It's Time

I retired a couple of months ago…September 21st to be precise…on my 60th birthday.  That meant that I had to clean out my office and get rid of unwanted/unnecessary papers that I had accumulated over the last 30 years.  In the process of doing this, I ran across a folder marked ‘Personal’ and inside were copies of our correspondence from 10 years ago.  I didn’t even remember putting them there.  I wasn’t sure how I would feel reading all of that again or even if I should read it again.  

It feels like a lifetime ago, and yet as I read your first words in reply to my initial email, it still tugged at my heart.  It’s not the same as it was then because at that time it sucked the air from my lungs and had me hyperventilating and unsteady for a long time.

Your actions controlled me for a long time Brett, but they don’t anymore.  You pissed me off when you told me to leave you alone.  Please don't tell me what to do…you have no right, no more than I had any right to tell you what to do all those many years ago, nor did I. We both did what was right for us at the time.  My choices just weren’t as easy as yours.  And all I needed from you 10 years ago was; an acknowledgement of my existence and my plight, compassion, and the respect that I didn’t get at the time.  I deserved that – full stop!   

But the feelings have changed and are realistic now.  I’ve dealt with all that shit that needed to be gone through…just like the papers in my office I needed to get rid of the unwanted/unnecessary stuff.  I’m calm, centered and happy now, with the last part of my journey fully in sight – retirement to a place that has always brought me solace.  

On that day, more than 35 years ago our lives became tied together for eternity and although it may not be memorable to you, it is as it is, and was as it was...memorable to me.

Time for both of us to get over ourselves and be compassionate and understanding. I’ve never wished you any harm…not then, and certainly not now. 

Memories, Good or Bad?

Going through you house that you've lived in for 30 years is not easy.  It's not the "stuff" that is the issue, it's the memories that hang on each piece like an unwanted tag...you know the ones that scratch at your skin and irritate you all day.

I've had my trials and tribulations like everyone but I've survived and overcome.  Most days I'm proud of the way I've been able to maneuver through life's challenges and still manage to smile.

But today has been tough.  I'm sorting through a mountain of memories, picking and choosing which one to keep...which one to discard.  In the process it has caused my to go back...most times to spaces and places I don't want to go.  I've reliving a couple of periods in my life that weren't pleasant and all those feelings are dragging me down with them.  I'm angry again...sad again and heartbroken.  It's no fun going through all that again.  But I have no choice.  Well I do...I could either toss it all out, or put it back in a box and keep it shut forever.  But where is the progress in that...right?!

My jaw has been clenched and my tongue feels like it is in a vice-grip so I know I'm either going to yell at someone, scream or have a good ole cry.  My body is exhibiting the tension that my heart and head are feeling.

Maybe...just maybe it's time to stop for today.?  Have a glass of wine and relax.  The pile will be there tomorrow.

The time will come

The truth about living with someone with depression is that it is exceedingly lonely.  You are with your partner giving them every last bit of your energy and you get nothing back. Sometimes you don't even get a simple conversation.  Television is your only interaction...you are both watching the same thing...that's it.  I am so tired of being with someone and still being alone.

He sleeps most of the day and then takes two sleeping pills to sleep at night.  Does this make sense?  No.  Do I have the right to talk to him about it?  No.  I just have to sit and watch.  I have to pick my battles and lately they are few and far between.

I am starved for attention.  I have isolated myself over the last few years because I have been taking 'care' of him.  I have work...and friends that I see and talk to there but very few know what has been transpiring in my life.  It's hard to share and let people in on my life.  I know what they will say...let it go...let him go.  Same story, same answers, same ending.

I don't want to abandon him, even though this disease has caused him to abandon me.  That's really what it is, isn't it?  He has left me and this needy, helpless child has taken his place.  It's not his fault but part of me sees so many ways he could DO something to make it better.  I can't tell him what to do, because he sees that as controlling him, so I have to just sit here and watch and hope that it gets better.  I have been doing that for years...and years.

At what point do I just accept it as our new reality?  How do I get my 'Ms. Fixer' brain to let it go?

