Because I am always willing to be transparent I want to share that dreams are sometimes the way our brains help us to work through things and in part of those dreams last night there was some heavy duty revenge stuff.
I believe in embracing my shadow self. I believe we have to work through these things and not dismiss them. Sometimes people do things to us that bring about anger. We must find a way to deal with that anger and if we do not then it will come out in our dreams.
My dream self is a bad ass woman who will rub a bitches blood into the dance floor. I would never hurt someone in real life but dreaming that …with my dream self letting out a war cry that would scare the most treacherous person …it was pretty cathartic and completely terrifying. I felt like I was dancing the dance of Kali complete with beheading and blood flowing.

Let me stress again…I would NEVER hurt someone in real life. I put spiders outside instead of smashing them. ;P I am a very passive person who is against violence. So don’t get any wrong ideas. But in my dreams….my shadow self is working through my buried pain.
Dancing with my shadow
Show me something I don’t know
I’m dancing with my shadow
Loving all that’s in my soul

I constantly wonder about this in every single relationship or friendship I have.  Because I have experienced some horrendous things in my life I find that I am always asking this question?  Why?  Well when you think someone cares about you and they suddenly walk away it makes you wonder.  I have wounds that go way back.  I just expect people to never come back.  I have this memory burned in my mind of my x walking down the hall of my building and looking back at me smiling before he turns the corner to go home after a nice date….that should be a nice memory…it is not…it is a memory that sums up all that I feel every single time someone leaves from being with me.  He is not coming back.  But he did.  He came back over and over for two years…and then he didn’t.  Now the truth of this is I know he does care about me.  I know he likes me as a person and that he cares about what happens to me….but tell my brain that tortures me every single day.  Tell my brain that brings up every single relationship I have been in that anyone cares about me.  It will laugh long and hard in your face.   This is why I know I have to heal to allow myself to be loved.  I hold people at arms length and convince them of why I am not worth loving.  Eventually they believe me and they leave.  That is the real truth and that is the hardest thing for me to accept.  I do this to myself every single fucking time.

So I will keep asking until I can get better…do you like me?  Do you really like me?

I don’t feel good.  I am not just talking about my heart hurting.  I am talking about actual physical issues.  I have nausea, a stomach ache, my chest hurts and I feel incredibly tired.  Going through withdrawal of any kind is terrible.  Some moments I feel like driving to the bridge downtown and throwing myself into the rushing waters.  Other times I feel like sleeping forever…and then sometimes I feel OK about life.  At times I feel like I am on top of the world and want to drink the tears of my enemies.  The thing is I realize that I am truly dangerous to myself at times.  I have no control over the ups and downs.  I do things that help such as meditation, screaming NO! when I start thinking about certain things or keeping busy.  I have not been creating art though and I know I need to do that.   I need to go for a trip.  I will be going on one next week and I am hoping it will help in so many different ways.  I just need friends to hang out with me.  Someone to talk to me while I clean the house or even help me when it seems overwhelming because I am hurting.  Someone to go for a walk with me and talk to me when I am on the verge of crying.  When I am talking to someone it is not so bad.   Someone to sleep in my bed with me when I am feeling like I never want to wake up.  Someone to make sure I am ok because there are times I am not ok.   Yes, it is getting better.  Everyday it is getting better.  I think in a few months I will read this and scratch my head that I was suffering so much.

I understand why people who do addictive drugs have such a hard time stopping.  Withdrawal is such a terrible thing.  I am still withdrawing from the connection I once had.  It feels terrible.  I know it will get better and eventually I will forget the strong feelings I had for this person.  There is a part of me that does not want to let go because once I stop loving ….it’s just over.  I will never feel that again for this person.  They will just be another person who fades into the crowd.  But for a long time they were the most bright and shining person in my life.   But the truth is…I need to be that bright and shining person for myself.

So I have come to a conclusion.  I have been doing it wrong.  I have been working to keep this heart shaped wound from closing up.

I have spent the last four months mourning over what I lost.  I made this choice because I was miserable and I know I was.  The thing is when I ended it I also lost my identity from the last two years.  I used to be half of that striking couple on the dance floor.  I used to spend Saturday mornings making breakfast together and going for a walk in the woods.  I used to dance until 4 in the morning and sleep in all tangled up together.  I used to walk in the door and see him and feel so incredibly happy….but…. I also used to cry myself to sleep every single Sunday.  Sometimes I never got out of bed on Sunday.  I used to be tortured wondering if he was going to come back because of some vague answer he gave me about scheduling.  I used to feel abandoned and not good enough because some nights he spent the entire time we were on the dance floor dancing with someone else and there were other things I just cannot talk about.   He never told me he loved me and missing someone…he just didn’t do that….but….I still cared for him deeply.  I loved him despite those things that hurt me.  What does that say about me?

This is not just about him.  This is about my entire life.  I have never given myself the chance to really heal from any relationship.  I have gone from one to another.  I understand why he is fine.  He went directly into another relationship so there was no open loop for him.  He looped right into someone else.  I have been trying to connect with something that no longer exists and it just feels like this constant searching for something that is missing.  I watched a ted talk this morning about heartbreak and it made me stop and do some serious thinking.   He said if you want to heal you have to make a new life.  You cannot just mourn for what you lost and if you feel you have lost your identity it is because your identity was a couples identity.  I know that has always been true for me.  Everything I did I did with him and when he was not with me I was not doing much of anything but waiting to see him.  So now I am tasked with building this new life.  I am giving up the places that were our places and trying to find new places that I can feel comfortable.  I have tried a few things and did not like them but I will keep trying.

