Daily Journal 11/18

  What am I grateful for?

My kids

Waking up without a headache

Doing math homework with my youngest

electric razors

What is weighing on me right now?

Not seeing the person I want to see

Two new projects at work

How do I keep this from my kids

What are three things I can do today that will make today a success?

Perform well in my meeting with my boss

Knock out at least one title work from the new set

Have a calm interaction tonight

Mornings

Mornings are hard. Lying next to you while you sleep, waiting for the alarm or the child to shatter the calm. I can't touch you, though I wish I could. I just lay here and feel your presence beside me. I used to touch your knee or elbow, anything close to me for a moment of connection. I've stopped, it hurts each time you pull away like you touched a hot stove, but this morning your thigh was pressed against my knee. I held it there, not breathing for fear I would break the spell, then finally I pulled away slowly, gently. 

I'm getting stronger I think. But some moments I know it's not enough yet. 

daily journal 11/17

 What am I grateful for?

Getting my son off to school happy

Having a flexible work schedule

Having a roof over my families head

A mostly full nights sleep

Getting to see her

What is weighing on me right now?

The logistics of the next step

Wanting to work but feeling like I am drowning

How to make more money to better support us

What are three things I can do today that will make today a success?

Go to my appointment

Complete 3 tasks at work

Go for a walk tonight

not my circus

Its not my circus anymore. I just have to keep telling myself that. I am not your man. I am not responsible for your happiness or well being. I should not try to help you. When you are having trouble or spiraling, I have to turn off the human side of me and remind myself. Not my circus, not my monkeys. You don't want my help, and more often than not my attempts to help only hurt, so I need to stop trying. I need to walk away and let you do what you plan to do to take care of it. You do not want my help. Not my circus.

dont wait

Don't wait. Do it now, because there is no guarantee that she will still want to do those things with you later. Find the babysitter, go out, spend time together, because one day she won't want to anymore, and even though its the one thing you've been waiting for for years, she will be done with you and you'll have missed your chance. She's going to go do all those things you wanted to do together with someone else and you get to be the babysitter.

Done

I AM DONE. She says it like a shield and it feels like a gunshot. I know you're done. I know it to my core. We still need to coexist though. I still need to know how to interact with you. 

I was surprised and hurt but not because of what you think. I was hurt because I have been trying so hard to be respectful of your space and your boundaries, only to find out that I have been crossing them without you telling me. Now I am pulling back and I dont know har far to go. I can't ask you because you'll say im needy for just wanting clarification on something you consider DONE. So I'll try to right myself,  to pull back without going too far. 

I also thought our talk was good and we were getting somewhere, and now it feels like 5 steps backward. 

heartbreak

It's the first and last time we'll do karaoke together. I loved seeing you out with the family and laughing and having fun, but it broke my heart into a thousand pieces knowing it's  the last time. I want to sp3nd so many more nights with you. I want to see you laugh and smile so much more, bit that will never happen. Your smiles and laughs are for someone else now. Your heart is for someone else now, and it kills me knowing that. Im dying while you smile. 

This morning

 I love you so much it feels like wings on my heart and a weight on my chest. You are so beautiful and amazing. Your light is so bright, I don't know why I couldn't tell you before. I love you so much that your smile saves me, even as the reason for that smile kills me.

I want you to love me back, I want you to feel safe in my arms and to let me hold you every day and all night. I want to kiss your forehead every night before we fall asleep, and hold you in the quiet before we wake up. I want to hold your hand everywhere we go, and kiss your delicate fingers.

I am so sorry for the pain I've caused you. I am sorry for all that you've endured alone while I was in the clouds. I'm sorry for all the love I didn't show, and all the words I didn't say. I will never forgive myself for doing that to you. You are the most important person in my life, and I did that to you.

I wish you could give us another chance. I want to spend the next decade of my life growing into the type of person I should be, and the man you deserve. I want to spend the next decade helping you heal from the trauma and shine as bright as you can. I want to build our relationship brick by brick until it is stronger than it ever was. I want dates. Movie dates, dinner dates, dances. I want to take you places and be with you, and I want you to be with me. 

I love you so much, and I hope that you find happiness and peace in the paths you walk down. 