I can't do anything more for him right now, so I have to change focus.  I started taking care of me.  I used to walk when I was dealing with frustrations and I've started doing that again.  It can't hurt.  It gives me time to think and it's something just for me.  I don't do many things for myself.  I'm not wired to be selfish so I always feel guilty when I take time to do things for me.  It seems I am last on my To Do List and inevitably there aren't enough hours in the day to get to ME.

Things will unfold as they should and when you're not sure what to do or say...it's best to not do anything...or say anything.  That time will come.

All alone

In times when I'm feeling particularly hurt instead of arguing or voicing my anger or disappointment, I prefer to write.  It allows me to sort out my feelings and sometimes if I'm lucky I actually find the solutions without uttering a word.  Those times are rare but worth the effort.

As of late I've been dealing with my partner's depression.  It's not an easy life when you live with someone who suffers from chronic depression.  There is such pressure on you to be...well, everything.  You are his support, provider, comforter, and link to the world.  You know that you hold his life...literally, in your hands.  Yes there are professionals who deal with his medications and his current dilemmas but they are only with him for a very small portion of the time.  You are with him always.  Even though you may be out of the house and away, you are never really away.  Your mind is always with him, wondering how he is, what he is doing, how is feeling, what can I do to help, how can I be supportive, what could I cook to make him at least feel good for a minute?  It never stops, and the list of questions circling in my head is incessant.

My normal nature is to be a fixer.  I see issues, and I immediately go to finding a solution.  I plan, I organize and I solve.  But I can't solve this, all I can do is mitigate or manage.  It is so frustrating and exhausting.

And to cap off all this frustration, your partner, the love of your life seems to have lost sight of you.  It feels as if his needs are all that matters and you have become invisible.  I swear I could be bleeding to death on the floor in front of him and he wouldn't be able to reach for the phone and dial 911.  How does one remain in love with someone during this crisis?  How do you not feel resentment?  How much strength do you have to maintain both sides of the relationship?

I hate depression!!  I'm angry at depression!!  I want to beat it to death!!  I want to yell and scream at it!!!  Kick it as hard as I can until I'm exhausted!!!  It has stolen my everything.  I has been sneaking around and trying to squeeze it's way between us for years and I've managed to keep it at bay, but one night while I wasn't looking it crept in and took over my love.  It has stolen everything that is important to me and it won't give it back.

Yes, there are medications to help but in the last but not the least stab at my heart we have discovered that one of the drugs to 'help' has taken away every last bit of his libido. So, just like Sophie's Choice, we have to choose between him being able to hopefully get over his depression or have a sex life.  There is no choice really, it's already been made for us.  Our sex life is over before it ever really began...and I have to accept that the ONE thing that I have been looking for my entire life is gone forever.

I'm struggling from deep within my soul to accept this.  My 'fixer' nature can't repair this and I have no choice but to give up my dream.  And it hurts to the centre of my being and permeates every aspect of my life.  But I am not able to voice my hurt or disappointment so....here I am...all alone.

Logical?

I'm in the midst of a life-dilema and as always when these things interrupt my 'normal' life, if I write, the answers often will appear before me on the once blank page.

Why does love have to be so complicated?  If each person in a relationship awakened every day wanting to put the other person's needs before their own, or at least on a par, everything would work much smoother.  But we don't.  We each have our list of priorities, wants, needs, must-have's and passions.  We struggle to find balance and compromises and things normally align themselves.

But...every once in a while they don't.

So what do we do about it?  We speak up, we ask for more, we try to get things back on track...or we let it go and hope that things work out on their own.  The problem with the latter is that if things go on for too long, it builds like a boiling kettle, sitting silently on the back burner until the whistle blows and the kettle shakes violently.  In my experience, simmering, leads to boiling.

I believe I am a patient woman, and I have done my fair-share of 'letting it go'...turning the other cheek and picking my battles.  I tend to study both sides (part of my Libra-cusp charm) and then make notes on the reality of it all (my much stronger Virgo side) and then ponder a course of action.  There is always a Plan A and a Plan B...I must have been a good scout in a previous life.  Next is the presentation of the situation and then listening to the feedback and readjusting as necessary...then the Plans come into the picture.  And ultimately the solution will follow.

Doesn't that sound logical?  One would think so...but not everyone is logical, or at least my view of logical.

