another ending.

Well, it's over between the artist and I.

I don't really know how to talk about this right now so I'm heading to sleep. All I know is I feel shitty, I never wanted to hurt anyone, why do people act so mean when hurt? What hope is there for world peace when people who care about eachother can conjure up daggers? Recognition of my frailties and the vagaries of human nature have me exhausted. How small and fierce we are and yet how little it all matters sometimes.

In the end, I guess it couldn't last because I didn't feel that elusive sense of home.

It doesn't mean that I am not mourning, however.

I am catching myself saying things like "okay, so you learned..." and then stopping myself short when I hear bitterness. I don't want to be bitter. I want to be grateful for the chance. Caring doesn't end just because it's not a good fit. I have loved sweaters that shrunk. They didn't shrink on purpose. We all try our hardest, right? Even when we're not. Even when we're having a terrible day and we've slept 4 hours and nothing seems right, even then we're trying our hardest. Maybe especially then.

Someday I will try again. I don't know when but it doesn't matter anymore.

The shitty year of love, summarized (aka the romances that mostly weren't)

Since my marriage ended, here are those that were or might have been.

Sort ofs:

Aqua-eyed Boy: He made me laugh when I needed it.

The Artist: who I'm dating now. He's still learning how to read me and what makes me edgy but I appreciate his compassion.

Almosts:

Mr. Aquarium: a genuine gentleman with many ladies fawning over him on OkStupid. We only went on 2 dates before I realized I wasn't ready to be more then friends. We stayed friends though, that was cool. 

Mr. Sean Penn: had a sparkly way about him that made me temporarily wonder about a romance but I couldn't deal with the dudeness aspect. I think he got high ALL the time.

Mr. State Department: warm eyes and smile, I could picture hugging him after a long day. But he confessed he had 144 cans of black beans in his house and I wasn't ready to advance to the burrito-making stage. He was very sweet though and we keep in touch via Facebook. He looks happy with his new beau.

Mr. Computer Genius Manager: Weirdly, it felt like I'd known him 20 years, that was our comfort level. But it was too soon after the breakup and when he tried to kiss me I burst into tears. Somehow he understood anyway (having been through similar trials) and didn't hold it against me. We are still friends.

Exes #1 & 2: Our psyches are in different places now, so no.

Blonde High School Best Friend: I never allowed myself to think of him "that way" because I was friends with his ex once and so when he tentatively inquired, I still was not comfortable imagining more. 

Mr. Texas: we teetered on the brink of a relationship back in college but nothing ever came of it. Still, I have a sweet memory of us sitting on a beach blanket together while his long hair flowed in the wind as we laughed at everything and nothing before he paused and sweetly said "I love you, Asplenia." But then we were too shy to even kiss. We never did bridge the friendship-to-romance gap. Today, we are too different. Whatever moment may have been passed a long, long time ago. But I still think very highly of him.

The Doctor: very compatible but our busy lives and the long distance would be tough to negotiate. Cuddling on the beach that one time rocked though. I wondered what it would be like to kiss him. I never found out.

Aqua-eyed Boy's friend #1 & 2: it's kinda not cool to date friends of exes, you know? Also they were both too young.


The Actor: great guy but I stiffened at his touch. I guess there was just no chemistry. We're still friends though too.

The Rock Star: I knew his ex beau and thus couldn't cross that line.

California Guy: never met in person but we wrote back & forth, having become friends through our blogs. We had a few flirty phone conversations but then I met the artist.


Guys I liked but showed no reciprocal interest:

Friend #1: Indeed, the first and longest friend-crush I've ever had. He makes me feel at home. But I never reached out. If he wanted to explore something, he would have indicated as much. I did worry that a romance would strain the friendship if it didn't work out but I would have risked it anyway if he had been interested.

Mr. Galapagos: If he lived here, I would want to hang out with him all the time, that's how much I enjoy his personality.

Are you happy?

 My last post was really dark. The cobwebs of sleep were still clinging to me when I wrote it. I am getting more comfortable with seeing and sharing the darkness though; it seems easier to lift upwards when I grant the gloominess some stage time. Then I don't have to marinate in it forever.

While I have no control over what's transpired in the past, I still have an odd sense of hope. Maybe it's because I know what the darkness looks like? I don't LIVE there though -- just visit -- but man, what a shitty host! I could do better in the self-acceptance category. I need to stop flagellating myself for mistakes. They're really just lessons, right? I cried when a dear friend read that post and gently guided me away from the negativity.

He wrote:

Another thing I wanted to tell you is that after divorce, you feel like shit (and I'm actually candy-coating it). You imagine yourself as the biggest SUCK in the world. For me, I was old, fat, bald, ugly and didn't know who I was or wanted to be. Nothing, at the time, was going to change my mind. I visited friends shortly after the divorce and they really cut into me for being self deprecating. I wanted to hate them for saying nice things about me. My marriage was a failure, my life was a failure and I was a failure.... I fought to explain to everyone how horrible I was. I don't know why I felt I had to share these things with you, probably because I know you're a lot like me. You don't realize how awesome you are and sometimes will fight anyone who tries to change your mind.

