The Long Road Out

So three years since my ex left. Unfortunately after a relative lull my desire to withdraw and my dislike for her is growing again. Too much wine? I wish this would stop. I'm back in the constant anxiety phase of revisiting particularly selfish or mean things she did. Things that hurt me at the time and still do. When I'm in this phase, my good energy is wasted and I'm ineffective. Classic sign: I double-scheduled dinner plans last night and missed a meeting. I've been napping more. This is me with PTSD symptoms. Hope this setback ends. It's an addiction to resentment. It's wasting my life, hating the one love I believed, again at the time, I had. Now I know better. It makes sense that it hurts, but I can't figure out why the healing is so slow and why I can't treat myself with love care and respect. I'm tired and I don't want to fall back any more.

I never played to win. When I ran marathons and 10k's I would finish in the top 9%. It never occurred to me that I would win anything, including my age group. My college soccer teams were generally mid-pack. I put all my love into a life partner who frequently ignored me. She never responded to my cries for help, and instead complained about me to whomever would believe her. I succeed in business, not as one of our 76 billionaires but in a way that produced value and normal income above half a million dollars a year, generally after tax. I work in a niche market very few people understand. I respect and like my employees and my customers, and they like my company. I will not appear on MSNBC or the WSJ. Now perhaps I'm selling my business in the future. It's valuable, well run, tech savvy, data driven, and we own our entire market. My leadership team is strong, without exception. We offer integrity and good governance. I can't name a high go-to...

My cats, this safe home, and no one I need to please after decades of trying every day, every minute. Just myself and my two soft furry companions in life. The rhythms of the day. The rhythms of music…last night U2 and "I still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Simple chords, yearning thoughts. I have new sheets. Smooth and warm as the nighttime temperatures drop regularly into the 30's. Purring next to my left ear. A sense that the darkest clouds of depression want to lift, to evaporate in the morning crystalline sun. They won't go—perhaps I can't let them go. They have been my daily companions for two years, thankfully reducing my anxiety. An irony that the black malady stops you. And that pause has a redemption—sleep keeps the dogs of trauma, always barking, away for short moments of near-ecstasy. I can forget those who hurt me when I love myself. I became broken on the watch of those who owed me protection, kindness, love, and ...

My marriage was probably falling apart anyway when my ex took off to take a masturbation class with Caroline, who was or soon became her girlfriend.  The separation wounded me badly.  Broadly speaking a spent a year living with PTSD, two years with depression, and the most recent year withdrawing from everything associated with that experience.   And we've had Trump in the meantime.  The first president of any country to not understand the difference between qualifications for the Nobel Peace Prize and a NYS indictment.  Why the same behavior would not qualify you for both, or neither, is a mystery only Don understands. I still think of my ex far too often.  I'm journaling this because it's four years old and I woke up this morning mad at her still.   (Note:  I'm on Zoloft and forgot to take it yesterday...my ex comes up far less when I take anti-depressants,) It's been a long haul, and there's no real light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm not...

It’s never good news when a message from your ex lands in your inbox,” says my therapist. I believe she’s right. Either the message, if read, will confirm dysfunctional tropes and patterns that made you sick. Or it won’t, expanding the original scope of damage.   I send my ex-wife $3854.16 in interest payments each and every month. We have no other communication but the last few months she's sent a pablum thank you note—"thanks and I hope you're enjoying Truckee" is her best effort to date. This month I faltered and responded with an update—my new cat, what I've learned about my depression, a few things I feel good about. Same old me. Expecting connection from a cinder block. The result is exactly the same as it's always been. Cinder blocks don't become roses, and neither are expressive. My bad. I'm old enough and strong enough to withstand the addictive desire to reclaim a past with her that never existed except in my fantasies. Please please d...