another day

I don't know where I'm supposed to go from here.

My son is at school, safe and happy.

My niece is at school, doing whatever she's doing.  And whatever that is, it is not my problem or responsibility any more.  Maybe one day she'll grow up a little, but I have to step back from all of that until (if?) that happens.

My husband is dead.

And I am sitting here by myself. 

In the mornings, I love being alone.  At night, I hate it. 

Everything seems like an effort that I can't make.  I could finish this sweater, and I'd be happier knitting... but I'd have to figure out how to pick up the button band.  And find the right needles.  Or remember where I left off on the tank top.  Or find something to string the beads for the new project.  Or wind yarn.  All of those things seem like something that I can't do.  I'm just marking time until I can go to bed. 

Nights are bad.

This is when I miss Michael the most, when the memories close in, when my own aloneness closes in, and all I'm doing is marking time.

I should be doing things to occupy myself... I managed this last night pretty well, tonight, not so much.

I don't know how to turn this around, make this different.  I should be working... I forgot all about the fact that I should be working on this test bank and so forth.  Maybe that can be the weekend.  I want to pick up a book and some junk food and turn my head off.  But I can't even do that any more.  I've worked so hard to get this little bit of weight off, and I can't sabotage that. 

But all the time, I think about being with someone else.  I don't want that.  I don't want to want it. 

Letters to Michael, 2

I can't believe that you left me with this, all of this giant mess that I have no idea how to deal with, and just life in general, and after tomorrow, I'll be alone.  Alone rattling around in this house that is too big for me to deal with, trying to reconstruct my life.

And I know it's not constructive, but I blame you, on nights like this, when all the alone seems like too much.  It's hard not to sift through the rubble of the last years, of the last decade, to look at the shattered pieces in my hands and wonder where it all went wrong.

There aren't any answers to that.  Not even fault, in a way, except maybe for the fact that you could never step back from that cliff, never stop dipping your toes into that dark channel, and so as everything got harder and harder, it was the only thing that you could focus on.

Of course I should have seen.  But to what point?

So many days I can walk on by, keep passing the open windows... but it's been harder lately.  So much of the time, all I can feel is the sad and alone.  And the bitter anger that does no one any good. At the end of it, all that's left is missing you.

Weirdness

I sat at Tim's last night, and yeah, I'd had too much smoke and drink and not enough food, and I was more than a little out of it, unwise.  But in addition to the claustrophobic, paranoid feelings, which stay with me a bit today, all I could think is, "Michael is dead.  Michael is dead, and I just got out of bed the next day and went on, and I have kept doing this."

And I have.  As with every other thing in my life, I've picked up and gone on, without missing a beat.  Sure, there are things that I haven't done.  But at the end of the day, Michael is dead, and I am here, and life has gone on, and how has this happened?

Sometimes I wonder if anything that I feel is real.  I feel like I can't stay in my own skin today, like I can't breathe, and it's only getting worse.

Letters to Michael

I miss you.

I loved you.  It's so easy to forget that, because of the way that things were the last months.  I hope you knew that.  I hope that you could see me, and remember what you said about standing in the train station after your mother's death and feeling free, the weight of it all lifted from your shoulders.  I hope that you remember how it was with your mother, how you said in the end that it was her or you, and that when she understood, finally understood that... that was the end. 

I don't want to put it that way, because I don't want to draw those parallels.  I never did.  But it was the same in so many ways, the disease, the obligation, the mental illness, the grinding wearing days.  Knowing that whatever you do it not enough.  Trying to keep your head above water.

Except that I'm stronger that you, and I always was, and I am going to survive this. 

It's not a contest that I ever wanted to win.  I believed, right up to those last months, that there would be a future in which we sat on the front porch in rocking chairs and made chicken noises. 

And then I stopped believing.  And I started fighting, and I let you go.  It's the truth.  I could not have done anything different, but it still true that I let you go.  And that makes me so sad, because neither of us deserved any of this.  And I wish that it could have been somehow different.  I remember standing with my arms around you as you sat on the side of the bed and cried.  I would go back there in a heartbeat and hold you even tighter.

