i can't help thinking that i made a big mistake. i mean i know she did. i know she hurt me. but somehow i'm the one missing her. when i should be thanking my lucky stars that i got out when i did. i meant everything i said. except that i was the one she changed for. and that was a great feeling. i really thought i could make it happen again. i thought i could make her stop being afraid and realize what we had.

i miss her. this sucks.

so we finally had the talk today. after what happened on saturday. i guess i wasn't really surprised by her cheating. which technically it wasn't but still felt like it was.

so it boils down to this: i thought that when we said the waters were muddied and things were unresolved that was a tacit understanding not to sleep around. or at least to tell the other person that you were. i expected her to tell me. i thought i was owed that much. she didn't see it that way. mostly i just can't believe that she moved so fast. that's part of what hurts too. i mean i thought she and k had so many issues to work through. but apparently they weren't that huge. and i just am exhausted. i don't feel mad as much as i am just incredilbly sad. i feel like i just pushed my best friend off a cliff. i just miss her, i miss the person she was with me. not this new person who just moved on. i really loved her and thought we had a chance. i honestly thought we would work it out. i thought what we had was special and worth waiting and figuring something out for. and she didn't. that much is clear. i was going to end it this weekend when i went out there, draw that line in the sand and say goodbye. but apparently it was already over and i never knew.

so. fucking. frustrated. i just want for once for things to go my way. or our way. i want us being together to be a happy thing. and not an awkward and horrible thing. i want everyone to be happy for us, or at least not care one way or the other. i don't want to walk or eggshells or worry about offending someone when i hug my girlfriend. i don't want to hear her say that we're undecided either. i think our first instinct was the right one. to rip off the bandaid. to just walk out and not look back. because if this isn't a good thing for me then why am i doing it? i wish she had told me that four days was too many. it's not like i have that many days just laying around. i don't really want to go down to the city. not at all. i want to lay in a canoe or a hammock. i want to be in the woods. i don't want to be up in the air about this anymore. i want to know. and i think the fact that she doesn't know should be a big enough sign for me.

conditions for pursual
if, and that's a mighty big if, we decide we want to do this i want to stop being so cautious with each other. so much of our relationship has been hemmed in by other people's desires, needs and sadnesses. and i want no more of it. i want to be ecstatic about the woman i love. i want to love her wholly and without reserve and know that she is doing the same. i want to be the awesome and formidable team that i know we can be. and whatever our decision, i know that we will make it together. i think that is our greatest strength, that we are stronger together, better people when we are in each other's lives. all of that remains to be seen...

argh. i had the weirdest dream about tom cruise last night. it proved he was really crazy. all these famous people came to stay at my house. and he wanted to clean the whole house before he would sleep. so he sprinkled cleaning powder on the carpets and told me to vacuum it. i told him he had to do it since he'd sprinkled. but that i would toothbrush clean the pots for him. and i was trying to accomodate the crazy but everyone else kept bugging him and making it worse. like jack nicholson would just waltz through the house spitting and muddy to make him start all over. oh jack.

but i wanted to tell her about it. i'm still waking up with weird panicky feeling in my stomach. i hung out with j, e, l, and a last night and it was great. they are all really great. but i feel somehow like the fifth wheel. it's mostly fine. but there's always that moment in the evening when i realize, hey, i'm going home alone. and i use to be loved like that and i miss it. because i don't know what's coming. and i don't know what i want. a keeps telling me her friend thinks i am hot, which is lovely. but honestly, i don't want that right now. i'm not interested in teaching a new person how to love me. i just did that. and i'm tired. i want that person back. or i want her to acknowledge that i'm alive. i want to know how she feels. it's weird that we supposedly left on such good terms but now i don't hear boo from her. and i had a little talk with l about it the other day about how selfish she can be. i just don't understand, if someone is important in your life you respond to their emails, however briefly. and you make a point of telling them. and i guess it's a hard pill to swallow that i've dropped off her radar screen.

i'm home, drunk from alycia's friend's party. and i want to talk to her. but she's not answering. just watching alycia and leila is sad for me. i miss her. i think i made the wrong decision. i should have walked away when i had the chance.

i miss her.
and i'm mad at her for leading me on. for giving me hope where there really isn't any. i should have listened the first time she told me that she didn't have room in her new life for me. i should have distanced myself then and left on good terms. but now we are both in this bind. it's like a said tonight, that not hearing from her is like she's sending me a message. i'm just too heartsick to hear it. fuck.

so i feel a lot like i did when we first got together. i don't know what is going to happen, i can only feel my way through unfamiliar territory. i don't want to be a partial person in her life. i want her to want me in 100%. i don't want to be always skirting the edges, periphery. but i don't want to be inpatient either. this is going to take a little time. and i'm willing to see it through. i went out tonight and i was talking about girls i dated last year, and looking for someone new, or someone i had connected with before. but it was clearly hollow. every person i saw reminded me of her. i bumped into a fat girl and thought, oh it looks like b's sister. i kept thinking the music would be just up her alley. and how she would hug me from behind and press her cheek to my sweaty back and not care if i stunk or was all wet. i just miss her. it's soon, but i feel already like cutting it off. talking just reminds me that my best friend and partner is gone. and only serves to remind me of the hole in my life right now.

i know it's partly pms but it's also more than that. i'm mad, furious actually. i'm mad that i will soon be without the person i love. i'm mad that i let myself get in a position to be hurt (as if i had much of a choice). i'm irrational and sad. i hate that you are so happy to move and i'm jealous of brooklyn because it will get to see you everyday. i'm anxious about what will become of us and unsure of how to proceed. i don't want to fade away but i don't want to cut you off either. i'm desperate to figure all of this out and desperate not to. i don't want to acknowledge what's coming. i'm so upset that both of us are scared of what might happen if we admit that this is as close to perfect as it's ever been so instead we're just going to give it up. i'm not sure what to say about all this stuff so it roils around in my head and comes out as tears and dumb decisions. i guess when we were so busy convincing ourselves that this was the wrong thing at the wrong time it quietly and sneakily became the best thing. i can't remember the last time falling in love with someone was so effortless and natural. and maintaining it is just as easy. i am dreading the day that this becomes past tense.
and the only question i can pose is: what do we do now?

i know i love her. that's not the problem. the circumstances are. the fact that she's leaving. and leaving me. for once i'm in that position. is it some sort of karmic payback. all the girls and boys that i've left before rearing up to bite me in the ass. just when i've found someone i think might be it. i'm too jaded and cynical adn let's face it still pretty hurt by m's breakup to believe in true love or meant to be. but i believe in hard work. i believe in knowing what i see in someone's actions. i believe in making an effort to be honest about my feelings. so i tell her when i'm mad and she can take it because she's a grownup. so why am i so cranky? is it because she's going to be successful and i'm stuck in a job that seems to be going nowhere? or have i made my peace with that? is it because i'm finally stable and in one place and now here comes my old friend change trying to fuck it up again. is it because i absolutely know i can't do a long distance relationship again. and why should i have to? why should i settle for less? i want her here. i want to wake up next to her and see her face. i want to eat breakfast at 3 in the morning with her and watch dumb movies while she rubs my head in her lap. i don't want to be on the phone or wondering why she didn't call. i don't want to travel out there all the time and feel like the center of my life is somewhere else. i want her to come to me. i want for once, soemone to come to me. someone to make sacrifices to be with me. i want to be worth it to someone.

