every now and again the past comes back to get me. OUR past. the past that he and i struggle so violently to escape. the past that forced us apart so abruptly eight, nine years ago.
it started with me. my upbringing and unfit living situation forced me into a home for troubled youths when i was sixteen. Muffin and i were VERY suddenly thrust apart by my sisters and their hope that putting me into a facility would offer me a form of structure and normalcy that i did not get with my mum.
i lived in that home for fourteen months. i lived there as a "homeless teen," as a result of many, MANY visits to court and with a DFS (Department of Family Services) worker and was put on a regimented programme of therapy and in-house schooling. i was allowed no contact with the outside world for those fourteen months, barring family. i could not speak to or see Muffin or any of my friends. many people didn't know where i had gone. i was there one day and the next, i wasn't. my sisters offered no explanation to anybody and people like Muffin were left distraught and confused as to what happened to me and when or if they would see me again.
i emerged from the home in 2002 a new person, prepared to conquer the world and finally achieve what i felt i deserved. soon after my discharge i learned Muffin had married and moved away. my initial heartbreak shifted to anger and then quickly to understanding, as it would have been silly for me to expect that he would have waited for me the fourteen months i was gone (although, if Hollywood has taught us anything, it is that it's not uncommon for a dashing, love-struck hero to wait even longer periods, only to reunite with their loves in some magical, soft-focus way to a soundtrack of Bon Jovi or Enya). however, in this case, Muffin was eighteen and had to do whatever it is that boys do at that age, and for him, i guess that was get bored of waiting, go on a sex-spree and then marry the first girl that he believed could "make an honest man" of him.
because he had seemingly moved on, i decided to as well, setting my sights on England. i began speaking to Christopher and we progressed to marriage and blah, blah, blah... you know the story.
through the years, Muffin would lure me in with emails... occasionally i would take the bait, falling for him again and promising him anything he wanted, and typically, after several months, the interaction would end incredibly abruptly.
the first interaction, lasting only a few months in 2003 ended because of his then-wife (lovingly referred to as Satan). she had a huge beef with me because he refused to let me go for the longest time, carrying my photo around and emailing me, which forced her to offer him an ultimatum.
the second was in 2004 and lasted only a month. he sent me photos of his daughter and we mused about our past before, for a reason unknown to me, he cut me off again.
the third and last was in 2006/2007. a long stint in our talking career that had me convinced that that would be the beginning of our forever. he had divorced Satan and i was going to move back to America and be with him for omgforever. this all completely dissolved in a matter of days when, whilst i was away for a trip to the seaside, he married Origami. he married her and i hated him.
we didn't speak again until October 6th 2009 when he emailed me randomly and i replied.
thousands of questions have gone unanswered over the years... questions i could turn the volume down on for a very long time, but questions that have been forced to the front of my mind since he and i have decided to give all of this a proper go. questions like:
why not me? why was i never good enough to wait for?
if i was always his "the one," why did he not choose me?
i have torn myself apart with these and questions LIKE these over the last four weeks... weeks that have offered me FAR too much time alone to think and beat myself up.
i don't know what to do or how to deal with a lot of the rejected, self-doubting feelings that these kinds of questions have given me, but my heart and head are tired now. i just want to feel secure in all of this and stop thinking. i want it all to be okay and for him to just reassure me, which is something that does NOT come easy.
understandably, when i bring things like this up, he becomes embarrassed, upset and defensive, which instantly brings the tone of the conversation down. he snaps at me and i begin feeling stupid, again, for having thought or hurt over something that really has messed with me a great deal for the bulk of my adult life.
what do i do with this? how do i deal with it? does it just go away eventually?
who knows. i guess we just have to see what thursday brings us.
Showing posts with label doubt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doubt. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Monday, 4 October 2010
All Weak...
i tend to find the judgements i cast upon myself to be incredibly harsh ones and not at all healthy. i sit here, day after day, assessing the things that i think and the expectations i hold, always marking the final drafts of those exams with a massive, red FAIL!
daily i see myself judging all of these unfulfilled expectations i have with a heavy and austere hand that offers little or no mercy to the tiny danie inside of me that just needs holding sometimes.
i wonder more and more often lately what i am doing and why i am doing it. who exactly i am existing for.
when i'm alone or in certain company i find myself feeling strong and sure of the tasks ahead of me, capable of mapping out the paths i must travel to achieve the things that will lead me to some sort of salvation. the problem is that when it actually comes down to the action part of the plan, my confidence immediately collapses and i end up feeling stupid and petty for having wanted or having felt something. someone will say something or pull a face that will completely crush all of my logic and desire, leaving me with a big, empty nothing in my arms that i have to try to explain. i HATE having to explain myself, especially when i am approaching something with such confidence, only to have it belittled and destroyed. it's this lack of ability that worries me about what my future will look like.
