All About Forever

I just read Charby's post about her dad. It made me really sad. Love just hurts so much. It's all a tragedy waiting to happen, whether you think about it or not. Even when it's wonderful, even when it works, even when it feels like joy, it's going to end as "loss" for someone. B always tells me that "nothing lasts forever." I hate when he says that.

I've always been all about "forever."

This weekend and the beginning of the week were filled with tears. Last night I was talking to GoldenFinch on the phone and she said that she has been unusually tearful as well. Charby's post was certainly sad, and Sunshine shut down her blog this weekend. What's going on with the women in the world? I just haven't felt like myself since Narc pulled away in that cab.

I looked it up, and this Sunday was a full moon. Strange, right? I definitely feel it though. Sometimes I get in tune to those things.

Saturday evening I was home with my family. It was hard. We watched a lot of old movies of my stepbrother. Those times don't feel like they were all that long ago. He was the cutest thing in the world. In one of them he turned and smiled at the camera with the sweetest little seven-year-old grin, missing teeth and all. It absolutely broke my heart to look at that little boy's face and to know what his "fate" would be. I mean, I guess I don't "technically" believe in fate, but in my heart I always have. In fact, I'm a huge fatalist. Fate and ghosts.

I felt numb.

Then I was moody all day on Sunday. I spent the morning at the hospital for my brother's birthday, after which my mom, my two sisters and I departed for a bridal shower in New Jersey. The bride is a long time friend of the family. She's getting married in August just north of San Francisco, but her family is still in Jersey. My sisters and I are going to be her bridesmaids. We grew up in the house next door to the bride and her family and lived there until I was seven. At that point, my mom left my dad (because of the alcohol, etc.) and moved us all to New York. My dad lived for about four more years after that. In those years, the four of us would pile into the car and drive out there to visit him. My mom used to call us "Mommy and the miracles," like some strange '50's do-wop band. We would sing in the car on the way there.

It was strange to take that drive again--just the four of us. It felt like we were driving into some kind of time warp. It made me very sad, but in a way I can't quite articulate. Somtimes I feel like that life, the world of my childhood, is ongoing and exists somewhere. I just don't have access to it.

Sometimes I have strange dreams. I dream that I (at my present age) go back and visit a Hyde of the past. For example, one reoccuring version of this dream is that I go back to visit the house where I grew up. A six-year-old Hyde answers the door. It's not creepy. She is happy to see me and welcomes me inside. We sit at the kitchen table and talk. She offers to show me around the house, starting with my old bedroom. I don't remember what we talk about. The house is exactly the same. I notice the Fishy Phyllis "garbage-pail-kid" sticker on the microwave.

Anyway, as we were driving back from the bridal shower on Sunday, I felt like I was on the verge of tears. The anniversary of my dad's death is coming up on May 7th. It will be 15 years this year. I hate this time of year. That date looms over me and it's like everything in the universe is gearing towards it. I know that my mom and my sisters must be going through the same thing, but we never talk about it. It's weird. We talk about everything in my family--we're not a repressed "sweep everything under the rug" family. But on this issue we've always been silent.

I decided to break the silence.

On the care ride back I aksed them if they wanted to meet for dinner on that day. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. I don't know if I'm ready to deal with this, even though it's been 15 fucking years! Usually I just spend the entire day with B because I feel shakey.

Speaking of B, I saw him on Monday for our 24 night. I was at Cheers just before he arrived and only had two glasses of wine, but for some reason, I felt drunk. (You guys know that 2 glasses of wine should have no impact on me, so it was strange.) When he got here, it's like the flood- gates finally opened. I just cried and cried and cried about everything. I cried about my brother; I cried about my dad; I cried about Narc; and finally, I cried about my relationship with B. It has never had any kind of resolution in my mind.

In May, it will have been three years since B and I broke up. I don't want to get back together with him on any level. But even so, I still feel so much pain from what happened between us. I still feel worthless in so many ways. It's hard to spend so much time with him and to sit on all of those feelings. I can't really say any more about it here because he's a very private person and I don't think he'd want me posting the details of our relationship. In any case, I cried for hours and I think I really confused him. I cried straight through 24. I cried as I got ready for bed; and I cried myself to sleep.

