A hot mess of a girl....that's me.

Dear Stephen,

I hope you're enjoying your mid-week activities, whatever they may be.  I also hope that YOU didn't have to go sit in a doctor's office for nearly 3 hours to get a cast put on YOUR mother-in-law's arm, like I did.  I really dislike hospitals and doctors.  I'm not even crazy about dentists. How can you trust your LIFE to somebody who works a 24 hour shift non-stop with no sleep?! That has never made any damned sense to me, and I have YET to hear somebody give me a good reason to do that.  I would like it very much if MY doctor(s) actually had a restful night's sleep before they saw me, ya know?  Call me crazy. That's just me.

And apparently doctors have never been taught how to tell TIME, either, because no matter where you go, it seems they are always running behind. Now, of course, it's the patients they see that usually cause them to spend more time than necessary, which pushes their schedule completely over the edge of oblivion, but still it's THE DOCTOR'S responsibility to say, "Hey, uh, Mr. Talksalot, couldja maybe STFU and go pay my secretary the co-pay and get the flyin' fugg outta here so I can see the next guy? Thanks so much."

The doctor actually looked at ME, and said, "We're going to make her cry, I just wanted you to be prepared for that."  I blinked.  I said, "I hope you're going to tell HER that before you do it." They had to set the bone in her wrist, and it hurt a lot.  She didn't cry though, that tough 90 year old woman.  She just yelled OUCH!! super loud.  I cannot tell if she's just got a high pain threshold or if she's just not hurt all that much really, and is simply milking it for all it's worth.  Maybe dementia dulls the pain or something.

Anyway, so let's recap my shit-filled life lately, shall we? Just for the heck of it.

1. I have a wonderful day seeing the boys of Journey on a Saturday (Aug. 28), albeit for a short, rather rushed, time. The concert was great, I was in an awesome mood, and life was grand.

2. The next day was pretty cool too, sharing the photo of the boys and I together with my friends.

3. Then on Monday, I learn that my pseudo-mom, Melva June, passed away SIX WEEKS before that, and nobody bothered to tell me.  I never got to say goodbye to her, and I loved her very much.  If I hadn't written a Facebook message to Kevin Chalfant, (her brother), asking how she was doing, I sincerely doubt that anybody would have let me know at all.....even though Melva had promised me that she would make sure I was on the contact list when the time came.

4. So I send a sincere card of sympathy to her husband, at the only address I've ever had for Melva, but it comes back to me in the mail, as "return to sender, no such number." I ask Kevin again to please make sure I have the correct address, so that I can re-send it, but I have not yet heard back from him at all.  So, I STILL feel rather snubbed by Melva's family, that I considered as part of my very close friend. It hurts.

5. Then we find out a few days later that Florence's best friend since the age of 9 passed away, and it throws her into a tailspin of bipolar evil twin angst, that pretty much fries MY brain in the process, and we have to go spend 4 days dealing with a roller coaster of her crazy brain and mood swings, in New Jersey, stuck there with people I don't even know, smiling but not really wanting to be there at all, on TOP OF the 10th anniversary of 9/11, which throws ME into a tailspin of emotional angst every year.

6. So then we come back from this less-than-happy weekend, only to have Florence unlock a door, walk outside by herself while I'm not home, and FALL down the sidewalk stairs to our driveway, only to break her right wrist in two places.

Now, I haven't even had time to PROCESS most of this stuff yet, my head is spinning from it all, and I just cannot seem to digest much of it totally, I feel numb all over.  I am so depressed I just can't function properly.  I'm still in grief over Melva, I'm still reeling from PTSD from the whole 9/11 thing, and on top of my own chaos and insanity, I NOW have an invalid 90 year old woman who is mostly helpless to the point where I have to help her use the bathroom, (never did before this), get dressed, get undressed, help her walk, sit, stand, etc., and basically be a total slave to her until that cast comes off....6 weeks or more from now.

