Giving birth has kicked my moods into high gear. Depression isn’t just about walking around in a black cloud; it’s the physical heaviness, nausea, and exhaustion that become a black cloud within you. I am the black cloud.
I felt betrayed yesterday because Noah said he would take Mattie to his house on Sunday, just the two of them. When he arrived, he’d changed his mind and was going to church with Cherie. If he can’t be a dad without his girlfriend’s help, then his time with Mattie will be limited.
I am tired of being nice, of trying to not admit my rage. I will not have him play happy little family with Mattie and Cherie. What both he and Cherie put me through when I was pregnant with Mattie has not led me to be generous and loving toward them. If my rage includes payback, then that’s the way it is. I will no longer subject myself to his verbal abuse, his pretending with Cherie, his parading around with Mattie, as if he is some type of New Age sensitive guy.
God grant me the ability to forgive, to love, to let go, to grow. I am my own prison. I am my own pain. Why do I still believe there is someone out there who will love me, understand me instantly, someone who will see beyond the surface parts of me, someone who will trust what I say and tell me the very truth without hiding? I hide. I confuse. I get attached to surface. Is it possible to love without fear and have someone love me in return without fear? I want to forge ahead in my life with what I want to do.
I spoke to Glenn tonight. She asked me: “What is it that you want for yourself?”
It is courage, humor, flexibility, patience, love, faith, honesty, generosity. Maybe I just haven’t been alone long enough. I need to take care of myself. I need to stop throwing myself into the pain and then wonder why I hurt. I need to take things slowly. I want to know that I can count on myself and trust my own judgment. I feel like I’m getting there, but I’m scared that I will slip back.
I am writing tonight from Glennie’s place. I told Noah over the telephone that I didn’t want him coming to my house anymore. I really did it! I was scared to do it. I feel guilty, but I did it. Here in New York, I have found an enormous relief being away from him and Cherie. I am grateful that I have finally given myself permission to say “NO” to him. I need to protect myself from him and my feelings of love toward him. Just because I wasn’t protected as a child doesn’t mean that I can’t do something to protect myself now.
It is 12:30 a.m. and I am letting Mattie cry herself to sleep in Glennie’s cottage. It is nearly Christmas and I feel very cruel and sad, but I do need her to put herself to sleep. I’ve been feeling very brain-dead from sleep deprivation and I know that she needs to learn to deal with this by herself. It has been almost twenty minutes of crying.
To be here in Glennie’s place is a piece of heaven, sanctuary without any men around. I am sitting here staring into the flames that have now died in the fireplace and thinking about my request to have Noah stay away from Mattie and me for now. I am nervous that he won’t respect my request and I will acquiesce. I become sad very easily and quickly when Noah is in my house. I wish I didn’t have to go home. Bozeman feels like a burden to me right now. I feel empty inside when I’m in Bozeman.
A poem about Noah.
I hear her soft breathing
And know her small face is lying next to mine
In the dark.
And I think of you and how she
Resembles you and how she
Is an explosion of us
And I think how I’d like to reach across her
To find you there
And play out my passion for her
By touching you
By feeling you inside me like I did when we made her
And I’m glad I can admit to loving that part of her again
The part that is you
Even if we don’t listen to the sound of her soft breathing
In the dark
At the same time.
Ever.
I have written a letter to Cherie. “My wish for the coming year is that the pain will dull, that the lessons learned in 1992 will settle themselves comfortably in the folds of my heart, and I will be able to accept you living with Noah without fear of me—this is sent to you with the glimmer of light in my darkness.”
My goal for myself is to face my fears, to stand up for myself, to protect myself, to love myself, to love my children, and to love life. I need to move on. I need to let go of Noah and my dream of us as family. I love my family. My family is my children and me. We are four and we love and have fun and feel complete when we are together.
I don’t need a man to feel this way.
Noah no longer haunts my heart. I am in love with a writer and it feels warm and right. I wanted him from the first minute when I saw him, which was a year ago, when the first full moon was out. With him my life is full. He has promised to leave his wife. I tell myself I can wait for him to get a divorce. I need strength. I feel as if I am pedaling just to keep my head above the blackness. He is the light drawing me out.
I know how difficult it is to leave a family. I have done it. I left Tom and it has taken me two years to no longer feel guilty.
If he loves me, he will do this for me now.
I am angry. “Quality men” is a contradiction in terms. I need to protect my heart from now on. I need to be satisfied with me and mine, and not indulge in flirtation. There’s no one around here in Bozeman who I would flirt with anyway. There is only a huge group of very mediocre men or maybe men as a group are inherently mediocre.
Tom is staying in my house tonight to see the boys. I feel guilty about our marriage not working out. I feel guilty about me and how I hurt him, and it doesn’t seem to matter how much he hurt me. I remember when my dad was away from me as a child. I didn’t love or know my dad the way that Calen and Sander know and love their dad, and now he is not with them. It hurts them.
I’m scared. I’m scared that I am a bad mom. I am scared that I scream too much, that I won’t listen to my boys, that I will want to hit them when they are rude. Why am I like this??? Why does life have to be so damn difficult? Why do relationships have to be so hard? I want another adult here to help me, to balance my life, to be my partner. The stress on me is not a myth. I want someone who I love to actually love me.
I feel defeated, like crying, like giving up. Calen can be so cruel. I was sad and too tired to go to the market tonight and he got angry. He whines if he doesn’t get his way. He says insulting things. I feel I simply can’t ignore him. I cannot not react. I feel like I can’t live like this. This little man in my house trying to boss me around and not obeying what I say.
Sometimes I hate all males, no matter what age. They think you are their slaves. I can’t handle a relationship right now with anyone. Just leave me alone. Maybe Calen will have to live with Tom in Utah because I won’t have him constantly being rude to me.
How can I write that? I love Calen so much. Why do we have to go through this? What am I doing that causes him to be so cruel? What do I do when he is so wonderful, which is more than half of the time? I feel that he is a time bomb ready to go off any minute.
I am ending it. I was stupid to get involved with a married man, the writer. Why do I do this to myself? Why did I do it to him? It isn’t working. I am not waiting for him any longer. I am tired of being the one who has to wait.
He came to the Leaf & Bean today to tell me that he is leaving his wife.
Now what?
I have been lying to myself for so long. I need to find myself. I need to know who I am before I can truly love someone else. I need to love myself first if I want someone to love me. I began drinking and began getting involved with men on my 15th summer and drinking and men have been inexplicably intertwined ever since. I still can’t handle either. They are a deadly mix, so deadly that they make me want to die.
1. Men
2. Failure
3. Want to die
4. Drink to not feel
It is a destructive pyramid, a wheel with me in the center keeping it spinning. I keep praying to be free of my obsessions with men. I need to release myself from the bondage that is me.
I wanted my dad to love me but don’t know how to make him. Getting men is easy. Simply spread my legs. Sex seemed to be proof of love. I seduced them so I could reject them to punish myself and to punish them. Why?
Now I have a daughter. How will I protect her from them? How will I protect her from my own self-destructive behavior?
I feel so alone. I feel unloved and unlovable.
I want to die.