I can't even believe how long it's been since my last post...honestly, when I saw that the date was March 20, I felt slightly ashamed. The truth is that I have felt like writing about many things on many different occasions, but for one reason or another, I've not actually followed through with it. Today, though, I think I will.
I'm in Augusta right now and I spent all day yesterday just hanging out with my brothers. It was a neat experience because it's been so damn long since I've really gotten to spend some quality time with them, and on some level, I felt like we reconnected. It was also very strange because it brought up a lot of questions in my head about who I am and where I come from. My brothers share this bond that they have found in music, and I am sort of the outsider with them. I also feel like on so many occasions I am pulled in different directions and that often, I'm not sure if anyone really knows me, or worse, if I even know myself. I guess the good thing is that the only person I feel normal around is H. He makes me feel so happy to be me and more like me than anyone else I've ever met, but then, like a moron, I get away from him and I start to wonder who I really am.
I mean, I have this crazy mix of stuff in my life and it's translated into so many different things in my personality. And now, as I get older, I start to wonder where I am going or why I am going there, or if I am even doing the right thing with my decisions. I know I've made some real decisions, and god knows I would never take those back, but sometimes I just have to think about what things would be like if I had made other decisions. I don't know, it's weird, and maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am getting older and I am starting to look more at the future of my life than at the past, and that is sort of freaking me out. I mean, the miscarriages also have really contributed to this catharsis I've been suffering from. I thought I had it all planned out, I thought I knew what I was going to do and what I wanted in life, and then I had those effing miscarriages and it threw a wrench in my entire scheme. I feel like in a lot of ways I don't know what I want anymore, or more, that what I want changes day to day, and I just keep waiting for the moment that it will all come into focus.
Only it's never coming into focus.
I can't figure it out...I'm happier now than I have ever been before in my life, but there's this thing missing, this element that I can't seem to find. Maybe it's the babies that I'm missing. I saw Joey and Aleshia's baby for the first time this weekend and it ripped my heart to pieces, I mean it literally brought me to tears. My baby, the first one, would have been almost full term now, and I would be ready to see a little bundle of joy come out of me and change my life forever. I saw how small and fragile that little infant was, and I felt myself almost falling in love with her, and I thought, oh god, I can't even imagine the feeling they're having now watching this baby grow. And then, logically, I felt this twinge deep inside of me, wondering if I would ever get that actual feeling, of watching my own baby, the one who developed in my womb and was birthed from my body, grow and change. I don't know, I really don't. And saying that, I know that that question is something that I need answered soon, and I mean soon. Like honestly, tomorrow will be far too late.
The truth is, I left that baby feeling less like a woman than I've ever felt before. As I held her I felt like there was just this hole in my stomach where that baby should have been, and I literally could feel the emptiness yanking on my heart strings. I left that baby feeling barren...and I'm so effing tired of feeling barren.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
"I'm awake and I feel the ache..."
I have this ridiculous history of living my life by song lyrics, and today, those songs were "breaking my heart". It's so hard to explain how I've been feeling lately, and even more, why I've been feeling like this, but it has to end soon....
The thing is: I constantly feel like I am missing something very important in my life.
I keep searching everywhere, trying to find that missing piece, and I can't locate it. And to be honest, it's starting to freak me out. I'm trying everything, trying to see where it can be, that missing piece. Ever since the miscarriages, I've felt like my life is incomplete, and lately it's been so intense I can't hardly stand it. It breaks my heart.
I feel like I'm going off the deep end, and like if I don't find the missing piece soon, then I might end up someplace where I never intended to be. Maybe that doesn't make any sense, but in my personal inventory, I've gone through every possible thing that could be missing in my life, and here's the biggest problem: I'm starting to fault other people for this missingness. I feel myself spending copious amounts of time thinking about the role H plays in this feeling in my life right now, how he's never home, and how when he is, he's not really emotionally (or physically) available to me.
Thinking that one thought that one time has opened a Pandora's box of illogical thought for me.
I don't even want to admit the things that have been going on through my head. I was talking with a friend recently, and he was going on about what I should do in my life to make things right, and he said to me: you don't want to end up being an old woman looking back on her life thinking "I wish I had done things differently". That has been the elephant in all of my virtual rooms since he said it.
What will I think when I'm old? Suppose I never have children, will I regret being married all that time? Will I regret not spending my time travelling and doing the independant things I wanted to do? Will I be looking at my life thinking that I did it all wrong? What do I do if that happens? Where do I go then? How does that affect my life at this particular moment?
