The Fourteen Years War - TBY - 2004 to The Present - Volumes III & IV

I orginally had split up the last part of this saga into two parts, but you guys and gals have been so very patient and kind since I started this on Thursday, June 22nd, yes, it's been that long, that I didn't have the heart to make you slog through two more days for more of my insight and decisions concerning this situation. Plus, I'm just so tired. I haven't been sleeping well, as you can imagine. For those of you wondering, AZ is home, we spoke on the phone last night, we saw one another today (and I got a jewelry order from one of his friends, WOOT! I've been very creative lately as well... Uranus in retrograde and all that. (Did you all know, that on July 4th and 5th, Mercury, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, and Jupiter were all in retrograde? Jupiter went direct on July 6th but it certainly is interesting what those retrogrades can signify and how it's corresponding to my life. Read more about it here. )) Anyway, I hit the tip of the iceberg which was just an honest observation of my fear that someday Jeff will kill me or at least attempt to, and how I live with that fear everyday and I'm sick of it. How's that for a "welcome home?" I may wait until Mercury goes direct again on the 28th before getting into the heavy stuff since Mercury is the planet of communication. Then again, maybe I won't. He's aware that I have some things to say and he was very receptive to having porch time with me when he doesn't have to get up at the ass crack of dawn the following morning. (I added that last part about the ass crack of dawn.) Thanks for hanging with me and thanks for all of your concern and insights. I have a feeling the last half of the year is going to be far more interesting than the first part of the year. As Forrest Gump would say, "I'm tired. I think I'll go home now." When I told T-Bird, she said, "This is not good for you." DUH!!! He may as well be an alcoholic. When I did realize it, I immediately thought of extricating myself from him period. Never seeing him again, never talking to him again, never having anything to do with him. Scary, even for the Giant Peach. Then, I told myself I wasn’t running from this. I can’t change him, but he has told me, "I’m tired of being angry all the time." Perhaps that’s just bullshit talking, maybe it’s not. I’ve always been here for him to talk to, but sometimes, I didn’t know what to say. Now I do. Peeps, I’m not walking away from him for two reasons. Well, there’s more than two but the two most important reasons are: He’s told me he’s tired of being the way he is. Whether this means he’s actually receptive to change I don’t know, time will tell. The most important reason is me. That’s right, me. For 14 1/2 years I’ve skirted, dodged, put up with, tip-toed around, and basically pansy-assed my way around AZ. Do I know how to deal with him? I thought I did, I still think I do for the most part. Do I like it sometimes? Fuck no. What a nasty creature he can be. But there is a connection between us and has been one since the day I walked into his living room and danced. I understand it better now, a whole lot better. I’ve been guilty of giving in to him, of not knowing what to say, or of not saying something because I didn’t want to upset him. That jive is over. I’ve given him control over me through my love for him and his manipulations, whether consciously or subconsciously, for far too long. I’m still learning on how to stand up to Jeff but I definitely need to learn to stand up to AZ. I will not walk away until I learn how to do this. I’m doing research, I’m praying and meditating a lot. I have to take back the control that I’ve given him for ME. All that and then I recognized aspects of myself in what is written about passive-aggressive personalities. All of us will find ourselves in those traits, perhaps not all the time, but at least some of the time. I now can recognize that my housekeeping problem is not only ADHD, not laziness, not being too busy, it’s a passive rebellion against my anal retentive mother. I come from a classic p/a family. My mom was and is, very needy, my father, emotionally unavailable which just made her worse. I lived under tension so tangible it was like having another person in our house. I fear self assertion and confrontation, although I’m getting better. I would like to have someone in my life, but also fear commitment. I’m very independent and no, I don’t like anything that challenges that, to the point of pushing men away. And I loathe someone telling me what to do, not so much at work, it’s expected there, but in my own domain, hence the passive rebellion against my mother even though she’s never here. It also bleeds over into my relationship with Nate. I really hate that. Nate loves video games and he always wants me to watch them with him. I hate video games and although I’ve tried to explain this to him, he