Grief; Broken Hearts; Paladin's & Mine
It has always fascinated me that I fall in love so easily while in the midst of grief. Had any relationship ever been other than a rebound? From my father to my obsession with sex and my first boyfriends, and from them to Wolf, and just thirty days from Wolf (my first love), to Dragon (my second). Just a month single between Dragon and Porcupine, and then the better part of a year feeling miserable (and playing around with Unicorn, Cerylidae, Wolf again, and others) before finally landing on my fourth love, my husband, Paladin. And now, in the midst of my grief over the nearly six years with Paladin, here I was madly in love with Hibiscus.
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"It's the gentlest break-up experience I've ever had," I said to Hibiscus on Thursday night. "But it still feels like a break-up."
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Tuesday night I tried calling Paladin and didn't get an answer. The same thing happened Wednesday night, and I wrote to him, typing from the malfunctional touch-screen tablet Paladin had given me, "Love you. Miss you. You around? Had a very emotionally trying day. Wish I could talk to you. Cleaned out fridge together. Epic process . . . on multiple levels to say the least. Sigh. Process alone time now . . . I miss my vibrator. A lot. Maybe I should get a toy that is not synthetic. Maybe you could research for me? Miss you . . . Want you. Feel rejected from no sex. I realize it is not me. But I feel like I've done something wrong . . . You know? Cam sex would be nice if internet were up to it and you were around. Clearly you are not."
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An hour or so later I wrote, "No reply from you still... Sigh."
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In the morning I texted him, "Good morning dear. You awake? I miss you."
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And hour and half later I texted him, "What about now? NOW are you awake?"
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Ten minutes after that: "So what happened to hearing from you more than just a single text in a 30-hour period of time?"
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In the afternoon Paladin wrote, "I don't know. It seems that I've been assuming you were busy."
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Twenty minutes later I texted back, "How does my level of business affect you texting/e-mailing me?"
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Two hours later he texted back, "I don't know, but I feel like it does. I think that's a really big block. Trying to answer the question or think about it saps my energy."
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Much later in the evening, after a series of various outings and errands with Hibiscus, I replied, "I'm sorry to hear. I feel like I have no way to connect with you. When I'm available I call/text/message/e-mail you and then I check back & there is still nothing 12 hours later, and maybe one text 12 hours after that, again and again. It makes me feel . . . like you're not a part of my life."
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Hibiscus knocked on the door and I got up from my computer to be with him while he ate the salad I had made from him earlier. This is my partner, I thought. The thought kept occurring to me throughout the day, like a revelation. It felt good and it ached at the same time.
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What am I feeling? Why do I feel so sad? Hibiscus just bought me several things I've been really wanting. I got so much cleaned and organized today. That felt so good, so why do I hurt so much?
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I tried to get to the bottom of my feelings, but as I spoke Hibiscus tried to respond to each thing I said.
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"You have a lot to learn about processing," I said, dismally thinking of how wonderful Paladin was at helping me through a process. Hibiscus was often very perceptive in his responses, yet the timing could be better.
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"I'm sorry. It is something I want to learn more about."
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"Paladin and I tend to wait until half an hour, at least, after the process before giving feedback on the content of the process. Admittedly, sometimes I get so angry that I have to stop facilitating in order to retain my calm. But ideally, the facilitator only asks questions and doesn't offer thoughts until afterward."
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"Okay."
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And then I started to let it pour out of me. At first his silence was confusing to me. I was so used to his nodding, his compulsive need to say "uh huh" after everything. His silence was startling, and it was what I needed. I needed to just speak, to feel into all of it, to let it bubble up and manifest as words.
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Beneath resentment there was anger. Beneath anger there was grief. Grief and guilt.
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I felt angry with Paladin for not doing more to save what we had. Emotionally I couldn't believe he was still mine - not when I didn't see him, hear him, feel him, or even receive much by way of written word. The idea that we'd visit his parents together in December was unreal, immaterial. Had we really been apart less than a week? It felt like so long ago that I'd last seen him.
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I was on my bedroom floor with Hibiscus. I didn't really understand why we were on the floor. It was hurting my tail-bone to sit there. When Hibiscus finally decided to move and I realized how much pain my position alone was causing me, I resolved to not do that again.
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"You said you'd cry over Paladin," Hibiscus said.
