I experience a deep connection with my writing. It’s not a simple connection, but rather, it’s a soul connection. Mort Fertel just explained this to me in the fifth CD of the marriage fitness program. I’ve finally arrived at step four of the marriage fitness plan. Step four is to “save yourself” for your spouse. Save your soul for them, that is.
Mort Fertel explains that you soul is your “I” and your character is your “self.” He explains this by demonstrating statements we make like, “I want to change myself,” and “I like myself” and “I needed to find myself” and “I wonder who I would be if my mother had married a different man.” These statements make your self both the object and subject of the statement. When you make a statement like this, you’re acknowledging that even though your character changes, your “I” does not change. Mort Fertel calls your “I” your soul, and I couldn’t agree more. Even for people who don’t really believe in “souls” this makes a good explanation for what we mean when we say soul.
Mort goes on to talk about your soul’s connection with your spouse. This is the key to making your relationship last he says. And I believe it with all of my heart. The question is: how? How do you connect your soul with your partner’s soul? He gives us four steps. Step one is put your spouse before everything. Before work, before children, before friends, before hobbies, before anything and everything. I already do that for Crusifer, but as I’ve revealed, he does not put me first, he does not even put me second, but rather, he puts me third. This expresses one of the deep disharmonies in our relationship despite all our “compatibility.”
Mort could probably spit on compatibility, though he’d never do it publicly. His entire book is about dropping all your thoughts of compatibility. Stop trying to make yourself compatible for your partner! Stop trying to make them compatible with you! Instead, focus on becoming lovers again. Focus on becoming the soul mates that you were when you met, before the love burned up. Mort speaks truth. He is to relationships and emotional health like Dr. Mark Hyman is to physical health. My two heros. They ought to meet.
The fourth step of the marriage fitness plan is to save your soul and the connection it offers for your spouse. Don’t give it to your sister, your friend, your dog, your hobby, your work, your parents or your children, because while you may love them, you are not their soul mate, and just like they are not first on your priorities, they do not belong in your soul. Your soul-mate belongs in your soul, and only your soul mate. I realize from this that my mother may not leave space for my father in her soul because of the way she connects with me. And my father most certainly doesn’t put my mother first. And while they both give, they don’t give their presence in their presents, and if they do, it’s most certainly not often enough.
I realize now that I connect to my writing with my soul. I write more beautifully and more often when I’m in pain because I’m using my connection to my writing to ease the lack of connection with my soul mate. Writing calms my pain, but it also uses up all of connection that I could be giving to Crusifer. But he doesn’t have time to receive all of my thoughts and all my love and all of my passion. His time and effort and passion is all put into his work. He comes home empty. It makes me feel like crying at just the thought. I want the relationship, and the marriage that Mort prescribes. If I do all of his exercises for several months and can not receive the same love and priority and presence from Crusifer, then I will not be able to marry him, because I have such a clear vision of what I want now.
I want a soul mate, and nothing else with satisfy me.
It still feels like Saturday night, even though it’s the very beginning of Sunday morning, according to my digital clock, which reads “am” instead of “pm.” That’s something that never ceases to amuse me. Surely it’s night, and not morning. I’m awake every morning if this is morning. Morning to me is distinctly between sunrise and noon. That time of the day has a very particular feel, especially if you’re outdoors during this time. Midnight feels nothing like what I consider to be morning. Midnight feels distinctly different from the rest of the day as well. I start to feel lazy, though my brain still remains active and alert, if not more active and alert. I love to play video games, write, read and watch TV after midnight. I especially love sex after midnight, being aroused and having sex that is...
Cripes! There is a sore topic with me these days. Sore being just the word to bring up how much I loath the cruel twists of life. I can’t get over what a sick twist of plot my life has when it comes to sex. It drives me insane with grief, anger, stress, guilt, and yearning, all of which to be left unsatisfied.
