Listen.
It wears me down. The overwhelming negativity and the strenuous stretch towards unattainable perfection. I can feel the tendrils of despair wrap themselves around me. I can feel that familiar squeeze on my heart, the wrenching tug that resembles the need to vomit rippling slow across my insides. I float outside myself and observe these things and I do so knowing that it's all oh so familiar. But it's not of me, you know? The realization I come to this time around is--this isn't my shit. It strikes me like a revelation to realize it never was. Before him it wasn't my shit either. I've just got a talent for sublimating other people's emotions, for swallowing them down and making them my own. It was something I did without even realizing it. I thought it was me. I thought it was how I felt.

Not this time. Fuck off.

I think back, into the time stretched out far behind me and I know I wouldn't have taken the lesson then regardless--it would not have been the same but... it's the running. Or maybe it's the flexing of my mind as well. Classes are kicking my ass, but in a good way. You know? It's the same with running. I'm stretching slightly forward, slightly outside--more each week. I'm up to 5 miles on my long runs and while I was sore last night it was sore in a good, good way. So. It's all these things and my tolerance for this fucking shit is just GONE. He gets all fucking worked up about every fucking thing. And I know some of it is because he's been unemployed for the most part for almost a year now. I don't know because I'm not male, but that's gotta be a real ego blow, right? I've tried to be supportive. I've tried a few tricks. (the 101 days of sex was a brilliant one, but even that wasn't enough. Sorry, but I gave up & I cannot say out loud why. But here it is. Because even there it was brutally evident that the overwhelming trump card was one of lack. The last week it was so fucking pathetic. I mean that in the most gentle way. It was like some reverse and twisted punishment. Self-flagellation. I could almost hear his emotions screaming "even HERE. EVEN here.") I couldn't take it anymore.

So I run. I study and I take exams and now I'm off school for the summer and I'm reading, I'm devouring books and the more I allow myself to be consumed by running, the more I devour everything I can about running. Form, training tips, music to try, brilliant one liners to encourage the movement past and over that brick wall. I know it's edging toward addiction but I think it's ok. & here's why--I am not running away, I'm running toward.
I'm running forward.
I cannot help it if he chooses to remain still.
I cannot help it if he won't... move. If he chooses to watch me run and still he stays behind.

I don't know what I'm going to do when the distance backward becomes insurmountable. I've worked too fucking hard to go back. I've tried gentle nudges. I've tried loving suggestion. I've.tried.it.all.

Listen.
This is the sound the dream makes when it's getting the shit kicked out of it.
This is the sound of heartbreak, of soul crushing.
This is the sound of one giving up and giving in and let me just tell you this, it is not me.
Not this time. This time I'm sculpting. I'm cultivating. I'm not wasting my fucking time pretending everything is perfect when it's just not.
That's a lie.

This is what I am trying to wrap my mind around these days. I tried telling him almost 2 years ago that I thought he was depressed. I even went to the doc with him. It hasn't gotten better and now this other shit settles in and so it gets worse. He's super anti-meds and he won't run even though the treadmill was his idea. Every day it gets worse. (I run, he goes to DQ. The more I run, the more he stuffs his face, I swear) He says he loves me but... a part of me wishes he would just give it up and admit to himself that he doesn't. He loves something other. Something that lives inside that image of perfection and I haven't been perfect in a long fucking time. Guess what honey? I don't WANT to be, can't you fucking get that? The weight of it is too much. He looks at me sometimes and I wish I could blink my eyes and send the snapshot to him. See? Look at this and tell me what you see. Because it's not love. It's loathing. And I'm tired of bearing such a burden.

It's just a matter of time. This is what I think today. Could it turn itself around and go the other way? It could. But it won't unless he picks himself up off the floor & admits that the only mess in the room is him.