keep on keeping on.

i know i'm overreacting. i know it rationally but i still can't help it. i'm caught in this purgatory of emotional responses, vaguely aware of a painful and gruesome hell behind one door and really hoping if i ignore its sounds and smells it will disappear and let me go quietly into a blissful heaven of a well-integrated, well-balanced and mature human being.

but it's not that easy.

i've been at the edge of falling apart since about 11:45 this morning and it's now 3:28 in the afternoon. even after buying 5 fun postcards and 2 good books* at the small portland powell's i am not any farther away from my place where i'm toeing the darker doorway. damn. shop therapy fails yet again.

so, i'm here. blogging at the cafe next door and realizing that the illusion that i'm on the safe side of the hell door is just that: an illusion. whatever is going on is going on full speed ahead to some unknown destination whether or not i decide to look at it, take it apart, make some sense of it and hopefully/eventually move on at my own pace and direction.

so i will defer to winston churchill, who wisely said if you're going through hell, keep going.

here i go to keep going:

there are two things happening right now that on the outside look pretty dissimilar, but at the end of the day are really two sides to the same thing. i'll start with the most pressing.

i've been seeing someone for just a shade over 4 months. we've kept it quiet. we've called it casual, but it really hasn't been. not from the get go. but while we haven't been casual, this person isn't the father of my children. he isn't someone i see myself being 75 years old and sitting on a porch swing holding hands with. we're on the same page there. we are great friends, we have a lot of fun together, and there is a lot of gentleness, playfulness, personal growth {on my part at least--he's a quite a bit older and not changing as rapidly} and spirit to our time together and it will last as long as it lasts.

so you ask: but what is the problem then, nathania?

and i answer you this: right now he's meeting with his ex. and not just an ex, ex, but someone who he earlier {months ago} said he would propose to next time he saw her. one of those big loves that didn't work out and has all that frustrating not-together-despite-how-much-we-care openendedness about it. at least on his part.

and this is devastating to me.

completely devastating.

i'm holding myself together with the glitter of two new books and the propriety of sitting in a public space. that's it.

but it's not devastating in the way you're probably imagining. it's not because i want to be what she is to him. it's not because i want to live the rest of my life with this man or be married to him or that i'm afraid he'll ditch me tomorrow. well, i would be sad if our relationship ended tomorrow, but i also know it will end at some point, so if that 'some point' becomes tomorrow, i can still deal with it.

it isn't any of these things that made me scarf my meal down as fast as i could and get out of the restaurant she would be walking into at any moment and flee. i know it's completely illogical, but also completely true that i didn't even want to see her because what if she is skinnier than me? what if she is prettier? i know for certain she'll be shorter than me {i'm significantly taller than this man}. all these things i will save for future ammunition any time i need an excuse or aid in devaluing myself or something i will use as the excuse for why someone didn't like me or why i didn't get something i wanted.

but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what she looks like, or how she moves or sounds, because she is better than me in his eyes. and it doesn't matter that it probably won't work out or that i actually want it to work out for him, with this woman or some other woman. all that matters right now is that i'm lesser to this man. i am lesser. i am lesser. i am not enough. i am not enough. i am not enough. i am not good enough.
fin.






breathe, nathania. breathe.






i'm stuck here. i don't know how to move out of this place. i'm not here because i've reasoned myself here, i'm here because of my human being story. i'm here as a result of a complex system of cause and effect. action and reaction. father and daughter. spaced-out mother and daughter. older kids+unreasonable father against me. and my words can't talk me out of this space right now. so i'm stuck. and desperately ashamed of what's going on. ashamed of being too clingy. of being too needy. of being too sensitive. of crying too easily.

shame.
lots of shame.
and then a little more shame for good measure.
shame both for not being enough and for feeling too much.
and then shame for being immature and young and un-integrated enough to deal with my shame in a properly detached and mature manner.

i don't want to melt down in front of him.
i want him to be free.
i want to be free.
but i don't know how to take care of myself here
and i don't know how to ask for care from him and still hold on to my self.

i'm a mess and he's been sick for a while now and exhausted in his own way.
so i'm talking myself out of bringing him in on this story, even though he knows me well enough to see the evidence of it spinning itself out beneath my skin and behind the wall i've tried to build in my eyes.

and this is only the first part of what's going on, but he just called and i need to go and pick him up so the second part, which really deserves it's own space, will have to wait a little longer.

thanks for listening.



*housekeeping by robinson & the perks of being a wall flower by chobsky.