Attempt at a new Approach

Tuesday, May 27th 2008 at 9:24pm

It seems to be a sad fact that I write a hell of a lot more when I’m upset.

So guess how well I must be doing to not have written since last Thursday!

Crusifer and I had a fabulous weekend. We didn’t argue about a damn thing the entire time. I feel alive again.

One of the primary things that Mort Fertel explains in his message is how our relationship is the center of our life, and while some people may not believe that is true, and while a lot of people go out of their way to make sure that isn’t true, it always has been for me, and undoubtedly always will be. The happiness in my “marriage” is the happiness in my life. The stability in my love is the stability in my life. If my relationship is good, my life is good. If my relationship is in ruin, my life is shambles. Mort says that all people are this way in their truest self. Clearly this is something to be argued since so many people deliberately flaunt how they’re single and happy to be single.

I always thought I was selfish for putting my love and my relationship before all other aspects of my life. I thought I must be wrong to put love before talent, love before family, love before friends, love before education, love before work or money. Mort eased that guilt, and told me that I’m the one who is right, and that other people should be doing the same. I think this is a key change in my perspective on life. Before hearing what Mort had to say I would have been willing to stay with Crusifer for sex, for money, for convenience and to avoid feeling hurt. I was even considering just “putting up” with him until I could find someone else. My perspective has been so turned around that now I think that spending any day of my life not being in love, and putting love as my highest priority would be stupid and a waste of my energy and time.

If love is what make me feel fulfilled in life, then why settle for anything else? If love is what makes me happy, why settle for money and for sex? If marriage and children and a happy family is my dream, why settle for being role-mates with kids? If love gives me the ambition to draw, to write, to be creative and happy, and to dance, then why put any of those things before what gives me the ambition to do them? If love brings out the best in me, why put the best in me before love? And if connecting with Crusifer, and giving to him, and spending time with him and lavishing him with his every desire is the key to making me feel fulfilled, then why spend my time trying to “work on our problems” or practicing “communication skills” or visiting a consoler. Not that I don’t think I should do any of those things, but they seem half as important as they did.

Crusifer is not a quiet person. He generally is quiet because he doesn’t prefer to speak to people. His opinions are likely to be dismissed, because that’s how people are, and he’d rather not speak if he won’t be heard. He’d rather not speak if he can’t be honest, and being honest will often bring ridicule. There are probably a dozen other reasons why he’s quiet around most people, but he is not a quiet person. I know he’s not, because when we first met, we talked for hours and hours and hours into the night. We stayed up until 7:00am sometimes just talking. Mort says that this is key. He says that reestablishing talking about “nothing” is important. Logistical conversations don’t count. Crusifer has the capability to be quiet, or talkative, just like he can be compassionate or harsh. And what and important distinction that is!

Crusifer has been, and can be a talkative person who will talk all through the night. It only takes the transformive properties of love to make him that way. This is just one of the many reasons why love is key, just one of the many reasons why I feel enlightened, just one of the many reasons why I feel good about my life and my relationship today and for the past week. Sappy as it sounds, love is the most important part of life, and it really is at the core of what you need.

Thursday, May 29th 2008 at 3:26pm

Yesterday was mostly a lovely day. Crusifer couldn’t sleep and got up very early, around seven in the morning. I woke up due to his absence from the bed, and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up at eight in the morning. We spent the morning talking, playing final fantasy XI, and I gave him a pedicure. Then at one in the afternoon his co-worker called to let him know that he had an appointment. So much for having Wednesday’s off, right?

He went in, did the appointed tattoo, did another tattoo several hours later, hung out with the owner’s husband, Frank. They smoked a blunt together, and he made it back home at five-thirty. Not bad considering two Wednesdays out of three since he was supposed to start getting them off he spent the full ten hours at work. My mom had suggested on Tuesday that we go to the movies, so at six-thirty (shortly after picking my father up from work) the four of us leapt into the car and went to see Indiana Jones IV.

