(no subject)

I have spent my life seeking to define myself on my own terms, throwing off labels and expectations and embracing the things that I truly enjoy. As a result, I both seem to fit many labels and yet I truly fit none, and though I have many circles in which to seek others of like mind, I'm always a bit of an outsider in them as well.

How can one find a soulmate to match one such as myself; when mine is so twisted and strange and pulled in a dozen different ways? In the loves of my life have been aspects of what I seek, and I realize there can be no true mirror nor perhaps should I attempt to find such. In Angela, I found someone else seeking their own path, living life with honest purpose, supporting and hard-working, longing for companionship and social connection. In Kim, I found a playfulness, a physical chemistry that was intoxicating, a fellow introvert wishing to be seen and valued for what they had to offer others. In Andrea, I found a keen intellect, a quirky perspective on the world, deep conviction to one's beliefs and expression of those morals and ethics through daily life, and someone who understood the darkness of a life-long depression and longing.

Yet in each of those relationships was the seed of it's own destruction. The freedom to redefine boundaries with Angela lead me to a place beyond finding a way to be happy together. The chemistry I felt with Kim reinforced her self-doubts and made her feel our relationship was about nothing but sex, and the very care-taking she longed for was resented. Andrea's darkness consumed all her hope and faith in me or my feelings for her, and her own fears whispered poison into everything I said or did.

I've blazed my own path for as long as I can remember. It has brought me through wind-swept mountains, green sunny fields, raging waters, peaceful glades, difficult climbs and into a desolate desert of isolation. There is no path that leads back to sweeter places known, no lasting companionship on the journey, with only the haziness of the future as I put one foot in front of the other hoping it will take me to a place love can flourish. I long for the rain, a deluge to bring spring to my desert, to claim me in the flood, or to wash away the dust that blocks my vision from better things ahead.

At each juncture I try to choose the path that is both right and honest, and put responsibility and investing for the long-term before immediate rewards. If only I could've been free to follow my heart and choose the life I felt was within my reach, yet by the time I am free to make that choice I've lost it. If only I had known how precious and short my time, I could've spent those treasured moments more fully. Yet, it was never for lack of intensity or earnestness or willingness to talk and work that I lost my love again and again.

If only they knew how precious my love for them was to me, although perhaps I didn't express it enough day-to-day. I don't give love falsely or quickly, and I don't feel that connection with many. I tried to integrate our relationship into the fabric of my life and not become someone else simply to reinforce a feeling of co-dependence and desire. For those loves than ran their course, I have found peace and tried to let the friendship remain. But to have love pulled from me based on fears, faithlessness, for lacking convenience, I have no impetus to let go the love at the core of my feelings for them.

I made a mistake by trying to hang on to Kim for so many years, but the nature of our relationship was always one of courting and reaching and longing. If the chance for resolution had presented itself, I was not ready or aware of it. Love with intensity and yet no outlet became bitterness when she left me for another, and even when that other relationship had faded and we were both single again she still never wanted me for more than brief comfort. Whatever drove her from my arms was always in play, and no amount of hope or wishing or effort would ever matter against her resolve, right or wrong in her perspective or assumptions. Only the safety of geography keeps reminders of that pain at bay, and I hope someday it will become simply a matter of fact and not a source of despair.

My love for Andrea has not diminished, but I have no way to reach her. Even if I were to see her face-to-face, the dark whispers in her mind would remain and continue to taint what little trust we might still have. Each day I work to accept that this is simply the way things are and will be, and try to forgive and forget as best I can. On occasion, I find myself longing for some news of her life, even if I must face the pain of replacement and the sure knowledge that someone else is allowed the comforts of her presence that I'm denied. Still, what difference does it really make; even if she were alone the same things that drove her to give up would still color any thought of me she may still have.

So I focus on the path ahead, try to seek distraction in friendships and hobbies, to let the wounds and scars of my heart heal and close as best they can, and focus on matters of finance and career instead. The truth is, I cannot feel meaning without love, but I have learned to go on and survive without it, though such an existance is cold and unpleasant.

