Coming back to myself

Listening to a football match on the radio is the most hilarious experience. Like watching a party through a window pane, but in reverse. I love seeing flailing arms, drunken stumbling, writhing around to inaudible music. It makes me feel outside of the world, but even when I'm in the party group I feel like that. Football matches are great to watch, but listening to them forces you to imagine the action.

Sometimes I wish I could hear the music, or see the action.

Being single again is supposed to be a good time to regroup, to reorganize your life. I don't think that's necessarily true, but it is certainly true for me at the moment. Who am I? Why do I need a person to help me enjoy life? How can I give more to my friends and to myself?

And then I'm back on the other side of the window pane, yearning to belong to a silent orgy of forgetfulness and pointlessness. I find it ever so difficult to relax, don't you know?

Breaking down

Sometimes, you have to break down.
Sometimes, you have to stop pretending you're fine and cry.
Sometimes, you have to think of yourself, and not of other people's feelings.

Tomorrow is another day.

Saturday morning

You know what's amazing about France? Yeah, you already know. The food.
I am not a great cook. I can bake (but usually at the expense of the entire kitchen which resembles a battlefield), I use mixers and frothers but am still baffled by icing (why, oh why, does mine always look like pharmaceutical scalp cream? My poor cupcakes need no scalp cream). But who needs any skillz when you have great produce?

Every morning, I run up to the market place and buy five euros worth of produce. As a vegetarian, I eat a lot of starch too, but vegetables and fruit are the core of meals. The salespeople know my tastes and will usually coax me to taste, or take home, the most luscious looking things, such as purple-tipped asparagus, mysterious artichokes and rosy peaches.

Go home. Eat.

To me part of my Frenchness is the pleasure I take in lovely food, eating a tomato in the street, grinning because it's dribbling down my face, while the sun covers the hill where I live.

Celebration

More than two years ago, I tried to kill myself.
I had absolutely no will to live.
I can't explain this feeling to anyone who hasn't been very depressed-numbness is the best word, although a numbness so steeped in self-hatred that it cannot truly leave you numb, only stunned.

Fast-forward two years later.

I have stood by my father as he fought for his life.
I have successfully fought my bulimia.
I have managed to fall in love and give my trust to another human being.
I have made huge progress in truthfulness.

I may be dumped. My ex may not want me anymore, may not fantasize about me anymore, hold me lovingly anymore. He may even hate me at times, he may fuck others, care for others, forget about me while I still yearn.

But I want to celebrate my pleasure in life. I enjoy living. Even this, this pain, is delightful in its intensity. I am alive. Yeah, I might still have low points and not be the funnest girl on the block, but this is so nigglingly inconsequential, so absurdly irrelevant to me, that I won't even consider it.

Live your life, love your life and reach out to others. Happy Friday.

GPA

Time for a sister shoutout: my sister has an amazing GPA of 3.9. Now this may well be Chinese for me, but I am told that this is impressive even by her standards. Darling J, I am very proud of you. Congratulations

Perplexity

X gave me a list (at my request) of stuff I did wrong, so I have an idea of patterns of behaviour I may not be able to perceive on my own. I agreed pretty much with everything, so I'm relieved I'm not entirely blind to my shortcomings.
I would never presume to reciprocate, so I'll write my own here, for my eyes only :)

Cons:
_Sometimes needlessly cruel when frustrated by work or something else.
_Cannot/will not apply common rules of decorum and courtesy.
_Huge flirt. Ladies, do not go out with him if you cannot handle it.
_Bad at communicating when things go wrong.

Pros:
_Funny as hell, sexy as hell.
_Loves music.
_Great conversationalist.
_Great traveller.
_Great lover.
_Cuddler above all.


In less saracentric news, my father is quitting the medication which gives him renewed energy. Meaning he will once again become ill and depressed.

Wishing him well.

Back to my usual schedule of unbridled optimism and loving irony.

Otis and Milo

X has made me "buy" (read torrentz) a movie he loved as a kid, Otis and Milo. We watched some of it together and it is completely adorable. Last night I got quite drunk and predictability ensued, quite agreably.

