans), which was interrupted by a text from some guy I had been hitting on at a club a few weeks ago who keeps inviting me to things.

Which lauched me into a frustrated mini-rant about GV8, life in general, the sudden overabudance of male attention and my state of mind regarding men.

And I eventually cooled it off, apologized for ranting, etc, that I was just feeling burned out and wished that the men that are trying to be in my life would just take a temporary "no" for an answer until I figure out what I'm doing and where I want to be.

Fifteen minutes later, my Chomsky-reader asked me out.

So I'm sitting there just staring at this guy going, "Did you really... just... do that??"

Goddamn self-disclosure leading to white-knighting.

... ... ...

Also realized that I have a significant dose of fear regarding GV8 and his likelihood of not being in my life if I wait too long, whether that's realistic or not, as he gets over the emotion of missing me.

That feeling of impending time-liney doom is stressing me out.

Conflict of wanting him in my life, wanting his advice and care, and knowing that it's not healthy, not now.

And how much I wish he could just be mine.

Best friend? Confidante? Mentor? Go to person? Rock? That's simply a boyfriend without the sex.

This makes me think less of him. Not a lot less, but his constantly altering mindset towards what we should be doing and his rationalization of what he wants makes me think of him as a mildly unstable justifier and this bothers me.

Makes me feel this is just a temporary window until he gets over it.

However long that will take.

I know I should stay away from him. But the thought of staying away does not produce feelings of relaxation in me, which is always what happens when I come across a solution, no matter how difficult, to a problem that is plaguing me on an internal/emotional level.

Something is wrong. This isn't the answer. But keeping him in my life like he wants produces feelings of stress and anxiety, so that's even more not the answer.

What to do..?

She don't believe anyone can help her...

While I was writing my final paper last night, down at the coffee shop, listening to my iPod, Massive Attack's "Protection" started filling my ears and I actually listened to it this time.

And then GV8 texted me. Total was fourteen texts. Eleven of those being within a three to five minute span.

So here we go:

Hi V, hope you are finding positive ways to look to the future and that our time together was not only wonderful but educational.

I have been slowly working on an email to you explaining why I feel a strong friendship is important to us.

You must think I am crazy and being all cliche with the "let's be friends" blah blah, but I really do see myself as your mentor of sorts.

I feel the trust and bond we have created is not something to be wasted.

Yes, I continue to strongly feel we are not meant to be together intimately.

But I think you would be a fool to not want me as that one solid as a rock person in your life to turn to for strength and insight.

I know that I know you much more than you realize.

Keep an open mind about having me be the best friend/teacher/mentor/go to person/confidante you will ever have.

There may be a happy ending for the both of us down this road. Ponder, love.

Hugs.

I received those so fast that every time I tried to respond to him, I received another message cutting me off. So finally I started ignoring them and composing my own response:

GV8, I'm in the middle of a huge, superstressful paper and I need you to not throw me into more emotional turmoil until after this Wednesday because I badly need to get through this week. One of my friends killed themselves and my father has lost it and I can't keep it together if you email me before finals because that will wreck me and I will not pass these classes. Please wait until Thursday. Much love, just under a lot of pressure.

Which led to his response:

V, I apologize for my poor timing. I will let you be for the week. Just wanted to express to you that you will find me being there for you in the future.

Do well on your papers and finals. Keep making me proud of you. Avoid your father at all costs. Unhealthy! Know you are loved and cherished.

Stay positive. Focus on the big picture. Avoid previous bad habits. Stay away from father. Use C as your rock/warmth/friend through this. Hugs.


I'm a bit angry. It had been five days. Five. Days. How the hell am I supposed to get over him and move on with my life if he wants to be friends right now? I need to give him up, not use him for emotional support.

Also, my best friend/mentor/confidante/go to person should be my partner. Whoever that ends up being. I cannot use GV8 for this because then I will continue to emotionally bond to him, making it deeper and worse overall.

He got my hopes up, got my fantasies working, even though he clearly states that he feels we shouldn't be together intimately. I can't deal with this. I can't be around him right now, can't talk to him right now. How am I supposed to let go?

This is almost exactly what happened last time he ended things with me. A little bit of time passed and then he texted me wanting to be occasional friends with benefits and keep things lowkey and simple, and then that, of course, did not work.

