the old-school guestbook archives
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ranting and rejoicing ~ May 6, 2002 - 5:48 p.m. if you're as tired of reading about my ex as I am of writing about him, scroll down. there's some good stuff at the end that has nothing to do with him. *** I'm hurting, and I'm not even sure why. I've had a really emotional day. it's all old stuff, but I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed by how much pain I've been feeling since I started talking to ozone again. I don't know if it was too soon. probably it's just right, and I'm just in a space where I'm able to feel all this right now. I know I need to, feel it and release it so I can let it go. I've been aware of something, some block keeping me feeling somewhat closed, even as I continue to open here. so, one more block released. more to feel. I keep reminding myself that I won't feel like this forever. it just feels like it's been so long. I want to have let it go by now. but I also realize that he hurt me in really deep ways. triggered deep, dark abuse issues over and over again. so of course it's going to take some time to sort through everything I'm feeling. I just get so tired of hurting. it feels like he shouldn't have the power to hurt me any more. which, of course, he doesn't-- but I'm just now feeling a lot of what I went through during that long, strange winter when I was so numb. painful. and he's seeing someone new now, which of course I had to find out about from someone else. I don't know why it brings up so much for me. it's certainly not jealousy. if anything, I'm relieved that he's some other woman's problem now. it's like I feel like he has no right to inflict his screwed-up self on someone else. I've messed up every relationship I've ever been in, he told me, more than once. and it's hardly surprising, considering he doesn't have even the most basic communication skills. and it's really none of my business if he screws this one up, too. it's his life. I guess I just want for him to have learned something from our relationship. then maybe all the hell I went through would be worth something. now he's making it sound like there's no problem with the way he acts, it's just that he and I were a bad match. which is certainly true-- the bad match part, I mean. but it's also true that it wasn't just me. that the things he did were truly horrible, and not just because I was "sensitive". I am sensitive. but no one else in my adult life has treated me so badly. I didn't invent the dysfunctionality of his behaviors. he says he's changing. I want to believe that that's true, but I can't invest any faith in it at this point. he's said that so many times, and continued to do the same shit, over and over. this wasn't meant to be a rant. I've just got so much coming up for me right now. times like this I wish I still had a counselor, someone I could vent all this to without feeling bad that I was ranting about my ex again. people here have been good to me, though. I want to understand him. and I want him to understand me. I don't know why that feels important. maybe I just want to make sense of it all. *** so anyway, I went up to boulder creek yesterday, rode my motorcycle through the mountains on a beautiful, sunny day. hung out at the blue sun, goofed around with steven. I sat in the vacant lot in the sun and soaked in the vibrations of the place, the one place I've found in my adult life that feels like home. I was having one of those everything-is-beautiful moments, and I got all choked up thinking about that town, and how much it's witnessed of me and my growth and my journey over the last four years. I've been in love in that town, I've been in hell in that town, I've laughed and fought and fucked and bled and struggled and danced and rejoiced in that town. I've gone away and come back, and it's always welcomed me with open arms. a blessing, to be sure. and then I went to my p.o. box and got this card. from a woman, who I met in a coffeeshop in gettysburg, pennsylvania when I was traveling last fall. I performed at an open mic there, on the back patio in the dusk with the candles and all. I stood barefoot in the garden and belted out some poems, and she came up to me after I'd sat back down. came up to me in tears, and handed me her card, told me how much one of my poems had meant to her. that she was there with her husband and they were splitting up and my poem had given words to her feelings and it just gave her such hope and strength. and I'd wanted to give her a CD, then, but she ran off and went back to sit with her husband and I didn't want to interrupt. so when I was packing to move out of ozone's house, I found her card, and I thought, I should send her a CD. so I packed one up, and finally got it to a post office a few weeks ago. so she sent me this card. and told me that just a couple of days before the CD arrived, she'd gone to the coffeehouse and asked if they knew anything about me or how to contact me. probably just a coincidence, she wrote, and I laughed, remembering how I used to say things like that before I moved out west. californians aren't afraid to name synchronicity for what it is. she told me again how much the poem had meant to her. how that night at the coffeehouse, her husband, who she'd been living apart from, had told her that he was in a relationship with another woman and that she was pregnant with his child. she said it was so incredible to see a "flame-haired stranger" get up there and give voice to all the things she was feeling in that moment. that it made her feel less alone, that it gave her the strength to know that she would survive this hurt, that she would heal. she told me she'd cherish the CD as she did the memory of that performance and what it meant to her. and I sit here thinking about what it means to me, that in the act of sharing my creations with the universe, I had a profound effect on the life of a woman I didn't even know. that's what it's all about. that's why I need to get back to my writing. in living from the heart we change the world. oh, yes.
(((rings))) |