Today's Battle

Sadness. How does sadness manage to creep into ever crevice of my life? I move along going about my day or evening or even in my sleep and suddenly I am sad! Not just a little down or a bit blue but overwhelmingly sad! So sad that tears are ever present in my eyes and in a fleeting moment they are running down my face, flowing freely, hot scalding tears. One moment I am enjoying an activity and in the blink of an eye I am fighting anxiety and tears from some memory or rush of feelings that over takes me like a freight train. 

I hear a song and it sparks a memory and I'm in tears. A movie scene, a phrase, a dream even a scent can summon the sadness that envelopes me and threatens to send me over the edge in to a full fledged melt down that can last for minutes, hours or in some cased days. It's like that nagging little headache some people suffer with. Always there, annoying and always threatening to grow more painful.

Yesterday I fought that sadness as best I could. I told myself "I will not cry today." I won the battle for most of the day. At dinner, which I shared with my wonderful grandson Zachary, out of the blue I looked up at Matthew's portrait and suddenly missed him so much I could not swallow my food. I felt the tears well up in my eyes and the sadness covered me from head to toe almost instantly. Zachary noticed right away and asked me if I was okay. I told him I was, but I wasn't. I was so sad I could hardly breath. I had to tear my eyes away from the portrait and force my thoughts to my dinner, which had lost all taste and appeal.

When I went to bed and tried to concentrate on some sappy Christmas movie the sense of sadness stole my focus and I ached from loneliness. Thoughts of lost love stabbed at my heart. Wondering if I will always feel like this the tears threatened to flow. "I will not cry today" I screamed in my brain! 

Finally welcomed sleep came. Suddenly I was searching for someone, a dense fog surrounded me as I blindly reached out calling several names, my heart pounded and legs shook as I stood in the darkness and the sadness took me to places I did not want to go. In agony I reached out for the faces that swirled around me. Not quite touching them, not quite able to see clearly who they were. I awoke with the hot tears running down my cheeks, gasping I tried to catch my breath and regain some sense of where I was. The voids in my life, the empty places in my heart have been over taken by sadness. Where joy once resided is now over grown with empty sadness and I have to fix it.

I am desperate to have some control over these waves of sadness. As a new day dawns and I sit here in the darkness I find myself dreading the day, dreading having to be ever on top of this sadness. Again today I have the goal to not cry. Get through the day, get through the holidays....surely there is more than this....

For the moment I am where I am in my life. I don't know how long these struggles will last. I don't know what tomorrow may bring. I do know that I want more. I do know that I deserve more and I hope with all I have to be in a better place soon. Baby steps? Perhaps. I have heard it said that through struggles we are learning...I should be pretty damn smart by now. I will face today a minute at a time. I will fight each battle as it comes. For each battle that I win today brings the end of the war closer.

Accepting the Challenge

Today the void that has become my life is not acceptable to me. So I have challenged myself to enjoy some sort of positive all day today. I will have to apply myself for that to happen. 

I started the day by making myself stay in the bed instead of getting up at 3:45 when I woke up. I need to adjust my internal clock. I am tired of going to bed between 6:00 and 7:00 PM and waking up between 2:00 and 4:00 AM. When I get up at that hour there is nothing to do but let my mind question my very existence, my self worth, my failures and shortcomings. The whys and wherefores echo through my being coming back so bleak I can barely breath. There is no reasoning in the darkness when you feel so defeated, so alone so utterly worthless.  So I stayed in the bed, willing myself to not cry. Telling myself that I am strong and that this too shall come to an end. 

When I did venture from the confines of the covers I came into the living room to greet the most amazing sunrise! The colors from vibrant orange to an incredible bright shining pink woke my senses to the beauty of the morning. I used to love the sunrises so. That is one of the reasons I love my apartment. Sunrises start the day, the new adventures not yet begun. Observing the sunrise this morning reminded me of the task ahead of me today and started me off in the right direction. 

Not wanting to have a scheduled plan but knowing I had to set some basic moves for myself today I formulated some ideas of what to do to keep me pointed in a positive direction. I will do 5 miles on the treadmill, I have done 1 so far! I will eat 5 small healthy meals today at 3 hour intervals, I have had my first. Those are positive things to keep my health on the front burner. I did get on the scale and was not happy with the numbers that greeted me, BUT...that being negative, I did not dwell there, just set my mind to work harder on bringing those numbers back down again, something I KNOW I have been successful at and can do again!

