just needs a pronoun change or two

i think i may be starting to slip again. i guess losses can do that to you.

i heard this song a few moments ago, and it seems to say everything that i've felt for much of my adult life. it just needs a pronoun change or two.

she used to be mine - sara bareilles 

needed - a dose of love

so i've hurt my ankle. well, actually hurt is probably understating the situation. i've actually fractured it. it's the result of an overzealous workout in which, rather than listening to the initial pain signals my body was sending, i decided to "push through" the pain. i pushed through all right all the way into a crack in my ankle bone.

this stupidity was only exceeded by the fact that i assumed that i had merely sprained my ankle and all i needed to do was ice it and take some ibuprofen and all would be well. and so, i proceeded to walk on it (limp most of the time) for two plus weeks until finally the pain became so great i needed to go to the emergency room, where, much to my surprise and dismay, i learned about the full extent of damage i had brought upon myself.

and so here i lay on my living room couch with a temporary cast, awaiting a trip to the orthopedist on monday where it will be determined if i need to go into a soft cast or not. i am not happy about this turn of events (which i'm sure comes as no surprise).

as a result of this injury, i am walking with a cane, which makes everything take twice as long to accomplish. i am not able to drive and will have have to spend much of my time within the four walls of my apartment. i will work from home with occasional trips into the office for which i will have to get a car to take me.

and if the physical pain and inconveniences were not enough, there is also the emotional toll this injury is taking on me. it feels as if there is a special kind of loneliness that visits me as a single adult dealing with any kind of illness or physical ailment. it seems to cut deeper into my heart and weighs heavier on my mind. my mood is darker and my sense of vulnerability is more acute. all because there is no one here with me to ease this burden and to nurture me to health.

i wonder at times like this which is worse, the actual physical injury or the emotional turmoil that accompanies it. funny thing though is i can take medication for the physical pain and a boot will be placed around my foot to protect it from further injury and facilitate the healing process. i guess the love of another would be the cure for my wounded soul. unfortunately, that is one remedy  for which my doctor can't prescribe.

i had another one of those dreams

i had another one of those dreams last night.

i was sitting on a couch with a man that was unknown to me in my waking life but very known to me in this world of my dreams.

he was a friend. a good friend. a best friend.

we were sitting on a couch together amongst a group of other friends, in the dark, watching a movie. his arm was around me and at a certain point, for no immediately apparent reason, he put a finger on my chin and turned my face towards his.

he smiled at me. it was a smile with which i was very familiar. a smile that said i care about you my friend. a smile that made me feel safe and loved.

i smiled back in kind and with the same feeling.

and then he leaned into me and our lips touched. this was new. something that we had not done before but something that also felt very right.

we kissed and his tongue lightly entered my mouth. i sucked on the tip and the act filled me with warmth and peace.

and then i woke up. the warm feeling still lingering within me and a smile on my face.

but as the day has gone on the warm feeling has left me and a cold ache of loneliness has taken its place. and the smile has given way to soft tears and a yearning heart.

and i wonder, do i wish i didn't have these types of dreams or that i didn't wake up from them?

belief system shaken not stirred

i have a long-term habit of waking up to music. at one time it was npr, but there's just so much erudite commentary one can endure that early in the morning, so i shifted my alarm setting to "cd" and have greeted each day with favorite songs by favorite artists. usually, i pick one particular album, and it stays in rotation for several weeks.

my current music selection is jason mraz's yes. it's an album that has been a wake up selection before, and i particularly enjoy it as it has a gentle opening (interestingly enough called rise) that leads into a lovely song that pleasantly arouses one from slumber to begin what, for me at least, tends to be a long day.

as i listened to that first song (titled love someone), the first lyrics jumped out at me. "love is a funny thing, whenever i give it, it comes back to me." i guess the reason why these lyrics are so striking is that they capture what has been a long-held belief of mine - that love is a powerful generative force, creating a continuous feedback loop between both the receiver and the giver. it is a belief though that has been greatly shaken by my friendship with sean.

