Darkest days

The darkest days are these ones, the ones where I think it was all my fault and I deserved the treatment I got. The days where I have to fight picking up the phone and calling him, being casual, saying, hey, let’s get together, let’s talk. The days where I want to beg him to take me back, for us to be us again.

The days when I think maybe I made up all the bad things. Where maybe his treatment of me wasn’t as bad as I make it out to be. The days where I wonder if I just blew things out of proportion and turned him into a monster so I wouldn’t have to take responsibility for the things I did wrong.

The days where I think that there is never going to be a day where I don’t think of him, where I don’t wonder if I should have stayed, if I should have tried harder, if I should have… fill in the blank.

The darkest days are the ones where I am just simply and totally alone. Where I think being with the man who tormented me and verbally abused me daily and who made me come so close to no longer being here would be preferable to being alone. The days where I’m ready to just give up everything I’ve worked so very hard for just to have someone’s arms wrapped around me, even if they’re his arms.

The darkest days are these - full of creativity and projects I love and friends I adore. But feeling empty and hollow and shallow without someone - without him.

Embracing my dark side

It all started about a week ago. Brad, one of my favorite men, was sitting on my couch, talking to me about the “Mastermind” shoot coming up, working on translating the character from stage to screen. The fireplace was lit, it was very quiet in the house and our conversation meandered from the shoot to just whatever it is that two friends sit and talk about. Brad has the most calming personality yet he’s not afraid to talk about whatever is on his mind -- or mine. And we talked long after we were done with business. When he left, I could feel the absence of him in my living room.

And it made me miss having someone to just sit with, to just talk with. Just be with. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s very cute.

But I realized that the main reason I was lonely was that I had spent the better part of my adult life having someone on the other end of the couch. Dysfunctional, abusive, angry, bitter person but still a person who I talked to, who talked and/or shouted back and who, on occasion, actually listened and talked and tried to share to the best his ability. You’d think that four and a half years later, I’d be used to a metaphorical empty couch by now. And I thought I was.

But -- and I know this is going to sound stalkerish and creepy -- after Brad left, I just kind of wanted to curl up in the space where he had sat and -- I don’t know what. Remind myself of having someone? This is not a man who is available and we have a great friendship and a great working relationship that I wouldn’t want to fuck up. But I was just feeling so lonely after he left, after he took his presence with him, that I felt the hollow he left behind.

That really sent me into a nosedive over the last week. Feeling so alone and lonely. Feeling so absent from parts of my life. Feeling so incredibly empty. I kept looking at the end of the couch, trying to imagine what it would be like to have someone sitting there and I just couldn’t see it. I couldn’t imagine someone sitting there. The couch was empty and it was going to remain empty for the foreseeable future.

And I kept thinking about my ex this week. Feeling like I wanted to go by and see him. For what reason, I don’t know. I just sold my wedding rings recently for a whopping $35 and maybe it was residual sentimentality. But I felt like there were things I wanted to say to him, although I didn’t know what. And I know I could never say the things I wanted to say to him and I know I wouldn’t hear the things I wanted to hear. So his presence has been maybe metaphorically sitting at the end of the couch, taunting me, fighting with the positive energy Brad left behind. Making me wonder if R should have been sitting there, not Brad.

And through the past couple of days, I’ve been sad and lonely and depressed but couldn’t figure out why or what caused it. Yeah, post-show blues always happens and “Gross Indecency” was so wildly successful and beyond what I had ever expected for it to be that a let down could be expected. And I’m between projects, which is never good. But we’re working on Mastermind and just started work on “The Jamb”, a world premiere play opening in January, which I am thrilled to be doing. So the blues weren’t making sense.

Until tonight.

As I was driving home from teaching, I was thinking still about the empty couch and the seemingly empty life I was feeling. And I started thinking about R and our life. I realized that, sometimes, I miss that life. When it was good, it was good. He could be sweet when he wanted. We shared a lot and we created a lot. And I learned a lot. I missed our old apartment - this incredible loft space that never quite felt like mine. I missed the comfort of the dysfunction because it was familiar and it was known to me. And it’s always easier to be with what you know. It’s less scary. It’s less frightening. It’s less everything.

And as I thought about that life, I started to get angry. By the time I sat down to write this, I can feel this anger growing. Not in a wild, out-of-control way, but just a deep, seething anger that I don’t ever allow myself to feel. Because I’m not supposed to be angry. I’ve never been allowed to be angry. My family, my exes never gave me permission. R would mock my anger. He would diminish my anger. He would walk away from my anger, leaving me feeling powerless and pathetic and stupid and wrong.

Well, I’m angry.

I’m angry that for sixteen years, he made me feel stupid and lazy and weak and untalented and defenseless and unloved.

I’m angry that he said he would never, ever, under any circumstances, ever, ever let me go. And he let me go two weeks after I said I needed some time. Two weeks. Sixteen years together. And it took him a whole two weeks to figure out that those sixteen years weren’t worth never, ever letting me go. I got whiplash from how quickly he let go.

I’m angry that in a year of counseling, he was never able to let down his guard and say anything honest and real. It was always my fault, never his fault. Even the counselor acknowledged that in one of our last sessions. He became Spock and refused to participate emotionally.

Yeah, I know he has issues and problems and a side to this as well. And I know his family is fucked up, particularly his bitch of a mother, who laid the bread crumbs for his to leave his never-ever-leave-you wife behind. But he never really, truly tried. Because he didn’t love me enough. Because he didn’t love us enough. Because he didn’t have the balls to face his faults and really, truly fix things. And that makes me particularly angry.

I’m angry because it cost us a life. A life that could have been great. A life that had potential and that should have led us to success and beauty and wonder and all the goals we ever had.

