Habits take what, three or so weeks to form? Well here goes the third entry of an every day blog 10 days in. The whole of my existence is a Work In Progress. There’s a hashtag for that. #WIP If those were my initials it would be fitting, but alas.
I started making To Do lists again today. It felt lovely and empowering and centering. I spent too long going without making them. I tried to send emails in the morning and the evening with the lists but I found that there is something ridiculously satisfying about writing the words, working then crossing them off one by one.
My To Do lists are not necessarily daily – there are items that carry over. Tasks that once complete create new tasks, but that is okay. I felt accomplished and together and good. I will never quell the fear of failure, of being below average. Do other people have this lingering fear? I worry every day that I will do something to endanger my job. Normal? What is normality anyway – if not some bar we set for ourselves to clear to ensure we are okay. I am used to other people’s normal being so far out of range for my own life… it’s laughable to think about comparing myself now.
I had an apartment manager once, her name was one of those cute ends in a vowel, nickname sounding names that seems to fit someone young, but she was a lovely older woman with adult children, a serious demeanor but kind and friendly enough. I respect her still (excepting the fact that when you tell someone not to worry about cleaning the carpet when they move out you’d think that would be the end of it…).
Ms. T, the apartment manager told me a story when I sat down and talked to her about my troubles with H. She said that her children were not with her current husband, but the former. She had four kids. He was not a bad person but there were moments when he was unkind. She told me that in relationships each of you starts with a clear pathway to one another. That our actions build walls and eventually the smallest thing – something that may not have even been fight-worthy in the beginning can place – can put the final brick up. Once the wall is done there is no tearing it down. I cried to her about how stupid I felt. I remember having a co-worker ask me years ago if I loved H, if that was why I stayed with him when no one else thought I should.
I said I didn’t think so. It wasn’t love. Stubbornness and my anger at members of my family for finally having an opinion about my well-being when I no longer needed or asked them to have one. H was a result of the fact that I really didn’t want to feel alone, and I did. I felt so alone. I learned over the last 5 years that there are different kinds of loneliness and that you can be asleep next to someone who says they love you and still be abjectly alone. That’s really the scarier of the two I think. I’d rather have the hope for one day finding something real than feel suffocated by the sheer impossibility of having a companion who makes you feel more isolated. That is me now, and it wasn’t me then. Or, I didn’t realize there was that second, scarier option and that it was staring me in the face with doe-brown eyes.
Of course the memories linger. I wonder if there will be a day when he stops crossing my mind. I hope so, and I hope that it comes sooner than when her name stops crossing Ro’s lips. He has his own ghost of course and she too exists for us both. He invoked her into being. In defense, I invoked my own ghost. I hope it wasn’t just defensively, but I can’t tell if I am the better or the worse liar.
H has left me alone since my birthday, that last phone call and series of texts. This is where I work now. I hope you have a good day. I wish we could have been friends.
I did try to be his friend. He returned to me by reciting Ro’s address to me, telling me he was aware of the kind of car Ro drove and then proceeded to attempt to slip paper thin wedges between Ro and I. Of course it worked just a little bit and then backfired massively, when I told H that his behavior was scary and obsessive and that if it continued I would need to file a restraining order. Of course I had to tell Ro and that reaction, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been – but it reinforced my shame.
The brick wall matters, because now I am acutely aware of it always. I try to notice what constitutes a brick, what hurts enough to remember. Wonder of wonders, I thought I had one – a brick and while I am blogging some very intimate details, I will keep the details of this first brick to myself. The reason why it matters, is that I think Ro removed it. Or I did.
Either way, the brick is gone. I have no lingering bitterness, nothing I would bring up again years from now in fiery arguments. Perfection we are not, but that brick was turned into sand on Sunday and I must say, I am thrilled. I had no idea such destruction existed after creation. There is so much hope there in that moment of realization.
Lastly, it was grandma’s birthday on Friday. H called her. He misses her, maybe more than he misses me. That pity card, his lack of parental involvement, attention, etc. It takes him far into the hearts of the women around him. But that credit of feeling it earns him is so easily used up.
Suffice to say grandma didn’t answer the call. She didn’t want to tell me he had called. She is protecting me I think, or him, or both. I think the restraining order scares her. I have it all filled out, sitting patiently and waiting for the signatures and the fees. I’d really rather not use it, to save myself from having to see him again. I assume he’d show up in court to defend himself, though I don’t know for sure.
The result of failing to blog for a week is a rather long rambly blog. Apologies. I will try to maintain the daily one to forgo these long massive creations.
Goodnight.
The Forces Underlying 