We went to an AMC instead of the usual Regal on elmwood. The AMC is all the way out on Maple, so an illogical choice for us usually, but Crusifer had suggested us all going to Red Robin as well, and I suggested that we go after the movie so we’d all have something to talk about. Crusifer and my parents have not talked much since he moved in well over a year ago, so I thought this would be a great way for them to engage in some conversation.

The movie was less and more than I expected of it at the same time. The beginning was less than I expected, and the ending was much more than I expected. It held up to the classics, and it held up to making the movie with modern quality, while still being set in the past. I really enjoyed how the slipped facts into the movie, especially those concerning the nephelium. Though they never actually called them nephelium, they most certainly were portraying nephelium. Anyway, I won’t spoil the movie for you, so go see it yourself.

So then we went to Red Robin. I took my handy-dandy enzyme pills to assure myself that breaded-shrimp wouldn’t upset my sensitive stomach. Dad ordered an appetizer of guacamole and chips, and we discussed with the waiter the ingredients. To my delight, no “cream” was added to it. Which meant there was no dairy and no sugar, which meant I could eat it!

My mom, dad and Crusifer all had burgers. Red Robin is basically a gourmet burger place. They have tons of different burgers, and every single one of them is made to perfection, the way you’d expect an expensive steak to be prepared. You would expect quality, and you’d expect exactly what you asked for. That’s how Red Robin’s burgers are. I ordered the jumbo shrimp as always. I don’t eat the sauce of course, or put the dressing on my salad or put the ketchup on my french fries, and I take my pills, but with all of those precautions I can leave with only the mildest of burping, and no pain. Needless to say, it’s one of a very small hand-full of places I can actually eat out.

The food and service was great. But as with all fabulous days, there is always a spoiler just waiting for you to get angry or upset. Not that any one person is waiting for this to happen, but karma, the universe, and the powers that be seem to be determined to set up disappointments throughout your days, especially the good days. Because a whole day of pure happiness is strictly forbidden!

The spoiler was really no one person’s fault, but it certainly is more my father’s fault than anybody’s. He ordered a “Jamaican Beer” or something. This brought up the topic of alcohol which I shoved out of the way with talk about the movie just as quickly as I could. After Crusifer’s letter about not letting him drink no matter what and about quitting and stuff I wasn’t about to make an exception, and I wasn’t about to discuss Crusifer’s letter or realization with my Dad, lest my Dad change Crusifer’s mind.

But somehow the Jamaican Beer led to Jamaican food. Crusifer remarked that I ought to get food from the Rastaraunt which is a Jamaican restaurant that is owned by Tre’s family. He said that I should be able to get food from there for free because I “have connections there.”

This irritated me, because I most certain don’t have connections there. In fact, if anyone there recognized me, it might not be good at all. Most likely I’d be harassed, if not bodily hurt. I didn’t find the “joke” funny, and I tried to tell him that I didn’t. But at this point my father had caught wind of our discussion and said that he thought Tre worked at the steel drums. Then Crusifer turns to me, accusatory, and tells me that I lied about where Tre worked. I said that Tre usually had three part time jobs at once – the Rastaraunt, Steel Drums, and working for his father, and doing his weed runs on the way from one to the other and home again.

Crusifer didn’t seem to hear me and continued to bait me about how my stories always change. At that point my father started talking about Tre and this started to make me nervous. This was the last thing I wanted to talk about. What happened to talking about the movie? I couldn’t think of anything to say about the movie, so I started remarking on how great my shrimp was. My ploy completely failed. Dad grabbed one of my shrimp, agreed with me, then continued talking about Tre.

Crusifer said, “There has to be something missing here. How could parents like you and a girl like Atara let someone like him live under your roof? Somebody has to be lying.” Again, I gritted my teeth. I began to become really upset, but I hid this behind consistent eating of the shrimp. My Mom tried to explain how you’d never know about the real Tre by just meeting him. He seemed ordinary and charming and smart as an acquittance. She tried to explain how she couldn’t forbid me as a teenager from seeing him. She explained how this would only cause me to rebel. I chimed up and said that she was right, and that she might have risked me running away by forbidding me to see him.