And I thought huh. Maybe 2011's motto should be: It Gets Better.

HAPPINESS
is having a cheeseburger the cat doesn't

A recent article about happiness stated there two key components: 1. a sense of mastery and 2. optimism. Happy people feel in control and they also feel hopeful. The article then listed a bunch of questions you can ask yourself to see where you stand:

Sense of mastery:

1. I have little control over the things that happen to me.
2. There is really no way I can solve some of the problems I have.
3. There is little I can do to change many of the important things in my life.
4. I often feel helpless in dealing with the problems of life.
5. Sometimes I feel that I am being pushed around in life.
6. What happens to me in the future mostly depends on me.
7. I can do just about anything I really set my mind to do.

Optimism:

1. I still expect much from life.
2. I do not look forward to what lies ahead for me in the years to come.
3. I am still full of plans.
4. I often feel that life is full of promises.

Where do you stand? Do these questions ring true? Are you happy?

What do you do if you're not?

In Plug all of your leaks or you will die, James Altucher says in order to be happy, you have to establish a ritual or a practice:

"A practice needs four legs: Physical, Emotional, Mental, Spiritual. Ultimately the path to your own personal realization is inside of you. Everyone’s path is different.... But you have to build your own practice. And its called “practice” for a reason. The remaining 23 hours a day is when you put the practice to work."

Then he links to the practice that works for him.)
 

(Read both those links, they're worth it.)

So this is what I'm working on too. Thank you for visiting, for sharing my story, for caring. It means more then you could possibly know.

truly awakening after the battle

The past two nights I've been having the first dreams ever of my ex husband being kind to me, of us being friends again. It's bizarre. I don't have these thoughts during the day but it's the first time I've been dreaming them, really.

This may mark the first time since everything broke up that I have truly started to miss him and wonder if I made a terrible mistake. It makes me want to howl with pain and loss.

I woke up both yesterday and today struggling with complex swirls of emotion. Warmth, emotional-longing, loss, pain, regret, anger.

Wishing I could explain what happened, have him understand what great emotional pain I was in, how two years earlier when I threatened to leave... THAT was the growl before the bite and yet he didn't realize how close I was to the end and what that would eventually mean: loss of our relationship, home, abandonment of our dreams and the discarding of memories. THAT was the edge, 2 years earlier. I was so close to leaving then and yet hung on for another two years.

THAT would have been the time to make the big changes and yet I hadn't been able to impress upon him my desperation.

And so things didn't change.

The few times we went to counseling then, expressing myself felt like a terrible experience and so I further locked down my feelings; tamping down a cauldron of emotion which would build in pressure until the final explosion which obliterated the entire relationship, destroying not only the cone itself but scalding the surrounding earth so that it'd be too sterile for any stray tendrils of hope to grow.

He still didn't grant me space, didn't make me feel safe enough to express my pain, and couldn't be there for my own problems. I didn't know how to tell him I was dying inside when he was fighting the battle of his life. He was always fighting the battle of his life. I thought I could keep swallowing my needs but I failed.

And so I ran, and I ran for a year and more, until now. I don't need to run anymore. I'm either too tired or settled enough or safe enough to face the demons. I don't know which. But here I am.

I am a realistic person and I recognize there would never be any way to reconcile or salvage any kind of relationship after what's transpired. I see the scorched and lifeless earth. I hang my head and move my aching self slowly and stiffly forward.

dysfunctional family dinner

So yesterday, I introduced the artist to my mom and 5 minutes later he told her a story involving the statement "...back when I drank like a fish!" Great. Now she thinks I am dating an alcoholic.

The story about his friend's bullwhip fetish didn't go over so well either.

My mom's eyes widenened and I could literally SEE her picturing me swinging from chandeliers (to dry the wax on my nipples of course) while begging for a light flogging on my nether regions.

(Not that there's anything WRONG with the above scenario for two willing participants, just... do I really want to see it playing on my mom's corneas like a bad porn flick? Her daughter, the unwitting star? Dear god.)

After some other situationally-inappropriate stories, she cornered me in the kitchen and grabbed my shoulders. "OMG ASPLENIA, DO NOT MARRY HIM. He's a nice guy and all but zOMG DON'T!"

Now, my mom doesn't always have the best sense of timing. (Hello? We are only dating 3 months?) Or tact. She seems to feel most alive when topics get controversial. She can be a pretty difficult person, to put it mildly. But her words grated on me.

I don't like to admit this but there ARE flags.

I don't write about them so much because I like to concentrate on the positives but they're there. I almost ended things tonight, for example, because it's my time of the month and I feel like making my life SUCK even more then it already does. And that was even before the ALL CAPS ZOMG email I'm expecting from my mom, reinforcing her "you're going to ruin your life!" pronouncement. I am struggling enough withOUT her negative feedback. Although, being a soon-to-be-divorcee, I should be all my life is already ruined, lala, I can do what I want!

So really, why am I getting stressed?

The artist is still surprisingly patient. We've talked about everything completely openly. He's not scared off by my flags, my difficult mom, or her warnings but maybe that's what years of alcohol and bullwhips do.

Anyway. Stay tuned for as the torso turns.