Ready?

Write.  Delete.  Write. No, that's not it.  Delete.  Write. False Start.  Delete.  Write. You can't say that.  Delete. Write.  So and So reads this blog and you don't want him to read that.  Delete.

It seems like when I am blocked other places, I can still come over here because the people from whom I most want to hide my words have no idea that this place exists.  So, really this should be the most interesting blog I have.  Yet, it isn't because not much is going on in the more interesting part of my life.  And I seem to be averaging a post about every 6 months or so.

I think most of us have secret selves.  I personally have many.  What I present to the world is only the tiniest tip of an iceberg.  The rest remains submerged.  Part of that is my introvert nature.  People exhaust me for the most part.  And of course, I have a job where I must interact with lots of people.  So when I come home there is not a lot of energy for other things.  Yet, people feed me as well.  And I know I am happier with the feeling I am involved in close relationships.

I am involved in a relationship where I have the freedom to pursue other intimate relationships.  I have a partner who freely pursues other relationships.  And yet I hold back.  My partner says I have a blinking sign above my head that says "Do Not Approach".  I don't think so. I have a sign with the light turned off and I am excellent at blending into the background.  I just haven't been interested or felt I had much to give another person.

But something has changed lately.  Something feels empty inside.  My nights home alone, which I used to cherish now feel...lonely. Wouldn't it be more fun to have a companion?  Someone to be excited about spending time with?  Someone who...i don't know.  Something different.

We went on a road trip a few weeks ago and one of the stops was Washington D.C. where I used to live.  I was not expecting the onslaught of emotion that sprung from being back there.  I felt alive and juicy when I lived there.  I felt like I belonged.  Just being there a few days woke up things in me that I don't have in my current life.   Here in Ohio, I am a transplant.  I can exist, but I haven't been able to put down roots.  It's not home.  I wound up crying in a restaurant in Maryland when I put all this together.

I do know that there is an inner self that is not being fed.  And, for the first time in many years, I feel open to trying to play my poly card. Maybe I am seeking outside for something that should come from inside, but I am pretty sure, that what I am missing...is a deep connection with someone who could be a catalyst to help me find some part of myself that I have lost. Not to be responsible for filling my emptiness.  Not to be responsible for my healing.  Just someone who can ask me questions or bring new experiences.  Someone outside my circle who can help me expand.

In the past month or so, I have felt this part of myself come back or being drawn out by new people. I don't think these people were put in my path to be lovers, but just to slowly awaken the part of myself that has been dormant.  To know that the part I feel I have lost is not gone but only sleeping.

So...what to do with that?  To put yourself out there is putting yourself out for rejection.  Rejection sucks and it can hurt.  I have been crippled by rejection when it comes from someone I truly felt a connection to who just didn't feel the same.  But, I am willing to risk that.

I was talking to a friend who said she is tired of being disenchanted.  She wants to be enchanted again.  Yes.  Enchant me Life, please.  I am withering over here.  I have no idea what to do about that but I am trying to be open.

This desire means I will need to stop staying at home so much. I need to think about what I might be open to getting involved in and go do it.  There is a discussion group that meets at a bookstore on one Tuesday a month.  Maybe there is a class to try.  Maybe I should take my paper writing to a local coffeehouse and just hang out.  And in the process of being more open and reaching out perhaps I can find someone willing to reach back.  Just maybe.  And if it doesn't happen...I will be okay with that too.  My life as it is, is not too bad.

Ah yes, this blog...what to do, what to do...I have thought about deleting it, because I so rarely post.  But then, I sometimes find a voice here that doesn't get much airtime anywhere else, so I think then that I should leave it up.  And sometimes I am able to write here when I am blocked mentally or emotionally in other places.  So....

To take stock of things:  I am still not a Dr.  This dissertation has me foiled and I am so stuck I can barely think about it.  And the pressure grows.  Another letter from the university telling me that I missed being able to graduate.  If I want to try for Dec, I need to reapply.  I am afraid to contact my adviser, yet asking for help is exactly what I should do.  I have many many pages written.  They are not my best writing, but I am well on my way.  At work, they are holding off on business cards because they want to put the new letters after my name.  My friends have learned not to ask.  I have a friend about to give birth, yet I have not written another word on my paper in the nearly 9 months that have passed.

I went off to a woman's retreat in early August.  I wanted to get away from my head.  And although the retreat was an estrogen overload, I did have some insight about things.  I thought about relationships in my life and how they were working or not working.  I pictured my paper as a person and tried to dialogue with it.  I treat this paper poorly.  I don't give the relationship time or attention.  I resent the relationship.  I think bad thoughts about it.  I neglect it.  So, is it any wonder why I can not move forward?  So I am trying to rework how I think about it.  I am trying to get re-inspired.  I am trying to be a better partner with the paper.  It's still a slow slow process.

