You know you’re in trouble when . . .

I hurt so much I want to scream. Every fiber in my body is in pain. I was in so much pain this morning that I phoned my pain management doctor to CANCEL my appointment because it hurt too much to drive 15 miles to his office. Now THAT’S bad!

I’m just guessing, but I think I’m in this much pain because my muscles got lazy in the 2 1/2 weeks I wasn’t in the gym and they had to wake up too quickly. In addition, the normal wear and tear everyone experiences was exponentially magnified so that what would be minor tears in tissue were moderate tears and I didn’t get enough REM sleep to repair them. Therefore, now, I can barely walk and my joints ache and feel as though they’re on fire. Screw this! I’m taking another pain pill and then I’m going to watch the recording of Nashville as I fall asleep.

BTW, Nashville is an excellent show. It’s so good it doesn’t even qualify as a “guilty pleasure.” It has really good country music, great storylines and keeps you wondering whose life each event is based on in reality. Isn’t it odd that I’ve embraced modern country music AND grown-up’s hip-hop at this late date? Life is beautiful!

Oh! I forgot to mention that I had a bit of excitement Wednesday night as I was coming home from the gym. I needed to stop for gas. That means bypassing my neighborhood and going a bit north for less expensive pricing. I decided to take a shortcut not far from my house. What do I see but some guy half sitting, half laying in the middle of the street and a car at the stop sign right behind him. My first thought was that the car had hit him. Then, I realized that he hadn’t been hit, but there was definitely something amiss. So, I pulled over, got out of my minivan to figure out what street I was crossing (40 years in the neighborhood and it’s still very easy to get lost) so that I could call 911.

As I was doing that, a third car stopped. They asked the guy where he was going and that they’d take him. They tried and tried to get this guy out of the middle of the street. I’m thinking, “Why has no one thought about the obvious and called the police?” I told them I was calling because something was very wrong with this guy.

The next thing I know, the third car drives on while the first one gives me more info. While we’re talking, street-guy gets up and starts toward an extremely busy street, even at just about midnight. As the first car drives off, up rolls a cop. I tell him the story, thinking that he’s the one dispatch has sent. No, he was off-duty, saw me looking stranded and stopped. But, while I was talking to him, two cop cars that were sent roll up. That first cop was seriously yummy, but back to the story.

I sent the two or three cops in the direction street-guy was walking, very unsteadily, I might add. Since there was nothing more I could do, I got in my van and headed toward the gas station. In doing so, I saw that the cops had caught up with the guy. I think they were administering a field sobriety test. He could have been drunk, but I don’t think that that was all he had going on. He was elderly, so my first thought was dementia. My grandfather had some non-Alzheimer’s kind of dementia. He was good at escaping from whatever facility he was in. It finally cost him his life in an accident so grisly that it led all the newscasts that evening. I didn’t want to see street-guy get hurt, so calling the police seemed reasonable. For the most part, the cops here are good guys. There are a couple who aren’t, but there are always the odd bad apples. I love the firemen and EMS people here. They are very compassionate. I’ve had to call them a couple of times when I locked myself out of the house with the stove on. Then, about ten years ago, I broke my hip when I slipped in mud while taking the girls out. Getting me on a stretcher, slipping and sliding in thick, gushy mud and then into an ambulance was tricky, but they did it. Then, the day Mom collapsed, they were here in less than five minutes, a perk of living around the corner from the main firehouse. They tried to do a “scoop and run,” but she wasn’t cooperative. When I heard what was happening upstairs as I guarded the front door, I knew that I was probably going to lose her. I never got to say goodbye because the ambulance was diverted and I had to obey all the traffic rules while traveling to a hospital about 1 1/2 miles farther down the road. But EMS did a fine job. They’re good guys.

OK, time to watch Nashville and go to sleep. Oh! One more thing. I actually ate a WHOLE dinner that I made myself. It was a yummy cheeseburger with bleu cheese, accompanied by my special fries and a salad, but it was good. My back, hips and ankle hurt even more, but it was worth it. Maybe I can say bu-bye to this episode of anorexia.

Let ’em see me sweat

I am in PAIN! I finally made it back to my gym after a 2-1/2 week absence. It was kind of strange because I surpassed my personal bests on all of the equipment. I didn’t hurt then. In fact, I was a little disappointed because I didn’t feel the burn. I’m going to have to continue to find ways to push my body because I need that burn to know that my body is doing what it’s supposed to do: get stronger. It doesn’t matter if it’s cardio or strength, my body needs to improve. It’s improved already, actually. When I wasn’t eating, I noticed that my fatty areas were not as “fatty” as before. I could see more firmness. I also seem to be stronger.

OnX at Anytime Fitness takin’ care of business on the leg press.

