me on the rebound

From Wikipedia: 

" Someone who is "on the rebound," or recently out of a serious dating relationship, is popularly believed to be psychologically incapable of making reasonable decisions regarding suitable partners due to emotional neediness, lingering feelings towards the old partner, or unresolved problems from the previous relationship. Rebound relationships are believed to be short-lived due to one partner's emotional instability and desire to distract themselves from a painful breakup, and those emerging from serious relationships are often advised to avoid serious dating until their tumultuous emotions have calmed. "

I made a conscious decision a couple months ago to be a threat only to my own emotional stability. I know I am 'psychologically incapable' of pulling off a normal dating process right now, so my favor to the men in Northern California is my decision not to date. Sure its tough for me, I have to forget J and I'm not sure how to fill the space, I have to resolve the residual issues without a sounding board. But it's been over 2 months, and I'm doing fine! 

Maybe I'm done with my rebound period. 

HA!!!! 

Definitely not. If anything, it's just begun. I am stronger than I was, I can make sense of J and my past better than I could, I can sleep through the night and go through the day without breaking down!  But I still cannot conquer the loneliness. 

A previous comment mentioned the difference between loneliness and alone, and I'm there. I'm straddling the difference. I am not alone in the world, I am more surrounded by people than I have been in a long time. But that hole left by memories of J, that is a big empty hole. A big lonely place that I have a big problem with avoiding. 

What Wikipedia fails to explicitly mention in the definition of a 'Rebound' is that stupid hole. I know I need to fill it myself, be strong enough to fill that hole with my own self-assuredness and belief in love. And I thought maybe I had. I thought maybe I could perhaps start to maybe think about maybe seeing someone again. But it is becoming more and more obvious that that hole is bigger than I thought. That hole is gaping. And I am desperately reaching out for someone to come and patch the hole, at least some of the time, at least when I'm the most lonely and vulnerable. 

That's unfair to him, to me, and to the hole. The hole demands some respect. I'm constantly demonizing it, but it means well, if a hole can mean.... 

Conclusions: I am still rebounding. When I'm lonely I try to fill the lonely space, which is not a good idea. I can't date yet. 

I am obviously not ready to be a "me" yet, I'm still reverting to being a "we". I don't do it when I'm alert, but once I've had a beer, once I'm tired, once I'm sufficiently stressed, I need "we". 

But like I've said all along, there's no "we" until there's a happy "me". 

And that's that. 

L

waves

"Crash down on me 

Waves to my sand 
disruptive
altogether messy 
Splash 
and salt water 
While it smells so 
Beachy 
Still it stings 
Inside cuts drawn by rocks 
Stings and burns 
But faint screams 
Covered by the roar 
of the tide
Now so tangled in seaweed
No way to get out 
But succumb 
to the roar
to the waves
to the pain 
to the slow crashing of 
you 
Onto me 
and just as the waves come
They go 
And I am free.
Still I can't help but 
Miss
crashing 
waves 
of salt water."

(written may 13, 2004) 

just me

Step one: Deny. 

Step two: Cry. 

Step three: Get mad. 

Step four: Cry. 

Step five: Pretend. 

Step six: Cry. 

Step seven: Learn. 

Step eight: Try. 

Step nine: Cry. 

Step ten: Learn. 

(repeat steps six-ten until the next upset, and then begin at step one.) 

Right now I'm hovering at step 6. 

I did a good job of pretending. I believe I am going to be alright, better even, in the end. I know I am making the right decisions for me. I'm sure my life doesn't begin and end where J walks in and out. But am I? 

I still get a cringe in my stomach when I see something that reminds me of him. There are times when my phone gets the best of me and he wakes up a late night text reminding him that I miss being there. Tonight, as I begin to descend into step 6, I am starting to understand 'lonely'. 

The crying hasn't begun yet, and I don't think it will at all tonight, but in the car on my way home I felt completely alone for the first time in a long time. I felt abandoned by the world, stranded in a strange place, confused, lost, scared, and completely alone. For the past hour and 45 minutes I have felt completely alone. 

