Emotionally Exhausted

Marianne Dashwood, how I feel your deepest, open wound. When you cannot eat, cannot sleep (or can do nothing but), cannot focus on the conversation before you after the devastation that Willoughby hath wrought! Oh! That pain I feel! For three weeks before my dearest broke the news to me, I could not eat. I could barely sleep. I could only wander in a tear-filled haze, trembling from the sheer exhaustion of existing. And then it worsened. He told me he "probably shouldn't have a girlfriend right now." And my world stopped.
For the past seven years, aside from that short period of time I attempted online dating, I have been single. I have come to know myself, what I wanted in a partner, and have found silent comfort in moments of solitude. He was suddenly there, and everything I wanted and needed.
I love him.
Sleep, when it comes, is such a dear comfort to me. Waking is a hard knife in my heart. Living is a dark cloud that neither brings rain nor surrenders to sun. Every damn day is...indescribable pain. The love I felt when we were a couple was that of fairy tales. It was incredible. It was the kind jaded people say doesn't exist. The pain from the loss of such a love is easily one million, no - one trillion, no - infinite lifetimes worth of the deepest, darkest, most numbing pain any creature can ever know.
Yet, when we were together, I knew Heaven. I knew completeness.
Now, I know pain. I know what being let down truly feels like. To be a part of something so out of this world, then suddenly have it ripped from you as if it were your skin...
People have described the loss of a loved one as losing a part of one's soul; a part of your heart feels like it's missing. Nothing can be more appropriate here, yet feel so superficial. What I am feeling is so much more. And indescribable. A piece of me is missing, yes. My heart is broken, yes. Everything hurts.
I am so tired.
I am so broken.
I am so lost.
And life is so long.
I have so many more years ahead of me, and sleep is the only thing that comforts my aching.
I would walk forever if it meant he'd return to me. I would wear out endless pairs of iron shoes wandering the Earth for him.
I only wish that he could look past material things. I wish he could feel love, like he said he used to.
It was a fairy tale love. Maybe he's under some greedy spell?
And people say, "He wasn't the one. The one will be amazing!"
And I say, "He was the one, he just wasn't ready. We're on different time-frames."
But if the high of being with him was so exquisite, and this low is so nearly unbearable, why would I chance feeling like this again? What if the next one isn't "the one," feels just as great, if not (impossibly) better to be with, but ends in a break up, too? Why would I even entertain the thought of going through this level of Hell, again? I would have to be crazy, stupid, or a glutton for punishment.
Love is not worth the pain.


***UPDATE: I maintain this point of view. While the pain has subsided, for the most part, the memory of it remains. Nothing is worth feeling like I did when I wrote the original post. Being single is far sweeter.

Of Water Elementals and Gods

My dreams have been full of jump-scares, of late. Often, these are antagonists against my in-dream character that follow me to "my" room (which seems to be that of my prepubescent childhood), where I close the door behind me, then quickly turn to lean against it while trying to hold the knob steady against my would-be intruder. They've been able to open the door just enough to stick their faces through ala Jack Nickleson in The Shining. It's always men, too.
Last night, however, my dream was full of strange occurrences of water spouts in threes, and a giant rising Moon.
"No!" I protested within the dream, standing inside the house and looking out a great picture window. "That's Jupiter!" And I ran out to lie on the grass to watch the massive planet so close I could almost touch as it soared over our dwarfed planet. Then, I see it rotate as it passes - there was Africa. And part of the Americas. And the North Pole. I ran back into the house, "It's Earth! It wasn't Jupiter! I saw Africa on its surface!"

Water is the element against which I fight the most.

The most emotional element.

At first glance, there was no grounding in the dream. People that got too close to the water (over which a restaurant was in business, and the outdoor seating was built...and where the water spouts gracefully dipped undetected below the surface) where sucked in. They disappeared much like the spouts after a final leap above to gasp air. The water swallowed all things that fought its power.

And the Moon (Diana) became Jupiter (Zeus). But Why Zeus? Being the Emperor of Gods, does he embody all elements? Zeus' lightning often coincides with the rains. Ah! But it wasn't the Moon, whose waxing and waning dictate the tides of Neptune. Nor was it Jupiter in his great paradox of calm fury. Neither was it watery Neptune, but Earth.
Here is the grounding. Earth, Gaea, roots. She glided above me. She made her silent, slow rotation, showing me her mountains, seas, glacial caps, deserts, and grasslands. She showed me, from afar, possibilities that cannot be seen when one is at ground level.

I fight the communion with Water regularly. As an Air sign, and truly one of a feather on the wing in the wind, I know what damage Water can do. It can be useful at the right time, but if one stays too long, it's clarity becomes fogged. It will saturate you, and make you part of it. There is no return from a full surrender to Water. The ground lets me land and rest, but it provides a launch pad when I need to go. Earth nourishes; Water envelopes.

I've always fought the communion with Water. Perhaps this dream reminds me that I cannot always fight it. It is part of my chemical make-up, after all. Part of me should relish its embrace, while still allowing me to step from it when I feel the sucking of it's depths on my toes.

The last few weeks, I have given in to despair in my solitude. That is far too long, and the joy of life is draining from me. The sucking of the depths on my toes has moved up to begin a consumption of my legs. Nearly half of me is succumbing to the exhaustion of regular emotional communion with the element.