There were a couple of things that were new experiences at the gym tonight. I actually sweated. I’m not used to that. Before, no matter how hard I worked, I didn’t sweat that much. Tonight, my heart rate got up to 155 sustained. That’s not too shabby. I also cycled farther than I usually do, 3.17 miles, and cycled for seven minutes more than normal (22 min). I have this thing about whole numbers, especially if there’s a song playing on my iPhone I’m digging as I peddle. For example, right now I’m listening to Eminem’s Lose Yourself. It’s kind of my anthem. If that was up while I was working out on the cycle or the rowing machine, I’d keep going until the song ended. If it happened to end when I was at, let’s say, 2.4 miles, I’d keep going until I hit 2.5 or 3.0 miles. I really get into my music as I work out. I’m actually looking for more hip-hop that I like to use as workout/anthemic music. I think that I’m going to get more Eminem and check out Jay-Z once I get some more available cash. Shh! Don’t tell my lawyer. 😀 Naah, he’s a sweetheart. I’ll pay him first. Right now I’m mixing hip-hop, some classic proto-hip-hop (i.e.. Ohio Players), select R&B (O’Jays and Keisha Cole) and electronica in the form of Portishead. Hey, it works, OK?

Before I forget, I wanted to recommend a set of earbuds that I love. They are made by a company called Skull Candy. I was about to reach the cash register at my local T.J. Maxx when I happened to see a rack of earbuds that looked interesting. I’d really detested the earbuds Apple includes with the iPhone, all iPods and possibly the iPad, although don’t quote me on the last. The Apple earbuds kept falling out of my ears when the new design was specifically supposed to take care of that. They took care of it alright. They made it worse!

I allowed a couple of people to get in line ahead of me because I was enthralled my these earbuds. I believe there were two models: the 50/50 earbuds with mic, (MSRP $49.95), and; the Ink’d 2 with mic (MSRP $19.95-$24.95) model. I purchased the Ink’d 2 model and I have never regretted it. The sound is like a really good mid-range stereo. I’d prefer a bit more bass, but that’s just me. The earbuds come with a hard case and three different sizes of rubber buds. I should also mention that both models come in many different colors. I stuck with basic black and chrome because that was the only color available at that time. The best selection is, of course, at the SkullCandy.com store. The company also offers free shipping on all purchases. Still, I’d compare pricing because there may be better deals out there. It is those earbuds and my iPhone that make my workout infinitely better than it would be without them. Almost everyone at the gym wears some kind of earphones or earbuds. I’m assuming that’s the case with other gyms.

The other thing that happened is that my shoulders hurt. That’s never happened before. I did 20 reps @ 20 lbs. on the pulldown, but that wasn’t challenging enough so I upped the weight to 40 lbs. and did 30 reps. I went from the rowing machine where I spent 23:15 min., burned 145 calories, achieved 51 strokes/minute at #5 resistance. I’m wondering if I worked my shoulders too hard. Doing that many reps on the pull down far surpassed my personal best. However, again, no burn.

The real surprise as far as my workout was the leg press. I did 100 reps @ 40 lbs. and didn’t even feel it. It’s time to increase the weight. Now, what did hurt was my right hip, which is the one with the prosthesis. I used it in addition to my left leg, something I usually don’t do quite as much. Afterwards, I realized that there’s going to come a time when I’m going to need a hip replacement. I’ve heard the recovery from that is easier than the recovery from a knee replacement.

I was on my way out when I saw a gentleman about to use a set of weights on a machine I’d never noticed. It turned out that it’s another type of leg press. We talked for a long time about exercise, our respective careers and our families. When he told me how old he was, I had to do a double-take. I’m well aware that black people age differently than whites, but even I was shocked. I never, ever would have clocked him for his age unless he’d told me. He also offered help and said that he hoped we’d meet again and told me a couple of times when he’s usually around. Fortunately, his hours and my hours overlap. Hmm, I think he was flirting. Best of all, he didn’t give a hot damn about my artificial leg. Yeah, Mama’s still got it. *smirk*

I went to the grocery store before heading to the gym. I had to get a few essentials since I am still fighting anorexia. I am trying to think of food as fuel for my body instead of looking at it as a useless necessity. Since I’m ambivalent about food, I’m trying to get things that I really like but are also somewhat healthy. I got home and made a turkey sandwich. Would you believe that I had to stand up in the kitchen to eat it because the Demonic Duo were poised to steal it at any cost? I learned the hard way that I have to watch them both even as I put one in her crate. I didn’t do that the other day and the youngest slipped in and stole a roast beef sandwich with scarce colby cheese (my favorite) off the table. She’s so little that she looks innocent. She isn’t. If anything, she’s the brains of the operation. Not that her partner in crime is dumb. Indeed, far from it. However, the youngest is sneakier while the older is more like a snatch-and-run thief.

At any rate, I did manage to eat all of the turkey sandwich and I think I had something earlier in the day, too. So, I’m getting better, but I know that I need to eat more. My metabolism is so screwed up it doesn’t know what to do. That’s the other thing that exercise is doing for me: my metabolism is increasing and getting more normal. I seem to get hungry when I exercise regularly. Maybe that’s my body saying that it needs more fuel. Whatever the case, I’ve lost two pounds. I know that a lot of it is water weight because I’ve been very conscious of my liquid intake since I am prone to dehydration.

