Reaching

I've checked my email at least 13 times today. Not just my personal email, but my work email and the email I made up specifically for dA. It didn't strike me as strange until just now - and just now I realize that I am feeling quite alone. Funny that I didn't pick up the phone and call someone or go visiting, isn't it? Instead, I checked my email about once per hour.

I think the finality of Friday evening's events has affected me more than I anticipated. A catharsis, to be sure... but new and strange territory also. I find myself without a "backup plan." As plans go, that one was pretty lame and starkly sophomoric, but it was still a (rudimentary) plan. If nothing else, in him I always had a place to go. For anything, for nothing, for everything. Yes, it was an illusion. But it was comfort and memories and passion so rare. Until he went psycho, of course. And he always did.

Whatever broke in me Friday has stayed broken. I am truly on the frontier of a life I haven't known in a decade. But instead of wildly relieved, ultimately liberated, or scared shitless, I just feel alone. So alone that I am waiting for someone to reach out to me, rather than taking the first communicative step and possibly facing rejection (common rejection like lack of time or squalling kids or voicemail). A few have, and I know how blessed I am to have people who know I want a connection without having to commit to actually talking. Bless you all for your insight and compassion for this old, tired fool.

Jim Steinman, composer extraordinaire, said this about writing "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" in an interview:

"It's about obsession, and that can be scary because you're not in control and you don't know where it's going to stop. It says that, at any point in somebody's life, when they loved somebody strongly enough and that person returns, a certain touch, a certain physical gesture can turn them from being defiant and disgusted with this person to being subservient again. And it's not just a pleasurable feeling that comes back, it's the complete terror and loss of control that comes back. And I think that's ultimately a great weapon."

Well said, Jim. Again, as your song was an anthem to me for many years of darkness:

Yup. Bitter regret is all I taste. So much wasted time, so much wasted energy and hope. I am ready for the new day.