"This is how it works: you're young until you're not. You love until you're done. You try until you can't. You laugh until you cry. You cry until you laugh. And everyone must breathe until their dying breath."
And that's the most painful part, you have to breathe until you die. It can't just end when you feel like it's time...everything just keeps rolling along, and like me now, I feel like I just keep getting farther and farther from whatever or wherever the center might be. And then, that's the other huge problem, where is the center? Where is my center? Why can't I fill in these pieces, move on and just be centered, right in the place I'm supposed to be.
I've gone through some bizarre things in my life, but I've never felt like this before. I feel like I've crossed some unknown and unseen threshhold and like I can't ever return to the me that was me before, or like I, for some reason, have become this other person that is completely out of touch with the me that was there before. I know, it's all psychobabble in a way.
But....is it?
"No this is how it works: you peer inside yourself, you take the things you like and then try to love the things you took. And then you take that love you made, and stick it into someone else's heart, pumping someone's blood. And walking arm in arm, you hope it don't get harmed, but even if it does you just do it all again..."
Like everything in life, you just do it all again. And again. And again. And again.
And again...
The thing is: I constantly feel like I am missing something very important in my life.
I keep searching everywhere, trying to find that missing piece, and I can't locate it. And to be honest, it's starting to freak me out. I'm trying everything, trying to see where it can be, that missing piece. Ever since the miscarriages, I've felt like my life is incomplete, and lately it's been so intense I can't hardly stand it. It breaks my heart.
I feel like I'm going off the deep end, and like if I don't find the missing piece soon, then I might end up someplace where I never intended to be. Maybe that doesn't make any sense, but in my personal inventory, I've gone through every possible thing that could be missing in my life, and here's the biggest problem: I'm starting to fault other people for this missingness. I feel myself spending copious amounts of time thinking about the role H plays in this feeling in my life right now, how he's never home, and how when he is, he's not really emotionally (or physically) available to me.
Thinking that one thought that one time has opened a Pandora's box of illogical thought for me.
I don't even want to admit the things that have been going on through my head. I was talking with a friend recently, and he was going on about what I should do in my life to make things right, and he said to me: you don't want to end up being an old woman looking back on her life thinking "I wish I had done things differently". That has been the elephant in all of my virtual rooms since he said it.
What will I think when I'm old? Suppose I never have children, will I regret being married all that time? Will I regret not spending my time travelling and doing the independant things I wanted to do? Will I be looking at my life thinking that I did it all wrong? What do I do if that happens? Where do I go then? How does that affect my life at this particular moment?
"This is how it works: you're young until you're not. You love until you're done. You try until you can't. You laugh until you cry. You cry until you laugh. And everyone must breathe until their dying breath."
And that's the most painful part, you have to breathe until you die. It can't just end when you feel like it's time...everything just keeps rolling along, and like me now, I feel like I just keep getting farther and farther from whatever or wherever the center might be. And then, that's the other huge problem, where is the center? Where is my center? Why can't I fill in these pieces, move on and just be centered, right in the place I'm supposed to be.
I've gone through some bizarre things in my life, but I've never felt like this before. I feel like I've crossed some unknown and unseen threshhold and like I can't ever return to the me that was me before, or like I, for some reason, have become this other person that is completely out of touch with the me that was there before. I know, it's all psychobabble in a way.
But....is it?
"No this is how it works: you peer inside yourself, you take the things you like and then try to love the things you took. And then you take that love you made, and stick it into someone else's heart, pumping someone's blood. And walking arm in arm, you hope it don't get harmed, but even if it does you just do it all again..."
Like everything in life, you just do it all again. And again. And again. And again.
And again...
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Desconstructing the casa
I know it sounds stupid, but that ridiculous dream that I posted about in the last post has been with me all day and it's gotten me thinking about all sorts of things. I know it's true what I was posting last time, but I still want to understand it. I want to understand why I have these feelings that I do...I mean, I realize that on some level H cannot be everything for me. The problem is just this: who can tell me what he is supposed to be or what I am supposed to not expect from him.
It's stupid, isn't it. I realize that he's working very hard and that all he does is to support us as a family, but sometimes I feel like I'm lacking in emotional support for him. I don't think he even gets that...and then it's time like this, when I haven't had a conversation with him (literally) for weeks, that I start noticing all of these things I am missing in our relationship. I'm not saying that H isn't a good husband or that he doesn't care deeply for me, I just think it's so amazing how many things that aren't specifically related to love go into a successful relationship, and how a large number of those things could be the potential downfall of a relationship if moved in the wrong direction. It's hard to explain.
