(no subject)

Depression is a bitch.

I just want to sleep all the time. I don't really want to do anything else.
I do a lot of fucking mask-making these days. All soft leather-covered steel. Looks just like my face on the outside. I wear em at work, wear em at club, wear em at the supermarket, wear em to dinner with old farts who judge me by my hair and ask so many completely fucking rude questions that I am forced to vomit truth all over them at the table until they shut the fuck up out of sudden respect. (that particular mask might have been a bit defective, I guess, but I have no quality control department, my whole energy budget's devoted to R&D right now)
It's a good thing I have 'em though, these masks, because just like with cancer, people only have a finite attention span to care about any given tragedy and then they start caring about other things and assuming you are "getting better"; they are bored of the Bad Thing That Isn't Happening To Them. They will start poking you with "happy sticks" because you're bringing the mood down, man. They will make comments they think are helpful and state the fucking obvious like it's profound wisdom; they will make crass jokes because they think humor will bring levity to the situation. And you will want to punch them in the fucking face. But you won't. Because: mask. very convenient. The Mask will smile and laugh for you. The screams and tears stay on the inside. They don't have to inconvenience anyone. Your co-workers don't get nervous cooped up with you all day. Your boss believes you are a model employee because you throw yourself into your shitty $10/hr job with a zeal not found in most college-educated desperados that wind up in this cube farm.
It isn't their fault, at all. They don't mean to get bored of it. They don't mean to be assholes by not caring, it's just awkward, and heavy, and most people don't know what to say to your face- to the face of a person in pain, beyond help. I know, I struggle with that feeling of helplessness myself. I've looked into the face of a dying person and had no idea what to say and felt like shit about it, too. So you have to keep that mask on because otherwise you'll rip an innocent person to shreds just for saying something innocuous. People keep saying shit like, "oh, it's so nice to see you're doing better" and "oh, it's so nice to see you out having a good time" and it kills me. They have no idea of my actual state. I'm only going out when I'm obligated to, these days; a prior performance booking, or to support a worthy cause (don't wanna penalize good people for my bad personal life), or recently, to keep my mother busy and distracted so she couldn't cheese-grater me too much while she was here visiting. And since I am only out because I *have* to be, the public is just seeing this mask. It just isn't right to make them feel like assholes when they're trying to be nice. You can't blame the ignorant for being ignorant, they don't know what they don't know. And Life goes on, and must be lived day to day.

But I'm still here, and I'm still not okay, and I'm not going to be okay for a while. And that is the truth.

I'm... less in shock than I was a month ago, but shock has been replaced by deep waves of sadness, punctuated by flares of seething anger and a chronic exhaustion. Translation: I'm tired and sad all the time. I have started to listen to music again and I think that is progress; the internet tells me grieving is normal and that I will be okay eventually.
But this has shaken me to my core, and everything inside me is like a fucked up Rubik's Cube that I am having a bitch of a time unscrambling. I have a small amount of faith that I will restabilize someday, but I'll be honest, right now I'm a mess. And I feel incapable of cleaning up. I try to, and then I just start leaking all over the place, staining all my so-called "progress". I'll have a good day or night, and start to feel hopeful about the future, and then 6 hours later I'll just feel like I'm rapid-cycling between rage and depression and want to lock myself in my house and bum out on the couch with cheap wine and cigarettes and as much chocolate as the local convenience store will legally sell me. Which is terrible I know, but I am all out of fucks to give.

I miss him so bad. Every man I meet somehow reminds me of him. I compare them to him. I miss his eyes. I miss his hands. I miss his smell. But that is fucked up because I hoarded two of his t-shirts when he moved out so I could still smell him sometimes, like I used to do, when we were doing the long distance thing. But now that familiar smell, once so comforting, only makes me cry. I had to put them away. ...I haven't had the heart to wash them yet though.
Does that make me crazy stalker ex-girlfriend material? Am I being ridiculous? I'm probably being ridiculous. Stupid girl brain.
Whatever. I'll... get rid of them eventually. probably.
But then I think, he did this to me. He made his choices before I ever knew there was something wrong. The only choice I was given was, a rotten apple got put in my hand- do you toss it out, or keep it and eat it, worms and all? ...and...I think I've eaten enough worms.
And I get angry. I can't believe after so many years of faithfulness, yearning, sacrifice... on BOTH our parts... It came to nothing.