I’m sure I’ve bored everyone to death about my exercise experiences, but I’m rather proud of myself. In addition, it’s almost like I’m in a bubble when I’m on one of the machines and my earbuds are pumping out a really sick playlist. I’ve found that I can be more introspective while exercising. That helps me solve problems, be more creative and realize that I have feelings that I didn’t know I had. It actually gets pretty deep. I’m going to really try to get in more than two days a week. I want to do three days. When that happens, watch out world, my body will become a weapon of mass destruction that’s about to launch!

God, HELP!!

I’ve read nearly all of my first journal begun one week after I’d contacted Glenn a full decade ago this past March 22. I began it as a woman absolutely giddy with happiness at being able to talk to the man she loved more than herself seven or nine years after he hung up on her when she came out to him in the wrong way, granted, but not deserving of a discussion at least, to; a woman barely hanging on to life, being purposely reckless in the hope Fate would relieve her of the agony of not knowing why he turned on her all of a sudden in mid-conversation, blamed her for even thinking that he’d had any interest, telling her he didn’t care whether she rejected or embraced her love for him because he wasn’t “going there,” saying that she had been “dyking around for a decade,” that she didn’t “want this dick and to run as fast and as far as she can.” Destroyed. Absolutely destroyed. I’d trusted him more than any PERSON on the planet, loved him more than ANY PERSON on the planet and had ultimately given more of myself to him than I had ANY PERSON on the planet. Destroyed. Absolutely destroyed. Even now, after reading 10 years later, hanging on to this reality by my fingernails to keep from sinking into The Pit once more even though someone(s) destroyed the woman who was then. I can’t have relationships no matter the gender of the other person because I can’t trust enough or give enough of myself. I was punished for loving women even though I loved him, assuming the words came from him. I’m not at all sure they did. The circumstances suggest the horror could easily have been from the hagbeast monster or his gay male business partner. If the latter, it was at his request. If the former, he probably didn’t know. We went from flirting to destruction after he went away from the screen for a few minutes. That sceptic cunt could have snuck in easily. Especially since whoever was on the other end of the IM wouldn’t speak to me via voice.

I’ve been struggling with anorexia for about a week now. I’d just worked up to eating a whole sandwich, but was drinking more liquids. Now, not only don’t I care, I don’t want to eat. I mean, I ACTIVELY don’t want to eat. I’m trying to get through this because of the girls. I can’t abandon them. The thing is, I don’t think I can do this by myself and I honestly don’t know who to call who won’t make me feel worse than I already do.

I had a terrible shock. I found a portion of a journal entry meant to be found after I’d properly suicided. It contained two phone numbers. One was Glenn’s cell and the other was for a former mutual friend. I called the one for Glenn, never anticipating that it would work. It did. I was so unnerved I couldn’t talk to him. So, in the course of three days I’ve reached him twice after well over 100 letters sent to the usual usernames owners of private mail servers set up. Over 100 letters he said he never received even though some were sent via the “Contact Us” form for his record company. Granted, for a year or more I haven’t used it because I didn’t get a confirmation of receipt from the server and assumed I’d been blocked. But I have also gotten really good at setting up disposable accounts, hoping that something would get through in some fashion.

I never want to leave my bed, but the girls need to eat and go potty. I feel as I did when I had agoraphobia. Anything and nearly everyone is dangerous outside of this room. There are so many ways to kill a person while leaving them with a beating heart. There are so many ways to die and still breathe. I have to focus on the girls. If not, I will die one way or the other. I can go inside myself and never come out. I am so close to that now that I have to work to just stay present.

How could Glenn/hagbeast/gay oh business partner do this to someone whose worst “crime” was loving someone and then determining that she loved those of her own gender more at one point? Had Glenn talked to me, I would have given in. Not to the phone sex, but to allowing him access to body, soul and heart. I would give up women for him. I would have then and I would now if he was willing to do the obvious and make us “us”–hagbeast included, if I just had to, as long as he committed.

This is not the first time I’ve tried to write this book. The first time was way before I was ready. The publisher read the mess I submitted and gently told me to get some therapy and try again later. I told her I couldn’t write it then because all I do is cry while I’m typing. I don’t think she believed me until she saw the mess of the first few chapters. I’d forgotten about that until reading the journals, too. Five or six therapists later and I’m still crying as I type.

What the fuck is going on? Someone please, tell me. First, as I’m about to give up and give in to giving up on relationships, I hear and see my mother frantically trying to tell me NOT to forget about or give up on Glenn. She didn’t even like him! So, I ignore her until I realize I can’t blindside him and his kids. I NEVER intended to talk to him before mailing him a set of questions after getting well into writing a manuscript, but I wanted him to know what was coming. After ten years and a few phone messages as late as last year, he answers the phone. On a Sunday. Today, I call a 10-yr-old cell number I didn’t even know I had and he answers. I cannot hope where he is concerned. That’s especially true now that I’ve read how he or someone tried to blame me for essentially making any perceived interest up. I’ve got notes from conversations. I didn’t make anything up. And, if I made everything up, then how could he have been playing a joke? I did remember that that was part of the conversation I’d initially forgotten due to stress. It was remembered much later. It is a habit my brain learned as a child: bury the most destructive, painful memories deep inside where they can’t be found. That kept me sane and I do not exaggerate.