oy with the girls. i've been tormented lately by relationships going wrong. it all goes back to her. i was telling l today how i drove away from her house knowing, absolutely, like i've never known anything in my life, that she was the woman i was supposed to marry. and she felt the same way about me. we both fell hard, believed hard. and to be yanked out of that so violently and in such a disgusting way just calls into question everything i ever felt aobut her. i wonder if she lied to me about how she felt, becuase she felt an obligation to keep the myth going. i think every couple does this. creates a mythology of how they met and fell in love and why it's the most perfect thing in the world. and it is. because this is a story we never get tired of hearing., this is the music we hear. as we bounch down the street oblivious to everything but LOVE! we sacrifice all on its altar. so how do you recover from the disease of love? how do you mkae your body fit to walk and talk and eat again? by ignoring love, by pretending it does not exist. and disdaining its very presence. but it's like malaria, a disease of the bloog and never fully eradicated. i wake in fevered dreams panting for her touch. and stare at crooks of elbows that look like hers and stop in the street when i smell her scent. i boil with rage at her picture, but wake in sweet panic after i dream her tongue on mine. it never goes away. i want her, if only to explain. i want to be done with it. i want to move on and prove my worthiness and lovability with a new person. i don't want to constantly look over my shoulder, or even to use her as my vengeful stepping stone. i just want to live apart from her. but just because you cut off that limb of love and cauterize that scar doesn't mean you don't drag it around behind you for the rest of your life.

wow these posts are as regular as my period. just got back from josh's house and had a long teary conversation with his girlfriend, who i normally think is a bitch. and she told me what others have said before, that they find her cold and emotionless. but that her new girlfriend is nice. which is par for the course. i was nice too, and then i met her. i guess i'm not surprised, but the conversation had the momentary effect of lifting the power she still has over me. it didn't last very long, just until this morning. but still it was nice to know that there is some sort of light at the end of this long, interesting tunnel. i am in some sort of angry phase right now, and i'm not sure where that puts me in the stages of grief, but fuck it, everything is pissing me off right now. i'm so filled with rage i don't know how i got this way. and i'm having chest pains again. yes i'm wallowing, but what the hell. maybe i need to saturate myself with her before i can get over her. i've spent the last year studiously ignoring or avoiding anything that had to do with her, and my heart still stops when i hear her mentioned in conversations, or when she calls josh while i'm there. i'm just bitter and sad about it all. and i'm feeling like i would like to move on but i can't. not sure why really. just that there is a massive wall in the middle of this road, and i'm sitting at the bottom of it, staring up trying to figure out a way over the top.

looking at her website, her resume. i think that the really important things aren't listed. like we should each have an emotional resume, the things we went through and learned, what we did and how we loved.
like:

may 2000 - april 2003
girlfriend
loved as hard as i could, should have backed off a bit. lost myself in her eyes on a daily basis. was responsible for grand vision that brought us together. position terminated when she broke my heart. still mourning the loss.

now that would be useful information.

it's like a black, nasty, syrupy feeling in my stomach. when i think of her or see her picture. it's a wave of sludge and i have to wait for it to pass. i don't hate her, i just can't get past the hurt. and i want to so badly. i just don't want to think about her anymore. how many times and ways can i say it?

i guess i still want to be that person to her, the one. there are days when i feel connected to her somehow, and then there are days when i think it's probably all just a crock of shit. she's moved on. i wonder if my current relationship is here to show me what she felt like in our relationship, always pulling back, never really loving me the way i loved her. i don't know. but i feel like i have a better insight into her character now. and i can honestly say that i hate her. i've been trying to deny it, and i would like to get over it. but it's a stumbling block i cannot get get around or over or through. i told someone the other day about my tattoo, someone i haven't seen in a while. and i explained it like this: that i must have been incredibly lucky and happy and in love to have been so destroyed by the end of it all. and that's what i try to remember. this is not something that i think about everyday anymore. i feel so happy most of the time that when this funk comes over me i realize i've forgotten how to talk myself out of it. i am a happier, better person. i am more mature, more caring, and certainly more cynical. but i'm the better for all of it. mostly. i want this black mark to be erased. i want to be able to open myself up again and love someone totally. but i guess it won't be happening anytime soon.

i was just going to bed a minute ago. and i realized it had been ten months. almost a year. and right before i realized that i wondered when i was going to not be afraid to fall asleep again. i wondered when it was going to be ok to talk about her or think about her. because i don't, not in any real way. i still get choked up. i still compare people in my life to her. and i guess on some level i still miss her. i've gained enough distance to realize what was wrong, but i guess i still and will always believe that it could have been fixed. i'm happier now, my life has less tension, less drama, and certainly less strife. but it also has a lot less love.

it's a tattoo, but it's also a talisman. for what i'm not sure. maybe to remind me of how much she hurt me, but also to remind me how wonderful things had to be for me to fall that far. to remind me to love deeply. that my heart is a muscle and will always heal. i'm not sure. but it's there and i feel better for it.

i am making a concerted effort (when i remember) to just try and let go of any resentment or anger or hurt that i still feel in regards to her. i think it's time for me to just move on. of course this isn't the easiest thing to do. i still google her once in a while, i looked at an archive from her blog and i swear the conversations she and her new girl are having are just as cute and dorky as the ones we had. and i wonder why she feels the need to put them up there. and i'm trying to figure out what bothers me about it. i don't want to get back together with her. i know that much. i guess it's just that by finding someone so quickly that makes her so happy, that seems to negate what we had. which isn't true. but it makes me feel that it is. so i feel jealous i guess that once again she gets what she wants and i am left out in the cold. i hate this part of the whole process when you really wish that the other person was missing you as much as you are them (at least the good parts.) so like i said, i'm trying to let all this go. i really am.

it was a pretty shitty birthday. my dad didn't even call me. and my family bought me things at the last minute. i'm not a big present hog, i really don't need anything. but i like a few well-chosen gifts that show that you know me. and these were not that. oh well. dinner out with the family was depressing and i couldn't tell you why. but i drove over to my friend's house afterward and i just burst into tears in the car. i think this is just one holiday season i will be glad to see the back of. i HATE being mopey. but it is hard to shake this time of the year. i don't want to be in love, i just want to feel like i'm doing something about all of this. and there's nothing i really can do. i don't want to call her. i don't want to talk to her or about her. i just want the memories to fade. i want to blow the world away with my amazing ideas. and if i don't work on this she will always be the elephant in the room. the one i never want to talk about or deal with. i don't know where she fits in my life. i am starting to question if what we had was ever really good for either of us. even though i know it was. but i'm not a person that enjoys being angry. i don't feed off of it. i like to deal with my issues. but right now there's a big heavy stone around my heart. and i can't just shake it off.

so this was the first month i didn't look at her journal when i got all pms-y and sad. and it passed without a huge amount of sadness. so i'm feeling better. but i blew up at my mom the other day. completely misplaced anger. and a friend showed up in town and i was eager to show how over her i was, but i ended up telling him that i really just wanted an apology from her. and you know, the truth is that i'm very righteous in my anger. it has a shape, a real palpable feeling in my chest. and i don't want that. i went out last night and got drunk so i could forget about my life for a moment. and i woke up next to a really fabulous girl that i just can't seem to connect with no matter how many drinks i have or times i fuck her. and it just hit me like a 10-ton hangover. i have to let go. sounds like a simple revelation, but it felt pretty huge at 5am. i have to accept the fact that i may never make this right with her. i have to let go of the last ties to her that i have, and that's my anger. because then i will always be wanting, searching for her in someone else. and that's not fair to anyone. i can't say this is going to be easy. but if i live my life looking backwards i'm never going to get anywhere.

someone asked me the other day if this new person was making me happy. and i thought for a moment and said, i think it's me that's making myself happy.

