One by one

I've written before that I probably never should listen to country music. Of course, I keep going back and listening to it and thinking about things that end up in euphoric recall.

I've already had my share of struggles today with feeling sort of triggered, and listening to some music about romantic love and sad goodbyes just doesn't help. If I'm honest, the underlying "jonesing" for a "fix" has been going on for a few days. When I ask what I'm needing to medicate it's probably a feeling that I'm just not capable of discipline, responsibility, and success. I know at some intellectual level that is not true, but when my behavior seems to indicate otherwise the floor slowly falls out from under me one little twig at a time. I've had some reading to do to keep up with a class I'm taking -- I'm way behind, I just don't seem to be doing "perfectly," and I'm having trouble accepting that.

For the longer term, my struggles have been for a desire for someone to be madly in love with me -- even though such episodes have proven to be very painful in the past. When these desires go unmet then my addict mind begins to believe that if I can't have someone love me, at least I can get them to treat me like they love me for a while, and give me a bit of an emotional holiday, with a round of intrigue and sex.

This afternoon as I was walking the dog, listening to this country music I spoke of earlier, I thought how one by one I have resolved the "issues" with the men in my life and have finally started to make female friends. I have always had a man to blame for something -- my biological father, my stepfather, my husband, E., J., R., M. others ... but as I said, one by one, I've resolved my feelings/resentments about them. But every time I pick up a "new man"... there's a whole other cycle of emotions to deal with that are so hard to put down. Today I recognize that emotions surrounding the friend who I went through a period of longing and loving with back in March -- I just went back to reread some e-mails to check the date and now I'm crying -- seem to still hover in my heart, demanding to be dealt with. Over time, due to solid friendship with this man, we have worked through our emotions, guilt and recognized that the loving and longing was more about our addictive qualities than a true committment to one another romantically or sexually. We both agreed that our marriages were important to us, and we have done our best to continue our friendship, sans sexual and romantic intrigue. Yet for the past couple of weeks I have felt the longing creep in again. I listened to the songs this afternoon and longed to hold him and hear him say that he was longing too. It hurts. And I suppose these tears are an indication that I haven't properly grieved what was lost. I don't know. I just know I needed to write about it. Thanks for listening.

I see some new readers commenting -- thank you for your notes and for being here.