I applied for and have been hired for a stipend position at work. I will teach my usual 5 classes and I will be directing the Peer Resource/Freshman Mentor program at the high school where I work. It's the same work I have been doing for the past few years, just paid and with some additional deliverables.
Given that the class meets at 0700, I am probably insane for taking it on. However, peer mentorship and helping students to cope with their stress is something I have wanted to do since I finished my masters. The upside is that I am not taking it on alone. I like my co-teacher and I think we will work well together.
I am jonesing though. I have been living in crisis mode for so long that I have forgotten how not to. This isn't just about past romantic relationships. There just has always been something pressing on me and forcing me forward. It's not that life is perfect, but while there are always challenges, emotionally my life is the quietest it's been in years.
How do people live like this?
I never saw myself as an adrenaline junkie, but I am used to putting out whatever fire is in front of me. I guess I do like the thrill. I don't want to invite the universe to put me into "interesting times". I just need to get used to living day to day without a crisis to solve. I want to appreciate that I can accomplish the projects that I have been putting off and start in with hobbies that I have wanted to pursue.
Why does peaceful existence seem harder than dealing with yet another fuss from DA or drama at home? (I actually know why, I am just wondering why my brain is stupid.)
Today's song is just because I've been obsessing about it for the past few days.
It has been challenging to write here recently. So this is a check in.
It's mostly good news. My daughter and I finally had that talk and it went pretty well. We will see how it goes in the long term, but short term looks promising. I met my daughter's current partner, who seems lovely. I continue to be proud of her and while I don't always agree with her choices, I know that she thinks things through. I believe she is far more mature than I was at 24.
Rope Guy and I are still seeing each other and it goes apace. I am still seeing Keto, and that too is going well. Getting time with them has been a challenge and that is just life and frustrating.
There is a lot of stress at home, but it's not relationship stress. My husband is as loving, generous and understanding as always. He is also super stressed. I have had to do more "wife stuff" in the past few days than he usually asks of me. While I am worried about him, I am starting to better understand why he appreciates me so much. I was reminded yesterday that we are a good match, as much as most people probably don't see it.
I am not spending enough time with my friends. Work is taking a lot of my bandwidth and I am not motivated to reach out and be social. I want to see people more, but I can't. am glad for the friends that are keeping me in the loop.
I couldn't think of a good song, so I figured that I would default to some Dire Straits.
EXTERIOR: CREEK SIDE PATH. TWO PEOPLE ARE WALKING ALONG A FULL AND BURBLING CREEK. THE GREENERY IS LUSH AND THE WEATHER IS OVERCAST. THE PATH IS SOAKED WITH RECENT RAINFALL.
RACHEL IS A MIDDLE AGED WOMAN, WEARING A NAVY BLUE RAIN COAT AND BRIGHT BLUE RAIN BOOTS WITH FAUX FUR TRIM AT THE TOP. JT IS A MIDDLE AGED MAN WEARING A BLACK TRENCH COAT AND A BLACK LEATHER FEDORA. THE AUDIENCE JOINS THE ONGOING CONVERSATION.
JT
...so I took the job with the Start-Up. It wasn't as much money, but I get to do the sort of coding that interests me and if we're successful, we will revolutionize the integration of technology for people with physical disabilities.
RACHEL
(with enthusiasm)
That sounds like an amazing opportunity. I am so glad you took the job!
JT
Well, Jenna has a good position at the college, so we could afford to gamble a bit.
(obviously switching gears, his voice is tinged with concern)
Rachel, what's this I hear about you wanting to talk to DA again?
RACHEL
(frowns in frustration)
I don't want to to talk to him again. I am trying to figure out how to get some closure and I feel stymied. I thought if I didn't talk to him for a couple of months, I would feel differently. I don't.
JT
You know these things take time. You just have to be...
RACHEL
(angrily)
Don't you dare say that I just need to be patient and give myself time. I've done nothing but give myself time. I've done nothing but be understanding and considerate and wait for him to pull his head from his ass.
JT
And has his cranial extraction from his rectum been successful?
RACHEL
How am I supposed to know? I haven't had any communication with him in months.
