Ha. A friend came to stay with me since Thursday and just left, and part of me feels so enormously relieved, and part of me feels those old fears about being in enemy territory when I’m alone. I had an insecurity dream last night that made me realize I haven’t had shameful, “why doesn’t she/he/anyone like me and what did I do to cause this” feelings in quite some time, but brought back how awful they feel when I am wrapped in them. If you’re hard wired to think of yourself as a nerd; as an unpopular, unattractive, uncharismatic loser-y type, all the contradictions in the world can’t permanently uncross those wires, or at least not in a few short months. It’s wonderful that I’m finding a center to come back to, that I’m having days of happiness and satisfaction and friendships with people who can tell me they love me in a no-strings-attached, forthright way that is allowing me to feel loved and accepted and “cool.” I am charismatic. There’s really no question about that. It’s been my self-hate and shame and insecurity that has tarnished my shine, but the shine’s been underneath it all along. I’m just so quick (thank you, my family) to assume the tarnish is through some fault of my own, some shortcoming of my own, rather than other people using their own cracked or fun-house distorting mirrors on me. I am starting to see myself as I truly am, and I’ve known I like that person for a long time, I just haven’t let myself spend extended lengths of time alone with her. So, for today? Will I get under a blanket and read and nap? Will I continue to straighten up my office? Stay tuned…
Excitement or Dread, it’s All Really the Same December 24, 2007
What I mean by that is that either way, it passes. Last year, B and I took a month-long break during the month of December (her choice, of course), and while she wasn’t going to spend Christmas with my family anyway (should I have known then?), I remember just trying to get through these days without thinking too much about her, because we’d be meeting up again in less than a week (New Year’s Eve day). I was SO excited to see her again, so nervous that I tried to savor each day of that week, knowing that seeing her again would only happen once, no matter how it happened, and wanting just to be present for whatever I was feeling throughout the last days of the count-down (a whole different use for an advent calendar, really). Now it’s Christmas Eve again, and my life is so different in so many ways, yet one similarity is the need to just be present for all that will take place, whether I am dreading it or looking forward (I vacillate between both). I was reading one of my daily meditation books this morning (I can’t even believe I utter such things sometimes), and the topic was on turning the focus from thinking about the options that other people have in terms of how they could behave or respond, and turning that question back to ourselves as the only one we really have any power to change. I have options. I always have options. But if I choose to focus my energy on wishing others would respond differently, it’s futile, even if at first it’s a hell of a lot easier than focusing my energy on my own actions and reactions. So that’s going to be my thought for today – remembering I’m powerless over anyone but myself, and very concretely remembering to stop myself from wishing that others would behave differently.
I have to wrap presents, drag my dog into the shower with me, and get out of here by 3pm. A Merry Christmas to all – even for this secular Jew, I think it can be an exciting time of birth and new hope.
Gray Skies and Flurries…How New December 21, 2007
That just about perfectly reflects my mood – it’s December 21st and I’m so freaking tired of this weather and tired of being tired of this weather. I want to wear flirty skirts again! Tank tops! I want to feel my body again, instead of wrapping it up in layers and layers of insulation (clothes, not fat, for the time being). I love my home, love my views, but all this white and gray is nerve-fraying. Anyone in a warm climate want to do a house swap for a few weeks? Oh my, that would be phenomenal.
For anyone who is dabbling in the notion of joining a 12-step program: check out lots and lots of different meetings before you decide if it’s right for you. I went to a meeting last night that was so awful for me: it kicked up ALL my snobbery and feelings of “terminal uniqueness,” and I was primarily so grateful I have groups in which I feel a sense of belonging, respect and admiration. There’s this concept of “principles over personalities,” and sometimes I have a harder time than others living by that. Also, and I will freely admit this here, I don’t like kids. Sirens blare, drums roll – yup, I just don’t like ‘em, not even the ones in my immediate family. They bore and annoy me. And there were several children running roughshod all over the room while someone was speaking last night, and I didn’t know who I wanted to throttle most…yes I did, I wanted to throttle the parents. For christ’s sake, either teach your kid manners or take them out of the meeting: this is for everyone, not just your own damn convenience or pleasure. Yeah.
I promised myself I’d get in the shower and not be late for a commitment I have at 11:30. I am very often late. It’s gotten better, but more often than not I’m still rushing around, creating a crisis where there need not be any. So I’ll go, and maybe write more later.