I realize that H loves me, but lately I've been feeling this lack of romance, so I listen to this cheesy music and pretend that I'm one of those girls in the movies that are nothing like real life, or I try to remember back to guys who tried to be romantic with me, because for some reason that makes me feel good. Maybe that's what the house is about. Don't get me wrong, H can be romantic, but most of the time he's got too much going on in his life to even think about talking to me, much less about wining and dining me. And this, of course, leads me to the next obvious question: why do I feel the need for that romance? I just don't get it, I'm not a sap and I hate most things even remotely related to romance, so why then am I feeling so desperate for it now? Why is it like this? I don't understand how if H and I have a healthy relationship I am feeling this sort of insecurity and (basically) personal panic when he's away for a while.
This is exactly what I'm talking about: in the reality of it all, romance has nothing to do with love. I mean, if all romances ended in love, there would probably be a lot more happy people. I think the reality is that romance is for relationships that never end in love, or maybe that's gloomy, maybe that's what this void I'm trying to fill is forcing me to think. I just need something, and I need it badly. I need some attention. I need someone to listen to me and to care about what is going on with me. I mean, H cares, but I always feel like I have to coax him into first even listening to me and then second into caring...and then of course, the care is not necessarily even genuine. He always dismisses my needs as silly or childish, I think because he has work constantly running through his mind and that seems much more important to him. And maybe it is. I don't know.
I don't know what to expect. I don't know what's normal in a relationship. I don't know what's normal for a woman who's been married for two years to want out of her marriage. I don't know what other people feel about sex, for example, in a marriage. Why are people not talking about these things? Why does it all have to be so complicated and taboo? I have to have answers or I think I might just end up crying myself into catharsis....
Why can't we just talk about it?
Why can't someone tell me what to expect? What to do? What to need and what not to need? That's the thing, I feel stupid for needing things (and like I'm just adding more stress to H's life) and yet I can't resist it. I feel like my chest is about to burst with sentiments I can't even explain, and the hard cold truth is that today was not the first of many excessive crying sessions in the shower.
I just don't know, but I know this: I don't want to just deconstruct the house so I can understand it....I want to knock it down....I want to get it out of my life for good......all that stuff, just gone. I guess it's going to take work, and I guess that's just what I have to do, but I can say this: I'll huff and I'll puff, and in the end little house, no matter how long it takes, I will blow you down.
It's stupid, isn't it. I realize that he's working very hard and that all he does is to support us as a family, but sometimes I feel like I'm lacking in emotional support for him. I don't think he even gets that...and then it's time like this, when I haven't had a conversation with him (literally) for weeks, that I start noticing all of these things I am missing in our relationship. I'm not saying that H isn't a good husband or that he doesn't care deeply for me, I just think it's so amazing how many things that aren't specifically related to love go into a successful relationship, and how a large number of those things could be the potential downfall of a relationship if moved in the wrong direction. It's hard to explain.
I realize that H loves me, but lately I've been feeling this lack of romance, so I listen to this cheesy music and pretend that I'm one of those girls in the movies that are nothing like real life, or I try to remember back to guys who tried to be romantic with me, because for some reason that makes me feel good. Maybe that's what the house is about. Don't get me wrong, H can be romantic, but most of the time he's got too much going on in his life to even think about talking to me, much less about wining and dining me. And this, of course, leads me to the next obvious question: why do I feel the need for that romance? I just don't get it, I'm not a sap and I hate most things even remotely related to romance, so why then am I feeling so desperate for it now? Why is it like this? I don't understand how if H and I have a healthy relationship I am feeling this sort of insecurity and (basically) personal panic when he's away for a while.
This is exactly what I'm talking about: in the reality of it all, romance has nothing to do with love. I mean, if all romances ended in love, there would probably be a lot more happy people. I think the reality is that romance is for relationships that never end in love, or maybe that's gloomy, maybe that's what this void I'm trying to fill is forcing me to think. I just need something, and I need it badly. I need some attention. I need someone to listen to me and to care about what is going on with me. I mean, H cares, but I always feel like I have to coax him into first even listening to me and then second into caring...and then of course, the care is not necessarily even genuine. He always dismisses my needs as silly or childish, I think because he has work constantly running through his mind and that seems much more important to him. And maybe it is. I don't know.
I don't know what to expect. I don't know what's normal in a relationship. I don't know what's normal for a woman who's been married for two years to want out of her marriage. I don't know what other people feel about sex, for example, in a marriage. Why are people not talking about these things? Why does it all have to be so complicated and taboo? I have to have answers or I think I might just end up crying myself into catharsis....
Why can't we just talk about it?
