Updates have been lacking but what could I possibly tell you? It's been pretty much the same except that time has passed. And with time comes some ease around Franco (which, by the way, turns out to be just a dumb codename but for lack of a better one - it shall remain the same). I'm still hurt. I'm still a little angry. But the mass depression, the sleeplessness, the anxiety is for the most part gone. In its place is a degree of numbness but I still think of her every night and wake up thinking of her.
She's gotten a little easier with the communication with me though - she's arranged a couple of on the sly phone calls from her office, some instant messaging evenings, occasional emails and regular texts. She stops and then she starts. She goes through guilt and then cycles back to not caring. But we don't flirt. We don't do anything wrong. We just catch up and talk and ... well I try to flirt a little. I try to connect on that romantic level... but it's rather pathetic even though she is receptive.
Briefly some bad things were happening in her life. Her brother-in-law got in a car accident. Her father got diagnosed with cancer. And she thought these things were somehow karmically related to her affair. I told her she was being silly.. "Karma," I said, "wouldn't punish other people." Besides, we were honest with our souls so I don't believe we deserve karmic punishment.
And then her eyes started going fuzzy. We hoped it was just stress and too much reading on her part (she's in a class where she reads 2-3 books a week) but she went to check it out anyway. We already knew she had a bad eye that was potentially going to go blind one day and I prayed that it wouldn't be going bad. She went to the eye doctor - nothing. But he was concerned so he sent her to a different kind of doctor. They did tests and were disturbed by the results - there seemed to be something wrong with her brain. Thinking it might be a tumor she was rushed to have a cat scan. It came back negative but there was still something wrong so they did more and more tests. All the while she was worried. I was worried. I prayed. I cried. I worried... what if she had a brain tumor?!! What if she was dying?? What if she did go blind - our only communication now is through secret emails/texts/ims - what happens if she can no longer read them?
Well after a series of tests it did come back Friday that she has MS. Fuck.
My first worry is that she's going to come back at me and say, "Well this is happening to me. Now I really really believe I'm being punished." And I can't argue anymore. Right now I'm angry at fate. Angry at God. I'm feeling as if this thing is being done to us. To me.
Like the only thing that keeps me going somedays is that hope that maybe one day she will come back to me. Maybe after a divorce or maybe 30 years from now after her life has lived out with him. But now - she has a disease. A disease that, if she lives that long, will have her come back to me as a completely different and disabled person. And one of the things I read was about the sexual disfunctions of a person with MS - either they have too much with strangers (could her interest in me be only an early symptom?) or they can lose interest. So here's this girl that was exactly everything I wanted in a sexual companion - perfectly sexually compatible.... and if she ever does come back there's this chance she won't be interested. A small thing compared to the other things that could go wrong but I still feel like that would be one big huge cruel joke.
I don't know that I'd even be a big enough person to be able to handle a girlfriend with disease. Not like it's an option right now but these are the things that run through my head. What if she says "I'm not going to live the rest of my life as a lie" and she comes to me? Could I handle watching her disintegrate? Was our break-up a blessing in disguise?
But I still believe fate had a big hand in our meeting. And I don't think it was just to play a big joke on us so maybe there is a big lesson for me in this. Or something I can do that will help. Again... I can see the benefits that she gets out of having any kind of relationship with me but I don't see what I get. Again I feel like a pawn in the life of Franco.
And I'm just sad. And freaked out. And I don't know how to hold her hand when no one is holding mine. I tried to tell a local friend and her response was, "Good, I hope she dies!" I get that she's being protective but I still love this woman and I'm good and devastated right now. Or am I? Is it just a good story?
Knowing that I need a certain level of intimacy in my life right now... and knowing that I'm not getting it from my current friends (my own fault, I know, but still)... I've again put up an ad on Craigslist seeking "teddy bears." I've been regularly chatting with a woman and her male roommate to this end - maybe this time I won't chicken out and by the new year I'll actually have non-sexual relationships with people that I can just be cuddly with. I need hugs. I need shoulders to cry on.