exactly

i was cleaning off my computer today adn found a bunch of ims from you know who. including one that was after we broke up in jan. of last year. and it was interesting to read. because in it it sounds like she is really asking me if i'm happy. and i keep evading the question. i mean i said i was, but i think we both know i wasn't. and in some ways this decision has really freed me to be happy. but i can't help but be nostalgic for the time when we were happy together. and a tiny part of me wants her back in my life. i even thought about just iming her and asking what was going on in her life. i'm trying to forgive her for how she treated me but i also need to forgive myself for the way i treated her and how i treated myself. so i guess that was my rant for the day.

i just don't want to care anymore. i don't want to have dreams about her or with her in it. i don't want to be in a funk when i see her picture. i don't want to mourn what was. i want to move on. i want this to be over with. and i keep thinking it is. until something little sends me reeling, into my own head, dreaming of the littlest bit of physical contact with her. i just want this all to be over.

the thing with this new girl is that she's great, i really enjoy spending time with her. i like that she's smart, and funny and a big dork. but there's no thunderclap, no poetry, no wooing, no grand sense that we are meant to be together. i just can't stop comparing how i felt when i first met m. i wish i knew if i would feel that way again. or if that was all an illusion. maybe we invented this great passion because we both needed it. i don't know. i just hope it's not. i hope i will feel that way again. and everything is still so unresolved for me because she never told me what she was actually feeling. and all that SHIT. and i wonder if that is because of where i am at. or where she is. or just that i'm not ready.

i went out to dinner with a mutual friend of ours this evening. and OF COURSE talk turned to her. i told myself on the way over that i wasn't going to talk about it, but i hadn't seen him since we had broken up and he was curious. so there we were. and he said some similar things to our other friend, that she seemed to have a very narrow area that she was comfortable in and that she could act like a human in and outside of that she couldn't function and was very rigid. i guess i am still surprised that everyone else was sensing these things. why couldn't i?
or maybe i couldn't because i never had enough distance until i was burned by it. it wasn't a stressful dinner by any means, but all of these observations are interesting to me. he also said that he seemed so confused by the way she did it too and disappointed. and this is a person she has helped a lot. so anyways.

the new person? still great? and getting greater. what's up with that? i was browsing friendster tonight and looked at her profile. of course. but i guess it's better than her blog. it's the equivalent of a driveby her house or something. i don't know. but her pictures made me feel all hateful and sad. i hate that. i just want to be able to either move on with this new person or not. without all of this baggage. i just wish i could hear from her. i guess anything would be nice. i just want to know how all of this made her feel. i want to tell her how i feel/felt. i don't know. i am so enjoying this new person in a serious, i might want to make this a bigger deal sorta way. and i don't want to screw it up because i'm still pining away. but i guess there's not a whole lot i can do about that. the second coming and all that.

bad news from my subconscious. last night i had a dream where i called her up just to hear her voice. and she wasn't completely mean or anything. we were both just a little guarded. and in my dream she was having a hard time at work and i wanted to tell her i cared. or something. ok. what's going on here. obviously still in love with the idea of her. even though i have this great new person. argh. what the hell am i supposed to do with that. i'm so happy to be home but i feel like i have this little shadow over my heart. i am so afraid that i will get hurt like that again. much more than i'm willing to admit apparently.

ok, but i am a little scared about this person. not because of her. she's great. it's me i'm a little worried about. i'm still so mad and so bitter. and i wonder if i should wait for all that to pass. i know i won't. but i don't want it to affect my life, i just want to process it. my mom took me to the liquor store the other night (don't ask, whole other story) and for some reason i just sat there in the car and got all teary. not a lot, just a little. and i shook it off. i'm trying hard to live in the future, and not hold my present up against my past. but occasionally i will be reminded of something we used to do together, or i think, right now we would be doing xxx. and that makes me sad. so mostly i avoid it. so i guess my question is this: is it unfair to this new person to start something when i know i'm not completely healed? or ready?
i guess i'm going to find out because i'm not willing to put it on hold. it is moving nice and slow (at least for me) and that feels wonderful. kind of like high school where you can't do everything all at once. and the anticipation builds. that is fabulous. i'm just not going to think about all this crap anymore. and concentrate on what is good.

i just knew that being home would be good for me. seriously. i'm hardly thinking about you know who. and i met someone. someone pretty fucking fabulous, and NOTHING like m. which is great. i'm feeling a little shiftless at the moment, no job no money and lots of bills. but everything else is going great. i'm bonding with the famdamily. i really knew that being home would help me just center myself and calm down a little. so i guess if this is my angst-ridden blog, i really don't have much to report.

ick, still don't want to hear about your girlfriend.

i know just how she feels.

i did the exact same thing when i found out that m had found someone else. but the situation was reversed. i was the one who was dumped and she just jumped right into something else. just thinking about that still makes my stomach drop. like how could you be so inconsiderate, so cruel and so quick? even if you break up with someone, there is still a lingering of feeling there, so what the fuck did she do with that? ignore it? or was she over it months earlier and just waiting for her chance to get out? either way she made every possible wrong choice. she hurt me, and then rubbed it in my face. she said she wants to be friends and then makes no effort to prove it. no gesture beyond, "get your stuff out of my house." no communication. nothing. i have begun to understand why her previous girlfriends cheated on her. honestly, and i'm not saying that to be a spiteful bitch. but it makes more sense to me now. and why she doesn't talk to them all that much. i used to tell her i didn't like how she cut people out of her life, little did i know i would one day be on the other side of that fence. i guess a lesson here is to watch how someone treats their friends because that's how you will be treated too. she was all black and white. for or against.

full disclosure about why i am having a hard time packing up my stuff.
this is where it all fell apart. everything that i thought was true about my life, good and bad turned out to be false. i came up here with a little bit, just enough to live on. after she brokeup with me and i had to go down and get it, i just threw it in a closet and haven't done a single thing about it. i know there's things in there i don't want to look at. pictures, clothes and such. i just want to leave it all behind, an archaelogy of my time here. i want to travel unencumbered, shed that past like a skin.

all day long i've been flashing back to my dream from last night trying to figure out what it is that i'm feeling. and i think i've got it. abandoned. not in a super dramatic way, but a very distinct sense of someone that i loved turning away from me.

this is weird, for the first time i had a dream where it wasn't she and i together. it was her and some new girl. not the real one, but a dream stand-in. and it was awkward and i thought about leaving rotten eggs around their apartment but in the end i just decided to let it go. it wasn't totally happy, but not very unhappy either.

so she ims me to tell me that someone called for me on her number. and didn't leave a message. why do i care? and why do i fucking hate her so much. i just sat there looking at her im and thinking, it's better if i don't see her until i can look at her name without wanting to punch her in the face. better get over that.

i'm just feeling a little inadequate. i am tired. and i should not have read her blog. all together now. i know this. i'll try to be better in the future.
the funny thing is she was talking about rebound girl EXACTLY how she used to talk about me, as if she were THE ONE. the only person on the planet able to fulfill her emotional needs. it's a little creepy that she just slipped in there so quickly after me. and more than a little weird. but it effectively kills any fantasies i had about us getting back together. which is good i guess but explains the little dark cloud over my head the last few days. it will pass, but for now i'm annoyed.

let's be honest. as if i'm anything but in here. reading her blog actually didn't upset me as much as it could. i'm starting to feel the glimmerings of wanting her to be happy. instead of wanting her to fall off a building into a canal of raw sewage. i guess what has me more bummed is the feeling that what we had will not be duplicated. i've made this new friend that i want to hang out with when i get home but i'm feeling like i don't want to be in love right now. i don't want the pressure, the responsibility. i don't want to constantly measure that person up to her. that's not fair to anyone. and right now i don't think anyone would measure up anyways. but that's just me being pessimistic. but remind me, i don't want anymore casual relationships. i want friends. good ones who love and look after me. and i want to concentrate on my career. not on finding another relationship to screw up.

