"Don't melt too much into the universe, but be as solid and dense and fixed as you can. We all live together, and those of us who love and know, live so most. We help each other—even unconsciously, each in our own effort, we lighten the effort of others, we contribute to the sum of success, make it possible for others to live. Sorrow comes in great waves—no one can know that better than you—but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see."

Henry James

 http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/sorrow-passes-and-we-remain.html

“I went downstairs to Dad’s encyclopedia and looked up HOMOSEXUALITY, but that didn’t tell me much about any of the things I felt. What struck me most, though, was that, in the whole long article, the word “love” wasn’t used even once. That made me mad; it was as if whoever wrote the article didn’t know that gay people actually love each other. The encyclopedia writers ought to talk to me, I thought as I went back to bed; I could tell them something about love.”
― Nancy Garden, Annie on My Mind

"She would take a break from herself, too, but she doesn't have that option."

from the New Yorker

...amazing and haunting and sadly beautiful story


FICTION

“FLOWER HUNTERS”

“What is it about me that people need breaks from? she asks the dog.”

By Lauren Groff

NOVEMBER 21, 2016 ISSUE

read here:

http://www.newyorker.co
m/magazine/2016/11/21/flower-hunters

"It makes a hole in your heart. But you can't fall into it. You have to fill it. You have to fight. Do not throw away who you are."--Supergirl

A well-meaning friend called me up to tell me about this 'documentary' on Reelz not too long ago. She knows how much I love the Carpenters and wanted to let me know it was on, which, at first, I thought was good as it was new to me and I had not heard about it at all and have always just absolutely loved Karen's amazing voice and been charmed by how sweet and kind she seemed as a person.

Not too far into watching 'Goodbye to Love,' though, I realized it was going the way of tabloid tv rather than PBS (which has also shown a documentary on Karen, and her brother, and actually is a documentary).

I am sure they had good intentions being involved with the production of 'Goodbye to Love,' but Karen's friends and acquaintances showing up in interview clips stuck in between very tacky actor reenactments...well, it all just struck me as very sad and very wrong and very disrespectful and I had to stop watching mid-way through.

What happened to Karen was something full of sorrow and full of a personal horror that only Karen herself could truly know and that she suffered in silence and to have people speculating about what caused her anorexia and what was in her heart and to have tv producers spinning her story like it is something sensational for ratings...well, that just adds a whole other kind of sadness to something that still feels as heartbreaking as if it just happened yesterday.

I so dislike the words "sexual identity" and "sexual minority." Though I think well-meaning people can use these words I also think that the far right and very conservative Christians use them to emphasize "sex" so they can feel better about being homophobic or, worse, feel okay with demonizing gay people.

Maybe homophobic do not see this or maybe they might not even be capable of grasping this, but being gay is not about sex. It really is not, at least not for people like me who are celibate and/or virgins. I would like to give anti-gay people the benefit of the doubt and believe that they would feel differently if they knew how much gays and lesbians suffering from being marginalized (or even hated or abused) because of who they are, but I am not so sure. 

What I am sure about it is that for those of who who are gay, especially lesbians (who I think tend to be ridiculed even within their own community for this), finding novels like the one below is very, very rare and much appreciated:

a rare and special thing, where a main character is a lesbian and a virgin and an adult

Never has a book hit so uncomfortably close to my truth...I want to keep reading and yet I do not...

The story of she who shall go nameless is real, but cannot be told. I must have started it fifty different times, but because I care so much I just can't get it right. I have the words, but I don't have the words, they are in my heart, but I can't dig them out. They most likely should stay there anyway...and I know, I know SO much, that they must be ignored or forgotten, but they refuse to be😔I love a woman who does not love me: big deal, not to anyone else, but to me it really is and all I can do is just keep it to myself, steer clear of her whenever I can and be the mature woman I know I am way deep down inside.

How I feel when I am with my cat  :)

I have made SO many mistakes in my life, some of them worse, but none of them more painful than my not being able to let go of my feelings for a woman in whose world I have no meaning at all, not even the smallest of ones. I pray every day and still they stay.

One top of this and yet not really related because it is a different kind of pain and something I can manage better, no matter how frustrating and hurtful it is is a vent that may seem like something little, but is something big to those of who continue to be misunderstood by friends and family and even,in general, society...

