Heartstrings

Heartstrings,

They’re pesky things

Thrusting you to extremes 

Once attached, 

It can become a wrestling match

Between your head & heartstrings

Pinball Thoughts & Shattered Dreams

The past 10 days have been like a tug of war between my head & heart. Since the revelations of last week my mind has been incessantly hyperactive & it’s taking everything about me not to spin out of control. Every attempt to steer my mind away from K has been futile & I find myself consumed. 

On Saturday night I decided to put pen to paper, literally, & wrote to him. I had no idea if I was going to send it but I knew I had to try & reach out to him & didn’t feel text was appropriate. I wrote without stopping or thinking about it too much; everything coming from the heart. I explained how worried & concerned I am about him & his choices, & how confused I am about what is going on between us. I tried to remind him of where he was when we met & the things he told me in relation to his lifestyle & wanting to leave that behind him, knowing how important it was to him & struggling to accept that it had all gone by the wayside. 

I read it & reread what I had written, deciding to add a bit more to clarify my intention behind the letter & sent it. I figured I wasn’t going to be able to stop the internal tug of war unless I did something about it. Thankfully he responded & took the letter & my concern as it was intended, & said he too had been doing some serious thinking after the weekend just gone. However, he also confirmed that he cannot be in a relationship right now, with me or anyone else, due to his need to sort himself out. 

I am thankful for his honesty & that he has been able to recognise things for himself although I can’t deny I’m not saddened by his response also. Nonetheless, it has only slightly calmed my mind. One minute I feel content & secure, & the next doubts of all kinds are skipping through like a tumultuous brass band. I go from believing in myself & my capabilities, being on my own & time being the only thing between K & I, to wondering how to start again & feeling like a failure, convinced K has already moved on & he is now just trying to distance himself in the easiest of ways. Then I feel guilty about disbelieving him, which is when my mind kicks in with reasons for the scepticism & the need to move on. I start to feel like I can do this. But then it backtracks & contemplates the possibility that I am reading into everything too much & it’s just a matter of time making me feel I need to just move on in the sense of my life but not my heart. And we’re back to square one ready to start the cycle again. 

I’ve asked everything I have about the direction I should go, the direction our relationship is & will go, if he still loves me & if he’s interested in someone else. I have set my intentions & wishes alight, & have read every planetary influence possible. Yet I have now got to the point where I don’t know what I’m being told, whether I am reading only what I want out of it all & the trust in my ability is faltering. I feel like I’m bouncing from one extreme to another being flicked like a pinball from side to side. 

Failing Life

I feel like a failure & I’m struggling to work through the pain. My mind has completely spiralled into overdrive since the weekend & it’s eaten away at everything I had gained over the last month. The feeling of isolation & abandonment that followed Saturday has left me wondering where I went so wrong. The other night I tried to take my mind off things by listening to podcasts but 2 out of 3 brought up being pregnant, miscarriages & babies; that was it, I was in pieces. Thoughts spinning round my head, spiralling out of control all week. 

October 2015 I found out I was pregnant. I was terrified. We were both terrified. Neither of us were ready, we’d only been together for a matter of months. I had always said I’d have a child when I was 30, but needed to quit smoking. I needed to sort myself out physically & mentally. I’d just pulled myself up from rock bottom & was trying to rebuild my life. I booked in for a termination which we both agree on & as much as I was dreading the ordeal, I knew it was the right thing to do. As it turned out nature intervened & I had a miscarriage. It was the most confusing feeling; the outcome was what I wanted but I felt like it had been taken out of my control – just like everything else in my life. The experience was awful & I felt so alone. I didn’t have anyone I felt I could turn to who would understand or that I wanted to know. K didn’t understand & as far as he was concerned it was what we both wanted, just not how we’d planned. But the pain, both physically & emotionally was soul destroying. He sent me a number of beautiful messages which gave me hope for our future & I tried to move on as best I could, being strong & putting on a brave front. I honoured the little bean by planting it with a beautiful plant K had bought me, which still sits in the kitchen today. I’m hoping one day it will flower again…

Following that I knew I needed to sort out some more reliable contraception; I clearly couldn’t be trusted with the pill but I’d had an awful time on the implant before so I was a bit lost. I had a consultation with the nurse to discuss my options but because I smoked, am underweight & over 30 my options were limited. I opted for the pill & planned to ensure measures were in place so I couldn’t forget. I had to wait to start them though following my next period. I had a premonition that I was going to have another failed pregnancy & started to try & read my palms, which seemed to confirm what I visioned. Fuck a duck, I fell pregnant again before I got chance to start the pill again!! This time though I was considering keeping it; wondering if it was my time, if it was meant to be. Suddenly I was not ok with a termination but K was still very much in the same mindset as before. I had taken the view that if I miscarried then it wasn’t meant to be but I didn’t, & don’t, want to be an old mom & although didn’t feel ready, I was scared I was waving my chances goodbye. K however spoke a lot of sense & I knew deep down he was right. 6th April 2016 was when I left the clinic feeling violated & empty. I couldn’t explain my grief & tried to put on a brave face again. 