So sad to let go

I went to see my psychologist this week to help me sort out some things that have been weighing heavily on my mind as of late.  She's helpful but she has been telling me the same thing for a while now...and basically I'm not ready to hear the reality.  I hate giving up and that's what she's telling me.

People who suffer from chronic depression are difficult to love...from my perspective.  They are very self-absorbed just trying to muddle their way through their day that it doesn't leave much room for anyone else's needs.  I'm not a particularly needy woman, but there are some basics that any human being requires in order to be in a relationship.

I guess it's the 'blindness' of it all that troubles me the most.  I'm not able to reconcile how someone walks through daily life and is unable to see what (to me) is so plain.  And that's where the frustration comes in, and then the inevitable hurt and disappointment follows.

I've tried everything to be heard and seen.  I've talked, kindly and clearly...I've written down what my basic needs are...I've cried.  But each time we get onto this merry-go-round I eventually give up and let go a little bit more of my needs.  But now I've got nothing left to let go.

It's so sad.  He's a wonderful man and capable of so much  I've seen what he could do...and has done  I guess that's the really difficult part because I've felt his full attention, even if it was only for a short period of time...the memory of it lingers so lovingly in my memory banks.  The loving glances...the soft touches....the attention to my needs...the being as one.  I miss that SO much.

How did you spend your day?

Hi there.  I thought I'd take a rest & share with you how my day is going...My element in my oven stopped working a couple of days ago, so I decided to wait until I had time to look at it, so that was today.  It is THE most awkward space to work in unless one is a contortionist...and a good one!!

I managed to undo the teeny, tiny screws that hold it onto the wall with much lower back pain and difficulty with my arthritic hands, but I got them off!!!  YEAH!!!  But...low and behold, there are two more tiny screws that need to be removed.  PHUCK!!  After a couple of tries I realized that they were not the same type of screws that were on the faceplate...so I needed a different screwdriver.  Got it!!!  One comes out with not too much effort, but the second one really, really didn't want to leave.  Okay...time to remove the oven door so I can get a better grip.  Holy Mother of all things electric, that is not meant to come off without a fight...but the door is now off.  I'm not sure it'll ever go on again, but it is off.

Now back to the other screw.  I turned really hard and oops...it came off the element, but not at the spot where the screw was...now I'm left with a tiny piece of metal and the screw.  How the hell am I going to get THAT off.  I try and I try to no avail. 

THE INTERNET...surely the internet will have some clues.  So I sit down and try to access Google and NOPE!!!!  The PHUCKING internet is not working!!!!!  I rebooted the modem...rebooted my computer...tried Ray's computer.   Rebooted the modem (in the basement by the way)  Nope, still not going.  Okay...time to call Rogers and ...wait, wait...and wait...20 minutes later (well at least my aching back & hands have had a rest) finally a human voice.  While I've been waiting I've kept trying to connect, and connect and nothing.  I hear her friendly voice and we exchange ALL my information except for my bra size and POOF...the phucking thing starts working before she even does a thing!!!!!!

Well...not to leave you in suspense...I got the other piece off and I called Home Depot and even though I had THE most surly woman...I was patient when she tried to dismiss my enquiry about SIZE of elements they had in stock.  If she had any idea of what all I had been through in the last couple of hours...she would not have been so quick to make me angry...after all I was on the edge.  BUT...the good news is they do have them.

So...all's well that ends well. 

The Leap

For the past several months I've been helping a very dear friend get through the heartbreak of loving someone who doesn't love him...enough. I can totally identify with how he is feeling and I can understand every ache.

I don't believe anyone else can identify as well as someone who has also been stuck in that deep dark cavern of despair. There is such a dichotomy of feelings that surround you....in that you don't want to be alone, but you don't want to be with anyone. You want to cry but no tears will come. You want to be angry but the love overrides the anger. You want to love but there is no one there to love. You want to lose yourself in work but the concentration is somewhere else. You just start to feel okay and a wave of despair hits you and you are back beneath the undertow of hurt. I get it because I've been there.

