Cast away is a movie most people don't relate to their lives very often, but in my situation it's very appropriate. For so long I've been trapped alone on my own island. My isolation may be out of own doing or years or just years of conditioning. The last time I went to my mother about a problem the only advice I got from the conversation was, "Be strong." Which basically translated to suck it up, don't cry, and just do it.
I pull myself away from the world to hide away my emotions. The best way I found to do it was playing YPP. It started when my grandmother, and soon after my grandfather, went into the hospital. With both hands I pushed away the whole world. There was only a few occasions that I let people in, only one occasion in which I cried. My crying was out of full guilt. The night before my grandmother was taken into the hospital when her bowel preferated and her body filled with her own waste, ultimately ending up in her being severely poisoned, I went to her house to see how she was and I left without giving her a kiss and telling her I loved her. Now I was faced with the reality that my grandmother might die without me telling her how much I cared about her. Of coarse I spent most of my life telling her, but it's just that last time, that last chance, you might have to tell them before they pass. I wasn't going to get that.
Luckily she came through & eventually came home to live with us at our house. I stopped my obsession with YPP and tried to help more around the house. Something I didn't balance well with my relationship during the whole coarse of their illness. She'd soon go back into the hospital for almost the same problem, but she'd suffered from a stroke during her second stay. Her personality took a violent swing. My gentle grandmother who basically raised me turned into a woman I didn't even know. Again, I went into hiding.
The second stay she had, which she ended up having several more after, was around Christmas time two years ago. Joshua came down to Jersey, after we had a fight, for New Years and we visited her. I remember holding onto him so tight because I'd always been plagued with the ideas of the future with his heart condition.
This pattern of the revolving door hospital stays would go on for about two years. In that time my grandfather would join her by having massive bi-pass surgery on his heart. My grandmother would have four reversals of her bowels to date, if not more. This took a horrible toll on me emotionally to see my grandparents who were always so strong my whole life be bed ridden, frail and sick.
Not to mention our home situation. My mother barely ate or slept during that time. My grandparents came and went, living and not living with us. Nothing was ever settled for more then a month at a time. We were always in a constant change. My grandmother had a sugar shock, two strokes, and heart attack all while living with us. It seemed like we lived at the hospital or the ER during those two or so years. Things have settled for the most part in their lives, but these problems are still here. My grandfather only has a few years, at the best, to live with his heart. My grandmother still needs constant care from my mother, which puts a strain on her.
College never worked out the way it should have, or at least the way it should have in the dream world high school weaves for you. I have a few college credit to my name, but not many. It doesn't seem that was the direction my life should have went it & it didn't. My career path has been a hard one to determine.
My career path also became a tension between my mother even to this day. At first she couldn't accept the reasons why I had to drop out of college. She'd belittle me, constantly and flip-flop on my idea of going into real estate. Most of the time it would result in her yelling at me, even in front of other people. One night I broke, I couldn't take it anymore. My regard for what she told me went out the door. She'd always told me that she wouldn't support me, she wouldn't be there for me if I decided to start my life with Joshua this young in my life. Not to mention, she wouldn't like our living situation. I went against everything she told me, packed up my things, and moved in with Joshua. The event wasn't want made me move in, but what gave me enough courage to stand up against her, to tell her what I truly wanted to do in life for once.
My life with Joshua has and always will be the highlight of everything I did. It always felt like it was right. When we started cooking together, I can remember watching him cook when I did the dishes or did something else around the kitchen. I could always see us in the future, I could always see us eventually becoming a family. Yes, we did have our problems completely coming to true adults, but I always thought we could grow together. When I moved in we cleaned, made schedules and plans.. most that never came through, but I can take a big part of the blame for that.
Both our lives were changing as we started our life together. Out of habit, I turned back to YPP to hide from all the issues I was having with my mom. For a while, I couldn't even call her to tell her I was okay. I let Mark call me while living at Joshua's, and he talked for hours on end about the alliances and shoppes. It was exciting to me, but inconsiderate in the same sense. I'd never had to think of someone else's feelings twenty-four seven like I had to then. Joshua would indirectly tell me he was annoyed or bothered by the call. We'd talk about it on the surface, kiss and make up.
Soon after Alex made his first call to me. My feels for Alex have always been something like the song "Umbrella". We'd always been best friends, always turned to each other if something was bothering each other, and we had a great dependence on each other to start with. The phone just made that dependence worse. I'm sure if I heard my significant other giggling with the opposite sex, I would have been jealous too. With Alex I was trying to open me up, trying to help me up with all this pain I was holding in.
When everything came to a head, I left there thinking I was leaving for a weekend. Instead of trying to talk, I shut myself down and I literally shut down completely. Over the past two months I've felt this horrible depression, which I'd never felt before. There was something missing in my life, something I wasn't aware of at first, but I've come to realize probably much too late.
The month following our break up, I started to heal, but then I was faced with the fact that I hadn't had my period since I left. Thinking it was just a little off, I waited and waited, but I couldn't shake that fear. It was an odd fear. In some way I believed I was being selfish for wanting to be pregnant, but in the same sense I knew it was the wrong time in life to bring a child into the world. Again, I went into hiding. I was filled with so much guilt and hurt inside, that I pushed almost everyone out. I pushed my love as far as I could, but he should have been the one I was turning to. At the worst moment, I told him what was going on inside of me. If it wasn't for Kelly being there for me, I probably still wouldn't have known.
