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#372 - Oh. My. God. An email from *her*
09.22.05 @ 10:58 pm

Oh. My. God. About a day after writing my last entry, there was an email in my inbox. From her. Had she been reading here afterall? Holy fuck. The email was very short and sweet. Very much like how I remembered her sounding. I wrote back. She wrote back. She was very light and airy and forgiving. I was angry and hurt and hiding. And then she sent me this, her blogged version of her responses to my long email. It changed everything. In her words:

She wrote back again. I have to say I am amazed that she did. And after you read what she wrote, you might understand why. See, she's very selfish, admittedly so, and taking the time to write to me when one of her favorite shows is about to start is fucking awesome. I guess you'd have to know her to understand how profound it is. To the average Joe reading this, you might be thinking, "Girl, pull your head out of your ass....she still chose the TV over you." Well you know what I say to that? GOOD FOR HER! That means she's doing what SHE wants. And she's already finding a balance in her life. YAY!!!

I sent her a compliation of a few blogs yesterday, including the one where I discussed her email to me. I was really not expecting her to reply in such a mature manner. She continues to shock and amaze me. It's a good thing. (oh, I sound like Martha!) What made me laugh was when she said she found herself smiling the most at the entries where I dissed her. I think that's partly because it will justify some of her hateful feelings toward me and partly because it shows that I was dealing with my own hateful feelings toward her. For the most part though, I haven't spent much time hating her.

So here's what she wrote. My comments (only in blog form) are in Italics.

I have so much to say, and my thoughts are all in disarray. There's a word I swear I've only heard and never read, so I can't think how the fuck you
would spell it. I hate it when that happens.

I find your ramblings to yourself very amusing. Oddly enough, the ones about
you dissing me made me smile the most. I am trying to figure out what's going on in your head, and you're having just as hard a job of figuring me out, and that makes me so relieved. I think knowing that we both harbor/ed hateful feelings helps us to justify our own. Which is why in my super secret private blog that is seen only by me, I never speak of you badly. If I did, it would give you fuel and power for your own hate against me, even though you'll never read the entries. Negative energy lives in the air. I don't wish to pass that on any longer .

I am a selfish person. I'm pretty sure it's why S. stopped talking to me (both times), and it seems it's the reason you were so angry, and why you're so irritated with my email. I will try not to be so selfish, but it is so.... I'm the only one who looks out for me. So I let myself get away with murder. You are right. You are very selfish. I'm not ever going to ask you to change that. Instead, I am going into this knowing your temperament, knowing your personality a little, and I am not going to allow myself to be disappointed or hurt by your selfishness again. I understand that you are not selfish because you want to hurt me, but because it's just a part of who you are. I have realized that everyone needs to be a little bit selfish. If we choose to move forward, you'll notice I am learning to be selfish, too .

The only thing about that loooong email (thank you!) that irritates me is that you don't want to re-hash the past. Well, you seem to be very healthy. You seem to have gotten over your negative feelings. I have not. I have buried them. I need to get past how we ended if we're going to have a future. You're welcome for the email. I still have negative feelings once in awhile. I just don't let them consume me anymore. I aknowledge them, try to make sense of them briefly, and then I let it go. Sometimes I can't make sense. Sometimes I feel a profound *slap my forhead* moment. Burying my feelings is something I used to do and it caused me nothing but future heartache and more bitterness. I suppose I got sick of feeling like crap all the time. Sick of feeling like the world was against me, sick of feeling like I was ugly, fat, worthless. I still have bad days, down days, days where I wish I could just crawl back into bed and start my day over. And sometimes I do just that. Instead of burying everything, I just hit it head on and deal with it. Yeah it hurts sometimes. But you know what? Life fucking sucks, it isn't fair, and we get hurt. That's just the way it is. We can choose to either dwell on the shitty parts and be fucking miserable all the time, or we can choose to accept that life is gonna deal us blows that we don't like or feel we don't deserve and move on. As much as I hear you asking/needing to, I can't help you get over your hurt by talking you through it. It's something that you have to find within yourself.

That said... ok, I am *very* scattered right now, and trying to make this all coherent and chronological, and my dinner has not quite alleviated my low-blood-sugar, so I hope you can bare with me I'm still dealing with the diabetes issue.....I totally *get* what you mean.

One thought that came to me today was that I try very hard not to judge people. I was thinking how my request for you "current info" would seem like I was setting things up to judge you. For the most part, that's not what I wanted/want. There were certain things that probably would have had me running for the hills, but none of them are coming to mind. I never felt like I was going to judge you, Pass/Fail you. I just wanted info to try and figure out who you are right now. I'm calling your bullshit here, M. You did so want to judge me. I think you secretly hoped I was all fucked up and neurotic so that you would be justified in hating me resulting in your closure and a further hardening of your heart toward anyone who attempts to be a part of your life. I think you wanted more brick and mortar for the wall you've built around your heart. I know a little of how you think, M. It's okay...I expected you to judge me. Just as being selfish is a part of you, so is judgment. You and I both know this.

