2015-12-19:
I noticed your site is down with a 500 error. I was wondering why you took it down until I looked on a computer and then wondered if you were aware. But you’re you, so of course you’re aware? I’m not going to fall asleep anytime soon, I cried when I left the airport, but not until I was almost at Sunset road.. which is better than last time. I’m getting better every time, but was hoping to not cry period. I almost had to pull over a couple times, and I try to front being okay, we do it all the time anyway, it’s how we’re all programmed. I hadn’t eaten since Mon Ami Gabi but had no appetite and went to sleep as soon as you landed and I knew you were safe. Woke up around 8pm starving but had no motivation to leave my bed and turn on the lights until I was feeling sick around 9 something and finally got my ass out of the house to pick up something quick and maybe a little comforting. My stomach hurts so bad from that chile relleno now and I’m not sure if it’s because I waited too long to eat, it was actually spicy cause of all the seeds, or I’m overcome with so much sadness I’m still crying past midnight.
I don’t know why but I decided to pull your lj pdf, not looking for anything in particular, but mostly because I miss you. That’s really it. It’s so many pages and years that after the first two posts I scrolled to the bottom, then I scrolled to November 2009 and kind of ran from there. I guess I’m still trying to figure you out, and I think maybe sometimes you’re still trying to do the same with me, sometimes. Then I noticed some correlations on circumstances and timelines. I guess it’s human habit to find patterns. I made it to the Libra dream from 4/23/2010 and that’s only point one of three here, but I felt like typing these things out of my system right now. I tried to copy and paste the Chinese title into Google translate because I’m so curious what it says, but it’s not happening. It won’t do it. I’m gonna let that go.
It’s funny, you wrote, I’m writing in here, we’ve had similar outlets. You were sick through the start of 2010 when I was. I didn’t realize that was going on at the same time. You met A (I’m copying you here) the same year I met J, within 6 months of each other. She was there to take care of you through it, he did the same for me and I really appreciated it. I had no idea, even to this day, how I would have recovered without him and I took that as a huge affirmation that he really loved me. Something you said really stood out to me, I’ve always wondered how you both met and you gave me the mechanics but I had no idea about the 29 hour date thing, and it’s none of my business, but I’ve wondered, and never thought to run through this gigantic pdf that’s currently up on my screen.. I’m rambling.. the thing that stood out was you describing how lost you were with her, you lost track of time, responsibilities were kind of taking a back seat, so was sleep. I know sleep is still difficult for you. Anyway, this really stood out to me because you’ve said the same thing to me. You were lost with me, or losing yourself, or something like that. It all sounds very similar. She had issues with your female friends, J had issues with my guy friends and most of our industry is male, so most of my friends at the time were. I had no idea you broke up in 2010 and then resumed. I haven’t read up to how that reconciliation happened yet, but I remembered how J and I almost split around the end of 2010 and kept going until I finally walked a couple years later. I found out about his patterns later through mutual friends. His relationships before me followed the same formula, the same start, middle, and end. People who knew him before he dated me felt bad when they saw me going through the same thing but they felt they had no right to butt in and wasn’t sure I’d listen. So it took its course. Just timelines. I don’t know.
So the theme here has been patterns, and I hate backspacing and am going to forget trying to reword things to be polite in favor of being blunt. Today you were talking about your mother’s forced visit and you’ve mentioned things about her, and I made it to the post about her “advice” and how you wanted to print them out and post them so you’d do the opposite. Her version of love was described as conditional based on what she’s able to get out of the relationship. The whole don’t fall in love, use them before they use you, because everyone is out to get you mentality… A seems to be the same way, even if it didn’t seem like it from 11/2009 – 4/2010, at least during that time she had another primary source, and then transferred that conditional love and obligation over to you. She even said she knew what she was getting with the other boyfriend but wasn’t sure what to expect with you. Despite your mother’s “advice” on love, I wonder if your mother is somewhat alright with A, or even likes and gets along with her, since they share similar traits.
The fact that you were able to find A at her other bf’s house was absolutely shitty too. And the passive aggressive almost getting in the car, not getting in the car, walking towards you driving away.. never mind turning around passive aggressive behavior is nonsense. A sounds like she was very free spirited in the beginning and that changed, or maybe it was a front to win you over and she settled back into her ways when the effort wasn’t needed anymore. Earlier I mentioned J taking care of me in 2010. The first 6 months of the relationship were almost too perfect and then things settled in after the first year. The manipulation and control weren’t obvious, it was a subtle transition I couldn’t see was happening until I had to question the nonstop fighting, me calling things out he tried to spin as my fault, and then his apologies and our cool down periods where things seemed okay. He would project on to me, accusing me of the very things he was actually doing. Rinse repeat. He did the exact same thing to his ex girlfriends before me, and I had no idea until way later.