From age nine – horny, naive, desperate, and depressed. To ten – my early yeast infections, hornier still, just as naive, continual desperation and depression, getting my period, my breasts budding and painful. To eleven – internet sex, inability to orgasm and not understanding why, phone sex, more depression, more desperation, continual suicidal thoughts, beginning to awaken from how naive I was only to be further flushed with how little I knew, and alienation at school at an all time high. Twelve – my first “boyfriend” who was more like a guy I agreed to make out with, touch on and let feel me to appease his curiosity and my ever-growing hunger and lust, with more yeast infections getting worse and more fierce all the time, keeping me from peeing because I was so afraid of the burning blinding pain, even getting a urinary track infection at the same time as a yeast infection, and finally losing my virginity to a six-teen-year-old boy but still never achieving orgasm, not finding love, not finding any satisfaction or happiness, and further alienation from my classmates.
Thirteen – my father gives me a vibrator and I discover the orgasm. The yeast infections continue. My raging hormones continue, but it’s almost a year before I have sex again. I meet Jeremy though it takes me a long time to fall in love with him. I sneak out of my house for sex, and I once let a random guy pick me up, which turned out to be a mistake but I escaped with nothing damaged but my dignity. Depression still loomed, and the press for love, for companionship, for sex only getting heavier and harder to bear.
Fourteen – madly in love with Jeremy I strive to make myself a better girl for him. But I was still wild with hormones, and instead of just making love to Jeremy I flirted all over the place because I didn’t know how to contain myself. I was less depressed at fourteen for the most part, until the fire. More yeast infections, and they came around at all the worst times year after year, especially during vacations. They stopped “just” burning, and starting burning and itching at this point. I couldn’t achieve an orgasm during sex, but I enjoyed it none the less. I still was yearning for something though, and nothing could explain what.
Fifteen – Jeremy leaves me, and I’m left heartbroken. I become more depressed than I’ve ever been. I become genuinely suicidal, I did more than just think about it. I was livid with my lust for escape the constant ache in my heart. Anything to save me and I would take it. Travanti was the first thing that came along that I deemed a suitable escape. At first I treated him like just an escape, and his rescue transformed into love.
Sixteen – I finally find orgasms during sex with Tre, but then he turns out to be a gangster. He turns out to not be the person I thought I was going out with at all. He turns out to be violent, and constantly so. A modern version of a beginner ninja with way more knowledge than a boy six months younger than me ought to have. He’s scary, and I couldn’t leave him sometimes when I wanted to from fear. I was abused verbally constantly and mildly physically as well. My emotional state completely fell apart. Ironically I think I had the least infections during my relationship with him, but then again, I might have had the least sex. My fear of him, and often my anger with him, or disappointment or depression and in the end my resentfulness and distantness caused me little desire for sex with him. Though I had smoked weed a bit and drank a bit from the age of fourteen, at sixteen I did it on a weekly basis at first, and then a daily basis. (The weed daily, and drinking weekly or so.)
Seventeen – My senses numb to Tre. My heart seals it self off. I leave my second love, my second two-year relationship. I feel elated for a short time with my new found freedom. I meet Crusifer, and after a few times of making love I think I’ve caught an STD. I have the worst yeast infection to date. It lasted the longest, was the ugliest, was the most painful, etc. I saw the doctors about it, and they reported me clean. Not only of STDs, but also of a yeast infection. They didn’t know what was wrong.
Eighteen – Madly in love with Crusifer we have the best sex I’ve ever had – passionate and loving. I orgasm nonstop, and unlike the orgasms I had with Tre they are really fulfilling. I quit weed and shortly thereafter quit drinking. My health improves, I loose weight, five pounds at first, then ten, then twenty, and then thirty total after a year since my diet and lifestyle changes. The only catch? The mystery pussy problems. My continual yeast infections switch from burning when I pee to itching so terrible it keeps me from doing anything. In addition I get a new sensation during my period that makes the inside walls scratchy and painful to touch.