JT
(gently, but firmly)
Do you honestly think that anything will be different?
RACHEL
(shakes her head in frustration)
I don't know, but probably not. Talking to him never goes well.
JT
Then why do you want to talk to him?
RACHEL
(stops, faces JT and spits out bitterly)
Because I still give a damn about the bastard. I still love him, as stupid as that sounds. If I talk to him, he will do something horrible and hurtful. Maybe that will push me away. Maybe I will finally get over him.
JT
(cocks an eyebrow)
And?
RACHEL
(sheepishly)
Maybe he's missed me enough to not be an asshole?
JT
(putting a gentle hand on Rachel's shoulder)
Honey...
A SOFT SPRINKLE OF RAIN STARTS UP AGAIN. RACHEL FLIPS UP HER HOOD. SHE ACCEPTS JT'S GUIDANCE TO CONTINUE WALKING. THE TWO OF THEM RESUME THEIR STROLL, WALKING IN SILENCE FOR A WHILE WHILE THE RAIN PATTERS AROUND THEM.
JT
(picking up the conversation, says in a soft tone)
Rachel, every time you talk to him, you get hurt. He promises that things will get better, that he will learn from his mistakes and then he does the same thing over and over again. Do you really believe that a couple of months of silence from you has taught him anything?
RACHEL
(sighs deeply)
Probably not.
JT
You recently had a conflict with Rope Guy, yes? How did that go?
RACHEL
(smiles a bit)
He made an understandable mistake. He recognized it quickly and didn't argue with me about my feelings. He apologized. He offered sympathy and he made an effort to prevent it from happening again. His apology was sincere and heartfelt. I felt better after we spoke. I felt recognized and understood.
JT
(encouragingly)
And?
RACHEL
(begrudgingly)
It was a delightful change from my experiences with DA. Even Keto makes an effort to change and improve when he realizes he's made a mistake.
Rope Guy pointed out that Keto and he are nearly twice as old as DA, of course they aren't going to be as stupid.
JT
(annoyed)
It's not your job to make sure that DA learns how to treat people with consideration, Rachel. This is something he should have learned in high school. It's a shame that he found a way to exploit people of your character. He is very good at finding you guys and using you. The four people he has dated in the past ten years, including you, are very similar. It seems that each of you is a giving person who just wants to help. You all also need a shit ton of affirmation.
DA is more than happy to take the help, but he is a miser when it comes to giving affirmation. He doles his regard in drips and just enough to keep people coming back for more.
His college ex has only been around for so long because she lives 2 time zones away. He had to cut Ex #1 out of his life completely after their "friendship" crashed and burned. I think he was only able to maintain his relationship with Ex #3 because he used you as a scapegoat for all of her complaints.
I also think he was playing you. You may have gotten the most honest interactions with him, but it was constant work for you. Why would you want that again?
RACHEL
(stops, pushes her hood back and lets the rain fall on her head. She is obviously frustrated.)
You think I haven't thought of all of this? You haven't told me a damn thing I don't already know. I know what a destructive impulse any contact with my ex will be.
But I don't abandon people unless I have no other option. I don't know how to let someone go. I do it when I absolutely have to, but it's the most difficult option.
I don't stop feeling JT. I don't forget. I can tell you exactly how I felt about my first boyfriend as though it was yesterday. I can tell you what it felt like to sit next to him at the roller rink or what it felt like to lie on his bed while he worked on his computer.
(winces)
Shut up, I do not have a fucking type!
(JT holds his hands up defensively and in apology.)
It has always been like that. When I care, when I love, the person becomes a part of my life. You were the person who said that I entwine myself into people's souls. Do you think that it's easy? Few people become part of my innermost heart, but when I let someone in, I don't do so lightly. I let DA in. He has been a part of my life for years. He and I were "together" for longer than I was with Jack, with you, or with my first husband.
JT
(quietly)
Rachel, I know he meant a lot...
RACHEL
(louder, almost shrill)
Not meant, he means a lot to me. I think about DA still. I don't wish we were together. I don't wonder if he is still with his new girlfriend. I don't think about what was.
I don't think. I just feel. All the time, even though I don't want to. I just fucking feel all the time. I am so damn tired of it.