exhausted

I'm so tired.
That's one of those sentences I vowed to myself I would stop using. Everyone is tired, I rationalize. No one cares, they go on just the same.
I'm tired of keeping my illusions, my feelings under a leaden cover.
I'm tired of yearning, love, pain, hurt.
I want to get away from it all.
I have the week off, I tell X conversationally at breakfast.
I hope you're going away somewhere nice.
Well, no. I have work to do, y'know? I have stuff to get done. Today I worked twelve hours, I am beat. I don't have your luxury. Of flunking.
Then light hits your face. Your eyes are green-blue, long-lashed. You are nice. You don't care about me.
It's as if nothing we had mattered.
And I want to cry, and I do, about something else. Anything not to feel the dreaded weakness. I am strong. I am WOMAN! I am not a crumpled piece of paper inside, covered in half-erased notes and scribbles. My pain, I remind myself, is no one's business but my own. All you care about is for this to be an easy split, for me not to be tiresome. Maybe it's not true, but who cares? You won't tell me. You never will.
Yesterday we jog together, and the facade cracks. I holler. I say what I think and feel. I tell you to stop being shit at your job and you get angry. In the evening, you remind me of it, and I had already forgotten.
So that's one thing I'm still good for.
Tonight you're late.
My mistake. Shouldn't have cooked dinner, assumed anything. Maybe you're doing sports, getting drunk, having a talk with a friend, fucking your Rebound Fuck, pretending, like me, everything's ok.
I don't want to know, really.
And now I need to sleep so I can face the rest of the world, and start pretending that I feel nothing stronger than satisfaction, hunger, mild disapproval, amused detachment, until these become my default mode, until I'm the sum of those parts.
How much of Sara will I lose to get over this pain?

Lonely

Well, I've always been a lonesome cowgirl. Struggling with it all, to tell the truth. Never sure if I was OK with being lonesome, or on the contrary haunted by my potential loss.
For the first time in years, I feel lonely.

I miss you. I miss being able to tell you everything, trusting in your loving affection. I miss kissing you for no reason, miss having sex with you, miss the nightly comfort of your body against mine. I miss you a lot. But I don't want you back.

I just want to stop missing you.

What now?

After a successful morning (good run, good oral exam, good brownie for lunch) I am left pondering the rest of the day/week/month. I have a great deal of work to do and I'm trying to think about how to do it methodically and well, no distractions, well, apart from Cancertown.
Listening to podcasts, writing things in my head...All adds up really.

Growing up

Several times, X has referred to our past relationship as his first "grown-up" one. Having only little insight on his previous relationships, I have no idea if this is true. I think I have grown up while we were together. I know loving him has made so much more aware of what I want in myself, and yes, of what I want in my friends too.
Why is it difficult to shed our old skins?
I laugh and banter with him, and I feel no pain yet. He does not love me and I am not shattered. Yes, the world is infinitely different now that I have no one in particular to share it with. But I no longer wish for a different outcome. I am happy with myself, and there will be good days, bad days, perfect moments and distressing anguish.
All in all, a life worth living.
I smile at him this morning during the concert. I wonder how he feels during Kodaly, and I enjoy my own enjoyment. Suddenly I no longer care.
I like it.
I walk back home in heels.
The scent of his skin. The weight of him on me. The colour of his eyes, crinkling up when he smiles up at me. Over.
My tenderness for him. Our complicity. Our senses of humour. His new life and future battles. Yes, I'll be in the sidelines, and someone else will be the sweetheart, the ferret, the beautiful girl, but I will be cheering all the same, so he gets what he fights for.
And now I must work.

Back in Lyon!

Yep, I'm back. And I'm not going to lie...It's nice. Just had my first driving lesson today, felt all the excitement of being behind the motor and controlling a machine, it was great fun. Not a huge success parking, but all in all I felt quite comfortable wheeling the thing. X seems ok, he was lovely and sweet with me, we had a giggly evening and cuddles, and I missed him a lot. I hope we continue this way and will strive to communicate as much as I can if ever one of us ceases to be happy with our living arrangement. I do love him, he's such a lovely person. And I'm happy and I want to spread it around.

healing

Starting to heal...Starting to enjoy spinach leaves dipped in lentils, to smile at children in the street, to enjoy tennis, to feel guilty about not working, to look forward to shopping for sunglasses because summer is approaching...
I know the pain will come back but for now I can bask in this feeling of happiness and enjoy it for what it is worth:
everything.
Yelena sent me an email and Maruska had lunch with me and I feel surrounded and loved.
Thanks people.

talky talky

X is lost, I can feel it. He's unhappy with his work.
Yelena's gone, and music was his one solace that kept away from him the realization that perhaps he was not a chemist. Not a research one at any rate.
I would like to talk to him about that...How I wonder if he fell for Rebound Fuck because she's young and easily bossed around, and gives him the impression that he is a star again.
I wish he had realized that he was mine, that I would have been proud of him no matter what.
I wish I could help him, but he can only help himself and stop wasting his time as well as everyone else's.
Come on, X. Kick your own ass, since I can't do it for you.

my sister's back!

