the morning after

"Tomorrow is another day" indeed.

Yesterday seemed to stretch out like warm taffy...on and on it went no matter how thin.

I couldn't sleep but 2 episodes of "Downton Abbey" helped get me through the night.

There was an hour or so in the evening where I felt panicky and unattached to life.  I couldn't figure out why I bother  to get up each day.  I don't fit in.  I am getting older. I ache.  I don't have a close friend to confide in.  What have I done?

 I have to end every relationship, every one of them in the past 2 years, including ending a 23 year old marriage.

Intellectually these endings makes sense to me, I entered into relationships as a dotted-line person, bendable and editing my voice to make it palpable to others.  I didn't want to stand out, I wanted to be liked, cared for, to be loved.

I suppose there are relationships that can expand and stretch, allowing for change and growth but my relationships could not.    I could not.  They could not.

I could have hung in there but  I don't want to.  I don't want to witness children acting out because their parents are ignoring them or drinking or both.  I don't want to smile when I feel sad about couples who pretend to be happily married, but I know what's going on at home.  I don't want to act interested in hearing the same old stale stories.

Someone like me, maybe we always end up alone.  I never realized that how I live my life is so far from common.   I ask the hard questions, I pull back the curtain, I hold myself responsible for who I am and being a part of this universe.

I don't have a choice, this is how I think, this is what I see, this is how I breath, how I walk.

I don't want to be like anyone I know, but I very much want to meet someone like me.  Gee that sounds   horrible, so full of myself but I don't mean it that way.  Perhaps we all seek someone like ourselves, is that so wrong?  I've never come close to achieving this because I was never clear on who I am.

I keep going over what I did and said yesterday, wanting to make it my fault.   I wrote 2 draft emails last night, one saying this was all my fault and I was sorry to have caused any pain.  The other was humorous, writing out what I thought they were thinking of me ("pain in the ass, etc.) and how they should not give me a 2nd thought and seek out easy going friends for now on.

I didn't send either of them.  Sometimes doing nothing is the best move. I am doing everything different these days.  Staying silent is nerve-wracking but necessary.  I said my bit, now let it be, give them space.

 I didn't like the feeling that I had stirred up the waters.  I am dealing with people who go to great lengths to keep the surface of the waters calm, still, so no one looks too deeply.

"Who am I to tell them how I feel and what I think?"  This keeps coming up in my mind, pounding away with a punishing tone.

Who am I NOT to tell them how I feel and what I think?   I would be who I was if I did that and I don't want to do that or be her anymore.

So I ended up alone, my big fear.  It's true.

When I came back from Italy I was driven to clean the house, organize and only keep what was needed.  I just realized that I have done the same thing with people in my life.

I am dealing with a clean slate now.  Stripped of everything I leaned on, hid behind, and used as protection, I sit here knowing it's gone.

The universe is a funny place, in the midst of all this yesterday I received a phone call a women's health center to interview for teaching a class in the spring, a woman who I like emailed to meet for lunch, and next week I start teaching my course on mythology.  There is new energy flowing in as well, I need to see more than just loss these days.

Alone, yes.

Beginning...yes that too.