Notes/Thoughts on random notes/thoughts

1. Not dreaming as much as I was in, say, October. However, when I do dream now, its quite a bit more vivid. And banal, for the most part. Aside from the occasional memory-dream about J, I find that most of my dreams are about work, random replayed experiences related to quotidian existence.
2. Eating well is difficult now that I only feed myself. With J, aside from the power-struggle over who cooked and why, we'd eat well most every night. Exceptionally well if one considers how often we'd go out to dinner. I haven't had a really nice home-cooked meal in 6 months. No 'roni. No cheesy eggs. No scallop potatoes. No baked anything (ziti, enchiladas, lasagne). Nor have I had a nice sitdown meal. No Pane E Vino, no il Cantuccio, no Q's, no Chow...
3. Its due in small part to a lack of a real kitchen, sure. Its also due to my not having the inspiration to eat as well as I once did because part of the deal before was about puting love in the dish for us to share. Nothing to share anymore.
4. Clutter. I have managed to cut down on the clutter in my life to a considerable degree if compared to what life was like back in the late summer/fall...
5. Speaking of that time, pretty soon It'll have been a year since J and I went to see Stephen and Photi in upstate NY. If I had known then, that I was going to pull a Brian (Stephen's partner in his first serious relationship) and be out of the picture shortly after that trip, I would have insisted that we go to NYC. God damn it, I miss so much of my old life now.
6. The stupid Lennie Kravitz song "It ain't over, 'til its over," keeps popping up all over my world. I get it that its one of the more over-played songs out there, but what I don't get is if what he means by 'til its over' is death, or just that final fight/break-up that inevitably plagues most relationships. Even ours, apparently.
7. Looking back, I really never would have been able to say that I'd be where I am now. I never thought that we'd truly, ever break up. I didn't think it'd be possible that J & J would one day be separated. Even now, I don't think I've truly accepted that fact, even though I know it to be true intellectually. At this point, I get a sick thrill out of thinking that the current Justin she is with is actually the real Justin, and I was the practice Justin. If they end up being together for awhile and she is happy, I hope all her dreams are fulfilled.
8. I keep bouncing between the first stages of loss: Denial and Anger, occasionally dipping into Depression/Sadness, all the while my mind races through various alternate scenarios as to how to repair the loss. Earlier on, I fantasized about winning the lottery, buying back J's childhood beach home, and giving it to her anonymously...Bargaining, big time.
9. I used to lament about the end of our relationship to J, saying that I would be single for a long, long, loooong time if we ever broke up for real. That I'd be way to hurt, spent, disappointed, wounded, raw, to be willing to invest as much of myself as I had with her, with someone else. Then D came along, and for a split moment, I thought (fantasized) that I could easily just roll right into another intense relationship scenario with relative aplomb. So not what is happening...
10. I am beginning to see that I may never get as close to another person as I did with J. I can already say that despite my difficulties with having so much time to myself due to living alone, I now prefer it. I can get away with so much more than I would be able to if I had to consider someone else's comfort/opinions/preferences. Besides, I am beginning to see the similarities between Jean and I more clearly. She had one major relationship after Hugo, then it was just her, living alone, all these years. She seems to thrive that way. In time, I hope to be more like her in that regard.
11. I do hope one day J and I can be friends/acquaintances again. I will always love her, will always hope she is safe, will always pray that she knows that what happened is what was best (imagine if instead she got pregnant when we were trying...).
12. Lately, its been more difficult remembering the kitties. Perhaps its due to Katu dying recently. The prospect that I may never again see Peeg or Roogie is heart-breaking to me. They were my children, albeit four-legged, hairy and couldn't speak english. Roogie seemed to understand it pretty well, however. Peeg seemed like she understood fairies, wind, dazzling lights, and tuna juice.
13. I hope that God/Fate has something awesome in mind for me. I hope that it is soon, too. As one can see, I've all but lost hope for my life lately, and each time I do, it seems to get worse. I read about complicated grief on wikipedia, and that "[complicated grief] typically cycles through these five stages and then some, processing them out of order and often much more rapidly. Examples of complicated grief can often be found in those who have survived a suicide attempt (Hsu, 2002). Complicated grief responses almost always are a function of intensity and timing: a grief that after a year or two begins to worsen, accompanied by unusual behaviors, is a warning sign. Complicated grief is usually grief where the story of the loss is in some ways difficult to tell...Reporting in the journal NeuroImage (May 10, 2008, online), scientists suggest that complicated grief activates neurons in the reward centers of the brain, possibly giving these memories addiction-like properties. The authors found activity in the nucleus accumbens, a region of the brain most commonly associated with reward and one that has also been shown to play a role in social attachment, such as sibling and maternal affiliation."
14. Should get going on my day, now...time for shower, gather, eat, go to my crap job. Help me get through my day, God. I need your guidance now more than ever. Please be patient with me. My soul is wailing, I need help.