I've gone out shopping a few times now. I picked up a mass market PC game CD for a sister. I was thinking of travelling to a specific gourmet shop in Tribeca: but on the way there I lost track of how to get to the place. Senility gibbering in the sidestages of the mind...

I shrugged it off and reconfigured my plans to go to another store to pick up gifts for the niece. Upon exiting the train, I realized that, again, I had no clear picture of which way to turn. The standard get lost first and then recover bearings habit was in full force. I could remember the directions very clearly, but couldn't recall the specifics. Granted, it was a year since I'd been to 5th Ave in manhattan, but I was able to suss it out in time to spare. Picked up expensive (useless) doll clothes for the nieces' doll. The most bizarre thing coincidence happened: As I stepped out from the store sister and her guy were there to see the tree and the doll goods too!

"Thinking about the way your life is today, that is, given the good things in your life now and any problems you might be having, IF you knew the QUALITY of your life would never change, that is, it would never get beter or worse, do you feel that suicide would be a good way out?"

Looked up "suicidal ideation"today. That's probably saying too much in any forum. The above was one of a series of questions to assess a person's likely risk of doing the ultimate "going all the way" that there is... Once I hit the words "QUALITY of your life would never change..." I had to give voice to a wail of despair: fear that I had to express that feeling of please, may it not be that way! Life in hell still.


Thanksgiving we went all out in the usual cooking the meal for visiting relatives. A new dessert record was reached: A pan of brownies, mini-carrot cakes, min-pecan pies, a fresh fruit tart, two pans of flan and a pumpkin pie ... all from scratch and everything was eaten!

Later that night, after everyone left, I was tired but still wound up from the energy of the day... I had to vent with a crying spell. So lonely, the excitement of giving was over and there was no one else to impress..... I missed him again, still grieving over it falling apart. Just alone downstairs, sitting in the semi-dark and weeping until the need to do so passed.

Just thinking to myself that I really only wanted to give you the best that I could, Mr. W. Even at this point, I miss your company and think of things that would be nice to do for you, but I keep coming to the same dead-end path.

Perhaps, selfishly, I thought of you as something good and I wanted to keep that for myself as well.

I've noticed that I don't smile lately; a small side effect of the whole crappy affair. I'll have to take time and make up a list of things that I associate with you and find some way to re-wire my thinking so that they don't bring on the teary-eyed introspective moments as frequently.

I feel a little better lately, the grief is not as immediate or long lasting when it overcomes me. The sadness does deepen when I do hit the low point. Now I have problems with false hope trying to assert itself, more of the wishful thinking...the "what if he misses me?" feeling. Similar to the way a dog waits longingly on watchful patrol for the master to return home. Only the footstep never comes. Oops, crying again...

It is the very essence of love to want the best for your loved one, even when that best is no longer you.

Have no idea where the line above originates from; it was part of a readers' comments section to an article in the New York Times. The article was about how some Alzheimer's sufferers can forget their spouses and family to the point that some patients start up relationships with other patients (albeit in limited capacity due to the circumstances of the illness.)

The line has got double meaning for me.

I never said I loved Mr. W. I wasn't going to and it wasn't even an option. His problems prevented me from ever seriously entertaining any chance of a serious relationship ever getting off the ground. BUT that's not to say that I wasn't happy to see him, to be with him, that I allowed myself the occasional flicker of hope that things could change for the better. I told him that I liked him, tried to express the relief from loneliness that was worth everything. We seemed to get along well and all. Having him just cut me off has been so hurtful. I feel so diminished because the rejection is so frustrating and final. I can feel stirrings of bitterness at how it turned out; more than 2 months and I'm still suffering. I have the notion to even return that giftcard he gave me last year. I never used it: there's really nothing that I need to buy using his money, whatever thing I bought would remind me more of him. In fact, I've still the original doubts that he even bought it for ME so who wants a secondhand gift? It's not the milestone "first gift from a guy that likes me" item I would want to keep now anyways.

Yet I do still care enough to want him to get an OCD book that I picked up for him and to forward him health insurance information and other paperwork that I had researched online for him. Even if there's the chance that I'm completely wrong and all his symptoms are really just drug problems, I'd do it because there's the chance I am right. It could potentially help him and there was always that desire in me to help, to fix him (even if I knew that "fixing" could mean that I'd done it for someone else's benefit, i.e. some unknown woman whom he could potentially take up with.) I miss him, I miss talking with him, even with his stupid banter that could make no sense at times!