But the 2nd half of the judgement thought today was that once you hurt me, then I judge you. And you hurt me. Very much. And that's when I judged you. I read your last email back in February, and you said the worst things you could have said to me, and you said them so matter-of-factly. My response was to judge you unworthy of even a response. I wrote you off right there. I looked over my shoulder every 30 seconds for weeks for one of us to give, and neither of us did... Okay, let's clear this up once and for all. YOU are not the only one who was hurt. Did I judge you? Nope. Is it okay for you to judge me, however unfairly I feel it is? Sure. It's your life and your mind. You have to deal with things in your own way. As far as matter-of-factly...well, that's who I am. I'm blurty, off the cuff, brazenly outspoken. Sometimes I hurt feelings unintentionally, and sometimes I mean it. I probably meant what I said. I have deleted that email and don't have a visual record of what I said. Quite possibly I was a total bitch. Are you going to forever hold me captive in your mind of judgments because of this? I'll not likely know that answer anytime soon and perhaps never. I'm okay with this..

E. is convinced we will hurt each other again. I know we will. But I think it's worth it. Because people hurt each other. Friends, lovers, family - we hurt each other. But in lots of cases, it's worth it, because of everything else. Your everything else is wonderful. I remember so many wonderful things about you. I can't recall ever being quite as happy in my life as that day I spent with you and your boys at the park at our frozen picnic. E is right. We'll most definitely hurt each other again. And you are also right. It is worth it. This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard you say. I'm glad to know that you have realized that even people that love you deeply, have the ability to hurt you. That's why it hurts....because of the love. I can't promise I'll always be on my best behavior. I'm a sassy, saucy, bitch sometimes. On the flipside, you've also witnessed my tenderness, my love, my soft emotions. I'm a complete being, and those in my life need to be aware of this. And yeah, the Arctic Picnic was totally rad. The boys and I reminisc about that sometimes.

That picnic, and the way you smile at me, and the way you kissed me in your bathroom and blew away my expectations and sanity, that's why I am trying to work things out. Heh...yeah, that bathroom kiss is something I think about daily. Seriously...I shower in that bathroom every single day and I think about kissing you in there. I don't know what came over me. I hadn't intended to kiss you in there at that moment. I wanted our first kiss to be a little more romantic. But damn girl....I couldn't help myself. And I don't regret it. Not one moment of our time together do I regret.

But there is so much to work out.

I am selfish and I need my space. It was never about not wanting to be with you. It was about trying to live without you. In the past, you were very hurt by my "avoiding" you and not logging in, etc. I wasn't trying to hurt you, didn't even realize what I was doing. I was trying to find balance. Because what I wanted from you was a marriage. And I didn't know how to have 2 marriages, one with the man I live with, and one with the woman who lived 2 hours away. I am selfish now, too. I also have an intense need for space. The unnecessary pressure I put on you to be in contact with me daily was ridiculous. I realize that in retrospect. I think that we were too worried about what the other might think and in worrying like that, we fucked things up. We hid from each other, each denying that we did so. But it's true. I blocked your dumb ass out a few times on messenger when I was pissed at you and afraid I'd say something ugly. I wish I wouldn't have done that. I think being afraid of my emotions and being afraid of causing pain to someone I love, has done far more damage that just allowing those emotions and feelings to come through. It's so much easier to work with it in the moment, rather than bottling it all up and having to deal with it later.

E. and I fight and fight over so much, trivial shit mostly. What TV show to watch, when to go to bed. In between, we live a happy life in between the the deals we work out. But with you so far away, there was only trying to figure out who did what when, when can I talk to her? When can I see her? When can I fit in eating? When can I watch my TV show? When can I read my book? You and I never had to figure out which side of the bed who would take, but everything else was there. If you had been in my house, I could fight with you over stuff and get past it and we could find a comfy place to come together and snuggle, then move apart and do our own thing, or do something together other than snuggle. Being so far away, it was only fight for space or snuggle. Nothing else. Well, the answers here are simple to me. I don't watch much TV....you can watch whatever you like! Bedtime, well, that's always a random time for me. Pick one, and I most likely can work with it. Scheduling will always be an inconvenience whether we're friends or lovers or housemates. Eating? We don't even like the same food, so we can just agree to disagree there. Read, eat, take a walk, have a bath, go out with your friends and husband, make some jewelry, go see a movie....do whatever you want. I'll do the same on my end. If you wanna fight about something, bring it on. Let's just get it all out and then get over it already. And for the record, we'd never have an issue about who gets what side of the bed. I sleep on the same side as E. You wouldn't have to change a thing.

