I could see the frustration in his eyes.  He kept grinning and hedging and making half-formed answers. I saw frustration and resistance in his eyes.  I could also see her, almost physically trying to pull out of him a fully-fledged feeling.  Something coherent that indicated he’d taken the time to know himself and analyse his own feelings and then figure out which words described them.  But he really couldn’t, just a lot of grinning and hugging and kissing.  To her credit she gave him praise for what he was able to share with her, which must have been enough, because they spent the night together.  She said that she felt strong chemistry with him, enough to sleep with him.  She also wanted  another opportunity to have intimate talks, off camera, where he might be more able to express himself.

Then comes the end of the show and the rose ceremony, three men – two roses - someones going home.  Watching her with all three, I couldn’t figure out how she could choose.  Guess who went home?  Reid, of the three the one who couldn’t TELL her how he felt and what he thought about.

In the limo being driven away and out of Jillian’s life, Reid is interviewed for the audience.  He says, “I should have been able to tell her how I felt, I might be losing the one woman I should be with, etc., etc.”   He is not smiling now, he actually looks uncharacteristically serious and introspective.  As he spoke he became more regretful, and more resigned and a realization seemed to dawn on him that he had not tried hard enough to keep this woman.  He didn’t realize until he lost her that he should have made more of an effort to tell her how he felt.

I felt a combination of sympathy and impatience towards him.  How could he have gone through that whole program, those weeks after weeks of competition with the other guys, to get to the final three and then NOT realize how important, how critical it would be for him to use every possible moment to express himself to her.  Notwithstanding that the whole concept of the show is stupid – just forget about that for the moment – but if this had occured in real life, and she’d been dating him and a few other guys at the same time, and he felt that way about her, wouldn’t he have made sure that she knew that he wanted to be exclusive with her?

As I watched this “mini-drama” unfold I couldn’t help but wonder:  What makes some men think that they have no responsibility for knowing how to express what they feel?  Are they raised with no ability to string an emotional phrase together?  Or, are they so ego-driven that they simply won’t take the risk of using words to describe how they feel, because their goal is to be obtuse and equivocal.  Do they really think that women can be strung along with platitudes and gestures?   What does it take for them to “get real”?  Does it require a Sports Illustrated model with a PhD and a bankroll, and they suddenly become emotionally verbal?  Most men are sadly mistaken, because they are not going to find those women.  They are going to meet women that are just as flawed and imperfect as they are.

I think women, including me, get a really bad wrap for talking too much and sharing too many feelings.  I’ve been criticized for exposing perhaps more than anyone needs to know, just because I’m searching for the words that I need to express my feelings.  Sometimes it is scary to tell someone just how vulnerable you are to them, but not telling them, puts the relationship at such a disadvantage.  It seems to me that if you open up about where you are in the relationship and how you feel about the other person, you don’t have to spend a lot of wasted time hedging or pretending not to care about things – always in self-protective mode.  If you both feel differently, isn’t that something to know?  So that one person does not make an internal commitment that is not shared by the other?

I’ve strayed a little from my original observation.  That men don’t seem to know how to express their feelings.  I guess all of this rambling can be summed up by saying.  How can a man feel justified in regretting a loss of love if he didn’t take it seriously enough to LEARN how to talk about it?   And that sums up what is angering me right now.  I’m tired, sick to death of the taciturn man, who mumbles one word answers to your desire to discuss the secrets of the Universe.  It’s boring and it’s disrespectful.  It shows me that he doesn’t take me or my company seriously enough, or with enough pleasure to engage me in a conversation, even if it’s about nothing.  I’m not saying he has to talk for hours on end, but being able to hold a conversation for a half an hour and talk about something that  might not be his most favorite subject or might seem irrelevant or insignificant shouldn’t be too much to ask.  Being able to talk about the future in the abstract, with no strings attached, no promises, no inferences of commitment, but having fun with it in the context of “us” would be enjoyable and refreshing.

I really hope I meet that guy one day.   I won’t hold my breath.

