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It has been brought to my attention that I am making slow and steady progress.
Really?
This is a “can’t see the forest for the trees” moment. As much as others believe I’m making progress, I am having a difficult time seeing it. I recognize I am slowly emerging from my “shell”, enjoying lost pleasures now that My Love and I are no longer together. I am enjoying afternoons at the movies, playing rock n roll on the stereo while cleaning my apartment (it’s the music I enjoy, not the cleaning), and other stuff I can’t think of at the moment. But is that progress? Should it take so long to heal? How long will it be before the pain goes away? I am getting to the point where I feel like I’m stuck in a rut, that I’m trying too hard to break free and do something different, but all I do is slip backward.
I am attempting to manage my emotions when I think of My Love. Sometimes successfully, other times not. But she is tough. She has hung on longer than any former girlfriend in my life, in that I cannot shake the thought of her. I don’t want to let go. As much as I want to move forward, I recognize that she has helped me reinvent myself, so to speak. There are unanswered questions. Such as…
WHY? Why couldn’t she talk about her issues with me? We have there for each other all along, why stop there?
WHY? Why could she just walk away? Did she fall out of love with me? Did she not want me in your life?
WHY? Why does it seem so easy for her to walk away?
These questions may never be answered. They may be answered only when the time is right . Here’s another that I need to consider:
WHY? Why have I hung on so long? Why can’t I forget her? Why won’t I let it go and get on with my life?
It’s not because I enjoy feeling this way. It’s not that I am trying to be a martyr, suffering in my self pity. I am not taking pity upon myself, allowing my emotions to get in the way of living my life. At least not outwardly and not as intensely as three months ago. I recognize that the end of my relationship with My Love didn’t end in a conventional manner. The only issue that was familiar was that she broke it off. I have ended up on the short end of all relationships with women.
I guess I’m just lucky, he says with tongue planted firmly in cheek. This time, it was old boyfriends and ex-husbands that did me in.
This one’s been rolling around in my brain for most of the weekend. It’s one of those philosophical questions that reach out and slap you in the face from time to time. This one comes from a John Grisham novel called “Playing For Pizza”. More on the plot, but here’s the question:
What am I doing here?
The story concerns a washed-up third-string NFL quarterback, who’s only option is to play in the professional league in Italy. His world has been completely turned upside-down. In the process, he begins to learn what life is all about through Italian eyes. He learns how to live well.
I finished the book in a few hours on Monday and walked away finding something I didn’t expect to find. I found myself mirroring the main character, and asking myself the same question:
What am I doing here?
My love had sent me a response to some of the posts I had written in these pages. One of the discoveries she made that we were “very good together but frighteningly stuck”. What does that mean? Did it mean our relationship wasn’t progressing the way she hoped? Did it mean I wasn’t progressing the way she hoped, or was she more concerned about her role? If we were that good together, it would be a step forward to bring this issue to the table and discuss it as a couple.
My guess is that she was waiting for the shoe to drop. She had been married twice. They were short courtships and quick weddings. Without going into details, both of her ex-’s betrayed her trust and hurt her deeply. We had two blips on the radar within the context of our relationship. While most relationships would take the experiences and learn from them, we separated for brief periods. It’s my guess she did that as a way to reassess the relationship. They were tow painful periods in our relationship.
Frighteningly stuck? Can a relationship have those times when it’s necessary to just “be” – taking time and recharging your emotional batteries? Were we “stuck” in the sense that we weren’t progressing and a couple or as individuals? Those are valid questions and could very well be applied to My Love and I.
Can you get unstuck? Is it possible to step back, see the realtiohnshiip for what it is, and make the necessary changes to make the relationshiip vital and interesting?
All questions to be answered at a later time.
November 4. Four days after Halloween.
I am assuming that most of you have come out of your sugar coma by now. SInce I never bought Halloween candy in the first place, I’m happy to report that my eyes are clear and bright and I have energy to burn. I was not found sitting on my couch and covered with wrappers.
