Two things, since I am losing it

First thing:

I spoke to my brother yesterday. It was so upsetting. Where to start. His court date is 3/26. Since his arrest in January he has not been to AA or pursued therapy. He has an ankle monitor on so he can’t drink without being immediately arrested.

Talking to him yesterday morning he said that by the time he gets out he will have been sober 90 days and at this point there has only been one day he wanted to drink. I said yeah, but you won’t have anything preventing you from drinking after you get out of jail. The ankle monitor is a band aid. I said I started drinking again after being sober for 11 months the first time I quit.

He said he assumed he would drink again.

 

I asked why? He said people relapse. I said I have been sober 5 years and after going through the past 2 years I do not think I will ever drink again. I think I already would have if I was going to. He said, “good.”

Then he proceeded to offer me advice about my romantic life. Questioning why I would be willing to consider living with someone at this point after what I had been through. That look at him and his girlfriend – he hasn’t dated anyone in the past almost 5 years since they broke up. I said, yeah, and you have a major drinking problem. There’s a huge difference.

It made me really prickly to have him question my decisions. I guess because one, I am mad at him and two how can he question my decisions when he has been making bad decision after bad decision? So I am mad at him and I need to allow that, and acknowledge that. Oh, and three, I am afraid I could be making the wrong decision. But that is FUCKING life.

I also got frustrated with him when I was talking about John and his drinking problem and he said, I try not to be judgmental about other people’s drinking problems. I said, Good for you! I lived with him – he is an alcoholic who made me feel like I was fucking insane because he is a goddam addict and someone other than him had to be the source of the problem.

I really, really need help looking at how to interact with my bro. I am so mad at him and he makes me so prickly. For some reason the impression I get from him is he feels as though he knows best and also a feeling he is passing judgment. However, he has spent NO time trying to address his own emotional issues. I have spent the last 20 years addressing mine, so I have a chip on my shoulder, as in, where does he get off. Is that valid? I do not know.

Second thing:

There is this guy I tried to do a FWB sort of thing with after my split. He kept saying he wanted us to be friends even if I ended up with a boyfriend, etc. However he would say very mean things and then when I called him out on them he would act like I was crazy. Friday he did it again and instead of responding to his jab with an answer or why would you say that, blah, blah, blah. I threw a jab right back at him. Well. Apparently I hit to close too home. He unfriended me on facebook. And I am SAD about it because I am a needy motherfucker apparently.

This guy was a jerk. He called me a moon bat because of my political leanings. He told me I was too skinny. He questioned my intelligence. Case in point, we were NOT friends. He was pretending to be my friend in case I broke up with S, so he could fuck me. And in the meantime he thought it was fun to fuck with my head. I am fairly certain that is just his M.O. – he is one of those guys. They say they have lots of female friends, but they don’t truly. I think I was recreating aspects of my relationship with John with him. He’s much brighter and more successful than John. But there are similarities.

Wow, tears, really?

So interesting.  I sent messages to two of my friends that I was blogging here again. Both responded immediately.

K asked:

Do you want input or do you want me to listen and read?

 

Wow. It triggered quite a response in me.

I responded:

haha, good question. I think I just want someone to listen and read. Comments are fine, but I am not really looking for input per se. :) I think I just need to feel like I am being heard by someone. Since typing this response is making my eyes sting and tear, I guess I really feel like I need to be heard without how emotionally draining it is to actually have a real conversation in real time.

Interesting.

REALLY interesting. I am SHOCKED by my response. I have a lot I need to find a place for.

House Stress

My house will be going on the market in May. John and I have to meet with the realtor before then. I am a nervous wreck about it. I asked a good friend of mine, if she would come with me. I am pretty sure he will want to bring his new fiancee (they got engaged 11 months after he walked out the door and a month before our divorce was finalized) and I want to have emotional support.

It would be very stupid for him to bring his new fiancee, but he tried to bring her to the house two weeks ago to move his stuff out (more than a YEAR after he left). So, it stands to reason he would probably try to bring her to meet with the realtor. Even though she has n.o.t.h.i.n.g. to do with the house.

I asked the realtor if we could meet somewhere other than the house. I do not want him in it.

I have so much to do and it overwhelms me. I could have started doing it earlier, but depression prevented that. My boss says that truthfully paint and what not is only going to change the price so much and not to stress so much. Hopefully that is true.