currently, i don't know what my future holds. i am constantly reviewing the things i have in my life. i have been for the last three weeks. mostly, today, though, i am questioning England and all the things i thought i had there and all the things i thought i was leaving behind. i speak to people i thought i was closer to and wonder if i just WANTED there to be something important and special there so i didn't feel so alone. i wonder if a lot of the special moments and friendships i spoke so highly of in the months preceding my departure were just fabrications, musings created by my own mind to help me sleep easier at night and to ultimately try to sabotage my progression subconsciously ("progression" being me moving back to America, Muffin and general life advancement).
all the relationships i THOUGHT i had and held in such high regard seem to have completely fallen apart since my departure and others that i hadn't embraced as much are developing and making me wish i'd expanded or tried harder before my time in the land of accents ran out.
at the end of the day, that's what it always comes down to for me, trying harder. i constantly feel like i need to do all the work and put all the effort in for fear that if i don't, i will lose this THING, this stupid THING (i don't even know what it is, it's just a THING) that, i guess, allows me to prove to myself that i am worth it, that i exist. like i NEED certain friends or objects in my life to prove i am valid and have achieved something.
it's not good and it's not healthy, what i'm doing, this emotional terrorism i am committing, putting myself through.
a huge thought i've been having is whether i should bother going back to England at all now. speaking (or, in some cases, NOT speaking) to people i thought i was so close to before i left has resulted in me feeling empty and wondering either what all the fuss was about or where it all went. a great deal of harsh words have been passed between myself and people i thought i was close to, people i loved. words that have made me question myself more than i can remember ever questioning myself. words that have left me wondering if all the effort i have put in, all the time, love and work, has actually been a waste.
i seem to have completely lost Pow... i'd rather not go into details, but just know it seems to be gone for many reasons. it was gone three weeks ago when i spoke to him on Skype and it's just dilapidated from there. all i've been left with from the ruin of that is a lot of empty and hurt. i felt the relationship he and i had was much bigger than what it seems to have turned out to be and now, i WANT to throw all my toys out of the pram and cause a scene, but really, i know i need to deal with this, whatever it is, with as much caution as i can, so as to salvage any small bits of the beautiful we had together so i can piece them into a semblance of a memory in years to come.
so, after losing Pow, what else do i have there? Janey? she's on her way here... Nick? i've not heard from him in ages. since leaving England i've heard from a small handful of people, many of which i've not expected at all, and the rest of them seem to have fallen off the face of the earth. i guess all i have left, apart from this handful of people, are passing friendships that are meaningful, but can be visited in two-week increments.
all the dreams i have at night have lately been pictures of doom and gloom for England. friends and people that i love abandoning me, hurting me or forgetting about me. i wake most mornings to a furrowed brow and tense muscles, sometimes unable to decipher the real from the dream in the first several minutes of being conscious, leaving me feeling guilty and wondering what i've done to deserve this.
i've abandoned attempting to contact a lot of the people i loved most before i left England because i don't understand what's gone wrong and it just results in me feeling pathetic and worthless... wondering why people can so easily just forget about me and ignore me.
i guess i just feel like right now, tonight, i need validation, like i need someone to tell me that i am going to be okay, but very few people are willing to offer me that kindness. this is where my old therapist would tell me that i need to seek those things within myself, but how am i meant to achieve that when i spend so much time questioning things and beating myself up?
i just feel so weak. so, so weak.
daily i see myself judging all of these unfulfilled expectations i have with a heavy and austere hand that offers little or no mercy to the tiny danie inside of me that just needs holding sometimes.
i wonder more and more often lately what i am doing and why i am doing it. who exactly i am existing for.
when i'm alone or in certain company i find myself feeling strong and sure of the tasks ahead of me, capable of mapping out the paths i must travel to achieve the things that will lead me to some sort of salvation. the problem is that when it actually comes down to the action part of the plan, my confidence immediately collapses and i end up feeling stupid and petty for having wanted or having felt something. someone will say something or pull a face that will completely crush all of my logic and desire, leaving me with a big, empty nothing in my arms that i have to try to explain. i HATE having to explain myself, especially when i am approaching something with such confidence, only to have it belittled and destroyed. it's this lack of ability that worries me about what my future will look like.
