There are all sorts of irrational and embarrassingly emotional things that I'm fighting back the urge to say. I can only say that every day is becoming a struggle to stay afloat, that I am having dreams where I've succumbed to the urge to pick up the phone and disappointed in myself for not having been able to refrain from that. In all honesty I think the main deterrent is the terror that if I did, you might actually answer, instead of the ever so predictable and oddly reassuring voicemail message. Now I'm laughing because that is so bizarre and sad....

I think the most frightening thing about this whole thing has been that I no longer know what to believe, what to trust, what's true, what isn't, what stays the same, what changes, and least of all, my own perceptions, memory, etc. I just don't have any faith or sense of security in myself that anything that I know or knew or heard or thought is trustworthy or valid. And that really, really scares me.

I mean, for example. I am pretty sure you said you didn't hate me, that you weren't mad at me. I think you did. Other people have told me that this is correct, so unless I've also imagined that, I can be fairly certain of this. But dammit, you look and act like you're angry at me and so then I have to turn inside myself and ask: are my perceptions and abilities to read social cues misleading me, or were you not angry then and are now? I don't know. I blink back to the email briefly enough to reflect, but not very long because it still hurts like a knife in my heart every single time it reads itself to me in my mind. And in that second, the overall tone sounds like you really, really hate me. Maybe you changed your mind. I don't know. What did I do? What could I have done that's so horrible it couldn't be atoned for somehow, that you'd still be angry at me for? And the panic bells start ringing and my mind starts racing around trying to find the answer, but I know that there won't ever be one. I cannot ask, but even if I could, I don't think you'd tell me so there's no point. I guess I can think of reasons why you might have been annoyed or exasperated with me at times, but not for this long, and I am trying so, so hard and still.

But I don't think I've done anything horrible. And now, thinking about it...I've never pissed anyone off badly enough to make them shun me for nearly a year without knowing why. If I screw up that badly, I generally have a very clear idea of exactly what I did.

So.

Maybe you aren't mad at me.

Maybe I shouldn't take it personally. Or I could try not to, anyway.

Maybe I should stop hating on myself for whatever I might have done, for the things I wish I could be and am not.

Maybe I should try to take every day of silence as a gift, but I don't have that much faith in myself or in life.

The one certain thing that I can say here is that what I have been doing isn't that productive. Obviously another mental approach is called for.

I sort of wish that I could go somewhere without calendars, without access to the outside world for a few months. But with children that isn't really an option.