A Long Time Between Posts

I am feeling deeply tonight, the poem "Not Waving But Drowning" by Stevie Smith

Not Waving but Drowning
by Stevie Smith Stevie Smith
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larkinglarking Playing tricks, kidding, fooling around.
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

It suits me tonight. I am very much having the alone in a crowded room feeling...ever have that? Everybody sees me at the party, but no on realizes how very alone and scared I am. Every part of my life has been tainted, vandalized and stolen from. I have shared my fears, and I have been scoffed at. I have revealed my body, and been rejected. I have offered my soul, and it has been cast aside. I have nothing left to give. I want to have something to reveal to someone, some day, but I fear that everything that I have and everything that I am is spoiled, ruined, never to be celebrated or rejoiced again. I have had everything poisoned, tamper with and sullied. My girls are my only success, and even they have dents and dings, too. No one is untouched, un tainted by me and my choices.
All along, I thought I was doing the right things, for the right reasons, only to find out years later that it was all a joke, a facade, an act. Not just for me, but for everyone else involved. It was easier just to pretend that it was working. He never bought into any of it. He never believed. He never loved me. It was just easy for him to let me take control, to let me be in charge, to let me make all the decisions. That make it easy for him to blame me. To say I am the one that made all the bad choices, that he was just a victim. But I believed like a fool, that there was hope, that he loved me, that he respected me. Now, all these years later, I realize that he just did not give a damn. How silly of me to think it could last, that I could live like that. With out challenge, without intelligence, with out respect. I want it, I need it, I cannot live without it. I am somebody, I am deserving of being noticed. I am worthy of someone's time. I know it. I just hope that someone else will see it someday.

I wish I could say

...that things have vastly improved since the last time I wrote, but they have not. The only thing that I can say I am grateful to have changed is that my class reunion is over!! Yay!! I have been stressing out over that for months. It went pretty well. Not hugely attended, but those that did come had a good time. They said so anyway.

Now that that little project is over, it is time to get down to the business of dissolving my marriage. yay. We have so much debt, this is not going to be an easy task. I am working extra hours to help get caught up on bills, but so far, we have not made a whole lot of progress. The reunion was a bit of a drain on the bank account, so maybe now we can get down to business. Then Christmas will be here before you know it. That is going to be challenging, to say the least. After the nightmare with the porn the early morning of our first Christmas here, I am not really sure if I want him here at Christmas at all. Unfortunatelty, it may not be feasible for him to have moved out by then. I wish things could be more tidy, more on track for getting this thing over with. I don't think he wants to be with me any more than I want to be with him.



The doctor bumped up my meds to help with my obsessive thoughts. I still cannot get "him"out of my mind....I wonder how long this will take. I still miss him, I still wonder if he is being treated well. Hell, I had a crush on him for two years, how can I expect it to go away in just a few months!

I was watching my recorded episode of "Grey's Anatomy" just a little while ago. And it made me cry; heart wrenching, deep sobs. I almost could not breathe, I cried so hard---and trying to do so quietly was not easy!! Jeff would not care, not even notice, but I did not want to alarm the girls. #2 is already very worried about me, I think. She sleeps in my bed a lot. I don't want her to feel like she has to watch me all the time. I think she just notices me more than anybody, and tha she wants to comfort me. Anyway, the episode was so sad, and I guess I was just looking for a good reason to cry. I wish it had made me feel better, but it didn't.

I cannot believe that I am still feeling so blue. I guess I thought that I would have shaken this by now, but I don't think it will pass anytime soon. There is too much unsettled at this point. I have to get more work to make the bills. I would really like to be able to keep my day jobs and supplement with an evening job. I will hate to be away from the girls anymore than I already am, but I so desperately want to keep my house, and the only way to do that is to make more money!
Then there is just his general feeling of fear/panic/lonliness/anxiety that will just not go away.
There ought to be a word for that!
And I am still thinking about "him" with some regularity. I wish I could stop, just turn it off like a switch. But still, I keep wondering, is she taking care of him? Is she making him happy like I could? I bet not. But she will, for sure, make it impossible for him to make a move without her knowing. Poor guy. I guess he has made his bed; it is too comfortable, too familiar to make a change. But I cannot settle for easy; it I could, I would have just continued along as it has been: empty, sad, lonely, unsatisfied. OH, and let's not forget the feelings of betrayal over the years. So many times, so many events, I have been betrayed and hurt. But Jeff does not see that. All he sees is what I have done. Maybe some day he will grow up enough to wonder what he could have done differnetly to make this turn out differently.
It is so very late, I suppose I should go. I just needed to take some time to jot down some thoughts...

I just can't shake this funk...

