I am composing this entry while I am on air. I ought to wait a few hours to let this settle, but as C once wisely quipped, “you’ve got a lot of things. You’ve got a lot of wonderful things, but a filter isn’t one of them.”
I was thinking a lot about my conversation with C this weekend–how I finally got to tell him I clung to you because I was terrified and when you left I felt abandoned and re-traumatized. I’m sorry for what I said and thought about you–I don’t think I meant them anymore. Listening to this exact radio set while I crawled down I20 at 55 because of the rain slicking the road. Thinking a lot about how true that felt and still feels, and how EMDR must be working like a dream because when I think back to that screaming fight we had on the phone, or all the memories I have from the 24/7 time we spent together in the weeks after the tornado, I don’t feel the anxiety and rage and revulsion I used to feel anymore. I can identify having felt them, but they are historical.
I called Jez when I got home and told her about my train of thought. Here’s the thing, I rushed on, unsure of how to verbalize what came next but blurting and stumbling over words as they surfaced in my cold-addled brain, I want to be done. I’m ready to be done now. Jez burst out laughing. “You always want to be done! You are always ready to be done! You never give yourself the time!” I paused momentarily to acknowledge that yes, in fact, I judge my own feelings to be permissible or not pretty much constantly and it’s a serious road block that stands between, you know, feeling the feelings and getting them over with but ANYWAY.
The thing is, I know from my EMDR-blurts-and-sobs that NOS is also a part of this time for me and activates me in a similar way, only I can’t look at our mutual behavior as sensible given the circumstances; the thing is, he actually SAID he was dumping me because he felt traumatized by losing so much in the tornado; the thing is, I keep getting angry and because there is no one there to answer for that anger I turn it inward and get sick; the thing is, I think I could probably just forget about the whole thing if I could just forgive myself.
So I know this logically but I don’t believe it, in my chest, I explained, and I’m hoping that you can help me connect NOS to the tornado, in my heart where I can feel it as opposed to just paying it constant lip service? And then she said a lot of heart-smart things like “Have you considered that you couldn’t deal with this rage when you got out of the hospital and you turned it off for months, and that it’s actually only been a few weeks?”
Umno. No I didn’t.
“And being let go in THE EXACT SAME WAY not only lanced open a barely-scabbed wound, but it sent you tailspinning back into am I choosing these people am I too much am I not worth the effort and you just don’t need to go there because like I said, tomatoes and rain.”
Well, I actually think that’s true, yes.
“And what about phototropism? You had just gone through several shitty months and you just wanted someone to be nice to you. Someone you could go get peach ice cream with. You didn’t know it was going to bite you in the ass so bad. You were just turning your face to the sun. You were looking for joy, and you’re entitled to that.”
Yeah. I guess that’s definitely a thing.
I hope something sticks here. These are all extremely valid observations. And at the risk of sounding like the bitch we all know I am, we were not very well matched. Dude brought his A-game but had no stamina. I’m going places and they just probably are not going to be Tuscaloosa or My Favorite Bar (for the rest of my life, I mean. I fully intend to scoot back up there the second I kick this cold.) It is good to remember that I was not in love and trying to have babies, I was just making ice cream and going swimming. (I pause to talk into the microphone for a little while about Dragonette’s “Hello” and how much I love Robyn.) The character of this person in no way reflects poorly on me because it was a summer fling. DUH! OMG DUH. I can let myself off the hook for this; not only did I do everything right, it also didn’t mean that much to me, remember?
Holy shit I am so bad at dating people. I have said it here before but I am not-so-secretly enormously relieved to be off the menu for a year. I just cannot DEAL anymore.