JT
Sweetie, just give it some time. It's not like you got over Jack in a day...
RACHEL
Jack was my friend before and after our "relationship". He is still my friend. He isn't in my life and we don't have regular contact, but every time I have needed him, he has been there. The same way I have been there when he needed me. And Jack is different, because...
Because he broke up with me when I prioritized my marriage over him. I think that hurt him more than I ever realized. And Jack made sure that he put someone into my life that was a better match. Jack took care of me.
I am not saying that things between DA and I were all that great. I've looked at where I was a year ago. Things sucked ass. I have not felt like I could depend on that man for over a year. That's the problem, JT. I can't understand why I still care. I don't want to care. I can't figure out a good reason to care. But, I still do.
JT
Rachel, break ups are hard. We have discussed this. You just aren't used to dealing with hearthache. Just give this more time.
RACHEL
Yes, break ups fucking suck. I have done all the things. I have moved on. I have found new hobbies. I have explored new relationships. I have found people who fulfill my needs and make me happy. There is nothing connecting me with DA but unpleasant memories.
There is, as far as I am aware, only one reason that I still feel the connection. There is still something for me to do.
JT
Rachel...
RACHEL
Yeah, I know, there is no scientific proof...
JT
That's not what I mean. I have seen you do some pretty impressive feats in the years I have known you. But isn't it possible that this is just you wanting something and making up something to justify what you want?
RACHEL
(sternly)
Have I ever done that?
JT
Well...
RACHEL
I won't deny that I can be self-serving. But when I feel like this, about someone who let me go, it's something more than wishful thinking on my part.
I have something to do and as far as I can tell, it has to do with DA. I am feeling pushed and the more I try to ignore it, the more pressure I am feeling. I could wait another month, three months, whatever. I don't think the feeling will go away. I think it will only get worse. The feeling has been hitting me harder for the past few days. There is no significant date or anniversary that I am aware of. It's just something...
Ever since I read the Ivanhoe exchange between Jay and A, it's made me feel that I still have unfinished business.
JT
Ivanhoe exchange?
RACHEL
Long story. In a nutshell, two people who had to be honest about their emotions and ended up using the language of unrequited love.
(changes gears)
I want to be wrong. I have been forcing myself to refrain from contact. I promised myself I wouldn't talk to anyone about it, because I feel crazy.
But Jay reminded me that this is what I do, who I am. If I deny this feeling out of pride or a sense of getting hurt, then I am denying myself.
JT
Okay, what do you think you should do?
RACHEL
(tired and defeated)
If I fucking knew that...
JT
(exasperated)
Rachel...look you are soaking wet and the rain is only falling harder. Let's go back to your place. We'll have some tea, we'll talk more.
I wish I knew what the answer is or why you feel the way you do. But I will help you figure it out. Post this to your blog. Who knows, maybe someone is still reading...
Today's Song - Here Comes the Rain Again by The Eurythmics
I don't know how to articulate what I want. When somebody asks me, my
usual response is "A Pony" with the enthusiasm of a 7 year old. This is
how I have ended up with a number of different iterations of a "pony" as
gifts. I don't know how to explain that telling people what I want only
gives them the opportunity to take it away or tell me no.
But I understood today that by living in fear, I wasn't really living, I was existing on hope. I regret that it means another DA entry, but I have to figure out how to work through this. I am still dealing with feelings. Ugh! I rather pride myself on being someone who doesn't pursue impossible situations. When a relationship is over, that's it. Go to break up, go directly to break up. Do not pass Go, do not engage in 200 bouts of break-up sex.
There has only been two exceptions that I can recall. In both cases, my feelings were reflected from the person. I had so much trouble walking away because the person on the other side of the break up refused to let me go. In those cases it took over a year to feel close to normal again. I do not want to deal with months more of this. I will try to explain why in another entry, but time has not made things better.
I think part of my problem is that I wasn't being Rachel. I was being some stupid reflection of the Rachel I thought DA wanted, which was really fucking stupid.