Nineteen – The infections continue at an increased rate. Instead of one or two a year, I’m getting infections every two or three months. The period pain extends to all the time. The spot that causes pleasure is often dead to me. I go off birth control hoping it will help; which made my breasts stop swelling and hurting but everything else continued. My relationship with Crusifer is the best I’ve ever had, and yet, and yet, I’m still seeking that soul mate in him, in my relationship. I’m seeking continual and strong love. Now I know what I’m after at least. But of all things, I finally have a horny and passionate man, but my infection rate has skyrocketed and on top of that my sex drive has vanished. I find it terribly difficult to become aroused. I’ve practically forgotten what it feels like.
Fantasies surely are playing a joke on me. I no longer fantasize about anyone but Crusifer, which is fine of course, but nothing I conjure in my mind really arouses me. Thinking of Crusifer makes me feel warm and fuzzy, but it doesn’t make me want sex. Nothing seems to make me really want it. Candle light helps. Being nude helps. Being affectionate and receiving affection helps a lot. But I think what it would really take for me to experience really being horny again is for Crusifer to touch me specifically for the purpose of arousing me. For some reason he doesn’t like to do this. I think talking about sexual things would help a lot too. We used to do that all the time, the infections seemed to have killed that sort of conversation, that in addition to my sudden jealousy of other women.
Thinking about sex makes me miserable, and perhaps that’s why I don’t get aroused anymore. All I can think about is all the problems sex has caused me. It’s driven me to madness when I was very young. The plagues of infection. And the quest for orgasm. The disappointment when I’m unable to please my partner, which seems to be always. Of course I can please him, when I don’t have a damnable infection! It’s so bloody frustrating! And why does having sex during my period feel like having sex with fire as a lubricant now? It never used to, but now it always does. How is that logical?
I want to be horny again. I want my pussy to stop hurting. I want to have sex with Crusifer! I want to please him. I want to feel that intimacy. I feel like shit. I’m nine-fucking-teen, and this is just blazing ridiculous and preposterous! I hardly have a good word for how much it outrages me!
I feel like no one understands, after all, who do you know who gets infections that are not STDs but are not yeast infections? Anybody? If you do, please tell me what they do to remain sane.
Two in the morning. This doesn’t surprise me. Crusifer said he might go out tonight. I have already pre-consented to all Fridays and Saturdays. It’s just that he won’t answer my phone calls. This worries me. And after how distant he was this morning... And how long it’s been since we’ve had sex... I feel like my relationship with him is on this rocky road of issues and struggles, and like I keep getting my foot stuck in a crack of the rocks, or stumbling, or even falling and hurting myself, and then thinking I’m alright again... But never quite losing that uneasy feeling anymore, like I’m always balancing on one of these frustrating rocks.
I wish he was here. I feel so distant from him that I’m starting to really ache.
It’s taking all my will not to be angry with him. No phone call to confirm he was going out or anything. And he can’t just pull that classic “my phone is dead” because other people have phones. He can’t honestly say that wherever he is there are no phones. My most serious concerns are for the fact that he has his lap top with him and his paycheck, but more importantly I worry about what he might be doing. I pray he’s not drinking, but I fear for it badly.
I’m afraid that if he drinks again after writing that letter... I’m afraid that it would be the end of us. How could I forgive him for it now? I don’t know if I could forgive it again.
I’m so dreadfully lonely. I’m kinda tired too, but I don’t feel like sleeping much. I watched some music videos and the end of some movie.
Writing makes great company when I can think of things worth writing. It’s not such a great companion when I just feel empty. Not even so much a painful empty. Just empty. I could read, and I like reading, and I like the series I’m reading, so it’s not a bad option... It’s just that... I feel this tingling at the end of my emptiness striving me to feel something more. Perhaps 90% empty... 1% sad, 2% worried, 1% hopeful, 2% anxious, 1% tired and 3% lonely... *sigh*
When I was little. Something about something... It has driven me to type. Oh, what a gastly action is... This writing I’m doing. It’s so blazin hard to remember what the damn hell I am typing about... I fell like I’m makin such a racket. My hair appears to be drawn in brown hatches... Brushed from my face reveals a more painting version of my bangs.
