Discovering Denial Deep Down

I wrote a week or so ago about entering into the acceptance stage. I might have been wrong about that. Over the past few weeks...the 'no internet' weeks...I have been overcome with bouts of anger...yes acceptance...but more anger...and the arrival of said bane has forced me to realize the level of my denial while simultaneously perpetuating more anger.

I miss London. I miss the people. I miss the sky. I miss the walks. I miss the rides on the Tube.I miss the feeling of moving forward. The absence of this weird fear of a stymied existence. The feeling of power I got from figuring out the city...in a sense. I denied myself those feelings for a long time. Accepting them makes me angry. Accepting my being sent home makes me angry. What is there for me in London now? Nothing. There is no reason to go back...and I'm angry about that. Every Memphian fears that nothing will come along to help us break out. I love Memphis...but the big world is out there...begging me to join it...and without a reason...it seems a bit of a stretch to go dashing off my front porch for longer than a month. I miss London. I wanted to be there longer. I really really did.

Also...with the arrival of this person...I get to hear complaints of how much better London is than crappy, hot, have to drive everywhere Memphis. Which makes me angry...because I didn't ask to come back here. I was sent here.

Then I have these moments of believing for a split second that he's missed me desperately. That he regrets his decision every day...that he's miserable. But he isn't. He's fine. Peachy. Of course.

My internet is back up. Let's get down with the emotional updates.

Blank Screen

I've been sitting here, looking at this blank screen for a few good long moments...also chewing on my hangnails...fervently. It really is easier to write in the morning or the evening...right after or just before bed. It will be a relief to have the internet at home very soon. It will also be a relief to get a paycheck on Friday. I don't like getting paid once a month. I don't like having to manage my money. I hold on too tight. 'Tis the norm for me...in everything.

I have been overwhelmed, as of late, with confusion, terror, loneliness, peace, productivity, and the occasional spark of power. I spent the weekend in the sun...in a hammock...at someone else's house in the faraway land of Collierville. I spent the weekend loving the people around me...but hiding away...deep inside of myself. And no...I'm not coming out.

I have these terrifying moments of desperation...of the inability to sit still and to let things sink in...to let the reality of what must be done affect me...instead, I'm looking for an out...a distraction in hopes that it might make things easier. I feel like I am not allowed to be myself...for the moment...even with myself. I am a sleepwalker in my own dreams. I am screaming inside...stupid ideas and stupid thoughts. The past two years seem surreal to me. I cannot imagine the future...I am torn between desperately wanting the old future and wondering every once in a while just what the new future might hold.

I do not feel very strong. There are times when I feel like I have a gaping, bleeding hole inside of me. The idea of letting go of...not just the past...but my unquenchable thirst for insights into the future...is exhausting.

The Absence of Blog

SO....I betcher all wonderin....where the H-E-L-L has Caroline been all week. WELL...I do NOT have internet...so....it's not that I don't love you...it's that I don't have the means of communication.

Now. This week, I have moved into a new apartment. I have a new room mate. I have no pots or pans. I have no lamps. These are things I love...and I am, therefore, sad. For those of you that don't know me....I love lamp....s. Yes...it's true. I am a fan of the low lighting. I find overhead lights to be a bit too invasive...like they're questioning me...forcing me to see everything while allowing everyone to see all of me. Overhead lights = poo. Pots and pans...make it possible for me to feed myself. I have food...but no way to cook it...except a microwave. hooray.

This leads me to the sadness of the week...and I KNOW....why won't I just get over it? I mean...come ON. It's been over a month. I could tell you how many days....but I'd have to stop and count...which, I think, is an improvement. So...sadness...and I will try to be brief: Being surrounded by all this stuff....my old stuff...and the absence of stuff....stuff that I sold...reminds me of my former fervor...of how desperately and passionately I loved Liam...how much I wanted to be with him and to share my life with him. And now I'm back...with the stuff I left behind...and without the stuff I never thought I'd need again. And it makes me feel sad...and often lonely. There is much silence...and the occasional cry.

Enough.

I introduced Mr. Pants and Alexander to the new place today...and they promptly ran under my bed and hid for about an hour. Mr. Pants was the first to venture out...and he gradually began exploring, chatting with me all the while. When I left this evening...Alexander was still under the bed. So much for the old Alexander the Great "fortune favors the brave" nonsense. Kid needs to live up to his name.

