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I have thought today about discontinuing this, stop communicating with you at all. I don’t really know why I cannot get you out of my system. I wish I could figure it out. I really wish that I could see the future, to know that I will find a love like you, or even greater, somewhere down the road. I know that is the human condition though; we cannot know if, or when, things will work out.
I am so thankful to you for what you said before you left last night. I guess I have thought that the majority of your memories throughout all of this have been about how screwed up I am, and how much I hurt you. To know that you think so many positive things about me, and me and you, means a lot.
With that said, I should tell you…
You were also the best sex I have ever had. You are the most charismatic person I have ever met when you are not down. You are also the most beautiful woman I have ever dated. You are the most naturally gifted and talented person I know. You have an incredible heart, and an equally impressive head on your shoulders. You really were what I was looking for, and because of that, it is difficult to get over you.
I know that I can find someone else if it is not you, but it has seemed to me worth trying to get you back, since I know you were what I was looking for, what I had waited for. I know I need to move past this line of thinking now, but having you love me, and you allowing me to love you, was an incredible gift for both of us.
One of the most meaningful things that you said to me last night was about my sadness, about how it overwhelmed you and you could not imagine raising a child or being married to that sadness. Trust me, I know that if I had not started addressing the sadness fully, I would not have been in this world much longer. I am sorry that I did not take the good steps I have taken now while we were still together.
It does make me sad that you never get to see the progress I have made, that you only see me when I am sad now. It’s the nature of the situation, but trust me, I am much better now. Between the medication and the things I have come to understand about myself, I am slowly climbing into a state of happiness and self-respect. I am not saying any of this to try to win you back. I am saying it because you said that you were tired of feeling sorry for me last night. Please, I beg you, stop feeling sorry for me. Things hurt, sure, but this does not dominate my life anymore. I am okay on a day-to-day basis.
You say that you think the two of us together was too volatile of a mixture. I disagree with that wholeheartedly. I think we were two people that were dealing with a lot of baggage who used the relationship – sometimes healthily, other times not so healthily – to hang our baggage on. I think that our individual problems collided and magnified at times, but it was not the relationship, or the chemistry that did that. God knows the chemistry was perfect once.
It still is lonely without you here. It is lonely hugging the pillow that is now you. It is sad not to see your face daily. Bout you know what Grier, all of this is because of something. I am learning so much about myself through the pain and loneliness. I am learning how to be alone. I am learning what I truly like and dislike- what I want and do not want. At the end of every day though, I still do want you. I don’t need you, I want you. That is a huge difference to me now.
I hope the rest of your weekend went well. I hope that the movie was good. I am going to watch Junebug when I get finished with this.
I saw Liz tonight and she was really sad and crying a bit. If you haven’t already talked to her, she might could use a call.
Take care, sweetheart.

I have tried an experiment today. Wake up, put a smile on your face even if it is forced, and see how the day goes. It seems to be working. Suddenly I feel a rush of the happy chemicals to my head. Maybe it’s because it’s Friday. Maybe my mind is slowly changing still.
Hope you’ve had a good day. Hope you have a good weekend.

I haven’t had the best week so far. I found out a friend had to be put in the hospital this past weekend and he has a tumor in his stomach that is causing internal bleeding. An uncle of mine died yesterday. Two other friends are dealing with their own personal/family dramas and seem to be taking it out on me and everyone else. Sometimes it seems like the sky is falling. If you pray, please keep me in them. I know the thing I wrote yesterday seems like I have all of my shit together, but I need help and hope at times too, and I am finding it hard to identify a source for those things now.
I hope things are more stable for you.