I never stopped loving you, even when I couldn't.  I know that makes no sense, but it's still true.

So many hopes and dreams and plans that never came true.  So much in the wonderful person that you were... when you could be that person.

I miss you so much. I would not go back, for either of our sakes.  But I don't think that there will be a moment of my life when I don't miss you in some way.

Just stop

I was doing ok today, even with everything, even with sitting around for hours in B&N waiting for things that didn't happen and beating myself up about how stupid I'm being.  Read a good article about surviving trauma, thought about it a lot, positive.  Even with the constant feeling of being on the edge of tears, I was still ok.

And then I started working on the Toshiba laptop, and there they were.  All the history, all the bookmarks.  Suicide sites.  How to buy helium in balloon kits.  Everything.  I thought it was gone, thought I'd cleared all that out before.  And there it is again.

I want to know when these things will stop hitting me.  When will I stop finding landmines?  When will a picture of an English landscape or someone saying a few words of Greek not pierce my heart?  I am not trying to dwell.  In fact, the opposite... I am trying to be present, trying not to think about these things, associate these things.  But this fine edge of grief is stabbing at my heart all the time.

Michael... I miss you.  I don't miss all the horrors, and I don't know if I can ever stop being angry, pointless though it is.  Or heartbroken.  But there is so much I miss about you, and I just miss my companion, my friend.  So much past.  So, so much past.

It is not the present.  There is no point in thinking about how it was, because it has nothing to do with now.  Now is just now.  I can't live with the memories; they will kill me.  But how to I move on?

There's nothing for me right now, just the motions of going through this life.  Nothing that makes me happy, not that I can have right now anyway.  I want something new, need it desperately.  But that new thing... all I know to look for is a person, and that's the wrong thing right now.  Just the wrong thing, and I know it.  Too needy, too desperate.  Sometimes I think that I can see how to move past that... but then it all vanishes, smoke and mirrors and more heartbreak.

Too much empty time

I don't have any idea what to do with myself.

It's not that I don't have things to do.  Things that I should do, things that possibly I would like to do... a lot of things that just need to be done.  And it's not even that I can't concentrate, because the meds have helped.

I just don't have any interest in doing any of it.  It's the first time in years that my life hasn't been so full that there were no choices at all.  And for a while there, I loved that.   I loved the absence of constant demands.  I love the ability to get up in the morning and just be quiet.  I love putting music on... putting things where I want... things staying picked up... not worrying about things being on the floor.  All the practical stuff.

But I miss... something.  I miss Michael, the old Michael... sort of, although in truth I miss the good things, lying in bed at night and playing Scrabble and laughing, making snacks at 2 a.m., talking about things, driving... I miss the old days in England.  I miss the things that we never did once we were in the U.S., sitting next to each other on the couch and falling asleep, lying in bed and watching storms through the window.  And planning a future.

And it's more that than anything else.  It all seems pointless without someone else.  I've been so lonely, and it seems for so long, since Michael got sick to begin with and everything changed.  Nothing compensates for that loss of a life partner.  I don't know if I will ever have that again.  I don't know how to find someone like that anymore... where to even look.  It's too soon, and I know it, but I can't stand the drifting loneliness, the lack of grounding.  The moments with other people these days only seem to highlight it.  I could make this work as is with just a little input, a little structure, but this on-again, off-again stuff with Tim is not that, and there's nothing to fill the gap, just a flirtation that is foolish for both of us and only highlights my aloneness.

I hate it, and I don't know how to get on some different path.  I can do things that distract me from this, but it's a temporary thing, and they are probably not good in the long run.  And it's only going to get worse when Jonathan goes to school in a couple of weeks.

What do I do next?

My own fault

It is my fault that I've had too many drinks on an empty stomach, and that's making me sad and maudlin, and that's spurring all the rest of it.

My fault that I want to be with someone else too much.  That I let myself fall into how great it feels to just enjoy someone else's company.  To feel wanted, for whatever reason.  To get lost in the only thing that really makes my head shut up these days.  That I barely even care who that other person is, as long as I can get that distraction fix.

