I sit once again on the back patio, laptop poised in front of me, fully accepting of all of my thoughts, fears and feelings. After 6 straight days, my body is finally starting to react to the nightly barrage of alcohol and cigarettes.

I look like hell. I don't know that I've ever had that thought before, and I don't know that I've ever cared, or care now, but, I know that I look like absolute shit.

My life never seems to falter too terribly much, when I'm in times of great pain or emotion. Somehow, I never fail to function and, while it may not be at my optimal capacity, it somehow seems like it's still more than enough for what is typically asked of me.

Though I spent quite a bit of time emoting, at my job, during the drive to my work, during my hockey games, and I was still able to function, I was still ignoring parts of my self.

She emailed me on Monday and asked if we could talk on Tuesday night, after my game. I agreed, and the full weight of the life-changing decisions that were impending was felt squarely on my shoulders. I was not looking forward to it.

I spent all of Monday and Tuesday seeking validation in my thoughts and actions. Bless those that care about me and their advice, but I purposely chose to distance myself from everyone else's input in the matter. This is my life and, since I'm the one who's living it, I figured I needed to make the decisions concerning it on my own.

I would never claim, for one second, that I don't appreciate and embrace the love that I felt from so many people. I did and I do. So many wonderful, caring people have contacted me over the last week that I am truly astounded and humbled at the idea that all of this energy and feeling was directed simply at me, for me. I typically have no idea that people care about me until they prove it. I'm cynical, wary, cautious, like that, but prove it they did and it's an amazing feeling.

I came home Tuesday night and found her on the back patio, sitting where I am now. She was scribbling pensively in a notebook and I had to wonder how many pages she'd written in the last few days. I was fully ready to believe that she had written hardly any, and that she'd spent her "exile" feeling self-pity and remorse as is her tendency.

I was very wrong.

Obviously, she'd been thinking, and writing, and thinking, and soul-searching. For the first time it felt like she'd finally taken a good look at who she is, and who she was.

Something was still missing though, something that I felt like I needed, and the tortured part of my soul ached for it.

An apology.

A tearful, Heartfelt, sobbing, totally penitent, outpouring of remorse.

It was not to come.

Instead, I perceived a wounded person who was seeking, for the first time in her life, to understand who she is, and why she is who she is. Remorseful? Of course. But, our interaction took on a familiar tone of defensiveness when we discussed what we were going to do with this life we now have. When it was suggested that we take a span of 6 months apart to learn, truly learn about ourselves and each other, it was met with grudging agreement.

It was not fun, but I did my best to try and listen, and to try and learn. When she left, my heart felt like it was being ripped from my chest, and it was all I could do not to collapse in a heap, and sob myself into unconsciousness.

As I prepared for bed, I noticed her notebook sitting, suggestively I thought, on the laptop. So, I read its contents. When I finished, I realized that the first part was a diary entry.

Yes, she has a diary, and no, I'm not ready to link to it yet.

I also realized that the second part was not meant for my eyes.

The tone of defensiveness that I felt earlier suddenly made much more sense. An itemized list of items for the evening's discussion were written out, as well as several things that I can only describe as "coaching tips." At first, I turned incredibly defensive, wanting to shout at every point that I wasn't like that and had never been like that. I simply wouldn't DO any of the things that it felt like she was expecting. I then started thinking that she hadn't changed her ways of thinking towards me at all, and that our decision to separate was extremely valid. The anger I felt then turned inward, and I started to question who I really am, and was. Did I really DO those things? Do I really attack her? Make her question her thoughts? Come down on her too hard? I certainly didn't think so, but I tried to assuage my feelings with the idea that, if I had done these things, I certainly didn't know it, and if she confirms all that she wrote about me, I will certainly do my damnedest to not be that person anymore.

Wednesday night came, with its wine and its cigarettes, as well as the constant tapping of this keyboard. I fully meant to try and capture some forms of coherent thought, as opposed to my tearful ramblings, in the hopes that I could post an entry and lay to rest some of the fears of the more motherly readers of this diary. I'm not suggesting that anyone thought I would off myself, but some of the worries I felt for myself were echoed in many of the emails I received.