I am tired of words like 'sexual minority' and 'sexual preference/orientation'...so sick and disheartened. I am a lesbian, yes, but I am also a virgin and I do not truly know what sex is. I do not consider myself a very sexual person, I am certainly not sexy or sensual in any kind of way nor am I considered that way by anyone else.

Until our society, both liberal and conservative, stop thinking of gays and lesbians in almost exclusively sexual terms there will never truly be any freedom from homophobia. I cannot not be a lesbian, if that makes sense, but I can not be sexual. I never have been and considering no one has ever seen me that way and I know nothing about (personally as opposed to reading about it) sex I most likely never will be. 

When it comes to gay people and statements (often said, I would like to think, with well-meaning intentions) like "I don't care what two people do in their bedroom") we still have a long to go in seeing gay people first as people who love other people. Sex, for many of us who are gay or lesbian, is secondary or most likely even further down the list of who we are.

I am not returning to blogging because I think I have anything important to say. There is so much I want to say that I should just keep to myself...but keeping things to myself feels so very lonely and keeping one's deep and loving and even pure feelings for another soul (feelings that must never, ever be revealed because they are not returned) to one's self is even harder and hurts even more.


That is just is one of many reasons why Henry, my cat whom I first met and just knew was meant to be in my life one very special day in June, is the best furry companion anyone could ever ask for and makes me smile, even on the worst of days. There are so many benefits to adopting a pet and bringing him or her into your life. And they bring so much goodness and light into your life you really have to wonder if it was not they who rescued you instead of the other way around.

One of the saddest things in the world is to feel, after years and years of thinking there is something wrong with your heart and that you have closed up shop for good to your emotions, you have finally met someone you could really and truly love only to discover that they can never be someone who could really and truly feel the same way back…

I am a complete mess, an absolute and complete mess and I need for it to stop. I love a woman whom I can never really know and cannot even be friends with. Yes, I am super attracted to her, but these feelings go way beyond that, way beyond. And being physically attracted to someone is really all moot, anyway, especially here in this one-sided emotional train wreck of mine. The only good that can come from my being so messed up in ‘those’ areas of my life is that it keeps me from wanting things I can never ever have. Even if she threw herself at me (which would NEVER happen) and hugged and kissed me, I still would not be able to go there.

Muddled as this sounds, this is how I can best explain it, with a horribly raw and embarrassing truth: I am drawn to her like I have never been drawn to anyone, ever before. On a different planet, in a different dimension, wherever I could actually have a chance with her (which is nowhere, really) I long to hold and kiss her. There: I said it. I am ashamed, but it is the truth: I long for her. Just reading that back to myself I have to laugh, I have never longed for anyone in my life before, never. It physically hurts how much I wish I could spend time with her. It hurts in my heart, it hurts in my soul and worst of all, it hurts all throughout me, in every bone and in every pore.

What are the the things that keep a person from being loved by the one they love? Obvious things aside, of course, like the immutable fact she does not love me (that does not even need to be said, it is so obvious) but, more importantly, the moral facts, like: she is happily married and has a family and a very full life, all of which is the way it should be and are the moral truths. BUT what are the things specific to me that keep someone, anyone, from loving me, that have kept me loveless all my adult life?

Where do I even begin? With my physical ugliness or my spiritual? With my awkwardness and (apparently, from what others have said) little girl appearance that is completely devoid of ANY kind of appeal, much less sexual? With the absolution conviction that even if someone COULD get past my appearance and other physical limitations, they would soon discover just how boring I am. My heart is breaking over all of this, but most, of all, it is breaking over how I do not even feel like it is alright for me to just care about her, even if it is only silently and from afar L

I feel so silly for crying over this as much as I do…silly because it is futile, silly because it is me we are talking about and silly because she would probably be full of horror if she knew.

I think it takes a certain level of sadness and wine to get at the heart of some truths and this is the truth I know with painful certainty: you not only have to accept that you are unlovable to the person you love, you have to move on and let go, completely. I used to wonder what was the difference between love and obsession and now I know with every cell within my body.

