Don't run. Stay awhile, Trudy

I don't know what to say. Reams and reams of this flipping blog end up being about Berlin. Who is NOT my lover. Who doesn't want to BE my lover. Who thinks he wants to be friends with me. But him and me being friends isn't going so well. We keep getting to a sad and sore place. And I suspect it's me taking us there. Because I can't sort out how I'm feeling. And I keep having expectations of this relationship that are clearly off base.

So it feels horrible all this. And so I keep writing about it. And the obvious thing to do would be to just walk away from it all. Be like Berlin. Cut it and leave. Give up. Coffee with a mate yesterday had exactly that as the topic - Trudy this isn't good for you. It's hurting you. Walk. Put up your boundaries and walk. Protect yourself already. As I'm writing that I'm wondering if I am even capable of that. It took everything in me to do that to John. And we were in a terribly extreme place by the time I had the courage to do just that.

Is this what this whole thing is for? For me to practice my boundary setting? I'm getting such horrible trauma flashbacks from the early days with John-the-narc. I have no idea whether Berlin is a closet Narc or not. I don't think so. But I'm still feeling the same stuff. Feeling forgotten and discarded when he 'forgets' about our weekend wine moment. Feeling like I must have somehow got it wrong. Struggling with his Facebook messenger activity when he's ignoring my messages. Struggling with not knowing - I'm being so very open with him about what I'm thinking and feeling and doing. And he's just so much more closed. Has he found another 5 online girls to play with? Is that why he's pulling away from me? Am I just so fkn desperate and needy that he's actually just humouring me but really can't see himself putting up with it much longer?

I wish I could tell you how incredibly painful it feels inside me. I KNOW this pain doesn't come from Berlin. It's old old pain that is surfacing when I deal with him. But it doesn't stop it coming. And the brutality of the pain doesn't leave just because he was just the trigger, not the originator.

As I was walking into work this morning I was feeling angry with myself that I'm still struggling with all of this PAIN so many months after the breakup with John. Things are better. The company is almost sold. Our future looks great. I've turned the company around financially. I have a legacy to continue building and lots of work in the pipeline. My family is settling down. And yet all of this stuff in me is fucking fucking sore still!!

 It started me thinking about the aftermath of a Tsunami. The day it hits all you feel is the devastation of the wave. Walking through the debris. Seeing maybe the foundations of the house that you used to live in. The roads you used to walk. But it's all gone. Broken. Lost. And once you've got past the shock and grief of the loss, the rebuilding begins. But it's not a straight line. Debris lies everywhere. Waste must be disposed of. Parts are rebuilt, and other parts are left for awhile - no bandwidth. No resources to repair them. Trauma memory keeps surfacing. Moving between hope and energy and loss, grief and despair.

I'm trying again to just sit with this pain. Not run from it. Or sanitize it. Or find another boy to just eliminate it for a while. Feel it and go through it. Although I do catch myself reaching out to a boy for comfort. But the Universe is clearly not allowing that to happen for me right now. Comfort is tantalizingly nearby but out of reach for now.

Go through this pain Trudy. Feel the ache of mommy neglect and abandonment. Feel the need and the wrenching of that being denied. Feel it. Hold yourself safe. It's the only way you are ever going to find your way back to yourself.