Wallowing Week, Pt. 3

So, tomorrow ends the week I gave myself to wallow. No more listening to "The Man That Got Away" while walking where John and I walked.

No more that all time thrill.
For you've been through the mill.
And never a new love will be that same.
Good riddance. Good-bye.

I have a picture John took the first day we met and another from the last day we spent together. In the first, I have on my camera face. I look cute. In the last, I'm laughing joyously at the camera. Completely unselfconscious. Joyous in that moment. I'm so scared, I'll never feel that way with anyone else again.

But I feel like there are 3 real issues that John would have liked me to tackle:

1. I hide how I feel when I'm dating.
2. I'm bifurcated and, as John said, "your two halves are not friends."
3. I don't deal well with criticism.

So, dealing with these one at a time. I've decided not to try and change the first issue. I don't think women do all that well going first in sharing emotional feelings. I don't think John would have been more likely to want to commit just because I said "I love you."

The bifurcation issue is real and it is something I'm working on. Strangely enough, the diet book I'm reading is addressing it. I'm doing stuff that sounds silly to me (like journaling with my non-dominate hand) as a way to try and get in touch with that 'inner-child' (I can't believe I'm using that phrase non-ironically). I'm finding my sweet tooth belongs to someone quite younger than the gal that eats healthily the rest of the time, and I think that the sweets-loving gal who likes playing on the swings and blowing bubbles and pink and flowers, well, that may be the gal looking for the sir to protect her. Maybe I'll start to embrace her that way. Maybe I'll do it another. But John is right.

Finally, I wilt in the face of criticism from someone I love. John said: "You often behaved as if you waiting for cosmic permission to simply trust me and trust yourself."

The trusting John issue was a different issue; he was into much harder S&M than I was (wanted to play with a single tail, and that was about it) and he never articulated the tenderness when talking about it. (Although the few things we did do were tender beyond words.) The first time we broke up, it was because I said that if he wanted reaction and power dynamics and submission, I was his gal, but if he was looking to exercise, I simply wasn't and he said he was looking for exercise. (Keep in mind, I was the first person he met from S&M community.) When I let him go (and I told him this), it was because I thought he needed to explore and I hoped we'd get together later.

There was another issue with John, which makes sense now. He didn't always behave in a consistent way. He'd be one way with me, and then another. John confided his fear about his memory problems to me, but I didn't know exactly what that meant. One of my best friends is a doctor, and she believes John might very well have been having mini-strokes. And that would explain a lot.

The final issue is permission to trust myself. If someone I love criticizes me, I hear "you are not a lovable person, Constance." John was harsh with his criticism, and he said basically, that he disengaged because he didn't think I was strong enough to take criticism. (Clearly, it would have been best if he had worked on tempering the criticism a bit and I had worked on withstanding some. He was right that I do hear "you are not lovable" in almost all criticism.)

My mother said that when I was born, she held me and said "you don't have to be perfect to be loved." Unfortunately, I didn't remember that. Clearly, this is an issue that runs in my family.

Part of it is linked to my weight. I'm a size 14 now, which is larger, but not huge. But I used to be a size 22. And I grew up fat. There was a recent story about how growing up fat fucks you up more from a social development point of view than growing up thin and putting on pounds later. I seem to think that if I do everything perfectly, then somehow, someone will love me. I have to earn love. Who I am, is never good enough. I think this is absolutely tied to submission, where I earn a 'good girl' if I'm good, but not if I'm just me.

I also have a dating persona that is unsure of herself. I 'know' I'm too smart and opinionated and headstrong, so I think I've cultivated insecurity as a way to undercut that smart, opinionated headstrong element. I played dumb for a decade when I dated, and now I don't play dumb, I just am unsure.

I'm trying to tell myself that John loved me. He never said it. (He said he was too damaged to know how to love anyone; he didn't even know how to love his sister, whom he adored above everyone else int he world.) But I think he really did. He told me that I was the only woman he could imagine looking at 'for keeps.' He borrowed my ring. He spent 12 hours a week walking and talking with me. He knew me very well, and kept coming back.

And so, I am trying to view my ring, that he kept for a year and a half, as cosmic permission to trust myself. To know that John believed in my potential (although he felt like I hadn't yet emerged from my chrysalis). In John's memory, I will try, just try. My ring, with John's love, can maybe be cosmic permission to know that I am lovable.