I’m not feeling particularly goddessy these days for many reasons, and I was worried that I might bring a negative vibe to the gathering;  I consciously made the effort not to do that.   But I found that in a very short while, after the chatting and the Mimosa’s and appetizers, I began to get into the spirit of the day.  I realized that the spirit was really about friendship and about connecting, it was about celebrating the enjoyment we find in our similarities and our differences as women friends.  At the same time we were focusing on what ever challenge or issue that we really want to figure out in our lives, and being encouraging to one another to be able to meet them.

I had been suffering off and on today over David.  Mostly when a song played that reminded me of love relationships, and the realization that I do not have one now.  This was perhaps the first time I’ve spent the day out and not checked my phone for messages.  I didn’t even think about it.  It is ironic that even when David and I were in a relationship, he almost never called me on the weekends, or anytime.  Matter of fact, I used to say that the one thing I could depend upon him for was not keeping in touch with me.  But that lack of thinking about the phone call I wasn’t going to get was comforting, I didn’t feel the sad feeling of being neglected and insignificant that I couldn’t help feel with him so much of the time. 

After coming home I spent some time reading and doing my usual web surf to the sites I like to keep up with.  I finished a book, the second volume of the Twilight saga – very good indeed – perfect material for my emotional state right now. I watched a little television.  And when I sat down to write this I realized that I felt peaceful.  Not exactly happy, but not actually sad either.  I felt like I wasn’t fretting about something I needed and was not going to get.  I feel emotionally self-sufficient tonight.  Not an island, but a sovereign nation upon a large continent of sovereign nations.  I was not feeling sorry for myself tonight, nor like a victim.

Regardless of David’s feelings for me or his intentions or whatever he hoped for our future together, he was not capable of giving me the quality of attention and connection that I require in a relationship.  Not because he is a bad man or a lousy boyfriend, because it’s just not who he is.  There is probably a perfectly lovely woman somewhere that would completely understand his relationship style and would fit right in to it.  But it is not me.  And the reason that our relationship lasted as long as it did was because in the beginning he was so much more attentive and receptive.  But when his schedule changed and the pressures on his time changed, he began to limit our time together and then to not make time at all for us, specifically, leaving it to chance that we would be doing the same social/recreational activity at the same time.

He wouldn’t even call to say that he was getting on the game and invite me to join him.  That always confused the hell out of me.  He insisted that he didn’t want to interfere with my plans, but that never made sense to me.  I was asking him to “interfere”.  I was telling him that I really, really wanted him to call and say, “Honey want to get on the game and do this or that?, or “get on the game and join this group, there are 2 spots open.  I wanted to feel like I had things to look forward to with him.  Like we had little long-distance dates.  He seemed to think that was unnecessary.  I really don’t know what he thought of as our relationship because we were doing very little relating.

Anyway, I sit here tonight still a little sad and a little lonely, but at peace.  I’m not missing anything that I should have.  And that is a damn fine feeling for a change.  I’m not saying that I wouldn’t want to see if he wanted to try again, but it would have to be a negotiation now, he would have to show that I mattered to him, with his time and his attention.

I told him I was angry and that he was wrong, and that felt good.  It felt good to not be walked on for a few moments.  It felt good to not be crawling to him for his approval and acceptance for a few minutes.  I still felt hurt and sad, but more than that I felt surprised that he could be so predictable.  I had thought a long time ago, after witnessing his judgmental nature, that I didn’t know how I would ever avoid being on the receiving end of that judgment one day, because human nature being what it is, I knew I would screw up and say something wrong eventually.

Then I logged into my e-mail and found a post by someone that I needed to read and went to my MySpace page and discovered that someone I didn’t know had “bought” me from him in this silly virtual “own your friends” thing.  I was mortified.  Here I was being “owned” by a totally strange man, and my stomach actually turned.  I thought about un-installing the application right then and there, but first I had to buy him back because someone had bought him from me.  Then I, acting in total panic almost, went to his page and posted a message something to the effect, “even though you hate me now, please buy me back, I can’t stand the idea of someone else owning me!  I still love you.”

And then I wept.

I know what I know in my logical, reasonable, intelligent mind.  But my heart and my soul wants what it wants, it wants all of those wonderful lovely dreams I had built around him.  Dreams that he seemed to want too.  Dreams he is fulfilling for himself, that he has earned fair and square.  He deserves nothing but goodness in his life, I really believe that.  Whether or not he has mistreated me and our relationship, I still think that he has the potential for being a good man.  He is scared and closed off from being hurt more so than most and he has translated that into emotional selfishness. 