What does one do when one truly wants to die but can’t? Endure. What does one do when one can no longer endure? I’m frantically trying to determine who can raise my girls if it comes to that. I just can’t bear the thought of their pain after losing my mother so recently. I am in hell.

What now?

I don’t need to see Glenn again. I don’t want him in my life. I don’t want anyone who can do what he did and won’t accept any responsibility for his own actions. I am the one who swallowed a handful or two of benzos to end my life. What he did to drive me to do so is on him. No, I do not need to see him again. On the other hand, *evil grin* I want him to see me.

The thing about Glenn and I was that neither of us were sitting around waiting for the other to call. Well, I should qualify that. I did sit around waiting for him to call when I was in undergrad. I was young. However, after I crossed the threshold of 30 years old–actually before that–I was off doing my own thing. I had other relationships and, as he learned, I chose to actually do something about my attraction to women. That was our Waterloo. That’s what he couldn’t handle. He really couldn’t deal with me now. I am no longer willing to put up with a manchild. Heck, I don’t even know that I’ll ever want a man as a lover again. Part of that is thanks to him, but it’s mostly because I have a very hard time trusting men. OK, so more of that is due to Glenn than I’m admitting. *shrug* It is what it is. The only one who can make it go away is me. I have some idea of how, but I’m just not willing. It would mean becoming involved with a man for a while and gradually learning to trust again. It’s not an easy or quick road. I do think that I might be willing to get royally fucked off the edge of my bed by some hot young thing with an appropriately-sized penis, but that would be a quicky and meaningless. A little meaningless sex has it’s place, though.

In the last couple of weeks, almost as if I knew Valentine’s Day would come and I’d finally be more or less free of Glenn, I’ve done a couple of things to move my life along. The first was to re-join a dating site I’d left sometime last year. It was annoying to me that their clientele wasn’t as educated as I’d like. So, I took my money elsewhere. The “elsewhere” was Match.com. Oy! That place is infested with con artists! I encountered two in the first week. I would definitely suggest staying away from them. I won’t divulge which one I’ve joined, but I will say that it’s gotten better. There still aren’t the number of educated women I’d like to see, but there are those who can manage to put together a profile that’s worth a second look. There’s one woman in particular that’s piqued my interest. She’s pretty, tall, into the arts and, as I wrote tonight, gutsy. She’s been through things to which I can relate even though I haven’t been through the same things. We share some interests as well. We’ll chat and see if there’s anything that is worth a third look and, perhaps, a fourth. It’s fun discovering new people even if I don’t find The One.

The second thing I did was join a gym. I’ve never done so before, but I am so very ready to get in there and make my body into the weapon of mass destruction I want it to be. NO ONE will ever laugh at me or play cruel games because of my body–any portion of it–again. Glenn was the first time and he will be the very LAST. In addition, as much as I don’t feel my age intellectually, my body does. Things are going south when they used to be perkier. It’s time to do something about it. I was supposed to meet with a trainer today, but she had to cancel and I’d overslept anyway. I can’t be upset about oversleeping because stress has kept me awake for two nights. Actually, so has chatting with a fellow fibro patient feeling very depressed, poor dear. I know what that’s like and I wasn’t going to leave her alone in her depression. Therefore, I believe that I lost sleep for good reasons. However, I can’t lose any more. It’s too easy for me to get back into a habit of insomnia cured only through medication. The exercise will help, so I’m told. Personally, I just want to: 1) tone, firm, reduce; 2) repeat an infinite number of times until complete. Since I have a tendency toward anorexia, I have to be very, very careful about eating at all, eating properly and not over-exercising. Nevertheless, my body will become a W.M.D. Boom!!

Let’s Try This Again

When I resurrected Naked, I did so with a post that was a letter to my recently deceased mother. I’m going to beg your indulgence and hope that you understand that by giving my thoughts and feelings voice, maybe they’ll reach her and/or help me cope. I’m pulling out all the coping mechanisms I can because I cannot absorb any more loss. I sent a message to my friend of very long duration to give him a heads up that I know there are only two reasons he’d put his phone number out there publicly for me to find and told him the story of why I needed to find Morgan. I’m just trying to prepare myself by taking care of the old business before I can deal with the new. Mom isn’t really “old business,” but she is the least recent.

Dear Mommy,

I know you’re still around. There are times when I hear you next door in your bedroom. I don’t go in because I won’t see anything and I already know you’re with me. Hence, there’s no point. I know that the most pressing concern is that I move on and do those things I have to do to survive. The truth is, my head is so muddled that I can’t remember where I’ve put anything anymore. I am what the Brits would call “at sixes and sevens,” although I’ve never understood the origins of that term. Basically, I’m a basket case. My emotions almost always come up way after the events that inspired them, you know that. I couldn’t give in right after you died because there was so much to do. There are still people who don’t know and should. I just haven’t had the heart to tell them. Trying to comfort another person when you haven’t figured out how to deal with your own grief is overwhelming. When I told Pat, she collapsed in sobs. She loves you so much. I haven’t called her since your memorial service, but I will as soon as I get a grip.