Moody is My Middle Name December 20, 2007
One thing being in this particular 12-step program is teaching me is to be constantly aware of all that I’m grateful for. That especially during times when I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed or just unbelievably cranky, the thing to do is to start reciting a spur-of-the-moment gratitude list, even using the alphabet if that gets me started (not being grateful for the alphabet, but thinking of something that starts with A and getting as far as I can). I’ve written about this before, but mornings can be really hard for me, and even if the day before had tons of high points, it’s no security against waking up agitated and overwhelmed again the following morning.
So this morning I beat it back by doing “esteemable” things – I made my bed, straightened the kitchen (it’s fucking incredible to me how instantaneously cluttered my kitchen can become, especially right after it’s been cleaned. It’s only a matter of hours before I spill something on the floor, or leave mail strewn across the counter, and the whole thing looks just like it did the day before), and baked some concoction that started with a Betty Crocker spice cake mix but then included amaranth (my new favorite ingredient), protein powder, and some other creative licenses. I’m tempted to go get a piece and see how it turned out…talk about interactive blogging – I’ll be right back…
Yumalicious. Big, fat, happy, yum. I am by no means a health-food person, and I only eat what tastes good to me, but this amaranth stuff, it’s just so cool – it’s supposedly the most complete protein in existence in the plant world, and it’s crunchy like roughly-milled cornmeal so whatever you add it to just has this little crunch to it, with no real change in taste, but with every crunch you’re reminded that you’re eating something with extra protein (even if it is a Betty Crocker cake mix at heart). Ode to amaranth.
I don’t really mind being single. It’s infinitely less complicated than being in a relationship, and after stumbling upon the mediocrely-written but still very hot imho “Insatiable Desires” blog, I had a whale of a masturbation session that left me giggling and breathless, so it’s not entirely celibate, either. Much of the time, I really like my own company, and when I don’t, I pick up the phone or get in my car or turn on the TV. I lead a very, very good life – I think I’m immeasurably lucky for a 37-year old, in terms of my self-awareness, my level of relative peace, and my success, both financial and professional. Leaving NYC has helped me find a balance – it’s made me less materialistic, less time-crunching, less hostile. Not that I’m a hostile person – I’m almost unrelentingly sparkly, actually, but getting bumped by crowds and treated rudely by store staff and seeing what the combination of overcrowding, materialism and anonymity does to people’s manners short-circuits my affability in a flash. Up here, people truly are kinder, take more time to help one another, and it seems everyone really does smile more.
Whether it’s Buddhist or 12-step-based, the key is to not lose one’s peace of mind even in the face of life’s curve balls. Because there will forever be curve balls.
My dog yips softly in sleep December 17, 2007
Lesbians are mostly thought to have cats. And believe me, I do. Cat, that is – only one, because actually I’m allergic and I have a small lap that wouldn’t accommodate more. But I have a dog, too, a 50-lb poodle-lab mix puppy (please, I beg, don’t use the term labradoodle. He’s a mutt that doesn’t shed much, that’s all) which makes me more into one of those outdoorsy-type women, hiking the Appalachian Trail with her dog. I’m so-o-o-o not that. The truth is I’m much lazier than I’d like to be, and if I could take a pill that would make my body feel tired and exercised, I’d do it most days. B and I had a lot of sex, even toward the end, and I was in the best shape of my life then. I like sex very much, though I can tend to be a bit too much of a performer and not really as present for it as I’d like to be. I know I’m very good at it, though I’m not sure there’s an objective metric on this: I’m extremely sensual and touch-aware, and I think I’m also on the high end of creative and uninhibited, so that has to count for something. Orgasms are hard for me, and they were even when I wasn’t on an antidepressant (or when that antidepressant was Wellbutrin, which is supposed to actually help sex drive)…actually, let me be more specific: the first orgasm is hard for me to reach, but then I can have one after another with very little stimulation, until I’m silly putty on the bed. Or couch. Tables and floors interest me less – I’m a bit of a comfort hound, and sexy as the idea’s been, I get distracted by the unyielding wood against my hipbones or shoulder blades.
