Grief grief grief

My grief is out of control.

It is spilling out of me like lava erupting from a volcano, and last night, it was unstoppable.  I cried for a long time after my entry and realized that my heartache dates way back to my first relationship and continues to haunt me as I try to rectify it in subsequent relationships.

Initially, I started this blog to talk about my unhealthy relationship with B., and to offer myself and others a community to talk about unhealthy relationships and the shame, heartache, angst, and suffering that we go through in isolation. I thought that I would write primarily about B. and about the contents of that relationship.  I also expected to write about some attachment issues I have so that I can explore my role in being in such a dysfunctional relationship for so long. Reviewing previous relationships also seem like a must-do for a blog that is focused on figuring myself out in relationships.  But to date all the way back to the first one, and to realize how intense my feelings still are.... that surprised me.  My emotions yesterday caught me completely off-guard and left me feeling so vulnerable and unfamiliar with myself and where I'm at.

Today, I am feeling a little better. I suppose you have to feel better after drowning in your bed of tears for half the night.  No, not really.  I didn't cry half the night, but I did cry without really understanding why or what I wanted.  I just cried.  That is grief, I suppose.  This is me finally dealing with my first loss and all that it meant to me.

My plan today is to continue to sit with myself and let these feelings emerge.  I will try not to judge myself.  I will strive to be compassionate and welcoming to the vulnerable me that is hiding deep within.   I'm working on removing my own self-contempt and choosing instead to accept that emotional mess (bad word choice) that I am.  Instead, I am going to positively re-frame how I see myself using some of my favorite things and images.  I will see myself as a multi-layered cake (better word choice?) full of raw feelings.  Each layer is a separate emotion and the grief and heartache can be the jam that oozes out. Especially because I just watched season 2 of Just Desserts, I have some images floating in my head to convey my self-representation.  Yummy!

Links to these two pictures can be found if you google: "Devil's food cake with chocolate buttercream, salted caramel and raspberries".  Again, Yum!

First love (Cont.)

After my entry this morning, I spent a good amount of time reminiscing my the past and crying.  I cried harder than I could have imagined while simultaneously cleaning the house, emptying the trash, folding the clothes, hanging up jackets. All the while, faithful Mr. Z trailed behind me wondering what was happening.

My heart still hurts from my first breakup.

There are so many things I don't understand about my first breakup.  And even today, it affects me because it has affected me for years.  Since my first relationship, I've lost all sense of self-confidence and self-worth.  By not knowing why we broke up, I spent 4 years trying to explain what happened, trying to play-out all the what-ifs in my head to understand how things could have been better.

Dear first love,
  Why?  I just want to know why?! Why did we break-up in the first place and why did you become so emotionally distant (while also being moody)?  Was it me? Was there something I could have done differently? Or was it you? And can you please tell me then that there was nothing I could have done to change the situation?  I have been a different person since our breakup. I am no longer the same confident, jubilant, optimistic, bright-eyed girl that used to see the world through rose-colored lenses.  Because I didn't know why we broke up, I spent 4 years afterwards being completely single, completely unavailable, and completely heartbroken.  I had no answers so I had no closure.  I worked so hard to make answers in my head and I must have replayed our relationship a million times in my head wondering what happened to make me so unappealing that you decided to leave and not even bother to explain why.  Am I that bad?  Am I so unworthy that you couldn't even explain why it wasn't going to work out?  I spent so much time wondering and blaming and criticizing myself.  Did I push you too hard to be successful?  Was I too self-focused and selfish choosing to attend a college that was clear across the country away from you?  Was it my temper that you couldn't stand? My personality? Could it be that I was too demanding at times, and not forgiving when I should have been?  Why couldn't I have had a second chance to "fix" the things you were unhappy with?  Why couldn't you have told me so that I could "fix" myself and make myself better? Your leaving was devastating to me and continues to leave me scared and anxious that in another relationship, my partner will be infatuated with me, fall in love with me, and then one day see-through to me (like you did) and decide to leave.  Like you, he may see something in me that is so deficient and flawed and therefore utterly unacceptable.  And like you, he may see it before I do and flee before offering me any explanation.  And I will continue to wonder, just like I have wondered all these years, if there is some sickly disease about me that makes me unlove-able after awhile.  Is there something about me that is so hidden that only you see it but I still don't know what it is?  Before our breakup, I felt good about myself because I didn't know how secure it could feel when being in a relationship.  When we were together, I experienced the highest "high" possible.  I felt like I was finally seen by someone, loved by someone, and appreciated by someone.  I felt so secure, so stable, and I felt like by being together, I had wings to fly, and limitless potential with you by my side.  I felt like the king/queen of the world and I felt like I could conquer anything because I had your love.  For the first time in my life, I felt special. I felt wanted.  When you left, I felt the profound absence of losing everything that made me feel good.  I felt discarded, abandoned, unwanted, powerless.  I hadn't known that being myself felt so low because I never lost anyone before.  Whatever potential I felt before, I now felt not only nothing, but I felt an absence of all the things I once had.  I lost it.  I lost you.  I lost me too because who was I without you and your love?