Like Stars

I love you. It's not a new love, fast and hot like a shooting star, here and then gone.

I love you. It's not a lost love, a love like a dying star, hot and destructive but ultimately doomed to fade.

I love you in the form of a galaxy. Thousands of happy moments and feelings fill my heart to create a tapestry of lights that lasts for eons. Only after every light, every moment, every smile, and every feeling fades and disappears will my love fail.  

You don't have to ask, you cannot tell me I do not, you never have to wonder if I still love you. My love will be there whenever you look for it, just like the stars in the night sky.

Caring

 I know that it can be annoying. I know it probably hurts sometimes. I always want to take care of you. I am always trying to support you.

I know that it must feel like too little too late, and where was this before, and you are right. I stopped myself from doing these things. I trapped myself and tricked myself into thinking that it wasn't right somehow.

I know you want me to stop, to just quit trying to be supportive and to care, but I can't. I'm sorry but I can't. This is who I have always wanted to be. I have always wanted to care and support, and now that I can I will not let it go. I am striving to be a better man, a caring man, a supportive man. Not just to you, but to our family as well. I want to be present, and supportive, caring, trustworthy. I have to be these things every day, actively, intentionally so that they become second nature.

That means that I am going to keep supporting you, and caring for you. You can refuse it of course, and I will not push it on you when you do. I will still care though, and I will still be there when you are ready for it.

Positive to Negative

 Something happened last night. There is turmoil in my home and it is affecting all members in different ways and at different speeds. A family member had a hard time and I was there to console them. I wished you had been there because everything they said you have said to me. It was all the feelings we've felt, only delayed because they were masking it.

We spoke for a time and I let them get all the feelings out. I think it was helpful and I was glad I could be present and available for them. But when I came back to you, you were upset about it. I was so confused. I thought you would be pleased. Finally! They listened and have started to deal with the issue instead of trying to ignore it! I know there were other things going on that had an effect as well. I just thought this would be a positive to balance out some of the negative going on, and yet it was added to the negative pile instead.

I was upset because I couldn't help, but I was so confused that this thing we had recently talked about and hoped for had become something you were angry over and even belittling at times. I do not know where to go from here. At times it feels like breathing is enough to anger you, and trying to talk about it makes it seemingly worse. I hope this is not what the future holds for us.

Regardless of where the paths lead, we will be walking them in parallel if not together, and I want to find a space between us where we can be open and honest and safe. That is what I am working toward. 

Rambling to release the emotions

 I don't know what it was, but something hit hard just now. My chest tightened and tears threatened to fall. I have no clue what caused it. I was working, had a silly anime on in the background, and keeping an eye on the little one.

 I have to figure out these triggers. I cannot keep doing this. I do not have a problem having emotions, but I have to have some semblance of control.

 And what about her. Do I tell her? She's the only one I can tell, but I am starting to feel like she doesn't want to hear it anymore. She's been using the term needy a lot, and I honestly do not know what she means. I thought it was when I pushed for her opinion after she dismissed my request. Then I thought it was because I brought something up during a time when other more important things were going on. Now I have no clue. I feel like it just means whenever I ask her to deal with something from me that she doesn't want to. So now I don't want her to deal with anything. 

 It sucks because withholding is how I got myself into this problem, overthinking what I tell her and trying to intuit her response. I need a therapist. Someone I can talk to about these feelings that is not her. I do not know why it is so hard to find one. I feel most depressed when I try to get help and hit one roadblock after another.

 I feel like I am doing okay with our situation, but it's that piled on top of the need for therapy piled on top of the difficulty in getting it that makes everything just so heavy that I want to lay down and not get up. 

Even more frustrating. My psychologist listened just long enough to give me more meds. I cannot be medicated to wellness. I need to do the work. I just didn't think I would have to do it all on my own...

In the corner

I did not put myself in the corner. If it were up to me you and I  would be under the same blanket, your leg over mine, your head on my shoulder, our fingers interlocked. Some nights I would wrap you in my arms, my chest against your back. I would slow my breathing so that I could feel your heartbeat and hear your breath as you slowly drift off. And even others I would scratch or your rub your back till I felt you slowly fade into your dreams then, still under the same blanket, still close, I would drift off to my own dreams of you.

