New Year’s Eve

One constant with being a parent, a sick child trumps everything. And so I find myself curled up in bed with my laptop, while my son tosses and turns restlessly beside me. Poor little man. I hate it when he’s sick, but at least I can bring him into my room and hold his hand while he sleeps. I still have this almost compulsive need to make certain he’s breathing. I don’t imagine that ever really goes away, more that you just learn to keep the urge under control.

Today has been a very emotional day for me. I’ve had the urge to have a good cry for most of the day. I think it has a lot to do with the time of year and the whole cycle of endings and beginnings, contrived though it may be. The last several years have been simultaneously some of the best and worst of my life. Most of the best has to do with my son, and the rest is pretty much just time I’m glad is in the past.

I’ve never been one for resolutions. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever made an official New Year’s resolution. I do have some thoughts for this coming year. None I’m ready to share, as I haven’t actually gotten them worked out, but there are definitely some ideas swirling around.

I am profoundly thankful that my mom is now a five-year survivor of breast cancer. She’s off her medicines and has been basically released by her oncologist, other than a yearly check-up. I can’t adequately express how relieved I am to still have her in my life. Her diagnosis was without a doubt one of the scariest things I’ve even experienced, that we as a family have ever experienced.

As for my stated desire to not think about him anymore, it’s going reasonably well. It still crops up now and then, but in a way that is less specific to him and more in a “circumstances of my life” sort of way. There are definitely still some things to explore, but more in terms of finally figuring out what I’d like out of my life and taking the necessary steps to achieve it. Which plays a bit into the idea of resolutions and so on. Anyway, I guess I’ve just finally come to the conclusion that he’s kind of a shit. And that’s ok, some people are. Thankfully, he and his issues are no longer my problem. I have quite enough of my own issues to keep me busy, thank you very much!

My son is stirring, so it won’t be long until he wakes up needing comfort and medicine. In the meantime, I and Neil Gaiman will leave you with best wishes for a happy 2012.

 

The Twisty Workings of My Mind

I’ve been thinking things over (and over and over) and trying to come to some decisions and/or realizations. Just trying to make my peace with recent events, I suppose. I imagine this will all sound rather rambling, but it’s where I’m at right now.

I fell in love with a funny, passionate, intelligent man named Dan. He loved me back, and we made happy plans. Then I found out he was married, and I shattered into a million tiny pieces. If you’ve been reading my writings, you know how much I’ve been struggling. It has been hell, and I am still working to come to terms with things. I mentioned in an earlier post how it is almost like the man I loved is dead, or gone, just sort of jerked out of existence by the cheating husband who actually goes by the name Adrian. I don’t know this man Adrian, and honestly I don’t like what I do know about him very much at all. I never loved him, I don’t miss him, want him, need him.

I loved my Dan, and I still miss him, still ache for him. A lot. Or at least the idea of him, the promise of him, I don’t know. It feels kind of like I was rudely awoken from an extremely enjoyable dream, sort of disorienting. I’m trying to view my time with him as exciting and fun while it was happening, something to remember, if not exactly fondly, then at least without regrets. The problem comes when I get broadsided with what might have been. It sneaks up on me and snatches at my breath, even still. I very much wanted what I thought I had, with this person who apparently does not even exist, who had no right to offer his love to me, and I’m so very sad that it’s gone.

That is part of what is so hard to deal with. I thought I had something real and I didn’t, and now I feel like I have to start all over again. Starting over again is exhausting, it really is. I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing, for about the last 10 years. The only significant bright spot in my life in that span of time has been my son, who is now 5, and thank god for him. The rest has been a whole lot of bullshit, frankly. Miscarriages, bankruptcy, depression and failure. I’m a positive person, but it’s been a whole hell of a lot to deal with and I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with why I am taking this whole situation harder than it might otherwise warrant.

I’ve been fighting hard to put myself back out into the world, supporting my son, getting him the help and assistance he needs (he has various autism spectrum disorders), all the things you do to keep on functioning through life’s difficulties. Then I put all my hope and dreams into something that did not work out. And in some ways that is ok, because I DO believe in love and I DO believe in taking chances on it. It could have been real, and if it had been real I would have been so happy, so damn happy. But it wasn’t. So this is a setback. A big one, yeah, but that’s all it is. It’s a part of life. So I’ll keep moving forward, because that is what I do.

And, that’s my burst of positivity, and now I’m done for a while. I can’t sustain it, but at least I’ve managed to have a moment or two of thinking there might be a light at the end of this tunnel. I’m trying, I am. I put it out there, but then the loss of my lover reaches up and slaps me, and it hurts, so bad, so fucking bad.

Ahh, Hell

As I was lying with my son, rubbing his back to help him fall asleep, it hit me . . . everything I deleted is more than likely safely backed up because of my automatic online backup. Damn.

Now what?

I guess I just leave it there for now. If I go look, I run the risk of sitting around listening to songs and mooning over his pictures for the rest of the night, at a minimum. And again, it’s not like I can’t recall every detail at will anyway.

And I was feeling so virtuous for managing to delete everything, too. Bets on how long until I crack?

Things He Said To Me

I love you. You’re my inspiration. My sunshine, my belle. You make me want to be a better person. I want to be worthy of us, of what we have. You’ve changed me. We’ve known each other before, so familiar, so right. Haven, shelter, a light in a storm. There’s no going back. You saved me. You pierce my soul. We’re two trains on the same track. Inevitable. Destiny. We’ll have ours. I love you fiercely. Never goodbye. Yes.

There’s more, a lot more, but I am tired and sad and I think I’m going to bed.

Empty Days

I am lonely, and my heart hurts. The entire day stretches out in front of me, empty and sad. And in such stark contrast to how I used to spend my time. Us, together. Just talking. Joking. Being silly. Sometimes talking seriously about our feelings and where our relationship was going, sometimes not. It never mattered. I’d talk to this man about anything. He was just genuinely fun to spend time with. I miss that, so much.

I’m going to drive and visit a cousin I haven’t seen in a while, which will be nice. It won’t take my mind off of him, though. So far, I haven’t found anything that does. Seriously, I am open for suggestions. I am useless as a human being right now.

I Miss You

Our last conversation was Sunday morning. Afterwards, I sat at my computer and methodically deleted any and every thing he’d ever sent me, or I’d sent him. All the emails (letters, we called them, because according to him “email” sounded too small for what we were), all the chat transcripts, all the pictures, all the songs. Everything. It seemed like a good idea, and it probably was in theory.

But it doesn’t change the fact that all of those things are permanently seared into my brain, front and center, demanding my undivided attention. It doesn’t change the fact that I have a book he recommended on my kitchen table, or the fact that the bunny I knitted for his daughter is laying right beside it. The painting I was making for him sits on my easel, a partially finished memento of my pain and loss. It doesn’t change ANYTHING. My entire life is affected by him, the loss of him, thoughts of him, longing for him, memories of him. I miss him. Not even considering the lies, the deceit, the, yeah, the wife . . . I just miss him. He was such a huge and constant part of my life, and there is an empty place where he used to be.

I miss you.

Dan Jimenez, Adrian Jimenez, escritorio1978

Everything Reminds Me Of Him

Every single thing. A song on the radio? I wonder what he’d think about it. A beautiful spot in the sun? Visions of us holding hands, happy to be alive and together. My son’s Legos strewn across the floor? I envisioned a lasting relationship, some sort of a future with this man. My god.

All I did today was cry.

I hate this, I really do.

Dan Jimenez, Adrian Jimenez, escritorio1978