Hit the iceberg one month and a few wee days ago, and am now clinging to floating debris trying to keep my head above water. Dido may go down with this ship, but the f*** if I'm going to!
I've been suddenly stricken with paralyzing fits of sobbing for the last two days. One of which had me pacing the tiny hallway between bathroom and livingroom, feeling as though I was going to pass out. My pet rabbit watched me with concern written all over her fuzzy face. I'm sure she was prepared to punch 9-1-1 for an ambulance with her paw if I suddenly dropped to the floor and was unable to open a package of romaine lettuce.
Other times, at odd moments, I feel as though I'm being rammed in the chest with the business end of a baseball bat. Like finding the jam sessions the ex organizes listed on a web site. He ain't sittin' home at night. Bam! Or being invited to a co-worker's wedding shower (I'll be the token sad sack who was jilted by her fiance, you know, the one everyone gives this LOOK of mingled pity and gory fascination, like they're looking at a car wreck). BAM! Seeing a couple of the street suddenly stop and put their arms around each other and look into each other's eyes. That used to be us. BAM!!!
I don't know what's wrong...I preferred being infuriated. It was exhausting, but at least I wasn't crying so hard that I was drooling down the front of my shirt. Ugh. I miss the sappy emails with puppy dogs in my work mailbox in the morning. I miss the goofy calls just because he wanted to say "I love you." I miss cuddling up against him at night with his arm around me.
Who says love is just the icing on the cake?! It's the whole damn cake, if you ask me. Even babies fail and die without love. Careers are wonderful, success is great, having "your own life" is fantabulistic. But would you want all of this on a desert island? Would any of it make any difference if there was no one to share any of it with?
None of this is not to say that I wouldn't crucify my ex upside down if given half a chance. Suffering is good for the soul, especially when you damn well asked for it. But that doesn't mean that, once I got my own back, that I wouldn't want to be with him again. On MY terms, of course. I may be sentimental, but I'm not stupid. Yeah, I love him. But here's to day 32 of me maintaining silent running.
so you'd take him back...even if he was with someone else...chose someone else over you...on your own terms of course...you'd take him back?
just checkin
Hmm, your island is interesting.
Me? I build my oasis in the brutal desert, it is small and humble and it is eternal. It is untainted. It may never have many visitors but it is only there for those that will endure the blazing heat of the unforgiving desert to find it.
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Bushido - the way of the warrior
The 7th Sense. I see skanky people. They lie and cheat but they don't know it.
I can't believe he still hasn't called... What can I say, you're healing allright! Just passed the denial phase, I guess.
No life jacket here, but you can call your friends and talk to them. A lot. Every day! They'll end up hating you, but you will feel much better .
About the wedding shower: buy something sensational orreally outrageously expensive to give them a real reason to b talking about you...kidding! Just look at your best and be brave. I'm sure they won't be looking at you, but will be celebrating.
I dare to suggest to go accompanied at the wedding. A brother or a best friend... It will make you feel better to feel that you do have support.
As for the rest... cry away, it's bad to repress your feelings. You'll only stop when you won't be able to take it anymore. PAinful process, I hope it's a short one for you...
Ahh - that grand trip to the bottom of the deepest dip on the roller-coaster It's not so much a life preserver you need but a hefty dose of dramamine to help your balance. It will be like this for a while, I'm afraid. You will start feeling better - and then, swoosh back down into another trough. Grab on to the rails, try to distract yourself with anything else, preferably something that can keep you very busy, and grit your teeth because it's a bumpy ride.
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I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to my fellow creatures, let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
Oh kai, you used your rage masterfully to postpone your inevitable grief. The thing about rage is that most of us can only extend it for so long. Our bodies eventually give out. Adrenaline depletion. I suspect you're crashing.
Now you appear to be in the grief stage. Your world is gray, sad and empty. When you lose a lover you also lose the world that you and your lover created and inhabited for so long. It's all gone, forever.
Monitor yourself carefully, kai. If your grief becomes impacted and morphs into depression, which is always a possibility, seek medical help. Better living through chemistry, my dear. Get out, do things, play with your friends, flirt. Try not to look back or shadow your ex. It's done.
Ah KaiaMahina, I know you're pain. moimeme put it well, it's quite the coaster ride.
For me it's been 33 days since I last actually talked to him, 21 days since he left a message, and 14 days since I left my last message. I can only hope that I will last as long as you.
Hang in there. You strike me as too strong and too smart a woman to let this get the best of you.
Better to be running silent then to scream and have it fall on deaf ears. My best to you.
I'm not sure what to say about your situation, but you definitely need to write a column, book, or other similar endeavor. You're a GREAT writer, very provocative, very articulate, and very amusing.