I've tried to be there as much as possible to reassure him that there is life after heartbreak, but sadly it is something he won't believe until he has lived through it all. I think the truth of it is that we don't want to believe there is life after it all. What we want is to turn back the clock and be in that time when life was so overwhelmingly perfect and your heart felt like it couldn't be any fuller. That time, when you had jumped off the ledge and were free floating in love. Nothing could stop you and nothing seemed unobtainable as you were on top of the world.

But the problem with jumping off that ledge is that eventually you see the ground heading towards you and there isn't anything you can do to stop it from slamming you in the face...and when you hit...you hit hard.

I believe that for those of us who have longed to be loved and held back for an extended period of time, being careful to not even go near that ledge or even peak over the edge, that when we do finally take that leap, we take a full throttle run at it...arms out-stretched, open to feel the total effect of the wind and the sights as we are 'falling' in love.

Our hearts have been closed for so long that we forgot how good it feels to be in love...to sense every sound, taste, feeling that it has to offer. To feel happy just at the mere thought of someone wanted to be in love with you. Someone wanting to spend time with you. Someone wanting to hear all about your life...your sorrows...your joys. Someone who hangs on your every word. To matter to another human. To feel the touch of someone, to hold them close physically and emotionally

And we want to feel it so much...that we really are blinded by the joy of it all. We don't want to see any negatives, but they are there, lurking in the background, just waiting for the right moment to pop into your consciousness.

My friend wanted to be loved...and he deserved to be loved. He is a special person to me because he helped me through some really dark moments in my life. He doesn't even know how special is to me because I've never shared all the details with him.

He came into my life by chance...but I don't really believe in chance do I?...things happen for a reason.

The day we 'met', I had decided that my pitiful life was too much for me to endure anymore and it was time for me to end the pain. I felt like no one understood me, or cared enough about me to help me out of the cavern of hurt I was in. I was alone in ALL senses of that tiny word. And I couldn't see any way out of it...there was no light at the end of that tunnel...then, there he was. He was gentle, attentive and kind...things I had not experienced, well, ever. He gave me just enough hope to stay around for a while.

So, years have passed and I'm still here. I've discovered that there is life after heartbreak and that a helping hand can come out of nowhere, so we mustn't give up. And it is my turn to extend the helping hand to guide him through the darkness of hurt.

He had been closed to feelings for a very long time, never even thinking of leaping off the ledge. He'd been going through life with blinders on as far as love was concerned. He had one priority and it was his son. Nothing matters more to him and allowing someone into his life would have detracted from his responsibility to his son. He had not loved...for years.

But his son is a man now, and my friend found that he had time for himself and he met someone...the wrong someone. She was married and 'loved' her husband. She made it clear from the beginning, that she would not leave her husband.

I know...you're asking "What was he thinking?". He was thinking that he could maintain the distance that he had been keeping from people for all those lonely years. But no...he had space in his heart now for someone, and she crept into the deepest recesses of that tender, unused heart and started punching holes through every wall.

This isn't who my friend is...he's not a cheat, or a liar, or unfaithful. He is the antithesis of all those things, and the pressure of all that combined with the waiting and wanting that goes hand in hand with being 'the other man' started taking its inevitable toll on him and he ended the relationship.

I could hear his heart breaking...and I could see where it was going to end, but just as when one watches an accident happening...there was nothing I could do to stop the damage. He had made that running leap into love and there was no safety net. All I could do was be there to help him in any small way I could. But it never felt like enough.

All any of us want in life is to matter to someone. We want to be...wanted. That simple. And when we discover, realize, that we don't matter...enough or aren't wanted...enough, it is devastating. We've allowed ourselves to believe that it can happen, we let go of all the doubts and protective barriers that hold us back from that ledge and we FALL in love. We trust that someone is going to be at the bottom to catch us. But those blinders that are part of the love package, haven't allowed us to see reality clearly.

The fall doesn't "kill" us...it stuns, stings, and shatters every ounce of our being and we lose our bearings for a while but eventually we pick up the pieces and go on. We're never the same, but we do GO ON...and in time, lots of time, we eventually leap again taking the lessons we have learned from the last exercise to help us navigate the fall, and most of us will take a parachute for the next jump. It will not be as rough the next time...and there will be a next time.

My friend will survive and will find that special someone who will cherish him as much as I do because that is what he deserves.