Isolation

When I'm feeling especially emotional and thinking WAY too much, I usually isolate myself from the rest of the world.

Or is it the other way around?

Maybe its a chicken or the egg thing?

It was an extremely emotional weekend for me. Between my grandmother's funeral and my grandfather's pain, a bike ride with my cycling group who continue to ask me about Soldier, a family birthday/reunion with my ex-husband's family who all still love me and get sad that we never know when we'll see each other again, and missing Gentleman Jack...

Yeah. I said it. I missed Jack.


Grrr!

We spent Thursday evening together and I suggested we go have a margarita. Well, one... two... and a half... margaritas later, I was boldly proclaiming that they weren't doing anything for me.

Then, I stepped down from the barstool and the room was spinning.

*sigh*

Apparently we had an incredible evening that I don't remember. He had to leave early the next morning for a fishing trip and I felt like I didn't spend any time with him at all.

It really scared me. Now I was missing him?

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I hate when I isolate myself like this.

I cannot stand that I feel so emotionally needy and yet I do not want to make any effort at all to reach out to anyone.

I didn't want to blog.

I didn't want to call anyone.

I didn't want to talk.

I think.... I just wanted to be held.

I love touch and crave it. I think another reason I was missing Jack was because he touched me that entire Thursday evening but I was too numb to feel it. I felt so angry with myself.

But instead of reaching out and asking for it, I grow ashamed at myself. Very ashamed and angry that I need it so badly.

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By the time my Gentleman and I were able to talk on the phone again, I was so lost, isolated and angry that he detected it in my voice immediately. Knowing that it was a temporary feeling and feeling such shame in it, I told him that I didn't want to talk about it.

He never takes no for an answer when he knows I'm not okay.

He is one of those guys who will let you beat the hell out of him while he holds his strong muscular chest out and says nothing.


And I did the beating.

All of these verbal fists were pounding at his chest and I was projecting so much, SO MUCH, anger at him for things he has never done to me. I get upset at the unfairness of enjoying him so much but the reality of the distance between us. It seems like such wasted emotional effort on a relationship that will never go anywhere. I feel like I did that already in my last relationship.

Then I realized I was angry at Soldier not Gentleman Jack.

He knows this. He points it out to me before I realize it by saying, "T, I am NOT HIM."

The worst part is when I isolate myself like that, I project on to someone else so that they, too, feel separate from me.

But he held on. He got upset. He told me his feelings with very kind words. He listened and then he said, "I know how you feel."

Suddenly, I wasn't alone anymore because... he was on my side again.

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No man is an island.

John Donne said that back in the 16th century. Simply put:

"Human beings do not thrive when isolated from others."

I know this. I recognize that my isolation is my own doing and only creates a death spiral of emotions. I don't like being emotionally needy when I feel this way. I don't like that I'm actually angry at myself and project it onto those that love me the most.

But...

It is what I do sometimes. I have to learn to look at and accept my feelings no matter how ugly they are.

I only hope that the love I give in between those times balances out that ugliness.