I am in such a weird place in my head again, or still. I am not sure which.
I feel so sad for where my life is; not so much about whom I am losing, but losing the life I thought we had.
I feel so scared. Scared of what I am doing to my girls. Scared that I will lose my house. Scared that I will never meet someone. I really don't want to spend the rest of my life without a man, but I can't stay in this just so I will not be alone. That is not fair to Jeff, or to me, or to the girls.
I am lonely. Lonely for some companionship. Lonely for my "friend". I actually set a record today: I think I was up for a whole 10 minutes b/f I thought of "him". Sometimes I feel as if I am going crazy in my head. I just cannot get him out of my mind. I wonder if that is crazy. How do I stop the thoughts? Does he ever think of me? Are things really better for him? His wife's sister is law used to be my friend. It was crazy/weird to have befriended her in the middle of all this; it seemed like an okay idea at the time. I knew this would end badly, I just had not thought about the ripple effect. I tried to reach out to her last night, but she said it is just not time yet. She has to "be there" for J. "J is still hurting from what you two did to her". I tried. It hurts to have lost her friendship. (it would have been fun to go to the movie w/her tonight)
But it is what it is. So much fallout, and I can barely remember what it felt like now. When I was in the middle of it, it was exciting, intoxicating, pleasurable. Now it all just burns in my heart, like one big nightmare.
Why did I let myself fall for him? How much of it was lies? Was any of it true? Was I just another notch on his belt?
I guess I will never know....
I just wish I could shake this funk...

An Unbelievable Nightmare...

I thought I had written much if this down, but I guess I did not save it correctly. Just for the record, I must get this down, to the best of my recollection...
August 26: I received a phone call on my way home from work from a detective from the GCPD. He said that I needed to come to the station to answer some questions about something I may have witnessed. I had NO freaking idea what they could be talking about. I was almost afraid that "my friend" had been hurt by his wife, or I were being brought up on charges for something. So many crazy thoughts, no idea what, where or why. I worried also, that something had happened to one of my neighbor's kids. But it was not that at all...
Long story short, my STBEx was being investigated for having made a threat on my life! Yep, Mr. "He's Such a Nice Guy" had made some stupid comment to his New Jersey girl that she supposedly took seriously, and she, or supposedly a friend of hers, made a report to the New Jersey police.
He also had, according to the detective, severly misrepresented himself to Ms. NJ. The det said that the report said J had not told her, initially, that he was married. J also claimed to Ms NJ that he was a big-time chef downtown, and that he is some kind of survivalist that could survive for days on just what he could find. This is so disturbing, b/c there is a nugget of truth in all these claims! Just enough to be true that he had totally lied to her!

I just sat there and shook my head! What else could I do?! This was pretty much the last thing in the world I could have thought that he would do. Sure, he has every right to be angry, hurt, confused about what has happened, but to threaten me? That feels like hate. Like unfiltered, cruel, unfathomable hate. Apparently what he supposedly said to his NJ girl, 'Hey, you are from New Jersey, you ought to know someone that take care of her for me." ( I did not find out about this until the next day)
The detective said that Ms NJ did not have any of their emails anymore, and that the threat had only been made verbally. Naturally. Since myspace only keeps records for a short time, the detective wanted to have permission to take an image of our hard drives so they could look for evidence, if necessary. I said yes, figuring that they could make it happen if they needed to.
The detective kept pushing me on what has happened, when things happened; I was really stumped when he asked me who I had been "inappropriate" with. I asked him why he needed to know that. He said that it may be relevant to the investigation. At that moment, I could not think of anything that would be gained by telling them. I just could not betray "him" like that. I really, really could not think of anything to be gained. So I refused. I made him mad, I could tell, but I would not tell.
So after he asked where/when they could find my STBEx, the detective asked if I could take him to the house so he could take out the hard drives. I was so numb, so scared, so confused, so MAD! Of course I had said that I just could not imagine that he could make a real threat like that. I wanted to believe my own words. I just could imagine that he would be smart enough to say, let alone carry out, something like that.

While the detective was taking apart the pc in the other room, I called T and told her what was going on. She said she would come right over. I thank god every day for the gift of her friendship; she is such a blessing to me. I don't think I could get through any of this with out her. Terri put into my mind the fear of what else the police could find on our hard drives. She pointed out the things that Jeff downloaded--that I KNOW about- and worried me that they may cause more trouble than we wanted. I honestly told her that I was willing to take that risk.

I was so confused at this point. I reviewed in my mind what had happened so far, and how could this be happening? Yet another "How could this be happening?" It was then that it occurred to me: "Is anyone else mentioned in the threat?" Thank god the detective said NO.

When the detective left, Terri and I just sat there, shaking our heads. What else was there to do?