What I’m getting at is A never “devolved,” she just went back to being herself after she got what she wanted, and she complies with what she perceives to be necessary behavior to keep the status quo. Just enough to keep things from falling apart. Just enough to stay in control. I’ve lived with that. They have narcissistic traits with honeymoon phases and then all the other stages follow. They have sociopath traits where they are detached, and pretend, then backtrack when they catch themselves not “performing” in a way that will sustain the current situations they want. I’m sure these traits are more spectrum than they are on/off switches and I’ve wondered if I had potential to do this to someone I love, until I remembered narcissists don’t love, they portray something their partners feel as love, but they’re only concerned with what they can gain from their relationship(s). I’m concerned about keeping myself in check with my relationships. It’s like when I’ve stated my concerns about being a good parent in the past, and a friend told me the fact that I worry about this shows someday I’ll be a good parent. That’s what it just reminded me of. Running with this logic I wondered if you and I have the potential to do these things to each other, if there’s concern that what we think is love ends up being a trap for the other to use us like our exes did and one night at 3am we realized we’ve been duped again. That perspective is too cynical for me to hold on to. It’s a passing thought for the sake of self preservation from being burned many times. It’s taking notice of how my brain works these things out, and that I’m not exclusively concerned or only care about what could happen to me, but that many of my concerns are how I can potentially be a blessing or a curse to someone I love. This is how I know I am truly capable of love, and am not like my “partners” who’ve used me.
Women in your life who are supposed to be loving and supportive have been using you for years. It’s a pattern. I’m not judging that, I have a shit-ton of patterns I’ve had to realize and put down, and there are probably other ones I have that I haven’t been able to recognize and handle yet. Something else that I thought was interesting, was how she had guilt for leaving her other boyfriend despite not loving him, she even said she couldn’t be with you. Earlier this year you had guilt and couldn’t leave A, and said you couldn’t be with me. You’ve been pretty consistent with that, despite saying you want me in your life, and as a friend at. bare. minimum. I feel like I’m part of your cycle but you’re in an opposite role now. What I’m doing, being attached to you, is like when you were attached to A while she was still with her other boyfriend, maybe not exactly since I don’t know details, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were similarities. Or the other way to look at it is you’re doing to me what A did to you, except we’re dragging this further on a timeline since it’s been almost two years. I can’t believe it’s been almost two years now. I got the sense that you felt betrayed by A when you found out about the other guy, and it sounds like she’d done a really good job at keeping him a secret until you got to a point where your relationship should have progressed. I imagine that not being able to move forward in the relationship, and that feeling of betrayal hurt. But I also wondered if you were so sad, and felt so empty at any point because you wanted to be with someone and couldn’t. They claimed to love you but they were holding on to the thing that made your progression with them impossible. That’s where I’m sitting today. Pretty much where you were 5 years ago.
I’m not angry, or making decisions or anything. Had I of taken the time to read this before your visit I’m not sure if that would have changed how this last week went or not. I’m not sure if anyone has ever been in a position in your life to at least make an attempt to objectively point things out. I’m sure you’ve met someone who genuinely loves you and has at least made the attempt, whether they were successful or not. These things are difficult. I know I’ll never be 100% objective because I’ll never be 3rd party, but I am doing my best to put my biases aside and at least share what I’m observing. Even if you disagree with some of it, or all of it, it gives you a starting point to contrast. Maybe you already knew these things and I’m slow to realize them. Or maybe you’ve had all the pieces and never arranged them this way, maybe you didn’t want to. I’m just noticing things and I’m typing them out of my system. I don’t even know what I want, and I don’t know if I genuinely think that or if it’s some kind of defense for myself. Either way I’m still processing. Don’t take this as a request, desire, or need to not talk to me. I hope you don’t ghost me for speaking freely.
Side note: I found a tequila fueled drunk selfie in the hotel room from last night. Surprisingly it’s not blurry.
I was able to discuss the two things that really got to me in Pretend Angel after I got to read it in June. The one where I pointed out it seemed like you were afraid to start over. It killed me reading that. That even if you don’t know what you’re currently dealing with will make it, it’s the furthest you’ve come. That it’s a good enough reason. That I am not worthy of bravery. I get scared of things too. It’s normal. I just always tried to dig in and figure out why I’m scared and if it’s worth letting something go, or if it’s worth overcoming for something I wouldn’t want to go without. More tangents here.
I started discussing Victoria and got sidetracked, and the outage and phone calls didn’t help. I pointed out how you being open and intrigued to the idea with me made me feel, and how it hurt when you revised it to the last two women you’d been with, so A and I. But I broke the ice on that. It stung. I verbalized things I’d never even said out loud to myself in private and essentially declared I have too much hope, and that there is too much love in me to give up on this. Every fear you verbalized, I’ve had and then some, as I’m sure you have. But it’s true. Even if it’s not relevant in the very near future, I know in my heart I would be denying who I am and what I know I’ll eventually want in life if I continued giving up like I did when I was with J. For the first time you told me you’ve always wanted children but due to health and the partners you’ve been with, you resigned from the idea. You opened up about the genetic anomalies and miscarriages. That absolutely scares me, but it doesn’t deter me. I am too stupid, stubborn, or brave to back down and not even try. Take your pick on which one it is. Lol. And I mean try with everything, not just that one distant possibility.
Darling, it doesn’t make me love you any less, or diminish the future I want with you. I can’t predict what’ll happen, but I can promise to love you even when things go sideways. I appreciated you telling me these things. The one thing I never got to say out loud, that I was trying to get through without my voice cracking and without bursting into tears, was that I wanted her name to be Victoria Youlee Stewart Barnett. Each name holds so much meaning. I wanted you to hear this in my voice, out loud, while you were next to me. There were other things I wanted to say but I could’t even finish this up and continue to the next thought, and then there was construction and inappropriate jokes, and a much appreciated distraction from the hard topics. I don’t know if I’ll ever pick up where I left off on what I intended to say next, or if I’ll ever be brave enough, if it’ll still be relevant in a while, or if I’ll feel the same way as time passes.