An ending.

I had dinner with Rachel last night.

It was a celebration.

I took her out to a very nice restaurant around the corner from this apartment I'm hoping to rent, and over desert (which was a warm chocolate brownie covered in peppermint ice cream) I decided to let her know what we were celebrating.

"I went to City Hall this morning..."

She barely paused while reaching for another spoonful of brownie. Then she glanced up. "You filed?"

"Yup."

"So, you took me out to celebrate our divorce?"

"Yup."

I gave her the papers then.

There is a waiver for her to sign so that things go smoothly and the process is accelerated. She seemed happy to handle her end of things. Not surprisingly there wasn't an ounce of sentimentality, remorse, or culpability. She seemed eager, as always, to blame me for everything that had happened. I didn't feel like taking it, though. I called her out; let the anger and hurt take over as I listed out her bad behavior. We walked back to our neighborhood together in silence; going our separate ways with a briefly cold 'goodbye'.

I mourn the loss of my story. And I celebrate a new beginning in my life.

Amends

I thought it was interesting that this morning my mom came to me and offered me her hand, which I took. She smiled and then sat on the chair across from me. "I was just on the phone and someone told me that I should make amends with people who I've hurt." And then she sat there.
And I sat there.
I realized that, although it seemed as though she was apologizing to me, she hadn't. After waiting for a moment I restated for clarification, "So, this was something your friend told you?"
Yes, she said.

A friend pointed out that she may have actually been hinting at having me apologize to her which hadn't even occurred to me at the time.

A practical ending.

I had a sobering realization this morning.

I was thinking about this dark funk I've been going through and realizing viscerally that it is my way of holding on to Rachel.

Most of the time we were together I was feeling like shit about myself. I was filled with self-doubt and recrimination because I was never happy about the way I was with her. But what would happen is that she would always pull me out of that. She would be there for me letting me know she loved me and that I was ok, that things would be ok. She kept us together over the years because she wouldn't give up on the two of us.

Now that she is out of my life I find myself back in those dark sad places where I am beating myself up for not being good enough and I'm reaching out in desperation for consolation that simply isn't there any more. That was what we did. That was how we were together. Now it is time for me to be able to give that to myself. I see now how I have to be strong for me. How letting go of my broken relationship means letting go of my attachment to these negative feelings about myself. How letting go of Rachel also means not looking to others for my sense of self worth. I see that my readiness to give over to these feelings of crapitude are a way of holding on to the brokeness of what we had and a way of reaching out to her.

One of the things I find interesting about this is its practical application. That letting go of that relationship also means letting go of fucked up feelings about myself. I hope this context will help me be clear with myself about how to move forward.

Love to you.

What would I teach if I could chuck wood?

I think I finally figured out why it isn't a good idea to sleep with someone on the first date.

I've never really cared about what people thought of me and I haven't ever thought much of the idea holding off for that purpose. I just figured: if you feel it you feel it. And there was a time when it didn't matter to me; I could give myself to someone very honestly and be able to pull away when I had to without worrying about the consequences. But I don't feel that way anymore and it hurts.

I met a girl. We fucked like porn stars and it was good for a little less than a week. To my eyes she seemed like she would be a perfect partner for me in a lot of ways. I was so thrilled to have someone feel something for me, so excited to feel wanted again after more than a year of loving someone who didn't want me anymore, that I fell for this girl. I found myself thrown into a tail spin as soon as things didn't seem like they were working out. She was dissatisfied with me. I had done something to offend her. She was hostile. The feelings that had me feeling so fantastic were withdrawn in what seemed like and instant and I was falling back down that black hole again. Whirling and spinning into the darkness of self doubt and low self esteem.

I realized that it wasn't my fault I had fallen for this woman despite it becoming crystal clear after just a couple weeks that we weren't right for each other. I had used our physical connection (which was undeniably smokin' hot) as an indication of some kind of deeper bond. It drew together the disparate elements of her life which seemed as though they should, in theory, mark her as someone I would get along great with. But it was a fiction, as I found out. I had fooled myself into believing there was something there when there wasn't and in my love deprived state I was desperate to keep my mouth placed firm and unmoving on that font of sweet nectar. But, as seems to happen always, as we reach out to tighten our grip on that which we think we want, it flies away that much farther that much faster and is gone.