I have a love/hate relationship with chocolate. My Love turned me on to dark chocolate. Her claim that it was an aphrodisiac was spot on. Well before that, there was Nutella. For the uninitiated, Nutella is a milk chocolate/hazelnut spread with the consistancy of peanut butter. It is smooth, thick, and sinfully good. I discovered Nutella when I was on a high school exchange trip to Germany. My first breakfast with my host family included Nutella. What a great way to start the day! Sometimes I’ll heat it up and pour it over vanilla ice cream, or I’ll make peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches. My mother will buy Nutella in HUGE jars. My Daughter is a Nutella junkie. She’ll hoard a jar in her room so her brother won’t swipe it.
But despite loving the taste of good chocolate, I have a tendancy to overindulge if there is chocolate in the house, and the result is not a pretty sight. I have a history of abusing food. Whenever I’m having a tough time emotionally, I binge eat when I’m alone. I haven’t weighed myself lately but I can tell I’ve packed on a few pounds. That ship has been righted and we’ll be working to slim down. The fact that I recognize this is helpful. I recognize that I should be taking better care of myself. But my emotions are taking over when I should be in control. Lately, I have lost the desire to cook and have turned back to Mickey D’s and take-out Chinese. I need to remind myself that I need to think about what I eat. My weight goes up when I eat like this, and I recognize why I eat that way.
I have discoverd this fact: there is no timetable for mending a broken heart. I know that the majority of the time I do alright. I am in the moment and enjoying life. But there are times, such as when I discovered that My Love was reading my blog for real, when my heart goes into a tailspin, causing it to try to figure out which end is up. I catch myself daydreaming and figuring out what she’s doing, what her impressions of my writing are, and just getting lost in thought. That is the tendency that needs to be changed. It’s as if my heart has left a light on for My Love, waiting for her to come back.
SHE”S NOT COMING BACK, FOOL! GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULL!! SHE”S GONE AND YOU’RE HISTORY!! GET OVER IT AND GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE!! SHE DOESN”T WANT YOU ANYMORE!
Sounds harsh, doesn’t it. It needed to be said.
I am now waiting for the translation for my heart. I suspect my heart speaks another language.
It’s Election Day. If I were in Chicago I’d say, “vote early and vote often”.
It’s a gorgeous sunny day which made walking to the polls a wonderful experience. After a short line and an even shorter ballot, I made my way back. I decided to talk the long way, so to speak. Deering Oaks Park is a wonderful space, designed by Frederick Olmstead, the same man who designed Central Park in New York City. There are wading pools and a playground for kids, basketball and tennis courts, horseshoe pits, a very quirky baseball field (very short down the line and a “deep” center field of 350 feet), and wonderful walking paths under a variety of trees. As I walked through the park, I found some chestnuts on the ground. I hadn’t seen chestnuts since I was a kid in Bangor.
But the crown jewel of the park is the duck pond. The perimeter of the pond is surrounded by a 3-foot stone wall with flat cap stones. People like to sit at the edge and feed the ducks, along with the seagulls who come inland to “slum” in the park and steal the bread from the ducks. Today the pond was full of ducks, splashing and quacking.
In the center of the pond is a simple fountain. There are colored lights that come on after dusk, making the fountain look like a beacon coming up from the water. About fifteen years ago, there was a week-long festival in the park, put on by the Chamber of Commerce. One of the highlights of the week were the Chinese fireworks that were set off over the pond. It would stop traffic, turning State Street, Park Avenue and Deering Avenue into parking lots. I was living four street up from the park at the time. My Ex- and I would walk down and spend the evening.
Today, it was kicking fallen leaves, breathing deeply, and “looking up”. I remember a story I’d read when I was a boy. It’s was called “Frederick”, and it’s about a mouse who lives in a stone wall with other mice. Rather than help gather food for the approaching winter, Frederick is content to sit on the wall, basking in the warm sunshine. The other mice aren’t too keen on him not offering to help. But later, when the winter winds are howling and their food supply is dwindling, the other mice come to Frederick and ask him about what he stored for the winter. What the mouse stored were memories of the warm autumn days, the feeling of the stones on the wall, and the colors of the world surrounding him.
