Comments should be fixed now!

I apologize for the inconvenience.

On a side note, I am in the running for a professional blogging job. I will keep you all posted.

Risen from the dead

I'm not dead yet! Despite the silence to the contrary.

I needed to retreat into myself. Writing forces too much self-confrontation, this blog was a mirror from which I needed a rest. I actually started doing much better after that last post. My new medication was raised to a level that finally seemed to work. The never-ending obsessions in my mind quieted and then disappeared. So I came back to NY and back to teaching. Which frightened me.

Anyway, I've been back in my little apartment in Jersey since late January. I didn't have internet at my house until 2 weeks ago. I didn't think blogging anonymously about my love life was a good idea at work. And I still felt like my footing on the ground was tenuous, liable to slip back into madness at any moment. So I kept things in my life as simple as possible.

Turns out, I have some sort of unholy combination of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder-Depression-and ADD!! What fun for me! This explains why the depression would never go away, why I tried to kill myself ten years ago to get my head to shut up, and why I felt so unstable and crazy after I went off my meds last year. Good to know.

I have new dating stories and new observations, if any one out there is still interested. I'll try to start blogging regularly again. But I can't make any promises.

Remember the movie "Never-ending Story"? The scene at the end when the hero has to face the mirror that shows you as you truly are, this was supposed to be the most difficult challenge of them all, and it never made sense to me as a child. I watched that movie over and over, and always puzzled about that stupid mirror. Big deal, you see yourself as you really are... how hard can that be?

Now I know. It is devastating. Once you get enough years under your belt, have lived long enough to have regrets and memories you thought you'd forgotten, then being forced to remember and see all your flaws is one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. This was what I was obsessed with, every mistake I ever made. It still comes back now, but only when life makes me unbalanced or stressed. And the noise isn't as loud as it used to be.

It killed my heart and my soul. So I am rebuilding. Rising from that death. Hopefully.

my own private idaho

What a deliciously, perfect expressive phrase. My own private idaho. It evokes the solitary valleys and caverns of grief, the resounding echoes of the punishing thoughts that the mourner suffers. My own private Idaho.

Remember George? (of Tainted Love fame). I never mourned that loss, I got no closure. Despite the poetic turn of events, I never knew what happened to him, to us, or my ridiculous fantasies of a future together. After months of therapy about everything else in my past, I suddenly discovered the reason I stopped loving my work. I blamed my schoolwork for losing George. If I had never left to come to NY, then it would have been me he married. My ambition damned me to this fate. Such is the way the infantile unconscious mind thinks. I had no idea.

Closure, the therapist said. I had to tell him my feelings for him, because I never did. She promised I would heal. So I agreed to do it, not knowing the torrent of pain and emotion that would avalanche. Not realizing how much I had stored away, how the grief would feel like I lost him yesterday instead of 3 years ago.

He has a webpage. With pictures. You can send messages. I found it two weeks ago. I sent a 'hello' email first. He replied two hours later and sounded excited to hear from me, and not so excited about his life. I spent a week working on my email, THE EMAIL. I sent it last night around 2 am. I said I was sorry I never told him I was in love with him back then, that I knew it didn't matter anymore, but this email was therapy for myself. I also wrote a lot of other things. He replied at 6 am.

All day I was freaked out knowing the message waited for me at home. I couldn't read it at work because I didn't want to cry. His last email was so sweet and sad it made me sob for hours. All day I tried to prepare myself for whatever he might say. Tried to imagine the worst possible words so there would be no surprises.

Yet he surprised me anyway. Just a line saying he would reply later. Another sign of his considerate and kind nature, letting me know he got it and that he would respond in due time.

His wife has a page too, also with pictures. They have been married for three years. They have a whole life, a house, a dog, and married couple friends. And I? I am the Cheese. It makes me so sad and angry and ashamed for my covetous feelings.

Now I must wait. Wait for him to release me, to tell me the words I need to hear; whether they be that he fell madly in love with her and is deleriously happy or that he has struggled but believes in his commitments, that he is sorry I went through this, that he never knew I felt this way or that he did know I felt that way... whatever they may be, it will be a relief to know.

I lie in wait, curled in bed, crying off and on.

My own private idaho.

Tonight's Top Ten: Signs that you've given up on your lovelife

10. You don't bother making the obligatory scope-out visit to the singles ward in your parent's city. (It's a spanish speaking branch anyway.)

9. You have no interest whatsoever in your sibling's single friends. You don't even try to flirt with them when they call on the phone.

8. Parts of your body that used to look fine now jiggle. And you don't care.

7. Because it is so darn hot here, you actually wear tanktops and capsleeve shirts outside the house. Despite your knowledge that your forearms are so unattractive they turn off any man who isn't blind.

6. Rather than preparing to make yourself cute before going to the beach, you try to get used to the fact that no one will see you as a babe-- to prevent disappointment when all the men ignore you. (This is South Beach we're talking about, only supermodels and latinas with perfect bodies turn heads. The rest of us look like toads.)

5. On Friday night, for fun, you go to the store to return the shoes you bought that morning and exchange them for the shoes you bought last week but returned two days ago.

4. While making that trip to the store, you wear black knit stretchy pants covered in white cat fur.

3. Then you rush home from the store so you don't miss the beginning of the movie your brother checked out from the library.

2. Afterwards, you're grateful when you're newlywed sister calls to tell you about her burgeoning sexlife because it breaks up your monotonous evening.

1. You're actually shameless enough to call your ex-boyfriend at 10 pm Friday night (letting him know you have no life) AND then leave him a message!! (confirming you have no life and the call wasn't an accident).

1A. In the message you say: "I hope you're out doing groovy single guy stuff."

AND the real #1 sign that you've given up on your lovelife:
You actually meant it.