My boiler is ancient and this winter it has started to be quite loud. When the heat comes on there is lots of noise in the baseboards. We had a spell of three 51 degree days and then last night it was in the teens. It sounded like someone was banging on the pipes all night. I called the oil company, even though I am terrified they are going to say that my boiler is going to self destruct and I need to replace it ASAP. They said that usually the banging is either due to air in the pipes or the water being too hot. That would be covered under my maintenance contract. If it is electrical it will be covered under my  maintenance contract. They are coming between 2 pm and 4 pm. My in-laws are going over to be there when they arrive (they have continued to go above and beyond). The oil company will call if it is something that isn't covered under the maintenance contract.

The level of my anxiety is pretty ridiculous. Anxiety coupled with lack of sleep will certainly age you. It will also cause inflammation. I have been dealing with pretty chronic pain at this point due to iliotibial band tendinitis. So stupid. It is an overuse injury and common in runners and hikers. I sincerely hope once the house is sold I can get a handle on it. I'd like to before then, but I suspect my stress level will stay pretty high.

This has been a particularly bad week. I am stressing hard core about the house.

In good news I need to take a day off and go get a notarized copy of the docket from my divorce so I can un-hyphenate my name!

Scared and Anger

Due to my mother's bitterness, I wish to skip over being angry at John. I do not want to bother hating him or being angry with him. I want to get right to the point where I can write him a letter and say, "Yes, it sucked, but it made me a better person and there were valuable bits to us being together."

Yesterday in therapy I referred to being angry with John as a waste of time. My therapist corrected me.

Unfortunately if I do not allow myself to get really angry with him the likelihood of me forgiving him is less. So how to you get angry when you are resisting it so hard? As M jokingly reminded me, "What you resist, persists." Yeah, I know.

I have moments, but mostly I am just boggled that he is such a scumbag. That I was so blind. In both our defenses, I know people change. I changed a ton. Perhaps he was always this person and I just didn't see it because of where I was. There is also the fact that something did break in him.

Regardless, it doesn't matter. He is what he is. He's going to act this way from here on out. He is chasing something and soon enough it won't have anything to do with me in even a tangential manner. But it remains hard to reconcile the person I thought I loved and this new person.

So, I think I need to sit down and write a letter about why I hate him and how angry I am. I think that needs to be vented.

Long Over Due Update

Wow. Well, I have been putting off blogging. I have needed to blog, but it truly hasn't even been on my radar.

In December I went down to VA to stage an intervention for my bro. He was at the point he would either die or be arrested (due to alcohol abuse). He had done a medical detox about a month and a half prior where he was told he had alcohol induced hepatitis. I did all sorts of research. Miraculously we convinced him to come north. We checked him into a medical detox and then the rehab facility he was supposed to go to refused him based on his psych evaluation. Okay. [This deserves a whole series of posts.]

The boy I was dating did not know how to deal with all of this, I guess. He asked no questions and offered no support. He was not being emotionally available and we weren’t having sex. So, I said I thought we should split. He said, “Well, we did both think you were over your divorce, but you aren’t.” I said, "There’s also the fact that you are emotionally unavailable and we’re not having sex."

So the month of December was kind of miserable. My first set of holidays without John. After Christmas I e-mailed the boy because I was going to see a documentary I thought he would think was really cool. I hemmed and hawed about e-mailing him because when we split I never thought I would hear from him again. The break was the complete. But finally I decided screw it; we e-mailed back and forth and we decided to try again.

So we tried again and the first time we hung out was amazing, and the sex was amazing. Then he wanted to hang out 4 days in a row; all with no sex. By the end he said I was smothering him with my desire for sex and physical contact. I started crying and he LEFT ME WHILE I WAS CRYING. Okay, at that point I figured we were all done. The next day he texted me like nothing was wrong?

So the next two weeks I do not see him but we text. I figure we are over. Thursday night rolls around and he asked if I want to hang out Friday. I have something going on. He says, “We kind of fizzled out again.” Yeah, we did. I say, “I think we are just meant to be friends right now.” So we make plans to hang out Saturday as “friends”  and at dinner I tell him how hurt I was he left me crying. He says, "but the conversation wasn’t going anywhere" and I say, "at that moment I needed your support." He blushes red. Later that night he tells me he will never leave me crying again.