I want always to be closer to you, I want to bring down the physical and emotional walls between us. I know that will take time and I'm willing to work at it one painful block at a time.

Not much to say

I feel like the universe is punishing me. It is filling her sails and pushing toward a future without me. We can both see it, it is as obvious as the sunrise.

But then why is the universe pushing me to chase her. No matter how I turn the sails, the wind blows me in her direction. I do not need help loving her, wanting her, or chasing her. I need help in stopping these things.

I'm trying so hard to work on myself. To focus on growth and mindset and being a better me. I'm not doing it to get her back. I never could. There is no growth that would eclipse the hurt, no mindset that could heal away her pain, no version of me that could defeat the monster I was.

I know all this. So why is everything I see about reconciliation! Every post, every ad, every quote. Where are the self help posts. Where are the work on yourself quotes. I'd even like to see the "become a better you" ads if they didn't include "for your spouse" or "to get her back."

Of course I want her back Universe! Asshole! I want nothing more than to go back to the moment I lost the battle with the fog in my brain and smack myself. To stop all the pain and hurt and anxiety I caused her. But I can't. And there is no way forward there. So stop sending me this bullshit.

She says once I'm in tune with myself it will all make sense. But how am I to do that, when the universe is trying so hard to tear me apart!

Fucking universe

How to stop

I don't know how I'm going to stop falling for you. I think I'm fine, loving you in my way, keeping my emotional distance to stay where we are. Then you walk down the stairs in your costume and my heart falls to the floor. Its not anything risqué, and you wear it every year. In the years past I admired it through a fog of self doubt and self sabotage.

This is the first year it feels like I saw you without all that in the way, and you were bewitching. I could feel my heart skip a beat. I could not stop myself from complimenting you like a Love sick fool. I managed to stop after a while but I know it was too late. So how do I do it, how do I stop falling.

Thankful

We had a talk today and it opened my eyes and helped me to feel more ready for some things. I'm not chasing a friendship with you. Im sitting squarely at roommates and thats ok. The holiday is hard for us, the whole family dynamic has changed rapidly. We said out loud that we are going to rely on each other to get through the holidays, and that took a weight off my mind. 

Then we sat together, and just sat. I didn't feel any tension and it sounds like you didn't either. It was calm and quiet. It felt like this is possible. Being around each other without any hopes or expectations, any fears or doubts. Just two people walking together toward the same goal.

Im thankful for that, and I am thankful for you.

Where we are

 I have to separate myself from this, but I'm not sure how. Every time we spend time together I am so happy because it feels like how I wanted it to be all these years. The fog is gone, the voice that lied to me only a murmur. I can just be with you. I can be in the moment and feel your presence and your light.

So how do I give that up now that I finally have it. I have to, of course. It sends my heart soaring forward to a place where we are friends. When I rub your back or scratch that itch, I think this is helping build a bridge, that we are building a bond to friendship. Then you remind me with brutal efficiency that this is not the case. We are NOT friends. We are roommates, and not to the "get along" kind. We are co livers.

It crushes me every time. You are firmly in the roommate phase and I keep trying to step forward, and I have to stop. I have to just be a roommate. But what about all the things that make me happy, that bring me joy. Do I have to lose them again. Spending time with you, putting lotion on your legs, hearing the gentle sigh when I find the itch or that sore spot with my thumb.

How can that be ok? How can I separate my joy from this drive to be friends. I don't want to be sad all the time, and alone. I've been there and it was a well so deep I almost drowned. So how do I grow if I'm forced back in that hole. 

Dresses

 So many dresses. I went through them to find one we have been looking for. I pulled out each one, made it ready to be worn with the sleeves right or turned right side out, then I held it up, imagined you in it, then set it aside.

I told you often I love you in dresses, and now I wonder if that's why you stopped wearing them. Why would you dress up for someone you do not feel comfortable with. I know how strong willed you are, and how little my opinion matters, but maybe it tipped a scale I wasn't aware of.

I have watched you dress and undress, change and try on so many clothes over the years. In this tiny little world I've been living in it is a time I have often treasured. I have to expand my world, and those moments are coming to an end.

I hope that there will come a time when you wear dresses again. 