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"Yes. I will. Eventually. And when I do, it'll be epic I'm sure. More along the lines of wailing than crying."
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Hibiscus let me know his need to get to sleep. "I feel like I'm abandoning you, even though I'll just be across the hall."
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Yes, you're abandoning me. But it's the right thing this time. You need sleep, and I need to try to contact Paladin. I can't let this rift set like this. That would be my betrayal if I did that.
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I just smiled sadly at Hibiscus. He tried to ask me how I felt about him leaving. "If I answer that question," I said, "I'd be keeping you here at least another half an hour. Go sleep."
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After Hibiscus left I returned to my texts, the pain in my heart was overpoweringly strong. I texted Paladin, "My level of emotional pain over you tonight is off the charts. Just got angry and beat up an invisible you while listening to the song 'on fire' which you may recall from Dancing Freedom. Didn't know I had so much violence in me. Hibiscus is being awfully understanding of all my drama about you."
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Paladin replied, clearly flustered, "Look, this is my day. I slept until past 2pm. I slept poorly and woke up tired. My back hurt and my massage pillow has finally quit for good. I checked my messages on my phone before I was even out of bed. You hadn't said anything much aside from good morning and then complaining about me not having said much in response to your messages. Fact is, in the thirty hours before that wake up message, I'd texted you about as much as you had me."
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His message dripped with defensiveness, and my heart pounded angrily with fresh reason to express its wounding.
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I replied, "I also tried calling yesterday and last night and the night before."
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"I have one missed call from you on Tuesday and nothing since," he wrote. I blinked. Technically error? Perhaps the Internet hiccups at Silverstag had been worse than I thought. Was the universe conspiring against me spending time talking to Paladin?
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Paladin went on, "I'm upset that you're feeling rejected by me when frankly, I've been feeling like you don't really care to talk with me when you have someone better to be spending your time with. It seems like that impression may not be fully accurate. And I'm sorry I don't share much via text, but there's nothing good to share from this end."
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Reeling with all the implications, feeling stabbed, shocked and rocking in my computer chair, I wrote, "I have anxiety about calling you now. Never had that before. I feel like if I don't, I'm telling my heart it really is over and there is nothing to do but mourn." I added "alone" to the add of the sentence and back-spaced it again a couple times. I was alone in that Hibiscus had already gone to bed, and my mourning was my own, but at least I would have a shoulder to cry on when I finally found my tears. It seemed that I couldn't cry about Paladin yet. To cry might mean I'd lost hope. It might mean resignation.
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Switching to instant messenger I messaged him:
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Nuria: I hate myself.
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Paladin: No!!! Not you, too.
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Nuria: Mirrors bitch, face it. I am a venom ball.
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Paladin: Self-hating is expressly my domain.
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Nuria: Wanna take this outside?! (*is amped to take this outside*)
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Paladin: On roller skates with boxing gloves.
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Nuria: wtf?! lmfao . . .
I hated myself last time I attacked you anyhow. Probably shouldn't repeat that. . . .
I'm mad at you because...
You didn't turn things around a long time ago. Because stuff has been slipping for years and I didn't . . . I didn't stop it either.
I felt powerless. I still do.
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Paladin: Yeah, it sucks.
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Nuria: This could have been us. [I meant the passion I felt with Hibiscus. I felt accusatory; Why couldn't you have been this way, Paladin?]
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Paladin: ??
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Nuria: Why the fuck couldn't it have been [passionate, transparent, exciting - but I didn't finish my sentence, I didn't want to hurt him] . . . why couldn't I have been [stronger, wiser, more kind, more considerate, more accepting, more inspiring, more authentic] . . . I didn't know . . . [how to be authentic, how to show you my real selves, how to see you for what you were, how to cradle and nurture you the way you needed.]
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Paladin: Yes, no. I don't know. I'm a fail. I keep letting other people tell me what to do.
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Nuria: Take life by the balls. [I had gotten that expression from Cerylidae back in 2009, a few months before I'd met Paladin.] No time like the present. I'm not there to hold you back. You've got no rent on your head. Take your free ride before it ends and RUN. Pull out all the stops.
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Paladin: I've been feeling really shitty the last couple days and realized it's because I feel obligated to do the stairwell, because your mom's been pushing me to hurry on that because she wants to be able to burn her fucking food again. It hit me this evening that I was having trouble making progress.
