Let's throw menopause into the mix.

Dear Kim:

Pseudonym called bright and early this morning to talk. She was surprised that I was up. I said I was up but not very verbal. At least not audibly and that I would hope she would know that by this time. That I do not like to talk in the morning.

I am verbal but only in my head and only for writing.

She wanted to apologize for what she called her various emotings over the past few days. She said, Joan, I am a flawed woman. I have a chemical brain imbalance and am not doing well with my current medication.

I said, I appreciated that. That I am flawed as well. That we are all flawed. And it might also be said that most of us—especially those of us who have experienced trauma—have some sort of chemical imbalance. And while we're at it, let's throw menopause into the mix and we're all feeling a little crazy. But that she has been having problems with her medication or with that this or that virtually since we have been together and that it is not fair to dump stuff on me every time she gets anxious.

She said she knew.

Her tone was very loving.

Mine was not defensive or argumentative, it was measured, reasoning perhaps even loving to some degree back.

I am getting that It is as if Pseudonym has no filter when she is angry. She has to express it in that instant and when she is filled with love, she has to do the same.

The longer we are together, the more I understand how she functions.

But I don't want to live with her chaos. And I am sad that I don't. The idea of rejecting her feels very hurtful.

I also wonder if it is a function of love. That if I loved her enough, would I be willing to work this through? To learn how to do my own dance around all of her dysfunction. Although there is something that sounds crazy about that.

(Kim: Love has nothing to with how you want to spend your only life. There are some people who I know that I could not live with, though I love them dearly.)

When it is good with us, it is very good. But that is such a small percentage of the time. And there are so many other things I want in an intimate relationship that I cannot get from or with her. I don't see the kind of future I want for myself and a partner.

The need to end becomes more clear all the time.

I am waiting for what feels like the right time because I truly do care about her and she has some major things coming up. I want to support her in these things that are important for her personally and professionally.

I am waiting because it means I will finally lose the possibility of what we had or might be and that means a kind of a death and a kind of a mourning. I have so much sadness in my personal life right now, between my sister's cancer and my mother's illness and family's move, I don't feel equipped to mourn. I am just trying to cope.

(Kim: I'm not sure if I wrote about this before, but my sister (the psychoanalyst) was telling me about an article she read that when we make choices we often don't acknowledge the loss from the choice we did not choose.

"Since God is good and omnipotent, this world must be good, and in fact, this world is the best of all possible worlds. Pain and suffering are simply outgrowths of free will, and the goodness of free will is greater than the problem of evil created by having free will." (Leibniz's argument from Wikopedia))

And I am waiting because, frankly, I am a coward.

(Kim: I think you are afraid that you can't take another loss right now. I think you can.)

Now the coward part, that is the part I need to really figure out.

Later,

Joan

Sunday, March 5, 2006

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