if i insist on reading her blog, and deliberately looking for posts about the rebound girl, at least i have cute, flirtatious emails from potential girls to quickly look at and make myself feel better.

a good friend of mine and his wife had their baby yesterday. i'm so excited for them. and of course i had to turn this a little inward on myself and how a year ago i thought that would be me and m. so pathetic. but i've been like that lately. turning every event or thought back to "US". as if any of it could happen again. or matters now.

except i guess it does matter to me, if i'm still thinking about it. i just want....i don't know. i went for a run this morning to try and figure it out. and had lots of conversations with myself and her while i was in the woods. and i know i don't want us the way we were. i love that i've rediscovered myself, after being in thrall to her. but i remember the promise, and the potential and the reality were all pretty damn good. i'll say again i didn't think our problems were that unsolvable. but i guess the only person i have to convince here is her. and i'm not sure i want to. my happiness is hard won these days, and i guess i assume that going back to her in any form would mean giving that up. which is a little dumb. and it's not like i think about this all the time. just as i'm going to sleep. it all rushes in on me. which is probably why i don't want to sleep right now. i don't know what i want frankly. i know i don't like having this uncertainty. but i think i want her rectify it. not me.

i've been dreaming lately of the stuff i've left behind. sometimes it's a book or a pillow or something like that. other times it's just her. i've been flashing back to good times and bad. i'm not sure if this is because this week has been so stressful and i would have liked someone i could talk to about it. or maybe i'm just moving into the wistful phase of all this. it's not too sad anymore. but i still wish i wasn't doing it. i came to another little conclusion the other day that i can only heal so much on my own. i can only go so far without an aknowledgment from her. so there will always be a little hole that she can only fill, be it with an apology or something else. i know that i will move on, in some ways i already have. but until i finish things with her that piece will always remain unresolved. and i'm in a quandry over what to do. i'm not sure if i should intiate contact or let her come to me. i can't decide so for now i'm doing nothing, and that's fine. i'm not in a hurry to figure it all out. i'm just letting it come, one painful memory at a time.

received the first nice, non-demanding stuff back email from her yesterday. and i was having a stressful day. and i kept thinking about it and smiling.
good lord. i'm ridiculous sometimes. as if a pleasant email means her intentions or feelings have changed. grow up. (that was for me.)

it's surely connected with my period. this desire to know what is up in her life or to resolve something in mine. today i woke up thinking that i should write her a letter. just saying basically all the shit i write in this blog, only toned down and edited a bit. just to say goodbye i can't have you in my life. but if you ever decide to wise up and become a nice person who can communicate with humans, please give me a call because despite all of the shit you threw my way, you rocked my world like no one else and i can't seem to forget how to love you.
bad idea, i know.
so i just read her blog. whatever. it's one day of moping, not too bad considering....

goals for this year:

get a job, get a kickass new apartment or house, hopefully with kickass roomies, and buy a super kickass sex toy so you can ignore the sorry state of your love life and get your own damn rocks off.

that is all.

i just need to say goodbye. let it go. let her go.

what i keep coming back to, every time i think about having her in my life again, is that she never apologized, and never explained. i'm not someone who holds a grudge very well. i want to forgive, but i just can't find a reason to in this case. i never heard her acknowledge that we were both at fault here. she made me feel like it was all me. so now i want to let go and move on and i'm finding it hard because i am still so mad about what she did.

though i try not to dwell on things that have happened, and to outward appearances iit looks like i'm over all of this, there are times when the anger and sadness just bubbles up inside me unbidden. i don't want it to. and i try and push it away. but i've been thinking a lot about the possibility of friends. and i believe my first instinct was correct. i don't want to be friends with someone who does not have the decency to break up with me in person. i don't want to be friends with someont who will not or cannot communicate her feelings to me. and i certainly don't want to be friends with anyone who already cut me out of her life so ruthlessly.
but that doesn't mean i don't long for those days, before everything got this way.

what else i got?
i've got two years worth of bottled up emotions and steaming rage to throw at your lying, cowardly face.
i've got oodles of talent to take me further than you ever thought i could go.
and i've got a nice strong fist to shove up your ass because you fucking drive me crazy.

my needs right now are simple: stability, a home, a place to grow, and heal and the time and space to do it in. someone to love would be nice, but for now i'm filling that role, and that suits me just fine. oh and a garden.

Even her cries of passion follow a certain order,
one after the other:
tame dove, then wild dove,
then peacock, wounded peacock, peacock, peacock,
the wild dove, tame dove, dove dove
thrush, thrush, thrush.

A precise woman: on the bedroom carpet
her shoes always point away from the bed.
(My own shoes point toward it.)

you know, i often wish that people would surprise me. i wish that m would send me a letter or email or even call and tell me how she is feeling, and why she did this. i spend a lot of time imagining these scenarios. it's not that i want them to do all the work. i try to break out of the mold and surprise people too. it's just that i want to know. i want closure. but i should know better. a made me listen to this american life today, the show called "get over it" and the host ira glass describes getting over a breakup like this, "no one knows when it will happen, it's like the second coming of christ." i guess that's true. i don't know. i've made all the positive choices i can for myself in this situation, i feel happy and healthier than i have in a long time, but i am still not over it. i'm tired of the wanting and the wondering. i'm tired of thinking about her. i can stop it sometimes, but there are other when images come to me unbidden.

tonight b was talking about hotel rooms. and i remembered the time i drove all the way down to be with her while she was working in md. it was awesome. i just remember making love in that room and going to sleep knowing that she loved me. and then waking up and seeing this beautiful light in the room on her back. i took a picture that she had framed. i don't know. i just want to box up all of these memories, file them under "a good two years" and move on. only then will i be able to fully dedicate myself to another person or even begin to think about having her back in my life. it really bothers me that she wants to move into friends mode as quickly as she did. it makes me feel like what we had didn't matter to her at all, that she can just get over it and be friends. for me it's not so easy. i need to process, analyze and agonize before i can even decide if that's what i want. and i'm not sure it is. i love hard and i fall just as hard. i just know i need/want to get over this. soon.

so people are still finding my blog through her archives. the ones where she talks about me as the one, or her "best girlfriend." and it hurts less than it used to. when she first broke up with me i could mark the time during my day by what i knew she was doing. if it was noon, she was probably just waking up, and so on. well i don't do that anymore. but every once in a while i wonder what she is thinking. probably the weirdest part of this whole process is how incredibly silent she has been. she emailed me her breakup and then that was it. nothing, no discussion. decision made. but i've already talked about that. so now i wonder if she's had second thoughts. if, during the course of her day, she ever finds herself wishing i was around. or if situations arise where she would like to call me up and talk about it. because i do. not constantly anymore. but once in a while. my anger is fading and is being replaced by good memories mostly. i still don't think i would like to be in touch with her. i mean, i would need an apology and some serious discussion before i would let her back in my life. but that presupposes that she wants to be there, which she clearly doesn't. i don't know. mostly i just wonder if she regrets her decision, or how she went about it. i wonder if she wishes she had treated me better. and i really hope so.

so what do i do about the fact that there is still a hole in my life where she used to be? i can make all of these pronouncements, about my life, about how i feel, and have them be true, but the fact remains that i loved her as a friend, and as someone important in my life. i guess i'm just supposed to move on. yep, that's exactly it. i'm not supposed to dwell, i'm just supposed to cover that space up with a bandaid and hope that maybe someday it will be filled by her or someone else. it's too bad really. because now i'm at the stage where i'm remembering how wonderful it was to have someone to talk to every day. and i wonder if she misses that too. being plugged into someone you love, connected.

