Quiet
12/07/2008 04:51 a.m.

Today I've been hanging out in the gentle, sad quiet of being alone, working on my 12 step homework, facing a little bit at a time of what I think is just a deeper exploration into the roots of my dysfunction. I can only take it in bits and pieces. I keep reminding myself to go slow, to be kind to myself. I'm not very good at it. My first grade teacher wrote on my report card, "Alison remains her own worst critic...." Even at 6, I beat myself up. Funny how it coincides with the instigation of my (legal but not biological) father sexually abusing me.

I spoke with one of the ladies in my group this morning. Last night was difficult. But it amazes me, how these women can just blast me with, "WHAT are you DOING in this relationship? WHY are you with this person???"

Well, first of all, I love him. And secondly, I've invested a good amount of time in us, in our future. It isn't a switch that I can just turn off. And I have always believed in the value of longevity, not for the sake of itself, but in tandem with everything I felt was good about the relationship beyond the final difficulty that prevents it from working unless we both get some pretty serious assistance.

But today, all I really need to come to grips with is the fact that the life I had known is over. Period.

Tomorrow night we go to counseling. Maybe the counselor will have an angle that can save us in the long run even though we can't be together just now. And maybe I'm just messing with my own head. But I'm praying that this counselor will be granted the wisdom to guide us in the most healthy direction(s).

Someday, I know I'll understand what happened in this period of my life, and maybe I'll understand the lesson. Until then, I just keep reminding myself that all is as it should be. I trust that what is happening is by divine design, even though it hurts.



I am currently Bleh
I am listening to music seeping from Steven's room to mine

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Reality
12/06/2008 12:08 p.m.

It's sad, when what is being said doesn't equal what is happening right before my very eyes. I can't reconcile the two, and what is actually taking place is so much more compelling than the things being said.

Perhaps I was a fool to even hope that it would be any different in the final analysis. It's just that it would have been so much less painful for him to have simply said, "I think I need to do this alone" than for him to try to maintain how he wanted us to remain an engaged couple, all the while making the choices a single person makes. I wonder sometimes what would happen if he had a journey of his own.

I promised him that I would attend at least one session of couple's counseling, but I'm pretty certain that nothing short of a miracle will salvage what I once thought was a future with him.

I'm exhausted.




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Nights
12/04/2008 03:50 p.m.

So, it took such a looooooooong time for me to get to sleep last night. I was sleepy, groggy sleepy even. But every settling of the foundation, my grandmother turning over in her bed (I have a baby monitor on 24/7 so if she falls or needs anything, she has but to say a word and I'll be there), the dogs snoring...everything wakes me up now.

And then I realized how much I had allowed myself to rest in the fact that when Miah was here, I was not the only adult. I didn't feel like I was the only one on "watch"; that if anything weird or threatening ever happened in the night, I wasn't alone in dealing with it.

And now I am again.

I'm taking my placement tests for college first thing this morning. Does anyone have an extra bottle of "alert"??? LOL.


I am currently Tired
I am listening to the shower calling, calling...hehe

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Today
12/04/2008 07:56 a.m.

I skated through most of the day, thankfully feeling very little but functioning pretty well. It's pretty unusual for me to not be processing my emotions right now, but I'm glad, for whatever reason, I wasn't a mushy wad of weeping all day. AND, I actually got out of bed, MADE it, and got the dishes done along the way. So that's good.

He called me, all excited, to tell me he'd found guitar lessons offered by some guy in Hood River on a flyer in the coffee shop where he was hanging out, and how stoked he was to be taking guitar lessons.

Say again?

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but does it seem completely unrelated to where a person MIGHT be focusing their time and energy under the circumstances? I guess he might have been expecting me to congratulate him or something.

I just felt confused.

*taking a deep breath*

I feel unusually detached from the whole process right now, like he's a stranger instead of the person I've spent the last 2 years living with and just a few short weeks ago, planned on marrying. Ok, eventually I'll get over it. But for now...

Here's my focus:

First and foremost, I feel the deep yearning to have the experience of connecting with the Divine right now, God as I understand Him/Her, as well as my guides, etc. I KNOW this is happening for a reason. It would just be way awesome to feel surrounded by the peace and understanding that all is as it should be and never mind the way it "looks" at the moment. Cuz it LOOKS like a train wreck. So, a good dose of meditating and prayer, even if I don't feel it-feel it at the moment.

