9:23 a.m. - 2012-03-02
avoir le bourdon
Newest barrage of information I didn't want about the man I am married to ... I can't go there; suffice to say I feel about as violated as a human being possibly can. It plunged me into sort of an unusual depression, for me. Unusual because usually when I am depressed, I know I am depressed. But I think I've learned to block out my feelings about Matt, so instead I have just been very, very tired. Lethargic. I sit down on the couch with my kids to watch a movie and fall asleep within minutes, even though I slept 12 hours the night before. Usually I am an insomniac, depressed or not, so sleeping 12 hours is bizarre.
I keep telling myself that I am not going to fall in that hole again -- the hole of self-isolation I was in for about two years. You'd think my kids would be my number one reason not to go back there, but they're not, because they are the two people on the planet I didn't shut out -- I think maybe I spent more time with them, and paid more attention to them, because they were all I had. Now I spend hours a day studying, so maybe they lose out a little bit when I'm not a recluse.
I think about my parents and my brothers and Brian and especially S., because life is too short and too unpredictable for me to waste any more of the time I have with the people I care about. And I think about kids dying from malnutrition and lack of basic medical care all over the world. If I crawl back into paralyzed depression, people will die who could have lived. Sometimes I believe my kids don't need me, and my friends and family don't need me, but someone out there somewhere, ignored by 99.9 percent of us well-fed, self-satisfied, self-obsessed Americans, does.
Sometimes the voice in my head tells me I'll never make a difference, I'll never work for Doctors Without Borders, they're very picky and I'm not that special... then the other little voice reminds me that the IQ test says I'm a genius and my life experience says I succeed at anything I decide to succeed at (except for marriage) ... so I WILL work for Doctors Without Borders. (Or a similar organization...)
Peter has been sending me emails, many and long ... he is perhaps a more prolific letter-writer than I am, which is almost unheard of. I remain wary. I suppose I am mostly wary of myself. The scorned wife in me looks at every man with an eye on a rebound relationship. I catch myself looking at Peter as a possiblity. He finally got divorced two years ago, and I doubt he'd refuse a friends with benefits relationship if it was offered. But why would I do that? To prove to myself that I'm desirable, to prove to Matt that I'm desirable ... but not because I'm attracted to him. I'm not. I'm not attracted to him and yet I mull whether it might be time to consumate 13 years of flirting and soul-baring? Why?
I think I'm not attracted to men. I just find men's bodies gross. I don't konw how to describe it. All I know is that Matt and most men I know love to see women naked, fantasize about it ... me, it's the opposite; I try not to look at it or think about it. But I don't know if I would feel different about women's bodies; maybe I would feel the same way. I've really never had the opportunity to find out.
And I have this feeling that maybe I never will. How hard is it to meet men when you're 30-something with kids and don't drink? Practically zip, or so it seems. If 10 percent of the population is gay, then the odds of me meeting a woman are one-tenth of possibly zip. And on top of that, judging by the number of women who have asked me out in my life (zero) I don't look like a dyke. And on top of all that, if I am attracted to women it is to straight women (or at least women who don't have buzz cuts and wear low-slung carhartts and combat boots...)
But back to peter... what I am wary of is that I will basically force myself to do something I really don't want to do ... I don't want to have a sexual relationship with him but I'm desperate to feel desired by someone...
I don't like being alone.
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