it's like i've stopped caring in the last couple of days. i no longer look at myself and think, here is the girl who was dumped. or here is her ex. i am just seeing myself.
i went up to jen's cabin the other night, i needed a vacation from my vacation. and a little sex. i drank entirely too many whiskey and cokes, not enough to get sick, but a lot. and had some amazing sex. which is funny considering. and we talked, and i finally said explicitly that i don't want to be dating anyone right now, i just want to have fun and fool around. and i know she likes me and would like more, but won't ever ask for it because of what i said. she also said that this felt like the last time. which is odd too because i was thinking of cutting myself off. she's become this knee-jerk reaction and i can't say no. but it was a lot of fun and i had to leave early in the morning which sucked. i just remember feeling like the elephant had left the bedroom. it was probably all the alcohol, but i didn't feel like i had to compare her to m any longer. and that just opened me up to let things with her be the way they are. she's not someone i would ever date, but i believe that she deserves more than my partial attention when i'm with her. so i gave it to her. and it rocked.

hmmm. need to not look at blog. i know how it makes me feel. have i said this before. goodness. i do really enjoy constant torture. it's like i'm just starting to feel really good about things and my life and all that. and so i have to make myself experience all that pain all over again. i wonder if it's because a lot of my favorite couples seem to be breaking up. that makes me long again for that perfect person to spoon. that's when i miss her or that connection the most- at night. it is my favorite part about loving someone, falling asleep in their arms, smelling their scent and just knowing that everything is right in the world because i have this amazing person on my side, loving me, and i have them to love.

i just never thought i would be in this position with her. it's more like i'm amazed, i feel like i've landed on this other planet, without her, and i have to learn how to get around and communicate with the locals.
crazy.

it's true that loving someone can make them beautiful. i've been going through old pictures trying to put my portfolio together and of course i keep finding these old pictures of her. and now all i can see in her face is a hardness and a meanness that wasn't there before.

i feel like i've been clawing my way up a shear cliff for several months now. and i've finally reached a ledge. just realizing what about this whole situation sucked made a huge difference. and in a big way. like i felt the light bulb click on. and i realized that she has problems too. this wasn't all me. i didn't get a chance to communicate with her, she wouldn't let me, gave me no clue what was in her head. and i became desperate to hold onto her and find out. and she saw that as depenedent. and that was it. she wussed out, chickened out, and waited until i was up here to tell me something that should have been done in person. i mean. that is seriously. fucked. up. if you are supposed to love someone and trust them, what kind of trust does that show? no wonder i was a wreck. i had no real warning. no inkling. no wonder i was breaking pots and kicking things and punching walls. and now i feel better. lighter. not totally healed, but like i know where i am going now. and that feels great. i can hear about her and her new girlfriend without totally losing it. in fact i feel kind of bad for her, she doesn't know what she's in for. and i realized that i just don't want a friend like that. someone who cannot express their feelings. i'm not a super whiz at communication, but i don't shut down completely and keep people out. her tendencies toward that certainly reinforced my own. and i look back on our time together and think that it was great. if we hadn't descended into weirdness and had worked on our issues, which i don't think were insurmountable, things would have been great. but we didn't and here we are. i feel great about where i am. i get a little sad when i think about what could have or should have been, but it isn't weighing me down. plus i'm getting tons of sex. and that doesn't hurt.

stacy asked me last night when i knew that my relationship to m was over. i said, when she broke up with me. i had no idea until then. and i've been blaming myself ever since for not seeing the signs. yesterday josh said, yeah we had no idea either. you got a raw deal. she really chickened out on telling you. and it was like one of those moments that you are waiting for in the whole breakup recovery process. just waiting for someone to acknowledge that yeah, this person should not have broken up with you in an email and should have told you what was in their head beforehand. and he said that he thinks that she can only communicate with her camera and that that is her biggest weakness. i'm not so sure but it did make me realize that she simply cannot talk about her feelings. i knew this from day one. and i was so in love i just ignored it or overlooked it. and look where we ended up. i even remember telling her at some point not to let all of her issues pile up and to tell me as they happened. oh god. i have such sympathy for this new girl. because right now it's all champagne and roses but in a few months when they want to talk about something real she won't be able to. and that sucks. so i spent all of yesterday walking around chicago just feeling ripe with possibility. like i can imagine the type of girl i want to date from now on. she will be intelligent, i mean she needs to be able to hold a conversation with me about books or politics. not super brainy, but smart. and easygoing. although a little moodiness is ok too. and she wants to do things in the world, isn't just content to sit at home and collect a paycheck, 9-5. really has a mission. and she'll be cute. and fun and really dorky. and she will yell at me when she's mad and won't t bottle things up. she'll get me and understand my commitment to my work. she will be able to laugh at herself and she'll look at me when we are in a crowd of people and we will be laughing at the same people, without having to say anything. and we'll love hard and intensely but still be able to step away and spend some time doing our own thing. and she's coming soon, i can feel it.

i do not need my friends telling me that this was not meant to be. i need them to listen. i need them to hug me and not say anything. i don't want to hear about her new relationship. i don't want to hear about how we were not right. i do not believe it. and i don't want to hear it.

well i woke up in a minor panic this morning and i can't seem to get rid of it. i should never have looked at those pictures. goddamn it i know better. honestly. it's like i enjoy torturing myself. now these images are seared into my brain and i just want to forget them. ugh.

i took a nap this afternoon by pretending i was someone else and i didn't have to remember any of the last couple of months. or last couple of years for that matter. it was the only way i could relax. i don't know i just don't know.

did i ever mention how my mother thought my relationship with m was very dependent? well, she did. she mentioned it a few weeks ago when i was telling her about my latest email to her. and i'm not sure what she meant. that i was dependent on m? financially, yes. emotionally, maybe. to the detriment of the entire relationship? i don't think that was the intrinsic problem. i don't think that was why we didn't work.
i've been trying hard not to overanalyze the issues here. i'm trying to let the lessons just come to me, instead of forcing them. and i know that even if i forget every reason why we are better off apart i will still have learned something if i remember what i need to be happy. that's the biggest one. it's funny that i'm only acknowledging it now. but i have spent a lot of my life unhappy. and it seems liberating to know that that is a choice and not an accident or twist of fate. i can really choose things that work for me. wow. duh.

longing....
that is what i'm doing today. wanting.
i decided that i will not contact her until i know i have no ulterior motives. and when the hell will that be. because, i still know. that i love her. and i can't seem to shed that. i can look back on those bad days and the times she drove me crazy. i can see that we had problems. all of that makes sense. but i remember when i realized i loved her and we made that commitment to each other. she was the one, and i was hers. and that was it, inviolate. i never questioned our love. rock solid. i used to call her my touchstone, that she grounded me when i was off in the clouds or lost in my own head. but it was really us i believed in. i never thought i would have to remake my life over, have to figure out how to live without her. and when i did i realized that i was missing things that i needed. but that doesn't seem to make this go away. and i am not totally sure that i want it to.

i am going to confess something here. i'm still totally in love with her, or the idea or her. or the idea we had of each other. or something. but there you are.
the new girl was up for a few days. with her cat. and i had a great time, she's fun, easygoing, and we laugh a lot together. i don't plan on this being longterm so i'm not really paying attention to the things that are not right. you know, just letting it slide because i know i will be gone in two months.
so she was here, naked in my bed. i was going down on her. and i had this flash, this sudden revulsion. she doesn't taste right, she doesn't feel right. her breasts are too big and i could care less whether she orgasms. i just thought i don't want to be doing this right now. it's too soon. i love her, not this girl, who smokes and tries to kiss me.
i really thought about sitting up, yelling stop!, and then kicking her out. that would have been the smart thing to do. but i didn't. i just went at it. and then realized that making someone come that i don't care about means nothing to me.
watching m have an orgasm was almost a religious experience. i loved her so much when she let me in like that and it happened more and more rarely that i treasured it even more. and i became accustomed to her. i idolized her breasts and her pussy and right now i just want all of it back. i want that intimacy. that connection. i want to care and love for the person i'm fucking. i'm way too old for this casual shit. or maybe it's just that i've seen the other side and this is nothing compared to that.

