The Lone Monkey

The man at the unnamed coffee establishment that I am deeply ashamed of having frequented (it was the only thing near the sdj besides tepid deli coffee and I was having a caffeine emergency) gave me 4 extra shots of espresso in my frufru coffee drink because he said I looked like I desperately needed it. I'm not sure whether to be grateful for the windfall of caffeine or wounded for looking desperately overexhausted. This sums up my day and my outlook rather succinctly.

I realized today that I've been expending an incredible amount of energy on anything and everything but myself. Somewhere along the line when I started to feel better, I dove kamikaze style back into the fray of life, forgetting that I'm still healing and growing and need to allow myself that room to expand. I've been focusing on everyone else, including the 2 boys, but not at all on myself. I thought I was being good about checking in, but really I've just been checking out.

And I'm tired. So very tired - in a worn out way, like an old shoe that's traversed the city a few too many times. I want to at least think I'm a cute shoe, like a funky boot or cute stylish pump, but I'm afraid its looking more likely that I'm an ugly orthepedic nightmare of a shoe. Like a white old lady shoe that's turned beige with wear and has velcro straps. You know its a sad thing when velcro comes into the conversation.

Lady Charon and I sort of dove deep today, to discover what was behind all the dating frustration as of late (ie feeling suffocated by Doc Harley, ignored by Composer Boy, and still in love with Mr. Emotionally Unavailable), and I'm not sure I was necessarily ready to face all that was hidden underneath the complexity that is my web of heart and guts and who knows what else.

My brother was my security blanket in life; he was the one I always relied upon and turned to in times of joy and fear and sorrow alike. In our family dynamic, he was parent and sibling both; the one I trusted and the one who made everything okay. While he did indeed violate that trust in severe ways, he was still my unfailing support and comfort in life, as odd as that sounds. Lady Charon likens it to a picture she once saw of orphaned monkeys huddling together in a life raft - that was me and my brother. When he died, it was like the whole world turned overnight into this terrifying unimaginably threatening place, not only because of the circumstances of his suicide, but also because the one person that was supposed to always protect me and make it all okay had designed and created this nightmarish world...a nightmarish world in which I was left alone, the sole monkey in my life raft.

I keep searching for someone to come rescue me, or at least come paddle with me so that I'm not in the raft alone. Its scary out there. I don't even have a freakin life jacket and I've swallowed so much salt water already I must be a little dehydrated. I'm afraid I don't know how to paddle and the waves seem awfully big and I feel awfully small. What if I loose my paddle? It feels like the raft is going to flip any moment now with the next big wave...

I have been searching for that unique intimacy and security that comes from huddling in a life raft with someone for many years - or at least a facsimile thereof. And I can't and won't find it; its irreplacable. I have to learn to paddle on my own and be brave and that is so unbelievably hard when you had 23 years in which someone took care of you, or so you felt. It seems herculean, at best, and sometimes I just can't stand another day on the ocean alone.

But until I make peace with it, I will continue to have an ongoing what my brother called "crise du jour" with my love life.

That and I need to stop dating damaged freaks.