Difficult Times

I'm up late writing this because I went and had caffeine too late in the day. There's a lot to catch up on. Life has really sucked lately.

It all started Monday. I was at work when I received an email from Lucy that said this:

I don't know how long you'd wait for me. Even if I do leave next week that doesn't guarantee that we'd be together next week. Right now I want out of relationships. Just out. I don't want to deal with them and I don't want to think about them. I don't want to be asked what will happen between us because I don't know. This is very depressing, I'm sure. I don't like writing it. I really don't want you to bank on being with me right now. I will be here for you. I will listen to you. I will try to help any way I can but right now its only as a friend. I thought about this a lot while I disappeared from reality in VT. I hope this isn't too harsh. Does this make sense? I hope so. I can't think. I'm still sick. I just know that you are my closest friend and I care about you. I wish we could play scrabble.

I was able to hold it together till the end of my shift, but as soon as I got in my car to drive home I started bawling. It felt like the end. Without Lucy, what else do I have to live for? I thought about killing myself.

I called N when I got home and left an emotional message on her voicemail. I didn't want to be alone and hoped she'd be available. She returned my message and, though she wasn't able to hang out, she talked with me for a bit and tried to help me. She convinced me to call my therapist so I wouldn't have to wait till our scheduled appointment (which was today).

I've been feeding the beast ever since. My therapist let me come in on Tuesday at noon and he suggested I "hunker down" while I wait for the worst to pass. I've been sleeping a lot and watching Family Guy DVDs almost non-stop to keep myself from thinking. I haven't showered, shaved, or even changed out of my clothes since Monday.

But I'm starting to feel better. It's helped that Lucy is still here for me, writing emails and playing lexulous and sending me photos. She's been worried about me, though not as worried as she might've been had I told her everything. 

And I still have hope that we'll be together, some day. Not an unrealistic hope, as my therapist said today.

And when I came home from my appointment today, there was a message on my answering machine. It was Lucy. She's left her husband.

Back from Vermont

I've been an absolute wreck these past few days. I've been feeling terrified over thoughts of what I fear my life if turning into. I've put my life on hold for Lucy and, though I don't know what else or how else I could've done things, I'm feeling like I've fucked myself over.

Lucy came back from Vermont but without the plan for leaving her husband that she wanted to have. She almost left him the very night she came back into town, but he convinced her to stay another week. Though she doesn't believe him, he says he's finally figured things out and if she still wants to leave then he'd be okay with it.

He won't be okay with it. But I hope she can do this anyway.

But I'm not sure how much more I can take. I'm in agony. The confusion, the fear, and the loneliness are intense. I don't really have anyone I can talk to. No one I can talk to in person, at least. I'm afraid I'm going to be stuck in shit jobs for the rest of my life. I'm afraid I'm going to be waiting on Lucy forever and I'm afraid that, even after she finally leaves her husband I still won't get to be with her. I'm afraid I'm going to be stuck in this stupid town forever.

I'm having trouble functioning through all these feelings. Yesterday, I was crying in the breakroom at work. I'm so miserable I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know how to ease the pain. I'm wondering if I should go back on medication.

Reconnecting 2

Yesterday during work, almost a week after I wrote her, Alice got back to me:

hi aa!

so nice to hear from you. i must say i'm bummed that i missed your thesis as i've been in town since the end of april. i'd love to see what you did - do you have pictures? hee hee, photo major.

well, i got married, bought a house in [small nearby town], and am working at [small catholic university]. benefits are nice! life is being good to me. how is [current residence] for you?

post-home ownership i've gotten into the habit of dinner parties. perhaps you and [n] would like to come over for one?

i hope you're well - thanks for getting back in touch!

later gator,

alice

I'm really relieved to hear back from her, but now I'm in a pickle about writing a reply. She wants to know how I'm doing but how much do I share? She's doing great but I'm lonely, scared, and miserable and, because it's in an email, I'm tempted to spill my guts. I shouldn't though.

And she mentioned having a dinner party with N. I would love to go, but the idea freaks me out more than a little. Parties are incredibly difficult for me. Couldn't we just go for coffee instead?

I'm going to bring this up at therapy today. I'm thankful the timing of the reply makes this possible. And I printed out the emails—my original one and her reply—so I could reference them directly. I talk about emails a lot during my weekly sessions, so I wonder if actually bringing them in would help.

Reconnecting

I've been in a lot of pain these past few weeks, a truly horrible, barely-making-through-the-day kind of pain.

My insecurities about Lucy are actually only a small part of this pain. What's really been getting to me is sheer loneliness. But I've been working on it, trying to establish contacts and make friends.

I got incredibly lucky, actually. Last month, when I went to see the show being put on by two of my former fellow grads (or should it be "fellow former grads"?), I sent the two an email saying hello, congratulating them on the show, and apologizing for having to miss the opening reception.