Soon I will cry, and I will learn, and I will begin to try. Try to feel less alone, try to feel more vital, try to... make my bed in the morning or walk the dog on a set schedule. Try anything. And when I fail, I will cry. But I will keep doing it until this lonely feeling goes away. I need to get used to being 'me' before I can start thinking about being 'we' again. And if being 'me' means getting used to the lonely, then so be it. But I need to get used it. 

God I hope that's less miserable than it sounds. 

L

a flashback.

Below you will find a direct copy-paste from my old Xanga site. Sometimes it is nice to look back, to know that I've been somewhere before, and that its easy to see the sun if you can just make it till sunrise. 

enjoy! 

----

june 14 2004

I'll be captivated. I'll hang from your lips, instead of the gallows of heartache that hang from above.

I'm suffocating. I was unpacking my laundry and I think I just lit too many candles. The room isn't on fire- and if it were I wouldn't be sitting here- its just all the candle smell. Such tight space, and I can't open my window because its stuck. This room isn't tiny at all, just I am, I think. I'm letting my room fill with frangrance and still light, and eventually I guess I'll just kinda melt into it. Where does the wax actually go when it burns? Is that what is twisting around my lips and stifling my breath? Wax to vapor. I wonder what I'll burn into.

Look who's laughing now that you've wasted how many years and you've barely even tasted anything remotely close to everything you've boasted about look who's crying now. 

My door sticks to its frame to the point where I have to pull at it a couple extra times to get it open. It traps me in here. But when other people try to open it, it works fine for them. It lets them leave, but for me it fights back. Is it cos the room is lonely and it wants some company? or because if I'm trapped in here then it has better chance of confining me. Suffocating me. Either pushing me down into a tinier space or forcing me to grow up and pull harder till the door breaks from the frame, lets me free. Its coincidental that my door is the only one with a lock. It locks itself upon closing, but gives me the option to lock myself in twice. 

I never wanted to give you away. I still love you, but I don't need you. 

Romance movies are all I've been watching. Even FRIENDS reruns are seeming romantic to me. My reading choices are either romance novels, the kind you take to the beach to read outloud and oogle with a best friend, or magazines with headlines like "Your Sexiest Shoes" and "7 Foods That Go Straight to Your Thighs". (Baked chips, gummy bears, fruity yogurt, reduced-fat cookies, fat-free frozen deserts, artificial sweeteners, chick-specific energy bars.) Being independent has stolen away all my feelings. Its no longer clear whether I'm choosing to fight off guys because I don't need them, or because I can't handle sharing. The room is big enough for two people. There's a bathroom right there, and enough closet space for another person to move in. But the door sticks. I'm sure he could get in, and then he could get himself out. But once the doors closed, he's gone. He'd make his getaway while I fought the door. It may not be coincidence that I am guy-less at the moment. It could be due to my new found indepence. Could be my sticky door. Could be I'm too tiny. Romance isn't all butterflies and rainbows. Thats happiness. Thats never ending, so long as you never let yourself think. Romance only happens in the movies. Romantic things are all a matter of opinion. Romance is just a dream girls have when they think about meeting their perfect guy, their perfect wedding, perfect wedding night. All a dream. If romance is dead, where is there reason to believe that romantic things can still happen. All the wonder of love has disappeared. The media has dissected it and left it for dead. Love isn't a feeling anymore. Its a compatible merging of resources, abilities, and personality. Bittersweet. I'll feel differently if I ever fall in love again. 

You tell me where to go, and though I might leave to find it, I'll never let your head hit the bed without my hand behind it.

Leaving another world behind scares me. I left it, but not completely. Someday maybe. As of now though, I've left my best friend behind. My confidente. My only person in the world who knows me even remotely well enough to surpass what any stupid kid on the street could read off my face. She can read it off my face, off my hands, off my purse, off my shoes, off my emails, off my profile, off my music, off my hair color, off my letters, off my colors. Its not very often that someone finds a best friend who can do that. Or, who has been doing that non-stop since 4th grade, Since the invention of frustration paper. Since 8th grade, Since operation pretty necklace. Now I've lost my train of thought. So long. So long. And non stop. I owe her my world. And she is worlds away from me. Sometimes closer than others but Its hard to be there for her with such different worlds. 