No, I don’t think I’m the “special” woman who can bring him out of his shell.  I don’t think anyone will be able to, unless at some point he feels a loss and a need he realizes he cannot fill without changing his way of relating – his level of honesty.  I am oh-so-flawed.  I just felt like I was getting better for awhile and he was part of that hopefulness that I felt.  But now I face tomorrow and all the rest of the tomorrows with less certainty.  I was uncertain with him also, to be honest, because I was always waiting for the shoe to drop. Now I’m even less certain because now I’m alone.  I like so many people in the world am on my own.  My mother is gone, my father is mia, my sister is moving away and I’m single – in the completely unattached way.  I have wonderful girlfriends that I cherish and help to keep me sane and connected but they can’t take care of me – I have to learn to take care of myself for the rest of my life and that terrifies me.  I’m not very good at it any more – and I wasn’t all that great at it before.   But I’ve got to get good at it.

Tonight, some successes, some failures and the wheel keeps turning.  And tomorrow I get to go to a Goddess Party.  We’ll see how that goes.  I’m intrigued while at the same time mildly embarrassed but I know it will do me no harm.  And, now is the time to push my limits and defeat my fears whatever they are because I’m the hero in my story now.

I’m self-supporting and not doing really great since the divorce, unemployment, less than ideal living situation, iffy health, I’m struggling with a number of issues right now.  All things that I will recover from but for the immediate future I”m very afraid of what is next.  Most of all, I’m afraid of losing my cats.  I feel about them that they are family and I’d no sooner give them up than I would a child.  But, realistically, the rest of the world does not see “pets” that way.  To many people they are relatively disposable and replaceable.  I have some opportunities coming my way, that seem to be lucrative.  I have a girlfriend in another state who has been begging me to come be her roommate and even found me  a job offer where she works.  All I have to do is give them a date when I can start.

My big conundrum is how do I move myself and 3 cats clear across the Country with less then adequate resources.  I don’t need that much more.  I’m doing some decent paying temp work for a month, but I don’t think it will be quite enough to do everything I need to for the move.  I’m thinking of looking for a part time night job to make up the difference.  I could do that for 6 weeks I think.

All I know is that more than anything I dream of, fantasize about living in such a way that the whole home is open to my kitties, they are loved and welcomed there and possibly just possibly they can go out side when they want to.  I want to give them the best final years of their lives that I can.  I won’t give up.  I can’t give up.  Regardless of what anyone else thinks is right.

I need to be committed to something, I need to love something to the point of sacrifice.  I’m just not going to entertain the opposite possibility.  The only way that I”d consider letting one of the kitties go would be to one of my dear friends that I know and trust to take good care of them.

The story is rife with the impossibility of their relationship.  His hunger for her blood, and her presence, the danger that he brings to her that draws him to her to save her and pushes him away to protect her.  Her complete lack of choice in the relationship.  She loves him unequivocally, can’t breath without him around, is willing to give up her mortal soul to spend a lifetime, or longer, with him and his family.

The story is rich with the angst of impossible love lost.  Her feeling the empty drudgery of going through each day knowing that nothing will get better than the day before.  Fighting thoughts of his voice, his laugh, riding the waves of pain as they crest over from an unbidden memory that gets through.  While it is youthful in nature, it is also Universal in it’s recognition of the feelings that this loss brings. 

The book feels like a wonderful validation of how I’m feeling right now.  Here is another woman going through something similar to me.  We are distant compatriots in pain.  As much as I can I work at being ok.  Sometimes I’m fine and feel whole.  Often though, my breath feels short, unable to draw.  I feel the nudge of a grief unlike any I’ve known before.  I feel guilt and disappointment.  Eventually,  I’ll be all right but it will be a different kind of all right than I’ve been before.  I miss him and I miss what  I though we had, what  I thought we could have.  I miss how I felt when I thought of a productive, dynamic,  joyful  life with him.  I miss what I thought I could give him, that he wanted from me. 

