Dear Jon -
I announced my divorce on Facebook. We'll see how supportive people are. I turned in the last of the paperwork today, promptly followed by going to Goodwill and buying a few dresses to wear on dates. I'm thinking about txting you and telling you to take me to dinner so that I have an excuse to wear one. Maybe tomorrow after group I will.
- M.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sleeping Sickness
Dear Jon -
It's 1 AM. I would say I never sleep anymore, but after an exhausting day at work, I got home around 7 and slept until 10. At least you got out of running the groups for the kids.
Someone in my cohort told me during my first year that it's alright to be a wounded healer, as long as you're not bleeding all over the place. Right now, I feel as if I'm spurting blood everywhere I go. I told a few members of our clinical team that I'm getting divorced and I'm going deaf today. I'm glad that I did; it's a relief and they are supportive. However, I really feel like I'm on the edge of being contained. I feel terrible for my clients, but luckily I don't have too many right now. I'm just going to try to coast out the rest of the summer and relax and take care of myself.
I've spent the last 45 minutes picking out and outfit and pressing my suit for tomorrow. I'm going to next year's practicum site for them to take my fingerprints and do my background check. That will be very exciting and fun.
I'm also going to turn in my divorce paperwork tomorrow, as I have to pass through the town with the courthouse on my way to the town where my site is. That is going to be much less fun. I should reward myself with booze, and I probably will.
Today as we were smoking, I really wanted to reach out and just grab you and cry. It was almost as if I were drowning and you were some sort of lifeline for me. I know that you're in no position to be anyone's lifeline, and so, somehow, I restrained myself. You sounded wounded in some way when you said you would see me again soon as we parted.
I hope you do take me up on dinner. Maybe tomorrow? That would be a relief, to have someone to commiserate with over the divorce process. And, of course, I'd love to see you.
You were so handsome today in your jeans that are too tight and your polo over a t-shirt, in muted indie colors. Something about your package today was immodest. Or perhaps I'm projecting. I have such a difficult time viewing you sexually, and honestly I haven't been very interested in sex for the past few months. But every once in a while, like catching a glimpse of the curve of your inseam, I get the tinglies. I wonder if I ever give you the tinglies.
- M.
It's 1 AM. I would say I never sleep anymore, but after an exhausting day at work, I got home around 7 and slept until 10. At least you got out of running the groups for the kids.
Someone in my cohort told me during my first year that it's alright to be a wounded healer, as long as you're not bleeding all over the place. Right now, I feel as if I'm spurting blood everywhere I go. I told a few members of our clinical team that I'm getting divorced and I'm going deaf today. I'm glad that I did; it's a relief and they are supportive. However, I really feel like I'm on the edge of being contained. I feel terrible for my clients, but luckily I don't have too many right now. I'm just going to try to coast out the rest of the summer and relax and take care of myself.
I've spent the last 45 minutes picking out and outfit and pressing my suit for tomorrow. I'm going to next year's practicum site for them to take my fingerprints and do my background check. That will be very exciting and fun.
I'm also going to turn in my divorce paperwork tomorrow, as I have to pass through the town with the courthouse on my way to the town where my site is. That is going to be much less fun. I should reward myself with booze, and I probably will.
Today as we were smoking, I really wanted to reach out and just grab you and cry. It was almost as if I were drowning and you were some sort of lifeline for me. I know that you're in no position to be anyone's lifeline, and so, somehow, I restrained myself. You sounded wounded in some way when you said you would see me again soon as we parted.
I hope you do take me up on dinner. Maybe tomorrow? That would be a relief, to have someone to commiserate with over the divorce process. And, of course, I'd love to see you.
You were so handsome today in your jeans that are too tight and your polo over a t-shirt, in muted indie colors. Something about your package today was immodest. Or perhaps I'm projecting. I have such a difficult time viewing you sexually, and honestly I haven't been very interested in sex for the past few months. But every once in a while, like catching a glimpse of the curve of your inseam, I get the tinglies. I wonder if I ever give you the tinglies.