Ballerina- you must have seen her- dancing in the sand. 


I didn't mean for this to turn into a dissertation. Only wanted to let it be known that my candles are a bit overwhelming and I'm not entirely sure I'm up for so much alone time. I'll be first to admit it when I get lonely. I'm not, just yet. Soon I think. The room is just so big. I'm too tiny to be here alone. Once I blow out the candles and the smoke clears, we'll see who comes around.

I'll be your cryin shoulder. I'll be love suicide. I'll be better when I'm older. 

----

L

good grief

I keep running to kick that ball and he keeps pulling it away. 

She is showing up in places I didn't expect her to show up. I controlled for some places, I hid the profiles of people I knew she'd know, but I didn't control for everything. I didn't expect her to have already met all his friends. I didn't expect her to be so close that she comments on their status'. 

Ew. 

I just realized how obsessive I am being over someone who doesn't even know I exist. She haunts my mind during the day and keeps me awake at night, and she has no idea how much I think about her. That is either really creepy or really pathetic. I'm not stalking her- all I know about her is her name- so it must just be pathetic. I am getting pathetic. 

I've been whining about this break up for almost 2 months now. I don't cry as much as I used to, I don't wallow as much as I used to, and I don't need as much support as I used to, but there are residual effects. I'm still adjusting to this new lifestyle. I'm still getting used to being an "I" instead of a "we". I'll be getting used to him being a "we" with someone else for a long time. So, while I feel like I've been whining about the same crap for months, and I am tired of pouring it out on everyone else, it's possible that it's new crap. I have conquered the initial breakup, the breathing problems, the appetite issue, the living situation, the 'grave dressing' process, the making sense of the breakup, the first steps toward continuing to have a life of my own. The new crap I'll be whining about is just that: NEW. It may seem like the same problem, and sure it all stems from the breakup, but its new. I haven't conquered my fear of her. I haven't conquered my newly formed insecurities about dating. I may never be ready to defeat the thought of J loving someone else. But all those things I did conquer? I did it by whining about them. So I'm not going to stop whining. 

As the ancient Greeks would have said, once you put words on paper, they have left you. They are no longer yours. You no longer hold those words, that emotion, that intensity. Whining allows me to get rid of it. Whining here lets me remind myself of all I've gotten rid of. 

So maybe I am pathetic for spending so much time thinking about a girl I will hopefully never see, but I'm getting it out. Soon it'll be gone. 

Eventually I'll kick that damn ball and this game will be over with. 

L 

letter to a friend

dear friend, 

first and foremost, thank you for being there when you were. our weekly get-togethers were a highlight to my week and never failed to make me smile. for years you never failed to offer a helping hand, an extra bed, or simply company. it seems, though, that those years have come to an end. 

dear friend, 

you weren't mine to begin with, but you insisted you were mine in the end. we shared birthdays and hard times, holidays and tears. but i suppose we were never truly each others'. you were not who i called first, and i was not who you called in most situations. in any case, i truly appreciated you and all you did for me and those i love. it seems, though, that your appreciation for me has come to an end. 

dear friend, 

hard times have come upon us again. the past month or two have given us both the opportunity to rethink where we stand both in life and in our friendship. old friends come first. this is something i support with my entire heart. my oldest friends will always be my first priority, so i completely understand where this month has led us. we've been friends for years. it seems, though, that the oldest friend inevitably wins your friendship. 

dear friend, 

i am hurt. i remember hearing that we'd be friends 'no matter what', and that even if our common bond were to dissolve, i would still be able to come to you for friendly companionship. recently, the final hard time we'll share came upon us. shortly after, those promises were broken. you said we could be friends even after something like this. it seems, though, that you didn't know the strength of your other social ties. 

dear friend, 

for future reference, when you say you will be there, be there. when you say you are a friend, be a friend. when you say you will not stop, do not stop. when you say you love someone, love them. i am positive that not all of your friendships have taken this turn, but i am determined to give you the option to keep the rest of them from running this course. if you cannot keep your promises, i suggest not making them. it seems, though, that this advice comes too late. 