I'm glad this week is over. Moving is hard. Moving actually kind of sucks...but getting settled can be really nice...I'm waiting for that part. My apartment is so lovely. You should come see me. Sit on my porch...have a beer. We'll talk. It'll be nice.

The In-Between Days

This is going to sound really strange, but I have decided that....despite the fact that it will become progressively more miserable....the heat is quite cleansing. My professor, Dr. Scraba's wife, Mechelle, commented once that she felt like she was detoxing all the time during the summer in Memphis...and I have to agree with her. It is oppressive...and it does get insanely worse...but the sticky layer on top of my skin is kind of comforting. It reminds me to slow down and put my feet up, allows me to wear shorts and sandals, makes me want to go swimming, makes me feel alive...it's also kind of sexy...you know? maybe?

I've cooked for some lovely ladies both Thursday and Friday evening...and Friday evening Grace and I decided to start an underground dance movement in Memphis...so...even if it's just us doing it...we're totally dancing...once a week. bitches.

It's been really nice living with my cats again...they are incredibly lovable. The only issue I have is their intense need for me to play with them at five in the morning. Mr Pants actually dropped a hair tie on my face because I kept ignoring his invitation to play fetch with him on Thursday morning. I threw the hair tie out the door and slammed it shut. He still loves me though. His love is steadfast...as long as I feed him and clean out his litter box...which really isn't too much to ask. It's kind of a deal.

This has been an insanely boring blog...My apologies for that. I guess because I'm not feeling intense sorrow or overwhelming happiness. I still get sad...but I feel incredibly strong at the moment. It's this weird feeling...like...you know how you feel after a really good cry? Kind of relaxed and calm...and warm? There are moments of that...even when I haven't cried, and I still cry...I just don't document it so much any more. I feel empowered with the remarkable ability to rise up...out of the ashes.

hind sight

I think the hardest thing to get past during this process of eliminating my sorrow/anger/confusion/disillusion would be waking up every morning. Every morning I wake up...and it's hard anyway...but the first thing I think...my waking thought is a reminder that I am no longer with Liam. I don't know why it was easier to get up in the morning when I knew I had him...when he was in my life...in a future kind of way.

I was so tired during class this morning. I had to apologize about a million times for yawning. At one point during a group activity, I drifted off and had this realization: From the moment I knew that Liam liked me...I immediately began to project all these...I don't know...hopes....for us. It wasn't as bad until after he told me he loved me...and then I just built this gigantic dream all around him and me...all around us, and I expected it to be that...I trusted it to be this thing I had created...or imagined it could and should be. I made him into this superhero....that was better than me....and I never felt like I could live up to it...be good enough for it...this image I had created. When I got lost, I think that's where I went. I suppose that's a lot of pressure to put on someone. I suppose it's a bit exhausting. It was exhausting for me too. I think if I apologize for anything...it's that. I'm sure it was a burden on the relationship. If I could go back and change something, I wouldn't need him so much....or think I needed him. I would have kept my head about me. I wish I could go back...right now...I wish I could do things differently...erase the bad and the difficult. But I can't. And that makes me sad. I teared up just a little in class...but I choked it back. And kept going. as tired as I was.

I would like to think that it wasn't my fault. I would like to think that I don't have the uncanny ability to destroy my relationships. It is too late to think of all I did wrong. I hope he knew, at least, how much I loved and appreciated him...all the time...even when I didn't show it.

Pre-Calculus Blows

I believe, perhaps...more than likely...I have entered into the acceptance stage of my grief. I am no longer operating under the impression that this isn't actually happening to me...I am also no longer operating under the impression that this is the worst thing that has or will ever happen to me. I am trying...I am taking my life back because it is the only thing I can do...really.

Driving...despite being quite a pain...is easier now because, for some reason, I've stopped obsessing about the people that constantly tail gate me. I used to go crazy about that...now...I just ignore it...even though I'm probably being tailgated for driving like a grandma.

I am inundated...by myself...with books to read. I occasionally get hit on in bookstores by strange, reclusive guys hyped up on coffee at 9 p.m, and I try to hide my desperate search for an exit. I got chatted up in the reference section the other day at Border's. So ladies...GO!