I do know this.  I am done with dating and having a bf.  I want to learn to be alone.  I want to be happy with my own company.  I want to put energy into my friendship with my housemate and my close female friends.  I want to grow a group with my friend that we recently started.  I want to spend time with my children and grandchildren.  I want to be outdoors and cook pizza in an outdoor oven.  I want to sit around the fire in the backyard and at the camp site.  I want to learn to make brooms and howl at the moon with Mr. B and Kitos.  I want to travel to Iceland, Ireland, England, Paris, India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, New Orleans, California, Oregon, Washington State,  Salem, Colorado, Minnesota, ….so so many places.  I have so many things I want to do and I have a wonderful friend to do that with.  My focus now is to build my own business and fill my life with laughter again.

It will take time but I will grow from this.

That is what he said.

I don’t believe it.  Right now it seems it will never get better.  My heart hurts and I only laugh when I am home talking with my housemate and my dog.  It is the only time I feel safe…when I am home.  I feel like the world is full of people who want to use me up and throw me aside.  It is hurtful to have people say one thing to your face and something else to your back.  It is hurtful to have people offer to help you and then show up when its all over asking what they can do.  It is hurtful to have someone lie and destroy you with betrayal and go on with their life like you never existed.  It is hurtful to be replaced.  I have been carrying so much pain.  To top it all off I was rejected by someone I have been a friend to after a misunderstanding.  That was the worst thing that happened to me this week.  Well, the worst thing in addition to feeling lonely, less than and never enough.

I have felt depressed as long as I can remember.  I don’t think it will ever get better.  I don’t know how much longer I can live like this.  I have to do something to change it but it is not that easy.  I wish I could move our house away from this cursed place.  I wish I could go on a 6 month vacation so I could heal and not cry every single day.

Don’t judge me if you do not understand.  I don’t want to be this way.  It is easy to say…just snap out of it….you should not feel that way….that person is not worth it….etc etc…  The truth of the matter is that these are my feelings.  I love deeply and I hurt deeply.  It is just who I am.

I am struggling.  It was a great weekend in that I was able to set up an amazing art gallery and meet some wonderful people.  At the same time my heart ached all weekend.  I had to steal away to cry several times.  How can I feel so rejected and alone in a crowd full of people who love me?  I wish I knew why.  I felt like I was back to day one when I said it’s over.  It is over.  IT IS FUCKING OVER.  It is always fucking over because I am never enough.

UGH

One of those asshole squirrels wrote that last part.

For those who do not know me well I am the co-founder, co-producer and art curator for the Rochester Erotic Arts Festival.   My role has changed over the years and I do the art and do my best to be a good Hostess for the festival.  I hit the ground running on Thursday and never stop until the festival is over and all the art is picked up on Sunday.  I love the festival.  The past couple of years have been rocky for me.  I went through a break up three years ago and now this year I am going through one too.  I am farther out in the breakup this time and I know it was for the best.  The part I struggle with is that he was my constant companion the past two years at the festival.   Everything I do has an association with him now.  I need to remember that it was not always so.  I want to get my power back.  I lost it the past two years.  I spent each of those festivals anxious and not having as much fun.

.

I have always struggled with creating boundaries and sticking to them.  I was always afraid in doing so people would walk away from me.  This is how I lose myself.  I don’t ever want to lose myself again.  I have certain boundaries for anyone I would even consider dating for the future.  The thing is…I am not sure I ever want to date again.  It is something I am putting considerable thought into.  I always rush in and I see others do the same.  It is not a good thing.  If we jump into a relationship during the first 6 months we are still riding the wave of chemicals.  We are not stepping back to see if this person is really someone you want to be with.  I will never do that again.  I am back to being the Ice Queen who disappears when someone shows too much interest.  I should have done that two years ago…but I learned from that mistake.   There were some wonderful times but the bad truly outweighs the good in this case.  Sadly I am still mourning the good and am struggling to remind myself of why it was so bad.

I know I have talked about moving on for weeks but I must admit I was still holding on to some hope that things could be different.  I spent the entire day yesterday on the couch crying off and on because I was struggling between what my monkey brain was telling me I wanted and what is truly good for my own mental health.  I think this is normal. But I am done with that.  I have to move on.  I cannot ever be someones maybe, or second or third or whenever I have nothing else to do.  I know what that feels like.  It is not what I want for my life.  I want to be loved in the way that I love.  I want to have someone who is happy to see me and considers me a priority.   I don’t expect to be first because we should always make ourselves our first priority however I do expect to be treated in a manner that lets me know I am valued and above all I expect honesty.

I am in a relationship.  I am in a platonic committed relationship with my housemate Keith.  That probably sounds strange but it is what I need in my life right now.  I need someone who cares about me and who is willing to allow me to work on myself.  We are however completely platonic and that works for us.  He is my domestic partner and my very best friend.

So for now I am just going to focus on myself.  I have to get busy doing all the things I need to make myself shine.  🙂