Incidently, my father did forbid me from moving out with Tre, but that never came up over dinner. Again, after more accusations about lies and delving deeper and deeper into my personal feelings and my past, I tried to switch the conversation to the movie. It didn’t work. I tried then to switch the conversation to Crusifer’s ex, Brianna. Somewhere in this Crusifer tells me I have a bugger hanging out of my nose at some point where I’m trying to distract him by kissing him. I wipe my nose and he tells me it’s still there, then I realize that he’s pulling my leg and start to go from distressed to angry.

I tried to delve right into his personal life with Brianna. I brought up his kid with her, and all of that. He pushed it right off. My parents knew nothing about Brianna to say, but they both knew that this was just another attempt to drop the Tre topic. My mom tried to defend me, tried to help me drop the topic. My father persisted.

He jumped to the heart of the matter, and said to Crusifer, “if you woke up from a nightmare that really disturbed you, but you knew you had to sort it out by talking about it, because otherwise you’d forget the nightmare and only feel disconcerted, you’d talk about it, wouldn’t you?” He didn’t have to explain the analogy for me to understand that he was defending the fact that I used to talk about Tre a lot. I was sorting out my nightmare. I had been afraid, I had been high, I had been someone who I didn’t want to be, I had been with a drug dealer, a gangster, a ninja, and I had been in love with him. I was disappointed with myself and my judgement, but I was also liberated to be rid of him. I was elated to meet the “quiet artist” I thought I had found in Tre. I was high as a kite in fresh love and embracing a new self that was blooming and growing each and everyday. But who can push off the nightmare even in the glorious sunshine?

Surrounded by spring flowers, a cool breeze and palm trees with the sun shining, basking in the shade, watching the beautiful ocean, you can be very blissful, but if you just woke from a nightmare, you’ll use the peace to discuss the nightmare, and that is exactly what I did. For my father to have delved that deep into how personal the whole thing was, to accurately explain why I used to talk about him so much got to me. It left me vulnerable. I was already upset, and angry, and at that moment I became vulnerable on top of it. To make things worse, my mother attempted again to make them drop the topic, she said that if they had ganged up on her like that, that she would have left to go to the ladies room by then. Her suggestion was tempting, but it made me all the more determined to stay right where I was and to not show how upset I really was.

The debate continued. I was too upset to record the information to memory, so I’m not really sure what all was said in all that time. I tried to defend myself many times. But I just wasn’t getting anywhere. And finally Crusifer pulled the last straw my telling me (once again) that I was full of shit. I don’t even remember about what.

I asked him to move to let me use the bathroom. He said no. I shoved with all my might until he was sprawled practically on the floor and pushed past him and hurried into the bathroom. I started to cry the moment I was in the stall. I cried for perhaps five minutes. I organized my purse, straightened my hair, actually used the bathroom of course, washed my hands, put up my hoody, put on my hat and my glasses, pulled out the money for the bill and counted out exactly how much I was going to put inside it. After my breathing was steady and my face no longer red and wet I returned to the table, paid the bill and we left.

Mom and I got to the car first and she deliberately talked about her experience at the convention to take my mind off it. Dad smoked a cigarette and Crusifer and him talked about the matter for six to ten minutes. When they returned to the car my mother continued talking and we all listened. I tried to hold the conversation by my voice was constricted and for some odd reason I needed to use the bathroom again badly. Crusifer made no attempt to look at me or touch me the entire ride. I held his limp hand.

Shortly after getting home Crusifer and I began arguing about it all over again. My father came up the stairs and then I really got upset. Truth be told my relationship with my father is a much more tender place inside me than my memories of Tre. I lost my control several times, and once I banged my keyboard so hard that I put a mark on my monitor. I’m not proud of that, but my father pulls out my emotion like a fishing rod.