I understand now that in the state I'm in the last thing I need to do is to sleep with someone I barely know just because there is a sexual connection because it is very likely I'll extrapolate from imperfect information and set myself up to be hurt by someone I don't really know. For many, I know, this is self-evident; an understanding that has been commonplace to them for as long as they can remember. But, for me, this is news. It is a revelation and in no small part because I'm not the person I once was. No longer callous and arrogant, but aware of my mortality and vulnerability.

A broken heart hurts. That is all. You may go about your business now.

Just another bad morning.

Yea. Just another bad morning. If I could give myself a lobotomy I would. I fully understand a movie like Eternal Sunshine. If there was some way I could just shut out my memories of her maybe I could feel capable of moving on with my life. Right now I feel emotionally crippled and I don't know what I'm going to do to get over it except work through this. I don't want to feel this way anymore.

An ending.

There is a Brian Eno song called "An Ending" that is part of the soundtrack to the brilliant zombie movie 28 Days Later.

The protagonists walk across a devastated post-apocalyptic landscape while Eno's synth howls and wails in a broad echoing embrace. There is no real hope for the future and little that surrounds them they can count on for help.

I imagined Rachel and I together in that place. We would survive even through to the end of the world, still holding on to each other when everything else fell away.

I find it somewhat sad and ironic now when I think of that world as a metaphor for what our relationship had become. It was not something that had happened to us and which we transcended through our faith in each other, but an empty lifeless world we had created for our selves. It was an unsustaining and unsustainable tableau which cried through the sound of Brian Eno's music; mourning the remains of a love that never had the chance to bloom before it disintegrated into a mockery of itself.

Of course, the movie does have a happy ending; so I suppose there is always hope.

believe.

"I miss you."

"You can't say that I'm hardening my heart against you."

That was the first time I had heard from her in almost a week. I've been getting a lot of reflection from my friends helping me to see how fucked up things have become with Rachel. Trying to convince myself that she has treated me poorly and will continue to. But I still believe there is something there worth saving. I don't know how to explain it. I may be completely wrong. I probably am. But I still believe. I tried to fight that belief.

I made the assumption that she was calling just because she was lonely and not because she wanted to be with me. So I lashed out and told her I wouldn't let her break my heart again. Then topped it off today by telling her I wanted her to file for divorce.

But here is the thing. I don't want her to.

She was mad. She wrote that I should hire a lawyer. I had to call. I wanted to know if she was planning on suing me. I suppose I could have just let it go. She was upset with me. She had missed me, thought about coming back to me. My freaking out on her had turned her feelings around. Now she wanted to be done with me. We talked for an hour while I tried to calm her down. We agreed to see each other tomorrow.

There was a lot in that conversation that should convince me to leave it be. A lot. But I've never been so sure of the way I feel about someone. I do believe that what we have will work if we just give it a chance. It sounds strange, but I feel like in 6 years we never really gave it a chance. I saw things over this past 6 months that has convinced me there is something special we have together. I believe if I can just get Rachel to let it show itself to her this is going to work well. Really well.

I may be dreaming. I think most of the people I know who know about this think I am a fool and need to start taking care of myself by walking away from her. But I am stubborn. I think we have something really beautiful to share with each other.

Vicky told me that you bring to yourself what you offer the world. When I offered Rachel divorce and rejection it was what I received. I don't want either of those things. So I propose to offer love and acceptance and pray it comes back to me.

Not all bad.

So, I am fucked, there's no way around that. But, I don't want to be completely gloomy about where I'm at. The truth is that my friends have been wonderful to me throughout this entire nightmare and I owe them heaps of gratitude for their generosity.

A few days ago I had dinner with Chris and Nat and Tin tin and that was just wonderful. Those guys were really sweet and supportive and I love their little 2 yo. The next day Nat was cool with me just hanging out and was super hospitable. It was warm and gracious.

Gordon and Kathy have been outstanding and continued to be so giving with their time and their house. They've been a life saver, giving me a place to go when I felt as though if I stayed at Bub's I was going to lose my mind.

Of course there is Mike and his offer to let me stay at his place until I get up on my feet again.