I get it.  You don't love me anymore.  When I saw you at the coffee shop 4 years after our breakup, I no longer recognized the person whose eyes I looked into.  I didn't feel the same warmth from before and your eyes, which used to seem so welcoming and loving, now looked dull and lifeless.  I felt doubly-heartbroken sitting across from you realizing that I no longer meant anything to you anymore, and that I haven't meant anything to you in a long long time.  Whereas you used to want me to stay longer, I could tell you just wanted to finish our talk and get the heck out.  Whereas I used to be a gift in your life, I could tell that you were burdened by my presence and wanted our talk to end soon. You were not the same boy I thought I would grow old with, love forever, had children with, and live happy ever after.  You are not the person who I thought would give me unconditional love. But you will forever be my first love, and the person that I continue to have feelings for.

I hate the way we broke up and I will always feel angry about that... angry at you and angry at me.  Aside from the breakup itself, I can't help but miss you and wish that we could have worked, or that you could have let me know what I could have done better. In retrospect, I would have been gentler, kinder, more patient, and made it more clear that you were a top priority in my life.  I would have talked to you longer on the phone when you wanted me to.  I would have given up time with friends so you know that I wanted to be with just you.  I'm sorry if I wasn't a good girlfriend and I hope you know that I would have tried harder if I knew what you wanted.  I'm sorry for everything that upset you because I just wish you could have loved me instead of leave me. My sorries don't even matter though because a) I don't know what to be sorry about and 2) you probably don't care.

It's irrelevant.  It's all moot by now, I know that. But you played such an important role in my life and you continue to haunt me in so many ways.  I wish you would know that you were the best relationship I've had in my life.  You helped me grow, you gave me confidence, you helped me feel like I could fly.  I was only 17 then, but by being in my life, you gave me hope, joy, motivation, and inspiration.  If only you haven't disappeared off of the face of the earth, I wish we could erase how we broke up and still remain friends. My formative years as a teenager going into adulthood was spent with you. All of my firsts were with you. To disappear in the way that you have is such a punishment to me. I am so pissed at you and at the same time, I miss you so much.




Adele - Someone like you

First love

I woke up today remembering that today is the birthday of my first boyfriend. He was my first love, my high school sweetheart, my initial foray into the world of heartstopping excitement and also subsequent heartache.

To commemorate this day, I'll write a little bit about us.
We met in high school during our junior year when both of our good friends started dating.  Soon after, our two groups of friends started going out together, to the beach, shopping, eating, playing pool, etc.  I'm pretty sure he liked me first because he started to tag along everything I did/wanted to do.  He offered to drive, to pick me up and drop me off, and he also went along with me to meet a celebrity when we were at a restaurant one time.  Slowly, our group outings decreased to just four people: our two friends who were already dating, and us.  The more time we spent together, the more I realized how much I liked him: how easygoing he was, how quiet he was (and yet talkative when something really struck a chord with him), and also how funny he was.  At around the same time, we also started taking a class together-- an unlikely possibility because we were on such different academic tracks at the time.  We were both enrolled in art history (at 6:50am) every morning, and I have to confess that I looked forward to running into him in the parking lot each day so we can walk to class together.

Our story felt like a fairly tale when he asked me to the senior prom and when he admitted to me during the first slow-dance at prom that he liked me.  He said that even though he knew I was going to the other side of the country to attend college, he still liked me and just wanted me to know.  His self-disclosure was so simple, yet so romantic and utterly dramatic in my heart.  Eventually we started dating and that was it.  We were together throughout my first 2 years of college and we took every opportunity to fly back and forth to visit each other.  He was my Romeo and I thought I was his Juliet. It wasn't until the summer of my sophomore year when we started fighting constantly about who-knows-what.  We were both so busy with school that we had barely any time to really talk or focus on one another. He was emotionally distant on the phone and he accused me of being the same. Our fights felt the same. They were difficult to resolve because it felt unnatural to break up via phone and it also felt artificial to make up over the phone.