I avoid the places he might be, because it is too painful to be ignored, or to watch him be jovial and seemingly perfectly ok with everyone, while I hurt.  I don’t want him to hurt – but I also don’t want him to feel so little about us and the last two years that he acts as if nothing is different or wrong. I cannot take that.  I have to believe that somehow and for some period of time, I really meant something to him.  I have to believe that there was or is love there, even if it is not the “forever after” kind.   I’m angry also, angry that he can just shut me out like he has.  Go weeks without a word to me.  Even though I’ve reached out several times to him.  I find it shameful and childish that he seems to think that acting like I never existed is ok.  I don’t think he really feels that way, but I have an on-going dialogue in my head about him either being a heartless monster, or a sensitive, loving guy that is just really afraid to be hurt.

Maybe that is the problem, maybe I should know who he is by now.  And I really don’t.  He has been an inscrutable cunundrum to me in many ways.  His words so often don’t match his actions.  And yet, much of what he says he does.   He does not easily share his feelings or his thoughts on things.  And I too often interpret his meanings through my own very flawed perceptions.  Distance does not help either, because I do not have the advantage of seeing his expressions.  I’ve noticed that most of the times we spent together were better, because I could see his face and his eyes, and see the meaning behind his words. 

I miss him.  I miss his voice.  I miss his laughter.  I miss being his ‘babycakes’.  I’ll continue to miss him.   Eventually, I’ll heal.  And I’ll continue to love him, even while I’m learning to love myself more.

My blog needs my friendship.  It calls me and I don’t return it’s calls,  I’m not ignoring them, I am neglecting them, I don’t log in to see if it has left me a message.  I leave it in another virtual room, or I leave it off.  There is no way that I can pursue or contribute to my relationship with my blog if it is all on my terms and it has no say in when we connect and communicate.  That is why I have posted so irregularly, because I’m in effect using my blog just when I need to say something.  I should be coming to see it daily, to touch base with it and see if it wants to ask me something or just hear about what is on my mind.  That would be building a friendship with my blog.  Then we would be connecting and it would trust me that I would be there for it. 

It would no longer be insecure and doubt the seriousness of my intentions.  Even if  I don’t have much to say, it will know that at least I thought of it.

Blog, please accept my apology for marginalising our relationship and making it all about what I need or have time for.  I will be visiting you daily to say hello and see what we have to talk about – for both of us – and if I fail or forget or get lazy, please, please, please remind me and nag my conscience.

Sincerely,

Your Writer

Perhaps that is the difference between J.K. Rawlings and I, perhaps it is just that small of a difference.  She felt a kindred connection to her words and saved and treasured every little scrap of paper until she had a box worth of them and when put together we have the World of Harry Potter, that is so vast and all-encompassing, even Stephen King refers to it in his magnum opus, The Gunslinger Series.

I know it is not quite that simple, I don’t think that excellent writing is such a simple task that anyone with a box of paper scraps is going to be able to write an inspiring novel.  However, it is quite likely that without that box of notes, or notebook of notes, or PC file, or wall board or whatever recording device a person uses for those moments of inspiration - that story will not exist.  It simply has to exist beyond our brain – has to be immortalized in some tangible form, even if that form ends up under the Von’s circular from last weeks mail.

Again, I will make this date with myself and any “constant readers” that I might have, I think I have one…  To commit to myself 30 minutes each day to come here and stare at the blank white box and write my thoughts down.  No promises as to quality.  Half of the battle will be logging in every day. Like going to the gym.  Sometimes just walking through the door is as good as your workout gets.

I promise to open this door every day, I will show up, please feel free to pour a cup of coffee and get comfortable in your desk chair.  I cordially invite you to spend a few moments with my thoughts and words each day.  Who knows? Maybe some of them will be worth the visit.

I also need to go shopping and pick up extra cat-litter and prescriptions .  I have to do all of these things with somewhat limited resources.  I learned a valuable lesson from my old fried Terrie.  Whenever an opportunity arose, she took advantage of it.  She had almost no money, 5 children and cancer and she still did more in 5 years than most people do in their entire life.  I want to do that – I want to grab hold of opportunities and stop judging myself as somehow unworthy of deserving them.

