Wow this blog has boring. Anyone reading it would think that I think only about one thing, and believe it or not, that isn't exactly the truth.

Sitting on the smooth black leathery surface of my purse here at the library is a willow leaf, long, slender, yellow speckled with gentle brown, like a banana. It also reminds me of a gondola, the way its tip curls up.

On the wall to my right is a big (3.5 X 4') painting of local type scenery. It is a little trite and tiresome.... I'd like to be able to say that I find it inspiring..alas I do not. The only thing about it that I really like are the hills, which are rising from the water (Lake Pend Oreille?? Priest Lake?? The river? Soemthign like that). They are just as earthily sensuous in their rounded bulk as the real thing is to me, and the artists treatment sort of obliterates or blends the trees in, so that the rounded, drowsy voloptousness is even more apparent than it would be in 'real life'. (Whatever the hell that is...)

Yeah, what is real life, anyway? Working life? Is this life, to slave away, hardly concious of my own body or mind, feeling lost....living only in my thoughts and silent conversations with you, conversations that you will never hear.....To struggle...throughout the day...how to tell you, how to explain...that....it wasn't like that, not exactly...and to sit helplessly and mutely before the moniter at night...still unable to express it...knowing it doesn't really matter anyway.....

To look at my children, my goats, my former life, the parts of it that I loved, and wonder how to integrate that into the present and not entirely agreeable reality I've found myself in? I have to have them. They are not a burden, they are the only things I can communicate with, they are my sanity. I have to get the goats back, and I have to work out something more feasible for the children.

No, that isn't true. I communicated with you....somehow......how can I tell you that that was enough, that I didn't *expect* more....that....That I know I'll be alone...and it's OK, it's tolerable, I think....oh, whatever.....my life is a mess.

Here is the thing: I have this agreement, that when I fuck thigns up really badly, I'm mad at myself, yes. But what gi9ves me the strength to go on, to keep living, is that I determine not to make that particular mistake again.

For example: not to marry or sleep with someone out of pity or because I don't know how to refuse them.

Not to fool around with soemone I don't evem *like*.

Or with someone married; I inadvertently repeated this one, and I'm really ticked about that....I don't have time to repeat mistakes.

Or with someone who'll be unhappy....however much I love them, I never, ever want to do that again.

I have been bored.....really broed and depressed today. Boredom isn't a very common phenomenon for me, but when you're stuck for several hours in a sleepy, smelly house with uncooperative clients and nothing to do.....so I resumed Crime and Punishment. I let it slide for a while because it was disturbing my sleep when I read it at night.

I am so tired of being alone. And I mean alone in the sense of having someone I can relate to and mentally connect to as an equal. I am *tired* of people who act as though I'm a weird child to be humored or shown the right or normal way to do something or to think. I want someone to argue with, as an equal, who will understand that it isn't at all personal, that it's a dueling of the minds, who'll get as much fun out of it as I do. I want to be myself and not have to act nicey-nice all the time......to not have to feign submission in order to avoid messy emotional clashes that I frankly don't know how to deal with.....see, when I act meek and mild, it isn't *real* most of the time. It's an avoidance mechanism: act that way and they'll retire and leave me to my peace and quiet sooner. The problem is that they get the idea that that's me, and before I knwo it, I come out of my solitude and realize that I've, avoided myself into a veritable cage of expectations.....arrrgh!

So what I really need is to be able to be honest. Possibly, if I'm bitchy enough, they'll leave me alone just as fast, or potential conflicts will be less messy or arise less often.... Perhaps?

I think I may have begun to unravel *why* I sometimes get obsessed with people. Here (drumroll) is my theory:

• I used to be perfectly contentwed with myself and with who I was. At that time, I did not get obsessed over people (I should say, a person, it's only ever one person at a time).
• Then, the world began to beat the livign shit out of me. It told me, in a million and one ways, that I, as myself, was fucked up and inadequate. I was a dork. I looked stupid. I talked about weird things. I was interested in weird things. I had odd habits and mannerisms.
• About the same tiume that I began to shut down and close in on myself, almost completely withdrawing from any close interactions with people, I also started this thing of falling for people, getting obsessed with them, pursuing them, and getting rejected, which in turn would make me more miserable than ever.
• One peculiarity of my obsessions is that I tend to try to integrate something of the 'LO' (limerant object, or love object) into myself. I may start dressing like them, acting like them, using the same accent or figures of speech, standing or posing like them, etc etc. This is _not_ purposeful or concious, in fact I am often somewwhat surprised and bemused when I realize that I am doing it.
• So, to tie it all together: there was a huge price to denying myself. I didn't really feel like I could be my own person, I wasn't good enough. Instead, I adored someone else and tried to 'wear' some of that person, tried to become them, because i wasn't good enough.
• Or, to put it another way: getting tied up in knots over someone else was a very good way to overlook the fact that I was denying and squelching my own identity.