It is perfectly normal and okay to think a lot about the person you love if you are in a healthy and reciprocated relationship and she loves you back…THAT is love. It is not so acceptable (nor so normal) to continue to think about someone you love who not only does not love you back, but is not even in your life…THAT is obsession. It may genuinely be love (because I have never believed that love doesn’t count if only one person is in love) but it can become a very unhealthy one if you are in it alone and you never let go. Letting go does not mean you no longer love her, it just means you let go, period. And I HAVE to let go or I am going to completely fall apart.

Another thing that differentiates the two (and is HUGE) is this: the quality of the person who loves the one who does not love back…G, for instance, is so out of my league she is in another universe. I am not only not worthy of her, I am worthless, when I mentally imagine myself beside her in friendship or even just in comparison. And THAT certainly is not healthy  :(

And wine and sadness have made me realize something else: I do NOT want to feel this way any more.

"He finally realized sometimes even if you want something really bad you shouldn't have it." from Law and Order:SVU 

I think the above words can apply to love as much as to anything else, possibly even more and that maybe even should actually read especially. 

We can want love with all our hearts, hearts that are big and more than ready to love someone who could love us back, but that does not mean we should have it even if it was somehow possible it could happen and we were lucky enough it did. And, worse, we can love someone who does not love us back and yet still pine away, which on paper, in the cold hard light of day, seems almost insane and yet hearts are not exactly known for listening to reason. 

On another, completely different episode of Law and Order: SVU Olivia tells a suspect who was willing to go to jail for a man she loved who not only did not love her but was willing to use her: "It was never going to happen. It is not going to happen." She says very firmly and matter of fact, but also rather sympathetically even though the woman has done horrible things in the name of love.

It is a really good scene and I felt chills when I first saw it, both for the story line and personally because I have known that kind of pining that is completely unreasonable and even wrong and it is scary to think feelings can overpower the most basic fact of what is going on: the person you care for does not care back. That should be enough to snap a person out of it but, sadly, it often is not and only time and holding on to the truth and not your feelings can save you.

I wonder if people who are loved back by those they love know just how blessed they are, how really, really and truly and Heavenly blessed. Aside from that, because for me the point is really rather moot and I have always just kind of instinctively known I would never find mutual love, I also wonder if people who know they are loved by someone they do not love know just how hard that person is trying not to love them?

Maybe that makes no sense...in my state of mind right now and how I am feeling as I write, I doubt that it does. But what I wish I could explain with complete clarity is that the heart really does want what it wants and that there is no reasoning with it otherwise, only quietly retreating from anything it may want you to do...like telling that person how you feel (which is, of course, a big fat, resounding NO-NO thing to do)

My relationship with God has often been shaky because I have so often told myself He could just not love me because I am gay. But as I have come to truly and fully accept and know that I did not ask to feel this way and as I continue to pray every single day for my gayness to go away and it does not, I have understood one thing to be unshakably true: my being gay is not what makes me a bad person. My inability to let go of how I feel about someone who came along and unexpectedly and unknowingly sucker-punched my heart and so clearly does not feel the same is what makes me a bad person.

When one year becomes two and then two becomes three, with four well on its way...it so very much feels like the ship has really sailed on wondering just when you will get over this.

Just as I did not ask to be gay, I did not ask to feel the way I do about the person I do. There was a very short number of how many women I liked before I met who I have feelings for now and I do mean very short...as in you could count them on less than one hand. One thing that really gets to me about homophobia is how much of it centers on this mistaken and ignorant idea that being gay is about sex. I cannot speak for every lesbian, obviously, but I can speak for me and if my list of women I have had feelings for in my lifetime is very short, my list of who I have ever been with is non-existent...as in a big fat 0. I say this not to be sharing overly personal information or to be inappropriate, but because having the feelings for the woman I have feelings for is most definitely not about sex and it never will be about sex and not just because she is straight and happily married and very old-fashioned. I have always believed that you just cannot have sex without love, but that you can have love without sex and that, one-sided or not, love can be soul deep without any bodies ever being involved.

Maybe I am an asexual lesbian or maybe I am just 19th century and have the kind of heart and mind that just does not go "there" when it comes to love. My feelings for her, for the woman I am really worried I am totally in love with, completely skip anything involving the body and go straight for the heart. They are deeply embedded in my soul and I worry that is why I just cannot get over her and that I will care about her forever.