is so insistent, and I become the "Yes Mom" to get him to leave me alone. Yes, I’ll be there in a minute, knowing I will stretch that minute as long as I can. And he does it to me so we’re becoming locked in the passive battle. Is this what I want my child to learn??? NO. Which means, I have to change. Just goes to show. . . make sure you don’t live in a glass house before you start throwing stones and often those things we don’t like about other people, are things we don’t like about ourselves. The week before AZ left was trying, very, very trying. His talk of "family is the only thing that keeps me on this Earth," "my life sucks," "I hate my life," and storming out of the shop without saying so much as a goodbye to any of us Friday before last. Telling me he would talk to me about organizing the shop when he gets back. . . yeah right, another way for him to manipulate me, put it off and put him in control. Not. After I told him that I had been writing to him, him saying, "Why don’t you just tell me." That one, I haven’t figured out. Does he really want me to stop writing to him after so long? After 200 or so letters? After telling me for years how much he enjoyed them? Is this just a way to hurt me or push me away? Or does he really want me to talk to him? Does he really want me to find my voice? After all, he’s the oral communicator in this relationship and I’m the written communicator. Verbal communication for me is my final frontier. That pain is so deeply rooted in me, the pain of the verbal lashings I received as a child, the emotional abuse I’ve received is so deep within me, I still quake and quiver when doing the least bit of verbal confronting, but I have done it and I will do it. I will work through this. Maybe he is right. Maybe it is time for me to stop writing to him and start talking to him. The real question is, is that really what he wants? Does he really want me to open my mouth and let the truth come out? I cannot change anything about my past, but I can work through it and I will. I cannot change AZ in the least, but I can change the way I react to him and I can change the way I deal with him and I will. Now I see, and I hope some of you understand, AZ has always been a catalyst of change for me. Not every moment has been shining, not every moment has been made in heaven, but when he opens up to me, when he reaches out to me, when he touches me, when he lays his forehead against mine, when I feel his pain, anger, and yearning, I cannot turn away. I must face all of this. The good and the bad. I cannot fear what is to come. I must be strong for myself. I cannot doubt that I will come out on the other side stronger, wiser, and happier. If he wants it bad enough, he will too, and if he doesn’t, then I’ll still be stronger, wiser, and happier. I’ll tell you what else T-Bird had to say about all of this, not about the part about me, because I haven’t told her, because I hadn’t figured it out yet, but the part about AZ. "I wouldn’t waste my breath." Well, peeps, I wonder how she would have felt had I said that about her. Sorry, you’re unhealthy and broken. You’ll never change. It doesn’t matter that you’ve said you don’t want to be the way you are anymore, it doesn’t matter how you’ve tried, it just doesn’t matter because I’m not going to waste. my. breath. How many "broken" people do you know who have changed their lives? Well, you’re looking at one of them and I’m not stopping. I’ll never stop. That is my nature. Yes, AZ and I are locked in passive battle as well. I can see it. I can see how we each manifest our anger and fear in different ways and how we ricochet off of each other. Do you think we enjoy being this way? Do think we enjoy being alone, and worse, lonely? Do you not understand how it hurts my heart to be angry and afraid all the time? I live under constant fear and sometimes an anger wells inside of me that I don’t understand. Do you not think I understand when AZ says, "I don’t want to be angry anymore." I understand very well. So, if you wouldn’t waste your breath, then please, go look in the mirror and congratulate yourself on having a perfect life with all of your perfect family and your perfect friends. Remember that anger that wells up? That’s it, right there. I’ve always felt broken, different, odd, strange, ad nauseum, but I’m worth it and I deserve so much more than I’m allowing myself to have because I’m really not any more broken, more different, odder or stranger than anyone else. I’ve just been lead to believe that. Whether it seems arrogant or not, I was born a healer, an empathic healer. I was born with a gift and that gift was mangled and abused to the point that I hated it. Not anymore. I have to embrace it, I have to heal myself again in order to heal those around me. And I wasn’t the only one born with the gift. . . may the passive battle become active healing. Someone pass me an onion. Oh, never mind, I think I found one last night.