My fault for getting involved in an impossible friendship with someone who I want to just be quiet and make my head stop spinning.  And that there's this huge physical attraction for me, but that I can't even talk to him about what his side of it might be.  So I'm feeling all rejected because he doesn't want to be with me this weekend.  Yes, he's on call.  But he made that work before.  And he didn't text me... I texted him, apparently so he could turn me down.  And I don't know what the hell I expect or why I am being so butthurt.  I obviously don't expect that he will always (or, I guess, ever) just drop everything or have nothing going on in his life just because I want him.  (But you know what?  I think I'm done with this, super attraction or not.  Tonight's awkward texting, especially after the bat incident, means that the ball is in his court here, and I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to come back.)

And my fault, too, for starting to care more than a little about someone who isn't free to care about me, even though he wants to and he does.  It's another road to heartbreak, for both of us, and I know it even if he doesn't.  I resent that he wants to pull me down this road, and that I apparently don't have enough will to step away from it.  Because that lure of attention and caring... it's the only thing that pulls me right now. 

I was right to begin with when I said, no one for at least a year.  I know that with absolute certainty.  But I opened Pandora's box, and all this crap has flown out, and I can't shut the lid.

And everything I touch these days reminds me of Michael and how sad I am.  I don't know what to do.  I thought I could be alone, and I can, but it is so much better with someone else.  Just to be with.  My fault for feeling this way, for not just being able to sink my head into something else and move on.  My fault.

And bitterness

It's so hard not to be bitter.

Yesterday, I did a cull of the old photo albums, from before I came here, before Jonathan was born.  Back in the day when my first marriage was relatively happy (including the wedding pictures), when I was in grad school, when I was hopeful and everything seemed ahead of me.

Joe referred to this part of life as "on the back nine" today, and I feel like it's been a crappy game, and how much can you do in those last nine holes?  I look at the faces in these pictures... so many people who are dead now, my mother, my best friend's parents, my uncle... others too, I'm sure.  And my grad school buddies, who I thought would be my friends forever... there is exactly one of them who I know where is really, and I am in touch with none of them. 

It's pointless to look at these things, and I threw most of them away.  I don't think that I want to revisit much of this.  I'll scan the handful of pics that I saved at some point.  But I can't help but think, too, of the handful of pictures that Michael left behind.  There's no one to pass those pictures on to, no one who will care.  I don't even want to look at them, because like everything else, they make me angry or sad.  All about tragedy, and that young boy who I wanted to save, the pure loving heart trapped inside all of the illness and crap.

I can't bear the sadness tonight.  There's nothing to diffuse it. 

Heartbreak

I think that I'm over this, that the worst of the devastating pain is past.  And then things hit me, sharp and intense, and it's all fresh again, fresh as that night.

I was going through papers.  I thought that I'd been through all the visa papers, but of course not.  There was a whole additional folder, Michael's birth certificate... all the things we so carefully organized... everything from those days.  The transfer of deed to this house to both of our names.  All of the things that were bright and shiny and hopeful six years ago. 

And I just want to say...
I forget sometimes how much I loved you, and how angry I am at you, and how sad.  I think that I can do things that keep the core of that connection between us, like wearing your ring.  And it feels right for a while, but then it's this again, the pain and the horror and the anger.  I loved you.  I didn't do everything right those last months, but I never stopped loving you, not really.  I was just so desperate, and I couldn't breathe, and I didn't want to drown.  I would give anything to make you understand these things... not to bring you back, not to go back to an impossible past, but to make you understand, to wrap you in that love, to say goodbye properly.  Except that's the problem.  I couldn't say goodbye to you; I couldn't stay so close and still let you go. 

These games I play with other people are just that.  They're the diversion from the real thing, and the real thing is this endless pain.  The real thing has always been you.

Adderal Day One

I just want to note this here, so I have a reminder.

And ugh, I feel like shit, although I don't think it's the drug per se; I think that it's pushing myself and doing things that I don't want to do, and the awfulness that results from anything that still has Michael's name on it, and trying to talk to people about it.  I fall apart every fucking time. EVERY time.