I’m angry because I am terrified to ever let anyone get that close to me again. He left his mark on me as deep and as dark and as permanent as he would have if he had cut me or beat me or broken something on me. The scars and the bruises and the breaks are just buried deep inside where they’re hard to see. And I don’t know if I can ever let anyone get close enough to see those scars, to try to heal them because I’m afraid that those bruises and breaks will only be the beginning of another set of injuries, another set of punishments, another set of batterings. And I know I won’t survive that.

I’m angry because he left me with an empty couch when he could have chosen to stick it out and be on the other end of it. I’m angry because, deep down inside, a part of me wants him to be the one on the other end of the couch because he is all I know. I’m angry because the size of the hollow on the couch is immeasurable and I don’t know that anyone will ever be able to fill it.

And I’m angry because my heart still breaks over him and over us and over the life that has been lost.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

Meandering thoughts

I’m restless and moody tonight. Wow, how unusual.

On one hand, I’ve had the most amazing couple of months of my life. “Gross Indecency, the Three Trials of Oscar Wilde” was hugely successful, critically, creatively and financially. I have never had such a successful piece and something that was so well-received across the board. I had an amazing cast who took my basic direction during our extremely limited rehearsal period and ran with it. So much of the credit for the success of the show lies with them because of what they added to what I saw in my head. I couldn’t be more proud of the work I have done.

It was amazing to sit back and see all the things I had envisioned with this show over the past six years actually come to fruition on stage. And Kerr Seth Lordygan, who played Oscar and who shepherded this show through Eclectic Company Theatre with me, was a great partner-in-crime and a great Oscar Wilde.

At the end of the show last weekend, I realized that I wasn’t as sad as I had expected to be. I expected to be overwhelmed and depressed and blue because that’s what always happened at the last theater company I worked at. With them, I never knew when I would get a chance to direct again and I wasn’t really treated with much respect when I did direct, despite doing excellent shows. I realized, as we closed the show, that I wasn’t as sad because I knew exactly what I was going to be directing in the next year. And the joy of that knowledge is that I get to work with the actors/friends/people I love and people I respect and who respect me right back.

Next up - filming “Mastermind”, the one act play I directed this summer. It’ll be a web series and it will star the feisty and talented Beth Ricketson and the brilliant Brad Wilcox. We’re in blocking rehearsal right now and plan to start shooting beginning of November. And then I am directing “The Jamb” by J. Stephen Brantely, a wonderful New York playwright, and will be starting rehearsals mid-November. Oh, and I get to play with Kerr again and Brad again and Kenlyn (who did “Flawless” for me last year). Yeah, sure, make me work with two of my favorite men/actors on earth as well as a very talented actress and throw in another cute, talented boy and my head just may explode.

There are other productions as well but more about that as they fall into place.

Creatively, couldn’t be happier. This is why I changed my life. To create. To do what I want and be able to own it without having to share obligatory credit that didn’t really exist. This show is mine - good, bad or ugly, it’s all mine.

But with all that success, I find myself feeling a bit hollow. I had a great cast to share this with and good friends as well. But I missing that one special person to share it with. Someone to have endless discussions about the trials and tribulations, about my fears and my happiness. That one person.

I drove tonight to have drinks with a couple of the folks from “Gross” and found myself almost not wanting to go because there would be no one there to hold my hand and be the other half of me. To be the one beaming at me and just being there for me.

And I realized that I’ve never really had that at all. R had moments early on but even then, most of his praise was qualified. He could never just say, what a great job. I’m so proud of you. In fact, I don’t think the words “I’m proud of you” ever came out of his mouth. Maybe “I’m proud of you but”. Always a qualifier.

My family is a laugh. I sent them the reviews of the show, foolishly thinking there would be a response from them. Crickets echoing in the distance was the response. Yeah, I’m important to them. Yeah, I matter.

And S. Well, we were so young and so… young. And I hadn’t really done anything to be proud of or to share with him at that point. But I wanted his praise and his approval and I’m not sure I ever got it. I don’t know what I wanted it for but I wanted it.

And now, I’m trying to find the pride and the approval within myself and I got a little closer to doing this on this project. And the fact that actors I adore like Kerr and Brad and Beth are lining up projects to do with me fills part of that hollow.

But I wonder if I gave up having another part of me so that I could have this part of me. Does having this creative life and this creative joy and this creative everything mean I have to sacrifice having someone to share my life with?

And I’m not sure I’m ever going to be ready to really, truly let someone in ever again. How do I trust again after two men who were supposed to be the loves of my life destroyed my life and left me to find my way alone? How do I trust again when the one man I thought was going to be the next person to share my life with has faded out of my life without a word, without an explanation, without anything, taking a huge piece of my heart with me. And the others who I’ve thought, maybe this one, maybe this one, have turned out to not be the one.

Maybe there is no “one” left. I’ve had two that were supposed to be it but weren’t. Maybe I’ve used all my cards and there are none left.

Four and a half years alone. Four and a half years of wildly creative life. Four and a half years without someone tearing me down and making me feel so much less than. Four and a half years without someone.

Not really looking for an answer tonight so don’t feel obligated to post platitudes. I know, I get it. “There’s someone out there,” “just put yourself out there”, “give yourself time”, “you’re not really looking,” yada, yada, yada. I know the Oprah/Dr. Laura/Dr. Phil self-help bullshit crap that I’m supposed to know. And I don’t need that right now. I think my heart is still trying to heal and trying to put all the pieces back together, despite a few pieces still being MIA. And platitudes and encouragements and self-help logic won’t help fill in those holes. I’m not sure what will. A rotating group of OOMA’s (Objects Of My Affection) is obviously not the answer.

Maybe there is no answer. Just more questions, more seeking, more bitching and moaning.

At least my cat loves me. Mostly.