Clearly I’m mad... Insane that is. Not out of my mind per say, but perhaps bent and twisted round yonder. I have to pee... My feet are so cold that I’m reluctant to touch their bareness to the cold floor. My heal jammed under me to keep it warm. I am listening to the birds, the way I never do when sober.
Seems a different sort of trip. The time when I can write. I have never written this way I believe, that waraboats are unknown. Shit, I seem to be losing my spelling.
I am frozen. The birds grow loud and I struggle to figure out how to spell words. My eyelids are growing so blasted heavy. This surely isn’t my tree self.
I explained something deep earlier. No I mean deep, this isn’t a delusion. I know it was deep, but unfortunately I don’t quite comprehend what I’m doing. Oddly, sounds like tears. Can’t be tears can it? Why is it so quiet other than? Could he really be making no other noise? Is my keyboard that loud? I feel stupid. I am stupid.
He’s gone off to his mother’s house. I’m torn between wanting to be there and “good riddance” to it. My head is still throbbing from all the times I banged into the wall and floor. I can’t believe it’s almost five o’clock, but then again, I can believe it since I was awake until nine o’clock in the morning.
I became very desperate. I have not felt that desperate in a long time. As I’ve said before, Crusifer is nothing like Tre, and yet this relationship is on a sure path of making me feel the exact same way. We’re going to try again... But my faith is draining, if not drained.
As Isadora said, after a marriage of desperation that didn’t work, and a dead marriage that didn’t work, and then a marriage of two separated souls united didn’t work... Who is to say that any marriage will work? Then she goes on to say that only those who are so deeply romantic can become so deeply cynical about love.
Crusifer,
I’m tempted to call you right now. I keep thinking about it. I keep running my fingers over the buttons. You’re probably engaged in a conversation though. You’ll probably ignore my call and I can’t take the pain of feeling ignored right now.
I’m sorry to ruin last night and today. I’m sorry to be so blithe in my tears. I’ve gotten so desperate that I’m losing myself. This feeling that I have now is what I have been afraid of since I met you...
Can we figure this out... Together? If not with you, then not at all.
I seem to have lost some sense of myself. All I can think is that I have to act. I have to do something. I have to say something... I want to say that you don’t know how I feel, but maybe you do...
Mort says to accept the good and the bad. The Cav and the Crusifer. Rachel and Laya. There is no other way, and there is no escape... But I fear for you. I feel like you do have a problem, and I want to help, but I feel shut out. I feel useless. I feel and feel and feel... Until I feel like bursting.
I’ve been thinking I should use my writing as a way to connect to Crusifer by writing all of my entries to him... Maybe it will help, maybe not. Who knows if I can even do it.
Angel writes me:
First off I would LOVE to come and visit you sometime but you’re so far away and well my parents probably wouldn’t approve of me going across the state alone. But I did ask my mother and she sort of gave me an “okay” answer. I’m guessing that I’ll have to fly there so I’m wondering how much the ticket would cost…. I promise I will come and see you one day though! I LOVE the idea of us two cooking some tasty organic foods! I also want to see this oh-so famous Buffalo place though it probably looks the same way as it does here. But like I stated, I will come and see you so we can tour everywhere and have fun. I’ve been wanting to meet you for awhile now because honestly you’re the coolest, most amazing and of course most intelligent person ever. I know that’s a lot to say about someone who you hardly know but that’s how I truly think of you. =]] Oh yeah and I don’t think you’d want to come down here. There’s nothing attention-grabbing about this reservation. All I do is stay home with my mother all day because everything else that people do is not “my thing.” Trust me, you’d be bored. I want to meet your family too.
Wow Buffalo sounds like a HUGE place. A million people??? Wow, here’s only less than a thousand! I don’t think it’s even a thousand; it’s probably only about 700. Yeah, it’s so puny. Here’s a sad fact: did you know that parents are so careless these days (from here at least) that the youngest drop-out I’ve known was a kindergarten student! That’s not a lie. His family is drug users/sellers so I’m guessing that’s why they don’t care about anything. Their only daughter used to keep the house clean and everything but now she’s into drugs so she just goes out and parties like her parents.