been feeling a little stressed and paranoid lately. like now that the other photog is back i tend to think that they are talking about me behind my back. i don't have any evidence to back this up. just a feeling. and i've been spending almost no time with d lately. at least bri and i talked the other night and he said he thinks she's up and down too. which make me feel better. i mean everytime she has a little snippiness in her voice i automatically start thinking it's something i've done. and i'm trying to stop that. it's just all this crap lately. i think i need a vacation. a little one. but i don't see that happening anytime soon....maybe a little more sex with you know who. that's on saturday. and for the first time since i've been here i'm actually looking forward to getting off of work. and having some time to myself.

i've been seeing the one night stand girl an awful lot lately. not sure what this means besides fun. lots of sex. i mean tons. constantly. and that's ok. but i am so fucking tired right now i can hardly stand. and sore. i'm very sore.

is it necessary to have a fucking moment, every day?! i thought i was over the crying thing. guess not. a few old emails just set me off. i really have to make a concerted effort not to think about my old life. that's how i think of it in my head. i have to concentrate on the here and now and what's good about that and there's a lot there. it's true. but every now and then i drift back to a lazy, florida night. mosquitos humming, air thick and syrupy and us, kissing in the shadows.

so i called the one night stand. i couldn't decide if i should or not, and so i did. i guess, when in doubt, just do it. so i did and i went down there and spent the night with her and she came up the next night to my place. and she's great, lots of fun. very open and funny, and great in bed. and some part of me needs this, to be desired by someone. needs it right now, but not in a relationship-way. it's just interesting contrasting her with m, i mean it makes me realize how closed off she was while we were dating, in a million different ways. and if i couldn't unlock her, than maybe we weren't right for each other. because having sex with tina is a completely different world. it's raw and fast and is all about lust, and fucking, and that's great. because i missed that component. i never felt like m wanted my body, i never felt like she even understood that concept. and i know she didn't because she told me many times that sex was no big deal to her, she could go without it. and i didn't understand that. well, i guess a little bit of it rubbed off on me because my libido has shrunk, or maybe i just realized that sex in a really great relationship is so much better. so much more intense. so while i'm having fun with tina, i'm extremely guarded because i don't want this to go any further than it has. i just want to get off every once in a while and that's it. but if i was hoping that i would think less about m through this, i was mistaken, because i'm thinking about her more than ever, things are occurring to me that i haven't thought about in a while. and i guess that's ok.

and then i went down to work grab a couple of things and i just had to rant to brian. which i think i'm doing a little too much of, but i told him i was glad that he was so cool and that we could talk and all that. because he's been telling me about his ex issues as well. so i said i just didn't understand why she wanted to keep talking to me, i mean that's what breaking up is, right? i am honestly confused on this question. and, bless his heart, said that it was probably that she realized she had made a mistake by letting go of such a fabulous person. and that was just what i needed to hear.

argh, got another one of those, "give me my stuff back bitch" emails that i love. it probably wouldn't have bothered me too much except that today is rodney's last day. and i'm getting sick and feeling a little down and so i had to cry it out.

so today i came (finally!) to the realization that i like my life without her. i've been thinking about how i became the submissive person in the relationship, how i gave her so much control. i'm still not sure how it happened. but it had to do with me thinking she was beyond perfect, and unable to do anything wrong in my eyes. a dangerous attitude. and i thought she had a lot to teach me. and she did, but both of our attitudes made that next to impossible.
so i was washing the dishes, and watching avi play around on the floor and loving the fact that it was raining outside and i was cozy inside. and it just occurred to me. i am so very ok with where i am. it may seem simple but these days that wins me major points in my own mind. i've had to reclaim the parts of myself that i entrusted to her. some are in better shape than others.
and she keeps looking at my blog. i have a feeling she has posted something on hers that pertains to me or my email, but i have no desire to read it. i refuse to rise to her bait (if it's even there) and instead am spending time doing what makes me happy and living in my own skin. i don't want someone in my life right now, and that's a new one for me too. i thought i was so lonely, but i'm really not. sure, i love contact and touch and i'll probably hook up with some more random girls soon, but i sure as hell do not want to let someone into this comfortable, safe place i've worked so hard to carve out.

argh, so after last night's im debacle i sent her an email, i decided to keep it off of my blog and keep it personal. here's what i wrote:

"listen, I'm not declaring peace, but I'm not declaring war either. I need space. and I need time. and I need you to stop contacting me. breakups aren't clean or easy. people get hurt and mad. and I'm both of those things right now. and I don't think that's a very good basis for any kind of friendship. I don't know where I will end up after all this is over but I know that if we keep trading nasty jibes like last night we will never be able to be friends. ok? I'm trying to be honest here, please respect that."

but i'm still pissed off about her iming me and goading me into shit. two months may be enough time for her, but it certainly isn't for me. not even close. so i'm confused. she fucking wants to berate me about blogs that i'm writing that she has to defend. bullshit. why aren't all of these people talking to me? only about 10 people look at my blog a day, and i know most of them. so don't feed me a line. if it made you mad, say so. but i still defend my right to say it. i'm not going to sanitize my feelings just to make her feel comfortable. so being able to move on from this feels healthy, but i don't need her telling me shit like breaking up with me allowed her the possibility of a healthy and positive relationship. i'm sorry but i was not the one stopping you on either of those counts. yes we had problems. no, our problems were not me. and that's how i feel when she talks to me. that her position is that i am a negative horrible person whose insecurities damaged our relationship beyond repair. well i don't buy that. because i know her too well and i know myself. and i know that relationships are not that easily explained.

more than anything i don't understand why she cares. or maybe she only cares about what other people are thinking or talking about her. fuck that. because you don't dump someone in an email, after two years and then think that you can talk to her and im her and there won't be any residual feeling there. because there is, there always will be. and why can't she fucking see that i've kept most of my shit off of there. not for her but for me and if i wanted this to be an all out web thing i could dump every fucking thing out there for everyone to see. but i haven't, and i won't. i just wish she would fucking leave me alone. and that's a new one.

stop fucking iming me, stop breaking my heart, and stepping all over me. why the fuck do you care if i'm angry or you have to defend your fucking actions. that's what happens when you break up. things are rarely clean or easy. and i am not in your fucking face about every blog entry you write so get off my fucking back. in fact i don't even read your blog anymore, and there's a reason for that. so if it's going to get your fucking panties in a twist than just STOP READING it. and get over having to explain. this was your decision, you fucking deal with the consequences.

let's hear it for one night stands, cute girls named tina who don't wear underwear, and motor city pride.

