August 31, 2010 at 1:54am
Last night, desperately needing human contact in a way uncommon to me I went down to the Square, and was made to feel foreign and isolated. This is not the same place that for years I could find friends at any time, and get some solace.
I had set out with the express purpose and willingness to find what I needed, regardless of my want. I found Mike. I was relieved. Mike is one of the smartest men I know, and despite his best attempts to self-destruct, has not. He is studying psychology because he doesn’t want to be fucked up anymore, or at least understand why he is. We have similar issues with attachment, and anger. He asked me what was up. I vomited recent events on him. For the next 90 minutes he told me the neuro-chemical, and psychological basis for all of it. I was terrified and enthralled.
I started to view things between Heather and I in a new light.
Today, I spent several hours at Heather’s new house. We had some talking to do, and some business stuff to settle. She’s still not 100% from the weekend’s medical problems, and it was better to have someone there to help. Also, I just miss her.
We pulled the stitches one more time, talking about some things that have happened recently, and about what’s gone before. I thought about what Mike had told me about how people with attachment problems deal with relationships. One of the most fascinating things Mike said was “Oh yeah, dude, I always hurt worst the one I love the most.”
The one. I love. The Most.
I realized that I have loved this woman for 18 years, but couldn’t understand it, was afraid of it, was too sick to do it right.
From the first I saw her, more startling beautiful than anyone I’d laid eyes on, fun, intelligent, interesting and sweet. The perfect girl.
And devoted to me.
This scared me. I “knew” instinctually that I wasn’t worth that. No one that good could want me. I couldn’t conceive of being involved with someone with no games, no drama, no sickness. Instead of being able to just say “The search is over” and accepting that I’d been given a great gift, I had to toy with her, to test her, to keep her at a distance. But she still loved me.
I came to thrive on that. She. Loved. Me. Based on that I even began to love me a little. She became the most important woman in my life a long time ago. Nearly half my life I have loved her, and not felt like I deserved her, yet couldn’t grasp that I had her.
I now know why I was a monster to her: clinical fact says that people with attachment problems are so afraid of losing someone they love that they drive them away to get it over with, because in their damaged minds they are always going to be abandoned.
That was it. I drove her off because I was afraid of driving her off. Since I was 20 nothing has frightened me more than thinking that I could well and truly lose her. Now I could stare down Southern sheriffs in the backwoods. Sky dive naked into a crowd. Attempt to karaoke The Beautiful Ones by Prince. I could survive looking totally silly in public.
I ruined what should have been the greatest gift I’ve ever been given out of base, childish fear.
There have been two others I’ve called Love of My Life. Tanya laughs at me because I numbered them 1 and 2, thus diminishing the impact of the title. They weren’t love; they were a pathologically familiar pain, combined with the heat and intensity of instability, and sex.
Heather is the love of my life. Nearly half of it, she was the one who made it better, whose presence enhanced me, who let light into me when I didn’t know I wanted it.
She was always The One. I couldn’t accept it, and ruined it.
We talked. There are things that make a reconciliation far less likely, but no surprise: I took happiness away from her for years.
With a ritual finality I gave her my car keys. She wrote my address in her book, and realized that for the first time in 5 years it was different from hers. These did for us. It’s real now. We hugged and I didn’t want to let go. But I did.
She needs to heal from me. I need to just heal.
Tonight, desperate to not be in my room, afraid that I’d lose it some more, I went to the Square. I hate crying alone as much as in public; either way it sounds so loud. But I needed contact.
The wounded child in my head wanted to find a woman, but the devastated man knew he had nothing to offer one, no way to attract anyone safe to be around, and is still, and for the foreseeable future devoted body and soul to his wife. Once again I went to find what I needed. I got texts from friends that helped. I looked at startlingly beautiful women that didn’t help.
Once again I ran into Mike. I felt better.
Gods, heal her. Give her happiness.