I could send it all by mail, but I don't have the apartment information, if any, and I'm OCD enough myself to not want the package to get lost in the mail. It's tempting to think that I could go in person to the address I found (and held in reserve months ago.) Yes, I have his address: the Internet has fully enabled me to be a low-level online stalker. Sending it could just cement any idea he may have that I am some kind of pest, and I don't think I could bear to experience any kind of negative reception on his part. Ranging from verbal to body language to potentially outright abuse. Still, I had warned him that I wasn't stupid, at least about some things...

I could also justify it with my battered faith in Karma to make things balance out in the world. It might help me to let go.

The other meaning to the quotation above is that it just occurred to me that today is the three year anniversary of my encounter with Mr. P. Three years! I completely forgot it! I'm absolutely unaffected by thinking of it - I can clearly recall the year and a half of utter misery that ensued from that terrible realization how foolish I'd been to even consider Mr. P. as a person to know. In fact, the only thing I felt was, huh, how ironically stupid it is to be in virtually the same position today as I was then. Guess I didn't learn a lesson. It hurts less, but it's also a deeper wound.

hehheh...just about the only thinking I ever do about Mr. P. these days is to sometimes entertain idle thoughts of sending him "mystery gifts from NY" that would make him sweat. Nothing crazy, just stupid tourist tchotchkes showing up in his mail that would rattle him. That or I think of sending him a postcard that calls him an old fart when his birthday rolls around.

So my wishing for the past pain to fade really did just come true with time. Or I can chalk it up to incipent Alzheimers - worry if I can't find my keys now!

It's all downhill from here.

I'm having trouble keeping my wishful thinking in line. My thoughts have been edging out into the "If only's" and I keep minimizing the truly poor behavior on Mr. W's part.

I think back to the night in March when I accidentally found his drug stash in the van. I was so stunned to find it, and I was totally unable to process the implications of it being there. All I could do was get out, get away from that little straw and that little baggie wrapped up in tissue paper. He was just confused about why I wanted to wait out in the cold instead of stay there and I never got to tell him how I knew about it. He probably curses me out for being a snoop, when it really was just an accidental find...

Over the next few days, I didn't know what to do. I struggled to come to terms with what I now knew - Mr. W. with all his other OCD problems was also a hard drug user. All the goody-good lessons in life had been that drugs are bad, that they're an abomination...and yet I didn't want to give HIM up. I was so torn up, I really could not come to an answer on my own that made any sense. I had to call a suicide advice line for guidance when I couldn't stop crying over it all.

That call directed me to Nar- Anon. He doesn't even know that I eventually attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting to try to find an answer. That grim little group meeting of people affected by drugs didn't really work out for me; it was a gathering of women talking about their drug-using sons, husbands and boyfriends/fiancees. I wasn't even able to call Mr. W. any of those titles...

I didn't want to give him up, but all my efforts only bought me what? Five more months of time with him. And he chose to be a stranger in the end. Reading some of his emails to me now show more of that side of his personality... I guess he really never cared.

Just dragging my ass around today. Can't focus. I feel so lonely, yet I can't muster the effort to start over again. Fearful of the bad results I'd had in the previous attempts. I know that I should just take it easy for awhile, but it's going on two months and I miss what I had. Still having the nighttime crying jags.

The other day I had to listen in silence as coworkers, by chance, happened to discuss what was the same travel route I used to take to see Mr. W; my mind filled in every detail, and remembered many trips taken and yet not a chirp outta me...but I hurt inside over it. To think that I had once had to worry about someone possibly seeing me on that route while out late at night with Mr. W. A baseless fear in the end, so maybe it was really just a wishful thrill to want to be caught? An existential pinch-me-so-that-I-know-it's-for-real.

Mr. W checked his account the other day. Don't think I didn't wonder at his having set it up as a premium listing either...just more sadness about how I really just trusted him too much. I never even thought to check up on him during the whole time together. I had let my own account lapse, but it does torment me to wonder how bad it was, and I didn't look out for myself in that fashion. I'm caught up in unhealthy stalker mode again... Stupid internet! So easy to dig up info to torment myself with. What was that tidbit of advice that I viewed on the net? "Stop thinking about the other person in a breakup, because they are not thinking about you." (paraphrase) I think he deleted the profile recently, it's not coming up via a search now, so no more temptation to check up on him that way anymore.

I went walking again the other day. From 57th Street (down Broadway) to whatever point I got tired at. I reached my old Madison Square Park rest point and finally got around to checking out the Shack: a food stand in the park notorious as a "must have" destination for hamburgers and ice cream on the foodie boards and for their insanely long lines.

I had a double cheeseburger and a black & white milkshake. Yum, it was tasty. I sat at the tables near the place and actually had a good moment: I was by myself and too bad for that, but things were okay.