I am sure I will be coming back to John as stuff arises. But after tomorrow, I'm going to try and figure out how I go on without him, And I am sure that he would want that for me. Hell, he'd probably point out I didn't have him this last year. I should have done that already.

Wallowing Week, Pt 2

I wish I had a sense of John's presence. Something. A dream. Something. But I don't. Just an aching loss. The agnostic believes that's because this is our only shot at this life. But then I rewatch Truly Madly Deeply for the six thousandth time, and I wonder if maybe the dead don't stay away because they know we need time to grieve and move on. Or maybe the dead have way too much cool stuff and earth is boring. But I don't think so. I wish I didn't believe that. But I do.

I'm trying to think what John would want. For me and from me. Not that I can know, but I can, of course, reread correspondence and guess.

Of course, he'd want to not be dead.

But here's what I know:

He didn't date anyone after me. And he kept my ring. And he said he kept an eye (two when he could spare them) on me.

The e-mail listing my flaws--he ended by saying:

Hmmm. Should I hit send? She's sounding pretty rugged, actually, which pleases me a great deal. I don't want to put cracks in her shell, but then again, I do want to be acknowledged as legitimately entitled to her respect. And I hope, hope hope she can tell the part I do *not* respect detracts not one molecule from the part I do. That believing myself to have some insight into her true character means that none of this bullshit is necessary. That if she has one place where she can truly be herself, "flaws and all," as it were, she should *do* so.

Because either I will a) snap down on a persona like a rat trap, or b) attempt, in my way, to deal with it gracefully by not dealing with it all.

Hmmmmmmm. Thinking, thinking....

So, I think I get it. He knew that I don't handle criticism well. Especially from men that I love. And his style of criticism tends to be quite blunt. And he thought I'd wilt from the criticism. And maybe I would have. I don't know.

I think if I hadn't felt like I was auditioning for him, always, I would have been more robust. But not with the criticism. I have always needed criticism to be loving and gentle and constructive. Maybe, I could have learned to handle it better. To respond with "well, this is why I do that." But I don't know. Maybe when he said: "I'm a bit of a rough ride and you're a bit of a delicate flower...You know the principal reason I held back was my worry that you were a wuss." Maybe he meant it. Maybe he was right. Maybe when he said:

See, I could never do that (tear down the obstacles that he saw separating us), because that would put me at odds with one of your halves.

I could only reach one of them by damaging the other.

Only in my restraint could you know that I cared. I would not embrace one half at the cost of the other. I would not embrace the strong, successful, entirely legitimate but incomplete Esquire Chatterley, eligible bachelorette, world traveler, talented, glib, heroic... and leave innocent, vulnerable, delicate Constance out in the cold. I would not embrace the girl who longs for a Sir to keep her safe and love her and show disrespect to the illustrious Esquire Chatterley.

Sadly, the only way I could show that I cared for you was by not giving either half what it wanted, because I, perhaps uniquely, perceive and care very much for *both*.

Maybe he was wiser than I was. Certainly he could have taken me and I would have loved him with every bit I had. But maybe the Esquire Chatterley would have shattered. I don't know whether it would have been a little for a little while or a lot for a long while.

Certainly, my relationship with the ex shattered one side at the expense of the other.

Wallowing Week. Part 1

I'm going to wallow this week. John's memorial is Sunday. Then I will try to move on.

I got my ring back yesterday, and it meant a lot. I didn't think it would, but it did.

John said something like "It was like you were waiting for cosmic permission to trust yourself." The thing is, on one level, I am quite conventionally attractive for a size 14. But the size 14 thing seems to always be the 'but.' That said, I probably have more baggage about my weight because I was always heavy and I used to be much heavier (a size 22).

And when I opened the envelope from his sister, I realized that John had carried my ring with him for the last year and a half. And he had asked for it. I have to believe that no man would ask a woman that he is dating to borrow the ring she wears on her ring finger, without it meaning he was considering proposing. John was a smart man. He had to know that somewhere. It is possible he freaked out. It is possible he changed his mind. But at some point he thought I was a woman he could spend the rest of his life with. He had to. There is no other explanation.

Even if he couldn't say it, I think he loved me.