Secondly, there is an adjustment happening, a tiny sprout of it, and I'm going to tend to it and cultivate it like the beautifully amazing tree it's going to eventually become - gratitude and faith and finding the glass of my life more half-FULL.

Thirdly, with or without Miah, I have a dream....




I am currently Detached
I am listening to the softer side of an ice-cold brain freeze

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I find that...
12/03/2008 12:34 p.m.

I can't touch the pain of this, this torrent of emotions raging past me. Too swift, too dangerous to feel.

He finally called at 2:30. I'd fallen into a sleep of sorts - fitful, anxious thumping in my chest. He'd been at Shari's drinking coffee (he NEVER drinks coffee) since before 9:30, which was when I first texted him. He said he'd left the phone in the car. He said he didn't know about how much we should stay in touch right now.

If we've broken up, it's none of my business what he's doing. Really. If he wants to live out of his car and sleep at a local campground and stay at Shari's for 5 hours working on some dice probability theory.....what business is it of mine? But if we're trying to remain a couple, just separated....what the hell does that mean? What level of attachment is appropriate?

I just thought to call him to see that he'd made it somewhere safe for the night, to make sure he was coping, to let him know that even though we are apart, I still care about how he's doing. But it obviously wasn't something that occured to him, so maybe I was just being foolish to have contacted him in the first place. I definitely feel ridiculous now.

But how do I just turn it off, all the minutiae of being with him every day. The things I would have said to him about my day, that now, no one will hear. The things he would have told me about his day. All the time we've spent telling each other our life stories. The investment of it. The trusting. The loving through faults and getting to the truth about it all. The relationship one to another, how I allowed myself to open up to having a witness to my every day, someone who might find the way I live my life worth keeping track of somehow.

I heard that once, that we get into relationships because it's about having a witness to our lives, about being afraid that, in the end, no one will know what happens inside, what goes on, that no one will care, and that ultimately, you may have lived a life not worth remembering.

It's too complicated, the way I've spent the last two years on this emotional roller coaster. I don't know if I can stay attached anymore, hang on through the twists and turns of this.

It's 3:33 am. I'm a wreck. I know it on some level, but I can't feel it anymore. I feel tired. I'm numb. Where are my guides, my guardian angels? Where is my spiritual sanity in all of this? Part of me thinks they must be around, I just can't feel them, sense them, see them, hear them. I tried to pray tonight, but all I connected to was the insistent buzz of too much happening.

I know I have some major work to do, and I soooooo much don't want to be on this road. I'm addicted to this relationship, and my supply is suddenly in jeopardy, as good as cut off. Of course I didn't want him to go. That way my supply would be protected. Addicts do that, protect their supply. And like a good addict/co-dependant, my drug of choice is apparently a person.

I don't want to "embrace my recovery" by attending the 12-step meetings I've started going to. I don't want to hear the platitudes, use the slogans to get through this "one day at a time". No shit, how ELSE does a person get through life? Not one week at a time, not one year at a time.....what a ridiculous slogan! I know what it's supposed to mean, I just don't want to hear it in response to how one minute, life was one way and now it isn't anymore. What I thought I had yesterday is no longer what I have today, and it SUCKS! That's all.

I don't want to get honest with women I don't know and don't want to get to know. I don't want to sit in that circle, with that group of sorry ass women and say, "Hi, I'm Alison...(and I'm a sorry ass just like you)"

I mean, come on, REALLY? Is THIS what I signed up for? In the scoff of the decade, can I just say......PPPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTTT?

Alright then. An hour later and maybe I've let enough of this out to get some sleep.

Thank you, El, and anyone else, for praying for me. Apparently I'm not too good at doing it for myself at the moment.



I am currently Exhausted
I am listening to this buzz

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Don't want to go to bed
12/03/2008 08:33 a.m.

Tonight I go to bed alone. There is that slightly nauseous feeling that something isn't right in my world, that I'm forgetting something very important but for the life of me I can't pull it from the recesses of my consciousness. My head aches from crying. Just thinking of it brings new tears. I'm such a lameass pansy.

He is not answering his phone, which is not like him at all. The obsessive paranoia inside of me insists on imagining all sorts of horrible scenarios, but to edge toward sanity, I quit calling half an hour ago. He could be anywhere, and my worrying about it won't change a thing.

