Monthly Archives: October 2005

The good, the bad, the ugly

Everyone who talks to me immidiately says, “What is going on?” My most common answer is, “I don’t know.” Thus: I haven’t been posting much.

Right now we have reached the conclusion that we don’t really want to break up but we are terrified that this relationship won’t work out long term. So we are taking a step back to “dating” (whatever the fuck that means). I am moving to San Jose and he is moving into his lab because he can’t really afford rent. The plan will be for him to spend weekends with me. The purpose of this insanity one might ask? Commuting is killing both of us and we are so tired at nights that we aren’t exactly getting any “quality” time during the week anyway. He spends enough time commuting instead of working that he goes into work at least one day during the weekend and I don’t see him anyway. This means that our evenings/weekends in the next few weeks are going to be spent packing. SUCK!

Yeah, he dumped me. He dumped me hard and I freaked out. I am still not exactly happy. What happened is that he dumped me and we spent last Saturday apart as I freaked out and cried on the shoulders of some friends. I called some other friends later and several of them asked me questions that actually made me think. When he got home from work I asked him if he really meant to break up with me or was he just kind of freaking out and it got said and he didn’t really mean it. His reply was that he is scared and he isn’t sure if he means it or not. So we are talking and talking and talking. What is he afraid of?

He is afraid: that I am unstable enough that I need a truckload of emotional support that he can’t give me (We are having ongoing conversations about the concept of ‘boundaries’ and how no one can/should ever be all of my support and it is ok for him to say that he needs more space than I am automatically giving him), that I will never get along with his family and his family is very important to him (while complaining about how I don’t get along with his siblings–the same siblings who IM me every day because they like me and want to talk to me), that we don’t have enough in common (we have more in common than anyone else I have dated and I think we pretty much always have fun–ok, I don’t shoot), that a couple of places where we clash will be insurmountable eventually (though he concedes that these have in fact become significantly less as we have adjusted to one another), that he needs a partner who handles crisis very well because he freezes (I want to tell him to go talk to Noah about the accident), that I have a martyr complex (I totally do, but I have been actively working on it for a while)… Those are the main things. Maybe I am over-rationalizing but I think these things are all part of growing pains and not deal breakers. I don’t know if I am just being idiotic and looking at the relationship through rose colored glasses or what.

He wants to know why I want to be with him at all. He seems to be terrified that I will decide that I deserve better and leave him. AHHH. He seems to be doing a premeditative dumping because that is better than me leaving him and I am not thrilled.

So we are following the advice of a friend. We are removing a lot of the external pressure from our lives in general (crappy commutes and not enough time spent on work stuff) and seeing if we really are interested enough in this relationship to make it work despite the inconvenience of living ~60 miles apart. We are also going to try and find a therapist. Any recommendations? Pretty much anywhere between Hayward and San Jose is good for me and I am going to make him drive further than me. HA! I am absolutely terrifed and we are talking about that. He and Rebecca are both right though. Removing pressure and working through issues will decide if this relationship has a future a whole lot better than me buring my head in the sand and destroying my back will. Commuting is killing me and my car. 🙁

My life is going to be changing a lot. I don’t even know how yet. I’m really really nervous and scared. If this works out then our relationship probably will go the distance. If this doesn’t then it probably wasn’t meant to at all. I’m scared to find out which it will be.

Hope?

What is the point of having hope when he is behaving as if he is already gone? This HUUUUUURTS. I can’t have a totally one sided relationship again. I just can’t. But leaving somehow seems worse. I feel stupid and confused and so very desperate.

*gasp*

He responded to my message *and* my email. The he in question is Tom. I haven’t really sat down and had anything resembling a conversation with him since the Ireland trip in January. He said that we could remain friends… Maybe we are ready to start that part? We have been broken up for almost 14 months. How much is it still hurting?

It will be good to see him. I miss him fiercely.

Grading papers and other work.

I am on a ten minute break before my brain explodes. I have handed out two F’s and numerous D’s so far. A few C’s, a couple B’s and I don’t think I have an A yet. This is horrible. The F’s are because their papers are entirely plot summary–no analysis or opinion–and the plot summary is wrong, not to mention that they are nearly unreadable due to grammar and/or spelling screw ups. This is truly disturbing. Seniors. They are freakin seniors.

Tonight I have to catch up on all of the daily lesson plans for the past two weeks. I hate writing them down. I think it is retarded. *sigh* I also need to finish my journal and print out the stuff for my binders. I am going in hella early to get everything set up at the school. I will leave my house at 6am. It sucks to be me some days. I must say though… the grading is going better with the rum and pineapple soda. *evil grin* I may not finish them all tonight. I will have hours at school tomorrow. I will leave myself maybe three essays from *good* students to read tomorrow. I will torture myself with the other six crappy ones tonight.

I want to eat, but I am not hungry. I hate this feeling.

school babble

I haven’t been delivering on the promised school babble. I am exhausted and stressed and enjoying the hell out of my job. I am very confident that this is the right job for me. My kids rock my socks off and planning is… uhm… ok I guess. I am being observed tomorrow and the advisor is going to be unhappy because they are doing presentations. HA! Witch.. Tonight I have messsssssssssssloads of work to get done. I better get to it…

Stop the train.