- M.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Waiting for time to burn me down
Dear Jon -
Blame it on the Tetons lyrics:
Everyone's a building burning with no one to put the fire out. Standing at the window looking out, waiting for time to burn us down. Everyone's an ocean drowning with no one really to show how they might get a little better air if they turned themselves into a cloud.
I'm not writing for you. I'm writing because the house is empty and the cat knocked over my flimsy little coffee table so there's papers and cigarette butts all over the living room floor (I know I shouldn't smoke in the house, but with no one to tell me "No," why not stay up all night getting drunk and getting crazy and trying desperately to forget how desperate my life has become?)
Why should I bother not to eat frozen yogurt out of the tub with old BBC documentaries playing on my laptop in the dark? Why should I bother to sleep, or to even attempt sleep, or to eat anything besides diet soda and saltines and ravioli from the can? I don't know what to do with this time and this empty house. Time. and Emptiness.
This too shall pass, right?
The doctor really scared me, today. In a few years I'll have a half a million dollar education and I'll be deaf. What to do then? Better start learning ASL, I imagine. When I was first diagnosed, I took a few classes (I was scared then, too).
But the music. I don't have an obsession with discography like the Nick Hornby-esque musicphiles I know, and I can't tell you the names of the bands I like without looking at my iPod, much less who their lead guitarists are.
But the music, Jon.
When I was in middle school, I started playing in the jazz band. I loved it because I was a part of something moving and beautiful, because I belonged, in harmony. I loved it because my part was small and didn't make sense alone, but when placed in context I mattered. I kept playing, and it was my love and my escape in the midst of being raped and being an outcast and leaving home and working my ass off and being smarter than everyone but not smart enough to take care of myself. I was in the all state band. I had a music scholarship. I started traveling with the college band. I started playing on the Strip, paying gigs with grungy old jazz musicians who drink shots of whiskey between sets. I was living a beautiful and dirty and wonderous life, and I lost the hearing in my left ear. I couldn't keep time anymore. So I became an engineering major. Then I dropped out of school.
That's when I started playing the guitar. It's just me, and I don't have a voice, but I can certainly raise a joyful noise. I'm not that good, but I am good enough to let my friends sing along and become a part of something again, sometimes.
I'm losing my hearing, Jon. But the music. I don't know what I'll do for the music.
I re-read this blog from the beginning tonight, before I spent an hour howling along to my poor covers of Leonard Cohen and the Pogues. I can't be this into you. I think I'm just really lonely. I've been lonely for a very long time. I'm constantly disappointed - in life, in those around me, in myself. Life is supposed to be better by now.
Right now, I'm living in an apartment I can't afford, teetering on the edge of academic probation, in the midst of a divorce, in constant fear of debilitating vertigo which could come with no warning, terrified I'm going to be deaf before I graduate. Is this all there is? Is that all there is?
I was talking to a friend about you tonight. He asked me what I want out of this. I told him that I just want you to acknowledge that I meant something to you. I think that would be enough - to feel like I mattered to someone who meant something to me.
I'm tired and I'll see you in nine hours.
I hope you think of me sometimes, Jon. I hope you find the time to pray for me.
- M.
Blame it on the Tetons lyrics:
Everyone's a building burning with no one to put the fire out. Standing at the window looking out, waiting for time to burn us down. Everyone's an ocean drowning with no one really to show how they might get a little better air if they turned themselves into a cloud.
I'm not writing for you. I'm writing because the house is empty and the cat knocked over my flimsy little coffee table so there's papers and cigarette butts all over the living room floor (I know I shouldn't smoke in the house, but with no one to tell me "No," why not stay up all night getting drunk and getting crazy and trying desperately to forget how desperate my life has become?)
Why should I bother not to eat frozen yogurt out of the tub with old BBC documentaries playing on my laptop in the dark? Why should I bother to sleep, or to even attempt sleep, or to eat anything besides diet soda and saltines and ravioli from the can? I don't know what to do with this time and this empty house. Time. and Emptiness.
This too shall pass, right?
