se perdre pour se trouver

one year down this road with m. honestly, every day it grows. this is not what I expected, nor is it what i had planned… did i even have a plan? not really. not really one that made any sense anyways. but one year in and the momentum keeps growing and growing. j2 told me something in the early days that really stuck with me. i told the truth even though i knew it could hurt m, but it didn’t. it maybe even helped against all odds. that’s when j2 told me that m really did like me… i don’t think i had ever felt that as much as i did in that exact moment. like the feeling of someone actually just liking me enough to actually want to accept things and deal with them reasonably instead of flipping it into something that i did that needed to be changed. my whole life i feel like i have always been the one having to apologize for even existing to much. i was always in the wrong. i feel like i have developed an innate and automatic response to conflict that has left me feeling wildly unappreciated, unvalued, unimportant. m flips that around in a lot of ways. i think she has also felt that way her whole life and so the combination of each of us genuinely valuing the other has been a mutual mind fuck of sorts. in the best way possible of course.

a has pretty much disappeared. i got an email on my bday that looked like it was something chatgpt wrote from a prompt saying “give me a birthday wish to send someone to show i remembered their birthday, but definitely don’t open the door for any further conversation.”. 1 line, no feeling, no nothing. just an ambiguous heart emoji at the end. to say i was disappointed would be an understatement. i was originally not even going to respond, but i couldn’t do that, so a few days later i sent an equally bland acknowledgement.

papers with k are just about done. big c scare is just about over as well. i think the emotions and feelings i have surrounding this i will end up taking to my grave. there are too many things i feel enormous guilt around.

what just happened?

this weekend i had m and b over here at the house for a pool party and outside fire.

it was a pretty big deal for me, and for my kids too. i know i put in a lot of effort, i did my best to make sure everything was in great shape for the day, the pool, the yard, the house, the snacks…. all of it! i also made sure to drop enough hints to the kids so they also knew how important this was.

pretty much the entire day went really well! everyone had fun in the pool, the girls baked a cake together, the boys and i played basketball and chatted… after a busy day i started a fire in the firpit and brought out all the stuff for smores while the boys played in the pool again and the girls played with a garden snake they found!

all in all, it was pretty great!

but then things suddenly turned, and i don’t really know why.

b decided he was bored and said so, loudly. m did not like that and told him so. b then did what little boys do and goofed around and pushed back in silly ways like “accidentally” splashing some water around from his plastic cup and otherwise being rebellious in harmless ways.

i am very much of the mind to NOT interact and legitimize that kind of thing and instead continue on like nothing happened. when you teach a kid their outbursts do not yeild attention, they become less incentivized to do so.

i don’t think m looks at it that way. instead i think she sees these things as a cry for help that require immediate attention, maybe as a result of her childhood?

in any case, i didn’t think any of this was a big deal until everyone left me alone at the fire. i ended up heading inside at one point and met up with m who was on the verge of tears, i guess because her a b were alone… but by her own doing it seems? she asked to not be alone with b, so of course i jumped into action and joined them for a game of basketball and then l eventually joined us as well.

i guess i still hadn’t clocked that were was a bigger problem here until later when the kids went to go play some video games and m started talking to me more. i had a lot of trouble following her, i think she made up a bunch of things in her head to fill in blanks which were not true at all.

she focused a lot on how b was out of his comfort zone and questioned whether any of us made the effort to comfort him or make him feel included or special (which we very much did)… and then questioned if i had considered checking on the kids myself and making sure mine were doing whatever they could to accomodate b… which, to be honest, is kinda shit because they are KIDS and you cannot have that expectation of them… but none the less i know that at least l was very much on that wavelength and was making efforts.

then it turned and twisted into something i don’t really understand. there was a bit of a panic attack and then a suggestion of drowning the problem with alcohol…

suffice it to say, the night ended on arguably the worst note possible between m and i and i did everything i could to salvage. in return i got some self deprecating remarks about how i deserve better and i don’t owe her anything and i am not obligated to continue “this”… all of which i disregarded in the moment in an effort to at the very least allow everyone to get some sleep as i did fear that much of this was fuelled by sleep depravation.

i need to bring this up again to her and get to the bottom of it, because this cannot happen again. not like this.

i am worried she gave up a little bit, that maybe i am fighting for this a bit more than she is. or at least that i am fighting for a positive outcome anyways…

the house is quiet tonight

the house is quiet tonight.

not the peaceful kind of quiet,
where everything is exactly where it belongs.

the other kind.

the kind where the refrigerator hum
sounds like a distant highway,
and every room feels a little larger
than it did when the day began.