The odd part though was that somehow, things were resolved. It was a painful journey, but Crusifer, my father and I resolved the issue. I mean, I’m pretty sure that is what happened. I wasn’t even angry anymore by the time my father left. He said some things that helped Crusifer understand and believe. One of the key things he said was that Tre was a very scary guy. He used the word scary. Tre wasn’t a full-fledged gangster-mafia type, but he believed himself to be enough to make it as true as it needed to be. And that isn’t what I wanted, and when I was finally sober enough to put everything together, I left him. And I’m not ever going back. I think Crusifer finally understands that. He just needed a man to explain it to him was all. Perhaps in the end, it was a worth while discussion.

Anyway, odd as this may seem, I began writing this entry because of a spider. An ugly white spider was crawling up the cord to my printer. It was in a place that I couldn’t miss. I wrapped tissue around it with my fingers, and put the wadded ball in the toilet. I was disconcerted, but I sat back down here. Then I noticed it was still alive, though a bit crumpled. It was now on the desk between my keyboard and monitor. This time I really got it and put it in the toilet and flushed. I got the chills as I did this. Spiders really freak me out, especially now that I believe they are helping me predict things happening.

My prime example is the huge daddy-long-leg spider that fell practically in my face on New Years night, and how several hours later I almost broke up with Crusifer because of how angry he made me. He brought El home with him, unexpected. He was drunk, and he had me pick him up at 4:00am with my permit and limited experience. It was freezing cold out. I was tired. And he had the nerve to be unappreciative of all that I did for him and how forgiving I was being. I told him to get out and never come back that night. I cried and cried and cried that night. I screamed and yelled. Nothing did any good of course, but eventually Crusifer took me in his arms and apologized.

That spider let me know, I just didn’t realize it was letting me know. Ever since then I’ve been able to draw a direct connection between spiders and unhappy events in life or closely dodged unhappy events in my life. After yesterday, I can’t think that spider was a coincidence, especially when I thought it was dead, but it wasn’t. Perhaps I think everything from last night is resolved, and it isn’t yet.

We’ll see what we’ll see. As for now, I’m going to get back to what I was doing an hour ago before saw the spider. *sigh* I love Crusifer dearly, and I want everything to work too much for my own good. Assuming we really get married, I hope... I wish... Bah!

Saturday, May 31st 2008 at 11:34pm

I’m still trying to figure out where April went, and now May is over too. I’m sure I’m not the only one. For some reason I feel like I have a number of deadlines on me, even though I don’t have any. Perhaps I’m feeling everyone else’s deadlines? Or perhaps I’m just feeling time slipping by?

I feel like I’m overdue to have the office finished. I feel like I’m long overdue to have the board game finished. I feel like I have not been working on my body enough, no where near enough exercise. I feel behind on my relationship, like I should have resolved something more by now, like I should understand something deeper by now. I feel like my room is a mess. It’s organized, but it’s not clean. I feel behind on my understanding in general. Why do I still have so many bodily problems? I sick of mystery pussy-pains that are not STDs and not yeast infections. It’s completely inexplicable and completely intolerable!

I didn’t do any gardening like I planned to, unless you count the one plant my mother and I bought with our spare change the other day. It’s kinda past planting season. Will I ever stop feeling like a failure? I guess not, it’s in my blood.

I never went back to the commune. I want to go this summer, but Yashieva is long gone, and without her there, I’m not sure if it’ll feel right. I have not worked on any of my novel ideas or started novels in months. I spent so much time and effort (and even a small chunk of money) on Saga only to have not played it in a month now.

Why does this stuff bother me so much? Probably because Crusifer is being really distant. It’s probably because we haven’t had sex in so long. I’m so sick of even trying. I get myself all aroused just to discover that the inside still feels like fire after only a few minutes. He talks of having a girl around “just to fuck” as if this topic isn’t a sore spot for me. Not that he has been talking about it the last couple days, but quite a bit over the past month in general, or rather, the past few months.