The train to fantasy land that is.  The last few days have been a roller coaster ride that I really want to get off.  I am mixing my metaphors!  Can I just leave the amusement park instead?  Ok.  To get into reality…

I don’t know what is happening.  We are talking and talking and trying to figure out what is good and what is bad about our relationship, whether it is actually a good fit for us.  In the past few days we both wrote our concerns about the relationship and the pieces that make us happy.  This morning we talked for a few hours about the whole situation.

We aren’t broken up and I am not moving.  Does that mean that we will actually end up together?  I don’t know.  It is really hard to know what the “best” decision is.  I love him.  He loves me.  There are things that we have in common and there are things that are difficult, but that is always true.  I am not willing to walk away from what we have.

In the first rush of thinking it was over I talked to a lot of people about it.  I heard some interesting things that people had not been willing to tell me up to then about their opinions about the relationship.  I sat there and agreed because I was so angry and some of them are still true.

I have compromised for this relationship in ways that would be complete dealbreakers for many of my friends.  I stopped being poly, I am not playing with other people, and I don’t spend much time at sex parties anymore.  I don’t actually think I miss any of these things though.  I am not sad about not having sex or playing with anyone else.  Puppy stressed repeatedly that if I wanted to play with anyone at Folsom I just had to let him know–I even had people ask.  I didn’t want to.  I wasn’t even super thrilled with playing in public.  We did so briefly on Friday night and I skipped the experience on Saturday because I felt very icki about it.

The past five years or so have been remarkable for me.  I have been through so many changes.  It is interesting now to look back at the “growing up” process and I wonder what is going to happen in the next five years.  Hopefully the rate of change slows down some cause this has been dizzy making.  I’ve been aware for a while that there are things that I want that necessitate giving up things that have been big parts of my life.  I think I am at a place where those choices need to start happening.

I have had a number of people ask me out in the past week.  People that have been in my life and people who are somewhat new to me and I find it remarkable that they all popped out of the woodwork just now.  It gave me the ability to take note of the fact that I am incredibly unlikely to be lonely, even if things don’t work out with Puppy.  I don’t care.  I want him and I want only him.  I’m scared and nervous and struggling to find my path.  I hope things get easier sometime soon.

Once again: thanks Chris.  Your words are in my brain and I am working on processing them.

not good

It is 7am and my thought is: why isn’t today over yet? I have to teach a rather intensive lesson on grammar with my juniors. (They are going to be thrilled to learn about verb types.) At least the seniors are no effort today. (Thank god for movie days.)

I have trouble going more than a few minutes without crying. Puppy said last night that I know this has to end because he and I both want to get married and have kids and it wouldn’t work for us to do together. Not long after that he initiated sex and through the whole event I was sitting there thinking, “You are already looking forward to doing this with someone else.”

I have my ticket to fantasy land. Let’s see if I can actually get on the train.

I made him cry at dinner. I told him very quietly, after he thanked me for bringing him to the restaurant, “I told you that I wanted to bring you to places like this. Now I have to hurry or I won’t get the chance to.” Tears appeared and he had trouble holding it together. This is so hard. On one hand I want to find a way to make him see that I really am worth the effort, but on the other hand I want to just walk away because if he doesn’t want me I deserve more.

This fucking hurts.

The next book I am teaching is called Man’s Search for Meaning and it is a philosophy book speculating on what is the purpose of life and such. The person who wrote it was a psychiatrist who practiced before and after surviving Auschwitz. The first question he asks his depressive patients is: why don’t you commit suicide? After spending quite a while talking about this book with my master teacher on Friday this question has been in the back of my mind all weekend. I can’t come up with a good answer though. (This does not mean I am suicidal.) But… why don’t I? I don’t know. I just don’t. Because people have told me not to? It’s not even that people that I love, who love me, have told me not to. Just people. I do as I am told. It doesn’t matter who tells me. I kind of shared this thought process with Puppy because it came up and now he is freaked out and worried. He has spent a bunch of time telling me how upset he would be if I did. Uhm… so what? I won’t be affected by that so why should I let that upset direct whether or not I do something? He really didn’t like that response. heh

Disclaimer: No. I am not contemplating suicide. I am, however, not seeing much of a point to me or to my life. There is a vast gulf between that and killing myself so I better not start getting fucking phone calls trying to talk me down. If I suspect that is the motivation for a phone call I will hang up on you.

The dirty details.

I pick fantasy land.

Ok, fine. So the relationship isn’t “forever” and I can’t have you for the rest of my life even though it hurts so much to think of losing you that I can’t breathe. You don’t understand the depth of my feelings for you. You just don’t seem to know at all. Let me tell you: I have given up numerous things that are on some level important to me because I would do just about anything at all to make you happy. I have given them up willingly and almost happily just for the possibility of pleasing you. I love your smile, your kiss, your hugs, your voice, your eyes, you….. Yes, there are so many things that drive me absolutely crazy–but I expect that as part of the boy/girl dynamic and don’t really let it bother me that much.

I don’t want to lose you. I don’t feel like this relationship has run its course yet. I know it is selfish and immature and self-absorbed, but I have not had enough time with you yet. Please don’t leave me. Ok, so I can’t have you for the rest of my life. Can I have you for the next few months? I know you are leaving. I know you don’t want me the way I want you. Can we pretend? Can I please not have to deal with the horror of losing you yet? I just can’t handle it right now.

I know that I am too broken for things to work with us forever. I can and will cheerfully bury all of my brokenness for a period of a few months if it will let me be happy with you for just a little while longer. I know it is pathetic to beg. But, please. Please don’t leave me yet.