Therapy is good

Deirdre kicks my head back into shape. 

It was such a mistake cancelling my appointment with Deirdre my therapist last week. I might have avoided days of tears and grief. Perhaps not quite, as grief is something you have to go for, but there's healthy grief and unhealthy grief.

It had been feeling as though something had died. Really, it was that bad. Sitting in a flood of tears in her consulting room, I manage to get out: "It's like the whole time I was with Virgil I was clinging on to him as though he was a rock in a black, stormy sea. I hadn't been feeling right or good about myself and what I was doing with my life for years. I hoped he would be my saviour from myself, my darkness."

I think of an old painting I once saw of shipwrecked sinners saved by Jesus as they clung to the rocks.

Deirdre has a more tropical picture in her head but it's a good one. She says: "So, it's like you're a castaway on a tiny desert island. You've got just enough to stay alive although you're sick of having the shits from drinking coconut milk and only having fish to eat.

"You have to choose between staying on the island, where you're not happy, or striking out into the water. You don't know what will happen to you. Will you find land, or a ship, that takes you to another island, and then to the mainland and then to a city and an airport and finally a plane that will bring you home?"

Loving the analogy, I moan and laugh at the same time: "But the island looks so safe after I've left it. I miss it! And despite our differences Virgil and I had this really beautiful love..."

 Then Deirdre says: "Harlot, I hope you know I have nothing but respect for the love between you and Virgil, but I also know that since the first time you came to see me you were expressing severe dissatisfaction and resentment about your relationship. Neither of you can be right while you're in a boyfriend–girlfriend relationship with each other - it puts you both in a situation where to be true to yourselves you are not able to satisfy each other."

And she's right. She's so fucking right. Everyone, I mean everyone, needs a therapist like Deirdre.
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Should have known better

Virgil and I have an excruciating breakfast, and I can't decide what to do.

I say: "I feel like shaking you, shaking some sense into you."
Virgil smiles slightly, and I return it.
"Sense as I see it, at least," I finish.
"We had a really good love. There were good things. It's such a waste. It's crazy not to at least try to fix things."


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Weddings and couples

Virgil and I see old friends and play the couple for a day. Afterwards I feel sad.

Virgil and I spent yesterday impersonating a couple at a wedding. Actually it was a first anniversary party thrown by the parents of some friends of ours who married secretly with only friends present on holiday last year. If they had hoped to escape the drama of a family wedding (I don't think this was their motive but...) they failed.

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This and that

PMT nearly does for me, and so does thrush, but I'm still alive and thinking about next week. 

Well, sort of revised my expectations downward...

The emotional turbulence of the last few days, in which I feel as though I have regressed, is levelling out. I am certain one reason for this is the arrival of my period. Today I'm achey and exhausted but emotionally I feel better, less full of anguish about losing Virgil, more objective in the way I think about him and me.


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Slip sliding

Things feel like they're going backwards. I indulge in some wallowing.

It's supposed to be getting easier, but the last few days are a relapse into the tears and hopelessness of the first weeks post-Virgil. I miss him. I think of the good things: our conversations, collaborations and the tenderness that made us appear so affectionate and solid in our love. I have to remind myself about our frustrating sex life, his unwillingness to compromise and my jealousy about Sarah.

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Aloneness and togetherness

Sometimes you read something and the truth of the idea and its relevance to you sings out. It's a moment of epiphany and clarity.

"Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape." – bell hooks

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Cabin fever and inertia

Working from home. Ach. Exams in two weeks. I revise on the sofa and fall asleep in the afternoons. I am sad and lack motivation. Everything feels like too much trouble. Seriously. You don't know what it took to type this. I miss Virgil like a mad thing, even though I just spent the evening with him. I have been thinking about how falling in love is not an excuse to give one's power away but that's what I did.
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Too much play, too little sleep

The price of a good time - sleep deprivation and sexual health issues. 

It's Monday morning but all that means is I have revision to do. I could use more structure in my life and more distractions. It's hard to study. Being alone in the flat gives me time to think of Virgil. I miss him like crazy, to the point of picking up the phone, but I don't reach out. What's the point?

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Shame and non-monogamy

I'm not the only one to get jealous.

Given the bad press non-monogamy usually gets, it's understandable that when it's working folk want the world to wise up. But lately the posts of some poly people I know have seemed unbearably smug.

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Texts and spanking

Looking for work depresses me, but I have fun with texting and enquire about a new source of income.