When will I ever have time for ME to get MY shit straight in MY head, and when will my HUSBAND actually put ME first in his life, instead of his mother?  Will he EVER put me first?  Shouldn't I BE first in his life, isn't that what marriage IS??  I not only want to sever the apron strings, I want to SHRED them into a gigantic ball of thread and force it all down his throat.  I am so fed up with this role that he has put me in, a role that I was never prepared for, never WANTED, and STILL don't know how to handle.  It has been nearly THREE YEARS that I've been taking care of this woman, and I just cannot do it anymore.  I have long-since reached past my limit, and I'm now a walking zombie of numbness.

I had a dream the other night, about Peter.  He was my DC boyfriend....married with 3 kids, but still my boyfriend for nearly 2.5 years.  (Yeah yeah yeah, I'm a terrible human being, I had an affair with a married guy, so sue me).  I'm not perfect, and neither are you, Sir.  Don't judge me and I'll pay you the same respect.  Deal?  The dream came after this past Friday, when Pete and I and his mom arrived at the hotel in New Jersey.  After her evil twin episode at the restaurant, and after I finally got her to bed, I fell apart and cried my eyes out...I cannot fully explain to you the intensity of dealing with an Alzheimers patient who is also bipolar...it's surreal.  It's beyond anything I can emotionally handle.

So, Pete and I are having a heart-to-heart talk, and I asked him a question that has been burning inside me since the day I moved to Pittsburgh..."Did you and Peter ever have conversations about me, and if so, what were they about?" (I have suspected since the day I moved here, that the two of them conspired to make it happen, and planned to have Peter dump me cold so I'd have nobody to turn to except Pete).

Pete said they had NOT had conversations about me, and he looked up the one and only email that Peter ever sent him (I still have my doubts about that), and he read it to me....but as he read it, I no longer heard PETE reading it.....suddenly, I heard Peter's voice....and I haven't heard his voice in a long, long time....and I lost it.  Hearing Peter talking about me, well, it just killed me.  He wrote to Pete in reply, because Pete had asked him "what was the best way to handle me," because he knew that I am one of those fragile people...Highly Sensitive People...but he didn't know the best way to deal with me at first.

Nobody ever has.

So, Peter wrote this long, involved response....he answered him with an honest and sincere "consistency and kindness," phrase, repeated throughout the whole email, with examples of things he and I had been through and dealt with in various instances...the memories came flooding back at me so fast and so furious, it caused me to completely lose it.  I just lay there, listening to Pete read this to me, and blubbered like a baby, the whole time.......I still love Peter, you see, and always will.....and those words he wrote---the way he wrote them---proved to both ME and to Pete that Peter loved me too.  I know he did, he told me all the time...I believed it...and I felt it.  We were together for 2.5 years, ya know?? I was his submissive, he was my Dom, and it was the best, most awesome and most frustrating, harrowing, love-hate relationship I've ever had in my entire life.

But it killed me because he kept referring to "consistency?" This, from a guy (a Dom, mind you) whom I loved with all my heart and soul, someone I would have died for, who promised me that he would keep in contact with me even after I moved to Pittsburgh to make sure I am okay, and doing well with Pete--------but within just 2 months of my leaving DC, he suddenly just severed all contact with me without so much as an explanation, a goodbye, a parting of amicable emotion??  Where is the consistency in THAT?!  He just dumped me COLD, and it hurts even now.  I couldn't take his stupid necklace OFF MY NECK for MONTHS because that was my "collar."  Eventually Pete asked me to remove it.  I still have it, and when the chain got all tangled up from my moving here, I went out and bought a solid gold chain to replace it....Pete doesn't know that.

So I felt a tangled up mess and a myriad of emotion inside my heart while Pete read this email from Peter to me, and it completely overwhelmed me to the point where I just crumbled into a heap.  I have been a complete mess ever since...thinking about it over and over...wishing to GOD I could ask him WHY he just dumped me like that, after telling me he'd be my friend FOR LIFE, no matter what. He kept saying things like, "I love you, but I'm not IN love with you, and I can't give you all that you need. Pete can."

He could have, and SHOULD have, handled the ending of our relationship MUCH better than he did.