I decided to just let myself feel. I mean really feel. I wanted it all out, because it was turning my insides into a place of confusion, anger, hurt, and mistrust, and no one should have to walk around in their life feeling that way. No one should feel that all they can do is just walk around in their life, period. Life is for living, and I needed to get on with it.

I let my Head talk first. I analyzed and examined every angle of our situation to exhaustion. I came up with only the idea that what I'm doing isn't wrong. It isn't going to be fun, but it isn't wrong.

My Heart had a few more things to say. I thought about all the love that we had, the life that we shared, and the life that we were building. I realized that her absence would cause more than just a "void," it would be an absence of the love that we've grown together. A love, I've come to realize, that has brought my life, my whole being, to a higher place. A better place. A place that I'd never even glimpsed in my entire life. A place I never thought possible.

My Heart also hurt. My Heart was fighting with my Head over the idea that I was still acting like that hurt little boy. A notion I had spurned just a few days ago. That same little boy, who wanted only to be left to his own, yet was constantly picked on, who had supposedly grown into a man that had learned how to forgive, was still there. And he was acting out. He had been wronged and now he wanted retribution.

I began to question why I was throwing her out of my life again. I understand that there is a mountain of reasons that backed me up, but I truly began to question whether or not I was just being spiteful and/or self-protecting.

Then, I turned to the part of myself that is my savior. The part of me that never lies, is rarely, if ever, wrong, and seems to know more than I ever give it credit for.

My Gut.

I have an old friend who I don't keep in regular touch with yet still manage to connect with every time we're together. At a particularly low point in my life, he told me, "I was once told some very wise words. 'You have to listen to your Head, and let your Heart act as its advisor. But, you should always, always trust your Gut. If it had ever steered you wrong, you'd be dead.'" I remember staring at him in disbelief, as he'd never been one to quote anything overtly profound. I asked him who it was that told him this piece of wisdom, expecting a fortune cookie, a popular book, or that crazy, black lady in the turban who speaks to me in a funny accent late at night on the television.

He then open-handed slapped me across the side of my head.

"YOU, you idiot. YOU fucking told me that years ago, when my life was shit and I thought I'd never love anyone again."

After listening to my Heart and my Head, I decided to acquiesce to his advice. The fact that the side of my head tingled in memory, helped push the idea as well. I decided to see what the Gut had to say.

The Gut, barely stifled all night, was now being heard in full force.

"Don't be a self-righteous asshole," it said, "if you want to run with certain feelings or thoughts that she's a piece of shit and you're so sure of that because of thoughts of feelings that you're so sure she's had, then sit her down and ask her instead of crying and resenting her in your solitude."

In a moment of spontaneity, I called her. She was on her way back to her temporary lodging from her pool league, but seemed to hear the pain and pleading in my voice, and pulled up in front of the house less than 3 minutes later.

The evening didn't go as I had expected. I had expected a defensive, passive/aggressive, shitheel to make a feeble attempt at an apology or an explanation of her actions, in an effort to lessen the blame on herself. I had expected a nominal level of accountability. Which is not to say that I didn't think she'd accept the fact that our life is fucked because of her actions, I simply thought that she would act like she'd always acted before, and hang her head in quiet resignation with a statement along the lines of, "I know I'm a fuck-up, and I deserve to not have you love me anymore."

That wasn't the person that sat down with me that night. She was more than up-front about what she'd done in the past, she had honest, thoughtful, theories and ideas on why she had acted that way. She'd done a lot of thinking on who she is and why it is that she does hurtful things to me, let alone things which are terribly self-destructive.

When confronted about the words in her notebook, the thoughts that I thought so clearly represented her true feelings towards me, she admitted that she hadn't meant for me to read that, but that what she had written in no way reflected how she truly thought about me. Her words were for herself, to assure her that the worst-case scenario wasn't the end of the world. A pessimistic view at best, she had prepared herself for my worst possible reactions, knowing, deep down, that I would never, could never, hurt her in those ways, and that even if I did, she wouldn't run away from it, but face up to it, and confidently proceed with what she thought was right by me, by us, and by her.

