I'm ok at home.  I'm ok at work.  I'm marginally ok out in the world, socializing.  I figured out where I'm not ok.  Driving to and from work.  At home my brain is always engaged, from the minute I get up to long after I go to bed, and pass out from exhaustion, I always keep mundane distracting things front and center so I am not alone with my thoughts.  Cooking, cleaning, shopping, gaming, reddit, reading, writing, tarot, focusing on my customers and helping them work through their problems, studying, crafting...  But as soon as I slam that car door, it's just me and the road, and music.  And then I burst into tears.  Like fucking clockwork.  My car is parked in the driveway, so as I'm backing down the driveway, I'm staring at the insurmountable object of pain and heartache.  Every fucking workday.  I am getting sick of showing up at work all puffy and snotty.  I've taken to keeping eye makeup in the car, for the inevitable repairs.

I am so not ok, these days.  It's a struggle to get out of bed, every day, then more of a struggle to accomplish anything.  If I have to leave the house or otherwise socialize, I need at least 3 hours to mentally prepare, and I mean stupid shit like going to the laundromat.  Seeing friends is hard, I feel like I have nothing to ever talk about, and I've been such a downer lately, that I can't imagine anyone wanting to hang out anyway. I've become fragile.  Today, after a good car-sob, I mustered my shit and got to work.  Susan was here, and I haven't seen her in over a month, she asked me how the house is going, and I tried, I swear, I tried to hold it together, and tell her the latest very bad news, just the facts, no emotion...and I burst into tears.  Right here in the shop, in front of customers.  I just went from composed and chatty to a fucking snotty crying mess. Nothing is good.

I feel like I'm losing myself.  I feel like I've already lost it.  Whatever "it" is.

I have been not ok with something for about two weeks.

I am sick over this.  I feel violated.  I feel used.  I am filled with hatred.  I can't sleep. I can't stop crying.  I've been trying to not think about it all day.

For Christmas, Luiz gifted me with a piece of art.  This is already where the controversy starts, because I asked him not to, this year.  For the past like 3-4 years, he's given me art as a "gift" and, it somehow never makes it to my possession.  One year, he gifted me a blank canvas, and promised me an amazing surprise.  I watched him paint a beautiful rose galaxy, and he kept it.  I never thought about the blank canvas, I assumed he forgot.  Two years later, I said something about how much I loved the piece, and he was like "oh? That's yours, anyway."  Then indifferently thrust it into my hands.  Another year, he gave me an underpainting, for Christmas, with the promise that it wouldn't take too much longer to finish.  26 months later, it's finally hanging on my wall.  That's after it spent time in a gallery (while it was half done).  Then came my birthday picture, the one of Bella, my sweet beloved pug.  I'm not in possession of that either, it's in his room.  Merry fucking Christmas to me, right?  So, when he asked me this year, if I wanted a piece of art, I said "no."  Why? Because he's never actually given me a piece of art.  Nothing.  Not one piece is actually "mine"  Mine to hold, mine to hang, mine privately.  Mine. Like a gift.  Like when you give something to someone as a gift.  So, I said no.

I just went through the house collecting all these bullshit "gifts" and gave them back to him.  Well, he's sleeping like a baby, so I just rested them by his bed.  They're meaningless to me, at this point.

In standard Luiz fashion, not only did he create a piece of art for me, after I specifically said I didn't want one, it wasn't even remotely done by Christmas.   But, you know, when we're all unwrapping things, it was lovely, blah blah blah.

It's a picture of a nude reclining "fairy" that looks exactly like me, with a few body flaws smoothed out, but nude all the same.  He took nude photos of me, curled up, to use as a model, then changed the structure of my body just a tad, to make it more like an Ingres painting.  The fairy is curled into the fetal position, on a cushion of marijuana buds, drifting off into a sleepy smoky dream.  There's images of my own incorporated, my doodles, my glyphwork, I even drew a spider on it, at Luiz's request.  Because this was a painting for me, of me, for my bedroom wall.  I wouldn't even hang it in the living room, honestly.

Ok.  I struggled with it, as a gift.  I don't advertise that I smoke pot.  I keep that rather private, and I definitely am not into displaying an image of my naked body.  Unwrapping it as a gift made me a little uncomfortable, but, that was on me.  I fight body image issues every day.  Just because I'm comfortable enough to walk around the house naked, does not mean I am even remotely comfortable enough to parade around in public the same way. As a piece of art, what he presented me on Christmas looked rushed and unfinished, and he even said so himself.  It took him till just days ago to finish it. Why the rush now?  Because he wanted to use it in a show.