Does that make any sense? Yep.

This is one of the reasons why I don't know if we can every be "lovers" again. Because there is no solving this dilemma that I can't wrap my mind around fixing. Not when you live so far away, and if you were just RIGHT HERE I could lean over and talking to you about whose turn it is to turn off the light. I personally don't get this part, but okay. It's how you feel and I'll accept that. Just to let you know my perspective, I think the distance is wonderful. I think we *need* the distance in order to keep our lives seperate. We need to keep our lives seperate for quite awhile. I know we bothh dreamed of a poly marriage. I still do. But now I understand that it's something that needs to develop over time. We (or maybe it was just me) forced that issue too soon. I had lofty aspirations for the four of us, plus kids & animals. Maybe one day I'll be able to enjoy a poly marriage like I dream about, and maybe I won't. I do know that I'm not ready for it at this point in time because there are just too many details to figure out. I don't want to deal with the details of something so complicated. I have an intense need for simplicity. And that's why I think the distance will be good. It will allow us all (assuming J & E are in this, maybe they won't be...I don't care at this point) to retain some autonomy. I won't worry about what you're doing and who you're doing it with....and I expect the same freedom on my end. What I'd like is a friendship where we can be in contact via email at whatever pace we so desire and perhaps a phone call every couple of weeks. In between, maybe we can meet at a half way point and go do something together. It's a start. Where we go from there would be up to us and the cosmos.

There is more. At the time, it was an even bigger hurdle. It was the #1 thing I was looking for in your "info" dump. It was the thing that scared
the shit out of me. It was the thing that I didn't know what I was going to do no matter how you answered.

J. reminds me of my father. E. was afraid he was going to hit you. I was afraid he was going to hit your kids. Either scenario was a nightmare, and we had no idea what the hell to do about it. Funny, J reminds me of my dad, too. The good and the bad parts. I can't bullshit you and tell you I wasn't afraid, because I definitely was.

I am glad you're happy with J. I am so relieved to hear that he and Eli are getting along so wonderfully and that the 3 of them are doing so many great father/son things. Yeah, how cool is it that Eli and J have been bonding so well?! And this is even after we talked with Eli about his bio-dad. Lots of things going on in that department. But so far, so good. J has really done a lot of work internally in order to be a better dad. There are still times when he looses his cool, but nothing like what you and E. witnessed .

I judged J. long before I judged you. Because he hurt your kids and he hurt you. How to unreverse my judgement, I don't know. Half of me thinks I made a huge error and you are right and it was a timing thing and everything was horrible and things are better now and J. is wonderful. Half of me thinks he is the 2nd coming of my father and no matter how many good days my father could have, my father is still the 2nd biggest bastard I have ever known and I have as little contact with him as possible and once I have kids he will *never* ever know what they look like, let alone spend time with them. Ya know, M....I don't quite know how to answer this. I don't know how you can reverse your judgment. I don't know that it's possible. The reason I say this is because I'll always be guarded around J and my father. As much work as J has done and as much as he's changed, he's not wonderful. He's better, much better. But please don't think he's perfect. That would be a set up for disaster. He's human and he still makes mistakes. He still pisses me off and hurts me. That's part of loving someone.

Out of all of this, J. is my biggest hurdle. But it is my hurdle. I will work on it. You work on whatever it is you feel you need to. I won't ask you to open your mind/heart in regard to J. You should be aware though, that in the event you two are in the same room together again, that your attitude (as well as his) will set the tone. I can't make you like him or accept him, just as I have no control over his feelings regarding you or E.

If you still want to be my friend. I said 100% honesty. But I just dissed your husband big time. I understand if you never want to talk to me again. Meh, I diss him all the time, he disses me, and holy crap, I've totally dissed you at times. I'm sure you've done the same to me. Mwahaha. It feels good for a moment to call someone a cunty bitch. That's my latest catch phrase, although I don't know if I ever called you that in my blog. I'll have to check!

But I hope you will. Um, yeah....that's why I took the first step and wrote to you.

I am still dizzy and blurry eyed and the "Lost" season premiere just started so E's shouting at me to come downstairs. TV or bed? Go watch the damn show! You looooove that show. And theeeeennnnn, go snuggle up with that husband of yours .

I had more to say, I'm sure of it, I just can't remember now. I will re-read
your emails. Feel free to write me back or write me off at your leisure. Say all you want. Just know that I won't be arguing with you about the past. I fucked up, you fucked up, the guys fucked up. (did E fuck up? I don't recall him pissing me off, but I'm sure he probably did at some point!) I'm so over all the bad shit, all the negative shit. I want to start over.....something new, something different. I'm not closing my mind or heart to anything.

I have so very much missed you. Ditto.

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