Old patterns, new pains

I’m feeling so much ache — ache in the heart — and worry. 

I’m trying to stay focused on the practical issues, get all the phone calls and paperwork done for next week’s likely hand surgery and for one or two other medical procedures I’ll need to get done this summer. 

The practical issues can keep me busy and focused. They’re frustrating and even concerning per se, often still getting mis-named and involving thousands of dollars in expenses that I dread to have to face, especially having to face unemployment soon, too. But at least these worries and concerns, these fears and frustrations, are concrete and as such feel more “real” and more “manageable” to me. 

The aches of the heart are a whole other beast and one that is going to be even harder for me to handle without having my usual coping skills at hand (literally) because of the climbing & motorcycle-riding being taken away from me this summer due to my thumb injury. 

I’m afraid of this upcoming summer. I’m afraid of the emptiness and loneliness I might feel. 

I’ll be moving out of my place, into a friend’s house down the street to house-sit for him & his wife while they’re away this summer. While I very much need and look forward to the space (physical & mental & emotional) to myself, I am afraid of the loneliness I might feel because of three sets of relationships changing logistically all at once over the next few weeks: I’ll be moving out of the place where I have lived for over a year; my runner friend/neighbor will be away all summer (that’s why I’ll be house-sitting for them), so I’ll miss him; my romantic friend who also lives in this neighborhood will be moving out of her parents’ house so she won’t be a 5-minute walk distance from me anymore, either. 

Then, there’s Pride month coming up just around the corner. This year, I won’t be able to spend it with my European (gender)queer ex-lover because they’re not here and we’re not even in touch anymore, so that will be a huge sorrow. Fortunately, I’ll be able to go to one of the Pride events with one of my closest queer/non-binary friends here with whom I went to a couple of memorable events last year, but then they’ll be away for about a month, so I’ll miss them, too. 

Commemorating the beginning & end of the “love story” I had with my European (gender)queer ex-lover last Saturday was good for me, bittersweet and at moments very sad, but overall healing. But with the upcoming Pride month & the memories it brings, along with the fact that in two days it would be their birthday and that I’m reading a book that reminds me of them, I’m feeling some of the melancholy & sorrow come back in small wavelets. 

And on top on it all — and maybe feeding into similar emotions to those connected with my European (gender)queer ex-lover — there’s the sadness & pain, disguised in anger, about having to “nip in the bud” the romantic/sexual relationship with the gay guy. I have to do it for my own good. I see a pattern here that is really harmful for me. 

I know he really likes me, I believe him when he says that he genuinely wants to have a deep connection and romantic+sexual relationship with me — as I would with him. But he doesn’t have the emotional or time availability now that I would need and this activates old wounds for me. Those wounds go as far back as my childhood/teenage/young adulthood years with my father and then to my California years. Of course, the situation with my father was different in some important ways since the relationship was platonic, parent-child love and “unbalanced” in the sense that I was the child in need while he was (or should have been) one of my main caregivers. But the wound was created back then, decades ago, and reinforced by years of neglect from my father and then the pattern got repeated in California as I found myself romantically involved or attracted to three guys who genuinely liked me back but who didn’t have the emotional and/or practical capacity to be available for me. While I know that these situations with grown men involve my adult self, my childhood wounds get activated, too, and that’s a reality I have to face. And it’s something I don’t want to put my child through again. Having a fulfilling romantic & sexual relationship with (a) gay guy(s) means the world to me now, maybe more than ever also because of my “(re)discovered” gender-identity. And I want to be able to go into such a relationship with joy and enthusiasm. And with very few restraints. With healthy boundaries but few restraints. I want to be able to let go, to let that joyful, sexual, playful boy in me let go, run wild and have fun while connecting deeply. I don’t want to be the shoulder upon which a “new boyfriend” cries or to be put on hold because of a break-up with another partner. That would be fine down the line, of course, it’s part of life, but not right at the beginning. At the beginning, at least, I want the joy and enthusiasm.

That’s not happening with this particular gay guy, no matter how much we both wish it and desire it: realistically it’s not happening. So it’s hurting me and making me feel angry and sad. I recognize these signs, I recognize these patterns, and for my own good I need to end this now. But with all the rest of the emptiness and loneliness and reduced coping skills I’m facing this summer, this feels really hard and painful.