an update

• Jul 23, 2008

an update

devoid of meaning

a faint echo of death keeps whispering to me from the distance


I do not hear it

I can not heed it

I do not wish to

I know I will not

But it is there






I need sleep

I beg for it

It is callous

Like her

It knows that I need it; but it is selfish, it has its own priorities, and it will not come to me

I know it is near by, just outside, enjoying the night

I have always tried to be good to sleep

Sleep medicine feels no different from no-doz; it makes no difference, not even a little

Maybe I need something prescription strength; medical insurance leaves me in divorce

At least sleep never told me it loved me





I feel as though I have no organs

I may have, at one time, but they have dissolved

Sometimes they have been replaced with barbed wire

Other times they are replaced with nothing

I feel sick

Maybe that's all the sleeping pills

I can't remember for sure, but I think the feeling was already there

I think that was the reason I took them




I keep hearing "time"

This planet has circled our sun

I feel worse now than I did 1 year ago

I did not think, when I last wrote, that it was possible to feel worse than I did at that moment

How much time?

2 years?  3?

What happens to the human brain if it feels this way for too long?

I am told you learn to trust again

I am told you learn to love again

It's not that I don't believe it

I am scared

I would like to see it work

6 years ago I thought this would

Time may heal, but it offers no security





I told her I could not be friends with her

I was not asking for much

For her to keep her agreements to me

Is that so much to ask of a friend?

She expected that from me

I had asked that before we give up, we have at least a short-term commitment with exclusivity, a trial-unseparation, and see how that went 
If it still didn't work out, so be it
She agreed to that

And then she just didn't do it 
She decided she didn't feel like it.

She said she would go through the relationship book with me.  The one that she ordered.

And halfway through, she just stopped, she changed her mind about trying
She wasn't going to try anymore

I asked her to spend a night at my place, because I had been spending a lot at hers

She agreed to that

And then she just didn't

I asked her to read my last letter a second time, after allowing a few days for it to sink in

She agreed to that

She just didn't do it


All I needed was that she not ask me to stay the night with her if it didn't mean anything to her, since she knew I was still in love
All I needed was for her to not have sex with me if it didn't mean anything to her 
She thinks saying the words "this doesn't change anything" made it ok
All I needed was for her to show some basic level of concern, even when I wasn't especially upset

This was not too much to ask

But when I told her I needed for her to be willing to do just these basic things to prevent hurting me so much
She said she was not willing to

She would rather lose my friendship altogether than to have to change anything at all about her behavior

She says she can't help the way she feels

If she would rather lose my friendship than to put even the slightest effort into not hurting me, then she never loved me

I do not hold this against her

I suspect she can not love



I do not want to be writing these things

I want to be writing about anarchy

I want to be writing about prostitution

I can not

I have tried

The words do not come





I should not want her

There is something wrong with me

She had an affair with a married man whose wife was taking care of their newborn first baby

She seduced me recently, knowing I was still in love, even though for her it had no emotional significance at all

She asked me to spend the night with her every day for a week

One week after that, she told her ex, from 8 years ago, she has feelings for him again

He told me that the last girl he was with destroyed him inside

It isn't enough for her to have hurt me so much

She wants to try again, already

Just to prove to herself that she can fall in love

Because I suggested she had reactive attachment

Its worth it to her to hurt someone else just to prove that

He is a great guy

I could see potential for the two of them

But if that potential exists, and has been on hold for 7 years, it will still exist one more year from now

Why does it have to be now?

There is something wrong with her, and therefor there is something wrong with me for wanting her





She says we both deserve better

I think I deserve better

It pains me to say it, but I don't think she does

You don't deserve good things just for existing

You have to earn them

In the beginning I was just as bad as her

I changed and she didn't

She is too afraid to go to therapy

She says she is proud of me for going

She says for her it just isn't a priority

She told her sister she would go in the summer

The summer is half over

She has not made an appointment





She thinks that this didn't work almost entirely because of my personality

She is probably right that there is something wrong with me, specifically, and that we have deep incompatibilities.

That doesn't mean she doesn't have really serious issues of her own

She says that even if I am right about her having reactive attachment disorder, I still shouldn't have told her





I have opened myself

I am going to counseling

I am talking to friends about things I was unwilling to even think to myself in the past

I allow the world to see how I feel by writing where anyone can see - not only close friends, but anyone who knows me, anyone who stumbles upon my website, business associates, the world.
To my friends I say even more
I listen too
I want to be able to be there for them just as much as they have been for me

I want to learn to feel love for people who aren't my partner

I have ripped into my own chest broken open my ribcage and opened everything

But the tar that coats me inside

Thick and sticky

It does not pour out

It coats all of my insides, everything that makes me alive, everything that makes me who I am

And open, it does not flow



The only time the feeling subsided was when we were together

I was forced to choose to give up the one thing that made me feel ok

I was forced to let go of what was most important to me

I tried to loosen my grip, to meet her part way

She would not move any more than the tar does


I have found meaning in my work which I never experienced before
I have found myself volunteering
I have found myself on a date
I have found myself on the roof in the sunshine, dancing in my house, running 12 miles in one day with no training
I have found solace and understanding where I never expected to find it
Even the person she is thinking of getting involved with next has been a great comfort to me; he kept to himself his own interest when he knew I was hurting, and he chose not to act on it
I do not believe she would have that much integrity in his place
I feel that he, like myself, deserves better than her
And even so, I would take her back, if only she would agree to try
Not just to "let things happen", but to try

I have discovered and acknowledged my own weaknesses, my own fears, and learned what I want out of life 
I have seen my own obsessiveness, my own attachment issues, and begun the process of figuring out how to deal with them
I know I can not be objective, but I still believe what I felt - what I still feel - is real

Despite these things I have found, the pain only subsided when I was near her

I told her I did not want to be friends anymore
We can not be close friends
We can not be activity partners
We can not be casual acquaintances
We can not be anything
Not now
Not ever
I am losing much more than just my wife

I am truly losing a part of my life

And Death hides in the shadows around every corner all day
And Death calls softly to me in the night