Supposedly we went out as friends, but it was too sweet and there was too much discussed. We weren’t going out as friends.

So we are seeing each other and it is nice. I am trying hard not to have any expectations.

I have a significant amount of stress in my life due to the divorce that hasn't really abated and I am seeing the physical effects of it: disrupted sleep, tight and sore muscles, headaches, disrupted GI.....to name a few things.

I am going to try and blog more actively. I think it will be helpful for me. I am hitting 3 or 4 of the top 10 stressors in life and I definitely need an outlet (in my defense I hike religiously, do acupuncture, chiro, see a therapist, and see a second therapist for EMDR). Hopefully as I get back to posting the posts will start to make sense, but a lot has happened and it will be difficult to encapsulate it all and move forward and deal with today versus yesterday.

Hello, dear blog

Shortly after my last post I got bored and decided I needed to get laid. That was the way I framed it in my head, but when I talked about it with the woman I do EMDR with she made me realize that wasn't what I was looking for. She asked me what I was looking for - I said, someone to hang with, hike with, and have sex with. She said, that sounds like a relationship.

Alrighty then.

So, I went on some entertaining dates and got back in the saddle as they say. Then I met this guy. And we had an earth shatteringly amazing summer together.

Now is it November and it is 9 - 10 months after my initial loss where therapists say people often experience the loss anew. I totaled my car. There is a lot going on in my family with my bro. I am unsure what is going to happen with the house. The boy is very, very busy with a major product push and, to me, seems stressed out and depressed. My insecurity asks what if it has to do with me. And the answer is, if it does then we move on with sadness, but also joy because this has been a spectacularly healing time for me. I hope it continues, but I really don't know which way is up in this situation and I am trying to go with that. These constructs society creates for us, about how we should feel and how a relationship should work are all bunk anyway. So why not just be patient and open? I'm not going anywhere. The universe can show me the right way, all I have to do is pay attention and listen, which can be much harder than one would expect at times.

So, in a nutshell, with no background, I am confused, but trying to allow myself to BE confused. One of my biggest faults is the tendency to over analyze and over think things. Walking away recognizing that is huge - now I just need to stop it when I get started and allow myself to be.

“Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Breathing

Between the Reiki and dropping off the paperwork with the lawyer, things have been going pretty well. Knock on wood, my energy has improved dramatically.

Earlier this week I went for a hike with one of my high school friends. Senior year I hung out with 3 guys and kind of ignored the rest of the world. One is in WA, one is in CA, and one lives 15 minutes from me. K and I got together to hang out 3 years ago after friending each other on Facebook and realizing how close by we were. We haven't seen each other since. He called a couple of times to see if John and I wanted to hang out with him and his wife, but John was really resistant to dropping things and hanging out with him. What is funny about that is that I am the one who hates when there are dramatic changes in plans or unexpected changes. I often balk at them.

Now I wonder if that was tied to my relationship with John more than with me personally.

K just found out his wife is pregnant, which is kind of scary for him and exciting. We have texted a couple of times since hiking.

There is a lot to think about in terms of the way things have been for the past 12 years.

I have switched my e-mail and my facebook back to my maiden name, dropped the hyphen. What's really funny is many people have said they always thought of me as Julie G--- anyway. To me it feels like chopping all my hair off and being naked. On the one hand, as far as hyphenated names go, it was a good name. It had a really nice ring to it. On the other hand, it was a constant battle to explain to people that I wasn't Mrs. P---, that my last name was G---P---. I mean the federal government recognized it as such, why was it so difficult for individuals to? I often said to John if I had to do it over again I would have just kept my name and joked that the court fee to change it back would be a nice birthday gift.

In thinking about the future and dating and sex I have stressed a little bit about birth control. Hormones are out and I have a latex allergy. I have thought about having a tubal ligation before I am screwed in terms of insurance. I hesitate to do that though and my hesitation intrigues me. I never-ever wanted to have kids with John. Granted, I have never wanted to have kids period, but my hesitation to have a tubal ligation makes me wonder if I would consider it with a different man. If my intuition knew all along that John wasn't the one.

There have been a couple of other things like that, that makes me question whether my intuition knew something I didn't. I need to face the fact that my intuition is usually accurate and I have an awful habit of ignoring it even when it is screaming at me.