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Nuria: I started reading Empress aloud to Hibiscus. I'm sad we couldn't read more today.I got carried away, we both did, with doing other not-very-important-logistical stuff.
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Paladin: because of not following inspiration because of trying to meet other peoples f-ick deadlines.
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Nuria: And now I'm wide angry and he's in bed. [And I keep asking myself, where is the polyamory in this? Do I really have someone to comfort me when the other is not available, or do I just have twice as much to process and only one person with me and available at a time to help me anyway?]
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Paladin: that was supposed to be f-ing, so clearly self censorship fails.
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Nuria: It fit. [f-ick seemed appropriate to me.] I feel like I don't have a right to be so upset about you after having Hibiscus spend so much money on me in the last week. Like somehow my emotions ought to have been bought too.
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Paladin: Psh. Bullshit. If you don't have a right to be angry at me, it's only because you were my partner in crime exacerbating all the issues I had.
How's he supposed to fix your issues with me? That's not even his domain. And they're certainly not his dysfunction.
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Nuria: Yeah, but I feel like I owe him my happiness, my gratitude, my affection. Not my sad, angry, frustrated self. He keeps telling me its fine. But I don't feel like its fine.
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Paladin: Not being okay to feel what comes up is a lot of what gets people into the type of mess we have between us.
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Nuria: Yeah. I know. So I have been trying to let it out now that I've found it all buried under my smiles. [I looked inside and took a deep breath. Yes, I had been hiding a lot under all my smiles.] How dare you think I just don't want to talk to you! And here I thought you were not capable of betrayal! I literally thought that earlier today. "Paladin isn't even capable of betraying me on any level." I thought that thought.
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You saying that [you don't want to message me because you assume I'm busy] makes me feel like the last conversation we had together was a lie. Where you said you wanted to stay in touch with me, and stay connected. I asked if you'd rather have faith that if it was meant to come back, it would . . . or whether you'd like to stay connected. And you chose the latter. You said.
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But I feel like that was complete bull.
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I asked that question for a powerful reason you know. Because I was setting up my own mind to be something for you. Well, that's a mistake.
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If you had just said the former. Then I wouldn't have to feel like you're breaking my heart. (Lies to self.)
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Paladin: Do you really think about missing me or talking to me when you're spending the day there with him?
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Nuria: Fuck. Just wound me a little deeper would you?
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Paladin: "To tell the truth, I found myself hardly missing Paladin at all."
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Nuria: Meta-feelings about that are a bitch.
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Paladin: You think I hadn't started reading it again, now that we're apart. It's the one thing I had to console myself with since I hadn't really heard from you. And it wasn't a big consolation...
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Nuria: I don't know what to think. I think I feel like a bloody mess.
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Paladin: I'm sorry. I'm sorry I suck at calling. I'm sorry I'm shit when it comes to taking initiative and reaching out.
I'm sorry that I can so easily talk myself into doubting that you or anyone would want me.
I'm sorry for believing that every ounce of time, attention, or energy that you or anyone puts into me, is something I can never repay fairly.
I'm sorry that I'm where I am at in my path, that it's driven you away from me.
So my consolation is that you are happy, and if you aren't even sure of that... then I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
Cause I'm pretty hollowed out over here.
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Nuria: Your path at the moment is impossible for me to track and walk beside at this time.
I hope your hollow space is making room for new things that are better.
I don't know what happened. Why didn't you see it when we were at Lilac's place? Didn't you feel the powerful magic that was happening?
Did that go wrong? Or did it play out the way it was meant to anyhow?
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Paladin: I ... don't know. I don't know what's coming, whether this is some sort of hurdle, or something worse.
I keep trying to tell myself that's it's all going to turn out okay for me, but it's hard to convince myself for long.
I'm hanging onto my belief that you're manifesting something amazing for yourself, and that helps.
I try to tell myself about what I can do here, little dreams, but I feel so confused.
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Nuria: My mind tells me on repeat that you need a new woman. Someone to lead you where I can not.
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Paladin: I'm not really sure I agree. I feel like you and Hibiscus are the only two I interact with that don't want more from me than they can offer me.
Everyone else just adds obligations and commitments that weigh me down.
I'm not sure that's true from an intellectual perspective. It feels that way.
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Nuria: The *right* woman for you should make you feel like you're amazing just by being you.