Maybe none of ya'll have a life jacket, but I can see you on a distant shore, waving your tiny little arms and shouting words of encouragement!
No, dudesomewhere, if the man is delirious enough or schizophrenic enough to have chosen someone over me, I wouldn't have him back if he had solid gold testicles. (Ouch!) But I know that's not the case.
And I'm with you, Curly. I can't believe he hasn't contacted. Although calling would not be his preferred MO. Being a Cancer, he does nothing directly, but obliquely, like a crab walking sideways. I can see him emailing me, or IMing me when I least expect it. The funny thing is, when we broke up at my instigation, he emailed me within a week. No pride there. I'm honestly baffled that he's lasted this long because he told me once that it "hurt" him not to talk to me. I thought that this, like a Scott Peterson conviction, would be a "slam dunk," but I guess my ex and old Scott have a few aces up their sleeves.
moimeme, I've always hated roller coaster. When I go to a fair, my idea of fun is slinking into the freak shows. Which is where most of my boyfriends have come from, apparently. I dislike the slick, greasy, out-of-control feeling I'm having now, like I'm going to either vomit, faint or beginning laughing like a hyena until I start crying. Thank you for your words of wisdom...I know that there are many stomach-churning days ahead. And I know that just when I get to the top of a rise, there will be a dizzying descent in front of me, with just enough time to comment, "Oh, f***" before heading to the bottom again.
Sinner, I'm one step ahead of you! I was already on meds because his (Manson) family depressed me beyond belief, but they've been kicked up a notch since the big event. I can only speculate what my state of mind might be right now without them. And it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Finally, gobain...my North Shore compatriot. Doesn't it suck to spend these brief New England summer hours ALONE while everyone else is out groping each other on the beach in a lather of sweat and sunscreen?! I mean, really, it's gorgeous here in the summer, and I thought I was going to spend enchanted evenings by the ocean with my true love, his promise to me sparkling on my left hand, and all that sh**. This is my THIRD summer alone...that SOB could have dumped me back in March when I had a fighting chance to find someone else before summer set in!
Honestly, it depresses me to think of a year of my life gone, and what opportunities I may have missed to meet someone who would have truly gone the distance with me. People keep telling me that you can't miss meeting the right one, but I've done a damn fine job of it for years! I don't want to be one of those stereotyped single woman living with a cat...well, in this case, with a rabbit. And I don't want to be married just for the sake of being married....ugh...I'm feeling nauseous again!
I don't want to be one of those stereotyped single woman living with a cat..
And what, pray tell, is wrong, exactly, with that?
when we broke up at my instigation
Zounds! Isn't it galling when the wretch you turfed has the temerity to (apparently) not miss you?
As to your conviction that you have 'wasted' another year and that you seem to be 'missing' the one meant for you, I have a delightful little rationale which I offer. You're welcome to adopt and use it. The beauty of the thing is that it will neither be proven nor disproven until, roughly, just before you shuffle off your mortal coil
Thus spake moimeme: You aren't missing chances or wasting time. You are learning lessons and being sent down detours and wrong turns because otherwise you'd miss your Intended in your travels. He is, at this very moment, wending his way towards you as you are to him. You both may yet need to learn more lessons, encounter more obstacles, and generally be elsewhere than together, but eventually you will find each other.
So rejoice, then, that you have passed one more test and are closer to Whoever He May Be.
Last edited by moimeme; 22nd July 2004 at 12:17 AM..
It will never be over unless you decide in your mind that it's over. You need to do this. Once you do it gets easier. Don't keep holding out for that phone call or chance encounter, etc. Give him a proper buriel and get on with your life. You're giving him too much power - reclaim yourself and pull yourself up by the bootstraps - no one else is going to do this for you.
Eventually other people get sick of hearing about your misery and grief (I know - I just recovered from a broken heart myself and saw how people reacted when they called to chat with me and I'd go into tirades over my ex). You're hurting and people either love to kick you when you're down or tell you "get on with your life - he ain't worth it".
Eventually you must get on with your life, suck it up and get back to reality. You've suffered long enough.
Love hurts but don't let it kill you. Take your life back and become your own best friend. Treat yourself with respect. If you can't do this yourself go to a doctor and ask for medication to help you with anxiety and depression. Tell him you just can't recover and it's interfering with you being able to focus on your job and your life.
Just stop wasting time waiting for a reconciliation. Sometimes it's just not meant to be and this is because there is someone better for you out there - but you won't be able to find him if you're wallowing in grief and sitting by the phone waiting on him to call you.
C'mon - it's time to bury the dead. You can do it.