Hmmm. I am thinking about this. It seems a little odd, b/c I've always been weird and distinctive enough to be myself. Maybe I haven't phrased it the right way, or have left something out. However, I do think that there isn't any way for me to be happy out of such a relationship, even if, for *once* the other party did accept me. I would always feel a bit cheated and resentful, unless I were loved and accepted as I am, and I can't have or even accept that from someone else unless I can feel it myself. But I also don't think that such an obsession rules out the possibility of there having been real, genuine feelings for the other person.

:thinking:thinking:thinking:thinking:

I am crying because I do want closeness but I do not know how to accept it; in fact, I actively work against it. The more a person means to me, the more likely I am to behave in an indifferent, ambivalent, or even hostile manner towards them. Love is scary to me, and I do mean TERRIFYING. The threat of it and the pain it brings is such that I almost automatically push people away when I want them the most.
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Brief synopsis of my history:

1. Fell for and became engaged to someone that I really, really loved. But somehow, I couldn't seem to tell him so, even though he did, incessantly. He poured out his heart to me in his letters. Mine were impersonal and informative.The intimacy was there, but it wasn't blatant by any stretch of the imagination. He wondered if I still cared: my heart was breaking. And because it was breaking, I laughed and pretended that I didn't really care at all. He was dying: I was afraid. I never said goodbye. I didn't even go to see him. He died without my ever telling him how I really felt.
2. Married a guy that I *knew* was nuts, that I knew I couldn't love. It was safer.
3. Some guys aren't available. That makes them low-risk. Sort of.
4. LTR with a guy, knowing that he didn't love or want me, that he wanted his ex. As long as he was distant, I pursued him madly. I fell for him *because* he was unavailable. But I began to pine for closeness, and it just wasn't happening, man. Towards the end, he began to pursue me, and I ran like hell. God forbid I should be vulnerable and get hurt again!
5. This was doomed from the start and I knew it. I knew better, but I couldn't help it, because I'm so obtuse that by the time I figured out why I was feeling uneasy and scared, it was too damned late. I honestly don't think I've ever fallen so hard for anyone before; maybe because I had my defenses up all the other times. Or maybe it was because he understood me, and never threatened me with more closeness than I was comfortable with. Well, I *thought* he understood me, at least. It felt that way. And if there was one thing I wanted in the whole world, it was that- just to be understood and accepted as myself.
6. Now I've taken up again with someone unavailable, but he's affectionate and sweet. I become remote and bitchy for no good reason. I shy away. And I don't know why, except that I'm afraid.

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Another thing I've realized is that I think my kind of closeness might be different from the norm. My idea of intimacy isn't two people gazing into each other's eyes- I only seek this out with people I love, and even then, I have to force myself to it; it's painful. For me, it's more like, two people standing together, side by side, maybe not touching, or touching slightly, and looking at the same thing, seeing it together. It is less blatant and more...subtle and delicate, almost magical. Discussing a topic as though it were an object, with each party describing the side that they see until the two sides merge. Working on a task together with very little speech going on, yet synchronizing their efforts. *THAT* is intimacy. This other closeness thing- well, it kind of makes me squirm. I don't know how to take it.

But there's hope....because if it happened once, it can happen again. And maybe I will have to wait ten or twelve years (or not). So what? It'd be worth it, wouldn't it? Yeah.

Stomach flu- bleh.

I really need to get over him. I guess the thing is, he was like a lifeline into the world, at least to me. Things made sense when he explained them. A world that seemed to be teeming with nonsense, confusion, catch 22's and no-win situations, suddenly aligned itself into a logical, workable set of problems that *could* be solved. I don't think anybody's ever done that before for me. I mean, to me, to world is a whirling mess and it is loud and noisy and very frustraing to deal with. Just writing this is making me miss him. :-( I mean, nobody else has really ever gotten_through_ to me, not like this. I've waited my whole life to find someone who could *connect*, and now I just have to walk away and pretend like it never happened.