The doctor really scared me, today. In a few years I'll have a half a million dollar education and I'll be deaf. What to do then? Better start learning ASL, I imagine. When I was first diagnosed, I took a few classes (I was scared then, too).
But the music. I don't have an obsession with discography like the Nick Hornby-esque musicphiles I know, and I can't tell you the names of the bands I like without looking at my iPod, much less who their lead guitarists are.
But the music, Jon.
When I was in middle school, I started playing in the jazz band. I loved it because I was a part of something moving and beautiful, because I belonged, in harmony. I loved it because my part was small and didn't make sense alone, but when placed in context I mattered. I kept playing, and it was my love and my escape in the midst of being raped and being an outcast and leaving home and working my ass off and being smarter than everyone but not smart enough to take care of myself. I was in the all state band. I had a music scholarship. I started traveling with the college band. I started playing on the Strip, paying gigs with grungy old jazz musicians who drink shots of whiskey between sets. I was living a beautiful and dirty and wonderous life, and I lost the hearing in my left ear. I couldn't keep time anymore. So I became an engineering major. Then I dropped out of school.
That's when I started playing the guitar. It's just me, and I don't have a voice, but I can certainly raise a joyful noise. I'm not that good, but I am good enough to let my friends sing along and become a part of something again, sometimes.
I'm losing my hearing, Jon. But the music. I don't know what I'll do for the music.
I re-read this blog from the beginning tonight, before I spent an hour howling along to my poor covers of Leonard Cohen and the Pogues. I can't be this into you. I think I'm just really lonely. I've been lonely for a very long time. I'm constantly disappointed - in life, in those around me, in myself. Life is supposed to be better by now.
Right now, I'm living in an apartment I can't afford, teetering on the edge of academic probation, in the midst of a divorce, in constant fear of debilitating vertigo which could come with no warning, terrified I'm going to be deaf before I graduate. Is this all there is? Is that all there is?
I was talking to a friend about you tonight. He asked me what I want out of this. I told him that I just want you to acknowledge that I meant something to you. I think that would be enough - to feel like I mattered to someone who meant something to me.
I'm tired and I'll see you in nine hours.
I hope you think of me sometimes, Jon. I hope you find the time to pray for me.
- M.
Mix Tape
And still I'm not done with you.
I've been composing a mix tape for you in my head, as evidenced by the "soundtrack" to this blog, and today I started paying the damn $.99 a song to make the CD. I'm going to give it to you, I hope (and if I'm very courageous, I'll put Avenue Q's "Mix Tape" as the last song).
So, since I last wrote my life has been something out of a terrible German play. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. To sum it up, an old friend of mine (who also happens to be a fugitive) showed up on my doorstep with a terminal illness. My husband and I talked and agreed to take him in. Well, five days later, my husband called the cops and had him arrested. I promptly left my husband for this betrayal. I might have gone back to him, had he not then called all of my friends from school and told them that I'm a cult member and my old friend is the cult leader and he has me brainwashed into protecting him. I might be a cult member, but I'm not brainwashed. He also told people I tried to kill myself and some other stuff. He canceled the electricity and gas to my apartment and some other stuff. I can't even keep track of all the crazy shit he did (this all started six weeks ago, and just today I had to get the internet straightened out). In any case, he's made it impossible to reconcile. I have the divorce paperwork sitting next to me as I type.
You know most of this, because during our smoke breaks, I've been keeping you updated. You've been wonderful, listening to me blabber on. There were a few times when I thought I was being selfish and horrible because you have your own shit going on, too.
In any case, Jon, the last time we spoke was on Thursday, when I asked you if you'd like to have dinner. You said you'd txt me. You haven't yet, but I have hopes.
So what the fuck do I do now?
I never wanted to be divorced, but thank the gods that I am going to be. Because I'm free, and you know how desperately miserable I was. I begged you to be my excuse not to get married and you told me not to, but I needed another excuse (and thank you, thank you, thank you, Jon, for not saying "I told you so"). And thank the gods I'm getting divorced because... now I can pursue you.
