This passage is from a 1979 book called Feelings (Willard Gaylin, M.D.) that I found in a used book store a while back and just now pulled off my shelf. Old as it is, this passage sums up anxiety as well as any other source I've ever read on the subject...probably even better.

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catching up with the weekend papers...

I always preferred this to any of Herman Wouk's other books...I love that it recently received praise in the Wall Street Journal:

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/paula-marantz-cohen-making-the-case-for-a-neglected-novel-marjorie-morningstar-1423871183

 

Also in the same edition...some interesting mystery novels are reviewed:

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-the-whites-by-harry-brandt-richard-price-the-marauders-by-tom-cooper-and-unbecoming-by-rebecca-scherm-1423862750

This probably sounds really, really weird, but I think I have a new strategy for dealing with unrequited love.

Since I like someone who could never like me back the same way, or most likely in any way at all, and I just cannot seem to stop liking this person, I need to redirect the energy behind those feelings, since the feelings themselves just won't go away.

Instead of getting sad today when I saw her, I tried extra hard to be normal and decided to just (casually) enjoy whatever time I get to be around her and to use all my energy (and feelings) for our customers, especially the ones who really seemed to need it.

Everyone needs and deserves love, that's a given and critical...but for me, it's always been hard to know whether to show it or not...maybe I just have to stop worrying about it all and just be. You can't fight who you are and if you like people and want to show you do, maybe that's okay...no matter how they react back.

 

 

 

 

 

Except For That is most definitely not something I would have chosen to read if anyone else but Rachel Windsor had written it.

 

I read romantic fiction, often lesbian romantic fiction, for the love story and human dynamics, not for the sexual components. Rachel Windsor, however, always seems to pull real and lasting love out of complicated situations. Plus, she tries to see all sides and writes so incredibly well.

 

In this tale, main character Mo loses her interest in the physical side of her love with her girlfriend Beth because of the medicine she's taking for her depression. Their once active and fully committed to each other love life comes to a halt.

 

Out of extreme guilt she really shouldn't have to be feeling, Mo gives Beth her permission to have sexual relations with someone else. When Beth asks what the conditions would be instead of yelling, "No way, no how, I only want you," the story takes a very uncomfortable turn for me. Rattled...I can't quite figure out why since the pain is way out of proportion to my own life experience.

 

I could never understand being unhappy in a relationship just because the sex "was gone." Of course, there are many reasons why someone would be unhappy about that and I don't really know why I'm talking about something I have no experience with so there's that too. Still, I just can't imagine any scenario where I would be in love and ever stray, at all. Maybe it's easier for those of us who are single (and romantics at heart) to be prissy, but there it is.

 

If I could put it into any words why this particular story bothers me so, I guess it would come down to this: how can sex ever come before one's love and caring for their partner's health and wellbeing? That is what is making me so irrationally mad. I'm so glad it's on my ereader because otherwise I might toss it down in exasperation.

 

There are other issues related to the physical side of relationships that come in both straight and gay dating, but I have to say that when I tried (desperately) to go out with guys so that I could be "normal," and then later followed my heart with dating (however short-lived that was) it wasn't the men who had trouble with virginity or lack of sexual activity...it was the women.

 

I had been used to homophobic people thinking being gay was just about sex, but I had never thought other lesbians would be that way.They were the ones, if we got past a first date, who judged or stopped calling or made it a huge issue...as if the "third date rule" (ridiculous a 'rule' as it is) was somehow carved in stone and just had to be followed.

 

Sometimes...more than sometimes, in the past few years, actually...I keep thinking it's a blessing or meant to be that what I'm looking for isn't out there...better to stick with books and silly love songs and all that.

 

Getting back to the book, I can only hope that Beth doesn't go through with the "solution" and that she and Mo stay together. Because I not only can't throw the book down, I want to keep reading and find I was completely wrong to get all bent out of shape...

 

 

 

I finished this morning and there were actually a few times I thought I was going to throw up, that's how bad my nerves were over this, an eighty six page story...Again, I don't understand the intense reaction. I think, in part, it's because Beth goes through with the cheating and it kills me that it's not enough for her that she and Mo have a solid loving relationship in every other way.

 

It's true that, in the end, the two get back together, both promising to work on their relationship. But the affair has happened and the fact that Mo's health issues aren't resolved is unnerving. Even more unnerving is the implication Mo will do whatever it takes to get her sex drive back. 

 

The title itself comes from when Beth tells the woman she's soon going to cheat with that she and Mo are fine "except for that," meaning their love life. By the story's close, the words have a different, more positive, implication, but it doesn't change (for me) that Beth couldn't be stronger when it came to her urges. Mo, the reader sees, also is deeply hurt by this, despite the fact it was her "idea."

 

No matter what, or maybe because of it, I think it says a lot about a writer and how powerful words can be, in the right person's hands, when fiction gets to you in a way that physically and emotionally shakes you to the core.

I struggle with myself on almost any given day, but especially after I feel like I've been foolish or said something unintentionally hurtful, forgotten to do something important...or when I still find myself feeling things (no matter if they are feelings of love or genuine concern) I wanted to stop feeling ages ago.

Today, mostly a very nice one, I almost made it through without having a "what a moron I am" moment, but I failed...and was a complete dodo.

This article came up when I did a search and it's really one of the best things that appeared. But it saddens me so much to see that there is a lot of self-hatred and pain on the Internet that exists in the world (of course) but is more openly expressed online.

So many people, especially teenagers, are truly suffering with who they are and how to go on each day. My heart aches for them.


 http://www.psychalive.org/i-hate-myself/

from An Abundance of Katherines