Must be catching up with me
03/02/2009 08:09 p.m.

I feel tired today, drained. I don't want to judge myself for how I'm feeling, or attach any extra significance to it. I just want to observe it, and allow myself to be as I am.

I miss him.

I am going to go away this month, somewhere. I don't know where just yet. I would love to go back to Breitenbush, but I'm a bit wary of it just yet as it was on that trip that Miah proposed to me.

I checked into going to visit my sister in Missouri, but the only time I have available to do that would be spring break, and the tickets are prohibitively expensive for that week (of course), so that doesn't appear to be an option. Maybe I'll shoot for summer break. I'll have a week between the end of spring term and the beginning of summer term.

My mother said she would come to care for Meme, so we'll see. I've been invited to visit my friend Beth in Eugene (she's a wonderful woman I met on the trip to Breitenbush). She's invited me to attend her dream group on Wednesday the week of March 23rd. It's a group of women who have been meeting for over a decade to discuss dreams, and create rituals that honor their collective processes as women. I like it, and I'd love to start a group like that here in The Dalles. So it would be one way to nurture myself some, check out the dynamics of a group like that, and hang out with Beth too.

I am currently reading the book "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's pretty amazing, to see bits of myself in her experiences and her beliefs about herself, and to read of her 12 month journey through Italy, India and Indonesia.

I dreamed, last night, that my ex husband came in a guise of friendly banter, but he had hidden a knife in his sleeve, and sliced me with it during what I thought was going to be an embrace. I woke quivering, my heart pounding, and stayed awake for some time afterward.

I wish I could sleep for about a week.



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Next assignment for poetry class
03/02/2009 06:05 a.m.

We have to write a sestina (a 39 line poem, with a certain form, and words that repeat in a particular pattern). This one has me a little stumped, but I'll post what comes of it. Hehe.

I am currently: stumped
Listening to: an empty house



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Grateful
03/01/2009 07:30 p.m.

I am so grateful for the friendships here. I can't even begin to express, with any sort of accuracy, the gratitude I felt this morning when I logged on and there were such loving and encouraging comments. I know we all don't get to have coffee, or get together to discuss the latest books we're reading, or get to hang out at all. But I do feel a real sense of love and support, and I just want you all to know how much I appreciate it.

My son cleaned the kitchen this morning, and then hugged me. He and Jeremiah will remain friends, and that's a good thing, but he expressed his distress that I was hurt in the end, and how he didn't like it. For a 17 year old, he's quite generous with his love for me, and I'm so grateful.

I have an appointment with my counselor in Portland later this afternoon, and then I think I'm going to take my mother to dinner. The 1 1/2 hr drive through the Columbia Gorge to get from where I live in The Dalles to Portland is so pretty, especially this time of year with the rain and the rainbows - visions of promise for brighter days - perfect.

Instead of feeling alone this morning, I feel nurtured and blessed.

In a way, it's nice that Jeremiah took so long to actually go. We were able to process a lot of the hurt and disappointments we were feeling with kindness and caring. I will always feel fortunate on that count. We did something probably unconventional last night (although I don't really know if other couples do this or not, I just know I never have before) - we went on a goodbye date. We went to dinner and then to a play that my uncle is in, so that our final goodbye didn't have to be at my house - so we wouldn't leave that sad and draining energy here where I have to keep living. I, personally, thought it was rather brilliant of us. And it worked, at least for now. I didn't feel that lingering emptiness after a relationship ends from the missing person and their missing possessions.

Well, I'd better button this up - gotta get ready for the trip to Portland.

I am currently: hopeful
Listening to: Jaya Lakshmi


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Goodbye
03/01/2009 07:33 a.m.

He's gone.

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Today
02/25/2009 05:39 p.m.

Today is our last day together. I am depressed, but resolved. I know it's the right thing. I did my I Ching today, Cast Hexagram 19 with no changing lines (which basically says to me - that is all you need to know for now, there is no transition to another Hexagram to worry about). Part of what it says in that Hexagram is this:


"You are in a position to help another.
This is a temporary situation, because your power is cyclical, seasonal.
Knowing this, you must perform your good deed without hope of reward.
You are not furthering your own process, but another's.
Though you may cherish this other, you will never possess.
Touch without grasping.
Take comfort in becoming a fond memory.
Nurture, then let go."


I'm sure it's exactly right.

I am currently: Letting go
Listening to: Tomorrow


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Shifts
02/18/2009 10:36 p.m.

Today I feel the heaviness of loss. I feel the widening gap, the letting go of the details of our day-to-day interactions with one another.

Should I bring lunch for him to his new job? No, they provide food.

Oh. Is it vegetarian food? Sometimes.

How is he feeling today? Stressed for time, he needs to learn faster.

A package came for him from Amazon. I didn't know he was expecting anything. It's certainly not a present for me.

A strange number on the caller ID, a woman he wants to rent a house from.

The garbage can filled with papers he no longer needs, papers he untangled from a drawer that used to be filled with "our" stuff.

This is the evidence of him disappearing, ever so slowly, like a the torturous erasing of a chalkboard that was once full of things I couldn't afford to forget. I scramble to commit them to memory before they are gone for good - the shape of his fingernails, the curve of his knuckles, the ripple of his forearm muscles, the slope of his jaw and the exact color of his eyes, the smell of his skin and the way his soap lingers indoors for hours after his shower, the weight of him pressed against me in our bed.