I also need to ride this feeling of fear and anxiety and have faith that what is best will happen.  Don’t try to force it but keep working on my part of it.  The part that I can effect.  Well it is not that easy – I feel paralyzed into inactivity.  I’ve noticed that I do that when I’m really overwhelmed, even when I know step-by-step what I need to do.  Something stops me from acting.  Some fear of flying into a panic once I get started that I’ll suddenly realize it is really going to happen(what ever it is) and that I’m just not ready for it.

I’m also a little anxious about seeing David.  I’ve gained about 35 lbs since we last were together and I haven’t colored my hair in awhile.  What if he decides I’m too ugly now…

I just wish he’d call and let me know it is all ok…

Today, at work, as I sat at the reception desk, a small woman approached the window and asked for Dan O’Connell.  He is the Supervisor for a department that is always handling complaints, and the woman looked vaguely familiar so I assumed she was one of the Cities’ (I work in local government) “frequent flyers”.  Someone who is trying to fight City Hall.

I asked her if she had an appointment, to which she responded, “I’m his mother.”  My memory synaped and I recalled the last time she had been here and I apologized and told her I would call Dan. 

Nancy: “Dan, you’re Mother is in the lobby.”

Dan:  Silence, followed by an exasperated exhalation. “I’m due in a meeting in 6 minutes…”

Nancy: Okay….

Dan: More short breath intakes,  ”This is really bad timing I’m due in a meeting and I’m not even ready for it…”  Pregnant pause. “Tell her to call me on my cell.  I just can’t see her right now”  Now sounding agitated.

Nancy: Okay, I’ll tell her.

I turned to Dan’s mother. She responded to my apologizing glance: “He’s busy isn’t he…?”

“He is going into a meeting at 9. He asked if you could call him on his cell.  Do you have a phone?”

“Oh yes, I do, I was just in the area and wanted to stop by and say hello to him.”  She looked patiently disappointed, but not upset.  Possibly a little embarrassed. 

“I was taking a chance, I know how busy he is… Thank you.”

And she walked out of the lobby.

I was left with the immediate thought of how differently that whole interaction would have been had that been the mother of one of the women supervisors here.

It would have gone something like this:

Nancy:  “Linda, your Mom is in the lobby.”

Linda: Excitedly, “Oh! How nice!  Damn, I have a meeting in 6 minutes.  Tell her just a minute and I’ll be right there.  I’m not ready for the meeting either” laughter, “I’ll be right there.”

Nancy: Okay, I’ll tell her.

The supervisor would come walking rapidly down the aisle, possibly looking mildly flustered but with a big smile on her face, carrying her notes and such for the meeting.

She would open the door and her mother and her would exchange warm, excited hello’s and hugs.  She would say, “Mom, I’ve got to go into this meeting right now, actually, I’m already 2 minutes late…” laughter “can I call you later?  Are you going to stay in the area today…..?”

And they would connect.  Mom would not feel as though she had intruded because she was able to apologise, Daughter would not feel as though she had neglected Mom because she acknowledged her.  Quite possibly they would make plans.

Linda might have been 3 minutes late for the meeting, but she would have arrived feeling happy, emotionally nourished and unconflicted.

That is one of the many reasons why I feel sorry for men.  It is so much harder to be one.

Right now we, America, is in the throes of an economic whatchamacallit, blah blah blah, you know all of the details I don’t have to reiterate them.  I work in City Government, and we are facing similar severe cutbacks.  I think I know why.  The toilet paper.  The toilet paper is the thinest, weakest, least absorbent example of bathroom tissue that I’ve ever had the misfortune of using.  You have to use about 1/2 a roll to accomplish the simplest cleaning tasks, but only after you rip of tiny, fiddling bits that then litter the floor and resembling a picturesque January in a New England landscape.  Thus the janitor has to spend extra time to sweep the floor which increases costs.  I’m sure that the stalls see an overturn of the speedily unwinding rolls at an alarming rate.  It as the economic harbinger of impending doom and a less then fresh feeling.  I really think that a better quality of toilet paper would have forestalled this Winter of our financial discontents. 

Don’t get me started on the toilet seats…