I love the fact that people are making an effort to at least try to ‘save’ Buffalo. I lecture every one of my younger online friends and they listen. My friend told me its okay to lecture her because her parents never preach to her so she thinks it would be a great idea. I’d love to make a change in the world and even though I can’t make a global change I can always make small changes right? Besides, small changes can lead to big differences.
It’s tough for me to find gluten-free food here. There’s this cooking class that they invented over at Mesa which is about 100 miles away from me so I can’t go there but I’d love to. They cook up all kinds of natural meals and when I saw it on TV I automatically wanted to go but of course I can’t. Yeah I made lima beans and I loved it. I probably cooked them for an hour; it was taking forever! Ha but it was so worth it. Hmm, I never tried butter with them, maybe next time.
I would love to discuss our religious beliefs in person as well. I have wanted to read the entire Bible for so long now but every time I try, I lose my focus. So, now I’m waiting for the “right” time but sometimes I fear that I’ll be too late.
School ended for me on May 20. I took the finals and hopefully I did well on them. I never did well in my Economics class. I hope I pass because I don’t want to be a sophomore again. I am taking summer school though so I can earn extra credits for next year. I am taking these online classes again next year so I get to keep my laptop. I may do this for another semester and then return to my previous school even though I don't want to. I've been trying to convince my parents about sending me off to California next year because there's this boarding school that takes place there for Natives. :]
I write Angel:
Angel,
Clearly if I came out to where you live I wouldn’t be coming to see the reservation, I’d be coming to see you! I’ve been a lot of places all over America and in terms of what they look like and what there is to do, it’s really all the same. I mean, sure, if you’re on a beach, you can swim. If you’re on a mountain, you can climb. But there are beaches and mountains everywhere. (Obviously my point is not that there are beaches and mountains, but that there is everything everywhere if you know where to look.)
The things that are really unique is the individuals you meet along the way. The same place can be very different in atmosphere depending on who you have with you. Like sometimes your home is a prison, and sometimes it’s a safe house. We have a reservation here too, which I’ve been to a couple times. You might find it interesting to see the one we have here in comparison to your own back home.
I feel like you’re my long lost sister. Every time I write to you I feel like it’s been too long since I wrote you last, and too long until I finally meet you, and always nagging me is the feeling that I’m going to lose you, even though I never “had” you per say, if you know what I mean? Everyone I care about except my parents has always drifted away, and I always felt like that was completely out of my control.
For example, there is this girl Marie, and she used to comment on my journal often enough. I met her in California before she moved. We sent each other Christmas presents, and we wrote each other a couple letters. She was amazing in person, and since we were both bi we were all over each other. I really liked her, but I feel like I’ll never see her again – not that I couldn’t invite myself to her new place in Chicago, not that I couldn’t go see ger again, but I feel like I didn’t make the same sort of impression on her that she did on me. I feel unimportant to her, and like nothing could ever change that. Like at some point I felt like I was a special friend of hers, and now I feel like a very distant acquaintance.
But even with Marie... I hate being so mushy sometimes, but... Even with Marie I didn’t feel this sort of connection I feel with you. Like we’re on the same wave length or something, like your chakra connects directly to mine or something... Do you see where I’m coming from, or have I jumped off the deep end?
Perhaps all these things I’m writing and feeling right now are a direct result of the unfortunate events in my relationship... Because I’m scared of losing my relationship with him, perhaps that is turning into general fear of loss? That would make sense. So perhaps that’s why I feel this urgent compelling feeling that is telling me I need to meet you now, like if I didn’t, you’d disappear. Or perhaps it’s because I always felt like Crusifer was the only other person really like me, but I have this suspicion you might be “like me” too, which would mean that perhaps I don’t have to cling so tightly to his existence to prove that I have a right to be and feel how I am.