currently, i don't know what my future holds. i am constantly reviewing the things i have in my life. i have been for the last three weeks. mostly, today, though, i am questioning England and all the things i thought i had there and all the things i thought i was leaving behind. i speak to people i thought i was closer to and wonder if i just WANTED there to be something important and special there so i didn't feel so alone. i wonder if a lot of the special moments and friendships i spoke so highly of in the months preceding my departure were just fabrications, musings created by my own mind to help me sleep easier at night and to ultimately try to sabotage my progression subconsciously ("progression" being me moving back to America, Muffin and general life advancement).
all the relationships i THOUGHT i had and held in such high regard seem to have completely fallen apart since my departure and others that i hadn't embraced as much are developing and making me wish i'd expanded or tried harder before my time in the land of accents ran out.
at the end of the day, that's what it always comes down to for me, trying harder. i constantly feel like i need to do all the work and put all the effort in for fear that if i don't, i will lose this THING, this stupid THING (i don't even know what it is, it's just a THING) that, i guess, allows me to prove to myself that i am worth it, that i exist. like i NEED certain friends or objects in my life to prove i am valid and have achieved something.
it's not good and it's not healthy, what i'm doing, this emotional terrorism i am committing, putting myself through.
a huge thought i've been having is whether i should bother going back to England at all now. speaking (or, in some cases, NOT speaking) to people i thought i was so close to before i left has resulted in me feeling empty and wondering either what all the fuss was about or where it all went. a great deal of harsh words have been passed between myself and people i thought i was close to, people i loved. words that have made me question myself more than i can remember ever questioning myself. words that have left me wondering if all the effort i have put in, all the time, love and work, has actually been a waste.
i seem to have completely lost Pow... i'd rather not go into details, but just know it seems to be gone for many reasons. it was gone three weeks ago when i spoke to him on Skype and it's just dilapidated from there. all i've been left with from the ruin of that is a lot of empty and hurt. i felt the relationship he and i had was much bigger than what it seems to have turned out to be and now, i WANT to throw all my toys out of the pram and cause a scene, but really, i know i need to deal with this, whatever it is, with as much caution as i can, so as to salvage any small bits of the beautiful we had together so i can piece them into a semblance of a memory in years to come.
so, after losing Pow, what else do i have there? Janey? she's on her way here... Nick? i've not heard from him in ages. since leaving England i've heard from a small handful of people, many of which i've not expected at all, and the rest of them seem to have fallen off the face of the earth. i guess all i have left, apart from this handful of people, are passing friendships that are meaningful, but can be visited in two-week increments.
all the dreams i have at night have lately been pictures of doom and gloom for England. friends and people that i love abandoning me, hurting me or forgetting about me. i wake most mornings to a furrowed brow and tense muscles, sometimes unable to decipher the real from the dream in the first several minutes of being conscious, leaving me feeling guilty and wondering what i've done to deserve this.
i've abandoned attempting to contact a lot of the people i loved most before i left England because i don't understand what's gone wrong and it just results in me feeling pathetic and worthless... wondering why people can so easily just forget about me and ignore me.
i guess i just feel like right now, tonight, i need validation, like i need someone to tell me that i am going to be okay, but very few people are willing to offer me that kindness. this is where my old therapist would tell me that i need to seek those things within myself, but how am i meant to achieve that when i spend so much time questioning things and beating myself up?
i just feel so weak. so, so weak.
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Divorce: Day 321
Today, finally, I don’t have to think about it anymore.
Today, finally, I received my Decree Absolute.
The Decree Absolute tells me that the marriage has been completely dissolved. It tells me that I no longer have any legal ties to Chris. It tells me that I am no longer legally a Butcher.
The marriage was actually legally dissolved on 29th June but it seems that there was a problem with paperwork and my copy went to my old address. I had to ring yesterday and speak to a very curt woman who snapped at me for a number of reasons before promising to re-send my copy of the paperwork and hanging up on me.
It is a genuine relief that now, today, ten months and eighteen days after we decided that our forever was over, I can rest easy and not have to worry about it anymore.
I’ve been pining for his father a lot lately… John was a fabulously eccentric man who I always seemed to get along with quite well. He was always so friendly and warm with me in his own racist, shouty, only-in-pants sort of way and I miss him a lot. I’ve not seen him now for over a year. It was 21st of July last year and we went on a trip to Calke Abbey. We walked through the massive gardens and I leapt over the barriers to pluck the fresh raspberries off the bushes for an after-lunch snack. That Tuesday hosted a beautiful afternoon that ended with us having a fabulous gammon dinner at home and with Chris and I deciding not to travel back to Wiltshire with them due to financial constraints and a job I had been given doing wardrobe for a short film with a friend.
