Dear Diary,

I am so very tired. Think I went to bed at 6:30 or so.

I am feeling slightly bad because I haven't heard from Ex. I got his mother's number from Information, and called her on Friday night and had a lovely conversation with her. She was very forthcoming with all kinds of information, like telling me Ex had moved South for two years, and he went West and was living with his sister again, and he was a completely different person, less angry now that things had been ironed out with his brother. She told me that rarely does Ex answer his phone especially if he doesn't recognize the number, and if his voicemail is full I should send him a text message and he will call me back.

So that is what I did, a simple message saying, hi, it's Duck, I miss you, please call me. But I also had the awareness that I had called Ex last Thanksgiving and left him a message and he'd never returned my call... maybe he was mad at me? A possibility. I had trouble remembering exactly what our last meetings had been like. There was the thing when he wanted me to drop my whole life and come and live with him, and he threatened to kill my boyfriend. There were a couple of arguments- him calling me a bitch, me overreacting to simple things because I kept feeling that he was trying to control me. The time he stopped by my parents' and exhibited bad behavior- a little too sexual and controlling.

But I would think with several years gone by- at least three now, I think- this would be water under the bridge, especially now that things in the family had changed. Wouldn't Ex look back and agree we were both fucked up then, different now? We've known each other for about 22 years. I'm the only one that believed in him fir about 20 of those. Doesn't that count for something?

Maybe not. I once had a friend who told me point-blank: "I don't think I want to see you, Duckie. Whenever you show up you dig up this shit that I don't want to look at. I don't want to feel any worse about myself."

Meaning, basically, that somehow truth follows me around. I have a way of pointing out a different perspective to people that they'd rather not see- especially in aspects of personal responsibility. In that last case I guess I made that friend take a serious look at himself as far as some of his sexual behavior and his belief that genital warts were purely a cosmetic problem and he shouldn't have to tell any of his partners that he had them.

Okay. But Ex is different. If anything, he received a lot of acceptance from me. About his kinks, his deviancy, his thieving. The only thing I ever tutted about were his substance addictions, which was less about judgment and more about concern for his well-being.

But maybe, I am part of his old life. And because I didn't stop him from doing any of those things, he doesn't want me around. One of my biggest fears is that Ex is normal now- does he have some relationship, some sense of equilibrium that he lacked before, and he doesn't want me to fuck it up? Because Ex and I were kinky together, deviant, off the grid, rebellious, who-gives-a-fuck. I was there as he channelled his rage into twisted rituals, and some of that required a significant amount of belittling himself.

Maybe. Maybe he's just thinking about calling me.

I don't know why it's so important to me- it's not likely he's normal enough for it to work for us. All those kinks and things don't go away just because some family things got settled, do they? I've been in therapy forever and I am still fucked up. I guess what I miss the most is the sex. Ex was skilled, in touch and measuring what I needed. He ferreted out my darkest desires without ever using words. Who wouldn't miss that?

But like all things involving men, I have to learn to let go. My hopeless pattern of chasing the unattainable no longer really holds any surprises, does it? I am not to be trusted in my choices and I know that more than anyone else.

I say I don't see the signs, but I think I do see them but it is as if I am high at the time, high on my own pattern, my own addiction to yearning.

In any case, I'll just own that. I'll own that even after reading all of last year's entries, and the many many entries about my confusion with Smitten, my first impulse was to call him. I wanted things to be different, I WANTED TO BE DIFFERENT- freer, breezier, unattached. After all, I have Shelby now. But I am just the same.

Serena says it will get better, and there's little ways it has, but I still have not seen the kind of improvement I would like to see in myself.

I remember once when I was younger, I was having a conversation with someone and I actually said, "I'm not really who I'd like to be yet." that person was very amused and obviously thought that was a silly thing to say- they didn't get me at all.

You get it, right Diary?

I'm not yet who I'd like to be.

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