I do still love you

I had to say it. But only once. I won't say it again. I do still love you. The look you gave was all that needed to be said. It looked like exasperation, and annoyance, and anger all wrapped in one quick glare. I do still love you, and my love for you has only grown. Now that I can see clearly, now that I'm actively fighting my bad thoughts, I see all the reasons why I loved you before and all the things you do now. So I still love you, that's not going to change. I know that might hurt to hear, which is why I won't say it again, but I had to let you know. 

I still love you. I whisper it each night before I fall asleep, and it screams in my head when I look at your face. 

Apologies

 I am so very sorry. Moment by moment, minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day I say it a thousand times in my head and out loud. I say it on my walks, and while I work, and when I sit by myself. I know it doesn't change anything, but I have to say it. When I stop it begins to fill me up like a cup in a waterfall. I do not think the apologies will ever end, because I do not know how I could ever be sorry enough for all that I put you through. Every time we talk I find more bad I've done, more pain I've caused, and more reasons to apologize. 

At first I thought there might be a day when I could show you I have changed enough that you might begin to forgive me, to heal the wounds I've opened, and maybe one day I might even be able to forgive myself for my actions and inactions and blindness to it all. But now I cannot see that day. It feels like lifetimes will have to pass before those wounds might start to heal. 

If that is so, then I hope that I will find you in the next life and the next, and show my better self every time, and give my apologies in every life, until a day comes when we meet and all your wounds have turned to scars, and all the scars have faded away, and the me you meet is a person you can forgive, even if by then the why is long forgotten. I hope somewhere deep in my soul, when that forgiveness comes I will be able to receive it, and slowly stitch up the wounds I've created in myself. 

As I go, what I hope

I know it's a journey. It's not a straight line. There will be setbacks and turn arounds. I know that what I've gone through is only the beginning, and only a tiny fraction of what I've put you through over the years. 

You've been through all this already, you have run the marathon and made it to the finish line. You are off on a new journey now. I have just left the starting line and I know this will be a long road.

Knowing all that, I can still say this. I will love you forever. I will always see your beauty. You are the light that will cast a shadow on any relationships I may have in the future. The lens by which I will compare all things.

I know you will never believe me when I say it, but I hope one day when the person you trust, the person you feel safe with, tells you you are beautiful, you can finally see it.

Pull

You draw people. You have a magnetism that pulls people to you. It is incredibly strong. I have seen it for years. I've felt it always. This need to be near you, ever closer to you. Others feel it too.

Now that we are where we are, it is maddening. I put things between us (tables, counters, chairs) because I feel the tug in my chest. My head swivels back to you again and again. Every time, without fail, I end up next to you. So close I could place a hand on your lower back or plant a kiss on your forehead. I try to pull away, to push against the draw. It is like wading in wet cement. It takes everything in me to keep that bit of distance, to not reach out. 

I do not know if this pull will last forever. Its been going on for decades and has only grown in strength. My only hope is that your repulsion of me will keep creating the space I need to keep away.

Maybe one day in the far future, with enough distance and time, I will no longer feel the pull.

That damn cat

 I don't know where I would be right now if not for that damned cat and feeding time. 

I was so lost, so overwhelmed. Crying and screaming and dying into a silly bed my kid made. My heart was shattering and shattering. I couldn't breathe, couldn't lift my head from the pillows. I couldn't anything. I couldn't be. So much pain I caused was just piling on top of me, pushing my head down harder. 

I felt like giving up. Just screaming all the air out and not letting any back in.

But the cat needed to be fed. She jumped on the bed and cried at me. Moved around the bed and cried again. I would lift my hand and she would dart toward the door, only to come back and cry again. I turned my head from the pillow and said "ok, I'm going." She didn't accept that and kept crying till I was up and moving. 

