Why does this blog exist?

It really covers the same ground as my other blog. I guess I intended to be totally anonymous with it. It's good to know it's still here, in case i need it!

What I could say on this very interesting day

Dear M---

I started writing this on the anniversary of the day I met you, two years ago, at the Bar des Aiglons on rue Rambuteau in Paris. I don’t know when, or if, I will ever send it. I intend it to be my last letter to you – I think it’s best for me to try to stop thinking about you – I wish I could – and certainly it’s best to stop trying to communicate with you – I have tried to stop! – since you have chosen not to be in touch with me any more.

I wish I knew why. I wish I knew if I’d done something to offend you, or if you just moved on. It should have been clear to me from the minute I arrived back in the US last March that everything had changed. It turns out that the kisses you blew to me at the airport were your adieu, not your au revoir. (You taught me the difference between those two phrases.)

But it wasn’t clear – I didn’t know. I have been stuck for so many months: stuck because of how much you seemed to like and care for me; stuck because you told me early on that you were a loyal friend. Stuck because one of the most recent genuine conversations we had (last JULY – over six months ago) you told me you considered me a dear friend. Loyal, dear friends reply to emails, say hello once in a while. (Yes I got your New Year’s greeting – honestly I couldn’t understand why you even sent it.) It’s been devastating – I have been so very very sad, missed you so much. I’ve gotten on with my life – I’ve worked on my marriage, my body and health, my work. I’m happier now than I’ve been in a long time.

You oversimplified, though, when you said that my feelings for you were just a symptom of my unhappiness with my life. That may have been where it started, but the feelings were real, and our relationship was real. The connection/interest/affection – yes, maybe even attraction – was mutual, at least for a while. I get it – I understand that feelings change, things end, and that one must just accept it and try to move forward. But it doesn’t matter if my feelings are the world’s most giant cliché – who cares? I still think you could have done me the courtesy of saying “good bye.”

I will post this to my blog instead of sending it – if I ever do send it, it will have to be without that last paragraph, or most of it.

Yours, always, like it or not, J-

Sex IS nice

So I have sex with my husband. Once again can't stop thinking about he-who-must-not-be-named-or-thought-about. Seeing his face, hearing his voice, picturing, well, the whole nine yards. Bad bad BAD ImPrudence! But then what happens is, sex gets my body all revved up and raw, so I'm turned on the whole next day. So every guy I look at, I think horny thoughts about. The bland, semi-asexual guy who runs the health program at the hospital suddenly looks HOT! I'm practically licking my lips as I talk to him.

Which reminds me, when I first started talking to a therapist about my crazy crush on HWMNBNOTA (see above) she told me it was all about sex. Well, duh. I'm 42 years old and 30 pounds overweight - I'm not going to be having appreciably MORE sex any time soon. That sounds self-defeating, self-fulfilling, etc. I know that - if I built it they will come, or something like that - I gotta believe... The thing is, I was glad to have sex last night, and I do want it, but i needed slee pmore - I'm wrecked today. I'm not attracted to my husband but it's nice when we have it - my body responds even if my mind is yawning and my heart is yearning for HeWho. I MUST NOT WRITE HIM EVER EVER EVER AGAIN.

Yawp!

I cannot concentrate today. I am making little progress in the moving on department - it's now just about two years since the day I met him (it was January 20th, I believe - today is the 12th) and I'm about as obsessed as I was then. At least today I'm having as much trouble getting my mind off him and onto work. But I know it's more about the work and less about him - just don't feel like attackign the pile. But I was about to start and the phone rang - it is hard to concentrate! Have I mentioned that already? I miss my coffee shop!

Shifting sands

I've been saying goodbye to my imaginary boyfriend (there's no other word for it - we had an actual relationship, which he participated in, briefly a long time ago but it was all one-sided for many months after that.) When I look back on how many times I signed onto Instant Messenger in case he was looking for me, how many months between tepid emails from him, it's pretty awful. So I threw away the pictures. I deleted the emails and IMs. I'm going to throw away the diary of my obsession (But keep the first one, of the trip when I met him, and the immediate aftermath). I'm keeping the paintings but tossing the scans and copies of them. I am deleting him, slowly, from my heart and mind. So why do I keep dreaming about him all of a sudden? In this entire nearly TWO YEARS - GACK - I never dreamed about him (only daydreamed, constantly) and now, three times this week. My subconscious saying, "not so fast, sister!" perhaps? They're mostly anxiety dreams - showing up in Paris and not sure if I should call him or not, looking for him but not finding... nonetheless I consider this to be a real shift. I've stopped signing onto AIM. Even deleted the email that has his IP number so I can't check whether he's visited my blog. It's small steps, Ellie, but steps nonetheles.