I am taking a hard look at myself; loathing the entire process but certain that if I don't figure this shit out, I'm just going to have to do it again someday, and I'll be even less patient later on than I find myself now. Which is barely patient at all.

Though it would hurt to hear his voice tonight, not next to my ear in our bed like usual, I would endure it for knowing that he is ok...

I am currently Anxious
I am listening to the echo of empty

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Dreams, anyone?
12/02/2008 06:35 p.m.


I dreamt that I was in a dance troupe, which is kind of funny thing because I’ve never danced and wouldn’t know anything about the process that follows. I was one of about four fat girls who performed along with a bunch of typically sized dancers in this troupe, and usually, we performed in Vegas in a regular show. I remember the feeling that I loved my job. It wasn’t too burlesque, even though our costumes were a little sexy. We had our own open stage out in the middle of some casino where we performed, and it was a family friendly show.

Not long after the dream started, I began to realize that we had made it to some regional or national competition. I found myself in a huge hotel that had a big stage and auditorium attached. When we got there, I was a bit disoriented, like I didn’t remember everything that had transpired before to lead up to this event. The pieces came together a little at a time. I went to the front desk to see if I was registered. I must be, right? I mean, I was there.

Everything was busy. There were people everywhere, making inquiries, using the stage for practice, waiting in the auditorium for their turn to practice, checking in, bustling about. None of my troupe was anywhere around at the time.

I, apparently, was the first to inquire at the front desk about our dance troupe for when I presented myself (first by my most recent married name, by the way, and then I corrected myself to “McKenzie”), by default I became the keeper of the keys for everyone in our dance troupe – a board of keys and names that it was now my job to disperse. The only problem was none of the other members of my dance troupe was around.

My name had two keys associated with it. The first key was to a room on the fourth floor, “419” I think, so I headed to the elevator to go find it. I couldn’t think where I could have possibly left my luggage, and I couldn’t remember the trip to get to the hotel, but I was hoping our luggage had simply been delivered to our rooms. The elevator arrived; I got in and pushed the “4”. But just as the elevator doors were closing, I noticed another key with my name that had just a “6” on it, and I figured that was to a dressing room on the main floor. So I stuck my hands in the doors of the elevator to stop them from closing and got off. Immediately in front of me, I noticed a bustle of performers going in and out of doors that sort of reminded me of the doors to gym dressing rooms, two doors for each number leading/exiting the same room. I found myself in front of “2” and kept going down the hall until I found “6”. Inside, there were other performers getting dressed in the costumes for their performance. I didn’t recognize any of them (not that any of the ones I might have “recognized” were from anywhere in my real life).

There were rows upon stacked rows of BIG drawers with clear fronts so you could kind of see what was in them. Apparently inside the drawers were costumes with all the accessories. Somehow, I knew that we were going to be doing a dance number from “Guys and Dolls”. Right in front of me were the drawers with that label. But when I looked inside them, they were empty except for the earring drawer. I realized that even though I seemed to be the first of our troupe there, I was late and all the costumes were gone. And I suddenly realized that, since I was not the average size dancer, they probably wouldn’t have any costumes that would have fit me anyway. And THEN I realized that I couldn’t recall having practiced the dance steps – that I wouldn’t have been prepared had I made it to the stage in a costume anyway.

From there on, I wandered around the hotel, and eventually outside. I found the group of other “fat” girls from my troupe, and they were discussing the same dilemma of not having costumes, but they did not seem upset. They were simply going to wait for the performance to finish. I sat down at a table close by, and noticed a quadriplegic man I had once known in real life from the Veteran’s Home. His name is Irwin, and he was there to visit his mother, who was also in a wheel chair. I made polite greetings, and told the woman who was his mother how fondly Irwin had always spoken of her, how much we could all tell he loved her by the way he spoke of her. She was a darling woman, with a sweet disposition, and dark blonde, curly hair and freckles.

From there, I found some of the rest of my dance troupe in some sort of dining hall. I got my plate from a buffet line, and took it over to a table where one of the male dancers was sitting. He was a slightly smaller than average man, and I realized he was someone I was close to. As soon as I sat down, he leaned over and pressed against me with his shoulder in greeting. He was eyeing my bread, and as I got ready to take a bite, I offered him some. He pressed his forehead against mine and nodded, an intimate moment that I was not entirely comfortable sharing in public. I thought how the other dancers would find it inappropriate for us to be displaying our private relationship in public. Infact, I was so uncomfortable that…..