The fact that she always runs away from pain was also something that she'd never considered before last week. An almost certain Catch-22 is that if you never examine yourself and all of your weaknesses, because it is so painful, and end up running away from it, you never know that you will always run away from pain.

She quoted one of Clarity's entries that said something along the lines of, "When it starts to hurt, you just have to dig deeper, or you'll never truly heal." She admitted that she was digging, and it sucked, but that it had been ignored for too long, and it needs dealing with.

I sat there thinking about how good it felt that she was finally being honest with me, until I realized that this was probably the first time she'd ever been that honest with herself.

She sat there, for the first time possibly ever, and sincerely told me that she doesn't think that she's a bad person. Quite the opposite, she knows that she is a good person. A good person who runs from her problems instead of dealing with them and ends up shitting all over the one person that she loves most in this world.

Drugs, alcohol, promiscuity. None of these has ever been her real problem. She's just never dealt with whatever pain she's been feeling. Pushing it away and invalidating it, she's found, only made it build up into a self-destructive episode and it was played out using what she had available. It may as well have been gambling, excessive tattoos, or biting the heads off of Prairie Hens.

While she could offer no reason why it was partially directed at me as well, she promised me that she would devote her energy into finding out.

And I believe her.

And I asked her to stay.

---

Things, understandably, still aren't great. A part of me still waits for some great gesture to demonstrate her remorse and seeking of forgiveness.

I realize though, that the part of me that needs that may never get what it wants. Partly because it's not something that she can do right now, and partly because I've started questioning whether or not that wounded little boy will ever be satisfied. Whether his need for "justice" will ever be met. It's not fair to expect that since he's been so wounded so many people, one person can make up for a lifetime of abuse.

It's not an easy task to get him to grow up and move on. I may be able to talk about forgiveness when referring to my family or my friends, but I don't know that I ever forgave the Girl for all that she's done to me.

One thing I'm sure of, though. That hurt little boy will never shut up until I learn to forgive her.

I can sit and feel self-righteous and superior, waiting for that grand gesture, for that blubbering apology, but somewhere, in the back of my mind, a part of me is telling me that I need to recognize her for who she is. And me, for who I am.

While she is someone who has hurt me, she is also someone that I love with all of my Heart. With all of my Gut. My Head is going to need some convincing, but it is learning to operate on a little bit of faith, tempered by the ever-present, rarely silent, Gut, and it's incredibly-difficult-to-fault inclinations.

There are so many things that we have yet to learn. About each other. About ourselves.

I'm finding that it's difficult to deal with situations where she seems so seemingly carefree, when I feel that she should be tentative and pensive, like I am recently. I misinterpret her feelings and judge her, thinking that it's only natural that she be happy as I chose to let her back into our house and into my life, and that she'll go back to her half-assed attempts at improving herself, myself, and our relationship, now that she doesn't feel like we aren't in any danger anymore.

The difference is though, I now tell her these things. I no longer hide my misgivings in an effort to avoid her feeling pain and running away. She hasn't run away either. She's listened and understood why I feel this way and has not chosen to take the easy path and just tell me what I want to hear. She's been honest with me and told me that she was someone who used to do exactly that. Fuck up, and then forget about any attempt at atonement once our life was "back to normal." She's told me that she isn't someone who is going to do that anymore, and I believe her.

And I'm going to hold her to it.

I'm fond of saying that I try to live in the Now. Right now, I've still got pain and resentment, and that pisshead little boy, to deal with. But, so does she. The fact that the source of this, for both of us, is mostly her only makes it more difficult as I don't seem to have my tasks laid out in front of me as clearly as she does.

I can only continue to be the best person I can, and to try and give her what she needs. But, for probably the first time in my life, I'm learning to put my needs first. It feels wrong, at first, but my Gut tells me that it's right, and I believe it. Someday, I'll learn to forgive her too, although not without her help.

I'm sure I'll figure it out. It just takes time.

Wish me luck.