But after so many years of faithfulness, yearning, sacrifice... it's impossible not miss my friend, my companion, the only greatest love of my life. I feel this loss like a continually bleeding wound that will not heal.
I am broken on so many levels... my friends cannot comprehend it. Some people have expressed their unwanted opinion that they are glad he's not around to stress me out, or that they never liked him anyway. Go fuck yourselves, I want to say, but I don't. Other friends try to cheer me up, tell me that I'm going to be alright. Some try to tell me, they've been through divorce. They know how I feel.
No, I can almost guaran-fucking-tee not like THIS, you haven't, and no you DON'T know how I feel.
I smile and "appreciate" their sympathy. Because it's impossible for me to explain to them all the circumstances that are going on.
Getting hit on is the funniest. A dude at a bar sent his wingwoman to get my number, after inquiring whether I was a lesbian (I have gotten that 3 or 4 times in the last couple of weeks. I guess my dyke factor is up. Whatever. I'm okay with that, cuts down on unwanted attention from men...uhhh, usually...for some values of "men", I guess). I graciously explained, as best I could, that I was in the middle of a divorce, from my soulmate of over a decade, and I'm really not looking for anything right now. She was smooth though and I ended up giving her my number anyway, thinking, whatever, I never answer numbers I don't recognize anyway.
As I was leaving the bar, the dude himself came up and gave me a hug, and said something to the effect of, "my friend told me whats going on with you, so no pressure, I just wanted you to know I think you're awesome and I'll give you a couple of weeks before I call you."

It took all I had not to laugh in his face. A couple of weeks, huh? You'll give me a couple of weeks? To get over this? Wow dude, I'm... bowled over by your sensitive generosity. Thank you. Totally putting you on my list of rebound fuckbuddies now.
NOT. *lol*
To be fair, I do appreciate that he was trying to be cool/nice/whatever.
There just weren't enough words to make him understand in that moment, that in a couple of weeks I more or less will be in the same state I'm in now. Try me in a couple of years, dude.
Maybe.

I don't actually feel divorced at all (tiny legal fact of my still-technically-married state aside- whole other post).
I feel widowed. I feel like he died. There was an immovable force of separation that came down between us like a heavy black veil, and I wasn't fucking ready, okay? I wasn't ready... to say goodbye. I've been preparing myself for years, ever since we got The Diagnosis, to say goodbye. And what I've learned is you're still never fucking ready.
And every day, I just want to call him, go to him, hug him and tell him it's going to be okay.
But it's not going to be okay, not ever again.

And even if he would come meet me at my call...I feel like it would just be cruel, maybe. I know it's better not to cause prolonged agony. I'm not going to change my mind- as bad as this is, if I did somehow "take him back", if that were possible, I truly believe only far worse pain and agony would be the result. I'd have to deal with all of THIS... AND all of "THAT". And I have no power to protect him in the end. I'm... yet again, I would be forced to watch while other professional people clinically set about the dismantling of the man I loved. I can't bear it anymore. Chemo and radiation was bad enough to sit through, dying of helplessness inside, knowing they were killing him, hoping to god it was the right thing to do...
No. Things simply have to be this way now. I will not have that set of problems in my life. I... god help me. but I deserve better. I work very hard to live clean and true and ...retain what little righteousness there is left to be had in a modern life path. Most people don't know this about me because I always play the role of magic-user, but... I am a paladin at heart, in my own way.

So this is killing me. I'm not gonna lie. I miss him so hard. My internal warrior isn't blinking or flinching away though, not even for a second. My inner simple girl is still under guard, crying and crying for her lost soulmate.
Immured in that stone prison in my heart, where she will stay. And probably starve to death because I never fucking feed her.
Meanwhile I stumble around like an idiot, dragging my bloody spiritual entrails around, day to day, not really making any progress, not getting anything done around the house, still smoking, not nearly doing as many drugs as I'd hoped because I've lived too clean all this time and I have no idea where to get them, and I probably couldn't afford them now even if I could find them. So LOLZ, jokes on me.
And yeah. Tomorrow's another bright shiny beautiful fucking day.
I have to repair a few of these masks before bed.