Heal me, and let me learn to be happy, because that lesson was left out of my previous learning.
Head is shaved, music is excellent, let the pain start to lift.
I had set out with the express purpose and willingness to find what I needed, regardless of my want. I found Mike. I was relieved. Mike is one of the smartest men I know, and despite his best attempts to self-destruct, has not. He is studying psychology because he doesn’t want to be fucked up anymore, or at least understand why he is. We have similar issues with attachment, and anger. He asked me what was up. I vomited recent events on him. For the next 90 minutes he told me the neuro-chemical, and psychological basis for all of it. I was terrified and enthralled.
I started to view things between Heather and I in a new light.
Today, I spent several hours at Heather’s new house. We had some talking to do, and some business stuff to settle. She’s still not 100% from the weekend’s medical problems, and it was better to have someone there to help. Also, I just miss her.
We pulled the stitches one more time, talking about some things that have happened recently, and about what’s gone before. I thought about what Mike had told me about how people with attachment problems deal with relationships. One of the most fascinating things Mike said was “Oh yeah, dude, I always hurt worst the one I love the most.”
The one. I love. The Most.
I realized that I have loved this woman for 18 years, but couldn’t understand it, was afraid of it, was too sick to do it right.
From the first I saw her, more startling beautiful than anyone I’d laid eyes on, fun, intelligent, interesting and sweet. The perfect girl.
And devoted to me.
This scared me. I “knew” instinctually that I wasn’t worth that. No one that good could want me. I couldn’t conceive of being involved with someone with no games, no drama, no sickness. Instead of being able to just say “The search is over” and accepting that I’d been given a great gift, I had to toy with her, to test her, to keep her at a distance. But she still loved me.
I came to thrive on that. She. Loved. Me. Based on that I even began to love me a little. She became the most important woman in my life a long time ago. Nearly half my life I have loved her, and not felt like I deserved her, yet couldn’t grasp that I had her.
I now know why I was a monster to her: clinical fact says that people with attachment problems are so afraid of losing someone they love that they drive them away to get it over with, because in their damaged minds they are always going to be abandoned.
That was it. I drove her off because I was afraid of driving her off. Since I was 20 nothing has frightened me more than thinking that I could well and truly lose her. Now I could stare down Southern sheriffs in the backwoods. Sky dive naked into a crowd. Attempt to karaoke The Beautiful Ones by Prince. I could survive looking totally silly in public.
I ruined what should have been the greatest gift I’ve ever been given out of base, childish fear.
There have been two others I’ve called Love of My Life. Tanya laughs at me because I numbered them 1 and 2, thus diminishing the impact of the title. They weren’t love; they were a pathologically familiar pain, combined with the heat and intensity of instability, and sex.
Heather is the love of my life. Nearly half of it, she was the one who made it better, whose presence enhanced me, who let light into me when I didn’t know I wanted it.
She was always The One. I couldn’t accept it, and ruined it.
We talked. There are things that make a reconciliation far less likely, but no surprise: I took happiness away from her for years.
With a ritual finality I gave her my car keys. She wrote my address in her book, and realized that for the first time in 5 years it was different from hers. These did for us. It’s real now. We hugged and I didn’t want to let go. But I did.
She needs to heal from me. I need to just heal.
Tonight, desperate to not be in my room, afraid that I’d lose it some more, I went to the Square. I hate crying alone as much as in public; either way it sounds so loud. But I needed contact.
The wounded child in my head wanted to find a woman, but the devastated man knew he had nothing to offer one, no way to attract anyone safe to be around, and is still, and for the foreseeable future devoted body and soul to his wife. Once again I went to find what I needed. I got texts from friends that helped. I looked at startlingly beautiful women that didn’t help.
Once again I ran into Mike. I felt better.
Gods, heal her. Give her happiness.
Heal me, and let me learn to be happy, because that lesson was left out of my previous learning.
Head is shaved, music is excellent, let the pain start to lift.
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