Over the weekend I have worked on my spaces. I worked on my bedroom and desk area.  I have restored order there.  There is space to work on my desk.  Today, my goal is lowly.  I just want to read what I have written, and work out only what the next step might be.  I hope that by pulling one foot out of the mud that I can start to move again.

Connect-tions

Oh geez.  I can't believe it's been September since I posted something here.  This journal has become a space for the things I can't write about elsewhere (or feel too censored).  So, on the one hand, that means there has been nothing traumatic enough to trigger a post here...but it is also a sign of how time has just frittered itself away this year and I have nothing further to show for it.

Relationship wise there have been some hits and misses.  After not hearing from Heathcliff in over a year, he suddenly resurfaced.  He indicated he was up for getting together for a beer some time...but when I asked the deal breaker question of "when?"-- he scurried away and will not answer any emails now.  I don't get him.  I give up on even trying.  I recovered from the pain that the last encounter brought, though it took nearly a year to do that.  I think I am pretty numb towards him now. I took this last bit as par for the course...and a big Whatever. Really, I am done with being yanked around by him.

In late summer I made a connection with a woman.  I really wasn't looking for that, but it happened, and it was nice.  But we have fallen out of touch, and when we do see each other, she tells me about everyone else that she is pining for.  I don't know if it is implied that she is still interested and misses me too and I should ask her out, or she feels me a good friend in whom she is confiding.  Since I don't hear my name on her list...it makes it hard to reach out...and honestly, I don't have energy for a big relationship talk with her, so I let things lie fallow.

In early October, my friend from back east and her boyfriend came to visit, and the three of us had a lovely sexual weekend.  It was so unexpected but very good...and they are both healthy people emotionally.  The contrast between her boyfriend and Heathcliff was amazing.  It reminded me what dating a normal guy was actually like. (I don't consider that SO and I are really dating at this point...so I am not implying he is not normal :) )

The distance though is going to be hard though.  It's hard to sustain much with someone you will only see two times a year.  She and I have a history and long term friendship...but I don't know him all that well outside of the weekend...

SO is well.  He is still seeing his OSO, but no waves with her for us right now.

So that is the news that fit for print today...I am off to be productive in a school kind of way...I hope.

Cyber Battle

The last couple of weeks online, I have found myself in flamewars with various trolls and tea-party types.  In my long relationship with the internet I can not recall a time where I have crossed swords with so many in such a short space of time.

It started on FB with someone whom I have not had a lot of personal contact, but who is a person in an extended local community.  She posted some political things in regard to the Obama Boy Scout "controversy" and the Arizona Immigration law, over which we had a few exchanges from opposite points of view.  It really heated up when she posted a hysterical" Obama is a Muslim--It's TRUE" post.  This one, I found particularly annoying...and I just could not let it pass without comment.

In that and other discussions, I find myself searching the internet for credible news sources to back up my opinion or disprove other's claims, which of course...is a huge waste of time.  I need to spend the time scouring the internet for sources for my massive paper...not to support arguments, which regardless of the facts are not going to change this person's mind in the least.

I tried to tone things down with her, because, truly...I have better things to do than argue with a representative of the Tea Party.

But then it happened on Live Journal over a comment I made in someone else's journal about Alveda King speaking at Beck's rally.  And now today, on FB in a musician's forum some jerk has singled me out for attack for just objecting to the way someone received a credit.

I have looked back on my posts.  I do not think they are inflammatory or impolite, yet I draw unwanted attention from Trolls who want to fling feces around rather than have an intelligent debate.  In fairness, in some of the political arguments, others come forward who share my opinion.  And others are certainly targeted.

It's just that I normally have avoided the fray, and I can't figure out why I am suddenly getting drawn into battle.  Maybe I stand up for what I think is right now.  Maybe the culture is so absolutely divided that everyone is getting attacked. Maybe I am posting in a way that particularly sets other's off.  Or maybe these people are just jerks looking to pick a fight and get some attention.

Sometimes I feel compelled to clarify or defend a stance, sometimes I try to sow peace by finding commonalities, and sometimes it's just best to just lay down the sword and walk away.  I think the wisdom is probably in the latter, but I am at a point in life where it's difficult to let bullies or the brainwashed just get away with it.

It's probably still a waste of time.

Discipline (Self)

I must be near a breaking point.

