Busy Busy Busy

I am writing and not publishing because I am busy and things are happening.

BFD and I are taking a schedule-enforced break from seeing each other for at least 3 weeks.  Maybe more.  It sucks, but it’s better than the last times we’ve done it.  We’re more honest with each other about what is happening and how we feel about it.  Unlike before, I responded back quickly to one of his “listen sorry but” plaintive emails to say, it’s okay for a time, I am still here, we’ve done this before and we’re fine. I also told him to turn to me with any of his domestic stuff he can’t handle.  The next morning, he did, asking for my help in following up with the dinner he’d arranged.

We spoke today about business and it was horrible.  He was in a horrible mood, terrible business stuff happening, and he was just a dick.  We spoke for 3 minutes every 10 minutes or so for an hour and it was bad.  Like I wanted to never speak to him again bad.

Breaking the Fourth Wall

I genuinely appreciate that people actually read this, remember things, and care.  Seriously, it means so much to know that people are paying attention and keeping me accountable.

When I originally started NNP, it was to chronicle my weight loss journey “publicly.”  I believed that in daily posting what I was eating, how I was exercising, and how I was recovering from my breakup with A and moving on with my life, I might make better choices and not allow myself to slack off.  I hoped I would see progress over time and look for what worked and what did not.  It never occurred to me really that people would pay attention.

I keep this site secret and anonymous and I think of it as my private journal.  There are a couple of password protected pages, protected only because I wanted to capture some details I considered too outable, but the substance appears on the pages.  (My relationship with BP . . . who still gives me a hard time about dating BFD, though he’d broken up with me a couple of weeks before . . . is chronicled in excruciating detail, restaurants, resorts, trips, etc.  And I keep a little record of particularly memorable BFD encounter details.  What can I say, the man has some amazing moves . . .)

Alarm Bells and Trip Wires

I keep looking for reasons to separate myself from him because I am terrified.  I love him, but I feel unworthy.  I don’t know how he feels about anything because we don’t talk about it.  I am afraid to talk about it because I feel unworthy.  I am bringing little but fertility to this relationship.

I mean, I am a great catch — smart, educated, attractive, interesting, etc. — and I am perfectly suited for him.  But I know he’s scared.

He looks at me and sees instability.  I know I am setting off alarm bells for him.  He has been so honest about his fears that I will be dependent upon him.

I need to get my life together before I can do anything and I know I cannot make any decisions right now.

I need to stop trying to separate from him and embrace him as I am.  He’s still here, still with me, still taking care of me to the extent I let him.

I need to start being honest with him about how I feel and what I think. I know him.  I need to trust him.

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I just made my breakfast and I know that all of these issues are real . . . but they exist mostly inside my head.  I know, logically, that things are more stable than they feel right now.  We saw each other two days in a row doing just relationship stuff.  Part of my issue is that he’s so stressed and has been in such pain that we’re not physically connected.  We’re kissing and cuddling, etc., but we’re not having sex.  It happens.  He said long ago that when he’s in work mode and stressed, it doesn’t even occur to him.

My trip wire that BFD keeps banging into is that his issues with me are my issues with me, so the alarm bells are amplified.  Everything he is concerned about hit every single one of my insecurites about myself.

With that, the crazy lady is going to step away from the keyboard and get to work.

Words that Haunt/Hurt

I have not yet unpacked my feelings about what he said or figured out what he meant.

Whenever it comes to BFD, I am wildly insecure.  I am incapable of telling him how I feel for fear of rejection, I am incapable of telling him what I want because I am not certain how open he is to moving to a new stage (with me or in general).  I still feel unworthy because I have been dependent upon him and, though I am no longer financially dependent upon him, I am not exactly independent either.

I don’t owe him money, but I also cannot suggest to him that we join his parents during part of their 6 month sabbatical to his ancestral homeland because I cannot afford it.  He does not want to go.  He does not speak the language, but looks as though he does, obviously, so it’s frustrating for him.