over the past few weeks, i've found myself having to grapple with the reality that any active relationship with sean is long past, and, his brief reemergence a couple of weeks ago notwithstanding, it is likely that my journey to becoming a memory in his life will be complete very soon.

i've shared before that it is very painful to give love and have no sense that it is making any difference in the life of the person to whom you are providing it or in the quality of your relationship with him. the lack of reciprocity feels like throwing a grain of sand into the ocean. there is likely some impact, but it is so infinitesimal that it seems meaningless.

this burdensome thought, as this blog can most certainly attest, has continued to make itself known periodically over the course of my friendship with sean. this sense that while i have attempted to be a good friend and give love freely, it has little if any significance to his life. i guess this feeling seems most acute now as my ability to believe that things could be otherwise has been greatly diminished by events over the past few months.

my heart is particularly heavy this day. i woke up this way, and i imagine the feeling will persist throughout my remaining waking hours. accepting the truth of a loss of something i greatly valued is hard. having the loss cause me to seriously doubt a central part of my belief system feels especially devastating as i know it will effect my subsequent relationships with men for some time to come. hesitancy to give love and doubts of the resilience of the relationship i sense will be ever present should i attempt any form of significant connection with men in the future.

i'm back in therapy and my therapist asked me recently why i thought it was so difficult to dispel the belief that my relationships with men inevitably will end in loss and heartbreak. i told him it's because i tend to take in the times that it happens as further evidence that supports this perspective.

i suppose then with the slow demise of my friendship with sean, this is a case of one belief system shaken and another one reinforced.

pain and peace

so much of the former. so little of the latter.

when will the balance change? will it ever when i think of him in days and months and years hence?

for now, i suspect, it will be more tears in the morning and tears late at night.

such is the way of loss.

now back to our regularly scheduled programming

(warning: this is another reflection on my friendship with sean post. proceed at your own risk)

so there's a somewhat positive sign on the sean front. it appears he did accept my contact request on skype. i use the phrases "somewhat positive sign" and "it appears" because though he is a contact, there was no additional communication to accompany the change. for what it's worth, i have added him back as a "favorite" contact on my side.

and so what now? without any more word from him, i guess i go back to where things were before my hurt reaction on sunday. i go back to worrying how he's doing and wishing i could be of help in some way.

i've asked myself, not just now but over the weeks and months prior, why the silence? i mean, weeks go by and i just send a friendly text or skype note saying i hope he's doing well, not asking for anything more of him and then after a month or so of no responses, i reach out saying i'm concerned and would just like word that he's still alive. one time he did respond, letting me know he wasn't in a good space. this latest time he has not replied to this day. i do know he's alive but not how his life is going. maybe that should be sufficient. i'm not sure.

he's my friend. i have never used that word lightly. i don't describe people with whom i work or know casually as friends as some do. i only use this term for people to whom i feel a strong mutual connection, and that i know i want to give my loyal support and that i believe (at least hope) feel the same about me.

i once expressed to sean, just after we met for the first time that i didn't want to creep him out, but as a result of our first in-person meeting, i felt we were bonded together. he said it didn't creep him out at all and that he shared a similar feeling. we've only met up two times after that. the third time he visited me at my home.

i can only tell you that each time we've met in person, they have been really great experiences. each time better than i anticipated it would be. we had these conversations where he was so open and shared so much about who he is and i did likewise. they were the kind of conversations that you felt like you really connect. i shared with him once, after a similar kerfuffle about being in contact with one another, that it is rare to find someone who you get and feels gets you. he sent back a smiley face emoji.

i guess i share these things because i've been scrolling back through some old skype conversations and they've reminded me of what i believe has been the nature of our friendship. it hasn't been easy due to our respective personal demons and dysfunctions, but at its heart it has been a good friendship (something i wish i had captured more of in this blog). i don't want to hold us to all that has been, but i also don't want to lose the best of what was in whatever will be (though my confidence wavers as to whether there will be a "will be" for us).

and what if there is not? at this place in time, particularly if we end like this with no further contact from him, i know i will feel disappointed and hurt and wounded. i believe, as happens with the loss of all things we perceive to have been good, the pain will be with me in some form or another the rest of my life (the reverberations of the end of the relationship with my friend from high school are still echoing in my heart). it might not be healthy or wise or practical, but it is how i'm wired. i think it's also the reason why i'm back in therapy (something i believe god tricked me into, but that is a story for another time).

