I write less because I have more people to talk to? Or more courage to talk to people? The problem is I still just need the outlet to undo things. I have things that just need undone and the only way is to see it not just say it to another. Sometimes I wish my therapist and I were just pen pals. I had someone I used to write to. He feels no longer there. Except he is. I don’t even know if he got my letters. There is more to life than one single person. For years that was all I knew. One man. Not that I needed many or more but I needed many and more of everything but just one man. I was consumed with one person as he made it so I consumed him. It snuck up on me. I was just somehow made to feel I had to take care of his every thing. And none of my things. Learning who I am again I can see how someone could see this in me. The desire to take care of everything but me. It’s easy. I prefer hard. So I chose me now.
I remember my years of online dating. Actually it was a year and a single month or two during that year. It was a nightmare. How and why people think this is a way to meet people will never be understood by me. It feels like fighting the universe in a way. Is the universe online? Can that same stardust like feeling of meeting someone who you didn’t expect be found through the lines of the web? Is the web connected to the universe or is it a disconnect?
Is that something bigger out there feeling confusion of all the people trying to manipulate plans they have no control over? Isn’t that what we always do? Is it human nature to control an outcome?
I was not excepting to find a friend right now. It gravitated to me. Somehow. I didn’t try. I didn’t look. I walked right into it. Five years ago I would have walked right past it, not seeing it. Or walked right around it. Avoiding. This smacked right into me. A surprise. A don’t like surprise. It’s too surprising. But also it’s exciting. It’s both.
I did meet one single person online who has impacted me in ways I can barely understand. I call him river west. Actually he calls himself this. Maybe not to others but to me it’s who he is. Like me, he is Geographically misplaced. He belongs in another place. He taught me that I can love myself. That I am never alone. That I can guide myself. That I can get somewhere. To be honest it was like my dad put him here for me. For when he is gone. A man with simple words and a complex mind. Like my dad. One single word to assure me. It’s good. I will never understand the dynamic of this strange relationship. No one will. I quit trying to. It is like so many other things. It’s not to be understood just felt and accepted.
The first time I met him I could feel his pain. That’s who I am. I feel others. That’s why I can’t do online. I can’t feel through it. I could sense his lost. His pain. His feeling of broken. He touched me and that was it. I felt connected to him forever. That’s sounds so dramatic. But right then I knew. He will be my someone. Not my everything like I was always made to feel but that someone.
The first time I told him I was planning to backpack across Isle Royale he said. Do it! That’s it. So I did. Then I kept doing this. He seemed to think it was my calling. I seemed to agree. It really is. He never doubted me or told me not to. He has his own misery he deals with. I don’t even have to know it to know it. He deals with it.
I wish he could physically be here with me through the loss of my dad. He isn’t. I have others. That’s how it should be. He is there though. I’m one of those people that can feel things others can’t see. Except God. I can’t feel God. I mostly feel relief that others can. Since I can’t.
I want to. But I can’t. I feel something. And it’s bigger than me but I can’t give it a name. My science pulls and tugs at the thoughts of evolution and layers of the earth made. But made by what and who? I’m too sciency. I need the how’s and why’s of what is. If I close my eyes and just believe I can believe by just believing for a few minutes. Than I wonder about it. It takes about 2 minutes before I need to know why. I pull at this thread daily. I don’t even know why. I have a full feeling of not having control in this crazy life yet feel like I need to know who does. Or what does.
It’s tangled today with my new friends. I know this is what is normal. To have friends. To be able to lean on others and to have family. Half my life I didn’t have this. The other half my life I was just older than a child.
I have thousands of questions this morning. My chest hurts. It’s heavy with unanswereds. I can get a deep breath but barely. I have slept for 3 nights. Odd for me.
I am weak and vulnerable yet also not because I am aware I am weak and vulnerable. I have to lay really hard boundaries right now. Not my thing. I like to avoid them and push them. Not make them. I like them layer out by others. Not for me to lay out to them. But I did. I said I liked my space. And it didn’t even phase. I said I’m protective and it was agreed I should be. Weird.
Back to the something bigger. River west. He was put into my orbit to help me be able to guide myself. By imagining he is guiding me. When I feel guidless. I believe that if we hadn’t met online we would have met somehow someday on the ground. In person. We would cross paths somehow. But we already have. We will cross again someday. When I quit trying to make us. I tried for several years. Exhausted. Confused. I didn’t know how this worked. That you could meet other people while meeting other people. I thought you met a person and that was enough. I would never be enough for one single person and me for them. I am just enough for me.
This is hard. Losing my dad. It’s not going to be the hardest thing I ever deal with though. It’s not the loss that is hard. It’s the void it left. The void I am carefully filling with others. But it was time. I have been other less for so long while I found myself again. Remembered who I was before someone told me who I should be. It’s the void it has left in my mom. Her loss is what I feel. I felt relief. For my dad. Then for me. I’ve worried all my life my dad would die. Because I knew he would. We do. He did. Now my mom is alone. She thinks. I have to help her see she is not.
I feel 21. I attract younger people because of this. People who can keep up with me. People who are still finding out what kind of eggs they like to. People who want to try lobster. People who will walk miles to discover who they are while I discover who I once was. While the universe goes on with it’s something bigger than me taking care of me while I let go of needing to know what is bigger than me taking care of me in the universe. It’s just there.
Aspenleaf 