He asked.  I said "I'm uncomfortable with it, I'd prefer you didn't. That's my piece, you gifted it to me."  Then I said "but I would feel like a jerk if it prevented you from earning money, lets let ask the cards."  The cards said, as a print, it would be met with indifference. It wouldn't earn money.  It doesn't speak to people, people can't relate.  Full stop.  I was satisfied with that answer.

Luiz displayed it at the gallery.  Today, I got to stand in front of my nude-curled-on-a-heap-of-pot picture, for three hours, while people looked at it.  It definitely looks like me.  No mistaking who that maybe could be.  That was psychological torture, but, again, what the fuck am I going to do at this point, it's in the gallery, the art opening is in full swing, I'm standing there talking to friends of mine 3 feet away from my naked ass.  To add insult to injury, they insisted on hanging the piece sideways, so it unflatteringly looks like I am sitting on a fucking pinecone. This gallery, by the way, is about four doors down from my actual workplace, and many of my customers and friends drift through there, daily.  It's closely affiliated with the shop I work at.  In fact, he never would have even met those people, if it weren't for me.  I hooked him up with them in the first place.

So, we get home from the opening.  I am exhausted, and socially wrung out.  I go to my internet playground to blow off steam.  He posted it on fucking reddit. He posted my nude image to fucking reddit.  Luiz posted this picture, his first art post ever, the first image he chooses to share (of ALL his art) is that. fucking. painting.  Which he unceremoniously just called "the weed fairy".

I'm beside myself.  I fucking hate him.  He's taken everything from me, at this point.  Over the years, he's fucking stripped me bare, emotionally, mentally, financially, and now, physically. My privacy. Gone.  My bedroom picture, a gift from him to me.  An image I won't even hang elsewhere in the house, because it's so private.  Spent all fucking day on reddit.  It's hanging RIGHT now in an art gallery.

I'm so shellshocked.  I feel so literally violated.  When I discovered it, I was upset, and I told him so, and that I've been upset about the whole thing since he decided to put it in the gallery. Upset.  No.  Physically ill.  Totally fucked up about it.  Shocked.  Horrified.  Fuming.  Angry.  Devastated.  I am furious.  His response?  "I reserve the right to all my paintings and images, it's mine to do what I want with."  I told him I hope he goes back to Brazil, where he'll live as a failure, mooching off his alcoholic father, and probably get aids from fucking hookers.  Like, I didn't even mean that to shock. I literally meant that in that moment.

I'm not sure how or if I'll come back from this.  Nothing he's said tonight even remotely touched me.  It's all bullshit self preservation.  He says he loves me.  How can he love me, if he doesn't even know me? That was devastating to learn, tonight.  He doesn't even know me. It keeps repeating itself over and over in my head.  How can someone say they love me, then do this?  Me?  I am such a private person. I have struggled my entire life with ownership of objects, and ownership of self.  My whole childhood, my mother told me ad nauseam that I didn't own anything, everything I had was hers, because I lived in her room, in her house.  I never had a room, a sanctuary growing up. I never had a shred of privacy.  They drilled the locks out of my doors, and burst into my room at any hour day or night, if I was changing, sleeping, anything.  My stepfather used to come in my room at 3 am, with a flashlight to do a "bed check", and stand there leering at me in my sleep.   They went through my stuff daily, and threw my possessions out with abandon.  Nothing, and I mean literally nothing, was actually mine.  They sold cars out from under me.  I struggle with ownership of self.  I lost my virginity without my consent, when I was 14.  Luiz created a real problem with my self ownership too, with the rape and coercion situations of the past.  I really struggle with that.

 He claims he had no idea that I would react this way.  Even though I told him dozens of times that I didn't want that piece in a gallery or as prints or anywhere besides right on the wall in my bedroom.  For the simple sake of having just ONE fucking piece of art that I could call my own.  I figured if I could even ask that about one fucking piece of art, it would be the nude, right?  The one I trusted him with.  But, what's the first thing he does?  Puts it on the internet.

I can't trust him. He did a lot of untrustworthy stuff last year.  He lied a lot, and did a lot of horrible shit to me. It took me months to start trusting him again, and feeling secure in our relationship, and even though this is a different kind of betrayal, that trust is destroyed again.