My sister has just returned from the States and she is in amazing shape. She looks beautiful and happy, and even overjoyed to be home with her boring family. She's a force of nature, is J, and I can't wait to gossip sarcastically with her, sample her new music collection and be scolded by her. After a leisurely jog this morning, I managed to get breakfast down and am looking forward to lunch...
I'm feeling better already.
Had a nice text message from Yelena, and I am very glad she will remain my friend. I like her enormously. We can meet up in Paris and have some nice girly lunches. Yay for new friends!
Off to Milton, with a real smile on my face.

Me, myself and I

Still feeling trembling and weird this morning. Nervousness. Fingers not doing what I command them to do.
I dreamt that X was no longer with his new girl and that he told me that he realized how depressed and lost he felt. His work was going better and he was bent on understanding himself better.
Wishful dreaming. Instead of hoping that X will become more self-assured, and discover his true path so he can stop pretending to himself, I will strive to hope only for myself. I love him, but this must stop.
Waking up without seeing him, without smiling up at him, was heart-breaking.
Oh well, I'm getting used to this feeling.

ahhhh.

My grandmother, after making a date with me to disinherit me at length, has just told me I mistreated and ignored my ex and am a terrible, selfish person. I quote: apparently, I am slipshod in my appearance, "made no effort" to take care of him, focussed only on my father and my studies, and am a failure.

I wish this did not hurt, because she only wants to hurt me.
I just hope X does not believe this

Catharsis

I'm coming out of my cage
And I've been doing just fine
Gotta gotta be down
Because I want it all
It started out with a kiss
How did it end up like this
It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss
Now I'm falling asleep
And she's calling a cab
While he's having a smoke
And she's taking a drag
Now they're going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it's all in my head
But she's touching his-chest
Now, he takes off her dress
Now, let me go
I just can't look its killing me
And taking control
Jealousy, turning saints into the sea
Swimming through sick lullabies
Choking on your alibis
But it's just the price I pay
Destiny is calling me
Open up my eager eyes
Cause I'm Mr Brightside

Shopping for cereal in Parisian supermarket with my father. I'm ok. Haven't cried for a while. Thinking about work and practical things. Then I see the underwear section and it starts.

I see her, in her underwear, smiling at him while he says "Spread'em".
I see him fucking her.
I see them having small talk.
And I leave the supermarket, and I retch, can't be sick, haven't eaten yet...I hear all the things he's said about her, about them, all the times he was with her when I was so unhappy, dying of loneliness while trying to keep it together for the agregation...I wonder time and time again, while jerking with the violence of my reaction, how he could do this, how, how, how.
I retch in a corner, until I am empty of her, until I can breathe, until my brain is submerged by something else.
My body, so filled with longing, is once more dumb and hostile to me. I drag it back to the cereal aisle.
I want to be a Killer sometimes.

Good

X and I had a nice talk last night. I managed to let him express himself, as oppposed to the usual sara-crapfest. Holding him, stroking his hair, I felt all the love I have for him become concern, not a selfish concern, but a true one, one made of years of friendship that transcend love and lust. Watching his huddled body, I no longer saw the ghost of Rebound Fuck all over him: he was himself, and I was there, and I felt privilegied to be there for him, to tell him that he needed to reaffirm what he wanted, that he could not get any friends if he didn't know, deep inside, what he wanted to give and how much he wanted to receive.
I have such hopes for him. He is the nicest, most lovable, beautiful man I have known. Right now, before my heart starts breaking again, before my system works overtime to get rid of him, of all the complicated emotions he stirs in my bruised body, I can revel in knowing that maybe one day, in months or in years, we will be there for each other, and be happy for each other, and treasure the secret past without neither hope nor bitterness.
To you, my darling X, I wish everything. But now, it is time for me to build my own protections and to find my own answers, it is time to leave him behind and to forget my pain for hours at a time.
To our future friendship, and to my present happiness.
To the future bonds we will have that will neither hurt nor scar.
And to me.
I'll drink to me this morning, before leaving for a week. Strong, beautiful, clever, resourceful, over-emotional, trick-pony, giggling, short-legged, lopsided-smile, imaginative, clinging me.
Happy recovery, dear girl.

Funny

My mother is a funny, wonderful woman. As I was talking to her on the phone, she pointed out that Mother's Day in France was not yesterday, and that I had Americanned her by wishing her all the best etc.
Then, all deadpan and camouflaged tenderness:
"We don't need a day to celebrate our relationship, Sa. And we have countless years of arguments ahead of us."
So say we all.

Why?

Why are you breaking my heart in the most painful way?
Why are you destroying my beautiful memories by forcing on me the image of damn idiot E, who is nothing compared to Yelena or any number of your friends? Is it because she looks like your ex? Is it because she's young and immature? Is it simply because it's easy?
Couldn't you wait a few days for me to move out, couldn't you spare me the anguish and self-loathing?
Couldn't you choose someone valuable to be my successor?

