Dear Diary,

Oh, the fabulous dream world, I had to leave it behind this morning... I hate when the alarm goes off, because then I'm really interrupted and I don't remember my dreams at all.

But, this is part of shifting my sleep cycle- getting up two hours earlier than I did yesterday, and trying to fall asleep at least an hour or two earlier than I did the night before. (I probably fell asleep around 5:30 or 6am this morning).

And, life goes on. Thirty days since I talked to M- has a lot happened in thirty days? I have to trust that it has, even though I don't completely feel it. That changes may be subtle, but important... that things continue to integrate.. that I am getting somewhere, albeit slowly. Winter makes it harder and my own isolation makes it harder still, so I really need to shift the way I've been managing here.

I think this week has been extra rough because Red has been gone. I suppose you could say he's my best friend at this time. That's something else I've realized. If you asked me to pick my best girlfriend, I don't know what to tell you. There were times in the past where I would have said Emily, or I would have said Gail. But I wouldn't say that now. Maybe LilyB? But she's a little hard to get a hold of. I don't know. I really don't feel like any one person knows ALL of me, what I consider to be a best friend. Emily is too conservative to get over half of what I do. For instance, this whole personal journey thing- she doesn't get that at all. She tries to make it all cut and dried. I guess the person I felt most accepted by was M, and that's what makes this loss doubly hard- could it be that he has been my best friend, as well as my lover? That would explain why this is so huge for me.

I've been trying to be social -I've been trying to arrange to hang out with Ava for quite a while... I don't think I've seen her since... September or October or somewhere around there. It just hasn't worked out. For one thing, we were supposed to make plans to get together one night in December and then she wrote me an email that her Mom died. That was pretty shocking. I called, left several supportive messages and also wrote emails. Finally I heard back from her, and we made plans a couple of times but each time she had to cancel- just sounding overwhelmed and like she couldn't handle getting together. The last time she bailed out on me was Sunday, a few hours before I was supposed to come over to her house. I just wrote her an email and put it in her hands, telling her we could get together when she's ready. I can't be chasing people around all the time.

Steffy and I also talked on the phone last night. Her roommate and she had a fight, and now her roommate has asked her to move out. So she has two months to find a new place, which is always stressful. She said she called her boyfriend right away, and he was very supportive and told her she should have no trouble getting another apartment. Then Steffy was disappointed in the fact that said Matt didn't offer up the idea of them getting a place together.

Truthfully, as I've said before, I'm sure Matt is a very nice person, but he seems a bit lame in the boyfriend department. Not for the reason I've cited above- wait, let me finish. Overall, I just think he's not what Steffy wants. He had a marriage with a tragic ending (his wife got sick and died) and about a year later he hooked up with Steffy. Steffy wants romance, love, marriage and children. She, of course, hasn't confessed any of this to Matt. He hardly ever calls her, comes and goes when he pleases, and she spends a lot of time waiting for him to be more into it (sound familiar?). I can tell when I talk to her that she fakes it a lot of the time, being happy with where they're at- but she's not really satisfied.

She also said that she accidently said, "I love you" to Matt, and he did not respond. Then she asked him a few hours later if he heard her, and he said he had. He started to say that he wasn't ready to say anything like that, and Steffy cut him off and said that was fine. Then she asked if it was okay if she told him that, and he said he didn't know.

I'm watching my friend being very hopeful about something that doesn't look like it's going to turn out the way she wishes it would. I'm watching her make poor decisions in the process (like not using protection when they have sex- I'm pretty sure part of her is hoping that if pregnancy did happen, it would bring them closer). I'm watching her wait for him to tell her the magic words, wait for him to miss her, wait for him to move closer to her. Sometimes it really enrages me, because I love her and she deserves more. But unlike my nosy friends, I don't say anything.

But it makes me reflect on my own situation, and how useless it is to wish that another person could be something different in that moment. It reminds me that I have to be really careful about reading the signs, and about how long I "wait" for something to evolve into something I can live with. With Frank, with Alphie, I was always waiting.

With M, he did reach out to me- called me twice a day, and we would try to see each other every week or every other week- not bad considering the distance. But now I have learned that a lot of that was from his sense of obligation. I need to be careful, and I need to get clear. What am I doing now? Am I waiting? I don't always feel that way. I feel like I'm doing my "homework" to become a better person. But the times that I feel like I'm truly in despair, that feels like I am waiting a bit. I can't wait. I need to get into my life NOW, and create and be who I want. Waiting will just create more sadness. It's like putting the onus on the other person- rather than taking responsibility for it.

M has accidently already said he loved me, but, ACCIDENTLY. Not on purpose. Not ready to say it... not willing to go there. Perhaps he will never be ready to go there with me. I may have to accept that. I may have to accept that I have been dancing around just like Steffy.

I'm giving myself till March 1st to reassess where I am. At that time, I need to make some kind of decision about what I'm doing- what I want. It may, who knows, require more waiting. I don't feel that I'm ready or clear to make any decisions right now, due to the fact that so much old stuff is still coming up. March 1st I will re-evaluate. It might be necessary to continue to slog through even more stuff. I might be a bit clearer and need to connect with M. I might be ready to date other people- who knows? It just feels good to take the pressure off needing to make a decision right now.

It might not be clear to me until April- who knows? I have a weird feeling about April. That it's spring, and maybe whatever's been underground will finally emerge, and I'll finally be able to breathe, see the sun. I don't know, I just don't know.

So, through watching Steffy's process, I notice a tendency to judge, both her and Matt, but if I look deeper I notice what I can compare to my own situation. Steffy did ask about M and I told her where I'm at- and also about me using this time to tackle my own abandonment issues, etc. She said, "Are you sure it's not M just being- like a man?" and I assured her that I'm sure I'm on the right track. I didn't make this stuff up, the fact that I have abandonment issues and every man in my life pulls away from me- hello. But it's interesting when I hear people say things like that, because it is indicative of how we want to see things outside ourselves, see ourselves as victims of external forces. Perhaps that is why Gail and Delia get so upset with me, because if they accepted that as human beings we create our own realities, then they would have to look at how they helped to create their own situations in life. My guess is that Steffy tells herself that Matt is going through "man stuff" and if she is "good enough" he will be drawn in by her femininity and he will "come around". But she doesn't want to look at the fact that maybe she has attracted someone in her life that will teach her about an unmet need, or fear, or something related to her relationship with her father.

But, that's life, this is a journey, everybody learns what they need to- and if they don't get it the first time, it will come around again. We know that one well, don't we, Diary? Check out my entry from March 15, 2004.

You don't have to tell me.

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