I was always touched by that story. For me, it’s about taking stock in the world around you, and keeping those cherish memories tucked away until the right moment. Someday you’ll pull them out when you need a laugh, when you want to remember a loved one, or to remember a time from childhood, when the only care you had was having a friend to play with or a bike to ride.
On a day like this, I’ll pull out memories of jumping in huge piles of maple and oak leaves. I’ll remember walking to school and listening to the crunch of the leaves under my Stride-Rite sneakers. I’ll remember hikes with church youth groups, stuffing scarecrows with my children and propping them up in lawn chairs in front of the house, and a first kiss. That happened on a football fan bus, heading south to Portland for the State Championship game. She was a year ahead of me. She also was the one who pulled me into a supply closet after school, teaching me to French kiss. We kissed on the way down and coming home, scrunched down in the seat so that no one would notice. She went out of my life as quickly as she came in, and I didn’t stand a chance.
I also remember the first time My Love and I first made love. It was around this time. We began our afternoon walking in her neighborhood, kicking leaves and holding hands. All the time in the world was ahead of us, and all the time was what we needed. I won’t get into details, but it was the perfect day.
And it was the perfect night.
Create your memories today. Let them bring you warmth when your life gets cold.
I am feeling MUCH better today. I could’ve slept a few hours more than I did, but there’s this thing called work. You have to do it to earn money. You then take that money and buy things and pay bills, not necessarily in that order. Therefore, the time change tonight is a welcome thing. We all dread spring and the time change forward. Yeah, I love the sunshine but I could really use that hour of sleep.
My Daughter and I never made it to the hockey game and we didn’t get to carve pumpkins. She got a call from her work. Three guys called out and there was a huge restock coming in, and would she come in to work. She really wanted to spend time with me, so she worked out a compromise. We had enough time to put a stirfry together and just hang out in the kitchen. As for the hockey tickets, I gave them to My Son and his girlfriend.
I have finished CS training for L.L. Bean and will start shift work tonight. I’ll have enough time to rush home from the warehouse, change and clean up, and off to work. This is how it will be for the next 8-10 weeks. Good thing it’s fun work or I would dread it.
Exciting, huh?
whaddayah want for nothing? Rrrrrrrrrrrubber biscuits?
Bow bow, oooooh ooh.
I want to take care of some housekeeping today. There’s stuff I want to write about but really don’t want to go into great detail.
Except one.
My Love has been reading my blog.
No, really. This time she has been reading it.
When I opened my mailbox this morning, there was an email from her. That surprise packed a wallop. I sat there and stared at the screen for a while. I wasn’t sure if I should open the email. When you don’t expect it, the emotional impact seems to be much greater.
What I discovered was a gentle note. She has been having difficulty sleeping lately. Last night, it was another tough night for her, so she decided to take the plunge and read my blog. What kept her from reading it before now was fear. My Love was afraid that I would rip her to shreds, that the pain and anguish she caused would be spilled all over the page and she would be to blame.
What she found was reflections tinged with sorrow and sadness. It was a surprise for her, though, to find me treating her with tenderness and respect in these pages. It’s the only way I know. I hope it sent her a clear message that I still love and respect her, no matter what happens between us. She changed my life for the better, and I could never repay that kindness. My Love still wants to communicate, but I believe my heart needs more time to heal. I want her to return and read more of what I’ve written. I want her to understand that I am doing the best I can with what I have. We were given a wonderful gift: a love that most people dream of but never find.
Moving forward……
I have a date tonight.