It’s certainly not a magical place here. It’s just that there is so much variety. That’s what makes this place special to some people. Those who move away and come back say there is something pulling them here that they can’t escape, and usually they can’t explain what it is. Perhaps it’s just that other places seem to uniform by comparison. Buffalo is like a myriad of different opinions, races, cultures and ideas all mushed together in a several mile radius.
Angel writes me:
Hey Atara,
I know that I wrote you an e-mail but I have something on my mind and I just feel like I can tell you anything... So, you know that my ex asked me for another chance?? I feel stupid for even thinking about it.... I don't know why I am considering it. I know what homeboy did was wrong but yet it's like I cannot bring myself to accept that.... He talks about how he changed and that he's a different person. I don't believe him... This e-mail is pointless but... I just need to vent. I don't know, can you tell me not to go back to him? I know that sounds strange but it's like you're the only person who I'll listen to or something....... I know that I won't go back to him but it's my thoughts that think differently. He won't change right? Once a cheater, always a cheater... That's what my friend told me.... He makes me hate myself......... I just feel plain stupid and ......... like i'm paranoid or something :/
I write Angel:
Angel,
Did you know I cheated before? I think it’s different for men, but then again, it also depends on the man. And generally, no, people don’t change much. But they do change in some ways.
For one thing, if he makes you hate yourself, then that’s not love. Loving someone makes you love yourself and everyone much more than you normally would if you were not in love. And there is no point in going to an ex you’ve already been with unless you truly believe that you love them and that they love you.
However, sometimes giving things another shot can help align your feelings. Right now, you’re not sure, but if you “gave him another chance” for like a week or so, he’d either hurt you again and you’d be much more sure of your conviction that he’s an ex for a reason, or you’d discover that he’d change. I think that the key here is not to put your heart in the hands that have crushed it before, unless of course, you’re completely convinced that those hands have genuinely changed.
Another trick in all of this is how much someone has really changed. Their perspective might change without really changing their actions. For example, he might decide that you’re a great girl and that he really would like to be with you. In his mind, that may very well be the truth. However, that might not keep him from cheating on you, because perhaps he doesn’t understand deeply enough that you don’t cheat on someone you’re trying to be serious with. It’s possible he has self control issues. Simply deciding that he’s sorry and that like does want you after all would not change his self control issues, or his judgement issues, or whatever issues he may or may not have.
It’s hard to accept that someone you were obsessed with, or in love with wasn’t as crazy about you as you were about them. It’s even harder to accept when they talk as though they are just as crazy about you but then act in ways you know someone who loved you wouldn’t act. That’s what I’m going through right now. Crusifer tells me he’s nuts about me and that I’m very important to him, and yet he doesn’t call me when he goes out late, and sometimes he ignores me when I cry. Does that sound like someone who is nuts about me? He’s in constant contradiction... I don’t know what to do because I’m so in love that detaching myself is more painful than living with the problems we have. It’s a difficult situation, and it’s also a paradox.
You see, if I held back from loving Crusifer then he would feel me holding back, so he would hold back, and if we both hold back we won’t stay in love very long if at all and we’ll break up. If I don’t hold back anything and throw myself completely into the relationship and invest all of time, energy and other resources on expressing and maintaining my love for him then I’ll be brutally wounded if he leaves me or shows that he doesn’t feel the same way. That’s the paradox we’re in. He’s afraid to throw everything in, and I resent him for not throwing in everything when I have. I resent him holding back from me.
The chances are that this boy you were with will never give you a good relationship. Even if he’s capable of giving you a good relationship, he probably won’t anyway, at least not for you. If he was willing to hurt you like that before then that shows a lack of compassion and respect for you as a person and as a soul. For him to act like a different man he has to have that respect and compassion and love for you, and because he hasn’t in the past, he probably won’t in the future. The only real flipside is that trying things out is the only way to sort out how you really feel sometimes. If you need to be sure, try it out for a while.
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