I know, though, because I am a fucking loser doormat, that he will make a good show of apologizing, and promise to never do this again, and say nice things, and seem very sincere, that we will just continue on much the same after this.  Just like after last summer, when he was looking for gay and straight hookups on Craigslist, and actively cheating on me, while resenting me and sneaking into my bed in the morning and fucking me, in my ass, and in my sleep without consent.  Just like the summer before when he decided he had a crush on Michele, and almost destroyed not only my friendship with her, but most of my social life.  Just like after all the times he's hurt me in big and little ways.  What the fuck is wrong with me?

 Writing, usually a catharsis, is just torturing me.

I don't know what to even do.

...like you don't get it.  When I say "my inner 16 year old is activated", I mean, I just had this specific moment.

All those times we talked on the phone all evening, you were baked hanging out in front of the TV, and I was dancing around my bedroom to get ready to go out.  Because you were ready in a second, and it took me hours to get ready to go.  So, there we were, all those evenings, on the phone.  Me listening to music I know you hate, with a streak of guilt, in one headphone so you wouldn't overhear it on your end of the line.  Just talking about nothing.  Listening to the low rumble of your voice and just being so deliriously happy that you were taking the time to talk to me.  Hanging on your every word.  Trying to play it cool, because, fuck that, we're just friends.  Plus, chances are, I was getting ready to go out with someone else, some boyfriend.  Who I always wished was you, but  whatever.  I always felt charged with emotion, loving you, being excited about my plans for the night.

It just happened.  I recaptured the exact pitch of emotion, the exact feeling, texting you, getting ready for later, putting on makeup, listening to really horrid dance music cranked up to 12.  I was fucking 16 again.  I love you now as much as I loved you then.  You still jolt me the same way as 20 years ago.  It hasn't softened.  It hasn't diminished.

This is going to be shit.  I will not delete this when I'm sober.  Sometimes,  I need to write absolute shit.

I have ingested everything in the house known to alter the mind, kill pain, and reduce stress in some way.  I need to be anesthetized.  It has been so grey.  There's a lot of obvious raw and hurtful death, pain, and suffering, but there's some subversive things happening too. Anguish from unexpected places. Physical pain.  I'm even scared, and I'm never scared.

There is a pain, though.  It's from loss of people and characters who make up our character, icons in our lives, legends that would always live on.  People who you remember fondly, but lost touch with.  People of a moment, of a formative year.  It's what's keeping me up tonight. There's a small but growing hole in my house, my center.   This is drafty and lets in small gusts of cold, now, forever.

Today is the first day that I feel old.

I'm on my netbook, so this will be full of errors, I'm sure.  I always write out the bad stuff, so that when I look back over the years, it seems like life is full of tragedy.  And, sometimes, it is.  But, we've had such a complete and total turn around, and it's so powerful and complete, I must write about it.

In that moment of choice.  In that moment of freedom, where I laid down my first, last and only ultimatum "From now on, no matter what, you will never hide anything from me, or lie to me, no matter how petty, or else we can't be together".  I laid it on the line, which was the hardest thing I've ever done.  I've never been the "my way or the highway" type, but that's what it had to be, to build back up.  And in that naked moment, he could have hated me for being controlling, or he he could just turn himself around entirely and come to me on my terms for the first time since we met.  I freed him to seek out his own life.  I gave him my blessings to go and be his own man, without me.  In that moment, he came to me, free of resentment, free of vitriol and the best yet, free of secrets and that poisonous projection, and apologized.  Genuinely.  For the first time in 10 years, I saw all the way down to his soul, and knew he meant it.  And in that moment, I began to love him a little.  I felt wary, because of the previous lies, but over some very intense days of talking, really talking about the important shit, the feelings, the dark parts, the stuff he'd been hiding for so many years, feeling his earnestness.  Watching him struggle with the telling.  Seeing his tears, seemingly random.  My heart thawed.

And, in doing so, I felt, for the first time in over a year...happy.  Truly happy, like myself again.  My little half smile is back.  I didn't even know it was gone, till Connie pointed it out.  All those silly cliches are right.  The sun is shinging brighter.  The bird are chirping.  All the rest of the stuff in my life, the shitshow that is Vintage and the house drama...pff.  It's back where it belongs.  On the sidelines.  Not stripping me every day sucking my will to live. My happiness doesn't rely on him, actually.  It comes from the fact that I could seize control of my feelings, and actually break up with him.  I actually ended it.  And the world didn't end.  I didn't die.  The house didn't fall down.  I've experienced the full measure, length and breadth of the worst pain in my life, losing my soulmate.  And, I lived.  Nothing is gonna break me down, now.  Seriously.  There are few things in the world that can even come close to that sort of earth shattering revelation.  I actually feel like a new person, myself.