Making rules

I'm not a rules person. Heck, I'm not even a good resolutions person. I can't keep a promise to save my life.
I need some rules at the moment though, to get over myself:
1) Do not call or communicate with X unless entirely necessary.
2) Do not read emails or love notes anymore. Avoid entirely. I will think about what to do with them in six months or so.
3)Avoid thinking about things that will obviously hurt me without any results.
4)Do not bore friends and family to tears with rambling. Write blog or journal.
5)Enjoy the small moments in life as much as you can.

Leaving

I'm leaving for Paris tomorrow, to spend the better part of the week with my parents and sister. I can't wait to leave Lyon and not see X for some time. I really need a new living arrangement, because seeing him all the time is difficult and painful, not to speak of jealousy and anger issues. In time, I will stop his Rebound Fuck from invading my assessment of our relationship, what I did right, what he did right, where it went wrong.
I want some distance in order to achieve happiness sooner, and I need to work.
Here's to hope!

Literature for the day

Colette is my favourite writer. Her style is earthy and luscious, and her life (I highly recommend Secrets of the Flesh by Judith Thurman, the best biography ever written on her) is fascinating on so many levels. I will probably write a series on her, since I am a great devotee of her work. Today I would like to translate a passage from one of her short stories, which deals with recovering from separation and heartbreak.

"You must wait for recovery, for the end of your love. You are suffering greatly, but worse is yet to come. There will be a time-in a month, in three months, I don't know when-when you will start suffering by fits. You will experience the lulls, the moments of animal-like amnesia that come for no reason, because you've slept well or been a bit sick...Oh my child, how terrible are the fits of pain!They sweep down on you without warning or care...In an innocent, light-hearted moment, a smooth liberated moment, mid-gesture, mid-laugh, the annihilating memory of the devastating loss stems your laughter, stops the hand carrying the tea cup to your lips, and suddenly you are terrified, wishing for death with the naive conviction that no one can suffer this much without dying, but you won't, as those before you didn't as well...The lulls will return, irregular, capricious, without rhyme nor reason. It will...be quite terrible. But...there is something even worse. There will come a moment when you will feel almost no pain. It's when you're almost cured that you will be a lost soul, roaming the earth, seeking, not daring to say what you mean...At those times, the bouts of unhappiness are harmless, and by a strange compensation effect, the lulls become unbearable, an abyss of luke-warm vertigo that sickens the heart...It's the moment of stupidity, of loss of balance...Your heart feels empty, wrinkled, floating in a chest swollen by occasional sighs which are not even sad. You go on the town with no aim, you walk for no reason, you stop without being tired. You scratch at the old pain with stupid enthusiasm, without extracting from it any blood, you keep touching the half-healed scar, you end up regretting, I swear, the searing, blunt pain. It's the dry, lost season, embittered by regret. Yes, the regret of having lost the beautiful, desperate, throbbing, masterful pain, you feel diminished, withered, inferior to all other creatures...You'll be secretly ashamed of yourself until...until recovery. It comes mysteriously, without making itself felt at first. But it's like the gradual reward for so much pain. Believe me, it will come, I don't know when. A soft spring day, or a damp autumn morning, maybe by moonlight, you will feel something living and undefinable voluptuously stretch out in your heart, like a happy, long, long snake, an unraveled velvet caterpillar, a loosening, a soft and nurturing tearing up like that of a budding iris...Without understanding why, you will put your hands behind your head and grin unexplicably. You will discover, with renewed innocence, that the light is pink through the lace of the curtains, and the carpet soft under your bare feet, that the smell of flowers and of ripe fruit make you exult rather than recoil. You will savour a shy happiness, free from desire, a delicate happiness, a bit shameful, selfish and self-protective...Yes, my child, yes, you will have another love."

Letting go I

I have to let go. It's easy to say. It trips off the tongue, doesn't it? I make an effort to think it in French, since French is my emotional language. Laisse-le partir, I whisper to myself, and I wonder when I will stop feeling empty.
Words have a way of filling me up. I write them down to comfort myself. I have a list of favorites I enjoy reeling off, for myself or when insecure.
But now they, too, are no longer mine. Each word I say echoes inside me and FLASH! I see his face, I see him with his new girl, I feel rather than see blistering misery churn inside me, replacing the dead matter floating around in me. I want to reclaim words and rid them of their meaning.
How can I let go of him without losing my memories?

I want to move on as fast as I can. Any amount of mourning, of course, might be necessary. But right now, I see his name inside words, and cannot share them with him.

Starting over

I need to be a very busy person to function. Right now I have been left by my boyfriend of about two years, X, and I've decided to use this platform to move on, start over, and be happy again. Welcome to my story.