I threw a phone at work last Friday, which is so unlike me that I was shocked that I had even done such a thing.  It was in private, and the phone did not sustain permanent damage.  But it was a clear sign that things are not right, and the simmering of frustration under the surface is starting to come to a  boil.

I know that I have been frustrated and stressed lately, but I am not sure exactly what in particular, if any one thing is causing this.  On the surface, things appear all right.  I have job security.  I can pay all my bills.  I like where I live.  Relationship is working.  Geriatric Cat lives on....Things are okay, really they are.

But, I don't feel okay.  I have lost that fire or passion that drives one to get things done.  I have been in stagnation almost a year on my doctoral project.  I have a few pages written, but I can't seem to move in any direction to finish the damed thing.  I feel sorry for myself that I even have to do it.  How can I be expected to work full time and do this monster thing too?

And yet, people do it all the time.  And neither whining about it nor completely ignoring it have gotten me anywhere.

And then there is my physical health.  I am getting winded now even climbing the stairs to our second story apartment....which is ridiculous.  A couple of months ago, I started walking daily and keeping track of my steps. Then I started running.  Not sure I was losing weight...but I looked an felt better.

Then I just stopped.  And now when I remember to wear my pedometer, I barely crest 3000 steps.

Then there is my lack of sociability.  I feel my openness to other humans open briefly, then snap shut.  I was very open at the festival we attending a few weeks ago.  I found myself attracted an interacting to a number of people, and it felt good!  I felt alive, and able to enjoy being around others.  But a couple of weeks back in the grind of Mundania sucked all that away.  I have people reaching out to me, but I am so tired after work that I just want to come home to my fortress of solitude and recover.

Am I depressed?  Am I stressed?  Am I sick?  Am I lazy?

I don't know.

But I do know I need to light the pilot light in my life to make some changes.   And I also know, that although I have a mile long list of things that could stand improvement, that I won't be able to make a lot of changes and sustain that long term..

I don't really know how to light this fire, but I do know I have lost some ability to force myself to do things I don't want to do.  Maybe the passion for life, passion to finish projects is like muscle.

So....I am going to see if I can make myself do the following things as exercise to build that muscle:

1) Go for a 25 minute walk, or other form of exercise daily.
2) Meditate for at least 10 minutes a day.
3) Work 30 min at some discipline, either  journal writing, practicing piano, yoga (or similar) daily.
4) Work three hours a week on the Capstone.

These all seem doable to me, and I do think success builds on success.  Exercise and meditation will help with the stress and anger. And the projects will give me a yardstick to see improvement.

It may not be much, but it's a start, and I am going zero now, with nothing to lose.  

I was going to call him Mr. Rochester, but I think the tendency to paint my ex lovers as dark Gothic fictional characters is not healthy.  I am hardly a naive innocent girl any longer, and I needn't hand over my control to brooding depressed men no matter how attractive I might find them.

In my travels over the weekend,  I ran into an ex, who was one of my favorite lovers...for a variety of reasons.  I haven't had close contact with him in over ten years.  We ended when I moved to the Midwest and were both terrible at maintaining the relationship from a distance.  It was good to see him though, and we had a few long walks together in the woods of Indiana.  But my friend has been having a rough time of things lately.  He was once a powerful person in his world, but health issues and some other bad cards dealt by fate have taken a toll.  My memories were hard to reconcile with the person before me.  This person is hurt and very needy.  My heart ached with sadness, and I could feel my codependent urges to save him, or if not save...help bubble forth.

He wants to be in touch again, though he is not in a position to open a sexual relationship (which is good given the circumstances).  A part of me is worried if I even have the capacity to be a support for the magnitude of depression that my friend has and what precisely he wants from me.  I don't want to be in a relationship where there is not an exchange of energy....Though I don't think he wants that either.  We are going to try writing and see where we go...I feel a certain loyalty to people who have come close to me in an intimate way...If I can help him I want to.  For now, I will wait and see where he wants to go....and then decide if I can go there at all.

I should write something here.  I just don't know what to say.  Life has settled into some sort of quiet routine, and it doesn't feel that there is much to remark upon.  What is it Yogi's say?  "Chop wood, carry water".  That has been my life.

I think I have isolated myself quite a bit lately.  My partner has to force me into social situations.  He says, "Let's go early so we can catch up with people."  In my state these are the last words that motivate me out the door.  But I go.  I smile.  And sometimes it works and I do have fun.

On the surface I can put on a good face, and mostly I feel okay.  I very much miss the being in love alive feel I had last Fall, but I do not miss the angst and heartache that existed on the other side of that coin.