We're moving forward.  We never did define what we are.  We casually refer to each other as husband and wife.  We've never sworn an oath, took any vows, or even really defined what we mean to each other.  Soulmates, twin flames, blah blah all meaningless, without some gravitas.  Some sort of framework to remind us who we are.  So, we're moving towards some sort of understanding.

I realized that I was over whatever was depressing me, when I looked at a half finished art project sitting here on my desk, and started composing again.  I put on one of my favorite bands, sat here at the shop cleaning, arranging, singing along, and gaining momentum.  I'm now filled with new ideas and ambitions, and that's the way my head SHOULD feel.

I am restless, tonight.  Pacing, my heart won't slow down, nothing is comfortable, nothing is comforting.  Yet, there's a weird lightness.  

Throughout all the fighting, the agony, the sitting on the floor holding each other, crying, promising, there were still lies.  He pushed me right to the edge, but still after all that, I gave him a chance, because I thought that no matter what, I still couldn't stop loving him.  Because I found out today that in spite of all the mending and "breakthroughs", he was still lying to me.  Looking right in my tear filled eyes, with tears streaming out of his own, and professed 100% honesty.

And then, he lied.  And he kept on lying for a few days.  But I didn't realize it, so I accepted him at his word. Again. And again, he failed me.  Hundreds of times, he's made promises to change, because he claims to love me so much.  But not enough to be honest with me in the most crucial time, not enough to be honest in the most basic and elemental of ways.  I really don't know now, if half of the shit that falls out of his lying mouth is true.  I don't even really know if he loves me or not, or if he's just appealing to my kind nature, saying pretty things, playing my insecurities, to preserve his free fucking ride.  

I actually had an epiphany.  I've never seen this before, never been pushed that far over the edge, that I just quit loving someone.  I'm not sure if I'm in shock right now, and I'll just crumble into a fucking disaster tomorrow?  I have no idea.  I've never gone through anything quite like this. This afternoon, it was all nice.  Tonight, after I caught him out, discovered that he lied and had been lying to me for quite some time, my heart snapped shut. Well, It wasn't so dramatic, no.  He wasn't home, and I couldn't make words come anyway, so I wrote.  I wrote it all out in an email.  As I wrote, my heart closed slowly.  With each word, my emotions grew deader, to him.  Each sentence, I realized how much damage he's really done to me, over time.  He hurt me so bad, and so often, he actually broke me.  My heart broke, but I'm not actually heartbroken.  I broke up with him.  He's crushed every bit, every scrap of love and esteem I've ever had, but instead of being a weepy mess, because that shit got tired...I got angry, then this coldness settled in that was so stark and so crystalline it almost startled me.  Irv had to talk me down from actually physically kicking him out.  Oh, he still lives here, sure.  And to most people, nothing's different.  And, if he can't fix his shit, when we move into the little house, he's moving out forever.  If he can't give me a reason to try to love him again, if he can't give me the two things I ask for, have always asked for, just fucking honesty and respect, then I can't have him in my life.  Because of the business, for Irv, for Alden, for the family that we have, and the 9ish years we've been together, for the memory of love, for the fact that I have more than myself to think about here, I didn't send him packing today, though I am sorely sorely tempted.  I wish I could add hope to that list, but hope died in me along with everything else regarding him.

I'm not angry.  I'm empty.  I can still look him in the eye, I can have a basic cordial conversation.  But, it's a little forced, because I'm still...I don't know, I'm still something over this, I don't even know what I feel.  I do know that I'm not over it, not by a longshot.  I still have these thoughts that pop up, and I get angry at myself, for being so stupid and trusting, and so willing to overlook so much.  That's why I feel so restless, I am still very very angry at myself for being such a fucking mess over this for so long.  All the crying and second guessing myself, all the times I thought I was literally going insane, because he had me twisted so far around with his bullshit I wasn't even sure of myself anymore.   I'm not shocked, though, because I knew it already.  I had a bit of intuition that he wasn't 100% alright, even though I tried to tell myself otherwise.  

He's been attempting to make things right.  He's been crying.  He's even crying in his sleep.  He handed me all of the passwords to all of the fuckbuddy accounts, and all the places he's gone looking and corresponding with people.  I haven't looked.  I saw enough before.  It was actually a test, to see if he would really, legitimately come clean.  He even handed me the box of condoms he bought.  That was a weird moment.  But, the doubt is still there, because what's to stop him from laying low for a bit and starting his shit back up?  When he feels "lonely" as he puts it.  What's to stop him from giving me half the info, and trying to hide the really horrible stuff?  And, I saw some horrible stuff, but not all of it, I know.  I didn't dig that deep.  I am not a snoop. How do I know that I can see all his email accounts? How do I know that he's not just playing me. Again.  Irv was really trying to persuade me to give him a chance.  But, I told him on Friday that it was his last chance to salvage anything we had.  And, in the face of that, he chose to lie.  For NO. FUCKING. REASON.  