I believe in my heart and soul that this house killed you the way it has tried to kill me. Neither of us needed to have, in essence, three floors, not to mention the evil energy here. I know that you didn’t want to hear it when you were alive, but it was part of the genesis of my return to school. I just couldn’t take it anymore. My body was breaking down a lot faster than it should have because it just takes too much work to deal with all these stairs. My personal opinion is that the bank can have it. I know that’s not what you’d do, but you’re not here and left me a mess to clean up. I don’t want to shame you, but I also can’t help but say, “I told you so!” OK, I’m more than a little angry about the state of your estate, especially since I did tell you what would happen and I’ve found that it’s far, far worse than I ever knew. *sigh* It is what it is.

Shortly after you died, I posted on the Choir page and reported what happened. There were a lot of people who remembered you, chief among them was Mr. B, god love him. I don’t know if he’ll ever understand how much a part he played in making me who I am. Now that I think of it, virtually every person who influenced me was an artist of some sort or an historian, including you. Oh! I got the piano tuned when the funeral home sent the remains of the small policies. I haven’t sat down to play it OR my guitar. It’s like there’s some sort of barrier that keeps me from them. I want to play them, but something in my head says, “No, not now,” and I don’t know what that means.

There are things that I want you to know, but I’m not sure they’d mean much.

I just couldn’t cope anymore and reached out to Glenn. Honestly, although he is exactly the right person to help me get my head together, there’s a certain amount of fear and distrust. I know that you’ve watched me struggle with losing him. I know that you’ve always believed that he’d be back. Actually, right now I’m hearing you say, “Yeah, like a bad penny.” Um, well, you made me laugh. You see, the thing is, I think I’ve finally unravelled the “why” of a lot of things that went on between us. He was a boy who grew into a man who just couldn’t communicate his feelings. It drove him batty because I could communicate mine and, therefore, work through them. I remember him driving over one weekend once we’d actually gotten together and the bomb went “BOOM!” He was heading back but we stopped to lunch. I don’t remember being particularly chatty, but he was in a foul mood. He said, “Don’t you ever shut up?” It hurt, but I also knew that for him to say that, there had to be something else going on. I did, however, learn to be quiet and that doing so was OK.

The thing is, I really need him now and I really don’t think I’m going to get out of this in one piece without him. I’ll forgive anything and everything if need be immediately, especially since I didn’t have a chance to tell you before you drifted away that I’d forgiven you. I know he broke me. He had help, but in the end, it was him. I was hurt, furious, in disbelief and learned to tell myself all of these things that were true to some degree, but not true to a greater degree, in order to survive. You know what it was like divorcing Daddy. I was with Glenn longer than that and we had this child that never got to live. The difference is that having me made the gulf between you bigger. I think that would have been the short-term situation, but I doubt that it would have lasted. Still, he only found out about it after we were done, supposedly for good.

Mommy, if you believe nothing else, please believe this: I need Glenn now. He’s the only person on this earth who knows how to help me. It’s instinctual with him. Can you whisper in his ear? If I can’t get him, I really do have to cut the ties and I haven’t been able to do that in all the years we’ve been apart. You may not like him, but you were the first to see, too late for me, but see nonetheless, that he loved me.

I’m really worried about your brothers. I strongly suspect that you’ll see one of them again this year. Please, help give me the strength to carry on. Both you and Daddy had your faults, but you were both strong people, often hurting yourselves in the process. I’m possibly going to hear news of the loss of someone else very dear to me and between that anxiety and the near certainty of what I’ll hear, I’m more shaken than I was last night. This is someone you’ve never met, but I think you would have found him more than amusing, though very strange. I can see you peering at him through a curly, deep red mane of hair and a beard topped off with dark eyeglasses. Just know that he was always honest with me, true to his beliefs and a very, very decent human being. I never told him this, but I’d always wanted to re-create the Jonh Lennon and Yoko Ono photo in bed with him in B&W. I think even you would have liked it.

I’ve been dreaming about you a lot lately. In fact, these are the first dreams I’ve remembered having about you. I do remember waking up and thinking that you were here, forgetting that you weren’t. I don’t know whether the dreams make life harder or easier for me. They are so real and it is such a let-down when I wake up and remember you’re not on this plane of existence anymore. At the same time, I love seeing you again.

I’m dealing with the Food Monster again. I haven’t been able to eat for well over 24 hours. I have to force myself or I won’t be able to take care of the furkids, not to mention someone will get some bright idea to force feed me. I’ve come to really detest interfering relatives. That’s another reason I need to leave. I know you love this house. You can have it because it can’t hurt you anymore. It can and does hurt me daily. Right now, I’m nauseous as hell and not looking forward to going out in the heat. However, it’s not an option. I have to do it. Nevertheless, I think I’m coming straight home.