Several weeks went by before I heard anything back from either of them. I was really starting to fear that I was being snubbed.

But then they got back to me! The reply I got from "T" wasn't much—a sentence saying thanks for the email without much room, I felt, for writing anything back. The reply I got from "N", however, was great. She asked if I'd gotten a new phone number, she gave me hers in case I'd lost it from before, and she said she tried text messaging me to invite me over a couple times. (Which, since I don't have a cell phone, I couldn't receive... I've been wishing I had one fairly often nowadays.)

With Lucy's help, I gathered up the courage to call N a message on her voicemail. With Lucy's further encouragement, I called N again the next day, and we did something that very night! It was an awkward evening for me, especially since we were joined by a friend of N's, but it was worth it. N and I have been emailng each other off and on since then, and the door is certainly open for us to get together again.

One thing N mentioned to me during our evening out was that Alice, another grad from my program that I was almost friends with, had moved back into town. (Alice is the person who said "I miss you" in #6 of this post.) After several days of thinking it over and with more encouragement from Lucy, I asked N if I could have Alice's email to try and reconnect with her. Then, Wednesday night, I spent several hours working on an email to her. I agonized over every little part of it and even sent it to Lucy first for feedback. Here's what I sent (in a slightly censored form):

Hi Alice!

AA here.

Anyhoo, I was talking with N, and she mentioned that you were back in town. Me, having never left in the first place, asked her if I could get your email address so I could say "Hi." I hope it's okay and not too creepy-stalker-y.

I finished with my thesis and everything last May, but I'm still in town just working and scraping by and struggling to figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life.

Anyways, it'd be great to hear back from you and hear how you're doing and what you've been up to. I hope you're doing well.

Laters!

I didn't know what else to say, and I feel like I didn't leave the door open enough for a reply. I didn't want to open the floodgates right away either. I'm incredibly afraid in all these interactions with N, with T, with Alice, and with anyone I like and want to be friends with—I'm afraid of saying or doing something wrong, something that would destroy my chances or chase the other person away.

It's only been a few days since I sent that email, but I'm still a little disappointed that I haven't heard back yet. Will I get a surprise email in a few weeks? That would be nice, but not something I think I can count on.

But She Does Like Me

I'm really insecure about Lucy. I know this. But why?

A big problem comes from the fact that our major mode of communication is email. She's often very busy with her school work or her husband is around and she can't be seen writing to me, he dislikes me so much, so she can't always write as much as I'd like and she doesn't always respond to everything I write.

But even when she does have the time and energy to write, I still find the conversation lacking. The nonverbal communication is gone. The vocal intonations that clarify mood and and attitude are gone, leaving many things incredibly vague. The spontaneity and the immediacy of the conversation is gone.

I do my best to think about what she says and does and not react impulsively, but then I make myself upset anyway because of some super fast thought that zipped through my mind or because of something she said or didn't say and it's a struggle to maintain a clear head and isolate these thoughts to defeat them, but it hardly seems to work.

For example, last week I ended up writing something bad—a short and dismissive and inconsiderate email—and Lucy called me on it. It upset her. I realized my mistake and wrote another letter apologizing and admitting that I'd done wrong. And, while Lucy kept writing me that day, which I took as evidence that we were okay, she didn't respond to my apology at all until the next day, which left me in a complete wreck. I didn't know if she was still upset with me. I didn't know if she accepted the apology. I didn't know if I'd made things worse. But we were okay—it made her feel better to see me admit I'd written something callous and to apologize and to try to undo the damage. I just didn't know it.

For another example, Lucy has been open with some of her worries lately. She's worried things might not work out or that she'll hurt me. She tells me not to plan my life around her. (What other life do I have?) She reminds me a lot that she's not going to want to jump into another relationship right away. (Which I'm fine with. She can take as much time as she needs as long as we can still talk and hang out. But I wonder if it'll truly work out that way.) But instead of taking these things just as worries and fears, as founded or unfounded as any of the ones I have myself, I take them (unintentionally) as reasons to think that she doesn't really like me, that she's put off by me. I start to imagine that she'll leave her husband and, ultimately, not want to be with me either.

These are good concerns she's having, actually. I mean, we have no idea whether or not we might actually be good for each other. But keeping these fears about the future as what they are, just fears, and not transforming them into false assumptions about today has been incredibly difficult. I tell her that, more than anything, I just want the chance to find out, the chance to have a relationship with her.

She does like me. She really truly does. All my fears are swept aside when we're together, when she's right there next to me.