There are times it felt like the more he got to know me, the less he approved of me. But the more I got to know him, the more I thought there were things that were quite odd. I was uncomfortable with him believing he needed to carry a blade in his boot all the time. I was uncomfortable when he took out the single tail whip in public. I never disapproved of him the way he did of me. But it made me uncomfortable. Or maybe I did disapprove in unspoken ways. I don't know.

He said once, there was a reason he always came back to me. I was difficult, but he always came back.

In his last slew of e-mails, he called me arrogant for not defending what I do. He was critical on several occasions of my profession and I kind of would say something like "you know, that what I did my advanced work in." What I meant was not "I know more than you" but "be gentle--this is important to me." But he thought I meant the former. I have less certainty about aspects of my profession being relevant or mattering. If I were to do it over, I would take a different career path. John, on the other hand, loved every aspect of his work. I wish I'd understood that more. I wish we could have talked that through. I wish his dad hadn't died and he his company hadn't closed and he hadn't left our town and he had proposed and we got married and I got pregnant and we went for life insurance and he'd had to have a physical to get life insurance and they found the problem and figured out how to treat it and we could live happily ever after. That's what I really wish.

I seem to be facing the possibility that I will never meet someone. If this is the life I've got, what do I want it to look like? Do I want to have a kid by myself? I need to make that decision soon. I'm thinking maybe yes.

The power of narrative

John's death, and his reaching out 5 days before he had his heart attack, opens this whole can of worms. And I feel so vulnerable and confused and unlovable and like I've lost part of my heart.

There is this strong desire to put things in a narrative. One narrative goes, and it is all true:

Feb of 09, John borrows my ring. Maybe he does this intentionally because he is thinking about proposing.

Early March of 09, John and I have a fight.

The following week: John's mother dies and the firm he works for goes out of business.

John moves back to Indiana, where he grew up. His entire life, he's yearned for a relationship with his family, and his mother has always ostracized him. Her death allows him a chance to develop that relationship. (John told me that he loved his sister, but he was too damaged to know how to love fully. He reached out to his siblings a couple of times and was blown off every time, except his one sister.)

He keeps my ring the entire time. Did he know he had it? He needed to learn to love his family. I know what. But maybe, he knew it too. And maybe he kept my ring and wanted to come back when he was ready. That's the narrative I want. Something that makes me, deep down, a lovable human being. Who lost someone she loved, but will maybe find someone else again someday.

And the other narrative is more real, and so much more messy.

4 days before he has a heart attack, he writes (in a series of several e-mails):

I never got wrapped up in what we didn't have because I was so pleased with what we did. ...

Honestly Constance, it's not a revelation that you had feelings on the line -- but the scale?! The scope?! You kept that from me?! I got a hell of a lot of composed small talk and not much of the steam beneath the surface.? I introduce the topic one more time:? Candor!? Why now?? What was the problem?? I was open to you.? Why didn't you talk to me? ...

My restraint was for your protection far more than it was for my own. I'm a bit of a rough ride and you're a bit of a bit of a delicate flower. I often caught myself thinking you might emerge from your chrysalis at some point, which is why I kept (and I suppose in fairness keep) an eye on you. Two when I can spare them....

I was *always* waiting for you to overcome just one more insecurity, just one more fear, just one more complex, just one more (to my mind) flimsy or imagined obstacle, which were it not for the respect I had (and have) for you, I would have just wrecking-balled through like the tissue paper I perceived them to be. But not at your expense...

You often acted as if you were waiting for some sort of cosmic permission to simply trust me and trust yourself.

Yes, I know you had the desire, and I hope you don't think I spent so much time with you because I was bored and needed something to do. I hope, and want to believe, that you know I was investing in the possibility of a future. But as above, desire to have something is not the same thing as capability. You think (yes, yes a thousand times yes, I HEARD YOU) I was rejecting you, but really (as I said sincerely over and over) I was *waiting*....

Every time you attempted to throw away your dignity, I caught it and gave it back to you gently and with reverence....

I love how fresh and alive this all feels (not kidding). You know, you can tell a real friend when you flip the calendar a few times and the pick up the conversation right
where we left it off. ;)

Proof we've both been thinking of each other. ;)

And I wrote him back:

I guess I was waiting for some indication that you wanted to be in a romantic relationship with me. A kiss, I suppose. You were waiting for me to cash checks as much as I was waiting for you.

I wish you had taken a wrecking ball through the tissue.

Ah, well.

Tears.

Tissue.

Xanax.

Bed.