So he did it again. He misses me, so he has rationalized himself into a position where he can still have the emotional closeness and connection, but deny the sex and romance that is so very clearly there.

And I do want him in my life. That's the problem. I want his experience, I want his knowledge, I want his fearlessness and protection.

But can I have that and simply remain friends? Can he be here and not be part of my life in a romantic way? Will that forever block me from bonding with another man because I route all my disclosure and closeness to him?

Would that be good for me right now?

I don't think so.

But, as C pointed out, while she does not approve of him, that the trust and bond we created shouldn't be so lightly discarded.

So what do I do? What do you think he wants? What do you think his overarching motivation is, whether or not he is aware of it?


Also, as a side note, Glasses emailed me today. Apologizing for flaking out on me however many months ago, explained his situation, asked me out again. Yes, this is the man who is almost a perfect 10. Amazingly gorgeous, incredibly intelligent (PhD much?), likely millionaire, world-traveler, dominant male who shares my general life and moral philosophies.

What did I do? Oh, of course. I told him that I was busy being emotionally distraught and if he wanted to wait a few months, I'd love to go out with him then.

Sigh.

At least I was honest.

It is... 546PM. I'm sitting at a coffee shop in Long Beach, working on my final papers, stressing like hell. I never let school get to me like this. Because I'm smart. Because I'm on it and I write an excellent piece of bullshit.

But I'm stressing. I'm anxious and all over the place and can't think. Can't get my paper organized, can't put it together, which is funny, given the topic of the paper is on writing structure.

I'm still torn up about GV8. Of course I am. It's only been a few days.

I've had three separate bootycall requests, one which I initiated but realized it would be a bad idea. Then I had to cancel that. And then I had two others text me on Saturday and I was sitting there, not wanting the drag of that, knowing that I could easily go to either of them and spend the entire evening not achieving, not doing, what I want to do. Focusing on them.

A complete lack of emotional connection having formed.

I miss SFPlayboy. I do. He's the only lover I've had of late that I've actually formed a connection with, without it going romantic. I want him to come down here and cuddle me, love me, care for me, until I feel better again.

But I doubt that's an option this late in December.

I went up to Umberto's to get my hair done today. About an inch of blonde roots knocked back into my usual dark brown, near black, with red undertones. It feels good, not having that horrible blonde color crowning my head

I'm sad. I'm lonely. I need physical contact and I need for this semester to be over. I know once I finish these two papers, I'll be so much less stressed. And, gods, do I miss GV8, his company, his support, his love and caring. His warmth. Finally being able to experience what it is like to make love.

Realizing how long it is likely going to be until I experience that again.

Sigh.

I haven't cried today, at least not yet. I'm pretty proud of myself.

Okay, not really proud. I feel it behind my eyes, waiting for a little thing to start the waterworks. If I was at home at all this week and I could, once more, inhale the scent of him on my robe, I'm sure I'd start bawling again.

That's the way it goes.

I've yet to look at our pictures from Disneyland, the last real date we went on. We went into the Grand Californian (hotel) and took pictures at the base of the huge tree in the lobby, and then another picture or two at the front of the Cinderella Castle at night, all lit with silver shining lights.

I'll just start crying again.

I'm thinking of emailing them to him, once I take them off the camera. So he has them too. So, years from now, he'll see them and remember us, remember me.

Bah, going to start crying. Need to not do that here. Must distract myself with the academia I'm learning to resent. The things that keep us apart.

If I turn out to be infertile after all this, years from now, I'm going to stab someone.

Update!: HAHAHAHA guess who just texted me about twelve times in a row checking on me and wanting to still be friends?

...thirteen. Okay, now it's thirteen. Thirteen times.

I am never going to finish this paper.

Someone, pretend to be me and write my final for me so I can go rock back and forth in the corner for a half hour or two.

Point for me.

Instead of doing the scheduled playdate tonight with RR, to get my comfort sex and physical contact, I've called C and discussed my fears that I'm just looking to fantasize about RR making me feel safe and whole like GV8 did and that it will disappointment me and ultimately make me feel more isolated and alone, especially regarding my fears that I'm never going to find someone that fits me.