I think that I'm over this stuff, that it's "better" now.  And in a way, it is... I am feeling myself come back, if that makes sense.  But with that, so much sense of loss, of me, of the time, of the good parts of Michael.  All of it is heartbreaking, in the most literal sense.

I would not be who I am today without this, and except for the deep, bitter scars, who I am is not so bad.  Pretty damn good.  But it's a hell of a price to pay.

I want to be diverted, to do something that makes me feel crazy happy.  But I don't feel like I can just call Tim, and he's my crazy happy thing.  All the rest of it is just crazy.

Closer to free

There's this person who I am in my heart, and she is amazing and free and beautiful and confident and so many other things,  And sometimes I can almost touch her.  I could yesterday at the gym, when I was on the elliptical, and the music was cranked,, and I was unstoppable. 

But then there are the moments when I know I'm nowhere near her.  Like now, when I'm checking and rechecking email because I haven't heard from someone who really shouldn't be emailing me anyway.  I am being squirrely about a friendship that I don't even care about.  If it vanished tomorrow, I'd be probably a little put out, but mostly relieved.  It's diversion, diversion from my head, diversion from attaching myself to Tim (or anyone else).  But yet I see myself in the mire of wanting and waiting and all the things that keep me from free, keep me from being that person I can see in my head.

It's time to get the hell off the computer and go to the gym.

Breathing

I wake up with a guy in my bed... I talk to Impossible Guy who I like on the phone... and I think, for a moment, maybe I would like to have a relationship again.  A real relationship, not one with someone who is impossible for one reason or another.  Someone to wake up with and go to bed with, someone to plan with, someone to share with.

And then something happens, and I remember things like panicking because I left my phone at home, and I couldn't be contacted.  Rushing home from the little fair that my niece and I went to last summer because Michael was freaking out about something.  Always worrying that something was in the way, on the floor, somewhere he might step and trip.  Being worried all the time about his displeasure.

Until I stopped worrying about it.  And he thought I'd changed, and maybe I had, but really, I'd just reached the end of my rope.  The fine thing strands of fiber, and I couldn't do it any more, simply couldn't.  I'd give so much to be able to wrap my arms around him again and really explain it, instead of the stupid shouting.  But he couldn't understand, wouldn't understand, whatever.  I wish that he had not been so sad.  I wish that he could have understood.  I wish that he could know how much I loved him, still love him, will always love him.

But I think about it, and I can't breathe.  I think about anyone living with me, and I can't breathe.  I think about having to be accountable to anyone, and I can't breathe.

I might want someone else, might want that desperately, might hate the idea of alone forever.  But it would take a hell of  a lot to be able to make any different choice.  I think I've only hit the tip of the iceberg of how much damage there is.

On a tangent note... tonight I kissed someone who was Not Tim.  It was ok.  It had potential.  But it made me realize that the attraction to Tim isn't just OMG sex.  There's a real chemistry there that's amazing and powerful.  Which is a little scary, really, because I still say all the same things.  This is not a long-term guy.  But... well, he sure as hell is something else.  For the moment. 

Thinking

Tim was here last night.  Very much wine, and very little sleep.  Also a lot of sitting outside and talking while he smoked.  The smoking thing is annoying.  The trouble is, I like this guy so much, but what I like is more about me than him.  I like having the company.  I like the way he feels next to me.  I like the obvious attraction between us.  But I do not like a lot of the intrinsic stuff about who he is.  His life is about smoke and drink and getting up and going to work the next day.  And there's nothing wrong with that in general, but there's a lot wrong for someone who I want to care about.

Not that I want to care.  More that I want to be cared about, and I'm not sure that he's great at that, either.  Part of my wants to be loved so badly, needed, cared about.  And I'm being offered that elsewhere, probably, but that this is conditional, on the side, on limited terms.  Which might be exactly what I want for now.  But as the basis for what the rest of my life looks like?  I don't know. 

