So, looks like my return to LJ will, in fact, be here instead....

I've been trying to get back to LJ lately (with mixed success; I doubt I'll ever use it or DW as much as I did 'back in the day'), but now it seems it has become a bit of a Russian police state. Lovely. So I suppose I will keep my liberal, democratic socialist, Tantrump-hating commentary here instead. Now the question is - do I delete that journal, or leave it? It sucks b/c I have a permanent account, and this one costs. Like I need another expense these days. Grrrrr.

But OK, then, here I am. :)

P.S. We need new moods! I need 'rebellious' and 'defiant,' just for starters....

P.P.S. Anyone know of any friending things? Anyone out there at all, come to think of it?

This is to my LJ friends, assuming it will go through:

I haven't been here much, and it grinds my gears that when I finally decide to try and pick this up, LJ goes and sells out to Russian interests (well, the rest of the way, anyway). So I'm dusting off the Dreamwidth, airing out rooms, taking covers off the furniture, and setting the kettle on. I've imported everything I can (couldn't import and newer stuff, so I reposted by hand), and so my whole history is there. It feels more like a museum than home, but it will feel like home with time.... I will keep reading here, but I will be closing this down in stages over the next couple months.

I'm on DW at https://lunadelcorvo.dreamwidth.org/. If we're not already friends there, please add me and drop me a line and let me know who goes with your username, if it's not the same.

More past hits...

This is from almost a decade ago. Damn - I knew some stuff back then:

"There are lots of things that have built up between us. Some of those can be laid at his feet, some at mine. Some, perhaps just at the feet of life, and all the crap it sends flying our way every day. BUT - that's not the real problem.

And some things he has done, ways he has been, are messed up, and worthy of honest criticism. And, I hope, correction. The same can surely be said about me. We have some real problems. I do not mean to, nor intend to, ignore these things, or marginalize their importance. Yes, they need attending to. All these things need to be sorted, peeled away, one by one, and cleared out so we can be rid of them for good. But it still isn't the real issue.

That would be me. Yes, me. No, I am not accepting blame, I am not painting myself the villain. But I am finally realizing what is going on with me. I am afraid of disappearing. It is as simple as that. I am afraid of disappearing.

I have never really learned to love without losing myself. Actually, I don't know that I ever really learned to "love" at all. I know I never had any examples to learn from growing up. My Mom loved me, but that isn't what we are talking about here. Lord knows my grandparents never loved each other, or if they did, it was long buried by the time I came along.

So from where did I forge my notions of love? Books? Movies? Fairy tales? So I learned a strange version of love, one where lovers were swept away, consumed, forever transfigured by love, never more to be the same, never more to be a lone being, but now always part of two.

Sounds nice, at first. But I learned eventually that dissolution of self was just that, and only that. Problem is, I don't think I know how to let go, to love, to be with someone without my self dissolving.

And yes, it was me that argued that love is not violins and fairy sparkle. I was the one to assert that REAL love was being able to clean the garage, change a diaper, or buy onions with someone and still know you wouldn't rather be doing those things with anyone else in the world. But what if you forget how to do those things alone? What if you would rather be doing them alone, because you find if you do everything with someone, you forget who you are? I never thought about that one. Fairy sparkle or produce, it still meant no longer being one, but a part of two.

And that is what has been my downfall every time. Anyone who has known me long enough will agree I stay in bad relationships way too long; that I seem to be someone, something different when I am in a relationship, and that my strength and my personality seem to fade. I become the relationship. So when it begins to fail, so do I. I subsume my needs, my pain, my desires, my sense of right and wrong, and I put up with unbelievable crap for the sake of the relationship.

I don't think this relationship is like that. I think it might be a good one, and that my husband could be worth keeping. I don't think I would be pulling back so far if I didn't see the potential here. But I fear, so very deeply, the loss of my self.

So here I am. I bagged the ultimate non-believer in love, made him believe, made him see the light (amen, brother!) and made him mine. And now I am frantically skittering away from him, because I have seen what I look like when I start to disappear, and I can think of nothing that terrifies me more. I am not saying that he would devour me - not intentionally, consciously, or even by anything he does. He would because I don't know how to be as close as he wants me to without being devoured. Not by him, so much, as by the entity that is the relationship between us.

I have sought to keep him at bay, even as I have sought to re-discover my identity, and re-invent it in spots. I am happy with that identity, mostly, or as much as anyone can be who is at all relentless in self examination. But I can see that parts of who I am, who I have become have risen from a desire to keep him distant, keep him from understanding me, knowing me.

Apprehend = to know, but also to capture. To be understood is to be imprisoned? Apprehension = fear, and knowledge? Funny language we have....

I think there is a better way to love. I think there is a way to have a deep, loving relationship without losing myself. I think that there is 'grown-up' love. I don't really know how to do it, but I believe it can be done. But can we do it? Can he find a love that is not so consuming? Can I? Can I learn balance? Can I ever learn how to let go without fearing for my very self? Good question.

First, we need to get on the same page ( I hate buzzwords, but sometimes they work!) on this. I also think we will need to deal with some of the other, smaller issues that have piled up before we can start any real rebuilding. Then again, maybe not. Maybe they will make more sense when the central issue is resolved, assuming it can be. For a long time, I have been tempted to conclude that I am just not cut out for long term love, and walk away. "I'm just not long haul gal!" That may yet prove to be true, but I am not willing to accept it at face value without questioning it deeply, honestly and sincerely. So, to work...."

The real question is, have I learned since then?