08/09/00
"...nothing can stop me now 'cause I don't care anymore..."
I left here last night and just kind of drove around for a while. I didn't really have anywhere to go. It was a pretty lonely, empty feeling, just driving through town, feeling sick and yet feeling nothing at all.
I finally went home, knowing that Megan wouldn't be there, thankful that she wasn't, yet wishing she was so I could start to scream. Knowing that wouldn't do any damn good, but wanting to anyway. Jud called around 8:30 or 9:00, so I went to his and Pam's house for an adJudstment and sage advice.
I have some of the most bizarre conversations with Jud. He's only 23, barely out of diapers as far as I'm concerned, but he has his head on about as straight as anyone I've ever met with years on him. He knows himself, and he has enough insight into his own thoughts and into those of other people to come up with some pretty wild, off the wall shit. Yet damn near everything he says makes sense, even when I have to get him to simplify what he's saying because my overwrought mind can't process his generalities.
He already knew Megan has a new girlfriend. Zak apparently told him yesterday morning. I asked him "what the fuck is up with him today, anyway?" Apparently, his mother had a stroke yesterday morning, is now nearly blind, can't talk, and pretty damn near gone. Which is kind of what I expected. Still, I can't quite understand why he couldn't tell me.
But then, I don't understand men. (Or women, for that matter, as has been made painfully clear to me as of late.)
He did my back, he did my ankle, he did my wrists, and then I spilled a lot of shit to him and Pam about my current mental state. I noted that I have a hard time being completely honest with Zak about my feelings about our "situation" because I just don't trust my judgment on most things, period. Which, upon further probing, led me to spill my guts about the whole Asshole rape thing and how I had spent the last 10 years wrapping myself up in this web of thought patterns, distrust, and a gross inability to communicate. I finally left and he told me he'd stop by when he walked the dogs. He did, and we continued our conversation until around 11:30 last night. He told me basically things I already know...that I have to stop making decisions about other people's thoughts and minds, that I have to stop deciding the future and work on the present ("you think 2 years ahead, I think 2 weeks ahead. See the difference?"), that I have to stop putting words into other people's mouths and start opening my own so I can stop creating negative scenarios in my mind. So I expressed my concern that, if I speak my mind to Zak about what I want us to be--essentially exclusive "friends" who have really hot sex, not forever necessarily, but "as long as it works"--he will read it totally the wrong way, begin thinking (incorrectly) that I want to marry him and bear his children, and promptly escort my ass to the door. He told me that there I go again, already deciding what someone else is thinking or will think before I even give them a chance to process what I have to say. True. He went on to tell me that he had it on pretty good authority that if I put it exactly the way I felt it, he didn't think I'd be escorted anywhere.
Okay. So I guess my only options are these... I need to realize that I am always going to have some kind of relationship with Megan, be it lifelong love or just friends, enemies or former co-investors on a property. In order to insure that this relationship isn't going to be nasty--because I really don't want it to be--I have to work in the moment, work on the present. Stop being the good citizen, say something if I've got to say it, but at the same time, realize what the reality of the situation is and think before I open my mouth. I know we're not together. I know she's seeing someone else. I know the possibility of her falling in love and finding happiness with this person is there, and that has to be okay, because truthfully, aren't I looking for the same thing? No matter how much it hurts, that's the only way it can really be. And speaking of, I need to be straight up with him about what I want, no matter how much it scares me to death. I could always just "ride the wave," so to speak, and let what happens happen and not need to verbalize it, but I will never feel right about it until I know that we're on the same page. I don't want to be his wife, but I also don't want to be his whore, and I need to know that I'm more than that to him.
All the same, I know a thing or two about timing, and I know that now is not exactly a great time for me to start waxing philosophical about human interaction with him. And this really sucks, because I feel so much for him right now...I can't claim to know how he feels, but I can relate somewhat, at least. If anything were to happen to my own mother right now...well, I think it might be easier for me, because in most ways, I've made my own peace with my mother, and forgiven her for all the bullshit of years past. Still, I think there would be a part of me that would feel incredibly pissed off about her dying--pissed because I never got to tell her how fucked up her own shit made me, pissed because I never got a formal apology from her, pissed because I never got to tell her that I was really close to being able to forgive her entirely and that I had made peace with her in my own mind. And I know he's not there. It's pretty clear that he has so much shit with his mother that will likely never be resolved...the way he constantly refers to her telling him he was "a mistake," the way he always points out that his parents didn't raise him. It's hard to grieve someone you still have so much hate and resentment for, because no matter what they did, they're still your parents, and tradition mandates that you grieve for their loss, when you really feel that you've lost nothing that ever really meant that much to you, but that should have. And I'm really, really, really bad at being what people need in times like this. I never know what they want, I never know what they need, it's like my mind just goes blank.
I did call him last night, around 9:30. He actually answered the phone, which I didn't expect, considering he rarely answers any call after 9:00. I asked him if he went to see his mom. He said he had, and told me about what was going on. I told him I just wanted to let him know that if he needs anything, to let me know. True to form, he told me he could use a suitcase full of hundreds. I told him, "I said 'let me know,' I didn't say I'd actually do anything..." Funny how sometimes the only way to get through horrible situations is to make assinine jokes.
Whatever works, right?
It's now 7:45. He hasn't called, he didn't walk Rex this evening, and his truck isn't at his house. I'm afraid that his mother is either dead or very close to it. And I hope he calls me tonight--not for my own benefit, but because if he doesn't call me, I know for a fact he'll sit in his house alone and not call anyone else. Which may be the way he prefers it, I don't know for sure, but I hate to think of him being alone right now. No one should have to go through this kind of shit all alone. And I may not be a hell of a lot of comfort, but I'm better than nothing. I'm not a therapist, but I've been to several...doesn't that count for something?
So Megan came home at 2:30 this morning. And I was absolutely pissed. I went into her room and just started screaming. I don't even really remember what the hell I said. But I'm sure it was ugly. She told me I was acting crazy, that she wasn't going to have this argument with me, that I had no right to tell her what
But wait, there's more...