There have been too many more incidents of friendship and kindness to begin to try to lay them all out, but the truth is that my friends have made this horrible time at least something I can live through. Their love and support will make the transition back to my life faster and less difficult, I'm sure. Despite the nightmares and the sadness of loss there is still plenty for me to be grateful for.

easing out.

Yea, I don't know who you are, but if you know me and you're tired of hearing about Rachel I suggest you don't bother reading this for a while. It seems like every time I wake up in the morning I'm realizing something else about what happened over the past 6 years. Mostly what I'm realizing is just how fucked up it really was.


This morning it was a couple things. I have been going back and looking at archived chats between Rachel and I from years ago. I don't know why, I suppose that since I can't talk to her, I wanted to see what it was like when we did talk. What I read made me sad.

I saw in our chats just how fucked up things had been from the very beginning. Only 2 years into it and I had already fucked around on her and fallen for another girl. One of the first chats that I found was one where she was asking me to stop blogging on MySpace about our relationship. My response was insensitive and inconsiderate. "Take it or leave it" I said, essentially. "If you don't like it leave" It was so dismissive. I was saddened to read the attitude that I took towards her, knowing how I feel now and realizing that my feelings of love were there then too, but I was unwilling to allow myself to be aware of them. I was too guilty over how I had behaved. I was ashamed of myself and I think I took it out on her.

I feel like taking me for granted and treating me dismissively is pretty much exactly what I would expect from Rachel at this point after years of being on the receiving end from me. We were dialoguing like that in 06. I started to think about it; all those years of guilt and insecurity. There was almost no time where we were happy. Where we functioned like you would hope people who loved each other functioned. Its been a year since she's been having her affairs. Pretty much the entire time we were living together.

It is so sad and funny to me. I remember living in that house with her and being surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I hadn't expected to. I loved being able to come home to a place and know she would be there. But even then it was obvious that something wasn't right. She wasn't liking it. I remember at one point when she expressed discomfort at me being in the room with her. We joked about it a little. Now I see that it wasn't funny. She had been with the first of her affairs at that point. She was still involved with him. They had maintained a relationship online. So was it really a surprise that she wasn't really there? We moved into the apartment in the middle of February. In March she went to NYC where she fucked that guy. In October she was in France and by January she was moved out. I'm devastated to think about it, to think about how clueless I was.

But seriously, how could I have possibly imagined it would have gone any other way? When I am reminded of the way that I treated her while we were together and in addition to that I remember what she told me about the way she felt after my philly affair, I have a hard time understanding how we stayed together as long as we did. She was so alienated from me after the affair and the intimacy never returned. How is it any wonder that when she was reintroduced to passion and the excitement that comes from discovering someone new she would want to chase after it? Free from the fetid history we shared? Thrilled to the touch of someone she could really be in love with? It couldn't have happened any other way.

Mind you, that doesn't mean it was ok that she treated me like shit, but it does make it understandable. What I find so sad is simply that she led me on for half a year. Of course, all the signs were there that I should have run away screaming. But it would take a few more months before it became so obvious I could see it even in my dream. I'm sad.

razor blades

I know I need to move on from Rachel, but I can't stop thinking about her. I can't stop thinking about the horrible things that she said to me. Things that you should never say to someone you care about. There are things you can say to someone that are like razorblades digging deep into your flesh. She said many of those things to me.

One thing she told me, at the very end, was that she had tried to get pregnant with Frenchie. It is incredible that when you think you have been brought so low you can't go any further, that your heart can be broken even more. My heart felt so shattered to that point, but when I heard that I was taken to new limits of pain.

She had given herself over to this man so completely that she wanted to have a kid with him. I had felt as though she had abandoned me already, knowing what I had already, but now I understand that she is still in love with him. That is what this has been about. She wont admit it to me. She says she is over him, but I know better. I was shut out of her heart. I had probably been shut out long long before that, but till now, absurd as it seems, I had still held on to the belief that there was some hope of her returning to me.

