There were also flowers from two other people, so my living room is bright and colorful and smells of roses.
Rope Guy took me out to dinner and a comedy show because he said after the summer I have had, I desperately needed some laughter. He also brought over a big gift bag with "Happy Birthday!" on it. I felt like a little girl, because he made me wait until we got back from the show to open it. The gift was thoughtful and wonderful. It wasn't a perfect birthday (no husband), but it was a damn fine one.
When I compare it to last year, well there is no comparison. Last year, I spent my birthday is a state of distress and ended up curled on a sofa bed, sobbing and crying. I made the mistake of keeping my Disneyland plans with DA. I have to be fair, he did his best to be considerate and thoughtful during the trip. It didn't make up for the pain we inflicted upon each other for the prior two weeks. DA and my birthday has never been a happy combination. He was very good at dropping bombshells right in the middle of my celebrations. I am very relived that I didn't hear a peep from him yesterday. (I didn't expect to, but after screwing up three birthdays in four, I worried that he would manage to fuck things up somehow.)
While I had a good birthday, last night was a bad one. It wasn't just DA and his current girlfriend. I linked it back to Jack and his wife. I thought about how much I invested in both Jack and DA, only to be shoved out of their lives. I don't blame the wife or the girlfriend. I blame the men who were more that happy to appreciate my experience and use my friendship to become people worthy of marriage. Maybe I am just bitter and wrong, but I feel very strongly that neither of them would be in the relationships they are in now had I not been in their lives. I hate that I was trashed because I was inconvenient.
I blame myself more. How could I be so stupid? Especially since I went through it once with Jack, how could I not see it with DA? I sometimes wonder if I am hurting more over Jack, but because of both his life and my life going pear shaped at about the same time, I never had the chance to truly mourn or feel my anger. I wonder if seeing Jack and his wife at that party didn't push me towards trying to prove that the same was true with DA.
My therapist told me that I shouldn't feel stupid or rejected. I should be proud of myself for being able to make the emotional connections in the first place. I can see her point, but I still feel dumb.
My therapist and I believe that for the first time in my life I can't run. I have probably mentioned this before, but between my health issues and some other things, all I have had time to do is think, reflect, and dwell. I absolutely hate it. As RG put it, it's like peeling back an onion and finding more stuff underneath. (and hey onions and crying go together, right?)
Last night the brain weasels crawled around telling me that I wasn't worthy of being treated well, that I set myself up. I still have feelings for Jack (albeit muted and mostly regret). I still have feelings for DA, even though I can't imagine why, given how badly he has treated me.
When discussing this stuff with Rope Guy, I noted that I don't give myself a lot of slack. I am an abuse survivor. I don't discuss it much because that's my family. I grew up in a place where loving and emotional touch is not the norm.
Jack and DA are both the opposite of how I grew up. They would wrap me in their embrace just to talk. They would hold my hand, put an arm on my shoulder and snuggle me tightly at night in a way that I never really experienced before. I think because it was so natural for them. I learned that touch was a language and one I can barely understand. I still feel like I am at the 1st grade level and just getting the basic grammar.
Jack and DA weren't just people I dated, they were sources of an addictive experience I couldn't find elsewhere. When I shared touch with them, it wasn't awkward, it was fluent and nuanced.
Of course it fucking hurt when it was taken away. At least with Jack, it was a mutual process. In the year since DA and I broke up, we have yet to have a decent, in person conversation about what happened. There is so much guilt and anger that DA can't stand to talk to me. I am so hurt and frustrated that I pop off whenever we try. Instead of talking, it is just horrible e-mails that mostly go unanswered.
I want that fluency. I want that touch. More importantly, I never want to feel vulnerable like that again. I wonder if it wouldn't have been better if I had never known Jack or DA than to have gone through this. They both told me, repeatedly, how utterly wonderful I was and how much they treasured me in their lives. Well if that was true, why the fuck don't they treasure me now. If I wanted to feel abandoned, I had my father for that, thank you very much.
When I put things in perspective, like comparing my birthday last year to my birthday this year, I can see how much better things are. I tend to look at Jack through rose colored glasses and since I don't get to interact with him much, I tend to forget what an arrogant ass he could be and how incapable he was of thinking of other people. I know that things with DA didn't fall apart a couple of weeks before my birthday last year. Things started falling apart as soon as we started dating.
It doesn't change the fact that I feel abandoned. It doesn't change the fact that I was abandoned and neglected a lot as a child. It doesn't change the fact that I believed them when they told me that I was amazing and wonderful and now it all feels like lies.
So when Rope Guy, my husband or anyone else tells me how nifty and cool I am, I don't believe them. I am just waiting for the day when they meet someone better and leave. I know that there will always be someone better. It makes me afraid to trust them and so I hold myself back and removed, always ready to be dumped when I become inconvenient.
My therapist tells me that I need to meet and make a relationship with someone better. That person would be me, because she says that I don't see the wonderful and fantastic person that I am. She tells me that I need to have a more intimate relationship with myself. Sometimes I believe her, but it doesn't take much for me to remember that a) I pay her, and b) that it's hard to think you are wonderful when you grew up being told that you weren't good enough (smart enough, talented enough, pretty, or otherwise a worthwhile person upon this earth.)
I managed to spend 30 years running fast enough and getting in and out of enough scrapes that I never had to face this fact. Facing it over the past year has been anything but pleasant.
Well, I am going use a positive song for this rather depressing post. This is what I am aiming for.
Today's Song - Stronger by Kelly Clarkson
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