get through this

I read this piece in Women who run with the wolves last night, and I just wanted to share it with people struggling with this goal…

“Although there will be scars and plenty of them, it is good to remember that in tensile strength and ability to absorb pressure, a scar is stronger than skin.”
- Clarissa Pinkola Estés Ph.D.

This book really has helped me so much in the past month (yes, month… I’ve been taking my time with it…) I feel more centered, stronger, more in touch with my emotions and my surroundings. I can recommend it to ANYONE who’s had the rug pulled from under them.

I think I might have marked this one as done a bit prematurely. I still think about him every day. Wonder what he’s doing; if he’s warm on these cold nights we’ve been having. I miss his smell, his voice. I find so many little things in my reading that reminds me of him, and it hurts. So much…

Maybe I’m just having a relapse…

Maybe I should read less.

I had a good day yesterday. I was feeling positive, at peace. So I sent him a text and asked him if he would answer just one question for me, a simple yes or no. He replied that he would.
So I asked him if I was right in guessing that I should give up hoping that he’s going to come back.
And he said yes, I should.

End of discussion.

I feel relieved. I’m at the slightly pissed-off stage now… But that is MUCH better than the “crying all the time and having visions of myself all alone for the rest of my life” stage. I honestly feel like I have closure on this now. I’m sure I’ll still miss him sometimes – unlike him I can’t just forget the past 10 months of my life – but I’ll survive.

:)

I caved last night and sent him a text. He phoned me this morning. I told him that I had to hear certain things from him in order to get through this, and he should please be honest with me, even if he thought it might hurt me. He promised he would be. So I asked him if he broke up with me because he got scared at the thought of me moving to CT to be with him. And he said that he was very scared, because he didn’t want us not to work out in 6 months’ time and then I’d given up everything to be with him. And I asked him if he was still in love with me, and he said no. He loves me very much, but he’s not in love with me anymore… He said that he was just getting back on his feet again now, loving his job and making great progress in it, and he didn’t want to f*&k it up. I guess my being there would have led to him not being as happy…

I’ve been wandering around the house for the past few days, trying to figure out how I could not have seen this coming. Tonight, as I was cutting some mushrooms for my salad-for-one, it dawned on me that I always expect them to go. It’s always at the back of my mind… When I was diagnosed as bipolar a few years back, I made “peace” with the idea that I’ll grow old alone. Very few men can handle the moodswings; the excessive crying for no reason; the agitation in huge crowds… When we started out, I told him all about it, and he even suffered some of my episodes in cyberspace. I tried to break it off a few times, but he would never let me go, assuring me that he needed, wanted extremes in his life, and that I was bubbling with energy – both positive and negative. He promised me he was up for the challenge… :)

I can only assume that he saw something that scared him while I was with him for those ten wonderful days… Strangely enough I can’t remember when last I felt so calm. I almost never had any pain while I was with him. I felt at peace by his side (although admittedly, there were one or two times I got a bit panicky in large crowds…) But there was this tightness in my chest towards the end of my time with him… I did get more tearfull at the thought of going back home and not seeing him again until who knows when. Or maybe I knew that I wouldn’t see him again, but I was fighting against it.

That morning when the taxi came to take me to the airport, he held me tight and told me that we had marked each other, that he loved me and would wait for me. I couldn’t stop crying. He couldn’t stop touching my face… It was almost as though he was trying to memorize it with his fingertips…

I wish I could turn the clock back to the time when I was the cynic and he the hopefull one.

Work wasn’t good today. Maybe because last week I spoke to my bosses about the possibility of me moving to Cape Town and working from there, and them being totally up for it. Today I had to explain to them that I wouldn’t be going after all. They were nice about it, not asking any questions, but they all knew the reason for my wanting to move to CT in the first place, and I’m pretty sure they’ve figured it out by now.

I got the feeling that people were avoiding me today, not knowing what to say or how to act around me. Of course I’m just being paranoid, but I’m glad that I’m working from home for the next two days.

Things were finally falling into place. I could continue doing the job I enjoyed AND be with him. :) I once dated a guy who said if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I guess this was one of those times.

The days are so quiet without his text messages and calls. I constantly find myself wondering if he’s thinking of me at all, or whether he’s just continuing with life as if I wasn’t even there.

This hurts.