When I got home that summer, I felt like he was emotionally distance even sitting in front of me.  We continued to fight, he continued to feel far away from me, and then after one dramatic fight one night, he just completely stopped calling me.  And I didn't call him either out of my own sense of pride.  Well, wait. I did.  I called him because we had plans to go to the beach and I hoped that the long drive would give us some quality time together. Boy was that a bad idea. During that whole car ride, he nitpicked at my driving (yes, the plan was that I would drive us) until I eventually got so frustrated that I stopped at a grocery store and said forget it.  We switched places and turned the car around and sat in silence for the next hour in the car. Back in our city, he dropped me off at my house and we said nothing to each other.  For the next few days following, we also gave each other the silent treatment until he sent a text one day asking if he should still take my mom and I to the airport for our international trip.  At the time, texting was so new, so unfamiliar, and felt so distant from a phone call that I simply exploded.  I said no and I expressed my disbelief at his insincerity. I tried to call him but since he didn't pick up, I gave up and a few days later, we left the country and that was that.  We were done.

Despite being broken up, I spent the next 4 years of my life replaying the breakdown of our relationship not knowing why it ended the way it did.  I spent 4 years blaming myself, wondering how I could have been better, more mature, and if I could have done anything/everything different to make it work.  I did not understand our break-up but I felt that it was impossible to get the answers from him as well.  In many ways, he simply disappeared and I did not feel like it was OK to find him, search him, ask him.  So I didn't.  The times when I would come home to see family, I would run into his friends (our mutual friends I suppose) but they never shared even a drop of information about him.

A few years ago, out of my own impulsiveness, I was at home visiting and I decided to give him a call.  I surprisingly knew his house number and he was shocked to hear my voice and even more shocked when I said we need to talk.  We went to a coffee shop where, as awkward as it could be, I asked why. I asked why did we break up? What happened? And his answers were, well.... I don't even know if you would consider them to be answers to my questions.  He told me a bunch of things having to do with family drama, like his mom being diagnosed with cancer, his dad's apartment being caught on fire, and his academic crisis and job crisis that had happened simultaneously.  I didn't know how to respond to what he said.  First of all, I couldn't understand why these things were relevant to our breakup.  Secondly, if these things were happening during our relationship, why hadn't he told me? Why hadn't I known so that I could at least help in some ways?  Aren't relationships about helping each other in times of need? Supporting one another? At least informing one another?  I automatically shifted into comfort mode to see how he was doing and to see how he was feeling. We made plans to take a walk next week but of course, he never called, and when I emailed, his response was that he forgot.

Could it have been any more blatant that I was simply a burden to him?

A few years ago, his close friends (a buncha girls) came out to visit me because they wanted to leave home and explore this new city and state that I live in.  They told me that my ex had told them he fell out of love with me and that our breakup was mutual and amicable.  Following our break-up, he also told them to give me no information whatsoever about him.  He made them promise not to mention him at all when they were with me.  I didn't ask about his family issues at all because his friends seemed not to know about his family troubles.  They just said that he became very introverted afterward and that he rarely goes out anymore to hang out.

So, that's it.  That's all I know about the first love of my life.  He is the person that made me question every aspect about myself and to wonder if they were THE deficiencies and flaw that made me unlovable and deserving of abandonment (with no reason).  He continues to be a mystery and a puzzle to me, and if I were to see him after all these years, I no longer know what I would do. In the past, I fantasized nine million times how I would respond, how I would look under the circumstances, and how I would want to portray myself.  By now, when I think about him, all I feel is tired.  I feel exhausted from the years of wondering and all the years of not getting any responses from him.  I may have saw him and heard him speak a few years after our break-up, but I still don't understand what happened, especially in light of his friends' testimonies.

So, at least for old times' sake, I think of November 16 every year and know that it's his birthday and a day that I used to celebrate and be more excited for than anything else.  Happy Birthday.

Thank you

I've always struggled with being honest... with myself.  Even in journal-writing, I have always imagined my future self flipping through the pages and judging me in my present.  What would she think? What would she say?  How would she see me?  Would she think I'm a loser? How do I make her feel proud?

So, for the past few months, I have been working hard to be honest with myself and with the reality of my situations.  I have strived to be brutally honest with myself and to be uncomfortably raw and vulnerable about my feelings and thoughts.  This process remains scary and difficult, and I continue to feel uncomfortable in my own skin, and to question (very frequently) the legitimacy of my own feelings and experiences.

I give thanks to all those who listen and who let me explore me. Thank you to my journal, to my blog, and to my therapist(s) for allowing me to do that.  Thank you for letting me talk, vent, express, and simply say out loud all the things I think of but don't dare utter aloud.  For me, the act of self-expression is cathartic, novel, and oh so empowering.