I will not lie that I have felt deeply happy when I have had the rare chance to get to hug her. But this is a soul-infused happiness and not a lust-one. Because we know each other in a setting that is friendly but does not necessarily make us friends I am extra guarded about sharing my affection, no matter that I think it is pure and coming from the heart and only wants the best for her, always.

Sometimes, the very best and the only thing you can do when you care about someone is pray to yourself, wish them well and keep quiet otherwise.

On the other hand, if you love someone and you know it is okay to tell them that and they not only will not get upset or uncomfortable but will gladly and warmly welcome you and your feelings, tell them every single day and consider yourself one of the very luckiest people on earth.

If you're like me, deeply caring about someone and totally alone in that caring, well...I know this is not much comfort, but know you are not alone and that there are more of us out there in the world than you might think...alone together in our unrequited feelings.

It is so painful to discover something that kept you going and you thought was true and meaningful may not be what you thought...and so you go back to the drawing board and try and figure out what you are going to do...in the meantime, holding on to words from your favorite writers and looking to the universal experience for help. I think Shakespeare was really right. But it is not only hard to trust others, I think it can be really hard to trust yourself, most of all, and whether the things you believe are right or wrong.

Sometimes, I wonder, so very much, which came first: my intense worries that people do not like me or the fact that they do not. And what is the relationship between social anxiety and self-fulfilling prophecy? Can we unintentionally bring about the end of a really nice and lovely friendship because of our own severe doubts that the other person has just been extremely polite the entire time?

It is so emotionally painful to constantly live in doubt and fear over how others see you and whether they truly want to be your friend or not. There are no concrete words or any way to truly capture it :(

This article below is one of the best I have seen on the topic of social anxiety and self-fulfilling prophecy:

 https://socialanxietyinstitute.org/self-fulfilling-prophecy-breaking-cycle

Well, I failed miserably in telling myself not to get "attached" to someone so the next step is show my feelings who is boss. Easier said than done, but you just have to keep trying to get them under control. Feelings, especially feelings for someone else, make everything so much more complicated and painful and it is so tempting to just want to not have any. I saw this on "Bob's Burgers" a while back and, sometimes, I actually whisper this under my breath and it seems to help.


 

A passage from a book I am reading is haunting me with its undeniable truth:

 "...It’s always seemed to me that she couldn’t stand the sight of me.”

 “Why would you think that?” 

“I believe you always know when someone doesn’t like you, even when they’re trying really hard not to show it."


...Sometimes I think confusion about why someone acts the way he or she does is its own form of heartbreak. If only people knew that outright and honest dislike hurts far less in the end than a forced politeness that comes from not wanting to hurt you :(

I just read this in a book and it rings so very, very true:

"...she couldn’t envisage inspiring such depth of emotion in anyone, and it made her feel cheated."

The character thinking this has never really been in a mutually loving relationship before and so much of what she thinks and feels is often painful and yet refreshing in a genre that can often retread over mundane or silly things and gloss over the nitty gritty of real life.

There are very few books in my reading life that have ever gotten to me like this. The Fortune Teller's Daughter by Diane Wood has made me sick inside to the point that I have thought about not finishing it more than once and yet I keep going back to it because it is one of the best things I have read in ages and lately I just cannot find myself wanting to read that much so if I do read (and really want to read) it almost feels like a miracle.

Only one other book I ever read made me feel this uncomfortable:

A review at the time went:

 “I’ve never seen anyone capture sordid human nature so clearly. I was completely drawn in, totally immersed. I felt ill much of the time.”
– Russell Kirkpatrick

 

The looks on the faces of the people here perfectly capture the childhood of the main character in The Fortune Teller's Daughter, which has a much more benign face to the cover>>>

Though Slights is a horror novel and The Fortune Teller's Daughter is a romance, both feature characters with unspeakably messed up childhoods. The difference is in how one has embraced what happened to her and taken on its sickness and evil and the other has spent her life trying to escape it and be a good person.

In both, there is a sense that loneliness does not truly hurt until you truly understand and know that you are lonely. And one way that can happen, that is so unbearably real and familiar, is 'one day' being okay with being lonely and the 'next day' having met and made friends with someone really, really special and having lost her or knowing you are going to...suddenly, the loneliness you spent so many, many years with and managed okay enough now feels like the worst kind of heartbreak...

good advice...