you can’t have both

I haven’t written much in a while. I’ve been doing more letter-writing to Newfie and then by the time I’m done with that, I don’t feel like writing it all over again in here. He and I are trying this handwritten letter concept. We still talk occassionally on AIM, but not nearly enough for me. I don’t mind the letters, but they are somewhat one-sided so far. No letters from him. I should know better than to expect them or hope for them. But I do. We’ll see what happens.

I’ve been struggling with something for a few days now and I don’t really know what excatly to do. I found something on Newfie’s Facebook. I wasn’t snooping; I was looking at pictures of his new puppy. He had posted this long note about leaving school, going home and trying to “get his shit together.” I can understand what he’s going through, and I already knew most of what he put in that note. I knew the last paragraph too. But it still ripped out my heart and made me cry.

The truth is finally that I’m getting a lot closer to what it is to really love someone. Nicole, I doubt you’re reading this, but just in case you are, thank-you for kicking my ass. I deserved it. I really was too self-obsessed to ever realize what I had until you weren’t there anymore. You weren’t the perfect picture of the ideal girlfriend. Thank God- who really wants that? What you were was someone who challenged me, and who made me feel something when almost nothing else did. The truth is, I love you, I miss you, and I want you back.

Anyone who thinks saying all of this makes me foolish or pathetic, well, maybe it does, but if I am foolish and pathetic, at least everybody knows it now, and strangely, that puts my mind at ease.
I get it. I really do. I know he wants her back and I know that was part of his reasoning behind going home. I knew all of that in November. But it still hurt and made me cry. And not just for a moment. There was a point where I couldn’t calm down and I thought about taking an anti-psychotic to help me sleep. I hate doing that. So I forced everything down a bit and got myself under control. I quit smoking again so I didn’t even have a cigarette in the house. I got mad, I got upset, I got tired. I tried to let every emotion that I was feeling wash over me, in the hopes of being able to get over them and move forward. It hasn’t really worked. I’ve just supressed everything to be able to make it through each day, which I actually haven’t been very successful at anyways. All this made me realize is how much I really do love him. I think I knew that before he left, but he was leaving and what would saying it out loud have done? Only complicated things and made an already hard good-bye that more difficuly. Also, the whole not saying it out loud means its not real, right? Uh-huh. That’s why I needed Feather on this road trip. To get me to admit it and then wallow. Well, that didn’t work out and James is an ass. Well, maybe not. But I don’t think he understood how much pain I was in and how much I was pretending. Feather would have seen right through it. That’s neither here nor there. The fact is that I love him and I can’t change that. I learned a long time ago we don’t get to choose who we fall in love with. It happens and we have to deal with it. So I’m trying to accept that and find a way to deal with it and with the fact that he wants her and not me.

Then I was watching Charmed yesterday. I really identify with Piper’s character. First off, I love her hair. I have that same kind of brown coloring and straight. I watch what she does with it on the show and sometimes get ideas from her. Secondly, family is the most important thing to her. She wants to be a wife and a mom and a sister. At one point she tells another character that there is nothing more important than her family. They are the big picture. This is how I feel. About my cousins, aunts, uncles, Mom, Dad and grandparents. Someday I will have a husband and children to share that with. Okay – So I’ve made that point. I identify with Piper. (I also think she’s got the coolest power, but that’s besides the point here!) At one point in the series, her husband Leo, has to leave. Its a long story and complicated, but the end result is that he can’t live on earth with her. Piper says this to him.

PIPER: I need some space from you. I mean, who knows? This might actually turn out to be a good thing for me in the long run. I might be able to live some semblance of a normal life, not being married to an angel. I get why you have to leave, Leo. And I understand that you can’t ignore your calling. But I do have to deal with it somehow — with being alone … with being a single mother … and I can’t really do that with you hanging around the house.

I started crying all over again. I don’t want to cut Newfie out of my life. First of all, he’s coming back in April. I don’t want to miss out a chance to see him just because I’m throwing a temper tantrum. I don’t know when I’d get to see him again, so why screw up that opportunity. Besides the fact that he’ll want to go to church and see James and Lu and Mouse. And that’s all fine. I don’t want to cut him out of my life, even for a short bit. I still want to talk to him and write him letters and emails and ask his opinion on things. I still want to hear about his puppy and his job and his thoughts on his life. But in the meantime, how do I learn to breath around the hole he created in my heart? On one hand, I’m mad at him for hurting me. But on the other hand, he didn’t intend to do that, so how can I blame him?

SIDENOTE FOR A MOMENT: I’m thinking off the top of my head here. But thinking back…
I don’t think Matt or Tim or Danny or Manny set out to hurt me. I don’t believe they were trying to cause me pain or holes in my heart. They may have done stupid things or whatever, but they weren’t doing them from a place of hate. They weren’t trying to hurt me. But I got so mad at all of them. I’m still mad at some of them. Should I be mad at Newfie? Should I rant and rail and scream and throw things at him? Should I attempt to inflict the same pain he’s inflicted on me? Would screaming at him help? I don’t know…. I don’t want to cause him pain, because I love him. But he struck first! Unintentionally. But still!

Can you hear the two voices in my head arguing about this? Its been going on for weeks and its starting to get noisy up there!

END SIDENOTE…..which really leads back to my problem….

Do I cut him out of my life for a while? Let myself heal, learn how to breath again? I did that with Manny. The other three, well two are dead and the last one I don’t talk to anymore. I don’t even want to. But what to do about Newfie? He once told me he wouldn’t turn his back on me. It was when my life turned into a soap opera for a week.
Newfie: You’re right. I don’t get you sometimes. I don’t understand why you’re so afraid to let people in. Fine, you got hurt very badly, and repeatedly. But as long as you keep up that wall of yours, and as long as you keep expecting people to screw up, you’re going to keep pushing people away. But I”m not going anywhere. Even though I may not physically be here next year, I’m not going to turn away from you. Even if you turn awayfrom me.
I don’t really want to test that statement. But I honestly don’t know how I’m going to learn to be okay unless I do. And to be honest, I don’t know if he’ll still be there when I’m ready. I wouldn’t blame him for running away. I honestly never understand why people don’t.

So there’s my dilemma. Short, sweet explanation huh? To keep Newfie in my reality or push him out for a while. Its not like I see him or talk to him on a daily basis anymore. Is my anger justified enough? Do I let myself be that angry? Almost more importantly, do I let him know I’m that angry?

Light globes wash up, all along the beach.
And they light me up with, and they light me up with certainty.
Well she calculates coincidence and circumstance and turbulence.
Gotta see what it is, and it’s everything, and it’s endless.

‘Cause baby can’t see through
All this matter and makeup and déjà vu.
Yeah we drift here alone, with nothing to do.
Until one of us makes the other one come true.

She wants to meet her fate, but travel by free will.
But you can’t have both and you can’t stand still, still, still.
I’d be the luckiest man in the universe
If cause and effect doesn’t get there first.
But she keeps looking for patterns and the world just happens.

‘Cause baby can’t see through
All this matter and makeup and déjà vu.
Yeah we drift here alone, with nothing to do.
Until one of us makes the other one come true.
Yeah one of us makes the other one come true.

Yeah ’cause baby can’t see through,
through all this matter and makeup and déjà vu.
Yeah we drift here alone, we drift here alone.
Yeah we drift here alone, we drift here alone.
Yeah we drift here alone, with nothin’ to do.
Until one of us makes the other one come true.
Yeah one of us makes the other one come true.

She said these questions don’t answer like other questions do.
So just let me be here with you.

Déjà Vu ~ Something for Kate