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Paladin: You're the only person who's EVER managed to make me feel like I'm amazing just being me. Perhaps that's why I'm so attached to you.
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Nuria: I'm sorry your life has been like that.
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Paladin: It's kind of funny that the tone of this conversation reminds me of how I was consoling you during our first conversation.
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Nuria: I'm in so my pain in my heart.
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Paladin: I'm ... so am I.
If I call at any time, is that okay? If I message you and whine, is that okay??
If I tell you my life sucks and I don't know what to do, is that okay?
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Nuria: I guess so. Probably just as well, considering how much pain I've been managing to feel about you all throughout the day on the low.
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Paladin: I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you.
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Nuria: It only hurts so much because of all the joy we've had together.
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Paladin: I guess this time, we can share being hurt together.
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Nuria: You could walk away from your projects in my parents' house and see about making a life here, of all crazy things. We'd have to face what that'd do to the guest room situation.
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Paladin: Ah. I'm not sure. I doesn't feel . . . right. I don't think I'd ever be able to feel like I wasn't an intruder.
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Nuria: You already feel like you owe everyone anyway. I just thought I'd throw it out there. Since you're clearly miserable as things are anyhow.
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Paladin: I will let it sit in my mind and make itself a home if there is one to be had in there.
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Nuria: We could at least talk about what that might look like when you visit. . . . My heart keeps thinking that we must be breaking up or broken up. It keeps mourning you no matter what I try to tell my heart.
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[It was past midnight. I was beginning to wonder if I should give up the conversation and just lay down. I felt emotionally drained and the aching continued relentlessly.]
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Paladin: I love your heart. It is beautiful to me.
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Nuria: Beautifully broken and aching.
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Paladin: I cherish it for loving me. I'm out of tissues.
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Nuria: My mind keeps trying to figure out what the hell is going on. And all my emotions can register is that you must be gone. When Hibiscus asked me how I was feeling earlier and I looked inside, I immediately got "shock." Now I know why.
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Paladin: I can't be gone. I don't want to be gone. I never want to be gone. Please don't let me be gone . . . Please forgive me.
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Nuria: *reaches out to touch you*
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Paladin: I lvoe you i love you i love you i love you.
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Nuria: *smiles* I'm so glad you do. *strokes your face*
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Paladin: I'm so very scared.
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Nuria: I'm still here for you.
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Paladin: I'm a mess right now. I'm sorry. Sorry, it's hard for me to talk. I feel like I don't exist without you. And it's unhealthy, and I feel a bunch of codependent stuff come up with it and a very very desperate yearning to be with you and when I ask why it's justified, I see everything you've ever shown me about love that noone else has ever shown me.
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. . .
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And then I called him via video chat. He was blowing his nose. It was nice to see him. I wanted to touch him. So beautiful.
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Earlier that day, when riding in Hibiscus's car, my thoughts kept playing on a loop: This is my partner now. He drives me places. He buys me things. He loves me, cares for me, and wants me. Look at him. See those crinkles around his eyes? See those blemishes on his skin? This is your husband now. This is what love looks like now.
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And superimposed over these thoughts was the memory of Paladin's Honda Accord and the highways of Sunnyland. There was the shining golden hair of Paladin as the sun illuminated him from behind, making him look like the classical images of an unrealistic, but beautiful Christ. My personal Christ, my personal savior. The one who I found when I was so terribly lost. He taught me to fold dish towels, how to use knives, how to clean a bathtub thoroughly, how to prevent dust-mites, how to socialize without offending anyone, how to accept . . . My Paladin.
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I hadn't been able to recognize my grief, once again.
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Paladin was so very slow to speak in his emotional state. My head would race ahead and have ten thoughts before he'd managed to finish his sentence. Entire minutes would go by without him conveying a full thought to me. It was a sort of torture, especially when I couldn't touch him. My eyelids were heavy and I needed rest.
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"I feel like we were talking more over instant messenger," I said.
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"What?"
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I repeated myself. He couldn't understand me. Whether it was the tablet's microphone or bad Internet, it didn't matter. I hung up and used the faulty touch-screen to punch out my messages to him instead.
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. . .
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Nuria: Working better in text. Less distorted. Also felt like you conveyed more in less time.
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Paladin: Text is better for communicating.