The love I felt for K just grew stronger but things seemed to get harder & harder between us. The wedge was becoming insurmountable & I was starting to feel lost. It felt like both times had been forgotten about, brushed under the rug to be out of sight & out of mind. It wasn’t like I wanted to dwell or always talk about it or bring it up, but there didn’t seem to be anything. All I had was my little plant, & a little teddy bear charm necklace I had bought to put round the pot for our second little bean. I was feeling hurt & so lost, & it was starting to take over me. K didn’t seem to understand or appear to be that effected by any of it though & appeared to be confused when I got upset about the news that his brother & girlfriend were having a baby. Admittedly months had passed since that day in April but because it had all been, what felt like, brushed under the carpet, it was all still very raw for me. I didn’t want to hear about it but then I felt guilty feeling that way towards the brother of the person I loved so deeply. He seemed to happy at the news of becoming an uncle & I found it hard to sit with the overriding feelings of jealousy & inadequacy. Now I have missed out on being there for them during the pregnancy & will miss out on being a part of the little bean’s life. And it hurts. 

I tried to explain to K why I felt the way I did, but it was hard to put in to words without sounding anything but a selfish pity party. I wanted him to know how much I loved him & wanted his children, but the responses I was getting weren’t giving me any of the hope I once had for our future; they weren’t giving me any hope at all. Especially when he would retort that “people change”. I know we all change, move forward & grow, but to go from such positive certainty to now nothing – I struggle to understand, & see anything but failure. Also, with the lack of hope or anything going for me other than a demanding job now, I am struggling to do anything about my smoking & yet I know I need to, & deep down want to ready for when the day comes that I am graced with a little bean to nurture with the person I love, who loves me & our little bean too. 

Just another thing I’m failing at in life; willpower or motivation. 

Love Conquers All

I’m so confused. I have no idea what to think or feel anymore. A large part of me is still very much attached to K yet there is a part of me full of doubt which is telling me he has moved on & it is time I did too. Last time we saw each other he said he found it hard to say goodbye but communication has been so sporadic since I’m not sure if that would still be the case. I feel kept at arms length & completely excluding from his life & his achievements, & thinking about things he has said in the past about me preventing him from pursuing or undertaking such projects is still deeply insulting as I have always been so supportive & enthusiastic of him doing them. I feel hurt that I have missed everything he has been working on & not been able to celebrate his achievements with him. Having watched his progress on various projects to now nothing. I understand I was abroad during his presentation which I had struggled with but to now know he had his film score premiered yesterday, & that I will probably never get to experience it now, is like a blow to the gut. His artistic creativity is one of the things I loved about him & being able to see him perform or otherwise filled me with pride & admiration for him. It makes me feel like he has well & truly moved on by not wanting me to be around any of his work. 

I feel completely torn between love & inadequacy, knowing I could never face his friends & things would never return to how they were. Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to go back to the past; I want to move forward, but knowing what we had together makes me want to move forward with him. However, I am not sure that is even possible now. Too much mud has been slung, too deep a gorge has been dug out between us, & I’m not sure how a bridge could be built. I would get all the backhoes & diggers I could find if I knew it would work but I’m not sure a caterpillar would cut it. 

When I was with my sister I felt like I was coming round to the idea of saying goodbye but the day after I verbalised that I could not get him out of my head & haven’t been able to since; & it is more prominent since I have been back & we have been messaging to meet up. Unfortunately I had to come home from work today due to catching the plane lurgie so hopefully we will meet up tomorrow; always looking forward to tomorrow. I wish he would tell me how he feels about ‘us’ so I know. The uncertainty is destroying me. It’s not helping with my phone reminding me of the dates we met & got together, knowing it was 2 years ago Monday just gone that we started to get to know each other – the day that sparked our relationship & I can’t do anything about it other than feel down about where we are now. I want to celebrate us, showering him in love & gratitude for being who he is & allowing me to be part of his life, but it feels inappropriate now. Is it? 

I have made my feelings for him clear; he knows I love him – all of him – through the numerous cards, letters & texts I have sent, even as recent as last month, & they still ring true today yet I have no idea how he feels about me anymore. Am I holding on to hope? Is the love he once held for me lost? Am I preventing myself from moving forward by hanging on to something that is no longer viable? Am I torturing myself by wishing for something that will never be? They say love conquers all but at the moment I just hurt & feel like I am sinking rather than conquering

Emergency Brake

Dear Operator

Please could you locate & activate the emergency brakes on this rollercoaster. I’ve had enough & want to get off. I’m fed up of being swung from one extreme to another & it is simply too overwhelming. I have never been a fan & I don’t know why I tortured myself getting on. The last one was bad enough but I think the adrenaline messed with my head & I thought I’d be ok….

Please can we stop this ride? I’ll stick to the swings from now on; lesson learned