I wonder if I can make sex special to me again?

I wonder how long I would have to wait?


It's a step. Hopefully, I think, in the right direction.

Other steps... I've been reaching out to friends when I'm upset, instead of bottling it. Instead of just discussing it in my own head. I'm using my social support network. Craziness.

But I've got two papers to write and laundry to deal with. Soon this semester will be over and I can start my new life in January.

Hoping.

Need special handling...

Huh.

Total breakdown on the freeway today.

No, not my car (fortunately).

Me. Sobbing my eyes out for longer than I can ever remember doing.

I'm not a crier.

I feel guilty about crying, actually.

Because I'm always partway detached from most everything, so even when I'm down and overwhelmed and starting to cry, part of my brain is off, somewhere else, examining things, speaking logically to me, planning the next day... you get the picture.

So I feel as though my tears, my experience, my emotions... they aren't incapacitated. What I'm feeling isn't as real as it is with other people because I don't completely lose control.

I feel false.

Does anyone else feel this way, or is it just me and my constant detachment from the moment?

I really do feel like I'm cheating. That if anyone comforts me, I'm taking advantage of their sympathy because I'm not fully there. I feel like I'm using them for attention, even if I can't control the sobs that break out of me. That if I had more control, if I really, really wanted to, I could stop.

So it's not true sadness. Not 100% grief.

Which brings me back to sobbing on the freeway. For once letting my emotions get the best of my driving ability, as I found myself going about 50 (in the slow lane, mind you) when the rest of the freeway was traveling about, oh, 70-80MPH.

Starting to hit that point of no emotional return, mild control, losing it.

Because of GV8.

Because of my friend killing himself, which brings this year's total to four suicides and one death of natural causes.

Because my father is incredibly unstable right now due to his work environment and is doing what he does best when he's stressed: becoming volatile, projecting, and displacing. Because when he gets upset he has no care for personal space, for territory, for giving respect to others.

Which is probably the major, major reason I am so territorial, why I am so oriented on having my space, and how anxious I become when I do not have that space or when that space is violated.

Which meant, this morning, when I got the phone call that my friend had killed himself, followed within thirty minutes of one of GV8's employees dropping the box of my stuff off, followed with the 5PM phone call I received from my father that rapidly descended into another violation of my property, followed by another phone call from him telling me that I was obviously unstable and needed to put my medication (which, by the way, is minimal and for my anxiety) in his hands because he was a stable individual who knew best for me...

I lost it.

My parents think that I'm being rapidly drawn into the bowels of depression because that's what happens to my father. And that by actually sitting at home and dealing with my grief over GV8 instead of burying it and letting it come bite me in the ass harder, later, I was showing signs of depression and they were both worried for me and want me to up the dosage.

If I was my sister, this wouldn't even come into play.

My father has been bugging me for weeks now to let him take control of my prescription. To let him fuck with my head. Because he knows what I'm experiencing better than I do because, he says, I'm essentially his clone. And since he's depressed, I must also be depressed.

A. That's incredibly scary
B. This is why I don't trust my father
C. Jesus Christ, really?? For a man so smart, he's incredibly uncontrolled and really not aware of himself.

I would never trust my father with any major life choices for me. Hell, not even minor ones.

And this goes back to my basic idea of trust: someone I know who would make the decision I would choose for me should I be unable to do so, no matter how much they disagreed with it. Because of that basic respect and understanding.

My father has no respect for me. Not even as a fellow human.

And why should he?

My life has been a series of bad decisions. He says I love to learn things the hard way and that is accurate. I'm, once more, living at home, under his roof. Admittedly, this is so I can go to school, but because I am pursuing my education goals and dreams, I am going to be unable to support myself financially.

So why should he respect me?

He told me the other night, when doing the "I told you so" about GV8, that women look for their father in their mate selection. That they find the men just like their dad because they're used to that type of man.

I've heard this enough, so it must be true to some degree.

But, really, my father scares the hell out of me.

And not just because he's my dad and he's 6'5" and could beat my ass. Not because I don't think he's human. But because he has no control over his emotions and that lack of control terrifies me. Mindless rage. I grew up in a household where my father would, without rhyme or reason to me, turn into a raging beast a couple times a year.