That night, I was stricken by mad thirst. Maybe all of the crying caused dehydration. I woke up five or six times with so much thirst! I kept having to stumble into the kitchen for water. At one point, I woke up B who was sleeping in the living room.

"It's freezing in here," he said.

(They've turned off the heat in my building since it's spring, but we've had a few really chilly days lately.)

"Come sleep with me then," I told him. "The blanket's a lot warmer in my room."

He did.

When I woke up in the morning, he told me that Narc had emailed me.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Last night after you fell asleep I was at the computer. Your MSN messenger thing popped up with a new email from Narc."

Oh my god. I felt sick.

I didn't want to see what Narc wrote. I knew it would be bad.

"What do you think he said?" B asked.

"He's probably going to tell me to fuck off."

Well, here it is:


Hi Hyde,

Am extraordinarily busy with the writing, but may try to squeak out for a just a little bit this week to catch a few flicks at the Tribeca Film Fest. We'll see.

Am glad I saw you this past weekend; but, thinking about it now, I do think it'd be best for all if we (once again--perhaps more successfully this time) attempted to establish some distance between us. I'm just not in a position, right now, to be good to anyone, least of all you. I really don't want to hurt you anymore. Both of us really need to work on ourselves, move on, etc.

Am seeing the Guru tomorrow, perhaps she'll shed a bit of light on all of this...? Who knows.

Take care, perhaps we'll talk in a little while--

Narc

I don't know what that's supposed to mean. He pops up once a month, has sex with me, professes love for me and then says that we should "establish distance" but perhaps only "for a little while." God damn it, Narc! He's treating me like a fucking yo-yo! (Pulls me in, pushes me away, pulls me in, pushes me away.)

Well, predictably enough, that set off another flood of tears. I cried until I got to therapy at 10:00 am.

In therapy, we talked about relationship issues, which included, of course, both Narc and B. After the session B called me. My head was spinning and I brought up some of what I had just discussed. B and I ended up in a fight. I told him to fuck off and hung up on him. Then I cried some more. I called back to wish him luck with a job interview he had that afternoon. I told him to put our issues aside until later. No matter how angry I am, I still love him and didn't want him to have emotional-stuff on the mind with an important interview ahead.

After that, I took my laptop to a diner and finished my blog. Later when I came home, B called me to tell me that the interview went well. We resumed our previous conversation which caused another hour or two of tears. This time, though, it was cathartic. I feel like we finally heard each other a little. He reassured me about a lot of things. All of those tears though... I was wiped out.

For the rest of the afternoon, I wanted to crawl into a cave and rest. I talked to Hammer on the phone for a while, but other than that, I just vegetated in front of the TV. Later in the evening, after watching American Idol, I did a few lines and went to Cheers. I have to stop with the medicine though. My left arm and hand were tingling a bit. It made me nervous.

I had a standard evening at Cheers. Hung out with IrishBird for a while and drank a lot of wine. I made sure to stay off the whiskey. The scene was kind of dead. I got hit on by a 54-year-old man, and I talked to that guy for a while. He had been studying to be a priest at one point. Interesting fellow. We talked about religion and the political right in America. This guy is a leftist. It's weird, because B just had a very similar discussion (about politics and religion) with his advisor and we had been talking about it.

Later I had a strange text exchange with Bezoukhoff. I knew I was getting to the really drunk-Hyde point, so I went home. It's a good thing, because the last leg of the night, and parts of the Bezoukhoff exchange I didn't remember this morning.

But now it's a new day and I'm still madly in love with Narc (maybe even more so, God knows why); I'm still sad; I still don't want to become "Famine-Hyde", but I'm too tired today to be "Feast-Hyde." I feel like a loner today. I don't want to talk to anyone. It's raining out. I have a voice lesson in a little while. Maybe I'll go to a museum by myself after that. I know I have school work to do, but this is New York.

Even as a loner, the world is my oyster.