The Promise

I made a promise. A promise I can’t break. A promise that haunts me, especially on my darkest days. On days like that it becomes a promise that makes me loath him for even getting it out of me. A promise I can’t break, because all I have anymore is my word, my bond. If I can’t keep a promise- what is left of me? That’s one part of my crumbling faith that I cling to. We don’t make oaths or swear on bibles, our word should be good enough. We are an honest and truthful people. Honesty is a virtue I now cherish, especially as I find it hard and harder to come by.

I made that promise one hot summer night, sitting on his back steps. I was all of 17. I lay bowed in his arms, defeated and beat down by the depression. I begged him to let me go, to let me stop the hurt. Through our shared tears he made me promise that I’d never leave him. He extracted that promise that I’d never do anything silly. That I’d never do anything deliberate. He never used the word suicide; it was too scary to say out loud, even in a whisper. What do you know at 17? He didn't know the toll that promise would take on both of us in the future. I wonder if he had been gifted with the power of foresight, would he have still made me promise?

Now at 24, that promise lays on me, like a smooth little pebble in my shoe. It laughs at me now that he’s gone. Why did I ever make such a promise? It’s so much harder to keep alone. And yet, there’s my niece…and now a nephew. Her birth kept me out of an institution. Is their life enough for me to make a new promise? A new reason to look away from the precipice and stick around? A new reason to just be.

I Wonder

I wonder if he writes her poetry…

I wonder if he’ll drive 100 miles to see her on the weekend…

I wonder if he stops when she say’s no…

I wonder if he loves her or just likes her company…

I wonder if he really wanted out, but couldn’t tell me…

I wonder if he likes her more than he loved me, because she’s not damaged goods…

I wonder if we can still be friends, or if I’m past my use to him…

I wonder if he still thinks about me, late at night in the dark, just before he falls asleep…

I wonder what she looks like and how she acts around him…

I wonder if he’ll miss me if I quietly bow out of his life…

I wonder why it bothers me…

Touch

I have a fairly strong desire and need to be touched, hugged and generally loved and yet I generally don’t enjoy being touched in any way by just anyone and particularly not by strangers. I guess I just love the touch of those that I love and adore- like the hugs and kisses from my 2 year old niece or a bear-hug from a brother. As a kid I was constantly hugging my parents or climbing into their lap to be held.

One of the things that I miss from my former long-term relationship is the simple touch. A gentle hand on my back, a hand brushing the hair out of my face, falling asleep on the couch in the crook of his arm listening to his heartbeat…I miss being touched by a man without it being sexual.

I hate that he’s found some one new, someone who seems really sweet and genuine. I hate that they have pet names together already, that he sleeps over, that he flirts with her like I wished he had with me in the final months of our relationship. I hate that he makes an effort with her where he couldn’t be bothered with us. I hate that he’s found something normal and I’m left with the abnormal, with the unwanted attentions of a very married man, a boy who’s severely on the rebound after recently moving out of the house he shared with his now ex-fiance, and a middle-aged divorcee who scares the hell out of me and whom I’m afraid to be caught alone by at work in any situation.

I painfully crave a healthy, normal relationship with someone who respects me and can see beyond the exterior. Someone who loves me, not just lusts after me. I can’t even begin to describe how turned off I am right now at any man who looks at me as a tight piece of young ass. Every man who makes inappropriate comments, touches me in unacceptable ways or treats me as less just because I’m blonde draws me further and further into my shell. I become more sarcastic and think less of myself- in my eyes I become devalued and I hate what I am.

Hearing about Mr. Intellectual’s new and happy relationship has pierced my closely guarded heart. Emotions I had repressed and tried to forget about have welled up and welled over, leaving me vulnerable and fragile. When I’m extremely depressed all I want is for someone to hold me and tell me that it’s okay, that I can get through this. That the numbness will pass, the hollow feeling in my heart will go away and I’ll start to feel again. Instead I have a married man at work who grabs at me and makes inappropriate advances. I’m such a wreck that I don’t believe I’m worth more, or worth the effort to get him to leave me alone.

The Thunder Rolls

Have you ever seen a summer storm brewing on the horizon? Big black clouds that billow in and swallow up the sun. If you look in front of you it’s blue and cloudless with a blazing sun and behind you is that fast approaching storm, complete with the telltale lighting and menacing thunder telling you it’s going to be trouble. That is what my depression is like at times. If I stop and face the clouds head on, it envelope’s me and surrounds me in a thick inky darkness that chokes. Right now if I stop to think it comes rolling in, but a body can’t stay busy at every given moment. It’s inevitable that I’m going down. There are just too many forces at play for me to stay buoyant.