And I think that's truly what I'm looking for, some idea of the shape of forever.  I don't think that I can have that, truly.  Impermanence.  I don't think that there's a cookie-cutter than I can fit myself into that is going to show me... whatever.  The future shape of Nina.  How these things will fit in.  Tim.  Tim and time, something like that.  Tim and time, and my other friend who is more and less of what I want, all at the same time.  And the part of me that wants desperately to be in a committed relationship, because there is that part, however much I'd like to pretend otherwise.  And the part of me that would run a million miles from the possibility.

I just want something so much today.  Some of it is to show off, I think, to say, look at me, I can drink and smoke and fuck like a teenager.  Still.  There's a part of me that recognizes the Nina of many years ago, and wants to be that person, but happier and freer.  There's a part of me who is not that person at all any more.  Someone bruised and damaged who needs love and caring in a sad and desperate way.  And I'm not sure how to get either of us, an of us, what we want.

I am not sure who I am, without Michael.  It's not that I need him to be me, but for so long, he was the center of my life, my best friend, my husband, the gravitational pull that kept me in orbit.  An unstable orbit, as it turns out, but still, an orbit.  I miss him, in a way.  And not, in other ways.  But on a day like this... and on a night like yesterday... I feel his absence acutely.

Things I am saying here so I don't say them elsewhere

"I'm happy that you're coming."

"I think about you a lot, in a happy kind of way."

"This texting thing is making me anxious and teenager-like."

"I don't want to be involved with you, but I'd like to figure out the boundaries of friends.  I'd like to have our lives a little more comfy and connected so I know where I stand, even though in some sense, it doesn't matter all that much to me."

"Because it does a little."

"Although honestly, it's mostly that you're great in bed, and there was a point where I never thought I'd have a sex life again."

The Feeling

I'm sitting here this morning listening to music, unusual enough.  And listening to The Feeling, the band I discovered in a taxi the last time I came home from England alone.  March of 2006, I think. This album hadn't even been released yet, just the EP.  And I listened hard, and wrote the name down, and found it.  I love this album so much.

And I love sitting here by myself and drinking my tea, and it's quiet and semi-clean.  I'm getting things done, and I'm thinking some happy thoughts about Tim and the weekend, and things seem, if not ok, just for this moment manageable. 

But listening to this music... I want so badly to be able to take everything that's happened and put it in place, sort it neatly into a file.  I was so happy sitting in that taxi.  We'd gone to London to the US Embassy to deal with the paperwork and visa interview, and although hideously hard for Michael, we did it, and everything was clear to go.  I'd come back in a month to fly back with him, and then we'd be married.

I wish I could freeze time right there. 

We were happy and eager and everything was falling into place.  It was all going to work, everything we'd seen through to that point, the visa and the packing and sale of the house, and just getting Michael to move on...  all of it.  He was going to come here, and he was going to love Jonathan, and we were going to live happily ever after.  And get well.

It seemed like everything went wrong from the first night in America.  That's a little bit of an exaggeration; there were some damn good times.  But that night, when everything went wrong at the airport, and then I spent 7 hours driving a sullen, miserable person up here... it was like the emblem for everything that would come after; him not being able to control his temper/whatever, and me trying to appease him and coax him out of the sullens.  I wish I'd never done that, not even once.  I wish that when we had that huge fight about whatever it was, and he locked himself in the bedroom and said he was going back... I wish that I'd just let that play out.  I have this idea that it would have changed the dynamics of everything, for better or for worse.

Oh, Michael. We could have been so happy... maybe.  I don't absolve myself of blame, but you know, I'm not hard.  You just throw a little love at me and keep things peaceful, and I'm pretty ok.  I loved you, maybe not in all the ways that we needed, but I loved you for so long and so hard.  And I miss you, although I can't allow myself to think of missing you, of the ways that things were once.  The only shred of that which I'm allowed to remember is lying in bed at night holding your hand.  Just that.

But anyway.  But anyway, I want to put it all in a file box and sort it out and label it all so I know what it means.  And then I want to listen to this music and dance alone and not cry.