I wish I could say that I’ll be OK soon. I can’t. It may take a long time before I’m OK. I am working on it, though. Right now, that’s all I can do. There are going to be some happenings that will make you very sad. I know because they make me sad and I’m the one doing them. But if I am to keep me and the furkids together, I need to do whatever I have to do. That’s straight out of the mouth of your youngest brother who, I might add, believes you didn’t like him at all. You need to visit him because he’s crushed. He doesn’t say it, but it’s there in everything he does. I think that you’d be very proud of him. Out of all the relatives, he’s the one doing his best to take care of me and vice versa. I’ve tried to reassure him that you love him dearly, but it’s no good coming from me. It has to come from you. I fixed an error in your estate paperwork that would have definitely given him the notion that he was right about the way you feel towards him, but he needs more. Go to him in his dreams. Let him dream about being a little boy and you making clothes for him. He said that you made them for the middle brother, but specifically not for him. He’s hurting deeply, Mom. I don’t know what to do for him that I haven’t done. He needs his big sister.

Well, that’s about it. If I’m right about my redheaded friend and you somehow encounter him in your travels, say hello and be nice! He’s a really good guy. I dare say that you would have liked him more than Glenn. Oh! I almost forgot to mention that you once decoded him for me. It was using your insight that I finally got it. If we have to work so damn hard to stay away, then he’s feeling a danger. I have been reacting to what he’s done. If he reads this, he’s going to be unhappy, but at least the truth will be out there somewhere.

I love you,

T.

P.S.: I think I may be able to send in those lyrics I started writing so long ago. I Don’t Know How To Let Go.

Trippin’

There are days when life seems like someone’s dream. I understand Australian aboriginal societies view dreams as valid as anything they may experience while awake. That might explain why sleep is no respite. I’m angry with myself for having sex with a guy old enough to be my father, (not that that’s bothered me before, but I was younger then), and; for eating things I know are not good for me, although I have honestly tried to get better. I went from not eating for days until I felt so faint I could no longer walk to eating all of the things I know have a zillion calories and feeling like a pig who’s as big as a house. I keep asking myself and God, “When will this end?!” I can accept hurting myself by cutting or something, but I can’t accept myself if I eat, especially when I already feel horrible about my weight. There are days when I want to hide. In fact, for over a year, that’s exactly what I did. I hid. I’d only leave the house for doctors’ appointments. Even then, I hid myself under baggy clothing because I wanted so badly to be invisible.

Looking at the above as a complete outsider, I’d say that this chick needs some help. Yep, she does. She’s a hot mess. My therapist can only see me a couple of times a month because she doesn’t work full time. I don’t want to break in a new therapist, so I’m sticking with this one. Besides, she’s really good. I asked her if she treated people with eating disorders as we were walking to the door. She said that she didn’t treat eating disorders specifically, but has run into them in the course of treating other disorders. It’s essentially the same thing she said about another pathology with which I have to deal more and more often.

People don’t understand that cutting is not about attempting suicide at all. It’s the exact opposite. By cutting, the person can release some of the anger, pressure, stress that’s going on inside so that they can function. Another reason is that cutting or, in my case, burning, is the only way to express the intense pain felt. I burned myself nearly to the bone about a decade ago because I was dying inside. I wanted to scream, hit (inanimate) things and curl up in a tiny little ball forever. I desperately wanted someone to understand what I was going through and, at the same time, knew they wouldn’t. I just wanted someone to look my way and realize that I was at the end of my rope and needed help. No amount of cutting/burning would release enough pain to allow me to function, but I did want to function. The only reason I’d want to die was because no one would understand how hurt and devastated I was. It was Glenn who pushed me to the point where I wanted to die. That is, he and his buddies who decided it would be funny to hear some stupid, foolish, idiotic chick 500 miles away who’d had a 17-year relationship with him until he disappeared for two years, leaving said chick to discover she liked women a hell of a lot more than men, including Glenn, tell that rat bastard how much she loved him still, wanted to get back together and have him pretend it was within the realm of possibility. I think of what he did to me and I am still humiliated even though I shouldn’t be. If he had a conscience, Glenn would be the one who feels shame and humiliation. However, it seems he doesn’t and never will.

I’ve been told that I have to move past this–that Glenn’s threats against my life weren’t credible because he lives 500 miles away. They don’t know him like I know him. Five hundred miles is nothing for him. He used to drive that regularly to see me. He loves to drive. And if he chooses, he certainly has the means to hire someone to carry out his threats. Barring some monumental law enforcement fuck up, he’ll be the first person the authorities will look at. Since he would have had to cross state lines either to conspire or to have someone carry out the plot, it then becomes a federal crime. My lawyer thinks I’m diverting all my attention to him when I’m really grieving my mother. Hello! Ever heard of multitasking? Glenn can and will wait for years until his victim is most vulnerable and then strike. He’s already done it to me once. I’ve seen him do it to other people before as well. I only saw a glimpse of his dark side. It’s a place from which no light escapes, like a black hole in the center of his soul. With me, his chosen weapon was always the great mindfuck. I cannot begin to describe how much he hurt me until he finally decided he wouldn’t anymore and we became lovers, although he’s the one who had control. I guess he figured that there was something inside that was worth dealing with and needed a second, third and fourth look. What was going on is that I took a lot of body blows to my emotions and continued to love him, for better or worse.