And he wrote me back: "Wuss. ;)"

And then he died. But what if he hadn't died? I thought we were going to continue this. Somehow, he is still the only man I could ever imagine spending the rest of my life with. Of course, he's dead. I know that. I just can't quite accept it.

And what does this say about me? Is it bizzarre that I couldn't trust a man that never kissed me really wanted to be in a romantic relationship with me? He always said we were dating. But he never kissed me. Never once. Is that a failing on my part? I kissed him once, and he turned it into a platonic kiss. I would have married him, if he'd asked. It was the only reason I loaned him my ring (of course). I don't understand.

And my heart is breaking open, once again. I don't know how I can have this many tears to shed. I wish some spirit of John would come and kiss me on the eyes and tell me he loved me. But I have yet to see evidence of an afterlife or a ghost. I wish I could sleep one night is his arms. Oh, who am I kidding. I wanted all of eternity with him.

The Ring

I realized that I never really told the story of the ring, mostly because I didn't think it made John look very good. (I should mention that after it happened, John apologized and told me he was scared at how much memory loss he was having--I don't think I took that as seriously as I should have.)

We were in a bar, having drinks and I was playing with my ring, from my ring finger on my right hand. I have a tendency to fidget, and I was spinning it and watching the gold revolve around the diamonds, which revolved around the emerald. John asked to see it. Then he asked if he could borrow it. Later that evening, I asked John if he had the ring, and he had lost it.

For at least a month, I believed he still had my ring. It didn't make sense that he had lost it. John, until that point, had been careful with me, and this was not too long after he talked about us being 'for keeps.' The entire situation was odd.

He offered to by me a new ring, and I said that I only wanted a ring from him if it were an engagement ring. That rings had energy and I couldn't accept a ring from him. I bought a replacement for myself, and asked John to buy me some other nice jewelry. He eventually bought me a 'trinket' but it was weird--a magnifying glass/pendant. He didn't mail it until after we had broken off contact and then it was with a note that said "sorry it all turned out so badly. J." I have the 'trinket' but threw out the note only a month ago or so. When I'm 85 and still doing embroidery, it will be quite nice. It is the only think of his I have. I wish I'd kept the note.

A month after the ring, he and I had a huge fight, with tears streaming out of my face like oil out of a BP oilwell. And he said "I never led you on." And I thought, really? REALLY?

A week before he died, he e-mailed me, out of the blue it seemed, and had found my ring. It fell out of his bag. Clearly, he had carefully stowed it in a place for it to elude finding for well over a year. Two weeks after he died I sent an upbeat message to his e-mail saying "Hey--I'm back from my vacation, please mail my ring to...." Two weeks later, his friend contacted me.

His friend and family clearly took the ring as symbolic. I have no idea if John thought it meant something when he stowed it away in his bag. If he ever thought it meant something. I have to believe that he did. He couldn't have been so clueless at any point to be unaware of a ring's symbolic meaning or that a girl he was dating, whom he had talked about 'for keeps' with might see that symbol. But he never let me know it.

I believe the family will get it back to me. I have no idea what I will do with it at that point. It seems to me that that ring has energy. I will probably never wear it again. I would like a ritual where I melt the gold and make something. Fire transforming the very substance.

Remembering John

I'm still in shock about John's death. I loved him SO much. I can't believe it. Somehow, I always felt that we would come to understand each other with loving kindness. If we couldn't be together, we'd trade Christmas cards from our respective families.

I had a fantasy that I would open my blog and find a comment from him. A comment that was loving and accepting and emotionally generous.

But on this blog, I never portrayed him fully. I knew he wasn't perfect, but I felt like it wasn't fair to blog about his faults. They weren't mine to share. But I think to truly remember him, I need to truly remember him as I saw him.

John was SO smart. Scintillating brilliance. And it was a joy to watch him think, to be part of that whirlwind. That said, he relied more on his intellect than his empathy. He was far more committed to honesty than kindness. I think that his integrity was based on truth. I'll gladly omit truth to spare feelings. John, I think, would say that I should have the strength to face the unvarnished truth.