I should have reached out. For both of our sakes. When he'd call me drunk, I just reacted angry that he'd turn to alcohol to deal with our problems. Instead I should have realized he was calling for my help. The biggest cry I missed was his grief over his grandfather's passing. When the news initially came, I was going to go to New York with him, I'd never called off work to be with him. Somehow I made the suggestion that I wouldn't go because it was time for him to be with his family. Which is true, but when he came home, he cried, we cuddled and then we snacked out on Wegman's food. To me, it's seemed like the issue was taken care of, especially since my way of dealing with it was to file it away shortly after. We've talked about all our issues, but never followed through with the emotional aftermath. If I could only step back in time & know what I know now, but how many people feel that way? Just about everyone, I know.. but I just wish I could have helped him.. because I always felt like I was there for him every other time & this just proves I started to fail all the way around as even a friend. I want to fix that.
There's a lot I saw yesterday that made me realize how much I meant to him deep inside. It's not that I didn't know, but I felt like I needed to hear it, which looking back feels selfish. We weren't the best at expressing verbally how much we meant to each other, how much we depended on our love, but.. it always showed through. Nothing was more satisfying then the time I had to crawl into bed with him and hug him as hard as I could. Now I don't have that and I regret it. I regret every moment I didn't come to bed when he asked, I regret every night we spent alone, I regret.. so very much.
There's so many dreams I've put aside that I still want to do. I want to learn Japanese so I don't seem so much like a tourist when I go on my honeymoon, I want to go to Otakon, I want to see the cherry blossoms bloom in the spring down in DC, I want to build a scale model of the Totoro house, I want to flip houses with my partner, I want to live out everything we had dreamed. Individual dreams or else wise. There's still so much I want to do.
It took me so long to pull out all these emotions, probably too long. Right in front of me was the person I could have went to, I could have healed with, but I shut him out. As a result, I've lost him as my.. future husband. I'd never used the term "boyfriend", even when we first got together. We'd always fit together more then the sophomoric expression of "boyfriend" and "girlfriend". I'd even ask him all the time when he was going to propose.
I'd never questioned why we were together, it was always just because. I'd ask him why sometimes & when he couldn't answer, I'd get fustrated, but now looking back I couldn't make a list myself. Words on a piece of paper or leaving your mouth to describe someone doesn't amount to very much if there isn't just this feeling.. the feeling we had. That feeling as never left me since that day on Morey's Peir. Soaked in rain and being pulled around by friends and family, it started to grow. I was never happy with how I looked, but I could care less that day because the boy I was falling in love with looked on me with eyes of indifference to who I was on the outside.
I let him go so I wouldn't hurt him with myself, but instead, I ended up hurting him anyway. It makes me question if I'm good enough for him in the end. Yesterday I swallowed any pride I had and offered to clean his apartment for his meeting with another girl today to try to make him happy. That's just how much I love him. During all the time I've known him, I have wished for his happiness and health, no matter if it was with me or not. As much as it pains me to make a statement like that, I truly mean it. We've known one another for over three years now and I never thought that "with another" would come into play. He's always been the only person in my heart and I'm so regretful, the most, over the spot I lost in his heart. Since we broke up, I had two guys ask me out, but I turned them down because my heart doesn't belong to anyone else.
If you love something, let it go.
If it comes back to you, it's yours.
If it doesn't, it never was.
It might sound cruel, but it's all I have to live by at the moment.
We've flip-flopped, traded sides.. because what he wrote, is totally how I feel right now. Part of which is has always been there, but I thought he'd always be there waiting for me. Waiting for when I was emotionally stable enough inside to carry a part in our relationship. It's not fair to assume.
"I would say at least 75% of our arguments probably stemmed from
something where if I took five seconds to think about it, it wouldn't
have been an issue. You could ask me how I'm different now or how the
situation now is different from all the other times. Saturday night
when I wrote you that email where I had mentioned about that empty spot
next to me...maybe that's what made me realize that I'm losing
everything."
I read through all the old email today, all the old comments, some of the blog posts.. as much as I could. One of them was entitled, "I Dream of You". I dreamt of him last night. Nothing big, but it was a dream. We were sitting on the curb during a rain fall (it seemed we always got caught in the rain when we saw each other), we sat face to face, ignoring the rain and just paying attention to one another. What we talked about I can't remember, but it didn't seem to matter. I smiled like I do when I see him and I couldn't stop, I didn't want to stop.. I just wanted to be there with him, exsisting as us.. because without him, I don't exsist. That's been the biggest part of my depression, I just wish I realized this months ago..
At least I've taken steps to being happier, being more secure, being more open then I ever have been before. Maybe someday, I can be that girl he fell in love with again, though.. this isn't just for him. This is just for me being healthy in life most of all. It's just, he's such a big part of my life, that it effects him severely.
I'm done talking, I suppose. It's amazing how much litteral weight has been lifted off me during these past few days. Just the rest of my life to keep it up. I've made a few promises to myself already: to not hide on YPP, to cry when I need to, and to express every day what is inside of me if it's love or if it's just having a bad day at work.. it all needs to come out and not kept to pile up.