I’ve loved John from the first time I heard his voice… his accent being the perfect amount of West Country for me to understand and mock occasionally. He is so loud and has a rare type of self-confidence that oozes onto me when I am around him. He cares not what anybody else thinks, he just does what he wants when he wants and I love that about him.
Out of all of Chris’s close family, John has always been the one that has made the effort to talk to me and be friendly with me. He’s always been kind and funny and spoken to both of us on a very regular basis. He called almost weekly and I always loved hearing him immediately shout down the line, in his oh-so-familiar voice, “You alright my lover?” I would instantly shout back “you alright John?!” and we’d talk about the recession, booze and work.
I miss John and I am hoping that I will get to see him during a brief excursion I will be making down to Wiltshire next week. I shall most likely ring him tonight and see if he would mind a quick cup of tea with me… just for me to say goodbye properly and thank him for being such a wonderful father-in-law. He was the best father-in-law I could have imagined having and it’s going to be hard to not have him in my life anymore…
I find it so difficult to believe that it’s all officially over now. Monday I found myself watching Chris as he sat and talked in his typically animated way to some random person. I was stood with Franny and Jax, waiting for the music to start at a gig I really had no interested in being at, when Chris came out and sat. He was wearing the red and black checked shirt that he bought during one of our Matalan dates over a year ago. His hair was a mess and he was quite clearly inebriated. It was the first time I was presented with him very forwardly touching ANNA in front of me. I attributed this mostly to his being slightly drunk, as I know he gets that way… that’s just the thing though, I KNOW him and it hurt.
Stood there in that beer garden I love so much, tossing words back and forth between us, I noticed he smelled different. I found myself wondering why he changed his man-perfume and when.
I noticed he had a different mobile and I asked him how long it took him to choose it, knowing before I finished the first word that the answer would be “more than two weeks”… because he LOVES to investigate every single option available from every single source, most times he doesn’t even achieve a purchase as he becomes exhausted from the process long before his brain will let him click into grab-the-wallet-take-out-card mode.
My heart began to hurt, remembering that he was my husband… I was married to him at one time and we were happy. I watched with harsh judgement at the lack of warmth that ANNA seems to supply to him and I worried that he doesn’t get enough cuddles. He deserves cuddles, they were always his favourite. Even though things were awful in the end I still loved nestling under his chin for a hug… I loved feeling the embrace and emanating body heat of someone else. I wonder why she doesn’t… why don’t they ever seem to touch one another or show any form of outward affection?
He asked me how I was… not in a patronizing way, but in a way that expresses general worry. He always asks me that and his big green eyes look so genuine every time. he knows me and he knew from the moment I told him I was moving away how terrified I would get so now he doesn’t even bat an eyelash when I begin explaining to him how little I am eating or how the lack of sleep is affecting my daily routines.
From the very first day that I announced I had become emotionally entangled with Muffin again Chris has been concerned for me. He told me often that I was perhaps rushing into things and that I needed to take some time for myself to be free and easy and not have to live for anybody else. I scoffed my way into my citizenship, a flight and moving house before finally sitting down and wondering if he was right… I hated admitting it to him as we were stood there under the neon blue fairy lights, but I really am worried I’ve not taken enough time for myself… I went from being married to Chris to being divorced to planning ANOTHER forever with Muffin within a month…
Even in the time leading up to my leaving I am not taking time for myself… I am creating for other people, baking and cooking for other people and tidying for other people. I just want to relax… I want to sit, watch every film on my shelves I’ve not watched yet and not have to worry about anything except what bit will be best to pause for a toilet/snack/nap break. I am taking as many precious little moments as I can do for myself, but I am still finding my candle burning at each end and I don’t have the time or energy to re-build.
So here I am, 321 days into being divorced and twenty-two days from a flight halfway around the world… I have never in my life been more terrified of anything. I’ve never questioned something so much in my head or made so many excuses… I can honestly say at the moment that I’ve no idea what I am doing…
I wonder if I should have listened to Chris all those months ago when he said I needed to take a break.
I wonder if I should have stopped trying to be some sassy and in-control-of-her-own destiny girl and taken the advice of someone that knew me better than most at the time…
I wonder what will be on my megamix from graham.
Thursday, 10 June 2010
Learned Helplessness…
I HATE the sun...
I hate June for being so hot then cold...
And I hate this year for going by so quickly.
In seventy-seven days, I’m leaving… I’ll be packing up the last bits and pieces in my temporary home… placing little things around Pow’s house for him to find eventually… things to help him remember that I love him and am thinking of him, almost as if I’ve not gone.
