Books and cats and music...all can be so healing.

As I slowly start to feel less pain over things that have been happening for a while now and that I long should have gotten past and as I also accept that I cannot change the heartbreaking parts of life, I find myself beginning to become interested (really interested) in things like books again. And I cannot help but think of this wonderful quote from T.H. White's The Once and Future King:

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

ghosting hurts, no matter why someone does it...

Perception is reality is a saying I believe very much. Because we all have different life experiences and often see things in ways unique to us (I think) it is impossible not to see things different than they may actually be.

It is only recently that I heard the term "ghosting," whereupon someone in a friendship or relationship slowly (or maybe not always so slowly) just disappears, by not emailing or texting or calling anymore. They fade away, thereby the "ghosting."

I do not consider myself a very good person. I have done things I am not proud of and I believe, because of my own thinking and because of things I have been told by others, that being gay is sinful, at least according to the Bible. I have, though, been a good friend to the person who has "ghosted" me...or at least I think I have been.

Being told "I am not mad at you" or "it's not you, it's me" as the person backs away (in this case, metaphorically) may be a more gentle kind of ghosting than others, but it is still ghosting and it still hurts very, very much. This person and I confided in each other often and said things we might not have said to other people. I cannot, however, in good faith (or any kind of faith) reach out to see if I am actually being "ghosted," even if that is not the reality that is happening.

In my mind, with my past experiences, perception is reality and my perception tells me that this person, while possibly taking a less direct and even perhaps (I stress perhaps) cowardly approach, no longer wants anything to do with me. She most likely thinks she is being kind by not telling me the truth. But as an old Russian proverb goes: "It is better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie." 


I thought I was okay with the end of this friendship (or what seems like the end of it), but I am not. I want closure, I want to know what I did wrong. The thing is...there is no way I can or will ever get it because to contact this person would be wrong and disrespectful of boundaries. All I can do is hope she is okay and move on, trying to forget that for almost three years, just shy of a few days, we told each other so many things and (I thought) helped each other with a pain we shared in common. I wish her well, always, even if she will never know this or would not care if she did.




**This article is helpful and can help put things in perspective if something like this happened to you:


https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201705/6-ways-deal-the-pain-being-ghosted


I especially like this part, which may not make it right, but makes absolute sense, even if it still hurts:


5. Even if it isn't something you would do, it can help you to move on if you make some room for the possibility that the person who ghosted you thought that he or she was doing the right thing. It may have been cowardly, but I have been told by some people who have ghosted someone else that they believed it was the easiest way to let the other person down. "It's better than some lame excuse that just makes the other person feel bad anyway," said one woman. "The message gets across."

When I was in high school this was one of my absolute favorite novels and when I recently re-discovered the very same copy that I bought at a B. Dalton bookstore in the mid-80s I was thrilled, both to find it again and to re-read it and realize I had not built up its greatness in my mind.

There is a new biography (out this month) on Agatha Christie that I have only just started, but am already liking. There is so much I did not know about her, including her very deep love for music and yet I can recognize in words she wrote about her own life what has always drawn me to Giant's Bread 

Author Laura Thompson (who spends quality time on Agatha Christie's books as well as her life) writes this about what led up to writing Giant's Bread:

"Sane, wise, realistic Agatha: her idea of misery, in the confessions entry that she made in 1903, was to 'wish for the unattainable,' and this was what she truly believed."

Talking about giving up what she loves most, character Jane Harding says, "I pretend I don't mind-but I do...I do. I loved singing. I loved it, loved it, loved it."

That horrible pain that comes with giving up something close to you is captured so well, both in the words themselves and the cover (one of many different ones over the years and, I think, the best).

wonderful passages from “iZombie” early on in the show:

-Liv Moore: The passionate mind is selfish. It's so focused on what it desires, reason becomes background noise. Javier's brain made me cross the line that divides what I long for and what I can never have. There were so many nights I could have been with Major that I stayed home studying. Days I could have spent sucking the marrow out of life I spent building a resume for a life I'd never have. There were parts of me that were dead even before I became a zombie. So, maybe, that means that it's possible for me to spring to life. Even now that I'm dead.

-Liz: “And I’m not over it at all. I need to get there eventually...what’s the alternative? Stay in love with a guy (girl) I can never be with?”

-Maybe it’s better I’m radioactive, that I repel the people I love. Keep things simple. Harden yourself, Liv. You’re a monster.

Hoping to return here more regularly to write (even if is just to spill thoughts and feelings that will never ever be read by another soul, I still need to shed them)  and to move past some things that have happened that have both taken (and not taken) me by surprise. 

Really, not much surprises me anymore except that the heart does go on even after it feels like it has been completely broken and that you can go on too. And maybe not everyone would get this, but I really, really, really believe that my cat is why I am not bitter or sad or anything else bad that can happen when your heart feels like it is breaking because you dared to trust another human being could find something to like about you and want to be your friend and never hurt you.

Despite the contrary, despite all the stereotypes out there, I also really, really, really believe that cat ladies survive and even go on to thrive and that cats (or dogs or bunnies or gerbils or hedgehogs or any other animal that can be a pet) are a source of fresh air and inspiration, not a reason to shut one's self off from the world and all the wonderful things it still has to offer despite so often being a very scary place.

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