Day # 5 of the Carlos Fast

I don't even care at this point if I seem like a wimp; I am seriously annoyed, frustrated, and anxious in the wake of Carlos being gone. It is day 5. I have 4 more to go. I consider this my "hump" day. It's not the separation that is the problem; it's the absolute lack of contact. I don't know if he is okay; what his trip is like; what kind of fun or sadness he is experiencing. Does he even miss ME?

I said this before, but I will say it again: this feels the same way that it does when someone dies. Just GONE. All I see is the last glimpse of him as my Air Train pulled me away from him in the terminal... It's all I have left right now.

I know I am moaning about this in my journal here, but I am keeping myself in check in my daily life. I occasionally comment playfully that I miss Carlos, and some of my friends definitely see a distance in me, but for the most part, I am just walking through the day managing my emotions like a big boy.

Some people think it's a sign of weakness to be attached to someone like this, but I totally disagree. It takes strength to crave and to love this much. It's way easier to act like you don't care; or to genuinely not care at all. When you CARE, when you allow a part of you to BE WITH/IN another person, then you FEEL that taffy-like pull when you are apart.

I do think there is a balance that is possible. For instance, it's possible to develop that kind of attachment and to feel that pull of distance without it feeling painful. I think the key is TRUST.

I don't have that in me very often. I don't trust people very freely. I especially don't trust my most intimate circle of friends, and ESPECIALLY don't trust a boyfriend. Those statements may seem odd or even bewildering, coming from me; particularly if you are one of my good friends or a boyfriend, but I'm not talking about the daily, easy kind of trust. I DO trust my friends and my boyfriend. I always choose to trust, even when I am afraid, but I am talking about the deep, deep sense of safety that is timeless and unthreatened. I am always assuming I will eventually be rejected, replaced, or outgrown, so I only allow myself to get pressed all the way up against the circle of trust,... and then I just STOP.

I have never passed into the peace I know is possible on the outside of that circle.

Never.

People keep saying, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Bullshit. It makes my heart struggle against numbness. This reminds me of Bjork's song, UNRAVEL:

UNRAVEL
while you are away
my heart comes undone
slowly unravels
in a ball of yarn

the devil collects it
with a grin
our love
in a ball of yarn

he'll never return it

so when you come back
we'll have to make new love

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In order for me to be "mature" and not seem like a blathering loser, I have to exist at two levels during Carlos' absence. I honor (if you can call it that) the "lower level" of me that believes Carlos doesn't care enough to find a way to contact me and I let that part of me run a bit rampant with horrible, worse-case scenarios of his cheating on me, realizing he doesn't really want to be my boyfriend, and the only anxiety he feels is in how he is going to break the news to me when he returns. Yeah, I go that far in my worse-case visions. On Starting Over (God, I LOVE that show! Now that's Old Soul television) they call it "awful-izing." On the other hand, I do consciously make an effort to exist on the "higher level" of myself, which is the part of me who is practicing trust, keeping things in perspective, not "awful-izing", knows that if Carlos could reach me, he would, knows that Carlos hasn't any intentions of rejecting or dissin' me, and that my reaction to his absence is based on my history, not my present.

So there's this strange, gentle battle inside of me that is the battle between aliveness/trust versus numbness/apathy. In order for me to remain in check, I have to either honor my fears and feelings, let them out, surface, examine them, and then heal them, or I have to numb myself. Numbness makes people much more comfortable and gains acceptance so much faster than honoring my feelings. It's very tempting to just say, Fuck It, accept defeat, and expect the worse, but tell no one of this resignation. Then it would be my dirty secret that I have succumbed to the fact that I am terribly unlovable and that in the end I will just be rejected again. I would look "strong", no one would have to listen to me whine, and everyone would be superficially happy without my being inconvenient.

But then... I don't work like that.

I WANT to grow. I want to Love. I WANT to trust. I'm not giving in. It's very hard for me to protect other people from the truth of themselves; it's kind of what I do for a living. So it makes no sense for me to be ignorant to my own truths. I am wounded. It sucks, but it's true. So what. Who isn't. It's not fair to Carlos, my friends, or myself to numb myself to my history, to my healing.

In the short time I have dated Carlos, some little issues have surfaced that I know I was close to having completely resolved before I met him. The dynamic we share has allowed me to experience the resurfacing of those wounds and experience closure; a final healing. I can just feel I was DONE with them.

I believe I am experiencing this again. In my experience of Carlos' absence, I will have the opportunity to learn something different about my worth, about my ability to trust. I fuckin' hope I do, at least, because he leaves AGAIN for Rome a few weeks later!!!

D'oh!!

And on that note...

IMMATURE

how
could
i
be
so
immature

to
think
he
would
replace

the
missing
elements
in
me
?

how
extremely
lazy
of
me
!

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INTERESTING NOTE:

So Taren wrote me to inform me that since January 25th I have mentioned Carlos' name 39 times and her name only 3 times.

I will have to make it up to her with a few smacks on the ass and a dancing jackhammer to her mud flaps... that'll hush 'er up!