Sometimes I question whether I’ve truly had mind-blowing sex, whether I even could, and if so and I haven’t, what’s missing. Attractions to people tend to grow for me over time: the more at ease I am, generally the more genuinely responsive my body can be, so the notion of a long sex life with a life partner is actually very inviting to me. I don’t honestly think I’ve sought out partners who were that attentive, who not only got to know my body but then did the things they knew I liked. For instance, I’m crazy insane for having my feet, neck and ears touched. But B paid very little attention to those parts of my body. She was actually enormously pussy/clit focused and yet, until maybe the second to last time we had sex, was never able to figure out (even with my guidance) how to make me come with her mouth. I love sex, I miss sex, but I am fully aware of how complicating it can be, especially between women. When I got out of my last relationship before B, I slept with a man for a while, and while I came every time, several times, and liked him well enough as a person, touching and tasting and looking at a man compared to a woman is like Turkey Hill lite vanilla ice milk (actually I think cum smells like bleach, which is a smidge less savory than vanilla) versus Haagen Dazs’ Mayan Chocolate. There is simply no comparison – in feel, in texture, in smell, in appearance. Don’t get me wrong – some women don’t smell or taste all that great. But to me, the smell of sex on myself and my female partner has got to be the sexiest, most distracting scent on the planet.
How in God’s name did I get here? And how can I leave? It’s not painful at all, actually – if anything it helps me pine less when I don’t idealize how we were together. Nor do I want to demonize the relationship, but it is my goal to see it fairly so that eventually I can know what parts of it I’d like to emulate, and what really wasn’t a good fit. We weren’t a good fit in a lot of ways, yet the ways we were were intoxicating – like a best friend in sleepover camp who you’re allowed to be incredibly affectionate with (girls are lucky this way) and you then realize you’re actually ATTRACTED to her, in love with her, which takes this fabulous best-friendship to a completely different level, you actually get to have sex and watch movies naked under a blanket and wake up in the morning with the person you talk to about nose-picking and dreams for the future. But the fights were horrid, man. I’ve never been involved with someone anger-phobic before, and every time my mouth wasn’t turned in a smile she would absolutely flip out, say she “needed time,” and flee in one way or another. But it was always my fault – my expectations were too high, my needs too great, my insecurities too insurmountable. It’s true I didn’t feel safe with her, and the less safe I felt, the more unsteady and unpredictable my behavior became. We were as bad for each other as two people could be when it came to the rockier parts of our relationship: she set off my stuff, I set off hers, and suddenly we were in it only for ourselves, protecting our own precious territory instead of walking onto the other’s battlefield with swords sheathed. We weren’t ever mean, but we both felt enormously unsafe, I think.
While My Tea is Steeping (no, really) December 13, 2007
I forgot to add one rather colorful detail to my last post. I came home to an ecstatic puppy, his head covered with what looked like semen a la “There’s Something About Mary” (yes, I’m a lesbian, and yes I’ve still seen my share and is there really anyone out there who likes the smell or the taste of the stuff? I mean really, really, not just “I love you so I love how you taste.” I think it smells like bleach and I pretty much gag at the smell. Women, on the other hand, have a range of flavors and scents – I like my own smell and taste a lot.). Inside, I find an open garbage can (my fault – it’s a trash compactor and I left the door open), garbage strewn everywhere, and the mucilaginous remains of cake batter I started to prepare and then threw away when I saw WORMS in it (the expiration date was MAYBE one month ago), spattered across the floor and kitchen rug. Like I have time for this? Of course I have time for this! How better to spend my time? I’ve cleaned the floor but I still haven’t washed off my sweet batter-smelling dog. I figure that’ll be my next study break.
Procrastination Expert December 12, 2007
Yes, yes, I know I’m supposed to be writing in this every day, and that I didn’t yesterday, so hurray for me that I’m doing it now, but truly it’s entirely to avoid reading 17 heady journal articles for a 15-18 page lit review due Friday. Friday, you inquire? Why, you have all the time in the world! Alas, I do not, as I will be leaving my home by 7am on Friday in order to conduct a training, so that day is entirely lost. And at 37, I’m not pulling any all-nighters, either. So far I’ve ordered a highly involved christmas present, gone to court for a speeding ticket, gotten my oil and front tires changed…all in all it’s been a phenomenally productive day, just not in any way relating to this deadline. But I’m ready for the snowstorm tomorrow!
