Not a play thing...

I'm usually very open and honest on this little blog of mine (I'm gonna make it shine). That's just how I roll, as the kids say. Do they still say that? I don't know. That's what is so good about swear words, they stay the same and never go out of style.

But lately I've been avoiding writing about one of the most major things in my life because I've been avoiding thinking about it. Today I came face to face with it and so I thought I may as well just get it all out. Oddly, I came to this point for one of the silliest reasons: dreaming about naked people. I've had two dreams in the last few nights that featured naked people. For once, it wasn't a dream with me jogging outdoors suddenly realizing that I am topless, which is usually what happens. This time the nudity involved the following:

1. A room full of naked men laying on a bed and naked women being brought in so that they could have sex for the sole purpose of breeding (this dream regarded a post-apocalyptic world where, for some reason, the human race was dying out and scientist had extracted something from aliens to make women more fertile; don't ask, I don't fucking know); and,
2. A naked, crazy, murderer who materialized when I pulled a sticker off a bar of soap and found I had won a contest (no idea what this was about).

My friend, when I told him about the dreams, said that I was dreaming about naked people because there was some feeling or thought that I didn't want to acknowledge or expose, I didn't want to expose my true feelings. He was joking, I think, but I realized that there is something I haven't been willing to face, and that is how quickly I seem to have gotten over J.

We were together for seven years, married for four, and have been separated for exactly two months. We haven't seen one another or spoken to one another for about a week and a half, not since the movie issue that came up on Labor Day and I pushed him away. And I don't miss him. I think about him frequently, but I don't miss him and I don't feel an absence in my life. When I do think about him, I think about how guilty I feel for what I've done to him, I hope that he is OK, and I hope that he is well. But I also hope that he is over me, that he has moved on. I don't care if he's moved on on his own or if he's met someone. I just want him to be happy, healthy, and doing OK without me.

That is an incredibly selfish desire because it would make me feel less guilty and selfish and awful. I want him to move on and be done with me so that I don't have to feel so awful for being OK without him. He is a great guy. He is brilliant, funny, loving, and sweet. He has so much going for him that he isn't even aware of and I'll never speak badly of him. But my feelings aren't there any more and I don't understand how that can be.

it isn't just that I feel guilty for hurting him, but I am disturbed by the way my feelings seem to have just shut down. Is it because I've been unhappy for the last couple of months? Because I've thought of leaving him since January, not knowing that this would really happen? How can you be with someone and love them intensely and completely for seven years only to have those feelings fade in two short months? Part of me assumes it is a coping mechanism, one that has been with me since I was very little and which allows me to adapt to new situations quickly and recover from grief and pain easily. But that can't be entirely it. Can I be this cold and selfish and terrible? When we first split, I was a mess, calling people and crying and talking at them, regardless of how well I knew them. All I could think about was J not wanting me and moving on whilst I was an emotional wreck. And yet here I am, doing perfectly fine whilst the last time I spoke to J, he was emotional and upset.

I don't have anyone new, that is something that I have mentioned here, that Johan is the only one in my life. I have friends who have been incredibly wonderful to me, but I'm not fucking someone else or cheating on J (and I would consider it cheating if I slept with a guy during my separation; oddly, I would not consider it the same if J did it, probably because I'm the one who asked him to leave). So it isn't that my heart belongs to someone else. I'm getting one of those 'key to my heart' lockets soon and I have every plan on wearing it and if asked, I'll explain that it is the key to my heart and it is around my neck, which means only I hold that key. J is the only one who has ever really had it and I feel so bad for having entrusted him with it only to tear it away from him.

I'm hoping that I'm being melodramatic and he has moved on but I cannot help but feel guilty for what I've done to him, even if he has. Because I have not been an easy person to love, nor to live with. I once read the snippet of a poem as follows (I'm afraid I do not know the author):

A heart is not a play thing,

A heart is not a toy,

But if you want it broken,

Just give it to a boy.

I love that and I think of it often. I just never knew that you could have your heart break for hurting someone else the way I have, when there was no infidelity, no lies, no horrible climactic moment that led to what I think is the demise of a marriage. But all I can think of is 'how could someone ever love me and entrust me with HIS heart?' I'm an awful person and I know all of my awful bits. I'm also really upfront about them, trying to warn others off. But then someone like J loves me anyway and I think it is going to be wonderful. And it is. Until I turn into a dick and I just push, push, push away. 

Part of me hears Kin Twin in my head, telling me that I'll go through a whole gamut of emotions and that this is to be expected. Not only am I separated, he likes to remind me, but I was diagnosed just a couple of weeks before the separation. So I think, maybe the shuttering of my feelings is just a necessary step so that I can reclaim myself and see J, myself, and us with a clear view. Maybe I'm not past it all. But in my heart, I really feel like it is over, and it breaks that heart. 

But I would still never invite my bestie into my apartment because he happens to be male and J doesn't trust him. I wouldn't invite him in for a drink or just to chat until after months had passed upon being officially divorced. Because J would find that disrespectful and, regardless of anything I feel about J, I have the utmost respect for him. I always have and always will. And I would never want him to think that I would do that to him. 

I know I've done nothing wrong. Yes, I have a lot of the blame for what happened regarding the bad bits of my marriage, but nothing unforgivable like cheating or even almost cheating. Never. But I have a tremendous amount of guilt as though I had done. I don't just feel bad for asking him to leave; I feel bad for inviting him into my life in the first place. Because if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have hurt him as I have.