I dreamed I found a really huge nasty bug that foretold worse times to come. I have an unjustified disgust with bugs. I get freaked out when a fly lands on me sometimes, though I usually am pretty good at not showing it. I don’t scream when I see a spider or anything, but I jump, and usually move away until I catch my breath long enough to get a wad of tissue to grab it and flush it. I’d prefer a vacuum, but I don’t have one in my own right.

Crusifer is playing music. I suppose he figures it doesn’t count because he keeps turning them off after five seconds or so and changing it to another one, looking for songs he likes. I don’t really mind. I just mind the complete lack of affection for two days now. I thought I’d reverse that easily last night by giving him this long back rub, and then I got into it, and despite how my fingers ache after seven or so minutes I kept at for well over fifteen. When my fingers were too tired to go on anymore I didn’t want to stop, so I continued more gently, trying to ease him asleep. He was tired, but restless.

I felt inspired so I continued on into a reiki healing. Not that he can tell that’s what I’m doing, but that was fine with me. I was enjoying giving, even if he didn’t particularly care that he was receiving. I feel like there isn’t much of anything I can give to him, and that also bothers me. He wants sex, and he wants that all the time, but I can barely ever give it to him and it’s not even my fault. He wants affection so he says, but I feel like he never really appreciates it, or really wants it, at least, it’s so rare that I forget.

He also wants food, but I can only give that if he’s hungry. You see how this leaves me little to give most of the time? I have little to offer for all that I want in return and it drives me crazy. I wish he’d just melt the way I do when I write him a letter. Getting a letter from him makes me just burst with happiness. He gets a letter from me and he sort of smirks, might give me a kiss or two, and then goes on with his day unchanged. I feel like I have no real affect, no real purpose. Like I’m here incase of emergencies, but other than that, I’m a door mat or something.

Crusifer is probably going to go out tonight. That’s okay. It’s agreed upon. I feel like crying though. He’s gone already. I got so few kisses this morning I can count them – three. Two were on the forehead of all things. I know he loves me, and I know I’m important to him... But something is just irking me.

I tried that thing Mort said, the “intimacy interview” where I ask him all sorts of questions about everything. I basically ask for all his ideals. Not just what I can give, but everything he wants in general. Then, after I’ve made a long list, I go through everything and see what I can do, and do as much as I can as often as possible. Two things about this made me really upset.

The second thing that made me really upset shouldn’t have surprised me much (but it was a heavy blow after the first one which I’ll get to in a moment). He didn’t ask for anything new at all. He indicated nothing I wasn’t already doing as often as possible except for pedicures. I believe he likes it most because it involves me being so intent on him. It requires a bit of focus to pull off all the dead skin around the nails, and pull out all the dirt and old skin, and toe jam, and push back the cuticles, and file the nails until they’re all even, and then sand them, buff them and polish them. It also takes a bit of time. So I’ve done that several times this week instead of my usual once or twice a month. He thanked me, he gave me kisses, and that’s all well and good, but I can’t just do that every time I want affection, just like I can’t have sex with him every time I want affection – though I would if I could!

The whole point was to give more, and much, much, much more. Another exercise is to make sure you have a minimum of a one-minute conversation about things you like, or things you want, or your speculations, or your theories, or whatever, as long as it’s not logistical, and to have these conversations at least five times a day. Also, they have to be throughout the day, not just five phone calls in the last hour before you get home from work. Well, I can’t get up to five or even four while he’s at work. During those ten hours he’s too blasted bust. If he answers the phone when he’s busy he doesn’t really talk to me anyway. We get one, maybe two if we’re lucky and no amount of calling him changes that.

