Three things

I've noticed myself trying to find reasons why my relationship with Shawn may be ending soon, and each time I do, I realize that I'm seeing things that aren't really there. That made me wonder, this morning, what is motivating me to look for things that are wrong? Why am I undermining this like I sabotaged my marriage?

So I sat in today's team meeting and asked myself some direct questions.

What do I want?
1. I want to laugh and have things to look forward to
2. I want to love someone and be loved in return
3. I want to have a family

Really its that simple.

So as far as those three items relate to Shawn, I have the first with him. The second, I only have half of. I love him but he doesn't love me. Which is ok, really. We went into this with the notion that this was about right now and not the future and that there wouldn't be any expectations. It was my own stupid fault for falling in love, but I do that. But at the end, I don't have #2 requirement met. And #3 will never happen with Shawn, so that's not met either.

What does that mean?
1. My relationship with Shawn is short term and I have to keep that in mind so I'm not so dependent upon him for my happiness
2. I need to tone down on my feelings for him. To start, I need to make sure that neither I nor anyone else refers to him as my 'boyfriend'. We're friends, really. It makes me sad, but really that's what we went into this looking for and that's what it is. See a duck and call it a duck.
3. It shows some of the underlying reasons why I resent James so much right now. 'Family' wasn't his dream, he didn't even want it when it was presented to him, why does he get it and I don't?

What effect will the identifying those three things have on the short term?
1. Dunno. But I need to maybe start to focus on myself - things like running and goals like 3M and similar things that end up making me feel empty but are good distractions short term.
2. I need to refocus my brain off of Shawn. Distance myself from the places and people that are part of the shared world. I still want to be his friend, but I need to guard my sanity.
3. I want to work on my house. That's the best way to shore up my own psyche.

What effect will the identifying of those three things have on the long term?
1. Dunno. Not like one can go out and find someone worthy of my love and who would love me back. Not like one can go out and get a family, especially when one is single and broke. So lots of dunnos.
2. Need to be up front with my BFF M, who with her dearest heart, tries to make me feel better when I'm sad like this by reminding me that I'm part of her family, but it only makes it worse in some ways. Like denying a starving man food, but letting him look at other people eating. Its sometimes worse. She loves me, but she doesn't understand that part I think.

The other day in San Marcos when we went tubing, I nearly drowned. I went down a "chute" and got pulled under, swallowed some water, so much pain, I had no air in my lungs, and when I started to get my head out of the water, got pulled into the second chute and got pulled under again. I got to feel what drowning felt like. Luckily, I was able to get my feet lodged in a rock before I got pulled into the third chute or I would have really drowned. No lifeguards there and no one would have known til my brain had been gone. So now the memory of it is a new anxiety, but in a way its a good metaphor for right now. Its been a beautiful ride in the sunlight under the trees but in the end I'm pulled in the current out of control and if I don't find something to stick my foot into to stop this, I'll not make it out again.

-erin

Tonight is Sunday.

Tonight is Sunday. I ran a long run tonight and feel pretty good. I feel decently content with my life but at the same time I don't want to be alone for the rest of it and I'm not sure what that means. Its been an interesting month.

On a sad note, Teddie Dog is dying and my mom is torn up inside. Maybe though this will help her deal with her guilt about Grandpa. I hope so. I don't like to see her suffer the same pain at her own hands over and over.

I think I'll watch a movie tonight to distract myself from falling into melancholy.

I miss you James but I know that things happen for a reason and that you life will likely be better without me in it. I wish there had been a way to fix the things that broke us apart, but we'd been trying to fix those things for most of our 13 years and they were only getting worse. I hope you're having a good night.

Silence

The past week has been windy and there's always been a wind chime ringing somewhere in someone's yard. The roof has been creaking, there's always been something.

Tonight its silent.

Not everyone's a mommy

I want my heart to stop beating.

haunted houses

There's this old mansion that used to be in town on 29 until they tore it down, that R and I snuck into one day and I used to take pictures of it from outside the chain link fence that surrounded the property.

It was a really strange place. Red stone with four white columns in the front. Grey roof. Big doorway surrounded with glass blocks. It was built all with concrete and the upstairs was divided in two with two equally sized bedrooms with the frames of two full sized beds in each room made into the floor, like a dormitory room.

And there was an attic with a small half oval window that we didn't find our way up into (which is good because even in full sunlight it felt like there was evil up there) and the shower in one of the upstairs bedrooms was this small little dark room with green tile.

And the yard was overgrown with weeds and wildflowers and there were brambly oak trees growing in front, and a stone gate that separated the driveway from the highway.



And I dream about this mansion all the time though in my dreams the layout is different but I know its W. Mansion still and I know that its going to be torn down in the near future (in my dream)

And in my dreams its haunted (in theory the real place was haunted too, but we didn't see it) and I wander through this place trying to make peace with the house that is so full of enmity.

And there are parts of the house that want to be torn down, but other parts that want me to rescue pieces of it and get it to safety

And there's places in the house, rooms that I don't go in because they're so dark and I'm scared. Rooms coming off a long dark hallway that I don't have the guts to walk down.

And at the end of the dream I always end up outside, on the front porch waiting for the destruction to come, either the house destroying itself or the city coming to tear it down.

and its always so quiet because there's no sound in that dream.



I also dream about my grandparents house sometimes, but in this case, the house is empty (the furniture is there, but there's no people or even ghosts) and they've moved and I wander through it worried that someone will break in.

Its pretty clear to me what the W. Mansion dream means, but I still don't know what the grandparents house dream is trying to tell me.