From Whence It All Came

I went on a day trip with John Lido skiing. It was ever so way so much fun. I could really get hooked on that expensive little sport. That guy has one of those smiles with eye crinkles and cheeck dimple line things. It's a full facial smile. He is exceedingly nice. I've never met someone so on their best behavior. People who were raised by people with good manners always amaze me. You can tell he had parents who were not asleep at the wheel. Doors were opened for me, I was given the opportunity to select restaurants, and offered company while I waited for things even though I could tell this guy was dying to go skiing. What a thoughtful man. Then he follows up with an email about how he is glad I am his friend. How lovely is that?

I found myself wondering, in a low self esteem moment am I attracting all these really nice straight guys as friends because I have shifted or because they are attracted to kind of intense women? Then I thought of myself as slightly abusive. What the hell? Actually, this is what I am calling to myself, brilliant people of integrity. So that is who I will be having adventures with from now on.

I ended up talking about the last of the Janet residue with him. It's not my fault he is in acupuncture school and just broke up with someone. It's likely to trigger me. I get triggered less and less. I have a lot of triggers around food too I notice. He started playing with the condiments and that sent me. Often when we would slow down and really engage we were eating I guess. It's like she wanted me to be somebody whose thoughts she could control there in the end. Her realization that it would never be that way and I would continue to speak my truth was too much for her. "Bye bye baby bye bye!" There hardly any rancor or upset when I say that compared to a few months ago.

This morning I got to more of my stuff around not trusting men. It's like I have this story about how men will be nice but then they will not take care of you in the end so you might as well pick a slightly crazy woman because then you are not disappointed in the end. They can't take care of you and at least you know it. That is messed up and seriously dissatisfying. Anyway, I did a process on it this am. That is probably why I am so wiped out right now. I used to hang out with all these really handsome, sweet, and well-mannered straight boys in high school. I had the hippie version of them in college and after college, that just sort of disappeared. It's like if I wasn't gonna date them, why keep them around. That's kind of crappy and I really miss that energy.

Current Location: home office
Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: the washing machine spin cycle

I had a really challenging and exciting week at work in which I only lost my cheese once privately, asked for help, got coaching and support, and had a breakthrough. It was playing at a new level and lightening up. When it got hard last week, I was like this is too hard, I want to quit. It was like how I felt about science and advanced math courses in high school. But I got that and moved through it. This is how new stuff is.

I did call man crush. I waited until Thursday to do so, I wanted to do it on Sunday. I got Steven to talk me down then. I felt like a week was reasonable. I got did not get all school girlish and butterflies in the stomach for the first time. This is good cause it is important to pull back from that as he is utterly unavailable. I think he probably has better self-esteem than I because I was ready to have mostly meaningless sex with him and he wasn't going there. Actually, I really wasn't ready. I wanted to be ready. I guess I was ready to think about it, a little with someone who was mostly unavailable. I sort of sabotaged it on the last night he was in town by utterly losing my mind about Janet, but maybe I was dealing with what was really going on with me. When I went to Lexington, she was really what I was dealing with.

John Lido is the best person to talk to about this stuff because he has survived a painful divorce.

I spoke to Janet on the phone about some tax stuff and some when are you going to get rid of the stuff you are storing here stuff. I didn't engage much and I just felt how sad I felt talking to her. She is so much in resistance that she had to blow us up. Goodbye girl. I forgive you and me and I release you. Now I am trying to remember to breathe

Instead of calling man crush day before yesterday I called Steven. He encouraged me to let that one go when I'm ready. If I am honest with myself, he is geographically and emotionally unavailable and a waste of my time.I think he has become a little too much of a distraction. However, he is the last memory I have of being touched or snugged by someone that I like. Last night I woke up at 2:00 in the morning and he was all I could think about mixed in with a bunch of work related anxiety, and I could not get back to sleep. When I did, I had this dream about him that I was like in high school, and he was my slacker hick ass boyfriend who was a loser that I tolerated and everyone rolled their eyes at. I guess I have this fear that I am creating anther Scott Henderson distraction from the real business of having an emotional life. Ball is in man crushes court. I will not call until he calls me. I really do not want another long-distance friend. I have enough of those. What I want are local people who can be there for me.

Carol can't come for my birthday dinner. Remember to invite Ryan and John Lido. I need to make some lesbian friends still. I will join that walking group next week.

I am thinking about going to get some acupuncture for the two sleepless and anxiety ridden nights I've had. However, I think that may be overreacting. I will schedule another massage because I really do need to be touched.

Need to go

Every time I see that fucking baking pan
I think of you
I wonder when I will get the guts
To toss it out of my kitchen
I wonder when the sweet aggravation
The gentle prodding of the wound for seepage
Will loose its interest

I just have to say that I am so deeply disappointed in my ex. She really let me down. Damn, I miss her right now. Making it through my first major holiday without her has made it dawn on me that I am really alone. But frankly, and you know how I am about being frank, I was alone for the last year and large portions of the nine that came before that. What I miss is the friendship we had, and she really checked out. I can't imagine how to relate to her now. I have been downgraded to casual acquaintance, and it really sucks. I don't want to be her casual acquaintance, and I don't have a choice in the matter. What do you do with that? How do you relate to that?

