Once upon a time, there was a fairly normal girl who went away to college. And in the fall of her sophomore year, she met a boy at the campus radio station and fell in love for the first time. The boy and the girl had an enchanted love affair. They talked for hours and hours, they laughed, they adored each other, everyone they met (including themselves) seemed to believe they found their soul mate. Since she rented a room from an elderly lady off-campus, and he lived at home with his mother and siblings, they spent a lot of time walking through parks in the middle of the night, planning their future and listening to the 4am train rumble through their small town. As the crisp October days gave way to cold and snow, they relied on his Delta 88, and kept themselves warm with an old quilt and their plans to marry after college and take WCCO by storm: her in television, and him in radio. Alas, it was not to be, however. The boy, bewildered and beset with demands from his mother and (unbeknownst to the girl) by demands from a former girlfriend, ended their relationship. The girl fell down the rabbit hole, and her descent only sped up when she learned, three months later, that the boy was to marry his former flame.. She emerged a year later when the boy called her from his army post at Fort Dix. He begged her to write to him; said he'd made a mistake and he wanted her back. She wrote … but the promised letter in return never came. Finally, she confronted him and he confessed that he could not return to her – his fiancée "wouldn't let him." So the girl left, and began looking for surcease from the pain. Within two months, she had lost her virginity. Within five months, she had gotten pregnant in a one night stand with a nameless stranger. Two months after that, she found herself at a clinic, staring at a poster of a fur seal pup someone had taped to a ceiling in the procedure room. She tried alcohol, sex with strangers, Lutheranism, even what passed for counseling at the time – anything to outrun the pain, but nothing worked. Eventually, she all but stopped drinking and having sex with strangers, became a Unitarian Universalist, and even married – twice. Despite the divorces, a rebound engagement that had ended most unpleasantly, and finding herself a single parent, she never really felt she had gotten over the boy until she met him (at his insistence in a park where no one could see them) twenty five years later. Despite his balding pate and middle aged spread, his quick grin and his wit and humor recalled to her instantly why she had loved him so. And yet, a continuing sense of bewilderment and inability or unwillingness to take a stand was not as easy to overlook in a man as it had been in a boy, and when they said goodbye, she somehow had the sense that after all this time, some kind of chapter had been closed. Then, 26 years after she met the boy at the campus radio station, she met a man online. It was hard to meet single men in their 40s, especially since most men either had no children and wanted them, or had already raised their children and wanted their freedom. The man she met had four children – the youngest two close in age to her daughter – and one dog; and the girl, who had graduated to womanhood over the years, had one child and four dogs. The man had a major in philosophy; the woman had a minor in it. They met; he told her he loved her and soon she was able to say the same to him, and they (including the children) began making little adjustments and plans for the life they hoped to lead with one another someday. It wasn't easy; the man was out of work and needed to find employment that would enable him to continue to have his children with him half time. The woman lived an hour away and had a house and job there she couldn't leave. And she began to wonder, in the back of her mind, if the man was too enmeshed in his own pain over his divorce and his children to look clearly at either her or the future, but she brushed aside those errant thoughts and told herself that with patience and time, they would work through this bad patch and realize the future of their dreams. Until the day, that is, when one of the man's daughters instant-messaged the woman that her father had had someone else over to the house to watch movies the night before. The woman called the man and he assured her that everything was fine between them. This person was just an old friend, he said, and promised to talk to her more about it that night. But when she called, he didn't answer the phone. On and off, all night long, she tried his number, but he never picked up. The next day, three days before Valentine's Day, he told her he was leaving her to be with this other woman. And once again, she fell down the rabbit hole. This time, however, she was aided by her therapist, her psychiatrist, and an outpatient mental health program. Thanks to Lorazepam, lithium and adjusted doses of her regular antidepressant, plus weekly meetings with her therapist, six weeks of outpatient mental health treatment four days a week, and almost five months medical leave from her job, she stayed alive. The man had dumped her right at the start of a membership drive at the public radio station where she worked, so taking time off was not an option. She pasted a smile on her face and swallowed the lump in her throat with gallons of coffee and medication, and after the drive was over, even managed to work her morning shift on the air before heading down to the hospital. She learned that she could put her head down and cry during the songs, sit up, blow her nose, take another swallow of coffee, paste on the smile and key the mic. She could back-announce the music and talk about the weather, then start the next song, turn off her mic, and put her head down on the board again and weep. And no one listening ever knew. Once again, people told her she would get through this. But this time, they weren't so quick to reassure her she'd find love again. And they didn't say anything about all the wonderful life she had yet to live; they just said she had to be around for the people who needed her. And even though her beloved therapist, who had helped her so tremendously in the years since her second divorce, assured her "we'll get you through this," she started to feel that she had been lied to, manipulated, tricked into staying alive simply to make other people's lives easier and not because there was anything left for her in this life at all. In her family, a lot of sad things happened in February. She had an older sister who died of a heart defect after four days in 1958, and the anniversary of her birth and death always made the woman's parents sad. There had been some other sad anniversaries in February, too, including the Valentine's Day 2002 diagnosis of her beloved dog with cancer. She had decided, in that first year after the man left her, that if things did not in fact improve, she was going to end her life in February, on the anniversary of the day he abandoned her. She didn't. And now, two years after that fateful day, she thinks she made a mistake. With the exception of a couple of med changes and the ability to get through a whole month, sometimes, without crying at work, nothing has really changed. And once again, the woman is finding herself choking on rage against – she's not sure what or whom – but rage that she was tricked, tricked into staying alive thirty years ago and tricked into staying alive one year ago – two years ago … and wondering when she will finally, finally let go. Let go of hope, let go of fairy stories, let go of belief … and find the end to pain she's looked for for so long.