I do this to myself, a lot – causing crises where there need not be any by waiting until the very last minute to accomplish something I actually want to do well. Friends and therapists have hypothesized either that I’m sabotaging myself, that I’m giving myself an excuse for when the finished product isn’t up to snuff, or that I actually am doing the work…in my head. This time around, that third and gentlest interpretation is essentially impossible as I can’t mentally muse on articles with which I’m completely unfamiliar. This is my last final paper ever, in my entire academic career. Unless, of course, you want to count my comps and my dissertation as final papers. My very last class until I’m a senior citizen signing up for “The History of Wine” or some other intellectually dubious teachings.
I wake up cranky every mornning these days. When I was with B, every morning got me up with a shot of adrenaline, knowing I would see her or receive an e-mail from her. Now I feel overwhelmed at the prospect of my day, whatever I’m imagining it will bring, and recovering from a series of anxiety dreams that leave my jaw hurting from grinding. I really do have such a good life: a beautiful home, enough money (though that’s a whole other story), great friends, a loving cat and dog, my health, a very cute little body and face that I’m overall quite satisfied with, and a seemingly burgeoning career that has had multiple lives and continues to thrive. I wish I were more even-keeled. One thing that’s very helpful (and that I appreciate more reading a few other blogs) is that without children or a significant other to point a finger at, I only have myself and my life and my head to “blame” for my mercurial nature – I’m moody even without finding fault with someone else, man. I’m actually very relieved to be single and facing myself, even though not a fucking minute of it is easy.
I feel like I’ve been a pioneer all my life: bushwhacking through thorny, brambly, uncharted territory. I’ve never really had a mentor, I don’t even know who to ask to chair my dissertation, and everything I’ve done to this point – starting a business, buying and selling real estate, moving away from NYC – I’ve done pretty much blind. It’s all working out reasonably well, but the going is rough sometimes, and lonely. For a while, I thought that B was going to be my trekking companion. But we only walked in the direction she needed to go, and whenever I commented on that, she’d flee. Until her final escape last May. I can honestly say we weren’t right for each other, that we never will be, and I can wish her well, but when I’m thinking about cuddling with someone on the couch while watching TV; when I’m trying to remember what it feels like to have someone’s fingers inside me in just the right position, she’s who comes to mind. Thankfully, we didn’t really have a “soundtrack” to our relationship the way my others did, we never lived together, and we fought or processed as much or more than we got along for the year we were together, so there are a lot of memories I don’t actually have with her.
I don’t think I can rationalize avoiding this paper much longer. Ooh, maybe it’s time for a snack…
It May not be Brilliant, but it’s Me December 10, 2007
Okay, I think I’ve been avoiding this for at least the last two hours. I’ve done two loads of laundry, roasted a cornish hen and root vegetables, done all the dishes…a friend is coming over in an hour or so and I still have to take a shower, so I need to sit my ass down and write.
When my cat sits down, he looks like a male emperor penguin carrying an egg: his stomach bulges out onto his feet so only his toes are visible. He’s not exactly fat, but he’s ample. I wish I were more at ease with the notion of ample. Right after the breakup I started having anxiety attacks and lost a bunch of weight precipitously – I was the thinnest I’ve ever been by about 12 lbs. Now some of that weight is coming back, especially as it gets colder and I do less and less, and I’m trying very hard to just accept it and love my body wherever it is size-wise. It’s a piece of cake to love my body when I’m skinny, and truly I’m still very slender, but if I’m truly committed to not dieting (which I am, short of becoming diabetic or needing to diet for some other medical reason), my size cannot be what determines my self-acceptance. I think I’ll be fine and it sucks that no matter what, I live in a world in which we’re noticed based on our size. I am friendly with this wait-person at a local restaurant, and she was telling me and my friend how she’d lost “like 50 lbs” (she’s very thin now, and beautiful), but that her boyfriend knew her and thought she was beautiful before she’d lost the weight. I thought that was so terrific. I’m much more attractive now than I was 18 years ago, and I always wanted to be pretty – it was what my mom wanted more than anything and valued more than anything, but I didn’t get a lot of attention as a teenager and then in college as I gained more weight, the attention was even more sporadic. So now, I’m thin and feminine and extremely young looking for 37, and while it’s a cross I’m very, very glad to bear, I do find that being attractive only increases my vanity and insecurity – I’m no longer sure of whether people want to be around me because they think I’m attractive, or because they like who I am underneath. I’m liking who I am underneath more and more and am less and less self-conscious about my looks, which is wonderful, but I definitely struggle with my “currency” being in my looks.