Summoning my energy, I write emails to two organisations I think might employ me, or, more likely, give me some volunteering work. I earmark two more to visit.

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Gardening and debauchery

A good date, positive thoughts, inaction.

I'm still on gardening leave but things are looking up. My mood is definitely brighter; I cry much less. I miss Virgil but we see each other often as friends. I remember how unhappy I was in our relationship. While I feel sad now, I also feel free of some uncomfortable emotions which, honestly, I had become so used to having they were like oxygen.

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Day 24 PV

I make a decision about the words I use, and realise I need to extract myself from a situation.

When people ask how I am, I now say: "I am as good as can be expected," and "I am coping reasonably well, thanks."

The words bereft, heartbroken, desolate and so on are still there, lurking around, but I use them less and less. They make me cry and as the more positive statements are also true I decided that these are the ones I will stick to.


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Day 20 PV

In which I spoil a date by being horrible and bursting into tears.

I have Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares to You on repeat in my head. When that stops it's Thank You For the Days by the Kinks.

I'm missing Virgil. Like Crazy. But I'm not thinking of that song.


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Day 18 PV

In which I think about resentment and know I can't go back.

I'm sad but one thing feels good and right: I don't want to be a jealous, resentful person again.


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Day 7 PV

In which I think about my erotic future, and Virgil and I ask each other for help.

Day 7. Lucky number seven. I've slightly gone off this style of blog post title but I'm going to stick with it for now. I saw my therapist Bee yesterday which was good. I came out of the session remembering my deep dissatisfaction with mine and Virgil's sex life. It's true that it had been going on for ages. It wasn't going to get fixed.

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Day 6 PV

I woke up in Jay's bed this morning. That's a first. My open relationship with Virgil had a no overnights clause because I couldn't bear the idea of him being loving with someone else in the morning. It was always good to wake up with Virgil. The idea that it won't happen again has been bothering me to the extent that I texted Virgil to tell him.

There wasn't actually any sex with Jay yesterday or this morning, not even kissing. There was cuddling and some spooning but he kept it firmly non-sexual. I didn't ask why; I just enjoyed the company. It might have been his hangover and tiredness yesterday or maybe he's being careful of my emotional state. Perhaps he doesn't want to have sex with me anymore, or perhaps he just didn't want to have sex this time. To ask would be to spoil it. I don't care. We talked, ate dinner and curled up on the sofa to watch a film, which I fell asleep in and missed the last train.

It was a bit of an anticlimax of course, as I had been up for sex, but it was nice and I was glad to see Jay. When I told him about Virgil and splitting up I did it in a very sane way, philosophical, hardly tearing up at all. It sounded plausible and sensible and as though I was coping, which I am.

Other people don't replace Virgil though. There's a tide of unreasonable emotion inside. It's a sea of pain. I feel as though my heart has been pulled out.
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Day 5 PV... and the 301st entry on this blog

I passed a milestone when I posted last time and didn't notice until later. I have now more than 300 posts on this blog. I'm not proud though: more than anything it's a testament to how little I have promoted my writing. It also feels like an awful lot of work: work on my relationship, work about Virgil. Mulling it over, painful musings, angst, expressing stuff and so on. So much energy expended ... well, I've only myself to worry about from now on. It'll do me good.


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A self-help hard limit

Now, I'm quite heavily into my self-help just at the moment. Of course I am! What else is there to do when you bump up against the realization that nothing's working in your life and the common factor is you? No one else can do this work for me and there is much work to be done. The truth: I'm finding self-help really helpful! Thanks, in particular, go to Neale Donald Walsch.

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Other people's problems and a talk on tantra

My friend Ava is getting over the effects of Marcus, with whom she had an open relationship for two years. Virgil and I know them pretty well. They recently split up. It was a very drawn-out break-up. We watched it come from far away like a ponderous tsunami. Admittedly Marcus is odd. I don't understand him but I do feel very sorry for him. He is in a bad place and she is moving on.

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The hardest gift to give

I see Virgil today. We spend several hours working together on a project to help out a friend. It is a prior commitment neither of us feel comfortable about breaking so we turn up and get on with the job. We meet on the train there. I sob behind my sunglasses and tell him about the weeks' emotions and revelations. I know it's hard for him to see me like this but I just have to. All this stuff feels so important and urgent: I need to share it with him in all its exoriating excruciatingness, both positive and oh so painful. I'm not going to say 'bad' because change is good. That's the way I have to see this. How is it possible to feel so hopeful and determined and so bad at the same time?

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