I am taking My Daughter to a hockey game tonight. Before that, we will carve jack o’ lanterns and make homemade chicken fingers for dinner. My Son has plans with friends, otherwise he’d be joining us. We all love hockey. The kids, their mother and I would go watch our AHL franchise several times a year. One year for Christmas, we gave ourselves a half season ticket package. That season we logged in 25 games. It was great. Tonight, however, it will be a Daddy-Daughter Night.
I started my seasonal job this week. For the past five years, I have worked the phones for L.L. Bean during the Christmas season. I use the money for Christmas presents. I also get DEEP DISCOUNTS at the employee store. It’s a lot of fun. I get to step outside my box a little and talk to people from all over. The folks from the South are very friendly and love to chat. I also get to (internally) chuckle at some of the folks who drop a thousand dollars in an order. They have a certain air about them. It’s part confidence, part insolence, part entitlement. I have no problem with people who’ve been able to make their money work for them. There are some folks who seems to think that their crap doesn’t stink, and those are the folks that need to be taken down a peg. But, as a customer service rep for a company that prides itself on world-class customer service, I have to bite my tongue and smile.
I should be quite busy for the next 8 weeks. They usually dismiss their seasonal employees before Christmas. I’ve wanted to stay as long as possible to make some extra to stash away. This year, however, I think I’ll request to be let go just before Christmas. I’ll have to work my regular job on both Christmas and New Years Day, so I’d like some time to make merry.
Everyone enjoy your weekend. Enjoy the ghosts and goblins on Saturday. Find a costume and let yourself go. Don’t just hide behind a mask. Get out of your skin and try on another.
How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You).
That song has the ability to stop me dead in my tracks and trigger a “highlight reel” of memories, all of which make me smile and causes my stomach to churn. If I could, I wish I could keep it from being played on the radio, in a restaurant, or in a store. I like the song. It’s a great song. But it was “our song” and it makes me think of My Love. It’s hard to get over her when I keep hearing “our song”.
I can come up with some very good reasons why it continues to bring me to a dead stop. We used to dance to this song in my apartment. I used to sing it to her while holding her in my arms. I would it if we heard it on the car radio. We would look knowingly at each other and grin, remembering an intimate moment.
The lyrics say it all:
I needed the shelter of someone arms/There you were/I needed someone to understand my ups and downs/There you were/You were better to me than I was to myself/For me there’s you/And there ain’t nobody else.
Those lyrics encapsulated our relationship and what we needed from each other, which makes it all the more bittersweet. My Love ended our relationship because she felt that I was being shortchanged, that the balance of love was leaning more to her side than mine. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: what she gave me was far superior than anything I’d experienced before.
I will never stop thinking about her or wondering if she’s taking care of herself. There is so much that I possess that brings back memories of My Love. It will be sad, though, when all she is in a faint memory and a smile on my face whenever I hear “our song”. She’ll always be with me whenever I hear James Taylor or Marvin Gaye.
The song remains and the thoughts bittersweet.
Find your bliss.
Sounds like something I’d read on the inside of a Dove chocolate wrapper.
But if I don’t know what it is, how do I find it and would I know it when it pops up.
According to Dictionary.com, bliss is defined as “supreme happiness; utter joy and contentment”.
Hmmm.
I’ve heard of A Love Supreme (thank you, John Coltrane) and Diana Ross and The Supremes. But supreme happiness? Is there such a thing, ans what do you need to accomplish to achieve it? Can mere mortals hope to find supreme happiness or is it like nirvana, only met when certain conditions are overcome? ANd should we have to work that hard to achieve it?
Find your bliss? How? When?
These are questions I’ve pondered while making my way through the haze and hubris of my life. If we can identify those special moments, unique places, and interesting people in our lives as blissful, then I can understand the concept. I can recall the amazing places and people I’ve encountered. Whether or not they are blissful is up for debate.
I can recall a handfull of blissful moments:
1. the births of my children. No further explanation.
2. Both of my visits to Scotland. It’s proof that there are places in the world where one feels completely at home. I sensed that this was a place where I felt truly intigrated with my surroundings. What’s wonderful is that I’ve only scratched the surface of what I could’ve experienced.