dear friend, 

you have crossed a line. you have made me feel alienated in my own relationships. you have made people apologize for being my friend. you have made my grieving process 10x more intense, and 10x more painful, all in one fell swoop. you have disregarded the rules of friendship, stepped in where you should never have stepped in, and crossed every line that has been drawn in any sand. you have been the opposite of a friend since my world has begun crashing down. it seems, though, that you have better things on which to focus your energy.

dear friend, 

you cannot be a friend if you prefer to play matchmaker than help me stop crying. it is blatantly obvious that you would rather participate in the former. 

farewell. 

L

et pas toi

Quoi que je fasse

Où que je sois

Rien ne t'efface

Je pense à toi

Quoi que j'apprenne

Je ne sais pas

Pourquoi je saigne

Et pas toi

(in the words of Jean Jacques Goldman. because he speaks my heart.) 

----

There is no shortage of 'her' in my world today. She has ruined my ability to enjoy an afternoon with a friend. She has ruined my ability to listen to random songs on the radio. For the moment, she has ruined my Thursday evening. 

And she still has no idea. 

I cried all the way home today. I cried walking into the bookstore, I cried in the line, and I cried walking out to my car. I cried when I unlocked the front door and I cried when I poured  my iced tea. I cried when I loaded the washing machine. I cried when I got the mail. I cried until I realized that I could not cry anymore because I have nothing left to cry about. In the past hour I have cried every single tear that is left to be shed over the happiness of two people I barely know. The man I am crying over no longer exists like he does in my heart, and the one who is out there is not the reason I am crying. "She" has done nothing to deserve my tears. I have so many better things to cry for. 

Tomorrow I will start over again. For the 3rd time. And in a few weeks I may have to try again for a 4th. Each time I am stronger, I am more determined. Each time I am a brighter more beautiful version of me, standing tall and poised and ready to face the rest of the world. I may not have the other half of my team, but I am building my skin stronger and thicker. I am getting smarter and tougher. I am brave enough to face the 3rd time. And I'll be naive enough turn to face the 4th and 5th with courage and hope. I will get knocked down again. I will cry again. I will fall and break and put myself together again. But the point is that I will. Regardless of whether he knows or cares or feels, I will. 

Parce que je saigne, et pas toi. 

L

oh, manny

As if I had not endured enough heartbreak to last me all year. 

"Major League Baseball suspended Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez for 50 games on Thursday for use of performance enhancing drugs."

See you in July, Man Ram, along with my happiness....

And, for good measure, Fuck the Mets. 

L 

her

I have found the common thread. 

Some days I feel awesome, and suddenly, inexplicably, my mood drops into the deep abyss of miserable-town. 

I tried, at first, to locate the source of the misery by noticing what time it kicked in, on which days, in which outfits. I gave up on wearing slacks because I was consistently saddened on days when I wore dress pants. I began wearing jeans and bright shirts on Mondays to bring me comfort and happiness enough to combat what I thought were Monday blues. I avoid contact with people of authority between 830 and 930 am, because talking to them around then has a positive correlation with my unhappiness. 

But it has nothing to do with my pants, Mondays, or 9 am. 

It has to do with her. 

Some days I see her name on Facebook, and consequently have to hide a mutual friend's status updates. Some days I hear a name like hers and have to remind myself that they are not the same. Some days I see people smiling, holding hands, looking at each other, and I know that I am not those people. The common thread isn't what I'm doing, what I control. The common thread is what I'm not. 

I am not her. 

So I am not going to wear dress pants to work. And I am going to keep wearing jeans on Monday. And I am still going to avoid authority around 9 am. I am going to keep seeking out ways to avoid random trips to misery-town,  because I can't avoid her. No matter how many precautions I take, she will always be out there, somewhere, smiling, laughing, holding hands. Happily taking my place. Happily living a piece of my life for me. 

And she has no idea.

L  

the times i remember

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

-The Princess Bride

In the beginning there were moments when I forgot how hurt I was, when the pain temporarily ceased to exist. There were times when, for maybe a minute, maybe 20 minutes, I forgot that I was abandoned by love and all I knew of it. 