Moving upstate has helped this a lot. I’m a NYC native – born on the UWS, went away to college then moved right back to NY until the year before last, when I quit the city and bought a farmhouse about an hour and a half north. I have a pool, a garden, 2 acres, a barn, a cat and a dog, and the most open sky I’ve seen in the northeast – so full of stars on a clear night it’s intoxicating. I get to dress more casually, my evenings are quieter, I take better care of myself overall here, especially come summertime when peaches and cucumbers and tomatoes and corn are in season. I’m going to try to grow cantaloupes this summer, too. It’s wonderful for my soul to be up here, and it’s also nice not to be at my mother’s beck and call – living out here (a place in which she has absolutely no interest unless it’s for country novelties like apple picking) keeps me much more separate from her than I’d otherwise be if I were still living in the city.
Do most women experience an identity crisis in their 30s? I’m not married/partnered, I have no children, so there’s really nothing to distract me from myself, which I think is a good thing, but it’s a little heavy sometimes. It feels much better to not mind being single, to be getting used to my own company, but it also slides a full-length mirror right in front of my eyes – I have to keep taking a good hard look at myself, and I can’t blame anyone else for my actions or moods.
Time’s up. See you tomorrow.
Morning Pages, Day 1 December 9, 2007
It says something, though I don’t know what, that I’ve been looking forward to writing this morning. I think, actually, that I’m routine-phobic or -averse, so right now this is new and different, and the shine may wear off sooner rather than later. But for now it has me writing and hedging for time alone, and that in itself is a success. Have I mentioned I can’t touch type? I know where all the keys are, but I still hunt and peck with two or three fingers, which if I’m not looking down has a mediocre track record for accuracy.
what do I really, really, really want? I want to end the class I’ve been teaching with grace and sincerity. I want to be…ah, here’s a thing: I think I need to make sure the things I ask for are things I actually have some say in – I was going to say that I wanted to be a bit of a phenomenon in the school and be asked to revamp this class, but I have no control over the kinds of evaluations my students give me. And that’s just where I could spend my time, too – on worrying that because I didn’t give someone a good grade on their midterm or because they for whatever reason don’t like me, they won’t evaluate me well. At my core I am so truly convinced people will be cruel to me, will be threatened by me in some way nd actively try to thwart my success. It’s my mother and junior high school all over again. And again, and again.
That’s where this 12-step program comes in. It’s been amazing, and it’s only been 7 months. I was so completely derisive of 12-step programs before entering this one – I’d dabbled with OA in college and hated it – but there is such a gentleness and theme of radical, total self-acceptance to this program. It’s like being introduced to my real self, and coming to realize that the derisive, self-destructive voices/beliefs are the disease.
I got into this program simply because my relationship was falling apart, and our couple’s therapist suggested that I try it. So I got into it to save us, and ended up getting dumped anyway 2 weeks later. The relationship had made me into one of of those incredibly malleable pieces of wire, and I had taken my original shape and wrapped it around this woman, losing myself, making her feel trapped, and ultimately feeling completely hollowed-out when she left. I was reading “Eat, Pray, Love” at the time, and thank God, because it said what I needed to hear: that this relationship would serve to crack my heart open and let some more light and air in, excruciating as the fault lines might be. It was the most grief and pain I’ve ever experienced, though if I were to be totally honest, it wasn’t the first or even the second time I’ve felt eviscerated by a relationship ending: that had happened twice before, only I hadn’t really seen it as such at the time. My pattern has either been to end up with women whom I feel in some way superior to (and eventually contemptuous of), or with women who are emotionally unavailable and leave me feeling at fault for the failure of the relationship. The three in which I felt the latter all had periods of evisceration and devastation, only this time getting brought to my knees resulted in getting the help I needed in the form of this program and a therapist who is either in program herself or just incredibly program savvy/literate. It was a gift, even though I still think about her every day, several times a day, and check my e-mail on a regular basis in hopes that I’ll hear from her. I asked her not to contact me, so even if she wanted to I’m not sure she would, and I don’t really know what I would hope to gain from the contact: an apology? Something that would confirm that I wasn’t completely to blame for the ending of the relationship? I know that’s something I need to establish inside myself, and I do think there are parts of that relationship that were healthy and loving (or maybe unhealthy and loving?) that I am justified in missing. What I don’t solidly, securely know yet is that I will meet someone with whom I will actually be happier than I was with…hmm, what shall we call her? Crap, I hope I don’t spend 10 more minutes finding a name for her. Names are hard, especially if I want to be even-handed in their significance. Oy. Forget it – it’ll come to me at some point. At any rate, she’s who/what I have to reminisce about, and even though there were issues with our sex life, issues with our social life, and issues with our ability to communicate, her smile made my knees weak, she made me feel like the prettiest woman on the planet, and I loved her as well and hard as I’ve ever loved anyone. Sigh.