But how do you come back from something like that? The thought gouges me, rends my flesh, severs my muscle, obliterates my sense of self. To know that she wanted him so much she was willing to have his child. To know that she was so ready to shut me out forever from her life. I have to bear this burden. I have to move forward in my life with this weight. I don't know how. I don't know how to love someone with all my heart and know they've done this. I just have to. There isn't another option.

hiding

I noticed Rachel's blog title in my list of blogs I follow in the left column of this page. Back in December when things first exploded in my face she pretty quickly locked it down so that only people she authorized could read it. I was shut out of her life in every way, the blog was just a metaphor for what was going on in the real world, but I remember how much it hurt to know I was no longer a party to her life her thoughts.

Like so much of what has happened between the two of us over the past year her treatment of me reflects something that I did to her in the past. She and I were in Thailand visiting my friend Maeve and while we were all sitting around at a restaurant in the arab quarter I mentioned that I had a blog I was writing. She became very upset with me that I didn't want her to read it. At the time I thought it was ridiculous for her to be so insistent and to get as upset as she did. Why couldn't she just see that I wanted my privacy? Years before she had read something I wrote on my MySpace blog that had devastated her and I just didn't want to run the risk of that happening again. I thought I was doing it for her.

But I see now. I see what it was that she felt. I know now why it hurt her and how she just wanted to be more a part of my life. It was a way for her to know me, to be with me in a way. It felt like being shut out. It felt like worry; that there were things going on with me she shouldn't see. How can you build intimacy with someone if you act to undermine trust? It can't work. There were so many of these little things that happened over the course of our time together, like termites boring through the foundation of a house so that it seemed fine until it collapsed in on itself.

I am sorry I hid my blog from her.

Men's group

My Uncle Steve took me to a Men's group last night.

It was an interesting experience for me. The men were my age and older. They all seemed to be accomplished. They all seemed to have children and businesses. Their own businesses. I didn't feel intimidated by them, I felt the falling away of the years of opportunity I squandered. I tried to find my value, see what my contribution could be. What was it that made me unique to be there. I couldn't find it.

The mornings are the worst.

I can't remember them, but I think I must have bad dreams pretty much every night because I can't sleep very well. Once I wake up I start in on thoughts about Rachel. They're never good. It has been this way since the beginning of the year.

Today I'm trying to convince myself that there wasn't ever anything there, that I really just made all this shit up and I'm not losing anything by not having her in my life anymore. I guess it should make this easier, but it just feels like thinking that way is making me colder.

But maybe I'm just shutting down emotionally because there isn't anything else to do. I've been so brutalized for so long I need to shut down to keep myself from being hurt over and over and over again.

Regardless, I have to start taking care of myself. I am really. It isn't accurate to say I haven't been. I think I just look at the big picture when I say something like that. That chasing after Rachel and not setting myself up in a career are ways I haven't taken care of myself. Now it is time for me to take care of myself in the sense that I have to get my life back on a positive trajectory where I can build on self esteem and confidence and start to depend on myself again.

In the interim I'm taking care of myself though. I'm trying to do some physical activity, I'm trying to spend time with friends. I'm not isolated at Bub's for the most part. That would certainly make me crazy. But I'm taking small steps towards recovery.

I feel depressed today though; closed off from myself and lacking motivation. I'm going to be ok though.

waiting

Her stuff sits in the corner
piled on itself
like it is looking out the window
waiting for her
"she'll be here," I want to tell it
to take you away
and leave me behind
maybe if I put the lampshade on
and sat there quiet
I could fool her
into taking me back

Reading a book

Every day I feel like I realize something new about what happened over the past 5 years. It is like I'm reading a book from start to finish. My relationship with Rachel gets clearer and clearer every day. Today I found out she had blocked me out of FB. But I didn't cry this morning. I was sad. And I was thinking a lot about her. But I didn't break down. That is a good thing. I know I'm going to be ok. Thanks to my friends for helping me get there.

It is time for me to move on, but I can't

I just had the idea to check out Rachel's blog. I thought I would check in on her to find out what she was thinking, since she isn't talking to me anymore. But she has protected her blogs. only people who are invited are allowed in. She's shut me out everywhere. But the only place that matters is her heart. And I believe it is there from which I have been truly excluded.

My survival instinct is beginning to kick in. I'm starting to realize this longing is just beating my head against a wall. I need to take care of myself. I know that. But, I am not willing to let her go. I told her today I will wear my wedding ring until I receive the divorce papers. I just want to feel strong again. I want to be me again.