Christmas eve, Bustillos residence south. I’m re-installing Windows XP on mom’s computer because it was giving her weird error/restart messages when she went online and I’m waiting for a call from a friend about breakfast tomorrow morning. This isn’t exactly a normal Christmas reflection. I remember complaining one time about the realization many years ago about how sad it was to find myself sitting with my mom and dad on Christmas eve because, whereas my brothers and sisters have significant others to go home to be with, there’s no one in my life. Right now I’m not feeling that. It’s just where I’m at right now. Granted, I’d much rather be finding myself in my lover’s arms trying to find some way to consummate our love without waking up the boys or her mom and dad, but that’s basically an eight-days-a-week kind of desire that doesn’t have anything to do with whether it’s Christmas or any other day of the week.

There’s a part of me that’s very okay with where things are and I’m, dare I say, confident that these stupid solo Christmases and holidays are going to be a thing of the past and that I’m going to be more busy than I can probably handle because it’ll be tough juggling being with my lover and her need to be with her boys and all the family things. Somehow in all of this mess with her more or less telling me that she hasn’t been able to really even think about us being together because she’s doing everything she can do just to function in her present state… even in this state I have this tremendous feeling of being connected and more importantly I feel loved. It obviously doesn’t hurt that I’m feeling particularly close to my folks and family, but that’s not it.

Only a bit more than 24-hours ago I was really feeling the crush. Sunday I’d told Steve and Lynn from the home fellowship group about my love and I and their take on the scene was basically that I needed to disentangle myself from the situation until either she acts on her decision to move forward with her divorce (and NOT interacting at all with her until the entire legal process and emotional process has run its course) or the Lord heals her marriage (at which time my leave would be permanent)… the latter part not being the “solution” I’m looking for. Ack. Add to that, since seeing my love on the 13th she’s pulled back (as I knew she would) so that she can continue to function, especially in light of the holiday crush. So… to pull back. Ugh. Anyway, our communication has been mostly utilitarian for the past week or so and Tuesday wasn’t any different. I asked her how her counseling sessions went and she said, “no change.” Damn. I knew that she didn’t intend to introduce any new issues, it being Christmas week and all, but at the same time it was more than a little disappointing to hear that “nothing” was happening. That’s when I started unraveling.

Why I do this, I do not know. If the source of my frustration is her emotional distance what’s the point of my going through the meltdown with her? Anyway, it’s clear that I have to deal with my dual needs to be “in the thick of things” with my knowing that she needs space. These dual needs seem to be coming the fore lately. Anyway, long story short, she gave me shit because she felt like I was pressuring her to do something today. Then I told her that I’d opened up to Steve and Lynn and what they’d told me about needing to pull back. She listened and then asked, “But you’re the one who’s always calling me?” Ahhh, that’s right. Yes, here’s another one of those dual pulls. I told her that this was one of my problems. Eventually I was able to hear what she was saying, that she was angry with me about my sense of urgency on the day before Christmas eve. She said that right now she can’t think about this and was pissed that I was bringing it up. But come January 1st it’ll be a new game. That’s the new hope.

In my former life, before divorcing my ex-wife, I was unhappy with myself and my life, and mostly clueless that there was really something wrong with this. Worse than that, my continual prayers to God were for forgiveness and passively hoping that he’d change me somehow. My struggle now is that I fully “own” the person I understand myself to be, but I want to be a better “me,” and I have a strong sense of purpose and action and responsibility about who I am. Maybe that’s another reason why this has been so difficult. A large measure of our success (between where we’re at right now and my desire to be a real part of her life) is dependent on her actions and outside of anything that I can do something about. There is a lot of adjusting that I’m having to do. But, right now, right now things are good. Another thought on my drive down to San Diego was that I hate my life (being apart from her) but that I also love my life (all that I’ve been given, the things that I want to do and the immense potential in all of this). I do want to be with her and right now wouldn’t be soon enough, but even without her, my life is too full and dangerously overloaded with potential. Even as I cry there is a lot here to love. JBB

music: Eternal Flame – Bangles – Everything