DA had an ex. I have discussed this ex before. He was an issue in our relationship until the day it ended. This probably had to do with the fact that DA's other girlfriend considered DA's ex one of her closest friends. (I have no fucking clue how any of the three of them handled that cognitive dissonance.) There were a lot of reasons that I didn't get along with DA's other girlfriend, but I feel that she found it easiest to blame everything on me than face the reality of who DA really was and the part he played in hurting her friend. I have to wonder what happened to that dynamic once I was out of the picture. (Given that she broke up with him less than a month later, I have some ideas.)
Being compared to DA's ex was the worst thing I could think of. I thought his ex was unreasonable and crazy. I didn't want to be that. I made sanity such a priority I think that I overcompensated. I tried to be thoughtful and considerate and I lost myself in the process. I didn't ask for what I needed from the relationship, scared that I would be demanding like DA's ex. I thought if I gave the right things and was a good girlfriend, things would work out for DA and me. When I was hurt, I didn't say anything, because to do so would be to act like "The Ex". I am not saying that DA ever reinforced this, I don't believe he did so intentionally. However, he broke up with his ex (and eventually cut the man completely from his life) because of his outbursts, his demands and his inability to let the relationship go.
I have worked very hard not to do anything similar. I haven't gone out of my way to make DA uncomfortable in shared spaces. I haven't text-bombed him, called him or shown up at his house uninvited. I have sent a fair share of e-mails. but even those I tried to keep reasonable and communicative.
Before I cut DA out of my life, I told him that I knew why I was still engaging. I learned the lesson from his ex, that negative attention was better than being ignored. I didn't understand why he was still engaging with me. I said him that I suspected that as long as I was still around, he could blame whatever problems he was having on me. The way that DA sidestepped the question and tried to turn my statement back on me (while still continuing to engage) makes me think I was on to something.
This feeling combined with him telling me that his current girlfriend encouraged him to talk to me made me decide that continued interaction was only going to cause more drama and trauma. I sincerely doubt that my retreat caused a bump in his relationship. DA used his ex as a patsy in our relationship. He hung a lot of issues on me with "Primary" (who needs another name). It stands to reason that he will repeat the pattern.
The feelings I have for DA are complicated and challenging for me. I don't know how to deal with them. I had hoped that two months of zero contact would give me a better grasp of how I was feeling and help me decide what I need to do to move forward. I feel like nothing is better. I know that I am better off without having him in my life, but something feels unfinished. I have no idea what to do, but I feel like I need to do something, for my own sake of peace.
If this were a more typical relationship, I would ask our mutual friends to test the waters for me. The problem is that DA doesn't seem to have any friends given that Primary and I were it. (If he has friends now, they certainly aren't mutual). I could ask his roommates, but I feel like that is a violation of their relationship as a household. One of the roomies can read this, but I have also told them that I would prefer not to put them in the middle. I feel that they have done enough to work things out between us as it is. I suppose I could ask DA's college girlfriend, she and I got along well, but that doesn't seem right either. I feel like I either can contact DA directly or not at all. I can't even guess which he would prefer.
I hate having a sword of Damocles hanging over me and this choice is starting to feel like one. The best thing I can think of is to tell DA precisely what I need if we are ever going to be friends. If he doesn't give it to me, then I can walk away.
Or
I could just walk away.
And that statement made the song for this entry ridiculously easy to choose.
Mother’s Day of 2018 sucked ass. My daughter chose not to see me. I was hurt and I vented in this blog. What I wrote (understandably) hurt her. We have not spoken since. A couple of days after Mother's Day she sent me an e-mail detailing everything I had ever done wrong in her life. She said that she wouldn't talk to me without a mediator.
I wrote a carefully considered reply, having a friend, who is acquainted with my daughter, to check it for emotional triggers. I didn’t engage with the e-mail. I didn’t argue. I simply went with her requested solution. I offered to pay to see a family therapist. She didn’t respond for months.
When she did respond, she wanted a mutual friend to sit with us. While I think that is a less than ideal option, I didn’t want to argue further, so I assented. Then scheduling that meeting turned into a nightmare. There were extenuating circumstances for some of the delays, but agreeing on a date has taken months. We finally settled plans to meet tonight.