Jon, I've thrown myself at you at least ten times. Maybe God kept you away from internship so that you could be here with me for another year, I don't know. I think that maybe he put us both at our site so that we could be there for each other. I know that you helped me, and maybe I helped you. It's been a hard year. So what are you going to do? What the fuck are you going to do?
I remember almost sleeping with you. I remember reading poetry to each other and crying in our drunken moroseness. I long for you. I have a genuine loathing of Facebook because your profile keeps coming up saying, "Reconnect with him." Jon, something has to change.
And, I suppose things will change. The second week of August, we'll be done at our site, and what will happen then? Will you be gone forever? I won't see you at work or school anymore. Will you just let me go?
Hope is what makes this all so hard. Hope.
I'm melodramatic, but I'm allowed to be. I found out today from the doctor that my inner ear condition has spread to my other ear and I'm slowly going deaf. But I don't even want to think about that right now. I'd much rather daydream about you.
I look forward to seeing you in clinical team tomorrow. Maybe you'll sit near me. Maybe we'll smoke afterward and I'll tell you the divorce paperwork is filled out. What will you do?
- M.
I've been composing a mix tape for you in my head, as evidenced by the "soundtrack" to this blog, and today I started paying the damn $.99 a song to make the CD. I'm going to give it to you, I hope (and if I'm very courageous, I'll put Avenue Q's "Mix Tape" as the last song).
So, since I last wrote my life has been something out of a terrible German play. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. To sum it up, an old friend of mine (who also happens to be a fugitive) showed up on my doorstep with a terminal illness. My husband and I talked and agreed to take him in. Well, five days later, my husband called the cops and had him arrested. I promptly left my husband for this betrayal. I might have gone back to him, had he not then called all of my friends from school and told them that I'm a cult member and my old friend is the cult leader and he has me brainwashed into protecting him. I might be a cult member, but I'm not brainwashed. He also told people I tried to kill myself and some other stuff. He canceled the electricity and gas to my apartment and some other stuff. I can't even keep track of all the crazy shit he did (this all started six weeks ago, and just today I had to get the internet straightened out). In any case, he's made it impossible to reconcile. I have the divorce paperwork sitting next to me as I type.
You know most of this, because during our smoke breaks, I've been keeping you updated. You've been wonderful, listening to me blabber on. There were a few times when I thought I was being selfish and horrible because you have your own shit going on, too.
In any case, Jon, the last time we spoke was on Thursday, when I asked you if you'd like to have dinner. You said you'd txt me. You haven't yet, but I have hopes.
So what the fuck do I do now?
I never wanted to be divorced, but thank the gods that I am going to be. Because I'm free, and you know how desperately miserable I was. I begged you to be my excuse not to get married and you told me not to, but I needed another excuse (and thank you, thank you, thank you, Jon, for not saying "I told you so"). And thank the gods I'm getting divorced because... now I can pursue you.
Jon, I've thrown myself at you at least ten times. Maybe God kept you away from internship so that you could be here with me for another year, I don't know. I think that maybe he put us both at our site so that we could be there for each other. I know that you helped me, and maybe I helped you. It's been a hard year. So what are you going to do? What the fuck are you going to do?
I remember almost sleeping with you. I remember reading poetry to each other and crying in our drunken moroseness. I long for you. I have a genuine loathing of Facebook because your profile keeps coming up saying, "Reconnect with him." Jon, something has to change.
And, I suppose things will change. The second week of August, we'll be done at our site, and what will happen then? Will you be gone forever? I won't see you at work or school anymore. Will you just let me go?
Hope is what makes this all so hard. Hope.
I'm melodramatic, but I'm allowed to be. I found out today from the doctor that my inner ear condition has spread to my other ear and I'm slowly going deaf. But I don't even want to think about that right now. I'd much rather daydream about you.
I look forward to seeing you in clinical team tomorrow. Maybe you'll sit near me. Maybe we'll smoke afterward and I'll tell you the divorce paperwork is filled out. What will you do?
- M.
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