Late last night, I called him with a suggestion regarding his car and his contract.  He answered, which was amazing, and said, hey, let me call you right back.  He did, within a minute. I outlined my thought — I had already separated myself from the car and was giving him some negotiating advice.  He replied back that the first scenario wouldn’t work, but the second might, except . . . he was no longer sure how long he was staying in the state so he did not want to make any decisions about the future until he had some clarity on the business.

Right.

A Valediction

I am tempted to send this message to BFD: “in case i don’t tell you often enough, thank you for everything.”  I’ve been staring at the open email for 20 minutes.  It feels like a valediction.

We just had such a strange conversation that I feel the need to cap it with a valediction, to wish him farewell, to let him know how much I appreciate him as I pull away.  I am pulling away.  My heart hurts.  My chest feels tight.

I am incapable of processing what has just happened and I am afraid I am already remembering it incorrectly.

The bottom line, I suppose, is that nothing real has happened.  I heard something he said, assembled it with how things are going, and I have basically decided we’re not together anymore.

Except I think, as usual, I am overreacting, but I am terrified I am not.  Because I am afraid, I naturally pull back.

It’s sort of the worst of all possible scenarios, and I am going to attempt to unpack it all in one gigantic post.

Or something.

A Good Start

Awake early and well-rested, a savory ricotta onion pancake (no flour — just an egg and ricotta onion and herbs in some olive oil), and a pot of golden yunnan, and even having to chase the cat through the courtyard, hearing the hot neighbor’s very loud music through our shared wall, and Dylan Fucking Ratigan’s awful show on msnbc are not enough to derail a good start to a busy day.

Quick Thoughts: Body Image, Money, and Social Things

Yeah, so I had a rough few days.  I kinda sorta freaked the fuck out, ranted about it to my friends and family, plumbed the depths of my body image issues, failed to get any work of consequence done, and considered and reconsidered breaking up with BFD for no logical reason.

To the world, I echo, um, what the fuck?

Today, things were good.  Tuesday, things were better.  They started to improve Monday night.  Like once I finally put all of my teen-aged angst into my journal, it dissipated.

Usually, that’s an incredibly healthy exercise and all, except my journal is here — with all the craziness in full view.  Yay.

Personal Business

I had a business call with BFD today, which is always interesting.  We do really well on the business stuff, but he’s very difficult and can be tempermental.

I called him because he sent a document that looked “off.”  I have a macbook pro, he has some old dell and the transfer from his machine to mine made the pages, logos, etc. look bad on my machine and on BP’s.  BFD was horrified — the idea that he sent out a substandard document killed him.  I let him know I could fix it and pdf it, or he could.

“Take a Stand and Tell Him”

Part of my planning nature is always planning an exit.  A quick, painless getaway.  To that end, I’ve made zero commitment to BFD.  The pain, the love, the emotion I express here: absent in real life.  I have never told him how I feel.

N-e-v-e-r.

To be honest, I’ve never demonstrated it much either.

To Hurt

I have songs firmly implanted in my head that describe subconsciously how I feel before I am aware of how I feel.

As I had my existential crisis yesterday, playing in my head was a line from Kristin Vigard’s version of “God Give Me Strength” from the film Grace of My Heart:  “I want him . . . I want him to hurt.”  I was thinking about myself though, I wanted to hurt.  I wanted a real, physical manifestation of the emotional pain I was feeling.  It’s been close to my thoughts ever since.

The song, written by Elvis Costello and Burt Bachrach is devastating — lovely, and painful, and melodramatic, and gloriously wonderful.

The song asks for strength in dealing with heartbreak.  It opens with:  “Now I have nothing, so God give me strength/cause I’m weak in his wake/And if I’m strong I might still break”.

See?  Devastating.

My mother taught me that the only thing you could really ask God for is grace — the strength to handle whatever you are being confronted with.  Grace and strength.  Please, God.