My daughter texted me this morning and asked to postpone to next Thursday.
Thursday night is my standing date with Keto. I told him a week ago I wouldn’t be available tonight. I can tell him I could be available tonight, but at the moment I am so emotional I don’t want to go out. (Who knows how I will feel later.) I understand that life happens, but I am so frustrated. It is yet another delay. It isn’t about whether or not I have plans or if life happens. It is about the fact that my daughter took an emotional vent and has shut me out of her life for 10 months because of it.
Why bother discussing it with her at all? I own that I said something hurtful. I know I am not a perfect parent. But I worked my fucking ass off to get her through some major shit. I put my relationship with my husband, my career, everything aside to help her. I don’t believe my daughter owes me anything. I am the parent, I did what I felt was appropriate, I put my child above everything else.
However if my reward for that is that she cuts me out of her life for 10 months, what exactly am I investing in? She is over 18. I have fought for all of her life to keep a connection with her, despite her father’s wishes. If she doesn’t want me in her life when I have a human moment and do something stupid, she can fuck off. I am tired of having to prove myself as a worthwhile parent.
I know that this isn’t all my daughter. I know that this is playing on my insecurities about being a “good girl” and a “good parent” and all of that stuff. I know that this is playing on three years of pouring myself into DA and getting a similar result. If people can’t appreciate me for who and what I am, fuck them. I am tired of being the one that gives and gives and gets shitcanned in return.
I have gotten to the point where I stopped trying to connect with my daughter. I don’t try to contact her because she made it clear that I wasn’t a priority for her. She didn’t give me a reason for tonight’s delay, so while the reason might be perfectly valid, I just feel like I am being shoved aside again.
DA has respected my wishes that we have no contact. I don’t even know how to reopen communication. As long as there is no contact because I say so, I don't have to think about what I poured into the relationship, just to be told that it wasn't worthwhile. I am afraid that if I reopen communication, it will just give DA the opportunity to do what my daughter just did. It will an opportunity to tell me that I am not important; but maybe I will be at some point in the future, when it’s more convenient.
What my daughter has done hurts far more than anything DA could do. But it feels like no matter how hard I try, people will abandon me when I have the temerity to be human and need things or make mistakes. My daughter, DA, H2, H1, my father, my mother. If there is anything that fucks me up, it's this feeling of worthlessness. I fight it everyday, because I know my brain is lying to me. Today I am losing.
My daughter didn’t cancel on me until I was on my way to work.. I have been quietly crying all morning. I don’t know how to make the pain stop and I can’t easily leave work. I guess I will take some Advil and hope that deadens things until I can go home and well...well do something.
Today's Song is one I think I have used before. It just seems to embody how I feel.
I haven’t felt much like writing in my journal recently. I feel like I am just on repeat.
Keto is not the relationship I expected, but I have the feeling that it will be good for me. I don’t think I will ever be ass over teakettle for him, but I have grown to care for him in the past few months.
Rope Guy and I went on our first weekend away. There was no conflict, we got to know each other better and how we traveled together. It’s hard to qualify the emotions, but I would say they are very positive. I keep worrying that he will wake up and realize how broken I am, but he seems to know and still wants to be around.
I am tired of dealing with union crap with my job. I know this is the downside of likely never having to look for a job. (I don’t mean because of tenure, but because so long as I do my job well, I will be needed. There won’t be layoffs or mergers. It is unlikely I will find out that my job has been cut in front of over 100 people at a company wide meeting.)
I haven’t communicated with DA in about two months. I don’t want to, although I admit that I am curious about what he is thinking. I just don’t want to get bogged down in the stupid morass that always seems to accompany our interactions. Ignoring him this week has been a little challenging because his birthday is coming up, but I figure that talking to him just because it is his birthday wouldn't be terribly fair.
I feel like there isn’t much I can do. I am trying to enjoy the good stuff, navigate the frustrating and biding my time on the rest. I am not sure how I feel about treading water, I just feel like there is something I should be doing. That said, I am very appreciative that I have people willing to listen to me bitch. That is why I chose today's song. It's a little known pop sugar piece from the year I graduated high school. I have always thought it's very sweet.