I've been painting my kitchen. My friend Mac told me about these people who painted their healing center and wrote all of this stuff on the walls in paint that they wanted their place to have. I just wrote in pencil between the first coat and the second everything I want to have in my next relationship. The kitchen is in the relationship corner of the house. It felt good. My next partner is going to be a goddess in her own right who isn't looking for me to tell her so or to give her that feeling. I'm going to write goddess on the wall right now.

I have been feeling good all week. Today is the first time I cried in a week. I new it was coming when I bought a pack of cigarettes last night. Just because I am feeling good does not mean I can stop taking care of myself. I have to remember to meditate no matter what so that when I have feelings, there is room for them to come up in ways that are healthy, off to the meditation center in the morning.

Fall

Madness is not the same as mad-ness.
Until this moment,
the two
were stacked delicately and terribly
upon each other in my mind,
like a lovely dirge,
an ode to fear and self-loathing.

The little deaths have been piling up
in a mass grave of self-recrimination
For being.
Decay has always been an attractive force,
The sweet intimacy of shredding.
And in that pile of mulch,
germination.

Current Location: home office
Current Music: "Dark Road" by Annie Lennox

Hello,

I went out last night and ejoyed myself in an ahhh sort of straight up way that I have not in a long time. I went with my good friend Carol to a party for some guy from her work. I got there and it turns out my next door neighbor is dating this guy. I have lived in Durham long enough for there to be small world connections. I like that. It makes me feel like I am at home. I can go out by myself now to the movies or swing dancing and run into people I know and then have spontaneous socializing in this way.

This was probably the friendliest party I have ever been to. Before I could introduce my self to people, they introduced themselves to me. I met this one guy who works for the organization that I had my first job with out of college, in Sarasota, FL. I had forgotten that it was based out of Raleigh. He was this sort of beautiful possibly gay man who owns all three seasons of the old Wonderwoman, one of which he was projecting on the wall of this party. I hope I see him again. I want him to be my friend.

There was much hula hooping and dancing at this party as well and I had good conversations with about five or six people. Usually, I scrunch down with one person or the person I came to the party with and don't reach that much to talk to various and sundry people. Whenever I go out with Carol, it's usually sort of magical and easy like this. She's a very open person. Before the party, we had appetizers and cocktails at this really quality restaurant called George's Garage. We just happened to sit next to this kind of gorgeous woman with whom I made a little small talk. She was checking me out. I haven't been checked out and paying attention to it in a long time.

It was a night for high quality small talk and light hearted fun. I can't remember the last time I was in the mood or had the experience. It's been months. Today I am going to see a play with my friend Nicole. That should also be good. I continue to emerge as a social being from the pit of ouchiness.

Ode to Wonder Woman

Get us out from under. . .
Ourselves.
Our sorrows.
The invisible planes we use to surround ourselves.

Paradise island is a sort of prison
Where perfect women
(in a seventies dream of hotness)
Wear leotards and Robin masks
And compete for their mother's
attention/permission/(dis)approval.

Get us out from under. . .
The shattered glass of old windows
that we use to view our lives.
Spin us in a circle
of satin and gold and legginess.

The WWII episodes are the most surreal
Where the baggage of the past is pasted on
the character actors of the time
like plastic jewels.

Tie us up. . .
with your golden lasso
and spin us out as Wonder Twins
who can no longer choose our shape and form.

Current Location: home office
Current Mood: upbeat
Current Music: passing cars

I just spoke with deserious and got a new aha. She said, in regards to the ex, that when you are the person who is shutting down,you really don't want the other person to see the depth of your own self-loathing. I suppose I have run away from lots of relationships in the past for this very same reason myself. Also, I was not prepared to take it on either. We all have to do our own work and that's how it is.

Current Location: HOme Office
Current Mood: resigned

Hello,

I last posted three months ago. That's about how long it's been since the demise of the 10 year marriage. I so want to say that Janet is an emotional preteen and leave it at that. I guess if I did, it would make me feel better. I could stop replaying it in my mind, because, surprise, surprise, that provides no relief. So, she decided she didn't want to be married anymore with a side order of "Jill you will never be satisfied no matter what I do" as a kick in the gut on the way out. I suppose that there is a kernel of truth in there. I have the ability to see a wealth of options and paths available in a given situation. Then I get excited about some of them. I notice that sometimes this is overwhelming for other people. Also, in the last year or so, I got a lot more in touch with my own emotions and a lot more assertive about expressing them. That probably was overwhelming for someone used to living with an emotional stuffer who had to get sick to deal with the feelings. Hey, this is good stuff right here. Ok. I forget how soothing it can be to write about intense emotion.

Current Location: my office
Current Mood: confused
Current Music: squirrels chattering

Today I am really struggling with what exactly I am going to do with myself career wise. I've had just as much office work as I can stand for the moment. Working here I have gotten in touch with how totally identified some of my self-esteem is with what I do for a living. Not suprising for the child of a workaholic. This reminds me of stuff Deserious used to say in college about I am not my job. That being said, I miss being in education. Currently, I think I am going to keep taking the accounting classes so I have that under my belt, but I have no desire to do that for a living. Algebra and math are ok but they do not seize my imagination like some other things do. It's time to start looking at getting a master's degree in educational leadership. In this state most private schools require you to be state certified and since my credential is an alternative, Montessori one, I'm going to need some beefing up anyway to be marketable. OK now that that's been said, I have some hoops to jump through. I am going to quit this office job by June 1 I think and see where I land.

I went to Florida for a week last week. I was calmer when I got back, but I'll be heading for full on dread of work if I stay here much longer.