Alright, so I'm avoiding this. I have been avoiding it for quite a while. Let's see just how far I get this going. I started writing at 11:45p. We'll see just what I uncover.

First though, I need to let my dog out.

I'll be right back.

Promise.

So, what is it I need to express?

I still don't know. I"m listening to some classic rock on the radio, I'm watching the lava lamp my father got me for my birthday and I'm curious as to what it is I need to say. I really don't know. But I know there's something inside me that needs to get out.

I've had some pretty nasty days here recently. The past two or three have been really hard on me. Tuesday started it.

I was cleaning my room in the other house. I was throwing things away, putting stuff in boxes, and in general, shoveling out the sty I've been living in.

I suppose I should start there. Tuesday. I worked on my room for about three hours, got a lot accomplished and decided to take a break. The break was warrented and worth while. However, I lost my steam.

When I went back to cleaning and shoveling, I just didn't have the heart for it. I'm not sure why. I couldn't get back into the swing of things and that bothered me. A lot.

I worked another two and a half hours or so and just looked around me. I was in tears. Well, almost in tears. I had this need to cry, but I just couldn't ya know? I guess its all the years I convinced myself that I couldn't cry.

But that's really beside the point.

I got up and looked around me and saw that everything I knew was filth. Not just that I had lived in a cluttered area, but that I had spent years surrounding myself with filth. Garbage. Junk. Crap I didn't need, want or use. Crap that any "normal" person would have just tossed into the trash.

I saw all this shit, how bad it was, how absolutely nasty I had allowed myself to get and I was overcome with a tremendous sense of helplessness. That and worthlessness.

I couldn't believe that I had let my life deteriorate so far.

So, for the past week, since this recent Tuesday, I've been pissed off with myself. I've been saying that I would never, ever, ever allow myself to get so bogged down with shit.

Maybe it was Wednesday. I don't remember. It doesn't matter.

I went back Friday to do more. I figured I could just get the rest done really quickly. Uh uh. I worked another two and a half hours or so and was just absolutely amazed with how bad that room really was.

I was swamped with feelings of guilt and failure. How can I be a wife if I can't keep one single room in livable condition? How could I expect anyone to take me seriously if I couldn't handle just picking up a single bag of trash?

How could I expect anyone to respect me if I didn't respect myself enough to fucking pick up the trash. Not just crappy stuff, but real and authentic trash. Food wrappers, old pizza boxes... *shrugs* Soda cans. Gah, so damned many soda cans.

And yet, the thing that really hit me, as I was looking at this mess and disgusting life... I hurt so damned much, I couldn't even clean it up.

I was sitting there, on the floor, a bag half filled with trash between my legs, three more bagged and ready to go out, piles of things that I didn't want to throw away but didn't know what to do with... and I felt so...

I...

*shrugs, shaking her head*

I felt like a waste. I felt like I was the trash. I felt like I was pathetic and worthless and useless and... and like if I was willing to live in that kind of state for more than two years, then I was worth no better.

And then... then I looked at the rose. That fucking, damned, assinine rose.

I wanted so very desperately to call Bryan right then and there and bawl into the phone about how badly he'd hurt me. I wanted to cry at him that I still loved him and that I hated myself for loving him when he didn't give a rat's ass about me and about how damned bad it hurt to look at that rose, see the promise I made, the promises he made, and how I kept mine and he didn't keep his.

I wanted to Email him and ask him why he had broken my heart. I wanted to ask him what it was that made him change his mind from the five days he was out here to the two weeks he was back home.

I wanted to ask him why he told me he loved me if he didn't mean it. I wanted to ask him why he kissed me if he didn't mean it. I wanted to repeat Liv Tyler's line at the end of That Thing You Do where she's talking to her boyfriend just as she breaks up with him.

Shame on me for kissing you with my eyes shut so tight

(okay, so I may have gotten a couple of the words wrong, but that's the gist)

So, I move to crush that rose, as if I could inflict pain upon Bryan by doing so. And I couldn't. I looked at those fragile, dry petals and I saw MY promise.

So then I wanted to write him and ask if he would release me from that promise. I wanted to ask if it was okay for me to throw it away.

But I haven't. And I don't think I will.

