middle of the night personal to only you

This is a journal consisting of many nights of writing to sort through this experience. I don't know where I am headed. There have been days that I didn't think I would get through this.. I still don't know.. I don't have all the many things I wrote beginning October 14, 2002- but I do have some fragments... it might be interesting later to review the loss/grief process/transition.. everything I have studied suggests that everything I have felt is part of everything documented by researchers into grief and loss... but it is still too raw and too new for me to process with any real objectivity. Still, parts of me step aside and look at some of what I have written- and the student in me notes that the researchers seem to have it right and I am hitting all their noted points in all kinds of order, in all kinds of combinations - just as they documented.

this is one of those crazy in the middle of the night things that I probably won't send..

I need to reach out this moment.. you are the one I think of when I want to run somewhere. I don't know if I will send this, you are overwhelmed by the problems in your life and not knowing how to cope with everything going on and not knowing how to get things back to the place you want with HER.. and I don't want to burden you with me.. that is something you don't need.. But where do I turn when I need to pour out this kind of thing????? I don't know.. there isn't anywhere to go, no one to pour this out to.. no one who cares about any of it except me..

I am in some kind of spiraling thing tonight. I came home from a really good lecture, one that made me think for a long while about the topics, (happened to be Jung and also briefly vigotsky) but it got me thinking about things- about anima and animus, lots of other things- and for a few hours, I actually saw some things that made sense in my earlier life- the days of my young adulthood- things that might have driven me in the various directions I went. I don't believe any of the psych theorists had/have the whole picture. They are all like the men in the joke who were blind and feeling the elephant- they all see a part of the picture.. and they all have some strong points- combined they almost make up a whole.. which is what ultimately I am studying.. incorporating what I know and the new things I learn into some kind of hopefully coherent thing that can help myself, can help others- someday.. only first I have to know myself.. all my weaknesses, traps, unconscious stuff.. the motivations behind me... I have spent a lifetime examining those, now I am slowly finding some new tools to do that with.. and part of that also comes from the events in the past month... hell of a beginning to this year for me.. all of my life I have thought of "my year" as beginning with October...

and then later I was no longer enthralled by the learning/connecting to the material experience and was stuck in feeling alone.. no one to discuss this or anything else with.. and no one to take my mind off of any of the things I was feeling either. It isn't that I haven't figured out what is going on in my head about you and about your life- I have.. and I have to work at trying to stay in only friend mode for you because that is all you need from me.. nothing else.. nothing else ever.. and I can't let the rest of it creep in to any communication with you.. It is really difficult, but I know my own weaknesses in connection with you and being conscious of them, I can deal with them.. or mostly.. anyway, I am trying..

but I am feeling more alone than I did before.. it isn't some new feeling, I have always been "alone" - WE are ALL ALONE... but for some reason I keep coming back to that. At times the feeling is fairly wrenching- and it feels worse when I think of it now- this past month's now.... I have no more and no less than I had before and you are still in my life, but not in the same way.. I think I needed that little tiny spark of hope.. it strengthened me somehow.. even knowing it was unlikely to happen, still the spark kept some piece of me still living .... I don't seem to be able to replace it.. and I think some hope of a life with some of the things in it that I need, was important to hang onto..

and I know you need things from her and need to focus on those things for you to regain the happiness you felt with your life before.. maybe to move to a new place in your relationship with her.. though there is a part of me that doesn't think she is capable of it.. but you are.. you have the capability to adjust to the fact that SHE will never be different, but you can be different in how you react to her- which buttons you let her push and how you treat her in response.. You can make things better for you with her... you just can't make HER different..

and I wonder how much happiness did you actually feel in your life?.. and what is it that would make it ok again for you in your life there- and would that be what you call happy?.. and why SHE can't see who you are and how lucky she is?.. and I wonder if you will realize that your self esteem can't be tied to what someone else thinks of you?? and dozens of other things..

at least this time, I wasn't wondering about you and your motives and what the past couple of years meant - though I don't really know what they meant to you.. but those thoughts weren't part of the picture.. all the other things like wondering about you, wondering about how you will get through this and if SHE will "step up to the plate" so to speak, is where MOST of my focus goes when I think about you.. not about the "us" that wasn't.. and I wonder how healthy that actually is to worry about your happiness and life when I am not sure I have dealt with the grief part of the loss.. because it is a loss for me.. almost as if you had died.. but it wasn't you that died.. it was my spark of hope.. and part of the support mechanism I put into place for my life.. you aren't there for me, and you can't be.. and even if you could, you can't help me get over this..

and I need things I can't seem to have.. and aren't ever likely to have in my life and I wonder why?.. what is it about me that I didn't find those things? the needs aren't that complicated and they aren't that unreasonable or unreachable.. only I don't seem to find them.. so what is it that prevents me???

it feels like I am giving up some part of myself.. some dream of not necessarily you.. but a best friend, lover, soul mate who shares my life and my bed.... it isn't going to be you.. and I can't imagine it as anyone else...

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The day is ending now.. I am tired, but I got through this one too and I managed to pay attention to the things going on. Grief and loss were part of the material studied today- from a person with a new disability perspective. But there is no difference. Everything we talked about, applies to grief in general- all of the emotions are human emotional responses to loss- of any kind.

How wonderful that my life is existing in tandem with my lectures and grad school type group discussions. NOT...

I know now that I won't send these. Someday I might send you a link. It depends on how this ends up.. You want a "friend"... only I don't know what that really means. I only know one way to care about you and what is happening with you, and I don't know how to put you in any kind of perspective. What has changed?

Nothing has changed and everything has changed. I care about you and what happens to you in the same manner as I cared before. The difference is that I know that you aren't ever going to want to spend your life with me. You want to grow old with her. No matter how you put that, you have rejected me. No matter how you say it, it amounts to a decision on your part that you didn't want my love, that it wasn't what you needed and it wasn't what you wanted.. rejecting my love, is rejecting me. I can't see it any other way. Even still loving you, wanting things to be different, I can't sugar coat that. Those are the facts.

So what is left?? I can't bear the thought of acquaintance type emails from you.. and it hurts when you don't seem to care about what is happening with me, even though I know- I really KNOW that you can't do that and work on what you need to work on to make your life whole again.

I wasn't going to respond to your emails today. It just simply hurts too much. I want to do something to be there for you as you go through this process, but I can't remove my feelings totally from the equation. And really I don't want to go numb again. I was stuck there for too many years. That isn't the place I want to live, and that isn't the person I want to be. So where do I put my feelings when I respond to you? And does it matter??? I don't want to hurt you, but I don't want things like this either. I know they can't be any other way- but it doesn't stop me not liking it, and it doesn't stop me from wishing it were different. ARGGHHHHHHHHHHH

After some thought I realized that it might not be good for you if I just simply didn't respond. Either you wouldn't notice, or you would and then would spend valuable time wondering why. So I sent a one sentence response. I am glad that you had a good Tuesday. I am glad that at least when you went home tonight from work that at that moment it was better than it started out.

Sigh.. but I am not sure where I am.. I have been crawling up and sliding down for what seems like ages, but in reality has only been 22 days- only 3 weeks- and it continues but the slides down aren't as severe for the moment- and possibly they are slowing or leaving...??? At least I have not ignored my classes and I have moments when I feel alive and engaged in learning the things I want to know. Re-ordering my life, rebuilding something from the ashes, sorting out where I fit into my life without some of the pieces that held it together before- that is where I need to be.. and the student notes it is also part of the process.