No warning.

Just ripping and rending pain of manipulation and bestial anger.

Which is why, when I have friends that lose their tempers past a certain point, I never speak to them again.

Which is why I cannot date a man with a temper.

Because I can't relax. I can't trust.

It's why I hate crowds and shy away from strangers. It's what make me anxious, above all, when talking to new people.

That overwhelming fear. Being shoved back into my child-mind helpless state. I can't deal with confrontations because I'm so busy panicking that I freeze.

It's a weakness. It's an incredible weakness.

So he calls me, drops into anger, into manipulation, into passive-aggression that I know he's doing but I'm so low from the week that I let him get to me.

Then he calls me again, tells me I'm imagining things, that I'm unstable, that I need help, that we're the same person and I need to up the dosage, at least for a few months.

This was the same man who told me to go get a sleep test so, when it was proven that I don't sleep well (I sleep like a rock) he could get me on the same medication he is on which, apparently, he is now stuck on for the rest of his life and if he misses a night, he'll potentially have seizures and he put my sister on this.

So I go to my best friend's condo and my sister meets us there. My friend, who wants to be a chef, makes us chicken and dumplings and we sit down and watch Repo Man and then I head home.

I get home at 10PM and my father, who I was hoping was in bed, walks into the entryway and informs me that he's been waiting for me and we're going to watch Slaughterhouse Five so get into my bedclothes and join him.

So I change and find myself in their king-sized waterbed with my father, my sister, he boyfriend, my mother, and a couple of cats.

By this point, I'm emotionally exhausted.

Especially because, between changing, I unpacked the box that GV8 packed full of my stuff in hopes that maybe, just maybe, he left a letter in it, something handwritten, something concrete that I could keep and seek reassurance and love from, and I found nothing.

But when I flipped through the pages of the book I lent him, his scent wafted up to me. And I found my dressing robe, a sheer black thing, in the box... so I held it to my nose and inhaled. Smelled him, his odd combination of scents that I can't quite describe, and started crying.

Again.

I don't know if I've ever cried this much over a guy over such a period of time, unless it was Rick. Usually I just get it out of my system in one go, occasional slow tears at a later date, but not really crying. Not that ragged breathing and accompanying redness.

No note. No last words of love.

Just his scent.

Inhaling, pressing the robe to my face, knowing that as time passes, the scent will quickly fade, engulfed in my own. And one day, it will be the last time I will smell him, and I'll likely never know until the next time I return to it and am left bereft.

It has been a long day.

Now I have two papers to write, a company Christmas party to attend, a mellow cuddle/sex date with RR to get the physical contact I need, a hair appointment... and emotions to let myself drown in, just for a short period of time.

Just long enough to maybe not feel like I'm half a robot, inside. Something cold and disconnected.

Trying to get into that precious moment.

Finally got through reading (not responding, ha!) to the hundreds of emails that amassed for me at work the day and a half I was off.

Stayed up last night with C, watching Jeepers Creepers, which I had seen before, but shouting at the television about "stupid white people" with C (who is from El Salvador) and their "stupid white people problems" and "oh, goddammit, just run already" made me feel better.

Yes, I know, I'm white.

But at least something isn't trying to eat my eyes.

...that last sentence would not make sense if you have not seen that movie. I don't suggest seeing it, but if you feel like screaming ineffectually at your glowing electrical box, it is a good choice.

I've hit a numb spot.

I suppose that is good, overall.

And I'm going to be trying to go to Florence for a two month creative writing course at the end of May, through my school. When I graduated from college, I regretted three things: never staying in a dorm, never studying abroad, and never going to school full-time without being employed, doing the college student thing.

So, if I do go to Florence, I will be staying in a dorm. I will be studying abroad, and since I am quitting my job near the end of January, I will be finally going to school full-time and actually be able to immerse myself in my classes.

It's going to be expensive (Upwards of $6K). I can't really afford it. I'm going to be applying for the scholarships for this program like crazy.

But I don't want to spend the rest of my life regretting all these things I never did because I was too afraid or didn't have the money. If things go as they look like, I'm going to be debt free by mid-January. Yes, I'm going to be unemployed and broke, but at least it will be done. Functioning on minimum expenses. Focusing on school, writing, scholarships, Master's program application, picking up the odd job, and getting my body back in shape.