Yeah, I get it too--been there, done that. SO not fun. Prefer not to lather, rinse, repeat any time soon.
For what it's worth, I'll chime in on what others have said: your posts have been amazing. Well written and hair-curlingly funny. Maybe that's all we get in the end: great opportunities to break into manic, semi-hysterical giggles (well, in retrospect). It's all material for that never-ending standup routine called life (cliche alert! but you know what I mean). . . .
The only thing that really helped me through heartbreak was realizing that I wouldn't want to get back together with someone who could treat me as badly as Toad Boy had. Remember: you don't love who he has proven himself to be. You love the person for whom you mistook him. That may be a willful oversimplification, but hey, it worked for me. Make it your mantra.
And yeah, the grief stage always hits sooner or later, and always takes longer than you think it will. Just focus on making it through, an hour at a time.
Don't forget to post as often as you need to.
Curly's right: find a friend to accompany you to that wedding. (I've been single at weddings too--particularly dreadful when the bride and groom have tried to play Cupid by putting all the singles at one table and you end up making forced conversation about marketing plans over the cake crumbs.)
Well...I think I've suddenly acclimated to being single again. Harshly.
I had to attend a work event last night with 275 women in attendance. I work with ALL women as well, so sometimes I feel as though I've been walled up alive in a convent.
Add to it that it takes me months to get a date (no, I'm not unattractive, I get whistled at on the street, but men don't approach me and I'm SHY), or I'm always involved in an LDR or with a man with children doing the every-other-weekend thing, and sometimes I wonder if MEN aren't mythological creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster. You should see me at the men's cologne counter in department stores, sniffing the wares and practically swooning. The scent of a MAN! It's pathetic. If this were crusade days, my husband could off to fight and leave me safely at home WITHOUT a chastity belt.
Anyway, the evening ended with the perky little speaker telling us to all go home safely to our "husbands and boyfriends." I felt like standing up and yelling belligerently "Or to our damn pet rabbits!" But I was too drunk. Yep, I'm single again. I went home to an empty apartment (apologies to Babette the rabbit), with no messages on my voice mail, and no "how'd it go, miss you, love you" good night call. Watched actors simulate passionate sex on tv for a while and went to sleep in my big empty queen sized bed. Ugh.
Moimeme...damn! What an elegant, eloquent way you have with words! And I hope your theory proves to be accurate. I had thought when I met this latest ex that I had indeed finally proven it! I had been through 3 simply horrendous "wastes of time" before him and he seemed to have made it all worthwhile. I can at least say that he was an improvement over the others. I just hope I meet my intended before all our naughty bits atrophy.
Megan...I know...it's time to dig the grave. And the cliched "shallow grave" won't do because before you know it, I'd be out there scratching and clawing up the dirt like a rabid dog. I need a backhoe for this one, I guess. I haven't bored my friends yet with my miserable babbling, but I'm starting to bore myself. It's been nearly 5 weeks and I'm fed up with feeling crappy. Maybe I'm shallow, but I would rather start to look for happiness now than to suffer pointlessly for another few months. It was his choice not to be with me, not mine. Why should I wear sackcloth and ashes?
And sweetadeline, you're spot on! I loved the man I thought he was, not the man he proved himself to be, as you so concisely pointed out. That's part of the shock of betrayal -- how could he do this to me?! Well, the he that could do this to you is the same he you thought could never do this to you! So he ain't the he you thought he was. Once you can wrap your mind around that one, your whole perspective shifts.
As for the co-worker's wedding, none of us were invited. The rest of "the girls" want to give her a little shower which I have to attend or look pathetically "sour grapes". I'm not close enough to her to be invited or want to attend the wedding. Thank the gods. But, interestingly enough, she was dumped once by the man she's now going to marry. He pushed her hard and pursued her for 2 years. Finally, she started dating him and they made plans to be married in a year. Then he dumped her. We only found out when someone asked, "So how's the wedding plans coming along?" She told us what happened, and I really had to admire her attitude. He came back some months later and they patched things up. So I have to say that she paid her dues and I'm glad for her, though envious.
Thanks to all of you for your encouraging words and perceptions! I'm sure I'll be popping in from time to time bemoaning my fate, but at this moment, I feel better than I have for weeks.
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Stage Three: Going down on the Titanic
It's not so much a life preserver you need but a hefty dose of dramamine to help your balance. It will be like this for a while, I'm afraid. You will start feeling better - and then, swoosh back down into another trough. Grab on to the rails, try to distract yourself with anything else, preferably something that can keep you very busy, and grit your teeth because it's a bumpy ride.
What the hell
Hybrid Mode