Tonight I realized what amazing progress I've made in the past month. Tonight I remembered. Tonight I noticed that there are times when, maybe for a minute, maybe 20 minutes, I remember that I was abandoned by love. 

Is it better to be dripping with pain and have fleeting moments of sunlight, or to have indifferent sunlight drenched in moments of pain? At least a month ago I appreciated every fleck of light I saw; now light is light, I expect light, I take it for granted. Maybe, although horribly unpleasant, being surrounded by darkness makes the light that much brighter, that much better, that much more worth straining to see. 

Or am I just a glutton for punishment, begging for more of the pain I've been strong enough to overcome so far? I suppose I just can't get enough. More rain = More rainbows. Suppose I'm getting bored being so indifferent all the time. I'm a glutton for rainbows. 

The real challenge, and my next obstacle, will be turning the rain into rainbows. Sure the rain is good for my allergies, and the planet, of course, but from now on when I remember, I'm going to try to make it a quick rain with a definite rainbow, followed by nothing but sunshine. 

Because I know I can't fight it. I am happy that I no longer only get moments to forget, but I doesn't make it hurt any less at those times when I remember. 

Here's to the rainbows. 

L

justified

I went to Target this morning to purchase toilet paper and left with much more than just bathroom tissue. Over 100$ later- I do buy Charmin, but not even Ultra Soft toilet paper is going to run a bill up that high on its own- I returned home with movies, magazines, mothers day cards, mousse, and a bottle of lotion that promises to cut down on my need to shave my legs AND gradually create a tanner, more summery me. These purchases were all necessary, I just did not know it until I agreed to pay for them. At that moment, my brain went into "make it work" mode, as do all women's brains in the checkout line at Target, I assume. 

Here's how I have made it work: 

Movies: I purchased Bride Wars and the Sex and the City movie. Both were on sale, both are uplifting cheerful movies about having friends. Both involve weddings, but that's really the least relevant similarity. I NEED these two movies, because I NEED my friends. And, sometimes friends are far away, or busy, or unreachable. In those times, I will need proxy-friends, and these films will give me that peace of mind. These inexpensive metallic discs will be able to bring me a sense of fulfillment and self worth that, really, nothing else will be able to confer at that moment. 30$ is a small price to pay for that kind of personal enrichment. I'd have been a fool not to purchase them. A fool. 

Magazines: I have been out of the dating market for a long long time. I am behind on how people dress, how they communicate, how to start a conversation on a first date (how to get a first date...). I purchased Cosmopolitan with hopes that by the end of the magazine I, too, will know 'how to keep love strong when life gets crazy' and how to have my 'sexiest summer'. I need these things to make me vital and sure of myself before I reemerge onto the dating scene. In a similar vein, I also purchased People magazines "100 Most Beautiful" double issue. Two reasons: 1. Some of these people are not beautiful for their looks, but for their accomplishments. I need their strength to keep me going through my bad hair days. I need to know that not only my mother can think I'm beautiful, but that People Magazine can appreciate me even though I'm not a celebrity. 2. This issue boasts a tribute column to Bea Arthur, and in memory of that Golden Girl, I believe this magazine will be a treasure to me in hard times for years to come. Magazines were needed, for my sanity and self esteem. 10$ well spent. 

Mother's Day Cards: These are simply essential. Mothers are the most important people in the world, and so they deserve the very best. One for my grandma, two for my mom, because I couldn't decide on just one. She deserves the very best. These are selfless purchases, and they were very necessary. 

Mousse: I am out of mousse. I don't think this requires much justification. 

Lotion: Requires less justification. Reduces my needs to shave, and tans me? This lotion is an investment. It will save me money on razor blades because they won't be going dull as quickly since I will be shaving less. Additionally, and really most important, the lotion will gradually build a natural looking tan, saving me from skin damage, premature aging, and the risk of cancer. Can we argue with that? No. Definitely not. Because I said cancer. So, lotion, necessary. 

The toilet paper though... I'm not sure how necessary that was. 

L