Tumblr Therapy – nothing sexy to see here

So some personal stuff, feel free to scroll past to something sexier (I’m pretty sure there are boobs just under this).

This is me documenting my thoughts (because I like looking back on them), and hopefully, getting some clarity for myself.

I’ve been struggling with what feels like heartache that just won’t die already. I mean holy fuck, what is the matter with me? It wasn’t like it was this huge grand affair, or I even touched his skin for fucks sake, not a single kiss… but something about who he is touched me in a way that I defies all logic. And I fell in love with him. I didn’t even realize it until it was over. I think about it now and just shake my head at the absurdity of it all – of me. But there is the bald, strange, naked truth of it.

If I wasn’t 48, and had the experiences that I have had, I’d tell myself to get a grip, and that falling in love like that is just not a thing, not possible. But it didn’t happen immediately – I thought he was cute, interesting and worth getting to know. After it was all over and I was left holding a bag of feelings, I had a strange surreal moment of “holy shit. I actually love this guy. What the fuck.”

If you’ve read anything about my life with Misty you’ll know I have an extremely rich and fabulous love life. Misty inspires me to be a better person every day and loves me like I have never been loved in my life – completely as I am, all the messy parts, all of my dreams and leaves me room to grow and change. Sure we have ups and downs, but how could I possibly want or need any more than that? Well I wasn’t looking AT ALL, I can tell you that right now. And so when he (heartbreaker/sweetboy) messaged me last year it was just a nice “Oh look, a cool person from tumblr!” and didn’t think anything of it, until I started to get to know him more.

And again, I feel like I need to stress that I’m not some shut-in that never meets people or is desperate for affection and attention. I’m not, I get plenty. And with Misty and I enjoying an open sex lifestyle I come into contact with lots of cool interesting people who have made it clear they do want something more with me and I’ve always said “no thank you.” – I simply was not interested in adding more people into my life. Misty was even encouraging me to go there, and still I said “no thank you”. Me opening myself up to a person like I did with him was unprecedented and completely unexpected.

So it was with a huge amount of surprise that I had to acknowledge those feelings. I talked about them with Misty, who sat there holding my hand as I explained how impossible it seemed and then told her all the reasons why I thought it was. S/he listened, saying nothing until I ended my explanation.

“Well Dolly, you know you. And you know love better than anyone I’ve ever known, you even taught me about it. So if that’s how you feel, that’s how you feel. But I hate to bring up the obvious here, and this is going to sound mean, but he doesn’t care about you. So what are you going to do with this love?” Misty said to me, tucking my hair behind my ear.

“I’ll love him as a friend.” I said. Fully confident that was going to work.

Narrator: That did not work.

Ultimately I was hoisted by my own petard. I wanted to…help him, show him how awesome he is, express how happy I was that he was in my life and… he didn’t want any of that. I was a Pain In The Ass™. And as much as I kept telling myself I could care from a distance I kept wanting him to want me back. Because tied into all the shmoopy love was also a big ol’ pile of lust too. It was driving me crazy that I couldn’t get rid of these feelings that kept trying to grab the wheel. In November they finally did, and I lost the friendship we had too. And that was the last time he spoke to me. It was all my fault. I think about that a lot.

I took a bit of a break from tumblr then, to try and get some perspective. It helped but I missed the community here. After being more active in the last year I had made new friends, and there was a part of me that felt like “I don’t want to get pushed out, I like it here. There is room enough for the two of us”.

I try not to post things or write about him because of how fucking lame it makes me look. But get a good look, because this is what lame looks like, missing someone who has moved on 10x over.

But I do miss him (chump). And it sucks because I am out of his life now – a stranger.

Tumblr is like a neighbourhood, sometimes I bump into him on my dash, like bumping into someone on the street, and of course I feel compelled to wave (like his post), like an idiot. For a while I was trying to flag him down, get his attention (liking and reblogging – as my kids would say “cringe”). He was polite, but now has crossed the street and is quickly walking in the other direction. And I don’t blame him one bit. If I had dumped someone and they were not getting the message “hey, I’m not into you, kindly fuck off.”, I would cut them off too and not speak to them. It’s odd that he still follows me, but I chalk that up to his politeness and that I simply do not affect him that much (forgettable). He unliked all the posts he had previously liked on my tumblr too. Ouch.

So now I’m trying to stay on my side of the street. I really do want him to be happy and enjoy his life. I keep having to remind myself that the best way to honor that is to leave him alone. Now when I see him on my dash I look at him for a moment and make a note of what’s on his mind and then get on with it. Some days are easier than others. And then there have been times when I liked something and it was his accidentally. Embarrassing.

I’ve been reading about this process of healing from the grief of losing someone. Trying to fix myself. And everything I have read, and all the advice from friends, has said it will take whatever amount of time it takes, everyone is different, so just keep busy and do things for yourself that make you feel good. Seems simple enough. Maybe my brain is just fucked because it doesn’t matter what I’m doing he pops into my thoughts. Maybe it was something he said, or something he would like, or would make him laugh or that I just wanted to share, but he has become an almost constant companion in my mind.

Scientifically speaking, I think it is interesting how I can still love and enjoy my time with Misty and my kids and my friends and still have this heartbreaker shaped hole in my life. Nothing fits in it. And I keep fiddling with the edges, trying not to wish I was someone he could have cared about too.

So I’m reading articles, listening to podcasts, and now reading a book, trying to find techniques to help myself. In the book I’m reading it suggests mdma assisted psychotherapy. I haven’t gotten to the part where it describes the experience in full, but it made me curious. Then I realized I actually know someone who does that sort of thing and I reached out to her. We shared a camp at burning man 2 years in a row. She’s a practicing psychotherapist in Colorado who specializes in clinical microdosing as well as relationships, so I shoot her a facebook message. I’ve got a meeting with her booked for this Friday, the 11th.

I don’t know if it will help, but I’m a doer and if I can try something I am damn well going to do it. In the meantime I’ll keep working on the things that “they” and friends suggest – go live my life – have fun. Love the shit out of Misty, my kids, and the people in my life who do want my love and affection. I still have this love for him though, and I think of that quote all the time about love and grief. How grief is just love with nowhere to go. I have come to learn that love is also non-transferable. At least for me. I can’t just take my love for one person and stick it on another. This love is stamped with his name all over it.

Some days it doesn’t feel like I’ve come very far at all, and other days I realize I’m doing better than I thought. Where before the ache was so bad, I actually took advil to help myself (a legit broken heart thing to do), now the ache is there but I am okay. I’ve still got all this love and the heartbreaker shaped hole, but there is nothing I can do about that. Do I still hope? A little. Why, I’m not really sure. It’s that piece of me finds life magical, and that it always has a way of surprising me. Like meeting him in the first place.