I am watching one of my favorite movies for the umpteenth time, Sweet November.

I am going to spend some time on my laptop exploring places that I am considering moving to. Yes I do see a move in my future.

I am going to write some letters to some people that will hopefully help me deal with some unresolved issues. Who knows if they will ever read them, but it helps me to get some crap off my mind.

I am going to make some Christmas goodies. I am going to read some uplifting stories out of the Reader's Digest that I started yesterday.

I am going to tell a guy who I have been talking to online that I am not interested and not regret it! I KNOW he is not for me so why keep dancing around it.

I am going to run a little gift over to my BFF and tell her I love her.

I'm going to pack up some stuff that I no longer need or want to get it ready for the next trade day here in our building.

I challenge myself today to be myself, to love myself, to be comfortable with my decisions. I have made some rough choices lately. Only I can decide which choices to stand by and which ones to change. Only I know what makes me happy, what I want and what I am willing to do to have it. Knowing that I can only control myself and accepting that is a battle for me, but it's a battle I must fight in order to win the freedom I so need to get through each day. I know a lot of people who think I don't have self respect but they are so wrong. I do respect myself, I do accept the facts that I am not perfect, I do know I have my moments of downright insanity, I do know it is not easy to always love me or even like me, but I also know that's what makes me who I am. I know I am one of the most compassionate people ever. I know that I am accepting to a fault and far too trusting. I know when I love I love 110%. I know I will sacrifice my happiness for someone else's. I know I wallow, I withdraw, and I have fabulous pity parties where I am the only guest. I am a survivor, I am stubborn and want to do it my way. Today I am glad I am who I am, any less of any of these traits and i might not be here today.  I am who I am, I am going to do it my way, and today I will do what I need to do to be positive. I accepted my own challenge today!! It's my life and today it is all about doing productive and positive things my way!!

Christmas Time Memories

Thinking this morning about Matthew and about how we never know what tomorrow might bring. We have no clue who will be celebrating their last Christmas this year. Someone we know and love could be gone next year. So it has crossed my mind that now is the time to make memories! Show those we love how much we love them and how special they are before the opportunity is gone forever and regrets fill the space where memories should live.

When I think about Christmas of 2009 I always think "I had no idea that would be our last Christmas." Come January 8th, Matthew's birthday I am so glad that for one of the very few times I gave Matthew a really special birthday celebration. I had no way of knowing that we were celebrating his last birthday. We had a great Christmas, we had a fabulous birthday weekend and I have those wonderful memories to keep my heart alive. Now I need to make sure that I make heart warming memories with my family and friends. Matthew will always and forever be apart of my holidays, and a void will remain but he would want me and his family and his friends to enjoy the holidays and love each other and keep traditions and make more of those memories. 

For me I must make that effort, and I vow that I will make the effort to make this Christmas a special, loving and memorable one. Even though I am struggling again this year that is not the memory I want to leave behind. So it's time to look forward and make some plans to make this Christmas as loving and joyous as possible. It's my Christmas wish to make it the best Christmas for all those I hold near and dear! It's a challenge and I fully accept it! It is my life and my Christmas and I will make it a good one!

So Tired

As I write this in the wee hours of the morning I weep tears of regret and hurt, of longing and rejection. I feel my heart will surely burst from the pain. The questions bounce around in my brain the answers are no where to be found. The confusion is growing to enormous proportions. The emptiness is threatening my sanity. I'm so tired and I so don't want to do this anymore. This thing called life is sheer torture! How much more? Please tell me how much more do I have to endure?

I beg Matthew to come for me. I cry out to him to come take my hand and take me with him, to hold me in his arms and shelter me, to protect me from anymore suffering. Why? I hope for death. I am committed to not hurting myself, physically at any rate, but I do beg for death to come in the night, to take me away to where the pain stops, the expectations stop, the needs stop.

