Botticelli me thumbnail
- Profile -+- Notes -+-Archives-+- E-Mail -+-Diaryland-+- Fotolog -+- Latest -

Honey is Sweet

Argh - 2006-09-13

I'm grateful for: jigsaw puzzles; Hebrew easy readers; my giant stuffed panda

Argh, argh, argh, argh, argh!

I woke up and wanted to erase what I wrote last night, and say 'see, all better now,' and pretend that I'm just not like that anymore. Or something.

There are so many things going on in my life right now which contribute to my feelings - going through the old photos - being reminded of good times and bad things. Seeing photos of the woman John screwed around with, being reminded of times/places when he was more human than he has been with me for more than a decade. I wonder what happened. Was it me? Was it him? And, is it ever fixable?

Sixteen years ago I took a good hard look at my life, and decided (I'm borrowing the phrase from forty-plus although the context is entirely different) that I didn't want to look back when I was sixty and have wasted my life with him. I left him. But I went back. Why, why did I go back? I don't know, except that when I thought about it and prayed about it, it felt like the right thing to do. Was that a part of my disease, or was it really the right thing to do? I don't know. I don't know if it's possible to know.

I feel in part that I have missed my chance of ever being loved and or understood in an adult relationship.

I came back and I've stuck with him, through so many horrible things. Not all of them about him, but he always managed to contribute his mite, if you know what I mean. I've grown and the kids have grown and there are more kids, and our lives have taken some pretty strange turns, and in terms of the nuts and bolts of living - it works pretty well. In terms of living happily with another person, though, not so well.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm wrong for wanting more. Sometimes I think that I should be grateful for what I have - which is more than many other people have, and it's not likely that I could have had better. Really. And then I think about this endless, Endless bad feeling that I live with and have lived with that comes of knowing that I have never in my life been loved and appreciated and understood and thought worthy. By some friends, but not in my family, not by my husband, or my sister or brother (I am excluding my children - they don't belong to this and are not a part of this - more important, I didn't have children in order to have someone to love me).

I think of the confidence that just comes of having someone to believe in me - and that I haven't got and have never had (except with my uncle - which is an entirely different story), and that I CANNOT just manufacture for myself. Goodness knows I've tried. I know I am smart and can be funny, and am very capable and organized. I can cook and write (not that you'd know that from reading here, but I *can* write), I'm good at a lot of things, I am a good person, I KNOW all these things. Knowing does not translate into that confidence that one gets from knowing that one is not alone in the world, that someone has your back. THAT, I haven't got.

Before I had kids I didn't need it so much. I was able-bodied. The only person I had to worry about was me. And you know, that's it. Just those two things. I am responsible for the well-being of these small people, and I can't do it alone. Confidence? WHAT confidence? I'm not confident I can get out of bed in the morning, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that any time I am low and need a bit of a boost my husband can be counted on to stomp on me.

So, did I waste my life with this man? I don't know. The only way to answer that is to know if it would have/could have been better had I left him. And I don't know that, haven't any way to find or figure it out.

I feel like such a fuck-wit. I wanted so much more from my life - but I have everything I wanted. It makes no sense unless I pull it apart. I have everything - a long term marriage, many children whom I love and who love me right back, animals - I ever wanted and nothing - a loving, caring adult relationship among equals who respect one another ... and let's not forget sex, a group of friends one or more of whom really know me, and like me, and support me and care about me, and for whom I feel the same way. Did I want those things only because they are portrayed on television and in movies? Do those things really exist? I have my doubts. People are people, we're all too human for that to really work, I think.

I want/wanted land to farm, to build on, animals to raise, trees to nurture, because those things don't disappoint. I'm never going to have my feelings hurt because a tree didn't notice that I cleaned the kitchen, or because a goat kid isn't interested in me the person. Because whatever I could make or grow would offer satisfaction that no one and nothing could take away from me.

Because farming doesn't depend on some boss saying you are good enough, or making dick-witted people you hate happy, or permission from some higher authority (besides Hashem, of course). You make, you build, what you make and have built is yours, unless you sell it or give it away, and it is solid and concrete and real. And often permanent.

So, I lost the farm, or it was taken away, or I threw it away, or whatever it was that happened while I was trying to do the things I thought would get me what I wanted. Now the house is burned completely, gone, and I don't even want to think about the tree houses and sheds, the barn or the fruit trees, what has happened to them.

I'm stuck in this horrible house in this horrible (to me) neighborhood. It really is a nice enough house, in a very nice neighborhood, if you are the kind of person who lives here. I mean it. I am not that kind of person. I had a very good talk with Sally the other day in which she described being perfectly happy in her empty house, not lonely or anything, but she is surrounded all the time by people - this whole neighborhood in fact one is never really alone. And I was telling her that I don't mind - in fact I prefer my house to be full of people. I just want outside of my house to be without all the people. It's a different way of living and a different kind of a life.

I can't BEAR to have people all the time walking past my house, talking outside my house, looking in my windows. I can't stand going for a walk and having to do the nice with hordes of people I wouldn't give the time of day if I could help it. None of those people know me, or care enough to come up to the house to ask how I am doing, or to visit or offer help, so why should I use up my scant energy chatting with them when I want to be walking, exercizing, looking at beautiful trees and plants and vistas, and NOT wasting my life on these (to me) horrible people, who can't be bothered to put themselves a little bit out for me, but would take it as rude and insulting if I don't use up my little stores of energy on them.

So, there it is. I am terminally unhappy because I can't seem to be happy despite all the wonderful things in my life. Or something. The times I am truly happy, am I managing to be happy despite all that is unhappy, missing and wrong in my life? And then I can't maintain it so I fall back into contemplation of the dull misery that is my life? Or am I just a miserable person, who can manage to be miserable despite all the gifts that are rained down on me. How the hell do I know?

I'm tired of being unhappy about the things I don't have. But, you know what? I am also really, really tired of not having those things. Maybe they are not necessary for life, but they surely could make life a nicer place to be.

I'm tired of crying all the time - and I am really tired of crying and nobody notices.

Years and years ago, in praying for recovery, I prayed for a satisfying life. I didn't ask to be happy, as long as there was satisfaction. Okay, is this the result? Because I'm not feeling satisfaction, either. I've had in some ways a very hard life, I've done a lot of hard things, I've accomplished an awful lot, and I have nothing to show for it. I don't see the satisfaction of overcoming yet another obstacle in my life if nothing looks any different afterward. I've come so far and done so much and I'm still just this lump, sitting in bed, typing on the computer. Who knew?

Gd, can I go on or what? I can't take me anymore, I am out of here.

I'm listening to the wind in the trees, and cars passing in the distance

0 bleats so far

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06