From there, the dream faded to Miah and I on the grass in a park. There were lots of folks at the park that day. Miah and I were lying on a blanket, staring up into the sky and marveling at the clouds. All of a sudden, there was a kitten climbing up onto my chest, but it was a BIG kitten. As I checked it out, I realized the kitten was a tiger kitten, and I became alarmed that the mama cat was somewhere nearby. I sat up and looked up the nearby hillside. Sure enough, the mama and the daddy cat were coming down, along with the rest of the litter of kittens. Also, there were other animal families just coming out of the nearby forest as well – some bear cubs, a baby moose, a couple of baby raccoons, and their parents. We decided, with all the people there, it was just best to act non-chalant about the whole thing, hoping the animals wouldn’t sense any alarm and would just pass us by. But we knew that I had the scent of the baby tiger on my clothes, and it might not work.

My alarm went off, and I woke up.

As soon as I woke up, I realized that I don't know if what I want to go to school for is really what I want to do. Without the future that Miah and I were planning, do I want to be involved in the business side of things? Do I have any business ideas of my own? What am I going to do with my life now that Miah may not be a part of the future I was planning? I would still love to travel, but the idea of doing it the way I was planning, but now alone, does not seem like a good idea.

I have this grief now. Before, with Miah, for the first time ever in a relationship, I could see our future together. I loved the plans we'd made. I could see it clearly. The goals we set to get there were within reasonable reach. I felt passion for where I was headed, for where we were headed together. Now it's all a big question mark.

I worked so hard through so many concerns and fears to get to that point. I allowed myself to rest, finally, in trust. I allowed myself to feel the comfort of a future I could truly imagine. Only to be here, now, the rug pulled out from under my feet and not much hope that I'll find solid footing again with Miah.

Meanwhile, as we go forward with the separation, he's barely able to contain his excitement and seems to have found a new energy. He's never had his own place, never been able to "set up shop" his own way, all his own ideas and his very own space. Despite the sadness of the separation, I know this is actually going to be good for him. Every person needs to live on their own at least once. I want to be happy for him, for his new-found enthusiasm, but inside I feel hurt and left behind. I seem to be the only one struggling. I'll manage to keep this to myself where he is concerned, but I'm going to have to find some way to express what I'm feeling so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle, someone to talk to about how I'm feeling so I can process it appropriately. *sigh*




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Atreyu Thanksgiving 2008
11/30/2008 07:19 p.m.




I love it when he's smiling!!! Is it me, or is he about the most alert not quite two month old ever????


I am currently Blessed

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Gratitude
11/24/2008 08:00 p.m.

The holidays lean in,
Pressing with the breath
Of family, tradition,
Hot chocolate and frost.

I'm not into it so much this year.

Still, I'm hoping
The magic will take hold
And fill me to the brim -
Sparkling eyes
And gratitude.

Yes, I would definitely be ecstatic
To receive the gift of gratitude
Unwrapped, simple
And a big helping, please.


I am currently Restless
I am listening to my daughter play Guitar Hero (LAST year's Christmas gift)

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Life
11/20/2008 06:14 p.m.

Knocking me for a loop lately. I wish I could talk specifics. Secret demons that I've been blind-sided by. Stuff I thought I'd safeguarded myself against. Stuff I really wish I didn't have to deal with. Overshadowing what should, otherwise, be an entirely happy time, what with the recent engagement, my daughter home from the navy for a month, the birth of my grandson, the holidays here and starting school next term.

I feel myself becoming angry about having to deal with it as a priority when, really, my life without a relationship is really pretty uncomplicated.

Having some pretty serious conversations with myself about the viability of this whole chapter of my lovelife, and very nearly ready to close the book altogether. I'm too old for angst; too old, maybe, for "sticking it out" during yet another someone's recovery process. Disappointed in myself for, somehow, not seeing the red flags waving on the wall of addiction. And knowing that my ultimate responsibility, before I even think of my own wellbeing, is to my children.

Damn this.


I am currently Frustrated
I am listening to a potential future of solitaire

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