The girls were at a friend's house, thankfully. I expected them to be coming home, so I fixed dinner. In the middle of it, my friend called and told me that they were at El Torrero and that I was welcome to join them. I declined, and T and I enjoyed a quiet dinner. It was then that the tears came. I just could not stop them. I felt so drained, so confused, so tired. I just kept thinking, "You just can't make this shit up!"

Turns out that the plan was for the detective to meet Jeff and work. I was not clear if they were just going to question him there, or bring him to GC. I just did not know. It was an incredibly long evening, long night--though I slept as if I were dead-- and a hideous morning. I had to work later in the afternoon at a party for R&E. I sort of had a deadline to hear what was happening, and the detective took so very long to get any information to me. He did call me in the a.m. and told me that they were going to try to meet JN at work, rather than go to Barnhart to see him, which is where he had been dog sitting. I waited, I worried, I wondered. Finally, I called the precinct, left a message. Later, I called again and talked to one of the det's co-workers. His boss, I think. He said he was familiar w/ the situation, and that the det. would be in touch soon. I explained that I had to leave to get the girls soon; would they be safe? What was the result of the interview?? He did not want to share much, just saying that he was fairly certain that my children would be fine, left home alone while I worked. SOME relief, anyway.
Finally, on my way back from picking up the girls at school, the det. called and said that he wanted to come by and reinstall the hard drives and give me a report.
Sooooo.... anyway, as I had suspected, Ms. NJ had greatly exaggerated the circumstance surrounding this comment, and supposedly a friend of hers had taken the initiative to call the police. So many things reek about this whole thing: why would "a friend" call in a report about this? Why did L make it sound like it was for real? Once L realized it was out of hand, why didn't she stop it? If she had tried to give J the "brush off" as she told the NJ police, why had she been talking to J so much in the time surrounding this event; I showed the det the call records! No, this did not look like a woman who was afraid! Why did she want to cause trouble for him, for me, for us?
I was so relieved, on one level, and curious about how J reacted to the police showing up at his work! I called him on my way to work, and was absolutely stunned by his lack of remorse, concern or any feeling at all for what had happened! I was actually, not surprised, but so very disappointed. "It was just a joke that got way out of hand". He also had the nerve to say that he had not told L any of those lies, and that he had told her from the start that he was married. I even asked him whom does he believe more about the report: the det or Ms.LNewJersey? He said he trusts HER.
Nice.
So as upset as I was about how this conversation went, after I got home from serving the party, we had a face to face that was just as unsettling. He just kept saying, "It was just a joke" as if that would fix everything. What a fucking nightmare!!!!!
Whatever shred of respect I may have had a this point evaporated, irretrievable. I still cannot, a couple of weeks later, even get my head around all this. His predictable behavior: no remorse, no ownership, no acknowledgment, as usual. It is just another piece of evidence that I am making the right choice.

Just weird

I am feeling so weird, sort of in a limbo kind of place. It was really nice to be w/ my theatre friends tonight, but I feel as if I have become a totally different person than I was before...before...I don't know- the past 6 months, the last 6 weeks...
Sometimes I wish I could just blink and either move ahead 6 months, or blink and go back 6 months. What would I do differently if I went back? I am not sure. Probably make a better choice concerning my behavior. It is hard to say what I would or would not do. I am still too close to the situation, regarding time, to be able to say that I would NOT do what I did. It was meaningful to me; it was enjoyable, it was intimate, it was important. It changed me. I learned about myself, what I value, what I need, what I want.
But sometimes I wish that if I were to move forward 6 months, I hope tohave healed. I hope that life will have simmered down, that I will not think so much about "him". How stupid it was to be so attached, to fall so hard. I am almost able to say out loud, "I fell for him; he used me". I tried to convince myself that he cared, that this mattered to him== a little anyway. Now I am not so sure. What matters to him? I don't know anymore. I guess "she" does if he is willing to put up with the shit she is giving him. He has "too much" to lose. I am just a casualty in the road behind him.
No, I never expected him to leave, I knew he would not. But oddly, I feel sorry for him. She is such a shrew, so unkind to him, so closed minded. He wants so much more that she will even consider. It makes me sad. But, I guess that's just too bad. I can't make him choose more, to reach for more. Even if I am not the one he wants to have more with, he should reach for it with someone.

Messy

Wow, how thing have gotten messy. Someone is spreading rumors about what has happened, and I don't know who, why, when or where. I am not sure I believe anyone who denies it at this point. I just have a hard time trusting that anyone who in the know has the brains to keep their big mouth shut. I am really uncomfortable with AK knowing what she knows. X saying that he did not know of anyone being told seems pretty unlikely to me. I am pretty sure he knows who spilled the beans and when.