Neither of us knows what's going to happen, but we both hope change will come soon. I tell her that she's really strong, that she can do this, but I don't think she believes me. Lucy is leaving tomorrow for Vermont, actually. She's going to visit with some of her professors and a friend she has there. She'll be gone until Thursday and she's told both me and her husband that she wants the time for herself, that she's not going to have her phone on. Her friend there knows at least part of what's going on and I hope Lucy can figure some stuff out for herself. she wants to come up with a plan for herself, so she can come back from Vermont and leave her husband.

I have my fingers crossed.

Of Course I Voted...

I've been jokingly telling people that I voted for Bill and Opus, but no one seems to get it. I'm very disappointed by all this.

Afraid of Losing Lucy

What do you mean I can't reuse therapy homework for blog posts?

What's Going On

It's been almost two weeks since my last post and I feel guilty about it. Here's a post to help us catch up some.

***

The biggest thing keeping me from writing has been the sheer amount of pain I've been living with recently. Lucy's last day of work was over a week ago and ever since then I've been absolutely miserable at work. I've been unhappy in the store for a long time, but I've stayed on because it was a place where we were guaranteed some time together. Even if it varied from week to week and even if it was hell trying to behave and not be too flirty or touchy-feely, it was the bulk of our time together. Now that she's gone I don't know where or when I'll get to see her again. It's killing me.

She has managed a couple visits this past week, during times when her husband has gone for classes and she keeps the car to run errands. (Sure, her husband has his own car, but he only drives her. His car doesen't run well from disuse, and there's even weeds growing from it. The hypocrisy is that last winter he made a special trip just so he could bring this car from his parents.) These visits are absolutely wonderful. Heavenly. But they can only last a few hours and then she has to go or I have to go to work. The loneliness sets in quickly once Lucy's left.

Loneliness, this is where most of my difficulty comes from. I'm extremely lonely. So lonely, so pervasively alone that it's been near impossible for me to much of anything at all. The pain has been unmitigating.

To cope, I've withdrawn myself into my DVD collection. Complete TV show seasons, more specifically. It's still small so I replay the same few things over and over until I get absolutely sick of them. For example, I have the first four Aqua Teen Hunger Force seasons and I haven't watched in years because I overdid it in the past. Nowadays it's been Space Ghost: Coast to Coast Volume Three and Family Guy Volume Four.

I can't watch anything too serious, either, because I'm in a really sensitive and fragile position. Today I put in Young Frankenstein on a lark and that was almost too much.

These are tactics of avoidance, I know, but I don't have any other way to manage yet. Therapist J suggested I turn to the internet and an online community somewhere to fill the emptiness somewhat while I work on making real-life friends, but I find the online world very frustrating. I find myself lost in the ocean of posts and comments and replies and I don't have the patience to sit and read everything.

***

Things were only made worse this past weekend when I drove to Cleveland to visit with a couple of old friends and to help with their Halloween party on Saturday.

They're good friends, but not close ones, really. Not as close as I'd like. I was awkward around them as we got ready for the party Saturday afternoon but as soon as my older brother and his wife showed up my anxiety skyrocketted and I closed right up. It wasn't until my brother and his wife left the next day (we stayed the night in Cleveland) that I was able to relax and talk and have fun in my friends' company.

Of course, having fun with other people just made it all that much harder to come home. As soon as I said goodbye and walked out the door I was in agony and I felt like breaking down. The four hour drive back was absolute torture.

***

Now that Lucy has left the store, I've been feeling the urge to leave too. I hate retail and I hate the store and I can't stand the managers and I dislike my coworkers. I hate the bullshit tasks I'm given and I hate the corporate nonsense.

But do I really want to find a new job? Job hunting is one of the hardest things for me to do. Searching, making phone calls, applying, and interviewing—the entire process is so stressful and draining and full of unknowns that I'm afraid to begin. Actually, the search itself is really daunting. I'm so sensitive and have such a low threshold for stressful situations and human interaction that most jobs are out of the question.

What I really want to do is teach. With my degree I'm qualified to teach at the college level, and I've taught five or so photo classes for my grad assistanceship. When I met with a former profesor almost a month back (not this one) she said another university in town had an opening for an adjunct to teach photo and she gave me the name of someone to get in contact with. I had my hopes up on getting this job, but the position was filled while I was waiting for them to reply to my emails asking what materials they wanted.

I'm disappointed that I didn't even get a chance to apply. And now that I've got the idea in me, I really do want to teach! But it's going to have to wait now while I try and get a job that'll pay the bills. Teaching as an adjunct doesn't pay well at all and I'd have to teach several classes in order to make ends meet, which is won't work for me, especially since I still have doubts about my ability to teach one class. My plan now is to get a different part time job first, one that pays better than what I'm earning now, and then branch out from there.

***

I've been working on this post on and off for over a day and it's gotten a little long, so I'm going to make this a multi-parter.

Take care, y'all!