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Goatfish with a pisces moon craves her natural habitat

06 August 2021
5:20 am

I'm so tired. I just want to sleep. Unable to sleep on a night I've taken meds for it is bogus. Bogus to the max.

The last few days have been a mental shitshow. This is to be expected when one returns to a smoke free status. I know, I know... but in the last year I spent more time as a non-smoker than not, and that's better than I've ever done. So we return again..

But the addiction does a lot of things to try to get me to give in. Sadness, digging the past (accidentally this time), more sadness, small. Casual invasive thoughts of things I won't do. Remnants of old arguments with myself. "What's so terrible about me? Why am I the one ignored, disregarded? Put to the side when I've put in effort?" Have I done some horrible things? Yes. But not usually, not often.

Sadness. Reviewing emails and old information. This time, 2014-2015. Shock and awe at things I said and did. So bold. Who was that? Shock at stories I've told myself since.

This friend and I still talk and I've been forgiven, but I didn't realize what I did. Things worked out, probably, for the best, but there was a connection with that man that is so rare. The good in my relationship with Dan is heavy and worth it, but what I found with the other was something I sought after for so long. A cord between bodies despite states between us. The music. The coincidences, the draw, things that seemed like magic. We were both heartbroken though we were on opposite ends of the experience. He said he wasn't ready for more than a friend. I said I would wait... and I didn't. He was there, but I was operating mostly on clues and intuition, which I eventually began to doubt. It is easier to doubt them when someone arrives who is so clearly into you. Someone who wants you. Someone who so wants you to feel safe that you realize you haven't felt that way. Someone who won't leave. Even if you broke up with the last one, he didn't seem to give a shit until you were the one trying to leave, instead of the other way around. It always seems like people leave.

But these are the stories I tell myself. I look back and see now that it wasn't all intuition and clues, that there was evidence he wanted me, probably. It's not all my fault- he did back off, and much like the man he shares a birthday with (though a different situation) he didn't make things clear until it was too late. We were well into 2015 and my interpersonal chaos that took place that year. I was manic, if that's a thing, paranoid, delusional, in the most entertaining ways possible. For the most part. One time, when I was nearing 48 hours awake and in a tizzy. I had to have Dan convince me he was a real person, that I hadn't made him up. Dan, who lived a short city bus ride away, and not across the country.

But my friend didn't make it clear he was willing to reach for it until I was otherwise involved. And I didn't wait. And I'd forgotten both those parts. I forgot we talked about it. I remember making an ass of myself later. But I forgot.. a lot. Some of that was necessary to forget. Some of it I don't want to lose. I always want to hold on.

At least this time the digging began accidentally. At least it's something relatively recent.

But I tell you, it's strange, this time, to do this. To feel the sadness and something that is similar but not entirely regret. To be happy in my relationship and not have this feeling make me question that. It's just.. a sadness. A loss. An error in understanding.

So, sadness. Sadness about this and sadness about friends. The circle shrinks. I try to reach and there's no reward. I stick my neck out and get my head chopped off. Or at the very least, a neck full of knots. What is so terrible about me? Why are things not reciprocated? Why am I left in the dust after I've been useful? I try to understand and be gracious, but I'm not given a fraction of the space I offer.

This does not apply to everyone. But beyond a couple people.. it's sadness.

I don't want to be sad. We're going on vacation in nearly a week. Joan wanted to schedule something before her health gets much worse. I don't even care that we're going to a tourist destination in the middle of second summer (no, I care very much) because there will be water, and I can put my body in it. I want so badly to not be sad and to put my body in water. It won't be as hot as I want, and it will probably be cloudy, and I'll have to wear a goddamn mask again, but I don't even care. I want to be swallowed by water.

And anyway I was in an airport before my second shot hit full efficacy, and that went fine. At the start of June, with less than twelve hours notice and no return ticket, I hopped to the other end of the country to do whatever I could to protect my friend from herself. I did that for eleven days and left on the twelfth. I sat with her. I awkwardly tried to help manage her kids. I talked to her wife, to her. I saw things about her I'd never seen. I saw the things she'd done to herself that were like nothing I'd ever seen on anyone. The aftermath. I grew a new brow furrow. I mediated more in those days than I have in years. From someone who is against revealing methods in reporting, I heard too many details about plans she made. How many seconds it would take.Things I do. not. need. in my brain. I started phone conversations, squirreled away, sobbing, because I was terrified she would do it while I was there. No wonder her wife is steel. I tried to be stone. I did my best to not feel guilt when she did some particular damage while I'd taken a break for a long shower, needing a minute alone, needing a minute to process what I'd heard, that the ex who didn't want me, as a partner or parent, finally had his baby. Needing a minute on the floor of the shower to hope that this was the last of it, this benchmark, to let go. And I didn't notice when she knocked on the door, didn't think when she needed to come in and "get something."

I was exhausted by the end. I got her to the airport, to go to treatment. By the time I got home I was delirious and didn't talk about anything substantial for two days.

And somewhere in there I was rejected, became the villain. I was asked my opinion and told I was taking someone else's side. Blamed for thew missteps I'd made in babysitting her.. Things she later realized "on her own" were things I'd said to her. I was resented, as someone who "sent her away" to a treatment she didn't like. She's barely responded to me since she's been back. I've said very little but have been told I'm unsupportive in what I have said.

I try to be gracious, knowing she's going through it. I review my thoughts - am I being petty? But there are things she's said to me and ways she's acted before this that make me wonder why I bother. What need am I trying to fulfill? I absolutely do not regret going. But I will run like the wind for some modicum of rescue, I won't hold it against you for not answering me when I need someone at 4am.. but then I am forgotten, left like I wasn't there, no doubt returning to a place where I am ignored for months because of a misunderstanding I didn't know took place. I am sad for my friend, but sad for myself, that I have to restructure my orbits. I can't have this sort of thing. I should know that by now.

So, sadness. Tonight, sleepless. Last night, waking up in the middle of the night to be sick for unknown reasons, which hasn't happened in awhile. After that, nightmares. One where I was kidnapped (a new recurring thing maybe) in a cult and trying to get rescued, but I couldn't read the road signs, and I was accidentally texting someone who was already there, convinced they belonged.

The other, a recurring dream where I run into people I don't know anymore. They were coming out of a store. This time, instead of running, I ducked my head in shame, staring at the sidewalk trying to go unnoticed. It didn't work, she stomped away. He came out holding brown cardboard boxes. Looked at me. Didn't say anything. Walked away. She came back. Yelled some nice things at me. She was saying goodbye. She was happy she'd never see me again.

I'm glad I can let go of the fear of fucking up by just being around town. With it goes the sliver of wondering what would happen if I did. Maybe I'll leave my house more. Maybe I'll stop having those dreams. That would be very nice.

Though if I'm going to continue having dreams about scary people and kidnapping... I don't know if that's any better. The first one was a rare dream where I wasn't myself, and it was so real and I woke up so suddenly and terrified, I wanted to call some kind of law enforcement agency. I'd like to quickly figure out what those dreams mean, but I don't want to have any more of them to do it.

I didn't have recurring dreams until I was an adult. I miss the fun ones.

It's 7am. The sun is up. I'm so tired. Please, let me sleep. Let it be next Sunday. Let us drive and sing loudly. Then, let there be water.