I need to fly. I need to find ground, and leap skyward if I am to survive my experience with the element of emotion.

Here, my dream's bare bones are these:

~I stopped fighting against what Water needed to teach me. My curiosity drew me into the depths, and, once I stopped fighting, I found comfort in releasing my emotions there.
~As a soul naturally guided by air, I was sucked into my watery despair. And, again, as an airy spirit, I could not find ground to help myself out.
~Now, being awakened by Earth, I find that grounding is necessary - I need to pull myself from this state to be free once again.
~I am reminded by Jupiter that I have all that I need to do and be who I am meant to be in this life. Afloat in the sea of woe that I was, I could not make head nor tails of anything in my life. I was adrift. And, while I still may be confused of my direction, meditation and determination must be my tools to successfully get myself back on track.

I feel that I am blessed by understanding people in my life. However, all of the advice and secondhand knowledge one has in this world is nothing if one cannot use it. I feel blessed that I can assimilate information through my dreams, and have the patience to listen to what my own heart and mind make of what others share with me in addition to what I know already.

Overthinking It

From grade school, to junior high, to high school, to adult life, "overthinking it" has been my mantra through sighs time and again. When life is great, overthinking takes a back seat. However, that old, familiar feeling eventually creeps back into my mind when I feel that I'm falling short in some aspect or another.

A solstice comes and goes without so much as a prayer, let alone a ritual - "Am I a good Pagan?"

A new class begins with an overwhelming misunderstanding of the material - "Is this really what I want to do with my life?"

A new man becomes an important part of your world, then begins to disappear - "Did I come on too strong?"

In the end, the overthinking leads to deep self-doubt, regardless of the situation.
But why?
Why do I feel "less than" when I think about situations more than what society seems to put out as "normal?" What is the norm for thinking? Is there a minimum and a maximum level of thought that is expected in defined moments? Who decides what is too much? In bullying and abuse cases, the victims are the people who decide what is "too much." So, if Jane is feeling put out with a problem she may have, does she define the "right" level of processing? But what if Jane's issue is all in her head? She can talk about it with someone to decide if that is the case. And, if Jane is overthinking an issue with John that she's made up on her own, does John define the level of thought as "too much?" Does that make him the victim, and so, the deciding party? And, what if Jane and John have an issue, agreed upon by both at the beginning of said conversation? Does the most offended person have the right to blow up?
No.
No situation gives any party the right to blow up. That implies total loss of control, and will only end in further conflict; no resolution there.
But, how does one explain thoughts that have inflated beyond the situation so that the conflict (or imagined conflict) can be resolved? I know I'm not the only one here who has had inner conflict, and wanted so badly to discuss it with the other party, but terrified to do so. "What if he shuts down? What if he's not interested in making it work? What if I scare him away with my neediness?" That happened. And the conversation happened. And he played it off. And I stopped texting him first to see if I'd ever hear from him again.
And I never did.
Some of you who have been readers for a while may recall that whole mess.
So, you'll excuse me if my trust issues are coming back around. Previous boyfriends whittled my trust when they cheated on me (which pretty near all of my boyfriends have done.) Then, that guy introduced a whole new kind of mistrust - mistrust in myself. I let myself revolve my life around him. I became *that* girl. You all know her (some of you may be her, too) - she's independent, but the moment a new, amazing guy waltzes into her life, hobbies, aspirations, free time = gone. He may not even be asking it of her, but she gives it up freely. Whether or not it's attractive to the opposite sex (or same sex, no judgement here), is irrelevant, I feel. Maybe I feel it's irrelevant because I don't want it to be relevant, because I am that girl. Who knows? In any case, I want to be loved and wanted as much as I love and want someone else. I don't think that's asking too much.
Then again, maybe I'm overthinking it?

Enough...?

It's never enough. I was single for roughly seven years. (Those failed attempts at relationships in the past few years don't count, because love was never truly exchanged.) Now, happily...ish, I find myself nearly seven months into a new relationship. He is everything I've always wanted and needed, and some things I never knew I wanted (and needed.) He is my Sun, Moon, and all of my stars.
Then there's that "ish."
We're moving together, but at different paces. Think of me walking a few steps ahead of him. We're going in the same direction with (I'm fairly certain) the same endgame in mind. But I feel disjointed. I want him to move at a pace that works for him, but I'm getting impatient.
Why can't knowing I am with this incredible man be enough? Why do I have to second guess myself, or him?
And, bad Pagan! I found myself flipping through one of my BoSs the other day. Boo! Hiss! I know. I haven't considered that option since I was new to the Path in high school. I know better, and would never resort to manipulation. But when you are ready to move forward, and the loneliness is comparative to that experienced when you were single, how can you stay strong?
I want him to realize that I am not going anywhere, I have a love so pure that begs to be shared, and want him to continue to grow and be who he is, so there is no need to be afraid to leap. I'm all in.
Is the question, then, not "Why isn't being in a relationship enough for me?" but rather, "Am I just not enough?"
Have you found your Sun and Moon? Did you wonder if he/she felt less than excited in the beginning? How did it pan out? Naturally, I'm afraid of the answers. Also, my over thinking could well be that my hypothyroid is out of whack again. Ugh...