It is a funny thing.

All the time I was with Bryant, even when I was restless and unhappy and saw only an evil future for us, I simultaneously couldn’t’ imagine ever being without him. I have never been a person who can share out my caring. I can only deeply care for one person at a time. And it seemed to me then, all those years we were together, that if I lost other people close to me – my friends, my mother, my siblings – it would be sad but it would just run off my back and not affect me much, but if I lost Bryant, it would be the end of the world and I would die.

I was deeply convinced of this. I could not see a world in which Bryant and I were not together. Our bond was so strong that I felt if it were broken it would gut me completely. I could not fathom the idea of walking through life without him. I honestly thought that if I lost him, I could not survive.

And then, I did lose him.

And it hurt. And there was pain, and white nights aplenty, and regrets, and anger, and bitterness. And there still is. But it wasn’t the end of the world. Not even close. I never came close to dying, I never lost any functionality, I still found something to smile and laugh about every day.

But when I realized the above, I realized myself as an individual, a unit in and of myself. A neat little box composed of exactly one person, no more and no less. I gained a sudden sense of wholeness. The worst had happened. And I survived it, and it couldn’t’ dent me badly.

But with that realization, I lost all fear and all caring. I can’t be afraid of things now, because the thing I feared most occurred, and it wasn’t so bad. There is nothing I can lose that mattered more to me than that did. It is like I have suddenly become invincible. I know that I can survive any loss and thus I feel no fear.

I can’t care enough about anyone to fear losing them.

And it is a horribly, terribly, lonely feeling.

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I was talking to Nadia earlier today and she told me that the only time she feels truly alive and energetic is when she is around other people who are doing things. And I realized suddenly that I am the opposite The only time I feel truly alive, the only time I feel optimistic and positive and energetic, is when I am alone.

I am stuck in this new sense of individuality and other people cannot give me that.

Perhaps it is just another phase in time. When I was with Bryant, I was way over on the dependant side; now I am way over on the independent side. Perhaps in time the pendulum will hang gently in the middle and i will find balance.

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It’s a funny thing, really. All this time Bryant thought me so fickle, so capricious, so unfaithful to him. And yet here I am now, trapped in this wretched and perverse faithfulness. I have no heart to give to anyone else. After all this time, all this bitterness, I cannot be with someone because my heart is still owned by him.

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Another thing is that I have completely lost my sense of self-respect. I can barely face myself in the mirror now, thinking of the past and everything I feel I have done wrong. I used to have such a high opinion of my strength, my morals, my character. Just in this year I have lost that completely.

I feel like it will be many many months before I can look myself fully in the face again.

How does one gain back one’s self-respect? It is usually so easy for me to forgive others that have done me wrong. Why is it so hard for me to forgive myself?

I am angry at myself as if I were another person. And so endlessly ashamed.

In another news…

My roommate will be out of the hospital on Wednesday and he is coming home. He also managed to weasel Nstar into giving us discounted gas and electric with a note from his doctor.

Woo hoo!

Elma will be delighted to have more attention, too. She resents the fact that I go to work

Brooke told me the other day in the locker room that time heals all wounds only if you let it. She is right. And it made me realize, I haven’t been wounded in a while…

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Everything is all up in the air. And yet still I don’t mind it that way. I have no way of predicting where or with whom I will be in even a few months, or what I will be doing.

I have, for the first time in my entire life, an all-over good situation here in Boston. But what if…?

I sense a change. It’s a changing time. Time to change.

Elise is a Giant Lizard that can Fly, is Highly Flammable, and has a Sharp Beak and a Toughened Steel Skeleton.
(Strength: 8 Agility: 9 Intelligence: 3)
Unleash your Giant Battle Monster.

I just got home.

Due to an odd chain of events, Saturday evening I found myself in the middle of buttfuck inland New Jersey, in a motel so shady that only the Chelsea Death Motel beats it in ambience (a few of you will know what I refer to) in a town entirely (no, I kid you not at all) entirely populated by Hasidic Jews.

It was bizarre. I spent a meditative evening staring out my window and watching 10 small children clad in floor-length black gowns shriek and wrestle and pummel each other in the fading dusk.

Today I found myself in a Cracker Barrel store on route 91. It reminded me of the time last summer when Muta and I stopped in a Cracker Barrel and turned on all the Kung Fu gerbils at once and nearly peed our pants from laughing. And then I remembered the time Muta and I were driving to NYC, telling each other one-liner stories to kill time, and I made up a story featuring that Japanese guy who ate all the hot dogs (what the hell was his name?) and Muta laughed so hard he nearly drove off the highway and killed us both.

And I had to laugh.