CLARIFICATION: it totally rocks to be kissed by a fabulous, soft, wonderful girl who doesn't want anything except to rip your clothes off and make you scream. and reason #346 why girls rock, because even when they just want to get in your pants they will walk around and help your drunk ass find your car. twice.

i think i need to stop thinking that everytime she reads my blog that that will be the turning point. because as mad as i am, i still would like to have her back in my life. of course i would also like to scream and yell and make her understand how much she's hurt me and how i think that she broke up with me so she could fool around with this new girl, and how that hurts more than anything. but i need to stop that. i can't dwell in that place, because as soon as i do i can feel all my energy just draining away and being replaced by this dark, crowded feeling. and i don't like that. when i am living in the future i'm doing fine, but i still just want to rail and throw things and make her sorry too.

haha, i thought i wouldn't be in writing in this one again. fooled even myself by breaking into tears in the fucking frozen food section today. i'm having my period, so i'm trying not to take anything so seriously. i just really sunk into the past there. which i've been trying not to do lately. looking towards the future, living in the moment. these are things i'm working on.
but i have no idea what set me off. but i cried a little went home and read and that was that. at least these episodes are farther apart now. and i'm still angry. that's good. and bad, because i'm trying to live with it but not in it. because it's no good being angry all the time. it actually saps my energy. but knowing that i'm angry doesn't. that feels good. weird distinction but there you are. just having a little sad moment. been reading a lot of books about people breaking up that make me feel better. it helps to see someone else's reaction to this situation. it would just help if i could make some new friends, not that the old ones aren't great, but i mean the kind of friends i could kiss. i feel lonely mostly. that's what i miss the most, the partner, the person always willing to listen to me and i could listen to her. i miss that everyday. well it seems like she's already replaced me but i don't have a replacement for her yet. oh well.

enjoy your fucking rebound girl. try not to contact me again, ok? i would prefer that you kept your guilt to yourself.

so working on the anger thing. saw a great movie about florida tonight and then came home and she imed me and then i saw on my blog counter that someone had been reading my blog through a really old archive of hers where she said i was the only one. fuck. anger was working really well. but then i was bawling again.

i am mad that we couldn't figure out how to love each other.i'm mad at myself, for not being able to read her mind, for not making her happy. i'm mad that i sold myself short, that i believed in this flawed version of myself, even while i knew it was complete bullshit. i'm mad that i turned into a submissive bitch. i'm mad that i didn't stand up for myself and what i wanted. i'm mad at her passive aggressive shit. i am so fucking furious about how she let things stay inside of her and didn't tell me. i'm mad that i may not ever find or want a place for her in my life again. i'm just mad that i still care so much.

blah blah blah blah blah angry blah blah blah blah sad-angry blah. that sums up my life and mood lately. not a lot to report, i've been concentrating on work to keep my mind off of it. and my library consumption is way way up which is how i can tell that i've got things to work out. i wish it would happen in my dreams lately, but i have been sleeping all the time and i never feel rested. yuck. well at least the sun is out and summer is almost here. that's good. but i'm still sort of wishful, and now even more angry. i hate this stage a lot. i don't want to acknowledge my anger. i rarely give it the space it needs to work itself out. i spent some time this weekend with a good friend who just listened to all of my incessant babbling about her. and she said that her first relationship with a woman was the same way. which made me feel good in one way but on the other hand i'd like to believe that what we had was rare and special (ie never before experienced), even though i know that's not only unlikely, but impossible. so i'm trying to just let it come to me, just bubble up through my sadness instead of festering and never resolving itself. i still have scenarios where i call her up and say something about wanting her in my life, blah blah blah. but they are more implausible by the day. and i have had to stop myself from checking her blog this week. i haven't yet, i just have to remind myself that i need to concentrate on my life right now. for now that's working.

the polka king of south seattle also rocks the house.

she used to make fun of me because i would cry or tear up at girls sporting events. and hey i laughed at myself while i was doing it. but the reason was that i would watch these young girls, so happy and good at something and imagine them one of them as our daughter. and that made me happy, enough to cry. well i don't really do that anymore, i just shoot it and leave it at that. no crying. no wishing. no dreaming.

today driving back from st. louis i had a huge crying fit in the car. and i'm not even sure why. i haven't done that in a week or so. and the good part was that i felt really disconnected from all of the things that have been bothering me, like i was crying, but i didn't feel the same pain in my chest. and yesterday as i was walking down by the river and the sun was shining i had this thought flash through my head, i don't want to be in any relationship right now. i don't know if that is actually how i feel, or just a glimpse of how i will feel soon. because i still miss her but maybe i'm just starting to miss the idea of her. because the reality is fading from my head right now.

so what to do about this general feeling of malaise when i first wake up. argh. yesterday was a lovely day as was the one before that. but now i'm just sort of wishing i could still wake up next to her. i don't know how to approach this. meaning, getting her back in my life. i am not really sure i want to be her friend if there isn't a possibility of something more. but i think being friends is important for us, or will be when i can do it. i'm still ultra jealous of anyone that gets to spend time with her these days. i'm not marking the hours like i was, but i have a general idea of what's going on in her life, and i miss her in mine. i haven't read her blog in over a week. and that feels healthy, even though i'm dying to know. it's funny that breaking up helped me to figure out all of these things about myself, and now i just want to call her up and say, you know i've got this down, can we figure out what we did wrong and give it another go? start over? that's what i'd like to say, but it's a little too soon for that.

and today i spent all day at home, and that lends a strangely detached sense to how i'm feeling. like i put on all this old music today, including a tracy chapman cd i haven't listened to i'm sure since my last relationship ended. and there's this one song about waiting and having a place in your heart and well. it was sad, but i felt maybe i had turned a corner. (ask me tomorrow after i've actually left the house). and that doesn't mean that i don't still love her and want us to figure out shit out, because i still do. of course. but i guess, maybe i let go a little more today. i'm not sure why.

i don't even know what to say about how i feel right now. this keeps happening. a sort of vague sense of panic about what has happened and what may still happen. like i said yesterday, it's funny how i can separate myself from all of it, and then just as quickly be plunged back in again. it's funny how i think that she's not feeling anything, and i don't know if she is or not. but i'm painting her in my head as the happy dumper. she's rid herself of me, the dead weight and is free to pursue her carefree, fun-filled life. and yes i know it's a whole lot more complicated than that. but i miss very much being part of a couple, a pair, a team. i used to be so frightened of it, and she showed me how not to be, or we learned together. and now i find that i still like being by myself, still enjoy my own company, but i miss hers. i am desperate in my desire to have her here for a few hours. i imagine all the time that she surprises me at my doorstep. just to talk. or hug. just to know that there is a place in her life that can be filled by no one but me. that's what i want, some validation of the loss that i am feeling. i mean, i can't be the only one, right?

david holloway rocks my world.

part of my reluctance to spend more time with d is that we end up doing all of the things that m and i used to do together and that's more than a little depressing. i mean we watch queer as folk, cook dinner, plan activities. it's actually a little strange. so i guess it's nice that she's away for a few days.

another dream! i haven't detailed them here yet because they are all so similar. us in some situation where she tells me that she loves me. only last night she spooned me, hugged me tight and said, i can't believe i almost lost you. wishful thinking to the max. she used to tell me that i didn't know how much she loved me, as a joke, that she loved me more. and i'm thinking, no way. and now i don't know which one of us was right, and yes i know it doesn't fucking matter, but i'm still here loving her, and she's loving me (in a weird, breaking up with me sorta way) and i think i win this particular one. but who fucking cares. this dream rocked. so lovely, we were in a bed in a hotel lobby, don't ask me why. and she asked me to put on sexy lingerie, but then we couldn't find the exact ones she wanted me to wear and that was hilarious for some reason and we ended up forgoing it anyways. the best part about these dreams is that they don't have any of the weirdness that we had when we were together, no strange feelings about photography, no jealousy or resentment (real or imagined).
just love. and i know that on some level they are true. that they are a reflection of the love that we both still have for each other. even if they are not an actual representation of our relationship right now (not by a mile). but i'm hanging my proverbial hat on the slimmest of pegs these days. i know she checks my blog every day or so. and i guess i am going to have to be ok with that limited amount of contact. it's all i've got frankly.