I need to stop writing.  It's not helping me like it normally does.  I started cool and calm, but I can feel myself heating up, and now it's time to stop dwelling.  

 I've been having a semi normal evening otherwise, though I haven't eaten since lunch, and he's sleeping peacefully on the couch right now.  I don't know what tomorrow will bring.  

The past two weeks have been hell.  The past maybe year, has been pretty fucking bad.  The past 8 years have been difficult.  But, to avoid conflict, I eat it.  For peace, love, and household harmony, I sacrifice a very important part of myself, and it happens so often, so consistently, on the surface, I barely even notice it anymore.  Something huge, and dark seems passe.  It's amazing what we can get used to, as human beings.  But when I take inventory, when I spend a rare quiet moment in my life, in introspection, my thoughts turn so dark, that I quickly shove it down, bottle it up, and make it go away.  I thought I was just immune to things.  It all crashed home.  I realize that this thing, this thing I can't mention, that affects every level of my self, from my basic comfort level in my own home, to challenging the very person I think I am, or, as of last night, that I thought I was.  It's stripped away all that I am, everything.  From stupid possessions that I feel like I "own" because on paper, I've worked for, and paid for these meaningless things, to the most important part of me, that I thought I really did own, my actual literal body.  My soul.  Everything.  Nothing is mine. Nothing us under my own power.  I have been manipulated, and used, pushed, pulled, and coerced so much, that it's become what I think of as normal.

 I've been steadily drawing inward, over the years.  I look back, and think "I didn't used to hate people.  I didn't used to shrink away from human interaction" and...now I do.  All humans, all the time.  Even people I love with all my heart.  I can't talk.  I can't open myself.  I don't like to be touched anymore, I barely tolerate hugs.  I don't like to have people near me, or leaning over me.  Even in the most mundane situations.  This is not something I talk about, much, but I self medicate. Heavily.  I drug myself into sleep every night with large amounts benadryl or nyquil.  I take Xanax, or smoke a LOT of pot just to make it through the day.  Just to make sure I don't feel.  To make sure, that when I lay down to sleep, I don't spend hours awake hating myself, for what my life has become.   There's no real joy in anything.  I've quit painting, writing, creating.  Music, aside from a few very tremendous moments, is just there, and doesn't offer the comfort and happiness it used to.  I read for escape.  I've been cycling through a few very comforting books that completely take me out of my own head.  I can't even read anything else, because unless it offers full escape, I can't.  Reading tarot cards for people is one of my last outlets, and I can't even do that properly, because I need to open myself fully to the cards, emotionally, and they all turn into bullshit fake images.  Because I, myself, have become that.


I have been faking it.  For years.  I envision myself as a strong, empowered woman, who takes no shit and gets things done.  Everyone turns to me, at some point, for advice, or just to listen, or just do what I do, which is listen, and love, and feel compassion, and help.  I mean, that's my fucking job.  That's not fake, I still love, and I still feel compassion, but I realize how very close that is to dying too.  Where the fuck to I get off?  How dare I?  I've been lying to myself for years.  Lying to everyone.  The real me is this fucking mess, this weepy, insane, barely-holding-it-together, sometimes suicidal, delusional, insecure, fragmented amorphous ball of nothing hiding in a corner, cringing away from everything.  I say one thing, about self power, and having control over one's self, and yet I let things go as far as they have. I didn't start out this way.

I had this dawning last night, about this whole thing.  I shrink away from people, I hide, because it causes me deep...pain?  I don't know, I can't even find the words. It compromises every bit of me to continue faking it and lying to myself, and to be fake around everyone else.  I can't keep up the facade, and I'm starting to crumble around the edges.  This thing, that I can't really even talk about.  I can't write it down. I can't quite bring myself to really face it down yet.  This fucking thing, I discovered is the heart of all of it.  Not the house.  Not the stresses that people can see, all that shit means nothing to me, or it's not so bad as I make it out.  Honestly?  There is nothing really wrong with my life, but this one thing, and it is somehow everything that's wrong.  I woke up with tears in my eyes, and I haven't stopped crying. I know why, but I can't find the words, to help people understand.  I don't know if anyone really gets it.