My obsession to have that someone special in my life has overshadowed every other aspect of my life! Why? How does this happen? Why is it that every good thing seems so small in comparison to having that special someone? Why can't I put it in perspective?  I feel like some needy reject! This "not good enough" mentality is killing me. The second guessing every thing I do and say, the rehashing of every failure, every broken promise, every good intention. I find myself going over every moment spent with David, trying to find the reason he made the choices he made.  What did I do wrong? What didn't I do right? I know I am suffocating. I am well aware of that fact, yet I seem unable to control it.

I need the pain to stop! I hate the holidays. They are bad enough and with everything else going on it's more than I can deal with in a reasonable way. Everything is compounded, complicated and feels so wrong! For most people I put on the "face". I try hard to act at least okay, when in reality I am so scattered, aching inside, wishing to die, scared to death that this is all there is.

I know deep down inside I am still holding on to hope that I will be rescued when I have reached my absolute limit! Is that realistic? NO! I know that I am the answer, but I can't see. Right now I can only feel and it's not good! Why is it that the worse I feel the more people tell me what a good person I am and how I deserve so much, yet I don't seem to be able to get what I "deserve"? What am I doing that is so wrong so despicable that my life is in such shambles? I am so lonely, feel so worthless, hurt so badly, have no clue what to do next.

I am so tired, so very very tired.

Isle of Unrealized Dreams

I wonder if there is a place for unrealized dreams. You know like the Isle of Misfit Toys? If there is such a place I need to place my unfilled dreams there before my heart explodes with the pain and sorrow of all my dreams that have met tragic endings. Dreams that never reached happy endings, dreams that were only dreamed by me, dreams that lived only briefly in my heart or fleetingly in my mind. Dreams squashed by others selfish needs, dreams I suffocated, dreams I gave up on, and dreams that were too lofty for such as I.

I sit here this morning and the day begins with the brilliant colors of the sunrise. A day that could hold promise, reason and begin a dream.  Only for me the morning holds only sadness and dread. Dread of another day of loneliness, another day without that special love, without that reason for being. Because in my morning if you don't love and have that love returned you are nothing, void. 

When did my life become so blank? When I put all my dreams in one man and he chose to walk away from me. Showing me yet again that dreams and happiness for me are just a myth. To even venture to love again after losing Matthew was a huge step for me. I tried in vain to force it with an unavailable man, disaster from beginning to end. But with David it was easy. He is so easy to love, so accepting, so in need of someone to love him and guide him to places he has never experienced before. He gave me a purpose, a reason to get up in the morning, the desire to enjoy every little thing and share it with him. Being without him yesterday was hard but I managed, I thought quite well.  Then we were talking and just like that he was gone. Why does he do that....doesn't he know how insignificant that makes me feel? Why is my world so totally upside down? Why do I feel like I cannot live without this man? He reawakened something in me that had laid dormant and I obviously missed it. I totally feel like a large chunk of me is paralyzed. I have moments where I feel I  can't breath without him. 

But to him, I am door number 2. The option, the back up plan. I know I should run for the hills but I'm frozen in this place, longing for what we shared, it was only going to get better. I don't understand!!! I am a person, a living breathing person with needs, and feelings too.  Why should my needs come last? When he was with me and she was not in the picture I was his priority...but then in one phone call, I am nothing, no one, not even worth phone time? I don't know what to do.  I have tried to do as he asked, but he just can't seem to do anything I ask.  She has him blinded and I don't care how many years they HAD they are two different people now and this can not end well, I'm sorry just my feelings.

I can't continue this right now or I will be breaking a promise I kept and I refuse to do that. I love him, I won't break my word to him. 

Remember this, you could be throwing away something very very good for a piece of the past that was had not been in tact for a long time.  I know you feel you must complete this...I hope you don't realize too late that you threw me away for nothing.

Unheard

I just awoke terrified, crying out,  tears streaming down my face, who was that fleeing from my bedside? Not  long ago I met with a medium that told me at times of stress and uncertainty in my life Matthew sits on the edge of my bed watching over me. Was it Matthew?  It felt like David. Whoever it was they moved swiftly and I longed for a moment with them, longed for them to give me some reassurance that I am not going to always experience such fitful and unfulfilled sleep.

The numbness of yesterday is subsiding and full panic is creeping into my brain and heart as the tears flow freely now. I didn't think there were anymore tears, I have to have shed buckets of them already.  The desire to text David is overwhelming yet I know at some point I have to stop. I don't want to. I don't want to give up on him, I keep thinking in my fairy tale way that he will realize he loves me and that he is risking our happiness and that he will be here at my side telling me over and over again that he was so wrong and that I really am enough and all he needs.

