Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Losing Wait

Once upon a time there was a perfect woman who told me that she was in love with me.  I say 'once upon a time' not because it was in the ancient past, but because it is something that has only happened to me once in my lifetime, and I say 'perfect' not because she was perfect, only that she had  luggage perfectly matched with my own. 

For over a year I floated on that feeling and I was amazed at how much easier life was with someone to share it with, the future was so bright that the present couldn't help but glow a little.

Until the day came when she told me that her feelings for me weren't real. She was grateful that I had saved her life a few times and all that, but she couldn't imagine herself ever being happy with me. She used to say that she couldn't imagine life without me ,but obviously she can, because she's gone far away and I'm still here. Now I'm the one left wondering how I will go on.

I guess I could be telling this to a psychiatrist, but why bother?  I already know my childhood fucked me up, that isn't exactly hard to figure out.  In fact, the closest parallel to the way I feel now is the way I used to feel as a kid when we found out that we were going to be living somewhere new, with  relatives or family friends because 'home' was a bit too fractured for us to be there, wherever 'home' was. I'm not saying it was all bad, but there are definitely abandonment and esteem issues at play, not to mention the fact that I was a binge drinker from age 13 onward. Teenage alcoholics don't drink because they are celebrating an emotionally healthy home life, that's for sure.Mostly they drink because they think that they are worthless and that nobody loves them.

That worthless feeling works for adults too. It worked so well for me that I almost died from it. I can't say that returning to the land of the living has been easy, but it has been worth it and things objectively are pretty good for me now. Intellectually, I know that I'm not an unloved child and that there are people who love me. But there is a huge difference in being loved and having someone be in love with you. Or at least it seems that way to me, but I really don't know much about it and I don't suppose I ever really will. I do know being abandoned by my one and only romantic love was a dagger into the tiny heart of my inner child, a real Achilles moment for me and I'll be a lot more guarded next time, if there is one.

My life isn't the wreck it used to be and I'm sure that eventually I'll feel better and maybe even meet someone new, but at the moment it doesn't feel that way. My trust has been shattered and I feel the same 'this is all my fault' despair that I felt as a kid.  But it wasn't my fault then and it isn't my fault now.  Does knowing that help? I don't know if it does because I have nothing to compare it to.

But I'm tired of  giving myself a pep talk every morning and saying that "I'm OK" and trying to make it true by repeating it like a mantra. The truth is I'm not OK and I don't know how long it will be until I am. No one who has been through what I've been through should be expected to bounce right back, I'm been through worse things and there is no instant fix, and I'm hoping that by writing this I will shed some of the weight, because I feel bogged down and mired at the moment, trapped by unfinished songs and stories fallen prey to my lost momentum and erratic moods.

There is a thin line between letting your art heal your wounds and letting your wounds poison your art and that is something I'm just now figuring out, all these years later, after ruining so much of my work with vengeful ignorance.

I don't want to produce works of ill-placed revenge, there is a terrible karmic risk there and mine is a bit tattered already, so maybe a bit of writer's block is OK. It happens when I get to feeling down.

I am not sure this is depression though, it feels more like grief, which is an emotion I'm familiar with mainly due to my long-term struggle to repress it.  Maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all. I'm not exactly sure how to make feelings go away without resorting to booze and pills...maybe covering that stuff up wasn't the best approach.

Clearly something is going right these days, though, because I'm  confident that I'm not going to drink and I'm not suicidal, but right now I'm about as sad and hurt as I have ever been as an adult. I really do appreciate the friends who have tried to cheer me up, but it isn't that sort of wound, one that can be cheered away.  It will heal, I'm sure, but it will happen at it's own pace, all I can do is try to keep interested in things around me and try not to hurt anyone. I don't mean to worry anyone or make it seem like I'm not grateful to those who  care, but right now I feel absolutely awful and I need to admit it and face it before I can get past it. Which I will. And when I do feel happy again, every kind word will have helped, has already helped.

So today sucks and tomorrow probably will too, but after that, who knows? It's a long future.

.

2 comments:

billy pilgrim said...

years ago a friend told me the secret to understanding the human race.

men are jerks and women are psychotic. this means men never have to apologize for being a jerk because we have no choice and don't bother trying to figure out a woman's motives, after all she's psychotic.

yellowdoggranny said...

billy is a fucking genius..
women don't know a good thing when we have it..
nothing but time is going to heal your hurt..