Ii sit here,
surrounded by evidence of a life
that somehow survived itself.

photographs.
projects.
half-finished plans.
a future i once thought was impossible,
and another future i was certain would happen
but didn’t.

the strange thing is,
if you had asked me two years ago
whether i could endure all of this,
i would have said no.

absolutely not.

yet here i am.

still making coffee in the morning.
still paying the bills.
still worrying about my kids.
still fixing broken things.
still finding songs that make me pull the car over
just to listen one more time.

still here.

sometimes I think life changes
like a car skidding on black ice.

you don’t steer toward where you’re going.

you stare in disbelief
at where you’ve already ended up.

a different house.
different dreams.
different fears.

different love.

and somehow,
the road continues.

tonight,
certainty feels very far away.

the future feels blurry.
the heart feels brave one minute
and terrified the next.

i look at the empty chair across the room
and wonder how many versions of myself
have sat exactly where i am now.

the husband.

the father.

the musician.

the man who wanted to leave.

the man who was afraid to leave.

the man who hoped.

the man who lost.

the man who found something new.

all of them still living somewhere inside me,
arguing quietly in the dark.

but beneath all that noise,
there is something else.

something older.

a voice that says:

look at everything you’ve survived.

look at the fires.
look at the heartbreak.
look at the impossible conversations.
look at the nights you thought
you had ruined everything.

you are still here.

not untouched.

not certain.

not finished.

but here.

and maybe that’s enough for tonight.

maybe tonight doesn’t require answers.

maybe tonight only asks that I sit
with this strange, unfinished life,
listen to the quiet,
and trust that tomorrow
will reveal itself
the same way every other tomorrow has.

one ordinary sunrise at a time.

i’m angry with you, but i will never tell you.

i’ve not written anything in a while… having this page discovered and then read by an unintended audience has soured everything.

i don’t want to shirk any accountability for my own words and actions, but having this place sullied and ripped away from me left a vacuum. it removed a much needed pressure relief valve for me. it stole my only outlet for my more intrusive thoughts and left them trapped in my head.

the end result is that i have hurt people i care so much about, not intentionally, but because i didn’t, and if i am honest, still don’t know how to deal with these feelings and emotions.

—

i am trying to come to terms with being alone. like really alone. up until very recently i had someone i could reach out to all the time, about pretty much anything. and now… through my poor choices and inability to self regulate i have alienated everyone.

that realization is depressing, and scary and also upsetting, but for other reasons than what you might anticipate. i made mistakes, sure. i said things i shouldn’t have. i pushed people away that didn’t deserve it. but i also apologized, and tried to make amends, and learned lessons, grew and changed from it.

but it didn’t matter. or it wasn’t enough.

maybe i am just not enough.

maybe my worth really is only what i can provide.

maybe all i deserve is to be alone.

maybe that’s better for everyone.

give me something to hold on to

everything feels like it is just slipping away. like when you pick up a fist full of beach sand and you squeeze it as tight as you can, but it still just pours out of your hand, leaving you with the few grains of sand that stick to your sweaty palms and abrade your skin… reminding you of what you once held.

i hate it. honestly, i feel like i am losing sight of my destination at this point. i feel lost, and i don’t know where home is. i’m not ok, but i don’t know what to do about it. i feel like i have lost any real connections i once had, and trying to make new ones feels impossible for some reason.

i don’t want to do this alone. i want someone in my corner. i swear i will make it worth their while. i have so much to fucking give… i don’t care how imbalanced it is as long as you have my back when i need you. i don’t care how much i have to suffer so long as i know i have someone to come home to who will make me feel safe.

i’m lost in the desert, there is sand all around me that i can pick up, but it feels like i can’t hold any of it for any length of time before it too slips away.

what’s the point? i feel like giving up.