The crux of the matter is this:
I cannot seem to get over this obsessive need to be loved by someone. A man/partner/friend-and-lover someone.
The longer I am alone and lonely, the more I desire this relationship and the sicker I get.
The more I want it and the sicker I get, the more off-putting I become and the less likely I am to find it.
Even when I am white-knuckling through the days, trying to control my thoughts and impersonate a normal person, there is stuff going on inside my heart that I cannot seem to control.
I "didn't meet" someone at a work function last month, but was intrigued. Became Facebook friends, discovered he was single and his dogs were his life, and sent him a raft of helpful (?) messages when they got out and were lost, briefly.
Wandered over to his building and introduced myself last week; had a 20 minute, very enjoyable conversation about four-leggeds, and he accepted an invitation to tour the new animal shelter Saturday.
For the rest of the week, I did everything in my power to reign in my wayward thoughts, to view them with amusement and let them go when appropriate, and to concentrate on the fact that if I was going to have someone come over, I was going to have to clean the living room and the kitchen and that was A Good Thing, no matter WHAT the circumstances. Confessed all to my therapist Thursday and got some helpful advice as well as encouragement that I was on the right track.
Got up Saturday morning at 7am. Started in on the cleaning I had begun the evening before. Showered and put on makeup and my contacts (trying to be a normal person but I'm not stupid). Made cookies (ok, I know ... but the house really smelled good). At 10:30a, he called and said he was running late, and instead of meeting me at my house, perhaps we should just meet at the new shelter. Oh, and he had to have a late lunch with a client that he'd have to split for, too, so that shot the idea I'd proposed that we take the dogs out after.
Hm. Why was I surprised? Why wouldn't the Universe LOVE the chance to watch me knocking myself out doing all the things I am supposed to do anyway (although I was doing them for the wrong reasons) and then, snickering, pull the rug out from under me?
Met at the shelter and that new building is absolutely magical, but that is another story. Chatted a bit afterwards and I asked if he wanted to take the dogs out after his meeting. He said yes; agreed he would call by 2:30 or whenever he was done.
Came home, put on MUSIC (!! I haven't listened to music for enjoyment in two years) and finished the house cleaning AND washed all three little dogs. I felt good. Not high or elated; just ... normal, like I imagine other people must feel much of the time. Had some energy to clean the house and dance to the music and get some stuff done.
2:30 came and went ... 3pm ..... 3:30 .... there was that old sick feeling in the pit of my stomach again, that feeling I am so exhaustively familiar with that comes when "he" said he was going to call/come over and there is NOTHING. Should have just done something else, but I was, as usual, utterly unable to do so. As I always do, I finally called and got the voice mail and tried to leave a normal message, breezily inquiring about "what's the plan" ... got a call back that he'd crashed with the dogs and hadn't meant to sleep all afternoon, but that he'd have to skip the walk now because he had some house-cleaning to do.
I confess; I said I was going to see a movie at 4:30 and asked if he wanted to go -- he said he couldn't because he had a friend coming over that evening that was going through a rough spot. The conversation was light and pleasant and it's possible I didn't make as much of an ass out of myself as 1) I usually do 2) I thought I did, but the bottom line is that throughout the day, I did the inviting (over and over again; what an pathetic mess he must think me) and at no time did he reciprocate.