In seventy-seven days I will be a weepy mess… it hit me REALLY hard, like a ton of emotional bricks, last Monday afternoon. I was in Pow’s kitchen opening the rather difficult packaging around some Sainsbury’s Garlic Chicken Kievs and Pow was stood to the right of me. He was happily packing things away into his fridge from our expedition to the shop for MEGAsnacktime treats. We were still covered in the filth, mildew and spider’s webs from our date in the Hippodrome and preparing ourselves for an afternoon/evening in with the telly, lots of garlic-based foods and each other. I was still contemplating the fact that my life is actually made of magic when Pow turned to me and said, “It just doesn’t seem real…”
I looked down at the Kievs and then over to him, puzzled, wondering what it was about these particular breaded-chicken products that didn’t seem real and asked for further explanation.
He went on to explain to me that the “it” he was referring to was the fact that I’m leaving…
I’m leaving…
No matter how many times I say it, the words still don’t seem real to me. in eleven weeks I won’t be doing my food-shopping anyplace I am familiar with, I won’t be eating anything I am used to and I won’t have any of the creatures I have grown so familiar with as my constant companions within walking-distance. The thought of it actually causes me physical pain. The thought of having to be so far away from people like Pow, Janey, Nick, Tree and Meek. The thought makes my stomach immediately curdle like last month’s full-fat, blue-capped milk. I’ve never been so terrified of anything in my life.
The terror of late comes not just from the fact that I will be leaving all my favourites for thirteen months, but also from other things…
The first thing is that every single day I hear a new variation of why other people are finding my leaving hard. Every day my ears play host to words like, “I can’t believe you’re gonna be gone,” “I am going to miss you,” “it’s not gonna be the same without you,” and “I’m just pretending it’s not actually happening.” That last one killed me the most. The last one was said to me whilst on the phone to Jaacqy. It was said after I performed my regular rendition of, “how many days until Danie leaves now?!” he paused on the phone line and said that sentence that made my heart die a little bit.
Whilst it is nice to have people tell me how much they love me and will miss me, it just makes my heart ache more to know that I will be so far away from these people I’ve spent the last six years bonding with. These people that have helped me in more ways than they will ever be able to comprehend. These people that actually care that I am leaving… something I didn’t realize before, that anyone barring Pow would care I was leaving.
The second thing is that Muffin and I have been weird the last two or three weeks… it may not be so much that WE have been weird, but more that I have been weird and I am projecting, but it most certainly feels like we are both in a weird place.
I HATE it when one of us has a series of busy days, because typically the other one of us has the tendency to get quite clingy and needy and I can’t deal with that. I love when we talk and I love the fact that he and I are pretty much constantly on the same wavelength… what I DON’T love is the fact that he is most likely going to read this and freak out and think immediately that I hate him and don’t want to move to america. I so do, but whilst all of my time here is winding down and his time in Iraq is winding down we are talking less and less and it is hurting more and more. I feel disconnected, lonely and tired. He rarely ever emails me anymore and when I talk to him it is rare for me to feel anything but annoyance for the fact that I KNOW the conversation typically won’t last more than twenty minutes… that annoyance gets projected as venom onto him and makes our time spent talking mechanical, abrupt and difficult. I hate it. I just wish that he would email me more or anything, but… meh. I guess I am just incredibly worried that I will arrive in america and all the things I had been hoping for will have completely dissipated due to the lack of contact and we will have nothing left but a bit of sexual frustration which has to halt eventually like most things. I worry that I will arrive and all of these eggs that I have put in my basket will just get tossed around and broken and then what will I be left with? Nothing. I’ll be back where I started…
Oh who knows, this is most likely just a little blip in the radar. I’m tired, exhausted from my weekends and generally daunted by the upcoming weeks (the fact that I don’t have a free weekend for the next seven weeks) and just want to take a hot bath and not have to bloody worry about anything. The only time I don’t HAVE to worry about anything at the moment is when I am with Pow…
It seems that as of late, when Pow and I spend time together we are spending the bulk of the time making sure we don’t lose out on any precious time we have together. When we are together now we talk a lot more, hug longer and are generally closer. Every single little nugget of time we have together is super-important and it seems like he’s FINALLY realized that and is embracing it.
It’s now two days until I move in and we are both SUPERexcited about it. I can’t wait to have constant time with him… time to make videos, talk, create, watch films and generally just get a megadose of Pow.