On the positive side, I have started to move again.  I had let myself turn into the Tin Man, and believe me it hurt to start bending limbs.  But I am starting to find myself, and gaining strength in pushing myself physically.  I started wearing a pedometer and am tracking steps.  I am dancing again.  I can even run...a little bit.  It's all good.  Moving has made me tired at night, and I fall into deep dream filled sleeps.

I feel like I need to go on some sort of journey.  I am missing some vital part of my spirit.  I should go out and find it, right?  I remember reading some book of a woman in mid life crisis...she went to the sea and wrote...That sounds dreamy and romantic, but also terribly lonely.  I think my journey needs to be outward towards the vast ocean of people.  The scary sea of humanity...I need to learn how to open myself up and not fear being hurt again.  I need to practice talking, taking an interest in others...Oh but that sounds like so much work....

And that is the problem I suppose.

Another year over....

So it is January again...Time for resolutions in place of regrets and action in place of motion.

I find myself feeling distant from my life at the moment.  I mean, I am here and going through the motions of doing things...but sort of living above myself rather than in myself.  That's probably not good, though it is certainly easier.  On the surface things look okay.  I am caught up at work.  I am pleasant to my clients and willing to help them out.  I have mastered the new database system, and found ways to incorporate the extra work into a manageable time frame.  I am getting ready to start again the Capstone project (really, any day now...I am going to start again...really), and things are quiet on the homefront.  No drama, but also no excitement.

The Heathcliff thing is still affecting me, and I think that is probably the biggest reason I am living up here instead of down there.  Things don't matter as much up here.  I see.  I observe...but I don't feel.  And not feeling is better right now than feeling pain, loss, and disappointment.

I don't know why this guy has gotten under my skin to this degree.  If I believed in such things as reincarnation I would say that he and I had some sort of major past life connection.  He feels it too...but I think he has decided that we must be on the very fringes of one another's lives, even though he is essentially single, and I have the freedom in my relationship to be with him as well as my primary partner.

Or he just isn't that into me.

Than that thought spins me into all the reasons why of course he's not into me...I am overweight.  I can't seem to take the steps I need to to finish this doctoral project.  I don't have personality.  I am not an artist.  Or a musician.  You know....all the excuses that might be easier to accept than whatever the real reason might be.

But none of that matters where I am.

I float above it all...The world turns.  I do what I am supposed to do at work, and what I need to do at home.  I put away the dishes.  I make my bed.  I take care of  the cat. I try to hide from my partner that I am half a person right now.  Sometimes I can come down to be with him...he mostly doesn't notice that I am not really here, I think.

And so the new year begins.

And whatever will be will be.

The Semi-Return of Heathcliff

So, the story continues. Heathcliff is sort of, and unexpectedly...back.

As the Brady's say, 'here's the story'.

I am a politics addict. I wake up to morning joe, check huff po & daily beast through out the day, come home to Hardball, stay on for Ed, check in with Keith, and hang out till the end of Rachel...Then the Daily Show, followed of course by Colbert during which I mostly fall asleep. I don't sit glued to the TV the entire time, but it's often on in the background.

So there was a news day of outrage a couple of weeks ago. I called my partner to vent, but I could tell he wasn't into the latest stupid thing so and so said, or what's his name did. Nobody at work cared either. My friends are not addicted as I am. (Read: they have healthy media boundaries.)  But there was one person in my life whom I know to also be a news addict--Heathcliff.

So after weeks of no mail to or from him...I sent him a note documenting the latest from the Republican Slime machine. I told him no one in my world cared much about such things, but that I knew he did and I lamented "but you don't want to talk to me anymore".

And that changed it. He wrote back right away...giving his in depth analysis on the points I had outlined. And saying he was sorry he was "out of touch"....which was quite the understatement. Out of touch? More like off the planet.

But the email relationship appears to be back. And it's good. I mean, at least it's contact?

I am still too happy when an email comes. And too disappointed when one doesn't...But the thing I could not understand was why after being so close we had to act as total strangers now.

My partner thinks things are not over at all. He believes that the bond between Heathcliff and I is most definitely still there and always will be to some degree. It has lead to some funny converations.

Me: Heathcliff wrote me again.

Boyfriend: What did he say?

Me: That Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Boyfriend: How romantic.

Me: Well....YOU didn't write to tell me that Obama was sending more troops!

Boyfriend: *eye roll*

So...the boat seems righted for now. I am not going to do anything stupid like suggest Heathcliff and I get together for a beer, or dinner, or to drink a bottle of wine and watch a dvd. Email is enough.

And while my wistful soul wishes for more, it is content that he is at least, even if in a very small fragile way...back.