Do I go to bed worried that I won’t wake up? No. Do I go to bed worried that my furbabies won’t have anyone to care for them if something happens to me? Damn straight I do! If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t care who did what to me to end my life. I’m tired of living it myself. I want peace in death and a chance to come back one day in different circumstances. Then again, I wouldn’t get a chance to choose my life. That would be up to The Powers That Be. They could decide that I’m unworthy and put me in even more untenable circumstances always ending the same way. Eventually, I won’t want to come back. I’m almost to that point now. As I said, I’m tired.

How Do I Write This?

I sat in my living room, unmoving, for hours after feeding and watering the girls and taking some garbage out for pick-up Friday. I sat in what was my mother’s chair and didn’t even turn the television on. You see, I’d done something earlier in the day I didn’t plan, didn’t even think about, but ended up doing anyway.

I met a very nice, very intelligent man in his 70s or 80s some weeks ago. We talked for a while and enjoyed each other’s company. Thursday, I went back to the fast food restaurant looking for him. I only wanted someone to take my mind off of my own pain and try to help someone else with theirs. You see, he’d lost both is wife and then, late last year, his girlfriend. He and I understood each other’s pain and sorrow. He let me know the first time we met that he wanted me. I was flattered, but I wasn’t interested. Today, to my surprise, I did get interested. I needed to touch someone else’s soul and I most assuredly needed someone to touch mine. It was “shrink day,” and I didn’t feel all that much better after the session. In fact, I felt worse. It wasn’t the therapist’s fault. How can she understand in 50 minutes what has taken me someone else’s lifetime to understand about myself? That, and NO ONE will let me tell the whole story without interruption which leads to some tangent that’s important, but can wait until I finish my story. It’s involved, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when heard in pieces and I ask myself so many “whys” all the time. In fact, that’s one of my biggest problems: “Why?” It’s always been that way with me and I honestly don’t know how to change that or even if I want to do so.

I feel shame. I feel so fucking alone (no pun intended). I’m worse than I was before. I just needed someone so very much and he was there and offering, so to speak. He’s also the kind of man Mom wanted me to have before she knew I was mostly lesbian. (Don’t try to figure my sexuality. You’ll get a headache. Really.) She wanted me to settle down with a very nice older man who adored me and would let me be all of who I am. That “all of who I am” became more meaningful after my unashamed and unabashed love of women was confirmed. Mom wasn’t as old fashioned as I’d believed in that regard. She wasn’t at all happy when I told her. In fact, she bordered on, I thought, being a little bit peeved that liked women more than men. Her words were, “Hmph. I’m going to have to get used to this,” in a very grumpy voice. By that time, Daddy had died and I was spared the tiny possibility that he’d be upset. If anything, he wouldn’t have cared at all as long as I was happy. Actually, Mom and I were just about on the same page. However, while she read right to left, I read left to right. My mother would have me with a husband as a primary partner while I’d have a woman. I have loved more than one person at the same time and been loved by more than one person at the same time. If I’m really lucky, I’ll have the opportunity to do so again. To be honest, it would be much easier for me to give up men than for me to give up women. I think the latter would require severing a major part of who I am as a person. I don’t think that giving men up would do that, but it also wouldn’t be painless.

I thought my days of one night stands were over. I haven’t had one in so long that I can’t remember back that far. The reason this will be a one night stand is two-fold: I didn’t know I was going to take my clothes off in front of another person today and forgot that I’d left the house without putting any lotion on and without shaving those areas women tend to shave, and; I think we’re hopelessly sexually incompatible. He’s very old school Italian and I’m not. Men of a certain age think that women should orgasm with the wiggle of their fingers in certain places. It’s our own fault because we’ve faked orgasm so many times horrible lovers think their wonderful lovers. While I wouldn’t put him in the “horrible” category, it’s pretty damn close. Any time I can’t even make myself orgasm while with someone, then something is wrong. Then again, it could be my meds. Naah, while the meds don’t make orgasms easy at all, they haven’t stopped me from getting myself off either.

It really doesn’t matter how good or bad a lover this man was. What matters is that I feel shame, regret and dirty (in a negative way) about what I did. I do want that one, last, epic love affair and I don’t particularly care about what sex my lover is, although I honestly believe it will be a woman and not a man. I don’t want to be treated like a $10 whore getting it on in the back of my van. Those days should have been over when I left my teens, but we each had obstacles at home, although all mine were either paper, dust or had four legs. He’s a neat freak and this house is anything but right now. I never, ever should have allowed my need for some kind of solace to overshadow everything else. I think I just want to forget. I think that’s the only way I won’t feel like a $10 whore. Just forget.