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Nuria: And was less painful. My mind is racing. I struggle to follow when it takes so long between thoughts. With text I can just reread if I lost the context.
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Paladin: My mind has a lot of trouble pulling thoughts together when I'm in touch with such painful and desperate emotion.
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Nuria: I'm exhausted, been up since 6:30am. But. I want to hear your feelings. Would you keep writing me even as I fall asleep?
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Paladin: It will be hard to follow once you've closed your eyes. It may also be harder for me to verbalize without response, but I can try. Until I cannot.
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Nuria: Maybe I'll follow in my dreams. Tell me your fears, wants, hopes, and foremost concerns.
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Paladin: It may not make sense: I am alone in this house. There is so much that reflects my inner confusion and conflict over what I'm okay to be.
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Nuria: I am sorry.
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Paladin: I'm afraid of not being able to pursue the things I feel that I want, I imagine a way to start on something I want and I find out that I feel it is . . . in conflict with something else in place. And as I try to free up space, I find the space fills up with the scattered effects of my efforts to organize.
There is soot and ash in so many places in this house.
There is so much rubble in my mind from battles I've lost with myself and as I try to expose that, it becomes overwhelming and threatens to suffocate me.
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Nuria: Parallel intended, yes?
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Paladin: I want to clean up and build, but it requires things that cannot be paid back. Stream-of-thought, but yes. There's an obvious connection. The two are there to show each other.
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Nuria: Ash. Soot. Battle aftermath. Suffocating.
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Paladin: As you've told me many times, I need so much help, but the people around who 'can' help need more than I can give in return.
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Nuria: [Why won't you talk to Macaw? He could help you. He's asking nothing in return.] Hibiscus has feelings of debt, chronic, too. I feel like you can learn so much from one another. He already has learned so much from you. I'm glad he is visiting for Thanksgiving.
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Paladin: I feel empathy for his struggle.
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Nuria: And he, yours.
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Paladin: I will try to have the house ready for then, but I am scared that I will fall short of successs.
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Nuria: You've not even been back a full week yet. Many weeks ahead.
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. . .
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I turned off the tablet's monitor. It was one o'clock in the morning and I was too tired to keep on. I slept and woke to Hibiscus coming in my room. The pre-dawn light combined with my fuzzy vision to make him a shadow coming toward me. I was pleased when I realized he intended to have sex with me. I groped for my jojoba oil and moistened myself liberally. I came easily on his cock. It was a pleasant distraction.
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Then we spent an hour talking, most of which was me exploring the surface and edges of the grief I felt for Paladin. It was massive, based on its contour. I could tell there was a black hole of grief, and yet I wasn't willing to fall into it. I stood at the edges, gently testing it. My heart ached.
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After Hibiscus began his morning meetings I sat down at my computer and pulled up the instant messenger. I admitted I liked technology that allowed me to continue a conversation via tablet or laptop without any loss in context.
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. . .
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[1:17am] Paladin: I'm not sure how things stand financially. I have to figure out how to eat and work on house and figure out work possibilities and all those take money. And I don't know how much you'll be able to spare.
And I used up money from my dad paying last months bills. And that money was supposed to cover expenses of house repairs, not my eating for the next month or two while I get myself situated.
And you need to pay taxes come Jan. So, I don't know how much you can spare to help me out.
Ugh, I feel so much anxiety.
And what I really want to do with my office takes money, too. And it makes me feel like my ideas for what I want to do aren't permissible because I'm not allowed to put the time or effort into them because other stuff has to be done all the time.
I'm feeling so disillusioned, right now. I can't keep this up. It's exhausting me and it's physically painful to sit in this uncomforatable chair and type with my back the way it's been all day.
A new massage pillow would cost money, though. I need to lie down for this process to go any further. I'll probably pass out, though.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm manifesting all this shit and then dumping it and my emotional garbage at your feet.
I'll try to call you tomorrow around an hour after I wake up. I don't know if I'll talk myself out of it. :(
I'll probably be in bed pretty late again. I hope you sleep well and have a good morning tomorrow.
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[4:26am, three hours later] Paladin: I'm awake again. Have been for awhile. Woke up thinking about what I said about money worries and fearing that . . . that it'll hurt you and undermine the process I'm going through. I realized I might guilt you into giving me money that you aren't intending to help me with or something. I'm not really sure, it's several different thoughts, all related, but not necessarily interacting clearly.