I received an email yesterday that my thesis advisor has breast cancer or worse. This past winter I was in a class she was teaching and I know she wasn’t feeling well. She also had a biopsy of a suspected cancerous mass on her face back in February or March. I thought it might have been a suspect mole or maybe skin cancer. I’m thankful she had the courtesy to let me know first hand that she will be undergoing treatment for breast cancer instead of leaving me to hear it third or fourth hand through the vicious rumour mill within the department. This just throw’s all my work into limbo as I try to figure out who will be supervising me when I get back in fall and if it jeopardizes my thesis in any way. The last thing I want it to spend an extra year doing my Master’s when all I want is to get to the real work of my Ph.D.

The second blow is this wedding nightmare that’s happening on June 18th. I really wish we had know this woman’s true character before my brother became engaged and decided to plan for his wedding in our hometown. Really it’s not his wedding, it’s her party, as she’ll unabashedly tell you. I never in a million years could have guessed that she’d become such a tyrannical bridezilla. I can’t even repeat what a few of my other brother’s have candidly said about her. I just pray that he has a happy marriage and it doesn’t end in a bitter divorce because he doesn’t deserve that.

The final straw is something that happened last night and I’m still trying to comprehend what the hell happened. I compromised my morals and myself by my actions and now I’m at a loss on how to not only extricate myself but prevent me from becoming part of the nasty gossip at work. The last thing I wanted right now is to get involved with anyone. Especially someone who only sees my value as a sexual, beautiful object and probably couldn’t give two fucks about me as a person. After I stopped seeing the ex I thought I had promised not to waste my time with someone who couldn’t see beyond the exterior- I guess I’m more messed up than I thought.

Right now I could so easily be swept away by the familiar surroundings of my depression. I can’t even express how easily I shift into a suicidal frame of mind. Obviously I don’t handle stress well. Right now I can close my eyes, take a deep breath and feel the pressure of a prickly twisted rope around my neck, cutting off my breath and squeezing the life out of me. For some reason that brings a little relief…the planning and walk through of ending my life somehow makes the coming day a little easier to bear. The fragile hope that if it becomes too much I can just step out on life is sometimes all that can sustain me through a day of faking being happy and carefree.

I really should have gotten a ‘just-in-case’ prescription of anti-depressants from my Doctor before I left school.

Censored?

I’ve been an absentee blogger, my apologies- but to whom? I don’t have a fan base, and whom am I writing for anyways? There are a few things blocking me from posting regularly, the biggest being the level of self-imposed censoring I feel I need to take. Which in itself is strange, since this is an anonymous blog and I’ve only told one person about it and I doubt he’s checked back here since the first night I gave him the address. So what’s bothering me about posting openly and honestly how I feel and what’s going on in my life?

I think I’m afraid of the eventuality of people, specifically family, finding the site and seeing the real and un-censored me. There’s also that one person I told about the blog: the boyfriend of six years who I ended up leaving. While we are good friends in real life still, there are things about the relationship that I want to write about to get off my chest, but I’m afraid of hurting his feelings and the possibility that what I would write about could end the friendship we still share.

There’s also the natural tendency I harbor to hide away and not share the depth and extent of my depression and suicidal ideations. I cringe at even writing the word suicide. It’s a dirty little word that holds such horror and misunderstanding. In previous entries when I really wanted to write about it, I had edited out that section- just as I would edit out those feelings or thoughts from ‘everyday’ life and conversations. I can guarantee that no one in my life, including the ex- to whom I disclosed a lot of thing that no one else so far has been privy to- would think I’m constantly suicidal and deeply depressed. In fact, if you asked my co-workers, friends or family they’d probably say I’m a pretty happy, even-tempered person, although serious at times, especially about my school. Things couldn’t be further from the truth.

I suppose the purpose of writing this is that I need to cast off those fears and inhibitions to writing an honest and truthful account of who I am and what I’m going through. It’s hard not to put a positive spin on everything and truthfully admit that it’s not all sunshine and roses. I get suicidal. I isolate myself from family, friends and anyone I feel I’m getting too close to when I’m going through a period of major depression. Even now when I’m doing surprisingly well, I’m keeping people at arms-length, particularly men. That’s a topic for another entry though- the men at work do keep it interesting.