The dogs are restless, pacing, sniffing at the ambiance as it shifts from him being here to him moving away.

The tears boil up from magma depths inside me, wracking my frame with explosive eruptions. I feel a cracking of my essence, my planetary self splintering into microscopic fragments. I'm sure of it, but as I bend to pull myself back together, I notice that

I..... am....... still....... whole.

I am currently: avoiding my homework
Listening to: the sirens wail on the street in front of my house

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The Day After
02/16/2009 05:59 a.m.

Well, I will thank God for small (and large) blessings. Yesterday wasn't so bad.

I think I'm liking the pace we've taken for the break up. Since the break up isn't ALL about disagreements and obstacles, since a lot of it is simply a mutual decision to end our committed relationship in favor of some growth that has to happen alone, (even though, things ARE ending nonetheless), I'm trying to allow this to be a softer/gentler ending than one that is angry where we are both cast to the ends of defensiveness and degradation.

That first week was hard. He's leaving on the 20th. We'll see how the rest of the time goes. I'm sure after he is gone, my bottom will fall out. For a minute, anyway. I'll climb back up.

I visited today with a friend I met when Jeremiah and I went to Breitenbush. Her name is Beth, and she's about the sweetest person I've ever met, and funny, and tender, and intelligent, and brilliant. We went to lunch and then went to a nearby new-age bookstore. We bought healing stones and books (I bought "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert - highly recommended by Beth) and had a great time. She is one of the only women I've ever hung out with in my adulthood, and it feels strange but very nice to have an actual potential friend.

Afterward, I saw my counselor, the one I thought Miah and I were going to be seeing together. I wasn't sure if it was going to be an exit session, or if he would consider continuing to see me on an individual basis. He will see me individually, and I'm grateful. He got his Masters at Harvard and he's a Unitarian Church minister, so I think his suggestions are going to very helpful.

He said he sees me as sort of always fluttering about, not being grounded anywhere. Well, ok - I think that's probably fair enough. I have always tried to use relationships to ground me, and, well, we see how that's worked out through the years (more like NOT worked out)! So, it's time to figure this stuff out once and for all, define my passion, and where I want to go with my life. It feels like he's going to be a life-coach of sorts. I haven't run that by him yet, and I'm not sure how he would feel about it, but I think that's what it feels like to me.

In the meantime ("oh NO, not the MEANtime...), today I don't feel miserable. Today I feel curious and a little hopeful about the future. One of these days, and soon, I am going to be able to set my caretaker hat aside, and then....who knows what I'll embrace???!!!

I am currently: numbly content
Listening to: my dog try to talk to me

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Looking for the appropriate Valentine
02/11/2009 08:43 a.m.

I looked through all the cards in 5 stores today - couldn't find one card that said, "Hey, Valentine. I'm looking forward to the years to come without you." Or, "Valentine, this year is bitter and not too sweet after all, eh?" Or, maybe, "Valentine, this time next week I'll be alone. Let's celebrate!" Or, how about, "Valentine, have I told you lately how grateful I am that we're breaking up instead of trying to keep the foolish promises we made last September?" Or this BAAAAD one (for the feint of eye or ear, please don't read), "What the hell, we're breaking up, let's get kinky!"

Don't they believe in real life at Hallmark?

I should make a new line of greeting cards - Cards for the not-so-finer times in life.

I'm working on a poem...

I am currently: vacillating between pain and optimism
Listening to: the calender creep toward Feb. 20th. (that's when his tax refund is coming; he's using that to fund his departure)

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Long time coming
02/09/2009 05:50 p.m.

It's been an amazing, adventurous, torturous, terrible, wonderful two-year visit - during which we briefly considered the insane possibility of getting married.

And that is all.


I am currently: resolute
Listening to: this chapter of my life coming to a final close





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Going to get my guy and bring him home
02/04/2009 09:21 a.m.

We are a teeter-totter, the two of us. His end "letting" things happen; my end "making" things happen. No wonder we go up and down, bouncing and nearly falling off. There is a balance - we simply haven't spent much time there yet.

Today, after reflecting on some rather ambiguous statements that he'd made this last week, and me feeling half-hope and half-foreboding, I just said, "So, what do you hope that coming home will accomplish? What would your preference be about where we're headed? If you could see it exactly the way you'd like it to unfold, what would that look like?" He said, "Well, I'd like to see this be a springboard for our relationship, so we can ultimately keep going." After some more in-depth discussion, I think we've concluded that we'd like to explore it more, see what we might be able to glean from the contrasts of us, each.

At the same time, I cannot compromise some of my basic truths about who I am and how my strengths serve me. I will not weaken my methods for his comfort alone, and I sincerely hope he holds the same conviction. I am not willing to take 9 steps backwards in our relationship, to have to grapple again that excruciating year where our future was not set in commitment. I cannot lose myself, and I hope he feels the same way about himself. This is the danger in compromise.

I heard a bit of wisdom today, of all places, in a sitcom. But this wisdom struck me. A middle aged widow was reflecting on her marriage, and said, "You know, I've always heard that the key to success in a relationship is compromise. I don't agree. The key to success is to find what makes you happy, and then find a partner who loves to see you that way."

Better go get some sleep; I have be up by 6:30 am. Going into this night before our reunion, I feel a sense of peace about letting myself enjoy what the next 36 hours holds.


I am currently Calm
I am listening to Deva Premal, Chitananda

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