I still try to makes some sense out of her timing? Did she sense he was moving on? Did she have someone in her life for a while that didn't work out and now she too knows loneliness?  How could she throw someone out of your life only to decide when it is convenient for her to tell him "he" owes her a chance to get back together?  What total selfish logic. So they had a life, so they had kids, so they weren't happy, it happens every day to thousands of people.  You go on, you remain friends life does not end as you know it. She has taken something precious from me and I hate her for it. She has taken something precious from him, never once thinking of his needs or the fact that he may have other plans for his life, thinking only of her selfish wants. There are no kids coming into play here.  I had 2 children by 2 different husbands, they are grown 2 of those children's father is not involved in there lives and the the father of the other 2 has passed away.  I do ok without them, not that it is always easy but they are not there.  At least David is there for his child....he does NOT need to be there for her.  

Why can't he wake up and see she is chasing the past. Something that once was? They can't regain their youth, their lost passion, there carefree existence.  What does she want?  There is more than meets the  eye here and I can't stand the thought that he is somehow being duped.  This wonderful man that has an innocent little child there in is spirit that wants to be with me and get excited over little things and learn to fly.  He has paid his dues, he deserves to be happy and I just don't think it's with her. He has always worked hard, he took care of his family and his responsibility let him be done now...let him enjoy being with someone who wants to put him first in every aspect, who's soul mission is to make him happy thus making herself happy as well.  I can't do this everyday, wake up feeling this pain, this loss, this emptiness.  I can't mourn his loss every time I think of him and a memory of our wonderful moments together wash over me.  

I told him I will wait, and wait I will.  I told him I will try to live my life as I was when I met him and I will, hopefully the melancholy will decrease and some joy can once again come into my life. My loving 100% is not always a good thing.  I am left bruise and afraid to trust and oh so very very hurt and lonely.

Holiday time is already such an unsettling time for me, how will I ever make it through. People tell me there is someone out there for me, I thought I found him, I know I did but yet again I lost him. 

I am not blogging for sympathy, I am but venting my feelings, trying to make sense of something that my heart just can't untangle. Trying to understand why one person has to endure so much pain when all she wants is to love someone with here whole heart and be loved right back. David you know you love me.

I do believe in happy endings, and someday I will have mine, maybe not until I join Matthew. It may not be all about my way, it may be my life, and I may be trying to live it my way, but maybe I am just too small or too unimportant to be heard.

This Is Not My Way

Ever feel like you cannot endure one more moment of your life as it is? Ever wish you could just vanish into thin air? Ever cry so hard that you think you might implode? Ever wish you were someone else, anyone other than the hurting mess you are? Ever feel like life is waiting to knock you down for the very last time? Ever feel that no matter what you do it's not right? Ever feel that you are just never good enough? Ever just want to give up?

Yep, that's precisely were I am today, at this very moment. To be honest I don't know how I am still sitting here working on this blog. What I want to do is scream to the top of my lungs, shake some people until some sense enters their brain and announce to the entire world that I MATTER!! But first I have to convince myself of that little detail. Yes I've been in this exact spot before, yes I am continuing to work with a therapist on this issue, yes I am sick and tired of it! I think I have it conquered and along comes some event, some person, some hidden memory that throws me headlong into the worthless heap I am right now. 

At times I truly wish I didn't give one shit what anyone thinks about me.  I wish I could escape loving anyone. I wish I didn't give a hoot about right or wrong and just did whatever the hell makes me feel good at any given moment! I know people like that and they seem to be happy or oblivious or just completely unaware or uncaring about anyone around them. At any rate they seem to worry about nothing. They enjoy their life and I continue to struggle.  What the hell am I doing wrong? 


Why do I have to have a heart that is made of glass and why do the people I let in have such good aim? My heart gets shattered every time. You think I would learn, you would think I would be a recluse and just give up. If only it were that easy.  

Today I am not living my life my way...today I am broken and hurt and wondering where I go from here. I have been asked to be patient, I have been asked to trust and I want to, but I'm scared, very scared! One more rejection, one more loss, one more and I just don't know.....