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