A Big Hole

Like I mentioned before, I just began a new healing process with the coach in Los Angeles, not in person though. The upside is that I no longer want to die or feel depressed, but the downside is that I feel sad a lot and really surprised that I still have so many tears in myself.

There's a difference between feeling depressed and feeling sad. By purging Ivan out of my memory I was only suppressing my grief and anger but he's not really gone. He is and will always be a part of my past. By denying what happened I was only hurting myself and hating myself. Now I need to embrace the grief and anger again, acknowledge their presence, and sink into the feeling of those. Then I realize how sad and angry I've always been. I think it's definitely better to feel sad and angry often rather than depressed and suicidal from time to time.

The heavenly cherry blossom is here again. I feel extremely lucky to live in such a beautiful place. I can actually walk to the lake and be surrounded by the flowers and read a novel. I see myself in a beautiful unreal painting. Yesterday I did lots of photography work at the lake and one of the pictures of myself does look like a painting. I'm not going to share the pictures because that'd reveal my identity and location and I wouldn't be able to write real stuff here. There were a lot of couples walking together and I wished I could be one of them. That did not make my sad though; I was smiling at them as if I could feel their joy and warmth of walking around the lake, in the beautiful blossoms, and being with their loved ones. The surroundings were indeed very romantic. I could come up with dozens of gorgeous images with couples in it.

Today's the St. Patty's Day. There are lots of drunk people in green on the street. I believe Cato is one of them due to his Irish descent. There are a lot of couples too. I don't know if it's because I am selective of people I pay attention to or this city is really full of couples. I want to be one of them too. I want to have fun and get drunk but only with someone whom I believe can take care of me. My phone hasn't rung for 2 days. Obviously none of my friends is capable of taking care of me. So today I just hung out at Starbuck's until my headache forced me to go home and take the pain killer.

Speaking of being taken care of, last Sunday at 4 a.m. I was suffering from a tremendously painful menstrual cramp again. It hadn't occurred to me since I moved to the City of Power but somehow it's been back over the past couple of months. I ran out of Tylenol last month and forgot to get new ones (which was also a result of being overly optimistic about being pain-free for a while). The pain was very severe and woke me up and I was crying out of pain; I wasn't able to stand up straight and rolled myself up for most of the time. I could not think of an appropriate person to call so I called Cato several times. Obviously he was asleep and turned his phone silent and didn't see my phone calls until 10 a.m. I barely slept between 4 and 10. I told him what happened and that I needed Tylenol. He came within 30 minutes with acetaminophen, ibuprofen, heating pads, and a cup of mocha with whipped cream from Caribou. The mocha had a different story. The night before I was working with a couple of guys and Cato was on his way out to get some coffee. He asked if anyone of us wanted coffee as well and I said mocha with whipped cream from Caribou was really good. After he left I bet with one of the guys that he'd definitely get me a mocha with whipped cream from Caribou but it turned out he only got himself coffee from Starbuck's. It was hilarious and I messaged Cato on G-talk how I lost the bet. That's why the next day after the medical emergency call he brought me a mocha with whipped cream from Caribou.

This episode made me feel really cared for and warm. I felt happy, I felt great for winning the bet too. He felt much stronger and older than me. Of course I wanted more but I can't; I need to let him go to feel happy when I'm alone.

All these men, no matter how short our relationships were, are a big hole in my life. When I was dating them I saw only their beauty and qualities, even if they were awkward and weird for most of the time, including Cato. Cato is probably the most awkward and strangest guy I've ever been with but I never judged him for any of that. And when I was with those skinny, fat, bald, depressed, bipolar guys I was still able to laugh and enjoy moments with them. Ivan was probably the most normal guy I've ever been with. He was healthy-minded, average-physique, quite confident about himself. Recently the memories of Ivan are all coming back because of the therapy I'm adopting. The pain is still in my left chest, oftentimes going all the way up through my throat to my left brain and then I cry.

The saddest, most terrifying thing is that I remember everything with Ivan. The memories are not erasable. I remember how he got me every gift, how he tried to please me on Valentine's Day and on my birthday, when he was so angry with the way my parents treated me when I was young, when he said those three words, when he lied next to me when I couldn't sleep, when he had faith in me, when he taught me how to weigh my oversized luggage on a regular scale and how to use my camera like an SLR, how I believed there wouldn't be a second person in the world who would treat me as nicely as he did, and surely I still remember all the betrayals and ignoring and how everything fell apart. Technically Ivan and I were together for only 7 months and the last 5 months were all long-distance and we never saw each other in between or ever again afterwards. But if 2 months with Cato could hurt me so much then 7 months with Ivan were definitely the abyss of the hole in my heart. Not just that. Even 1 week with Richard could make me wait 5 years to see him again and our last brief encounter of only 2 days could still give me so much pain.

Then I recalled the guy who had my first kiss, Brad. He didn't count me as his girlfriend but I gave him my first kiss because I was so naive back then and just assumed that automatically meant he was my boyfriend. At the end of our first month together we had an awful dinner date (in short I picked a restaurant that he hated but still went anyway and some food hazard happened and he was just unhappy at that moment) I felt that I was unable to make him happy and really stressed. He proposed that we should stop being more than friends, which was when I realized I wasn't his girlfriend yet. Nevertheless, during that month I never felt insecure. I was 19 and he was 26. He was extremely good looking and smart but bipolar. I wish I could have that naivete back. I want to be able to trust a guy completely as I used to do with Brad. I never suspected whether he went on dates with other girls and I was able to tell him everything about myself. Until a couple of months later I found out that his girlfriend from his hometown actually visited him when he was studying in the City of Rain and they had a pledge to be back together when he returned to his home. But he was nice enough to tell me about it and asked me if I was OK with it.

I want to go back to who I used to be when I was with Brad. I was rather arrogant and believed I could have any man I want, and I was in the power to decide where our relationship should be. A couple of years ago he actually found me on Facebook and sent me a message. I guess the fact that I was only 19 and he was 26 (like my age now) made him see me as a little girl yet extremely smart and mature. I don't think my little-girly-ness has changed but I'm just trying to deny and suppress it. I was right back then and I am wrong now. I wish I met the right guy at the very beginning so I wouldn't have to be hurt and humiliated so much that eventually my self-esteem gets so eroded.