Talking with Steve, my therapist, yesterday, I mentioned the museum metaphor that I wrote about yesterday. We talked a bit about it, and about the dream I had last week, and he basically blew my mind open about it all.
With regards to the dream, he asked me how the “me” character in the dream felt. I told him I felt hurt, scared, a little angry at times etc. Then he asked me to put myself in the shoes of the “you” character in the dream. Then he asked for me to tell him what that character felt. That was a lot harder. I closed my eyes and thought and ultimately started talking. I said, “I feel pity for this man in front of me, I am so tired of this, I am so tired of having to deal with this, I wish he didn’t hurt like this, but I cannot do anything more to stop it, I love him, but I cannot love him like he wants me to, and possibly how I really would like to.” At the end of that Steve said, “So that’s what the Grier character in the dream felt?” I said, “Yes.” Then he explained to me that the character was not really you, that the thoughts that the character had were really my thoughts, a way in which my subconscious thinks of myself, projected onto a female character that looked a lot like you in the dream. It has nothing to do with the way you necessarily feel about me, but more about how I feel about myself. Everything started to click then.
I realized that though I still love you dearly, much of what I love is the memory of what you were (and maybe still are, I don’t know) combined with a somewhat idealized image of you in my head. I know so little of who you are now that it would be impossible to be in love with you in the way that I think I am. I still think you are an incredible person, one of the best I have ever met, and I believe that stands outside of that idealized image, but recent e-mails have proven to me just how much different you are than the memory or image in my head. None of this is a bad thing, you are struggling with lots of things and, I know, trying to make positive change in your life. At least that is my hope.
Realizing that makes me realize that I need to keep the memory as just that, but try to do away with the idealized image. I think I secretly knew this anyway. When Liz asked the other night what it would take for me and you to get back together again. I at first said, “Grier would have to fall back in love with me.” Then I went on to say, “I think we would have to take things slowly and get to know each other as the people we are now, forgiving some of the past stuff, and having faith that our attempts at self-improvement are steadfast (probably didn’t really use these words;)), and that we would have to talk clearly of our expectations of each other, identifying deal-breakers and desires.” I didn’t really ponder what I had said too much. During the session with Steve though, I realized and talked to him about my belief that that may be the most mature feeling I have had about “me and you” in a long time. There was a storybook beginning to our story, but there really will be no storybook ending. Either we will lose contact altogether, we will try to become friends, or somewhere down the line, we might try to pick up the pieces and try again. I don’t think either one of us knows what will happen. I know I don’t despite the fact that I try relentlessly to see the future. I need to be more patient with so may things. Let things unfold. Despite the fact that a few of the emails we have exchanged over the past few weeks have hurt me at times, at least we are getting to know each other as who we are now a little more. Any friendship or new relationship between us will require that. I guess it gives me a little hope, because of the three potential endings I mention above, the least desired by me is for us to lose contact altogether.
I need to get the image of you, good and bad, that is in my head out, and only think of you as who you are now with the information I have now. I need to stop having the image as an artifact in that museum, like a picture hung on the wall. No one is a picture, not even a moving one. You can only be who you are, and the same for me, and hopefully we are both making progress toward being better people with happier lives. I hope there will be space in each of our lives for the other.
About the museum thing, Steve said, “Sometimes you have to look around the museum and get your fix of artifacts and placards before you are ready to leave it, maybe you are still looking around?” I said, “I think I am about ready to leave it.”
Sorry that I rambled so much. If you made it through all of this, thank you. What I know of you right now, who you are now, is something and someone I have deep love and admiration for too, even after I throw the image away.
Take care.

So I decided to take the day off today. Maybe a good idea, maybe not, but I had some things I needed to do and the company owes me a couple of days for recent weekends I have worked. One of the tasks that I had to do was go to the YMCA and cancel my membership. Like so many things, I have been putting this off as well for too long. I thought it was just out of laziness that I had not gone over to cancel, but I realized today that there were other reasons as well.
I have not been going to the Y with any regularity lately. It has been well over a month since I even went at all. I am also trying to cut down on my expenses, i.e. no more newspaper, no more Netflix, cheaper car insurance, and an end to my Y membership. To be honest, all I ever used was the treadmill, and the city provides one of those, in the form of a sidewalk, free-of-charge. I had just been procrastinating on getting over to the Y to cancel it, or so I thought.
Like with so many things, as I am learning through my therapy, issues like prcrastination are usually related to deeper issues, anxieties, etc.
I waltzed into the Y today, told the guy that I wanted to cancel my membership, filled out the appropriate paperwork, and walked back out. It was in the parking, walking back to my car, that it all hit me. Everything started to flood back about that place: the first time I went as your guest to the place, going in the afternoons occasionally with you – you on the elliptical and me on the treadmill. I remember staring at you there when you didn’t know I was, and thinking how beautiful you were. How interesting it was to watch you in public when you were unaware that I was watching – a sense of pride because you had chosen me. Then there was sweaty us riding back home discussing dinner.
I remembered the day I got my membership and they took my picture for the ID. You made the girl take the photo twice and you had to fix my hair between the two takes. I remember when we decided to do the family deal together. I remember when you finally decided to end your membership and go to Curves. I remember that it hurt a little that day too, but not like it did today.
There’s this way in which I feel like I live constantly in the museum of our relationship. Like most museums, it is enjoyable at times, but ultimately it tells the story of things already past, already dead. I guess I gave away one of the museum artifacts today. It was a beat-up YMCA id card where my face was mostly scratched away, where the fix you did to my hair could hardly be made out. I understand now the things causing my procrastination on this. I imagine this may be good for me in the end, learning to give up on these things, but today I had to have a quiet moment in my car in the YMCA parking lot, and now I am having a tear-filled moment writing about it here.
You once told me that tears are the way the heart heals itself, maybe that’s what this is. I surely hope so.

Happy Valentine’s Day, G! I worry about how I will handle today, so I thought I would try to start it on a good note that may just carry throughout the day. Hope you have a great day, and that your heart is light and full.

I know I got a little upset on the phone last night, but please don’t think I am sad all the time. Life’s not so bad. Just wanted you to know.

I am no more the answer to your problems than Mexico is. I am just here, and it is south of the border. I can speak with strange accents and pretend adventure. At the end of the day, I still work for a newspaper. There is another, and so many more that do that. Mexico is an illusion. I am not sure it even exists. I am not sure that the next block does either, until I have to pass through it on the way to purchase sour cream for this baked potato.

Sing to me babe, with that sweet throat. Tell me that we can try again.