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Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Well another day with little sleep. My mind seems not to want to shut down and allow me to fall into that deep sleep that makes you feel refreshed and ready for the world again. Sometimes I think that I just want to escape to somewhere that no one knows about, where there are no questions, no need for answers that I don't have. Times like this I wish I lived near the ocean, or at least a lake. I feel the need to watch the water and have it soothe my mind and my heart. Things that have happened and been said recently have made me see that I need to make some decisions in my life and follow through on them. I am doing no one any favours by pretending that everything is okay when it's not. They are decisions that are not going to be well received and I may very well lose people who mean more to me than life itself, but I am slowly reaching a level of despair that is becoming insurmountable. I know it is for the best in the long run, but that doesn't stop me from feeling that I have failed again.
It's funny, last time this happened, it was just assumed that the girls would be with me. Now that they are grown, and judging by Joanna's theme in her journal that she worships her father and he means everything to her, I really don't think that I can count on her support through all this. If anything, I will probably be on the receiving end of her contempt. I wish I could tell her everything that has led me to this point. There is so many factors, you are only the catalyst, not the reason but she will never understand that. I have tried to make them understand that if a relationship is not making you happy and is more work than it should be, then you need to end it. I realize now that the reason I want them to understand this is because I didn't have anyone to give me that advice and now I am in something that, to get out of it, I will be hurting everyone that means anything to me. I think that is the hardest part of all this. I can't bear the thought of doing something that she will hate me for. But she's young still. Maybe someday she will understand and can forgive me.
10:07 AM Karen
Monday, June 30, 2003Where do you find the courage? How do you find the words to say that it’s over? When is the right time? I feel myself getting deeper and deeper into a place that I will never escape. I know I don’t really love him, not anymore, if I ever truly did. Maybe he too was an escape. But now there are complications, things that I must do before that final step are getting more difficult as he slips further into the addiction. I can’t issue an ultimatum, not only because I don’t believe in them, but more because issuing one means that I will stay. And I don’t want to stay. Because of the sickness and it’s effects on all facets of life, his self-esteem is at an all time low, so what would it do to him for me to leave? But I can’t live with someone that I feel this way about. I look at him and know that I don’t feel what I am supposed to feel. I don’t feel love and adoration and respect. I feel sympathy, and sometimes even pity. And I hate myself for not having the feelings that I should and worse yet, for feeling the way I do.
And then I see you, or I talk to you and I realize that I don’t care who knows about the way I feel for you. I want to shout it from the rooftops. I want people to know that I am in love with the most amazing man, and better still, he loves me too. But I know the guilt that I feel, you feel too. And I understand you being torn between wanting people to know that there is someone in your life that you want beside you always and not wanting to be seen, even to people that don't matter, as the home-wrecker, the one who is seeing a married woman. You have told me too many times about your family values and ethics for me to really believe that there could ever be a future for us, even after I am free, and I know that weighs heavily on your mind and heart as well. I know that you said you didn’t want to get involved with anyone if a future with them was not a possibility, and here you are, in the middle of a spider’s web, not sure how to get out and not really knowing if you want to.
There are so many things that I want to talk to you about, but I fear they will overstep the basic rule that I made a long time ago about never talking about my home life. A lot of my fear stems from the fact that I don’t know where we are going, if anywhere and don’t want to assume anything where you and I are concerned. More comes from me not wanting you to feel in any way responsible or hurting you with anything that I might say. Still more comes from facing possible truths that I would rather not face. Maybe someday I will have enough nerve to broach these subjects with you. Believe it or not, these are not things that I want to write about, they are things that need to be said.
8:51 AM Karen