September 16, 2022
Journal Entry
All day I’ve been itching to get my fingers on the keyboard. The knowing is just hitting me every second. It’s a constant flow of truth shot straight into my core. Delusions? I don’t really give a fuck. What I’m learning is amazing and can only help me grow and be better.
I was on the phone with Rebecca today and I told her about what happened driving home from TMS yesterday. (TMS – transcranial magnetic stimulation. Google it. Fascinating shit.)
I told her I thought of Jeff and I immediately felt a tight band around my chest. Then I thought of Don and that so familiar nausea of late hit me hard. And I was pretty shocked to realize these two men rent space in my body. They each are assigned a specific area of my body where the pain of losing them lives.
I shared that thought concept with Rebecca and she said, “They’re living rent free in your body.” Perfect.
She explained when we connect deeply with someone, they become part of us. They become part of what we identify as our own self. The memories we build have a specific location; we literally allocate a part of our brain to someone we love. When our relationship changes or the relationship ends, we are literally losing a part of who we are. And that manifests in physical pain.
This is what happens all the time. I’ll be talking to one of my friends and all of a sudden I’ll figure some Big Shit Thing out and it will hit me like a brick up the side of the head and I’ll think, “Why in the fuck didn’t that occur to you before you dumbass??!!” And then I proceed to tell myself the stuff I always say: Wherever you are is exactly where you’re supposed to be, and, you don’t see until you have eyes to see.
OK. So here goes.
I’m not grieving Don, the person Don. He’s as much part of my life as he ever was. In fact, he’s even more devoted to me than ever before. That’s an interesting turn of phrase, “devoted to me”. But it’s very apt. Asperger Don wouldn’t see it like that, but he’s not the same kind of realist I am. He is relatively devoid of intuition.
What I’m grieving is the strong friendship coupled with the extremely fulfilling sexual connection we had finally finally finally arrived at. It was always sweet, gentle, fun, very very nice, but about early August, IT GOT REALLY GOOD. REALLY REALLY GOOD. Ya. I’m tellin’ ya. Like, Top Ten in my lifetime good. He fixed The Vintage Treasure Box for fuck’s sake!
But the REALLY REALLY GOOD was only one time. The second time after the first time it was REALLY REALLY GOOD, he’d already met his Person, and I knew what was coming, and I knew it was coming soon, and I drank that day, so I wasn’t really present, and although he used the same techniques, it just wasn’t the same. (I really hate myself for fucking up that second go around.) And now the physical component of our friendship is over. That’s what I’m grieving.
Rebecca said, “Goddamn oxytocin!” I don’t know if it was hormones, or just the ancient brain wiring that makes a woman bond with a man. Men are completely free from that chemical sabotage. Those Motherfuckers.
I Super Bonded with Don after he fixed the VTB. I’ve told him, that was the day it went from safe friendship love, and I fell over the fucking cliff into romantic (fuck with your mind) love. Shit. I hate when that happens. It used to happen a lot, now, not so much. But damn. It still happens.
The reason why I know that’s the component of our friendship I’m grieving is when I was on the phone with him the other day and he was saying stupid ass shit, the same “I’m worthless/I’m bad/I have nothing to offer” bullshit he’s always going on about, it got me all disgusted and then annoyed and then simply tired, exactly the same as always.
Today when I was driving home from TMS, I pictured us a couple. I thought about getting engaged, getting married, living together. (Or maybe just living together without all the more complicated trappings.) I thought of what it would be like to inhabit the same space, to be entitled to space, to even own space in his world.
Then I thought about how I only really had to deal with Don’s annoying stuff every other Sunday so it was easy to overlook. I didn’t have to face him day in and day out and really deal with the whole of him. It was good that I didn’t have to, because then I could focus on only the good parts of him and only let those parts shine. When I’m not a couple with Don, his bullshit shitty self-image affects me, but not directly. If we lived together, I’d have to slap him silly, kid you not. I could not handle it. I could never live with Don.
The last few weeks, after Don met his Person, he’s been especially devoted, especially attentive. I’m a little annoyed with him for not being this Don before. Each time we talk, he says things like “You are an important person in my life” and “You are wonderful”.
He didn’t say those things before. I knew he valued me greatly by the way he treated me. Sometimes he’d say super incredibly nice and even romantic things to me about me and how he felt about me. But mostly I’d have to ask. After a while, I didn't ask. I’d draw those conclusions from his actions.
But now, all of a sudden, he gets it. He gets how to make a woman feel special. And I’m rather pissed that his Person gets all the best of him now, when I had the best of him before, and the best of him before wasn’t as good as it is now. (Awkward sentence structure, thanks for bearing with me there.)
“I changed his LIFE! No, wait, I was the catalyst. But thank God I came along because I was the exact person, probably the only person, that could browbeat the fuck out of him and finally drag his only half willing ass to the clinic for a herpes test!” I said to Rebecca.
“Yes, Coco. You were the catalyst. That is the role we have in many people’s lives. It is a critical role. It is a very fulfilling role. But when you assist others in their shadow work, you make it possible for them to move ahead. And they may move ahead without you.”
I set myself up for this heartache. And I knew that from the get. But man, I did so fucking good. I set it up so I’d lose that component of my friendship with Don that had become most precious to me, but I did right by Don. I was selfless on this one. And he knows that. It’s unlikely he’d be able to articulate it, but I’d never expect him to articulate something so profoundly rooted in his deepest Self. He’s simply not wired to go that deep. He wants to. I tried to pull him into Emotion with me so he could really feel. He tried to follow me into the deep, but he couldn't. He's not reluctant, he's simply not ready. Maybe someday. I hope I'm there to see it.
He’s going to read this, and he’ll likely be incredibly perplexed. He’ll say, “I don’t quite understand what you’re talking about or referencing.” And I’ll smile. I smile just thinking how fun it is to perplex him. I love it when I give him great pause. I want him to THINK about this stuff. I want him to stop dead in his tracks and really take these words in, because when he does that, he changes. He grows.
I’m so proud of me. I’m so proud of him. I’m so proud of what we accomplished doing this incredible shadow work together. We did good.
In short, except the fight with my mother when she kicked me out of the house again, it was a pretty goddamn good day. I’m feeling pretty goddamn good, all in all. Considering.