i also know that i will still care about him. i will still wonder and even worry about how he is doing. i will still think of him as my friend.

a different approach

this entry may be a bit of an "eye roller" for those longer term readers of this blog. please indulge me or if you prefer, skip this one and come back to the next entry (whenever that one may appear). also, as i would guess might be obvious with the situation with sean, it is also likely that the next entries for the foreseeable future will be about that relationship, so again, if you're done with that topic, either proceed with caution or find the nearest emergency exit.

i think i've shared previously that i had a similar friendship issue back when i was in college that involved my best friend from high school. for those who are not familiar with this particular story or need a refresher, the gist of the story is this. after our sophomore year in college, i would visit my friend at her home and each time she seemed less than interested to see me. after a few of these encounters, i sought advice from my mother on how to deal with the situation. she advised that my friend just needed some space and that i should give that to her by not contacting her. she would get back in touch with me when she was ready. i'm still waiting.

actually, that's not completely true. after we all graduated college, i had my friends from high school come over for a little celebratory party. i invited this one friend and she came. i have to admit it was kind of awkward, the conversation was stilted, and she left early. still, i was glad she did visit. that was pretty much the last time i saw her (i did run into her briefly one last time at the mall some years later with a guy who i assumed was her then boyfriend).

so we fast forward to now. similar situation. a friend is responding to me as if he is no longer interested in my friendship. after some months of experiencing this stand offish kind of behavior, i felt that he was telling me to shove off and move on. as a response, i deleted his phone number from my cell. i removed him as a contact on skype (even blocked him, but only because he wouldn't disappear from my favorites list unless i did so). i erased every trace of him on my computer. these actions were intended to serve two purposes. one was to prevent me from contacting him as he seemed to want me to do. the other was to prevent the pain that would occur from being reminded of him and his former presence in my life.

the thing is i've continued to be haunted by my pledge to be his friend and to be there for him as he needed me. for whatever reason it's difficult for me to turn my back on a person if i have the slightest belief that i could be of help.

i also believe that god places a burden on our hearts for people that he wishes to be in our lives for some reason or purpose that might be not be discernible to us. it doesn't mean we're supposed to be there forever or even a long period of time. it could be for just a season; however long it may need to be and for whatever reason. and when our purpose is fulfilled, i feel that god will give a sense of release from the relationship. that has not happened in sean's case -- at least not yet.

this morning i woke up thinking about him and the situation with my friend from high school. i thought about how over all of these years i still wish i'd taken a different approach to the one my mother suggested. yes, it would have been fine to give her a bit of space, but at a certain point, i wish i had reached back out one more time and had a conversation with her about what the feelings i was having of her seeming to not want to be friends. the result might have been the same, but at least i would have tried.

and so i did something that even now i'm questioning the wisdom of doing. i unblocked sean on skype. i sent him a contact request with a note saying "the ball is in your court." it's an attempt. it's an attempt i'm questioning for it's potential to harm me even further. still, if i don't hear from him, then i will know that my perceptions are correct, that our friendship is at an end and i will have to learn to live with that fact.

i likely will still be haunted by questioning of why this end happened at this particular time.  there have been other times i would have understood, but at this time, after years of repeated assurances that he still wanted to be friends, this sudden change has me mystified and hurt.

last night i questioned why my heart and mind seemed to be in such misalignment. my head asking why i was so upset about a person who seemed to be indicating that he wasn't interested in being friends? why was i continuing to be concerned about a friendship that was not wanted and why did i want to continue when i felt i wasn't respected or valued by the other person? why quite simply was my heart not in synch with my head?

maybe it's this burden that i feel divinely given. maybe it's just obsessive-compulsive behavior. maybe it's just quite simply that no one wants to feel unwanted or just maybe it's the fact that my perceptions are wrong and i'm trying to set the situation right. i don't really know what's happening, but i hope, by taking this different approach, i will find out.