Lately our dates have featured a lot of talking… a lot of processing certain thoughts and emotions. One wouldn’t typically think that going to Pow would offer more than a little light comic relief, but I trust him… I trust every little opinion he has to offer and I appreciate everything he has to say. It’s all been particularly helpful as I’ve needed to talk a lot lately because I’m beginning to experience these stupid, tiny, pangs of doubt, which is distressing me…
danie NEVER doubts her decisions. danie MAKES decisions and goes with them at full speed with no question or serious thought behind them...
i do this because i am a firm believer that the first, pulling gut-reaction that one feels is more often than not the most real and right-for-you thing to go with when making a decision...
"hey, what do you want to drink?" DR PEPPER!
"yo, what's your favourite band?" MAGNETIC FIELDS!
"dude, what's your favourite film?" RAINMAN!
"are you going to be happy with dane forever?" ... uhhhh... mmmmmostly? Yes, i THINK so.
Yes, THAT'S where my head's at at the moment...
this isn't to say that i don't want to go to america and give it a go still... this isn't meant to be taken to say that i am staying in england and never talking to dane again... this should be taken for the fact that i am finally, for once in my life REALLY thinking about what i am doing (wait, does this mean I am ACTUALLY a human, capable of rational thought processes?! WHAAAAAAAAT?!)
The fuse on this doubt-bomb was lit by my ever-fabulous ex-husband three weeks ago. He and i were having a chat online when we had the following conversation:
ME: how do you feel about the whole thing, Chris?
ME: what's going on in your old head?
EX: what whole thing?
ME: well
ME: all of it
ME: dane
ME: me
ME: you
ME: america
ME: divorce
EX: ok. The divorce? We both needed some space to gain perspective and change the things in our lives we were possibly blaming on each other. I don't think that it would have ever been 'seperate beds' space. That wasn't enough. But I've chilled the fuck out alot about lots of things and I feel like a better person now. I miss you terribly and I still know I meant everything I said but I've had to travel the path I have
EX: so its blah. Live and learn I guess. Time heals and all that jazz.
EX: About Dane? I don't really know. It isn't my place to judge. I feel like he has had a chaotic past and that might have an effect on his future. The whole moving/wedding/kids thing this soon after a LDR and stuff just seems insane to me based on how I feel
EX: but then it isn't me or my place and again, you've got a path to travel for better or worse. He makes you happy and thats good
ME: sure
ME: i know what you mean
ME: but i guess i feel i've come out of it shining a lot more
ME: and with a much more positive outlook
EX: shining and positive seems a bit patronising
ME: sorry
EX: it might seem that way to you
EX: but like I said, the way I feel about what you've come out and are doing isn't really my place
EX: but it seems totally crazy to me
ME: yeah
EX: I'm not in the position to say I've found myself or to take any 'forever' steps right now
now, this was most likely just me reading FAR too much into what he said, but, after being his wife for five years, i am fairly good at reading in-between the lines.... not only that, but he trained me very well in the art of over-thinking, which I’ve done in abundance since that conversation.
I’ve been wondering whether Muffin and I ARE moving too quickly.... (GUT REACTION: NO! is ten years too quick?!) the next day I mused over this with Muffin and Pow... we discussed the general outline of the conversation in different ways and they made things slightly more clear in my head... since then I’ve not been musing so much about whether we’re moving too fast, but more about the fact that I will now be living with someone again… I will now have to learn about how to mesh with someone in close-quarters. I will be in a relationship again…
Chris and I split up because I was too selfish and I couldn’t handle being in a relationship anymore… I was mid-photocopy today, pressing a handful of warm sheets of paper to my face when it dawned on me that I will actually, actively be someone’s girlfriend again. We will be dating and sharing bills and generally be a couple that lives for and with one another. The thought of that terrifies me because of the grounds on which Chris and I divorced. I needed space, to be selfish and live just for me and so we split up. Within a month I was planning ANOTHER forever without any regard for taking time for myself. Granted, the time I’ve had since he and I split has TECHNICALLY been time for me, since Muffin’s been away in Iraq all this time and in nine months we’ve spent a measly two weeks together, but still… it’s daunting and makes me feel a tiny bit queasy.
But really, I need to STOP worrying about the relationship and just embrace what I’ve got going on right now, friends, music, cakes, wool and tattoos. I need to just live for the moment right now and stop worrying and letting things eat me alive. I’m not sleeping, barely eating and only just slightly awake most days.
sigh... i guess i should get some more packing done. i've barely done any and i've got the lounge, dining room, kitchen and bedroom to finish... i may die. if not, i'll see you at Pow's in a couple of days.
I hate June for being so hot then cold...
And I hate this year for going by so quickly.