I don't know what's going on in this man's head. I don't know how long he's been divorced or anything about him other than a brief conversation and what he wrote on his Facebook profile. I would welcome the chance to get to know him better because I am attracted to him (I fancy him, as the Brits say) and would like at least ... a chance.
But my sickness (or perhaps my tenuous grasp of reality) tells me it ain't gonna happen. Despite my conviction that it would be just as easy for the Universe to put someone in my path who could/would love me as it is for me to continue without romantic options, the Universe doesn't see it that way. This man is not interested. I am too old. Too unattractive. Too something. Or not enough something else. He's just not that into me, as the saying goes. And in a matter of days or weeks or months, he will start dating someone who, to the outside world, might not be that much prettier or younger or smarter than me, but is somehow better, not intrinsically flawed in the way I seem to be.
My therapist keeps trying to talk me out of that position because, as he points out, where do you go from there? And yet just because it's depressing doesn't mean it's not true. I spent the rest of the day Saturday crying. And today, more or less immobilized. Even with my thoughts firmly reigned in, my heart felt AWFUL and my stomach felt AWFUL and it hurt so badly I cried. What really got me going was knowing that, despite my best efforts, I cannot seem to be a normal person. It is not normal to meet someone you're attracted to, to have casual plans fall apart, and to be suicidal about it. It's not normal to feel this way, it's not normal to hurt this way, and it's not normal to live this way. But I cannot get healthy.
After eight years of trying, I've made no progress. If anything, it just gets worse. I cannot live this way: either in an agony of loneliness or making a complete idiotic spectacle of myself like a junior high school girl. I am too sick to function normally and too sick to want to prolong the agony any more.
Went to church this morning. Had the sense that perhaps it was the thing to do, although I was grateful for the lack of seating that landed me on a chair out in the lobby area. I was doing fine until Gail closed with this all-too-familiar passage from Ranier Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" and I fell apart and left. I first ran across this quote in the program two years ago -- oh, how I have wanted, needed these words to be true:
"So you mustn't be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall."
But Rilke was wrong. Life doesn't care. It let me fall eight years ago and walked away and perhaps it's about time I realized it's not coming back for me.
They say you shouldn't go grocery shopping when you're hungry.
I know better than to take up important conversations after 3pm.
And I should DEFINITELY not undertake a web post when the Vikings have just lost. No more Vikings until September. Nothing to look forward to now until May or June sometime when we can think of camping again. And here in northern Minnesota, where the weather outside mirrors my emotional landscape much of the time (dark, cold, bleak, featureless) ... five months is a long, long time.
I don't think I've been fond of New Year's since high school. College, I remember sitting in my room with a bottle of pills, wondering if I could commit suicide with aspirin.
New Year's Eve 1985, a newlywed of just over a month, I screwed my courage to the sticking place and entered my brand-new husband's home office, dressed in bits of skimpy lace and bearing two glasses of champagne. "I'm working," he informed me, barely glancing up. "I don't have time for that now."
The evening of New Year's Day, 1999, terrified that my second marriage, which had produced a just-turned-one year old baby, wasn't Y2K compatible, only to have my worst fears confirmed three days later.
New Year's, I'm realizing, brings out the very worst of my bad habits. So much of my work with my therapist for the past two years has been about my insistence on ruminating about the past and dreading the future. So an event dedicated to looking back AND looking forward is just tailor-made to plunge me into the blackest places I can find.
F'r instance: between 1985 and 1995, I had horses again and dogs for the first time, got married, got divorced, held six different jobs in six different towns, moved nine times, got engaged, got disengaged, and got married again.
Between 1989 and 1999, even, I realized a dream and bought a farm, although I didn't have it very long. I got my dream job, met the love of my life, visited the west coast for the first time, saw the ocean and the redwoods for the first time, played Josie in "A Moon for the Misbegotten" and had a baby.
But since 2000, the happy changes have slowed down considerably. Between January of 2000 and January of 2009, I've had to learn how to be a parent and a divorced parent at the same time. Believe me, it sucks. I lost the love of my life, ended up in the hospital once and outpatient care once for "nervous breakdowns," lost 140 pounds and spent 14 of the 108 months in alleged relationships (obviously this doesn't include alleged relationships that turned into one night stands). Since I've got the calculator application open, that means I've spent just over 87% of the last nine years alone. (Let me digress to send a big Bronx cheer to the people who say I need time by myself --I've obviously had plenty.) And since this dating has occurred AFTER I lost the weight (I would have figured it out eventually, but "luckily" for me, every man I have gone out with has treated me to a lengthy riff on the "fat chicks" out there and what a turn off they are), apparently pushing 260 wasn't the problem -- my personality is.