Because he's getting married to his high school sweet heart in just less than a month. If I tried something so pathetic, I would just be that waste of space that I keep thinking of myself as.

And fuck the proper grammar. I'm not in the mood.

Regardless... so I put that rose gently upon the dresser. And I turned my back on it. But I could still feel it behind me.

He has no idea how much I loved him. No idea.

Probably as much as Duncan loved me.

*hangs her head*

And then we come to the next part in this winding and twisting tell-all... sorta.

My mind jumps to Duncan. My mind jumps from thinking about how badly I was hurt by Bryan, to how badly I hurt Duncan.

Granted, Duncan fucked up, but I fucked up first. He told me he loved me. He told me it had never felt like that before. He told me that if I didn't love him, then I should tell him.

I loved him, but not to the same degree.

I've never loved anyone the way I loved Bryan. And every time I think of Bryan, I think also of Duncan. How pure and complete my love for Bryan was. How pure and complete Duncan's love for me was. And I just didn't understand. I didn't know.

Just like Bryan had no idea how much I loved him... He has no idea still.

Oh, I've given him the URL to this diary, but he doesn't read it. Never did have time for that. No worries. it's probably better that he doesn't read it. But still... Duncan...

Before we got married, he loved me the way I loved Bryan. During the first few months of our marriage, he still loved me so much. And I didn't understand that. I didn't know what it was like. I just fell further and further into my own world.

Duncan was gone all the time. He worked long hours and when he wasn't working, he was sleeping. We never went out, unless you count the 1 hour shopping trip for groceries every saturday afternoon. We'd have a "marathon" fuck session for about 20 minutes (including clean up) saturday nights. Unless he was still too tired, then it would wait until the next week.

After the wedding, there wasn't a connection with Duncan. I don't know when that stopped, but I would think it was when he was on the ship for that six months. He changed there. AS did I. And he came back and within a month he was released from the Navy, returned to his fiance, chose a new I never thought it would be a picnic being married to me. I knew I was an extremely hard person to live with. But... *shakes her head* Fuck, I don't know. Our marriage was over long before I filed for divorce.

I want to talk with duncan. I want to ask him where we fucked up. I want to ask him what he sees as the end of our relationship.

Personally, I think we could have worked through almost anything if we hadn't brought Sherry into it. I will never, ever, ever do anything like that again. It causes too much pain.

I wasn't sexually attracted to her. I was turned on by the fact that she was attracted to me. I was turned on by the fact that I made her feel things she said she'd never felt before. Was she lying? Who knows. Who cares. What does it matter now?

Duncan and I had talked about a threesome during the first couple months of our marriage. I said I wasn't into it. I said I thought that sex was sacred. Something to be shared only by husband and wife. He agreed.

And yet, he told me stories about how much he enjoyed the threesome and the foursome he'd had when he was younger. Was he lying about those experiences? He might have been. But regardless, it was obvious that the multiple partners thing was intriguing to him.

It was obvious to me that I wasn't enough.

Let me tell you something, men. For the most part... and I'm speaking in general terms here, there are some women who are an exception to this...

When a woman agrees to a threesome, it is not because she wants to have a more varied sex life. it's because somehow she thinks that she's not good enough to satisfy you on her own but she doesn't want you to be out fuckin any pussy that drips along so she will get involved in it.

When a woman says to her husband that she wants an open relationship, it's not because she's satisfied with looking for other lovers, it's because she knows the husband could never, ever be satisfied with just her.

And, when a woman hears that her husband is thinking about a three some, or some additional sexual partner of some sort, the woman does not get all excited as the first reaction. The woman has to talk herself into getting excited. The woman has to force herself to be interested, because what's really going through her mind is this...

"I'm not good enough. He isn't happy with me. I can't do enough to make him happy. I'm a failure sexually and he's just too nice to tell me that. He's bored with me."

Maybe you women out there who are involved in "open" relationships don't think that way, but I think that you do. I think that you agree to sexual additions not because you want to experiment for yourself, but because you think that you will lose your husband in some way if he isn't once again excited.

It isn't worth it, women.