3. Standing atop Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. I’ve done it so many times and, yet, every time I do it’s like the first time.
4. Flying down the Hudson River, on approach to LaGuardia airport in New York City. I was flying down to take a physical when I was hired at American. We were in a Saab 340B turbo prop, and the tower had given the captain permission to take the “river approach”. One moment I’m looking out back towards Connecticut, then next we’re banking hard left and I’m staring at the Statue of Liberty from above. We flew just off the tip of Manhattan. I could see the World Trade Center. I could look over Manhattan and see the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and other New York landmark buildings. I’ve flown in and out of LaGuardia many times since and have never taken that route since. It cetainly can’t be done now.
5. Any day at the beach. I prefer early morning or late afternoon. Being near the water is the best feeling. It must be something primative. I can sit and listen to the sound of the waves, and feeling the calm move through me. It’s always a toss-up whenever I ponder the eternal Powerball question: “beach house or lake house?”
There are more. I can’t recall them at the moment. Some I won’t reveal. They were shared moments between myself and someone special.
‘Nuff said.
These are moments in my life where I have been touched so deeply. I have been blessed and these connections have helped shape me. Where will I find my bliss? I guess it’s something you cannot create out of nothing. Like love, it comes to you at the appropriate moment in time. It finds you.
Here I am, come get me.
I am wearing “the Boyfriend Sweater” today.
I had never heard to the term until I was dating My Love. She had bought me a maroon sweater from JC Penney. The purpose of the sweater was to retain my smell, my fragrance, my odor, whatever. She explained to me that I was to wear it a few times, then give it to her so she could wear it and think of me.
The hard part was I didn’t have a “fragrance”. No cologne, no aftershave, nothing. I was fragrance-free. The good news was I didn’t stink, either. I had gotten out of the habit of wearing a manly scent that would drive women wild.
Just reading that last sentence makes me chuckle. I picture the Marlboro man, macho and muscular, with a face full of character. He would wear something manly to attract women. That’s why men wear cologne, to attract women. I didn’t wear it in college. I had tried Old Spice in high school. Very cliche. My grandfather wore it. Maybe that’s why my sex life was in the pits. Wearing the cologne your grandfather wore isn’t likely to appeal to women in their 20s.
Wearing the “Boyfriend Sweater” was almost a moot point, except that My Love helped me pick out a fragrance that she liked. She found that the sweater worked its magic with something to stimulate to her brain.
I am wearing this sweater for practical reasons. It’s chilly here on the coast, and it’s a light but warm sweater. It’s doing nothing for me at the moment. Except maybe bringing back some old memories. A good friend told me that she wears an old gray tee-shirt that belonged to a former boyfriend. She told me she had been wearing it while at home recovering from a nasty case of flu. She said that wearing it had made her melancholy and she was thinking of this man, and wondering why they weren’t together anymore.
I could relate. There are a few articles of clothing that remind me of My Love. She used to wear my fleece bathrobe when she finished her shower. Whenever she would spend the night, she wore a blue pajama top with a pair of striped pajama bottoms that belonged to me. She also wore one of my oxford button-down shirts around my apartment. There is nothing sexier than a woman wearing a man’s shirt as a nightshirt, with the sleeves rolled up and the first three buttons left undone. I can see her, lying on the bed reading, with a comfortable, yet slightly rumpled look and come hither look on her face. It makes me go weak in the knees thinking about it.
No doubt there will be other episodes when my memory will take me back. The question is how to deal with them. The triggers are unpredictable; I never see them coming. My stomach doesn’t churn they way it used to a few months ago. Since I carefully placed her photograph in a box with her love notes and cards, I have a difficult time remembering her face. It’s as if she’s a shadow that drifts across my memory. I remember those legs, her lips, and how she would nuzzle into me whenever I would come up from behind and wrap my arms around her.
Writing has become a challenge all of a sudden. I’m having a difficult time concentrating. I need to settle my brain.
Sorry.
