Canines and Cars and Air Mattresses, Oh My!

DC in the Fall is a weird place. Aw hell, let's face it - DC any time of year is a weird place. I think the Fall is weirdest. It's not really cold like winter-cold, but everyone's bundled up like it's mid-February. The trees have no leaves left, but there are still some flowers. Over Thanksgiving the students have gone home, but immaturity still abounds in the form of the government.

I digress... we went, we saw, we fraternized with the family. My family. My boyfriend and my family. 4 days of it. 5 nights of sleeping on an air mattress with the tossy-turny-snoring-furnace I love so much. I'm amazed I'm still living. Oh, I forgot someone - my family, my boyfriend and MY DOG. Yes, Duke is a roadtripper. He was a champ.

We saw Kristie (which is good medicine for all that ails me), we ate dinner at my favorite restaurant w/the afore mentioned medicine (who is gorgeous, BTW), we hit golf balls, we ate lots of things in quantities that could kill a man, we hung out with my little brother who is turning into a man more and more every day. Good trip, long trip, exhausting trip.

I had a therapy appointment yesterday. I think it was good. She said the "D" word. It was hard to hear a professional say the "D" word when you've only uttered it in frightened, hushed tones to those closest to you. Hard to hear and strangely affirmative. Maybe now that someone else has named it I can get rid of this mess.

I'm rising up

Let us rise up and be thankful,
for if we didn't learn a lot today,
at least we learned a little,
and if we didn't learn a little,
at least we didn't get sick,
and if we got sick,
at least we didn't die;
so, let us all be thankful.

-- Buddha

Today, in this week of Thanksgiving (political views regarding the real story of Native Americans and Pilgrims aside) I am thankful. I am thankful for friends who shine the light on the path ahead so I don't stumble. I am thankful for the internet referral service that matched me up with the counselor I'm seeing next Monday. I am thankful for the first of the true baby steps.

Answers

Here's the question of the day - how do you stop regretting something? I can't seem to push certain things out of my mind and they keep torturing me. I suppose a more apt way to say that is that I keep torturing myself. Always been a bit of a masochist. So, how do I stop it? I've not been successful thus far and I'm getting nervous that this torture is becoming a permanent thing.

The whole strategy of "fake it 'til you make it" has come in handy many a time for me, but for the last few months a pattern has been developing - I'll have a couple days where it seems to work for me. I'll honestly think that I can beat whatever it is that's getting the better of me and I see the bright side. But then, just a few days later I sink back down into defeat and I can't even muster the energy to fake it. It's wearing me down and taking its toll on every aspect of my life.

My relationship with MT is suffering because I can't get my head right. He's a bit afraid that the woman he fell in love with was either a well-crafted facade or she's run off somewhere to hide from the world. Honestly, sometimes I'm not sure which is the real answer - that's both terrifying and disappointing. My friends (caring and wonderful as they are) can only take so much of the grumpy-puss Melissa before they start to get frustrated and annoyed (I can't blame them - who wants to be constantly walking on eggshells around the same person day after day). I'm alienating myself from everyone I love, that's usually a bad sign.

I've got to either get out of my own head long enough to take a deep breath and look at what's outside or I've got to figure out how to make the jumble of my brain make sense. For now I think I'll figure out how to use my new sewing machine. I figure it'll distract me for a minute or so and it might even bring back my creative spark.

I figured something out today

The lyrics below are from a Death Cab For Cutie song called Someday You Will Be Loved. It's on an excellent record called Plans - you should listen to it if you haven't yet. The snippet down there is what I'm afraid of.

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

I'm always afraid of being forgotten. I know there's no more "us" for me & him. There hasn't been for a very long time. I'm making myself OK with that. Even so, I don't want to be reduced to nothing but fuzzy memories for him. I don't want to be forgotten. I don't want him to have me and yet I don't want him to discard the thought of me. I know that's the most selfish thing to feel. I know it and I still feel it. I want him to remember what my hair looks like when the sun hits it, how I make cooing noises in my sleep when I'm dreaming, the way I dance around the kitchen when I cook, the way I used to look at him when I hoped everything would work out harder than I'd ever hoped for anything before.

I hope now that this feeling will fade just like the memories of me will fade for him. I'll be a series of blurs and sometime soon I'll have to be OK with that. I have to learn to be OK with that.

Smile like you mean it

See her? She's happy. She hadn't yet had to kill off a part of herself so the rest of her could thrive. I'm getting back to her. I'll find her again. I'm sure it'll be a long quest, but the goal is worth it.