Or so the theory goes.

Things never go quite as planned.

Obviously.

Things shift. I can't imagine actually getting everything taken care of, financially and application-wise to land myself in Italy this summer. But it won't happen for sure if I don't try.

I went out to dinner with my parents, sister, and navy housemate last night. My father was running on three hours of sleep, at the same point I get at where babbling becomes normal and laughing to the point of falling over in one's seat is expected.

When I left, he hugged me, held me to him and told me that he would make sure to get me to Italy this summer, that he loved me more than anything in the world, and to watch myself because we're essentially the same person and this time of year is hard for us, with the seasonal depression combined with the chronic depression. He's worried that I'm disconnecting from everything.

My sister is the first of our family not to inherit the depression, even though she takes after my father's side of the family more than I do, at least on a physical level. She's the odd duck, being the normal family member.



...and I just got a phone call that one of my friends killed himself on Wednesday.

Great.

I'll be over here, having another fantastic day.

Went to see the graduate program advisor today. Ended up crying in front of him. Got it under control quickly, but I can't help but now feel regret and resentment towards my chosen path, the one that takes me away from GV8.

I hurt so much. I miss him so badly. He was supposed to be it and because I wanted marriage and possibly kids, because I wanted to pursue my education... examining everything, kicking myself for making jokes with him about reproducing. So many jokes, so much pleading, teasing, hoping.

I asked him to drop my stuff off at my work, instead of mailing it, as I was worried that the mail service would damage my laptop.

He sent me this text in return:

Hi V. Will have Nick drop by work Friday with everything. It would hurt too much to see you. Be well.

Nick is one of his employees, the one who kept me company for part of the wait I had when I chased after GV8 two weeks ago today.

Those two weeks have felt like a month. A wonderful month.

And now... this. Me crying into pillows, into blankets, into tissues, in the grad department's office, in my car, at the gas station, on my mother.

My father wanted to talk to me last night. His speech was essentially, "I told you so. But I wanted you to learn on your own."

And I was standing there, letting him do his father role, wanting to walk away, tell him to stop talking, that he had no idea what went on between GV8 and myself, and that he was making me feel worse because of his inattention to my pain and his need to lecture.

But I let him. Because he's been so stressed lately and he needs to feel in control.

So I let him make me feel horrible. I let him give me mini-lectures on the folly of relationships with older men not seeking commitment. I let him tell me how good he was for not interfering and letting me do it on my own. How he's letting me learn the hard way. How he knew this would happen. Etc etc etc fuck etc.

I keep stopping to cry. This post is taking forever to write.

And I need more kleenex.

This should not be ending. This shouldn't be over.

But it is.

I'm left here in barely connected pieces. Wondering who would have someone like me. Wondering if there is someone who could ever live up to what I need in a partner. Finding someone like GV8 was... so unexpected. So rare. A retired career criminal, sentenced to life, battling even more life sentences. And then... releaesd. An expert with a gun, with being in charge, in control, doing what has to be done. Traveling all over the country, making so damn much money. Expert testimonials. Doing anything to survive, starting with nothing once released from prison, then (legally) creating a mini-empire.

I felt so safe. So goddamned safe for once. Loved, cherished, protected, adored.

He was almost everything I could have asked for in a man. All that was left wanting was monogamy, marriage, potentially children. Three huge things, I know. The monogamy I was willing to waver on.

Huge things. Things that I was willing to work with. Fluid identity.

I texted him a little bit ago, expressing my heartache. I didn't expect him to get back to me, but he did. Telling me that he hurt as well, things hadn't been easy, but there was no overcoming our major differences (above), but he still loved me.

Must be nice, being so mature. I should work on that whole "maturity" thing. But sometimes it seems like mature is just another descriptor for being able to distance yourself from your emotions so strongly that you cease to feel. Which is a problem of mine that I don't feel is a sign of maturity at all. I know I need to hit a middle ground of acknowledgement, acceptance, and functioning, but I'm not there yet.

Anyhow, Maurice has ordered me to go watch a funny movie, so I'm going to go see what's on cable and try to cheer myself up.