and now that we are apart, all the dreams we dreamt together crystallise and become so very clear. like i was in a cemetary yesterday, on my non-perfectionist photo hunt and i realized that we had always talked about growing old together, but here were people who actually did. and were buried next to each other. and i knew, like i know nothing else these days, that that is still what i want. and i want to make her want it too. but i can't will her into loving me that way again. or can i? can the psychic vibes of my love reverbate all the way down there and she will feel them in her bones and come running back?

in my dreams we are still together. so either my subconscious hasn't gotten the message. or it knows something i don't. or it just refuses to give up, which i guess amounts to the same thing. knowing that i love her. still. my soulmate. and i need to move on. i know it. i don't want this melancholy to calcify around me and years from now i will realize that i haven't moved on. josh is right. i have to operate as if we are never getting back together. which is contrary to everything in my very cells right now. and the funny thing is the deeper i delve into this, these lovely dreams of the future where we are together, the less i want to contact the real life her. i don't want to know what she is doing or thinking, really. i want to have my ideas of that and just operate on fantasy for a little while. i don't want to know who she's moving on with, not at all.

there are times, in every single day, when i know that this is the hardest thing i've ever done. which makes me realize that i was lucky to have loved as deeply as i did. but that doesn't make it any easier.

i had an orgasm that made me cry yesterday. and not in a good way. guess why.

i've been having a rough time of it since i read her blog yesterday. i so wish i hadn't done that. i knew it was going to make me crazy and it has. it's a whole lot easier to pretend that she's sad and missing me when i'm not reading her entries and reading a whole lot into them. like about how she has something on her heart that she's waiting to tell everyone. and i can just bet that it is not how she wants to get back together with me, or how she's made a huge mistake by breaking up with me. so i've been driving myself crazy. because i know she's met someone. and that probably hurts more than anything. so i'm on my crying jag again. and i'm definite about not reading it for a while. even though i said i wasn't going to before, now i know for sure that it's not a good idea. it's just a hard thing for me to do, to disentangle my heart from hers, and my life. we were so integrated. so in each other's life. and i miss that. i miss having someone i can tell all the stupid stuff that happens in my day. and i miss having someone to talk to about the things that drive me crazy. and i miss hearing about her day and her life. so in other words, i'm starting this day off on the wrong foot by crying over my computer.

i really hate this. i can be so floored by the merest hint of something about her. out of nowhere i'm crying in the bathroom. i just want it to not hurt. when i was in illinois this weekend all stacey had to do was mention her and that set me off. i mean i don't know what i want, except for all of this to stop hurting. if we could just be together, in a way that is good. i think i need to be serious about not looking at her blog. because if i just ignore this hole inside of me long enough, hopefully it will scab over and i will be on with my fabulous life without her.

pro:
the love that we have for each other is unlike anything i've ever felt, strong, rooted deep inside of ourselves and still very strong
great ass for spooning.
beautiful eyes, breasts, and everything else
calms me like nobody else
she know how my mind works
great hugs
best laugh in the world
passionate, and compassionate
a gift for the silly
when it was good, it was awesome

con:
she does not communicate very well, even less so when she is threatened, or mad
she is an only child and has a problem sharing
there is that cleaning thing.
she can be very condescending without even knowing it, tone of voice, haughty demeanor
she wanted me to be supportive, but i felt excluded from that part of her life, i wanted to help with things (editing, apad stuff, and she always said she didn't need it, or asked after the fact)
jealousy, resentment, and nasty thoughts build up when you can't talk about them
thinks relationships should be easy, but nothing worth fighting for is easy

is it really any surprise when you read the posts below that i'm not even close to be over her. i know she's going on with her life, she's happier, calmer and whatever without me. but i'm having some serious problems just processing this. i can go on with my life, but i know that i will be missing her.
here's my case for us:
i loved and still love her.
i know things weren't perfect the last few months, but i believe that we, the us that we believed in so passionately, is still there.
i love her passion for life, and photography, i love that she knows what she wants and how she goes after it. i love her laugh, and the way she teased me every night when she got into bed. i love that she laughed at my jokes. i loved the feel of her body curled up against mine. i love how she wooed me, and her complete lack of awareness about her own beauty.
i didn't love how she could just clam up sometimes, go all cold and not communicate. in fact, i really didn't love that she never told me how badly i had hurt her. what happened was what i had always feared, that she would just let my misdeeds pile up until they reached the breaking point and not tell me about it. i knew we were not working perfectly lately. i certainly wasn't blind to that fact. but i wish that we had talked about it. if only to dissolve everything mutually, although i know i would have fought for us too. i wish i wasn't sitting here wondering if i will ever meet someone like her again. i know i won't. and i wouldn't want to. i want her. i still do. i absolutely believe that we were good for each other.
but that doesn't mean that we always were, and that's how relationships work, and i wish you understood that.
because you told me sometimes that you didn't think you were the right person for me,
well the right person for me will love me unconditionally, support me with actions and not just words, be there with a hug and an open heart when i get into a mood, and is willing to be silly with me, is someone i love coming home to, the right person will be come with me on my journey, and will want to know me as i grow and change and learn. and she did all of those things at one time or another.
i get the feeling you are afraid, afraid of something. that you never told me. and i'm not a mindreader, but i felt that you wanted me to be. i was never afraid to work on us, and maybe you were. i just wish i had fought harder, i don't know what i could have done, but i wish i had done it. because i still think we were meant to be. i don't feel that you are out of my life yet, and i think you feel that way too. i mean, the way you reacted over my email was like i had dumped you. it made me feel somewhat better to know that this is hard for you too. because when it comes to this you are a fucking ice princess, i can't tell what you want, or need, or anything. and you surprised me with how hurt you were, and i remembered that i used to be able to tell how you were feeling from the sound of your voice. like the night you didn't get detroit. and all i could think about was that i needed to give you a hug and tell you how wonderful you were. i felt more than anything that you were cutting me out of your photographic life, and that made me jealous. you alwasy wanted us to share in that way, but i wanted to be privy to your thoughts and actions in that respect. like if you found some new photo site, or photographer, i wanted to be the first to see it or hear it from you. i wanted us to be excited about things in the way we used to be. i didn't want to be jealous or feel inferior. not at all. i wish you hadn't given up on us. i wish you had fought. i know you are tired, but i keep thinking if i could take you back to those first few months (or even, the first year and a half) and take you to one of our good memories, where we were working for each other and not against. i think i could change your mind. convince you we were worth it. not even as we were, but a new and better combination of the two of us.

she told me that i will make it tonight. that i have the drive. and that she thinks it would be amazing for us to work together, with someone that is a part of your life and you are inspired by. also that she felt the same way in school, wanting to be making good pictures everyday.

Spoke: too spend the rest of my life with her and make her as happy as possible

jester: are you still there?
Spoke: yes
Spoke: thinking lovely dirty thougths
jester: oooh, like what?
Spoke: nothing nevermind.
jester: no way, i'm not letting you get away with that.
jester: just a hint, please?
Spoke: haha. i never thought the word strap-on would come out of my mouth, let alone enter my mind in visual form.
jester: wow
jester: that's awesome.
jester: i thought you were intimidated by all the equipment
Spoke: oh i completely am, and things that resemble peni.
jester: why, exactly?
jester: i admit i am too
Spoke: i've never had one near me. nor do i want one in my vicinity. and hate thinking of things in terms of male/female. or round peg/square hole kinda situations.
jester: ok.
Spoke: although the fact that it just entered my fantasy was entertaining.
jester: would you like to act on this fantasy?
Spoke: maybe. it invovled the two of us on a public street, up against some bulding, and no one knew what was going on. everyone just thought we were kissing.
jester: again
jester: wow
jester: this requires a skirt.
Spoke: lol
Spoke: it required pants and boxers here. lol
jester: yes.
jester: skirt for me.
Spoke: yes yes