I got her food, and made the bed. I cleaned the litter box. I made my morning calls. I'm going to cut the lawn. I do not know about tomorrow, but I know I'll be feeding that damn cat at least.

calming the noise

There was a noise. It wasn't words, it wasn't anything I could articulate but it was just getting louder and louder and I knew I needed calm or comfort. Something to still the sound in my body. My first thought immediately was holding your hand in the bed. But I'm not stupid I knew that was too intimate, too much. So as it got louder and louder I thought laying in bed together would be enough for me and settle the sound to something manageable at least. but I know that was rude of me to ask. I should not rely on you. You do not need to be in the middle of this. You said you were done with our relationship and I need to respect that. I'm afraid I will have to keep coming to you to talk until I find a therapist. I have nothing else. That makes me feel worse because I am the source of so much of your pain and so much of your anxiety.

wish I knew

There's so much I wish I knew. The signs were there but nobody taught them to me. When you walled yourself off in blankets I told myself it was for comfort, even though it felt like rejection to me. An attempt to force space between us. It was that, but so you'd feel safe.

When you first started covering your face with me around I thought you were being coy and cute. Then I said you were worried about bad breathe. Eventually I realized too late you were hiding from me. Another form of protection.

How many other signs did I ignore or explain away. How many chances did I have to catch myself. I wish I knew.

I wish I knew all the little ways your body screamed for safety that I ignored or dismissed.

dead thing

 I don't know why I was trying to heal something that you already declared dead. I wasn't trying to put things back to the way they were, I only wanted to take away some of the pain and save whatever I could. But there is nothing to save. There's no need to work through resentment if there is no relationship to feel it in. There's no reason to build connections if they lead to nothing. 

I wanted to salvage as much as I could in hopes that it would help us get to a place of understanding, and maybe one day friendship. I was just putting band-aids on a dead bird, knowing it will never fly but pretending there is a chance it may hop.

I'm still trying to work through the pain I cause and the damage I've done. It's still there for me and I still have to accept it all and grow from it. That does not mean I have to keep dragging you into it though. If it is dead, then it needs to be buried and mourned, and then we have to move on. 

Little Voice

There is a little voice deep down, next to where I cage my demons. It is so quiet and soft that it sounds like wind through the leaves. I cannot understand the words, but I know what it is saying.

It is hope.

Hope that this is not the end. Hope that there's still time. Hope that I can become thw man she always wanted me to be, and that she will still be around to see it. 

We will come together again, new people in a new love that is stronger because of the broken bits and the work to repair them.

It is an impossible hope, a butterfly hoping to visit the moon before it passes. 

I have other hopes, real hopes, attainable goals. To be a better father, better partner. To know myself and heal myself. To become part of the community and make friends.

These are my focus, but that breeze still blows from the very bottom of my soul. I cannot kill it. I cannot pluck that butterflies wings, because it is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I cannot yet bear to watch it die.

Morning beauty to rival the sunrise

She had that wild hair this morning and a pink tank top. She has these little flashes of genuine smile that makes my heart skip a beat whenever I see it. I love the way she moves about the room, the way she does her makeup, and the way she looks at herself in the mirror. Very meticulous and refined as she looks at herself, but I see this wild hair, pink tank top, beautiful smile. It makes my heart ache.

Punishment and Grace

I deserve the relationship we have now. Not just because I ruined our marriage years ago. Your writings showed that clearly. It's because of all the years you were screaming to try and reach me even through the pain, and all the years I was so cruel to you.

I hate that I put you through so much pain, that moving on was the only option you had left, and that it took you telling me that to finally cut through the fog.

The relationship we have now is not punishing me. Knowing that I hurt the one I care about most in this world, and that I did for so long and so cruelly, that is my punishment.

Still being in your life is grace. It is the sliver of light in the dark hole I've put myself.

new routine

I just want to lay in the bed... and drown. But I can't, because I made the bed after I fed the cat. I guess I'll just keep up with the routine that I created for myself. I can do this.

failing

 I try and stumble, try and then fall. she deserves so much more than I can offer. I try to meet her needs but my brain won't let me. I make choices and they are the wrong ones, but they sound so logical when my brain says them. I want to do better, to be better. The pills aren't helping. maybe they mellow me, but then I am indifferent and uncaring. my memory worsens. I feel myself more and more pulling at strings trying to reach the thought I had or the instruction I was given. therapy feels pointless. I cannot remember what it is a should talk about. 

She's going to leave me, and she has every right to. I only hope that when she finds someone new, they bring her coffee every morning, and they are unable to look away when she gets ready like I am.  They will love her the way I do, but also more because they can give her what she needs.