when you're bitter, it's always a party for one
I've been trying--not very successfully, obviously--to get back here, to reboot, to make this over, to start over, begin again. Here and, well, every fucking where. My life is a cascade of ruin and potential. I'm not happy about that, but I'm not unhappy either. Things are just what they are. Imposing order on chaos takes time and strength, both of which I seem to have in spades, plus a couple of wild cards.
I'm spectacularly cranky right now, which is probably why I'm up late writing. I wanted to go to bed, but I don't think sleep will come just yet. I've been up late, counting lovers like some people might count sheep. Counting lovers and wondering why things turn out the way they do. Counting and wondering why, when every relationship is held up to the light and examined, the cracks are all in places where I said no. Where I said "no, you have to be the one to give in this time." Where I said, "no, not this time." Where I said, "No, I'm not going to let you do that to me again."
A couple of times I didn't even know that the "no" wouldn't be allowed, wouldn't count, would end everything. But most of them, yes, it was me just having had enough, and waiting for his next move. Which, for better or worse, was always out-the-door.
I'm not in a good place right now. I mean, emotionally I'm stable, but financially I'm a fucking mess. Because I said "no" there too. But there's a part of me that says it's time, we've gotten past a lot of this hurt, and it's time to start living again. But I'm so terrified of those "no's." You cannot go through life engaging with people and never saying no--and I know, because I've tried. It just makes you very very angry. VERY angry. Really really really angry. But if you can look back on your life and see what no has cost you, that the people you seem to attract to you, always run whenever you've had enough, well...that's not a very good place to be in. I bear some of the blame here, I know I do. When you've tried the (angry-making) walk through life by just agreeing with everyone and everything that happens to you, you never learn how to say no, and when your back is against the wall, and you finally must say the word, it comes out with the full-weight of all that anger, all that despair, right behind it.
But the letdown is so great, when you can see the promise of what something was, the "might've been", that I'm not sure I am strong enough to bear it. I could conceivably go through the small rest of my life now never even attempting to make that connection again.
And the fear is that I will.
And the fear is that I won't.
And that's the hole in one's life where the bitterness seeps through, little cracks in the facade of wholeness that make me even more afraid.
I'm so fucking tired of being afraid.
I'm spectacularly cranky right now, which is probably why I'm up late writing. I wanted to go to bed, but I don't think sleep will come just yet. I've been up late, counting lovers like some people might count sheep. Counting lovers and wondering why things turn out the way they do. Counting and wondering why, when every relationship is held up to the light and examined, the cracks are all in places where I said no. Where I said "no, you have to be the one to give in this time." Where I said, "no, not this time." Where I said, "No, I'm not going to let you do that to me again."
A couple of times I didn't even know that the "no" wouldn't be allowed, wouldn't count, would end everything. But most of them, yes, it was me just having had enough, and waiting for his next move. Which, for better or worse, was always out-the-door.
I'm not in a good place right now. I mean, emotionally I'm stable, but financially I'm a fucking mess. Because I said "no" there too. But there's a part of me that says it's time, we've gotten past a lot of this hurt, and it's time to start living again. But I'm so terrified of those "no's." You cannot go through life engaging with people and never saying no--and I know, because I've tried. It just makes you very very angry. VERY angry. Really really really angry. But if you can look back on your life and see what no has cost you, that the people you seem to attract to you, always run whenever you've had enough, well...that's not a very good place to be in. I bear some of the blame here, I know I do. When you've tried the (angry-making) walk through life by just agreeing with everyone and everything that happens to you, you never learn how to say no, and when your back is against the wall, and you finally must say the word, it comes out with the full-weight of all that anger, all that despair, right behind it.
But the letdown is so great, when you can see the promise of what something was, the "might've been", that I'm not sure I am strong enough to bear it. I could conceivably go through the small rest of my life now never even attempting to make that connection again.
And the fear is that I will.
And the fear is that I won't.
And that's the hole in one's life where the bitterness seeps through, little cracks in the facade of wholeness that make me even more afraid.
I'm so fucking tired of being afraid.