November 30, 2023

Yesterday during therapy I was appropriately called out on something. She told me my fear and anxiety around rejection creates walls and I’m unfairly expecting people to be vulnerable with me but I’m not practicing the same vulnerability. So here it goes, me being vulnerable.

I haven’t been writing like I should. Yes, I’m writing at least once a day…all the thoughts and emotions puked into my pinned note where I puke up feelings. But I haven’t started book two outside of random thoughts. It wasn’t until last weekend—a month after the final edit—I started sending queries and my memoir into the yawning void towards agents and small presses.I just did not have a confident and succinct blurb in me. I was too overwhelmed and distracted by the right now state of things in my life to want to bother begging people to read, publish, and sell the stories from my past.

The now is brought with uncertainty in a tidy package of guilt and failure. And it’s all deeply karmic. Being told about His host of confusing feelings and self-doubt with a reaction that equals retreat and running away feels familiar. This is a scenario I lived twelve years ago only I was the confused doubting one. Rather than roll around in self-pity about this happening to me. I’m trying to see it happen for me. And for him. All those years ago, I wasn’t given the benefit of being loved despite all of it. I wasn’t given the benefit of support and a clear-eyed love despite the fact I was dying inside. So my heart is a tilt-a-whirl of emotions resembling all the grief reactions with only the tiniest flickers of anger I keep to myself. When the anger flickers I remember how awful it was to feel the conflicted emotions and uncertainty. How painful it was to cope with someone else’s anger and sense of betrayal. He doesn’t need my anger so naturally I’ve created a ritual to send the anger away with a wave and a prayer of forgiveness aimed at both of us. Admittedly, it’s easy to do this and quell the anger remembering our daily lives remain ripe with ease and companionship. I don’t wish his messy and painful feelings on anyone and it’s heartbreaking to watch him go through this.

The past two weeks my own emotions have eased and I’m feeling hopeful and light but I’m still weeping at the drop of a hat. At times I find my tears are laced with self-pity. Other times I’m afraid all my resilience is used up and I’m crumbling into a heap of helpless goo. Sometimes I weep because I don’t my chapter with him on the prairie to ever end. image and words copyright Laura Ann Klein 2023