Why can't someone tell me what to expect? What to do? What to need and what not to need? That's the thing, I feel stupid for needing things (and like I'm just adding more stress to H's life) and yet I can't resist it. I feel like my chest is about to burst with sentiments I can't even explain, and the hard cold truth is that today was not the first of many excessive crying sessions in the shower.
I just don't know, but I know this: I don't want to just deconstruct the house so I can understand it....I want to knock it down....I want to get it out of my life for good......all that stuff, just gone. I guess it's going to take work, and I guess that's just what I have to do, but I can say this: I'll huff and I'll puff, and in the end little house, no matter how long it takes, I will blow you down.
The house of my past lives
Last night I had this bizarre dream, it was like a collection of all of these things that have happened to me over the course of my life, and each one of them had their own room inside the house. What was even weirder about it was that those things, like my first real boyfriend/heartbreak for example, were there in an updated state. Like for example, I just happen to know that this guy, the one who first broke my heart, is getting married this weekend...so in the dream, he was there in the house, with his own room, but with his soon-to-be-wife. Then, this girl that I used to be really good friends with, who totally ditched me in the end, she was there with her new husband, in her own room, doing her own thing, but it was all updated.
It's weird because obviously I have no desire to be back at those times in my life... right. (?) I don't get it. I think I get like this, sort of nostalgic but not nostalgic at the same time, whenever H is not around. Lately, he's been working at nights and I feel like I haven't talked to him in weeks, literally...and I feel like that because it's true. He went to visit Savannah the first week of February and now he's been working nights ever since, so we really haven't seen each other except in passing since then...it's totally sucking. And so what happens to me whenever he works like that is that I start to feel this big fat void in my life, and then anything and everything starts to look like a possible filler.
It's totally stupid, I know, but that's how it is. I just thought that the dream was so interesting, because I am constantly thinking about my past "lives" and how they play into who I am now and the things I do now. I am constantly wavering between feeling this complete disconnect between the past me(s) and the present me, while at the same time feeling such a strong connection to them, and to those times in my life, that I can't seem to move forward. I wish these were things that people felt comfortable talking about, because I think it would be very nice to have a comparison for myself.
I remember once when I was younger telling someone much older than I was that I felt like I was going crazy. That person told me: "don't worry, you're not going crazy....people who go crazy don't realize that they're going crazy. It's only normal to wonder if you're already crazy or if you're going to be crazy." Back then I thought that was such a novel idea, but now, I get it. It doesn't really apply here in the sense of insanity, but it does apply in the sense that it would be nice to know, in any area, what is "normal". I just wish that we could have more open conversations about things in general, just to see what the "normal human experience" is. I am not saying that I suppose that everyone out there is having dreams about houses with rooms filled with memories from the past, but I just want to know: is it so unusual to feel these things I feel?
Am I so bizarre for keeping my memories housed up, locked into rooms, only letting them free in my dreams?
It's weird because obviously I have no desire to be back at those times in my life... right. (?) I don't get it. I think I get like this, sort of nostalgic but not nostalgic at the same time, whenever H is not around. Lately, he's been working at nights and I feel like I haven't talked to him in weeks, literally...and I feel like that because it's true. He went to visit Savannah the first week of February and now he's been working nights ever since, so we really haven't seen each other except in passing since then...it's totally sucking. And so what happens to me whenever he works like that is that I start to feel this big fat void in my life, and then anything and everything starts to look like a possible filler.
It's totally stupid, I know, but that's how it is. I just thought that the dream was so interesting, because I am constantly thinking about my past "lives" and how they play into who I am now and the things I do now. I am constantly wavering between feeling this complete disconnect between the past me(s) and the present me, while at the same time feeling such a strong connection to them, and to those times in my life, that I can't seem to move forward. I wish these were things that people felt comfortable talking about, because I think it would be very nice to have a comparison for myself.
I remember once when I was younger telling someone much older than I was that I felt like I was going crazy. That person told me: "don't worry, you're not going crazy....people who go crazy don't realize that they're going crazy. It's only normal to wonder if you're already crazy or if you're going to be crazy." Back then I thought that was such a novel idea, but now, I get it. It doesn't really apply here in the sense of insanity, but it does apply in the sense that it would be nice to know, in any area, what is "normal". I just wish that we could have more open conversations about things in general, just to see what the "normal human experience" is. I am not saying that I suppose that everyone out there is having dreams about houses with rooms filled with memories from the past, but I just want to know: is it so unusual to feel these things I feel?
Am I so bizarre for keeping my memories housed up, locked into rooms, only letting them free in my dreams?
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