(no subject)

the sky is grey the sand is grey and the ocean is grey
and I feel right at home in this stunning monochrome
alone in my way

I smoke and I drink and every time I blink I have a tiny dream
but as bad as I am I'm proud of the fact that I'm worse than I seem

what kind of paradise am I looking for
I've got everything I want still I want more
maybe some tiny shiny thing will wash up on the shore

you walk through my walls like a ghost on tv
you penetrate me
and my little pink heart is on it's little brown raft floating out to sea
and what I can I say but I'm wired this way and you're wired to me
and what I can I do but wallow in you unintentionally

what kind of paradise am I looking for
I've got everything I want still I want more
maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore

and regretfully I guess I've got three simple thing to say
why me? why this now? why this way?

with overtones ringing undertow's pulling away
under a sky that is grey on sand that is grey by an ocean that's grey

what kind of paradise am I looking for
I've got everything I want still I want more
maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore

Grey Ani Difranco

(no subject)

I'm so tired of coming home to an empty house. This is no healthy way for me to live constantly longing for love, for connection, for meaning in my life and yet having to swallow it all and just live without. All the longing, all the pain, all the bitter resentment of being given up on by Kim and the gall of her treating me like I should just accept being "friends", the sting of having Andrea giving up and covering over a relationship based on honest communication with accusations and misinterpretation, the anguish of knowing that everyone else has moved on, found new loves, yet still I am here without a moment's peace save the quiet of ignoring it all.

I want so much to accept what I have and find joy in the future instead of longing for the past, but I can't make myself feel something that isn't here. I've had a few relationships on an off over the years, but really Andrea is the only one I felt the chemistry and bond that for me leads to love. I wish it wasn't so hard to find, that Kim or Andrea even understood how hard it is for me to find that, how much I long for it, how much I lost for their faithlessness and their need to run away from their past and the reflections of it they projected onto me.

If I can't have love in my life, if it is simply not appointed for me, why do I long for it so much? Why is it so much to ask for to be loved in return for the love I give, to be given a situation that isn't doomed from the start? I can honestly say that in the past two years, all I truly wanted was to be with Andrea, to have gainful employment and a love I could call my own. I didn't want to spend my life longing for the love I lost, for the women Kim was in the moments when she wasn't trying to push me away, for fame and fortune, for things beyond my reach. Andrea made me remember how much love I have to give, that my heart could feel more than bitterness and isolation, that I didn't want some perfect abstract angel, but the simple joys of a soulmate, a companion, someone with an investment in my life and mine in hers.

The sorrow I feel at losing yet another chance at real love is indescribable. It has been almost exactly a year since she walked away from me and yet I can't stop crying at the memory of being with her. I'll ignore it for months, try to put it behind me and simply accept that I'm alone again, and then some small detail will remind me of how much I hate life without her. I know we had only a few months of real full-time relationship, and only a few weekends a month for the next year, but I had put so much hope into it and it all came crashing down with a single phone call "I don't think we should see each other for a while..." She had found someone else who lived in the same city, and that was the end of it. I was investing for a life together, and she walked away for convenience sake. I guess I can't really blame her given her past, but my god it hurt and continues to hurt. Where were my feelings in that choice; were they so easy to dismiss because she didn't trust them or were they simply immaterial?

How many times in my life have I lost the woman I love over someone easier to be with, easier to take, less intense, whatever... I spent two years in therapy trying to figure out what I did wrong, what it is about me that drives away the women I love so often, and I never got an answer. There isn't anything really wrong with me, I simply expect too much out of others and myself. So here I am... another year gone by without real joy to add to the stack of years already lost to loving women who can't be bothered to meet me half-way. I just want all the pain to be worthwhile... somehow... somewhere... and soon before my heart hardens and is unable to ever break free of the pain...