John was inconsistent. He confided in me that he thought he was losing his memory--he'd forget entire things, important things. He forgot about taking my ring. He'd completely forget things he told me. Sometimes I'd review our e-mails and think he was in a different world than mine and I'd have to review what he said to make sure I wasn't going crazy. (He had other health issues too--he thought he had the early signs of Parkinson's. I spoke with a doctor friend yesterday, and she thought he was probably having mini-strokes as his heart was failing; she believed that it would explain things.) That was a health issue, clearly. It also left me feeling crazy sometimes. Our first really big instance of this was talking about S&M. I said something like "if you're looking for reactions, and submission, then I can satisfy you. But if you're looking for exercise, if you want to swing your whip hard, I really can't." And he said "I want the exercise." And then he totally forgot saying that. I have the e-mail. But I can't bear to read them right now. I started and just started crying. Someday, I think our correspondence (heavily edited) would make a hell of a (short) book.

Last month, John was shocked when I told him I had loved him. I thought he was just being obtuse. (I don't think I took his fears about his memory seriously. I have other friends who are 'losing their memory' because they can't remember Sudoku without writing down possibilities. I don't think I realized the extent of what was going on for him.) I think John may have also forgotten that there was a time when he read my blog regularly and would comment to me about things on it, so it was probably natural I thought he would read it if he ever wanted more information.

I do wish the last thing he had said to me hadn't been "Wuss. ;)" because I hadn't told him I loved him before. When in fact I had.

John had been badly abused growing up. Like "state should have taken him away" abused. Like 'locked in the closet for a day because Satan was after him and not fed because God would feed him if he deserved it' abuse. And in my interpretation, John found it very hard to trust people. He once told me "you will never hurt me" after I said something like "Sooner or later, I'm going to fuck up and hurt you. I won't mean to. But I will." And I think what he said was true. No matter how much I fucked up, he would never let me close enough to hurt him.

I honestly think that he drove me away because I scared him. He went through a series of women who took financial advantage of him. He always paid for everything when we went out. He would never let me pair for anything. And he'd order me fancy meals because he knew me well enough to both know what I'd like and that I'd always order one of the three cheapest things on the menu. He protected and cherished me.

But the women before me had always taken money from him. Tens of thousands of dollars. I have to believe that the pattern existed because of the common denominator (John) and that he sought out relationships with people he didn't have to trust because they weren't trustworthy.

I honestly believe that John would have been more fulfilled, according to my subjective definitions of such things, with therapy. And perhaps, if he'd been willing, I'd be a widow right now.

I came perilously close to suicide last year, when he disappeared on me. Not that I would have gone through with it. But it was only the love I have for my family that kept me from doing it. I really couldn't see any joy in my life without John. And if I could have chosen the path for my life, I'd rather be a widow right now. I would love to have had a year and a half with John. But I don't know how I would be surviving right now if I had. Sure, I'd have friends and family and a network of support. But the intensity of my love for John was greater than I think I'll ever have again.

I loved you John.

I love you. I know you will never see the words of this. But I love you.

And I will never forget you. I hope like hell you aren't the great love of my life. But whether or not you are or not, I will always love you. Not maniacally. Not in a way that precludes others. But you touched me so deeply, and I will always love you.

May there be reincarnation. Or something better. And may you find unconditional love and understanding and strength and courage and tenderness. And peace. May there be a God and may that God bless and hold you with a love and strength and tenderness.

In Memorium

John died a couple of weeks ago. I just found out today.

That was not the closure I wished for.

I think he was happy right before he died. He was with his family at a picnic. I really can't think of anything he'd rather be doing than having a picnic with his family. He had such ostracization from his family, for so long. And he tried to throw a picnic for them a decade ago, and none of them came. I hope he was truly happy and fulfilled.

He had an aneurysm and died three days later.

I hope there is reincarnation. My grandma died a couple of years ago. And I miss her, at least once a week. But I can accept that. For John, I can't really accept it. There must be something else. There just must. I want John to know true, unconditional love. At accept and give it. Maybe he had gotten there with his family. I hope so!

His friend e-mailed me to ask me for my phone number and called me.

The family found my ring. And the family tried to figure out the story behind the ring. His friend said "We didn't know he'd ever been engaged."

I told his friend we never had. That he'd borrowed my ring, and I wrongly thought... and his friend said "of course." That meant a lot to me. His family and friends took that seriously. It wasn't all in my head.

I can't imagine how I'd feel if we'd become partners. I'd be horrified that I didn't get him to change. And yet, I would have been very wary of nagging. Of trying to change him. And then I would have blamed myself. I don't know how I would have survived that.