Yesterday evening I was tooling around in Barnes and Noble when I came across this book called Lady In Waiting. I remember this book from college and Bible studies. I think it's no secret that I believe in God. I was raised in the church, but I do not, currently, find a connection within organized religion. Goodness knows there is a great deal being taught and thought that is as far from who God is as George Bush is from being someone that would be coming over to my place for dinner. Anyway..This book had a caption at the bottom below a picture of this girl that was, I guess, supposed to be...contemplating? Waiting?...anyway...it read, "Becoming God's best while waiting for Mr. Right."

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I'm pausing....for effect...................................................................
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Okay. I just want to focus on one part of this statement....and how reading it...suddenly made everything clear to me. "While waiting for Mr. Right..." As if life...LIFE...is waiting. This is the rhetoric that I used to cling to...it was a huge part of that idea of the way things are supposed to be...what my purpose in life is...the life formula in which the correct variables equal the way life is supposed to be. Except...the variables don't always work...in fact...life is rarely mathematical...and NEVER waiting. WAITING? It's a tough thing when you have to learn that life is not waiting, but instead...living. I lived under the pretense that I was being prepared for something...that I was preparing...for, I don't know...the big life math test? I know now, that I started living the moment I was born. All the falling down and messing up, that wasn't learning...that was living. LIVING. And the truth is...sometimes the living...is all we get.

Now let's talk about Mr Right.....and who might that be? What might that be...and why the hell should I be waiting for him? What will he do for me? Is he going to save me? Is he going to confirm my beliefs? Is he going to make me feel pretty? The more important question is...is he going to give me a job? Mr. Right is a figment of every girl's imagination. I doubt that, if I get married, I'll ever think of him as Mr. Right. The term implies that there is this one special person for everyone...a soul mate.......and that soul mate will be your partner....you know...for love and sex and babies and things....well....this is nonsense. bollocks. insanity. My soul mate is possibly my best friend...and I don't have sex with her (however, I do make jokes about having sex with her) (Also...Mr. Pants is my other soul mate...or he might as well be). Mr Right is another one of those variables that just doesn't fit into the reality equation.

Nobody teaches you when you're growing up that your life purpose is not to get married and have kids. Nobody teaches you that you might have to be able to take care of yourself. Nobody teaches you to make decisions based on what you need rather than what someone else needs. Nobody teaches you to make decisions. Become a better, holier person + Mr Right = you'll be the best wife ever = happiness. As a believer, I cannot believe in a god that didn't create me to be capable of making my own way in this world, in a god that narrowed life down to a simple equation. I think the writers of the aforementioned book have a different idea of God than I do.

Well...I'll never be the best wife ever. I probably won't even be a good one...if I am one. And with my own hands...I will never be holy. It's time to teach women to make decisions, to decide what they want to do with their lives, to use the tools they've been given to succeed and to stop trying to be...and preparing to be. It's time to teach women that they are. No more waiting. No more wishing. It's time for Deciding. Fighting. Believing in ourselves. It's time to be. Time for living....finally.

I have never been good at math.

When The Crying Stops

So...it's been three days since I last cried. I bet you're wondering, "when you're not crying, what on EARTH do you do with your time?!" And the truth is, nothing much really. I take a while to get out of bed. I take a while to decide what to eat. I take a while to get dressed. I take a while to decide to do the next thing. Everything moves in slow motion, rather than being at a complete standstill. I sometimes wonder if I've found some way to suppress my true feelings and fool myself into being somewhat content. I don't know. I'm not destitute, by any means. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm confident that it will continue to get bigger, the closer I get to it.

I am haunted by the past...still. I have these moments of terrible sadness. Not violent, or dramatic, just very quiet, slow sadness. I still wish he would change his mind, and try to find a way back into my life, but I do not expect it...in any way. Life is rarely ever magical unless it's because of something I've worked for...and then it's not really magical...is it? I feel awkward in many social situations. I want to talk about it all the time, and then sometimes I never want to talk about it again. Today in the middle of my first class (which I TOTALLY improvised because I planned for the wrong class)...I wanted to talk all about it. It reminded me of how open I was with all my students in the fall about my future plans and my "boyfriend" and how I was so excited. They were excited for me. Luckily, the part of my brain that is managing to move forward through the mess held me back from teaching a terrible lesson about heartbreak, rather than writing in English.

I still believe, after everything...and it certainly wasn't as much as it could have been...in love. I know it is out there...probably in the very distant future...but it is out there again...waiting for me to be completely unprepared for it. It is also here...with me...beside me...and all around me. So...