But overall things are better emotionally. Still largely sexless. I'm incredibly tired and don't feel particularly well physically. My back hurts. My elbow really hurts. My knees complained in a very annoyed tone when I went jogging today. I have a weird rash and some strange pain under my ear. But my kids are sweet, my house isn't too bad, and work is OK - can't really complain about any of that. (My isster in law sent a letter about a trip she'd just come back from - every sentence was basically complaining about it. " It was really nice except for the hard beds and the lizards and the weather..." - much more energy went into describing the bad stuff than the good. When she gets her baby - oh dear!

A day off, a vacation, a letter to a lost friend

My husband is taking the kids to the city tomorrow - I will have 24 hours to myself. Mostly I'll be working, but it will be lovely to come home at whatever hour, drink a glass of wine and eat dinner, listen to the radio, watch TV, sleep and wake, with nobody to talk to me, touch me, ask me for anything. I'll have to go to sleep early to pop out of bed early to be out the door early to meet them at the airport - Wednesday before Thanksgiving at LaGuardia - lovely. A weekend in Ohio - lovely. A weekend at a nice hotel, no dishes to do, with a pool, truly lovely, no sarcasm intended.

Meanwhile this is what I want to write to HIM: Dear M: I need to know. Are you not getting my emails, or just choosing not to answer them? I have sent four in the last two months - none of which you've answered. If you've decided not to be in communication with me anymore, just say that much, and I will leave you alone. Of course I'd want to know why, but an explanation is not required - I can imagine enough reasons. But if you still consider me a friend, someone you care about, then I need for you to answer my emails, if only with a single sentence - "Hi J--, I'm really busy these days but it's nice to hear from you" would be a lot better than total silence. If you can't do this, for whatever reason, then I will stop corresponding with you - it's too painful to send a letter out into the air and not get anything back. It takes a little bite out of my soul every time.

If on the other hand you are just not receiving them - if you didn't get my birthday greeting, and my "wave across the ocean" and my good wishes for your concert - then perhaps I must find a new way of communicating. I hear passenger pigeons might be making a comeback.

Yours, J ---

I suppose this looks absurd -- anyone reading it would say, this is so clear, just stop writing, forget about him. But they have no idea what I had, what I lost, what it meant to me. It's hard to stop - they don't make rehab hospitals for what I'm addicted to.

What I wrote today

I hate you

What else can I say? I sent you a birthday greeting on Friday. You read it on Saturday. Now it's Sunday - afternoon, evening there - I know you are celebrating your birthday, probably with HER, probably sleeping with her, but how hard is it to take a moment to say " thank you." How hard? A month ago, and a month before that, when I wrote you thoughtful notes, why couldn't you respond? What are you telling me? Shut up? I don't care? I don't have time for you? Whatever it is, by telling me this way instead of directly, it makes me hate your lazy, passive/agressive, selfish ass. Because it's your birthday I've been thinking more about you lately - and because this time last year, Thanksgiving, was in so many ways the beginning of the end. It was when I obsessively looked for you online and via email the entire time I was gone. It was when you went away with her and left me alone. It was when I realized that, even with a trip to see you planned, the fun was over. Maybe once these milestones pass, I can move on a little. I hope so. Are you trying to make that easier for me? If so, thank you, but I still hate you.

Yes, I wrote that, but I feel like I need to say more. Or say it again, over and over and over. I loved you with an intensity, a crazy unrestrained passion, divorced from all reality. I was completely obsessed, I stalked you, I thought about you every minute. When I had sex with my husband, I thought aobut you. While I was driving my kids to school, I thought about you. When I was staring at my computer at work, I thought about you. I waited for you to email or IM me - I lived for those moments, was high for days afterwards. That was a year ago. What is left, now? What do I feel, now? I'm better, healing, focusing on other things. But on days like this, god I still miss you so much and I'm so angry/sad/resentful/regretful that you do not think of me.