I forgot to mention that I’m really having trouble eating. I’ll order something and not want it when it gets here or I’ll make a sandwich and only eat half of it. Then, I get dizzy during the day and have to stop and eat just to go on, all the while hating that I’m eating. The question popped into my head while writing, “Do I cut or do I stop eating? That is the question.” Even I have to admit that things are not getting better, at least they weren’t today. Maybe something will make tomorrow bearable. A cousin I’ve never met but have spoken with dozens of times is in town for a convention. We’re going to compare family history notes and make a plan for ferreting out more information. I wish she were coming here in a month or two. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the day tomorrow and I have to drive 20+ miles each way to get scripts for my pain meds.Damn.

The Unabridged, Unadulterated, Ugliness of Truth and Life

I can feel some psychological pathologies coming back because of the excruciating, unrelenting pain I’m facing with each minute of the day. Although I’m overweight, I have been a borderline anorexic for many years. Whenever I get depressed I refuse to eat. It’s the one thing that I can do to myself by myself other than the obvious, cutting. Yes, it’s a control issue. I am absolutely terrified that I will end up in a hospital within a few days to a week because I’ll momentarily lose control or I’ll be so distracted that I’ll have an accident. I’d bet on the former more than the latter. Right now, I want to lay in a fetal position and just fade into nothingness. If it weren’t for my girls, I would have ended this hell days ago.

My mother did everything she could to come back to me. I watched the hospital personnel working on her and I am so deeply grateful to them. If there was anywhere in the world she could have been saved, it was Cleveland Clinic. She died within less than an hour of collapsing, but not because they didn’t try. Funny, I immediately knew who they were working on even though I couldn’t see into the room because of all of the people. Now, she’s in an urn in a cabinet as I hope her spirit roams free to learn all that it can before coming back again.

Glenn is a completely different story. There was no closure at all. I’m not sure there ever will be. I am haunted by it, hounded by it and can’t cope without it.

Glenn’s silence makes me feel ugly. I feel as though I’m as big as a house–a fat Miss Frankenstein that he can’t stand to look or talk to. For him, I’m nothing. I am as insignificant as an ant in the street. There’s an argument going on in my head that says he’s an ass and that I’m so much more than either he or I believe myself to be. I admit to being obsessed with learning why he did what he did. I strongly believe he owes me at least that much. But he’s male and males do the dumbest things on earth and call it “funny.” His “fun” nearly cost me my life. I’m not sure he gives a damn. I sent word and asked him to phone. He hasn’t. All the speculation in the world won’t give me an answer that will be satisfying. I wonder how he lives with himself. I could never do to someone what he did to me. Most people couldn’t do it. That level of cruelty is characteristic of bullies. When did that happen? Why did that happen? Was I right all those years ago when I called him a sociopath? I know that some are made and some are born. He’s always had a fairly hostile relationship with his mother and his father seemed to be a much nicer (non-pedophile) version of my mother’s second husband in that he’d immerse himself in the newspaper to keep from dealing with whatever was going on around him, like his wife.

I wear an artificial leg on the right side. I am what’s called in the UK a “thalidomider.” My mother took the drug thalidomide in 1961 when she was pregnant with me. It wasn’t approved by the FDA because there were a large number of babies born with major birth defects both externally and internally. Many didn’t live at all. It’s killing me, but what if Glenn made the decision to marry that woman, Robin, because she was whole? This isn’t a new idea, but has popped up very strongly this moment. I can’t argue with him for it. She was a med school graduate when they married and I’d just learned that I had fibromyalgia and would never work a consistent 9 to 5 again. I’ll work again, but it will be on my own terms.

I started this post very early this morning. I stopped at the above paragraph and did what I said I wouldn’t do again and that’s write him another letter. I got a lot out, but I just want to stop chasing him and be discarded at every turn. I feel pathetic because I need and want him in my life. I’ve got this incredibly strong feeling with no basis at all that there’s something else going on that I know nothing about. Whatever the case, I can’t make him say anything. If he did say something, would it be kind and compassionate or will it be emotionally abusive? If I have to ask that question, what am I doing trying to find the beautiful man he’d become instead of a twisted, narcissistic hot emotional mess of a man? I just keep hoping that some portion of decency is left in him. And if it’s that hard to find, is he really worth it? If I had a friend in this situation, I’d counsel her to seriously re-think whether she wants to be an emotional and, possibly, physical punching bag.

I don’t need anyone who, for whatever reason, makes me feel like I’m worthless. The grief I feel is so damn powerful and it’s fucking with my brain in ways that I’d never expect. I don’t understand why this is happening? I don’t understand what I’m doing? I know that I really want to take a razor blade and start cutting again. I haven’t done that in years, but it’s as though the words I’m typing aren’t enough. I feel like I’m screaming and no one hears. I have an appointment with my therapist tomorrow. Maybe she can help me figure out why I feel so utterly hopeless, helpless and worthless. When will this hellish nightmare end?