Beauty in the breakdown...

I've made a decision.

My heart is fairly bruised.

I fall back on bad habits, if I do not monitor myself, if I do not control myself.

I tend to celebrate the rebound sex as something fun, as something that shows to me I'm stronger than I feel I am, and that I'm desirable.

I don't... admit to pain easily.

I brush up and color the ways I meet men when I'm rebounding and just want that physical contact.

And that is, truly, all I want.

Physical contact. Warm, safe, physical contact, that allows my body to relax and breathe.

I trade sex for this, when I'm down.

I trade sex for the illusion of being desired.

I trade sex for the illusion of understanding.

Sex is, and has been for some time, worthless to me, or rather only of the value of the person I am with. So I trade something of little value for something of value to me. The costs for me are time, gasoline, and sleep.

And I know, I know once the distaste of ever touching another man dissipates, my subconscious will kick in and drive me towards that validation of desire, validation of being female. And I'll rationalize it and try to control it and scuff up a bit, I'm sure.

And then I'll glorify it, I'll convince myself to revel in it.

I really don't want to.

There has to be a healthier way of doing this. I know there is. I know there are several ways of recovering. I just have to find which one works for me.

So I'm going to do my best, dear blog, to be even more honest. To admit to myself when I'm just desperately needing affection, when I'm scrambling to feel desired, when my depression and anxiety are getting the better of me and it's 2AM and I'm scanning Craigslist for a potential bootycall just so I'm not alone for that night.

So I can chase that illusion and temporarily keep myself sane, though, long-term... not so much.

Acknowledgement. Honesty. Awareness.

Pushing towards it. Pushing towards health.

Searching for that core.

I hurt. I'll say it again and again until I feel as though I have found the right combination of words to express the feeling I'm experiencing. That's why I repeat myself so often in my posts, because I feel like I'm not expressing myself right.

I feel that the next three years of my life will likely be without partnership.

It's just a feeling.

I'll be 29. Hopefully with a Master's degree. Hopefully published, somehow, somewhere. Single.

It's strange. I'm a serial monogamist. I'm incredibly desirious of love, of partnership, of having that dominant man in my life to serve, to devote myself to, to grow with.

We were so close, so close to that.

But we stumbled short. If you give everything, almost everything, you have to give, and it doesn't work... well, there's not much else to do.

I'm sitting in bed, under at least six blankets, watching The Holiday, attempting to cheer myself up. Attempting to feel as though there's someone out in the world, someone I might actually ever encounter in this lifetime, that fits me. The navy man across the hall gave me a bag of gummi worms to cheer me up, ordered me to smile if I was to receive them.

It's almost sad, because nearly every time I blindly reach into the bag to pull out two of a very colorful selection, they match. It defies probability.

I'm going to, regretfully, go into work tomorrow. Swallow this down and try to function. I'll succeed in functioning but, christ, I don't want to go in. I don't want to return to my normal life and realize it has changed. Deviating from my usual pattern like this has allowed me to escape from reality. It's a vacation from the pain in my head and heart.

He left me.

I want to stay in bed and cry. I want to call him and have him comfort me. I want to feel his limbs wrapped around me and I want to cling to him.

I wish I was okay.

I wish it did not feel like someone has hollowed me out yet again.

I wish I wasn't so good at covering it up. Because that takes practice and I, I have a lot of practice.

I keep returning to his email, reading it over and over. Not because I want to wallow, but because I am so good at repressing the pain that I need to trigger it to know it's there. Otherwise... I just don't deal.

What am I supposed to say, supposed to do? I want to cry, but since the initial shock, I've been unable to. There are so many things going through my head, images and feelings. Memories and wishes. I wish I felt safe. Safe enough to experience this emotion.

There continues to be that echoing fear that I'm stuck, alone. To be alone. The near-constant stream of unsuitable men in my life that I know are simply there, passing the time. Waiting for the right one. Knowing he's unlikely to come.

This had to happen right before finals week. Had to happen the week of the company party. Had to happen at the beginning of my work day. Had to happen in the middle of the freaking week. Had to happen just before the holidays.

I wish I could skip class tonight.

I wish I could ditch out on this life for a little longer.