How did I get there? I know she’ll be coming up a lot and that’s fine, but letting her “rent space” in my head can be overwhelming sometimes. Plus, the half-hour’s over, and it’s time to continue my day. See you tomorrow.
This is it December 8, 2007
It took me over ten minutes, I think, to come up with my name. What signifies me, yet isn’t obvious? What sounds like me? Why am I not more creative? At any rate, I think I like what I came up with. An astrologer I respect once told me this lifetime was my last time around: hence the name. This life has been hard, so I’m kind of hoping he’s right about that.
So I’m writing a blog because I need to spend more time in my head, if you can believe that. this seems like an interesting way to do that, since eventually people may happen upon my blog and comment on it, so it will be public and personal at the same time. I’m afraid to spend time alone, in my head, so I over-fill my days and feel incredibly sorry for myself when I don’t have stuff to keep me busy – a friend of mine says that being alone is being in enemy territory, and I’m very sad to say I think that’s true for me. I should probably be meditating, but at the very least I’ll try getting back into journal writing in this electronic format. I think the trick will be to stay true to myself, to not write as though there is a potential audience, to speak the same secret truths that I would if I were writing in one of my spiral-bound, Pearl-Paint journals. I think I’m going to try to do this a la The Artist’s Way, writing for half an hour every day, ideally every morning.
So where am I in my life? I’m 37, female, somewhat recently single (< 1 year), I’ve been attending a twelve-step group for equally as long, and I’m trying to learn how to truly love and accept myself, without limits or exceptions. My father is dead and I think I probably still don’t know what that means to me, except that I am avoiding a best friend whose brother just died because I still can’t really deal with cancer and death (why I’m avoiding her, not why he died). She deserves better than that and I’m not even sure she knows I’m avoiding her, but I know. And saying it here makes it real.
Really, how long can these things remain completely anonymous? If anyone who knew me read this, they’d know it was me already. But I live for connection with people. Literally – it’s what I care about more than anything in the world, is feeling connected to people. So maybe this needs to be a calculated risk – I want to be myself and connect with others as myself, which puts me at risk for people finding out more than I’d ordinarily tell.
So my dad is dead and my mom is a handful and a half, larger than life, but not the reason I’m a lesbian. She is not affectionate and makes me look like a colossal slacker by comparison – she really manages to fit 37 hours worth of activities into a 24-hour day. She’s also in a miserable relationship and without a doubt has a vortex of self-hate at her core that is what keeps her running so fast, fearing she’ll get sucked in if she slows down at all. I don’t want to be like her, and I don’t want to be in a relationship like hers with either my dad or her new partner, nor do I want a relationship that’s anything like my sister’s, which just mirrors the contempt and disrespectmy mother had for my father. who we are affects who we choose, so how I can I possibly choose well until I’m happy with me? I’m infinitely more okay being single now than I was four or five months ago, and I think it will just get easier as time passes, but I think the one thing I truly doubt I’m capable of is a loving, supportive relationship. Elizabeth Gilbert says that every day we should ask ourselves the question “what do I really, really, really want?” (apparently the 3 reallys are essential) and write down our answers. I realize I’m not ready for it yet, but I really, really, really want a healthy, supportive intimate relationship. I think the two things I want most in this world are to keep discovering my passion and pursuing it, and to be in a loving relationship. But I must say, my program (which needs to remain anonymous, even here) is helping me grow and change so much that I have to acknowledge I don’t know what that is going to look like six months or a year from now. It may well be that the fantasy I now have is really something I need to be for myself, and that once I feel more whole, my image of whom I want to be with will shift, as well.
Okay, I think this is enough for tonight. But this seems like a good thing – something I’ll look forward to. Good night.