But the more devastating thing I uncovered I have not even brought up with him. I can’t broach the topic. I can barely even think about it. I’m not sure if I’m in denial, or if I genuinely believe that it’s not really true. *sighs* The first thing I uncovered was in my first few questions about his priorities. I suppose if I had followed directions better, these questions wouldn’t be included. But I wanted to ask everything I could think of and get it on paper.

His first priority? His art of course. I suppose I already know that. His second priority? His job. His third? Me – and he almost decided to say “social life” but then said, “no wait, that wouldn’t be true,” and then said his “relationship with me” as third. I’ve been putting him first for over a year. I’ve given up going to conventions to stay home with him. I’ve gone out of my way to do every small thing for him that I could. I’ve had sex with him when I didn’t want it countless times. I’ve put every bit of strength in my body to massaging him, cooking for him, trying to ask the right questions to get a conversation going, calling him... And it’s not that I regret a moment of anything I’ve ever done for him.

In fact, I don’t regret any of it. I wish I had done more in our relationship. But he doesn’t feel that way, does he? I’m not sure. Perhaps if we were married and our marriage really was dead, then perhaps these exercises would bring life to our relationship because he would be so flattered to get love and attention like he did in the beginning. Thing is, I already put him first, and I already give him most everything I have. True, Mort says to give all that you can. Basically, give 100% like I always say. But he’s also saying to not be concerned with getting back.

Well, I’m sure that the theory is that they will automatically give back, and it’s not that he doesn’t give back... But it’s like he’s doing the minimum to stay with me, instead of giving himself to me. I want him. As Mort says, give presence with your presents. In other words, give yourself in everything you give.

Crusifer made me a cup of tea this morning. It’s the first morning that he’s done so in a long time. Why did he do it? Because I asked him to last night. He handed me the cup of tea and then sat down far enough away that he wasn’t touched me and stared at the ceiling. He sat on the bed and not at his computer because he figured this would please me. At least, I think that’s the reason, since it didn’t seem to be for himself. For a moment there I was really delighted, because he curled up on me, and then he talked to me about work yesterday for like three minutes while I drank the tea happily.

Then he got up, looked out the window, and sat back down not touching me and stared at the ceiling again. Not stroking, no kissing, and the short lived conversation over.

I asked, “Why did you move?”

He replied, “This is more comfortable.”

My heart must have leaked blood out in the wrong place at that moment, because I certainly felt like there had been an unnatural squeeze to my insides. I put the tea cup down thinking I’d add the last of it to my potatoes later, assuming I boil some potatoes today. And then I curled up next to him. I kissed him, I stroked him, but he still continued to play with his hair and stare off into nothing. Soon he sat up and then left for his computer, leaving me only with a quick kiss to the forehead.

There is nothing wrong with this behavior, but I feel like I’m third. He didn’t spend his morning with me because he was busy putting music on his ipod for work. He leaves at noon when work starts at 1:00pm so he can get an early start on cleaning his “tubes” so he’ll be ready. He gets home between 11:30pm and 12:00am even though it’s only a five minute bike ride and he gets off at 11:00pm.

I hate being so unimportant. I feel like I’m nineteen and my mother still is the only person who cares about me for real. And she can’t afford to put me first. Hell, I ought to put her before Crusifer for all that she’s done for me, so why don’t I? Why am I so fucking bent on love? What’s love ever done for me? Given me some blissful months out of my life? Next to the much longer months of stress and heartbreak it ought to be useless to me now. Ought to be. Ought to be... But that would be logical, and emotions don’t really work very logically. They have their own crazy logic of some sort.

He called me just now, because I called him ten minutes previously. Only a few minutes after he left.. Is this how he is when we’re not having sex? No matter what? With all the problems I have, I’m pretty darned sure I won’t be able to have sex with him at least every other day for the rest of my life. That never lasts more than a month before a new infection, a new pain, a new soreness. I hate how doctors never solve my problems!

If this is the case then imagine what he might be like during the last few months of pregnancy? It might kill me to get to little affection from the father of my baby. Maybe I’m making a mistake afterall...