In seventy-seven days, I’m leaving… I’ll be packing up the last bits and pieces in my temporary home… placing little things around Pow’s house for him to find eventually… things to help him remember that I love him and am thinking of him, almost as if I’ve not gone.
In seventy-seven days I will be a weepy mess… it hit me REALLY hard, like a ton of emotional bricks, last Monday afternoon. I was in Pow’s kitchen opening the rather difficult packaging around some Sainsbury’s Garlic Chicken Kievs and Pow was stood to the right of me. He was happily packing things away into his fridge from our expedition to the shop for MEGAsnacktime treats. We were still covered in the filth, mildew and spider’s webs from our date in the Hippodrome and preparing ourselves for an afternoon/evening in with the telly, lots of garlic-based foods and each other. I was still contemplating the fact that my life is actually made of magic when Pow turned to me and said, “It just doesn’t seem real…”
I looked down at the Kievs and then over to him, puzzled, wondering what it was about these particular breaded-chicken products that didn’t seem real and asked for further explanation.
He went on to explain to me that the “it” he was referring to was the fact that I’m leaving…
I’m leaving…
No matter how many times I say it, the words still don’t seem real to me. in eleven weeks I won’t be doing my food-shopping anyplace I am familiar with, I won’t be eating anything I am used to and I won’t have any of the creatures I have grown so familiar with as my constant companions within walking-distance. The thought of it actually causes me physical pain. The thought of having to be so far away from people like Pow, Janey, Nick, Tree and Meek. The thought makes my stomach immediately curdle like last month’s full-fat, blue-capped milk. I’ve never been so terrified of anything in my life.
The terror of late comes not just from the fact that I will be leaving all my favourites for thirteen months, but also from other things…
The first thing is that every single day I hear a new variation of why other people are finding my leaving hard. Every day my ears play host to words like, “I can’t believe you’re gonna be gone,” “I am going to miss you,” “it’s not gonna be the same without you,” and “I’m just pretending it’s not actually happening.” That last one killed me the most. The last one was said to me whilst on the phone to Jaacqy. It was said after I performed my regular rendition of, “how many days until Danie leaves now?!” he paused on the phone line and said that sentence that made my heart die a little bit.
Whilst it is nice to have people tell me how much they love me and will miss me, it just makes my heart ache more to know that I will be so far away from these people I’ve spent the last six years bonding with. These people that have helped me in more ways than they will ever be able to comprehend. These people that actually care that I am leaving… something I didn’t realize before, that anyone barring Pow would care I was leaving.
The second thing is that Muffin and I have been weird the last two or three weeks… it may not be so much that WE have been weird, but more that I have been weird and I am projecting, but it most certainly feels like we are both in a weird place.
I HATE it when one of us has a series of busy days, because typically the other one of us has the tendency to get quite clingy and needy and I can’t deal with that. I love when we talk and I love the fact that he and I are pretty much constantly on the same wavelength… what I DON’T love is the fact that he is most likely going to read this and freak out and think immediately that I hate him and don’t want to move to america. I so do, but whilst all of my time here is winding down and his time in Iraq is winding down we are talking less and less and it is hurting more and more. I feel disconnected, lonely and tired. He rarely ever emails me anymore and when I talk to him it is rare for me to feel anything but annoyance for the fact that I KNOW the conversation typically won’t last more than twenty minutes… that annoyance gets projected as venom onto him and makes our time spent talking mechanical, abrupt and difficult. I hate it. I just wish that he would email me more or anything, but… meh. I guess I am just incredibly worried that I will arrive in america and all the things I had been hoping for will have completely dissipated due to the lack of contact and we will have nothing left but a bit of sexual frustration which has to halt eventually like most things. I worry that I will arrive and all of these eggs that I have put in my basket will just get tossed around and broken and then what will I be left with? Nothing. I’ll be back where I started…
Oh who knows, this is most likely just a little blip in the radar. I’m tired, exhausted from my weekends and generally daunted by the upcoming weeks (the fact that I don’t have a free weekend for the next seven weeks) and just want to take a hot bath and not have to bloody worry about anything. The only time I don’t HAVE to worry about anything at the moment is when I am with Pow…
It seems that as of late, when Pow and I spend time together we are spending the bulk of the time making sure we don’t lose out on any precious time we have together. When we are together now we talk a lot more, hug longer and are generally closer. Every single little nugget of time we have together is super-important and it seems like he’s FINALLY realized that and is embracing it.
It’s now two days until I move in and we are both SUPERexcited about it. I can’t wait to have constant time with him… time to make videos, talk, create, watch films and generally just get a megadose of Pow.