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Okay, let me see if I can sort this out. I think I'm sooo stressed out about this because it's a subconscious process intended to make me need material support, the same way Oryx is so sick because that's the only way she'll get the help she wants from people.
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I think I see having my needs met as proof that I'm loved and because I don't love myself and need that love coming from somewhere else, I need to be in a financially untenable situation. I can't succeed, because if I succeed then I can't get love, because I won't need help. And if I don't need help, then I won't ask for it, so I won't get love from others. Because I must see material gifts as real evidence of love. - I don't quite feel this way consciously, but it still seems to resonate.
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Financial independence didn't help with this process because it just isolated me, which helped make me a match for you, because only you would need me to be financially supportive and need me to give up my means of doing so.
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I think that doesn't make sense, but I feel that it does.
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What I need to learn to do is simple. Like I had to learn to say no to requests, I also have to learn to ask for help. I have to feel like it is okay to ask for material assistance. To ask people to help me meet my financial needs.
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This is why you felt like getting a job would help me, because it would require the process of getting the job, which I find so excruciatingly painful because it starts with me - from my point of view - asking for something I don't feel I deserve.
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And yet, there are several elements of it that are running counter to that, at the same time. It is a discordant process. Because it feeds into the lie that I am not loved, therefore I must provide for myself. ???
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Not sure. I'm typing without really thinking at all about any of this.
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The summary, though, is that my process is to learn to ask instead of being in need. Which makes perfect sense. This is part of the reason we resonated so well. Our relationship would have been a easier match if you were with someone who would ask you for what they wanted and who would set clear boundaries and make you do things for yourself, and say no whenever you were demanding too much. I eventually learned a bit of saying no, but the other two processes have not been going anywhere very fast.
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I'm not sure I can ask . . . because it's related to my sense of worth and whether I deserve to be loved, and my belief that I don't. And therefore asking to be loved and not having that request met is very scary.
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But being in a state of stress about my lack of worthiness to have my needs met and fearing that they won't be met and stressing about it until I force myself to cry out for help without my conscious agreement has been the only way my subconscious - or at least a part of it - knows how to get the love it feels I can't get any other way.
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I think I'm repeating myself, but I'm not sure. There's some circular logic to this, but the mind is often circular.
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I'm not sure how to get my needs met, but I guess I need to learn to ask for help and I'm not sure I can. It doesn't feel safe. It never feels safe to ask for help, because I feel like I'm asking for love and also that I'm not worthy of it.
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There, I've finally written something of substance to you. Maybe in the morning I'll be able to sit down and read it myself and make sense of it.
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. . .
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I nodded to myself. I'd known these things, but hadn't been able to express how circular it really was. I wasn't sure how to respond. I went to the bathroom, put away dry dishes (mainly jars that had been emptied into the compost), and washed dishes (mainly jar lids, but also Hibiscus's salad bowl from the previous night). I thought about making Hibiscus breakfast several times, but felt sick at the idea. I've learned my lesson. Don't prepare food for others when I don't want to. It only results in disaster, either in the food itself, or in me emotionally.
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I wrote Hibiscus a note asking him to help himself to fruit, greens or any number of other things. I put a plum, an apple, a pawpaw and Amazing Grass powder around the note. I almost left the kitchen without eating anything. I had filled a quart jar with ten ounces of frozen raspberries to thaw for later. I took out some of the raspberries, still frozen, and ran them under hot water to thaw them a little. I added them to a small jar with two spoonfuls of sheep's yogurt and then topped the jar with raw goat's milk and took my food with me upstairs.
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In the hall I passed by the plastic drawers I'd picked out that Hibiscus had bought me. They'd been on sale for $25 each and they were some of the nicest plastic drawers I'd ever seen, with attractive wavy-fronts and metal-looking handles with faux-wooden surfaces on the top. The idea of rearranging my room and having them in it made me gleeful for a moment.
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The raspberry-yogurt-milk combination was delicious. I'd made it for myself several times the previous day. I let my thoughts roll around a little, trying to compose myself in a way where I was ready to respond to Paladin, but all I could think of was "Thank you," as in, "Thank you for baring your soul to me. I'd forgotten where it was, and felt unable to reach it. Thank you for letting me touch you, see you and feel you in my heart again. Thank you."