So this dream I had, comes from that email being read to me, and causing me a world of upset.

I opened my door here at our new house, like I would any other summer day, only to find Peter standing there, with a sad look on his face.  I was stunned, in this dream, because I hadn't seen him in 4 years since I moved here.  But suddenly there he was, standing in front of me, with those blue eyes, seeing through me like he always did, burning and smoldering with lust...and he said, simply, "Lynn has left me, she's filed for divorce, and she took my kids away.  I've lost my job.  I have nowhere to go, and I have no money.  This may not matter to you now, but I wanted you to know that I never stopped loving you, and I'm here now to ask you to forgive me."  And again, I crumbled into a heap, crying hysterically, a total mess........and then I woke up, with tears on my face.

So, I'm dealing with my own stupid damned soap opera bullshit, the whole mess of 9/11, a dead best friend of MINE, and a dead best friend of Florence's, AND now an INJURED Florence, all at the sam e time.

Is it any wonder then, that I have days where I feel like packing up everything I can, and leaving??  I feel like, Pete only wanted me in his life to take care of his mom, because marrying ME was cheaper than paying for a nursing home.  And once she's dead and gone, he won't need me anymore.

In case you haven't figured this out yet, Stephen, I believe that Pete will dump me too, just like Peter did, even though he promises all kinds of stuff about spending 50 years with me, etc., will I take care of him when he's old, blah blah blah....I've been promised the MOON all my life, but I have yet to see a BEAM.  So I don't trust this situation, I feel like my life is being sucked out of me slowly and painfully, and I'm NOT HAPPY.  I told Pete last night I am MISERABLE, and NOT HAPPY, and I feel like slitting my goddamned wrists, and he'd better hire a goddamned NURSE to take care of his mother, if he wants me to stick around in his life.

......I guess you could say, I have really just had it.  I am at the end of my rope.

So, on that note, I will bid thee a fond adieu.

Sorry Stephen, this isn't my usual self.  I'm very sorry for all this....I'm having a rather tough time at the moment, and I apologize for venting it all on you. But thank you once again for imaginarily listening to me, though I know you never read this stupid damned blog, it just helps me to write it all out and get rid of it, so I can process it all and deal with it.

When I am overwhelmed, it's all a big mooshy mess of goo, and I can't figure any of it out at all.  My brain shuts down and I feel numb inside.  I felt numb for a very long time after 9/11.  Stress is something I just don't handle very well.  Talking to someone, or writing, (which is what I've done all my life....25 penpals in high school), actually helps me process everything that's going on in my head, to make some sense of it all by standing back and telling it to someone else that I love and trust.....and that someone would be you.

I know you don't give a rat's ass about me, or my weird life and problems, but I like to at least pretend that when I hear you sing to me on the radio, or overhead in a department store, you're really sending me a sort of "hug" that makes me feel much comfort when I need it. You've done that for me all my life.  You are the only guy in my whole stupid 43 years of existence on this planet, that has stuck with me for such a long time, you're always there when I need ya...though you really have only just been a voice in the airwaves, it still FEELS like you're an old friend, and I love you for it.

So, I'm going to bed now, I'm a fried brain mush of a girl, today I felt so numb and lost and alone that I had to leave the house, and I started driving, but didn't know where to go.  My mom was concerned, because I told her I felt like leaving Pete, but in all honesty, I really don't know how I would go about doing that.  Where would I go?  What would I do?  I have no clue.  So, instead, I went shopping and bought stuff I really didn't need, but it passed the time and I got the hell away from all this for awhile.  I even snubbed my nose at my diabetes, (I hate it), by having a hot fudge sundae with caramel and nuts. SCREW IT.  I'm gonna die anyway, so I'm gonna eat whatever the hell I want to eat.  Then I had some Fiddle Faddle, and some Halloween candy on top of it.  I could totally eat myself into a sugar coma.

Well, I love you for what it's worth, though you must think I am a total nut case. You're probably right.

Life is hard. Blah blah blah. Cry me a river.

......I'll go for now and stop wasting your time.

Love, Rebecca