Lately our dates have featured a lot of talking… a lot of processing certain thoughts and emotions. One wouldn’t typically think that going to Pow would offer more than a little light comic relief, but I trust him… I trust every little opinion he has to offer and I appreciate everything he has to say. It’s all been particularly helpful as I’ve needed to talk a lot lately because I’m beginning to experience these stupid, tiny, pangs of doubt, which is distressing me…
danie NEVER doubts her decisions. danie MAKES decisions and goes with them at full speed with no question or serious thought behind them...
i do this because i am a firm believer that the first, pulling gut-reaction that one feels is more often than not the most real and right-for-you thing to go with when making a decision...
"hey, what do you want to drink?" DR PEPPER!
"yo, what's your favourite band?" MAGNETIC FIELDS!
"dude, what's your favourite film?" RAINMAN!
"are you going to be happy with dane forever?" ... uhhhh... mmmmmostly? Yes, i THINK so.
Yes, THAT'S where my head's at at the moment...
this isn't to say that i don't want to go to america and give it a go still... this isn't meant to be taken to say that i am staying in england and never talking to dane again... this should be taken for the fact that i am finally, for once in my life REALLY thinking about what i am doing (wait, does this mean I am ACTUALLY a human, capable of rational thought processes?! WHAAAAAAAAT?!)
The fuse on this doubt-bomb was lit by my ever-fabulous ex-husband three weeks ago. He and i were having a chat online when we had the following conversation:
ME: how do you feel about the whole thing, Chris?
ME: what's going on in your old head?
EX: what whole thing?
ME: well
ME: all of it
ME: dane
ME: me
ME: you
ME: america
ME: divorce
EX: ok. The divorce? We both needed some space to gain perspective and change the things in our lives we were possibly blaming on each other. I don't think that it would have ever been 'seperate beds' space. That wasn't enough. But I've chilled the fuck out alot about lots of things and I feel like a better person now. I miss you terribly and I still know I meant everything I said but I've had to travel the path I have
EX: so its blah. Live and learn I guess. Time heals and all that jazz.
EX: About Dane? I don't really know. It isn't my place to judge. I feel like he has had a chaotic past and that might have an effect on his future. The whole moving/wedding/kids thing this soon after a LDR and stuff just seems insane to me based on how I feel
EX: but then it isn't me or my place and again, you've got a path to travel for better or worse. He makes you happy and thats good
ME: sure
ME: i know what you mean
ME: but i guess i feel i've come out of it shining a lot more
ME: and with a much more positive outlook
EX: shining and positive seems a bit patronising
ME: sorry
EX: it might seem that way to you
EX: but like I said, the way I feel about what you've come out and are doing isn't really my place
EX: but it seems totally crazy to me
ME: yeah
EX: I'm not in the position to say I've found myself or to take any 'forever' steps right now
now, this was most likely just me reading FAR too much into what he said, but, after being his wife for five years, i am fairly good at reading in-between the lines.... not only that, but he trained me very well in the art of over-thinking, which I’ve done in abundance since that conversation.
I’ve been wondering whether Muffin and I ARE moving too quickly.... (GUT REACTION: NO! is ten years too quick?!) the next day I mused over this with Muffin and Pow... we discussed the general outline of the conversation in different ways and they made things slightly more clear in my head... since then I’ve not been musing so much about whether we’re moving too fast, but more about the fact that I will now be living with someone again… I will now have to learn about how to mesh with someone in close-quarters. I will be in a relationship again…
Chris and I split up because I was too selfish and I couldn’t handle being in a relationship anymore… I was mid-photocopy today, pressing a handful of warm sheets of paper to my face when it dawned on me that I will actually, actively be someone’s girlfriend again. We will be dating and sharing bills and generally be a couple that lives for and with one another. The thought of that terrifies me because of the grounds on which Chris and I divorced. I needed space, to be selfish and live just for me and so we split up. Within a month I was planning ANOTHER forever without any regard for taking time for myself. Granted, the time I’ve had since he and I split has TECHNICALLY been time for me, since Muffin’s been away in Iraq all this time and in nine months we’ve spent a measly two weeks together, but still… it’s daunting and makes me feel a tiny bit queasy.
But really, I need to STOP worrying about the relationship and just embrace what I’ve got going on right now, friends, music, cakes, wool and tattoos. I need to just live for the moment right now and stop worrying and letting things eat me alive. I’m not sleeping, barely eating and only just slightly awake most days.
sigh... i guess i should get some more packing done. i've barely done any and i've got the lounge, dining room, kitchen and bedroom to finish... i may die. if not, i'll see you at Pow's in a couple of days.
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