It wasn't worth it to me. I fucked up my marriage by refusing to say what I was really feeling. I didn't want to bring sherry to our bed. I want to feel that sexual thrill with my husband. But he was tired all the time. And I was fat. So very fat. He wanted to fuck anally. I didn't really like that. it hurt. And then it would mess up my system for a few days afterward. I didn't like bleeding.

But I would do it cause he wanted it. And even though he would have stopped in an instant if I'd ever had the balls to say that it hurt... I never said that.

I fucked up my marriage, folks. Because I stopped being who I was.

I stopped telling the truth vociferously.

And, this brings me back to the main point. Yeah, in a round-about sort of way.

I'm feeling that same way again. Not sexually, of course. But I'm feeling worthless, useless and wasted again. And whose fault is it? Mine.

Because I live with my folks, I understand that there are certain rules I can not ignore. But...

Okay, this is it... Why do I not want to be married now?

Because I'm living the same life I lived while married to my ex. I'm home all day. the breadwinner is out of the house. They come home at night, expecting to have a meal prepared. Whatever happened during my day isn't necessarily stupid, but it's not as important or heavy as what Mom went through.

Hell, my mother works for the DSHS and has to deal with people reporting child abuse, spousal abuse and domestic violence on many different levels. It's not unheard of for Mom to have to deal with someone who was accused of burning their child with a cigar.

She has to see this nasty, seedy underbelly of society on a daily basis.

If you came home after doing the intake interview for some 11 year old kid who had been locked in a closet for three years, fed under the door (extremely hypothetical case) and all that... how important would it be to listen to someone prattle on about how they've finished another chapter in the book they're writing?

When it comes to issues of rape, domestic violence, child abuse and abandonment, book writing is pointless. Mom saves the lives of innocent children. What do I do? I sit on my ass. I make a meal and I clean up afterward.

So, what do I have to complain about?

I'm sick of it. I want to go in there and tell her to look in the fridge and find something for herself on her own. I want to tell her to fuck off and leave me alone. I want to slam the plate down and tell her if she expects me to have a meal prepared and ready for her when she gets home, then she'd better the hell start paying me.

But I don't say that. Why? Because I'm only paying 100 bucks a month rent. And because she buys half the food.

That's not the real point though is it? *shakes her head* Nope. The real point... the thing that I haven't been able to push out is this...

I don't know how to move forward. I don't know how to get out of the position I'm in.

I feel so fucking out of control.

I've met some very cool people online. I've met some nice people, especially recently, and I so don't want to offend anyone. But fuck me...

What I portray in day to day conversation? A competant, capable and strong-willed woman. I come off as someone who can handle anything life throws.

But who am I? I'm a fat, very fat woman who is so humiliated about how she has lived her life, that she would rather live in filth than have someone approach her.

Planning a life together... Planning a life at all... I can't do it.

I'm 31. I live in the basement of my parents' home. I'm living off welfare. yeah... welfare. Go ahead, turn your backs. Like I give a fuck.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the whole point in a nut shell.

I'm so fucking terrified that if anyone saw who and what I really am, they would reject me too.

I DO care. I do give a fuck. It is so important to me to have people like me... I get nauseous when I think of people hating me. I get terrified and so I go home and I climb into my bed and I dive into the internet to hide from what really scares me.

Life.

There are many people who have told me that size doesn't matter. The only person in this entire world that I believe that from is Charles. He's the only one.

That's because when I was out there and talked with him, he looked into my eyes and listened to me without showing revulsion, irritation, disgust or any other form of negative reaction.

Charles may well have felt repulsed... but he didn't ever once show that. I get the feeling that he treated me the exact same way he would treat anyone else. He kept his opinions to himself unless he wanted to share them. And even then, he wasn't negative in his comments.

He didn't laugh at me. He didn't rolls his eyes. He didn't complain.

He's the only person in the entire world who didn't give me the impression that he was sizing me up (pardon the pun, it was completely unintentional). He didn't give me any conditional compliments. He didn't expect me to conform in any way.

Before you get all bent out of shape, Sympatico, I don't mean to imply that you have. But there was a double take the first time you saw me. I noticed that. You didn't judge me at all, but there was a double take.

I suppose that because Charles saw me before I saw him, he could have done a double take and I just didn't see it.

And, when Bryan stepped off the plane, he looked at me, he didn't do a double take. He saw me and as soon as our eyes met, he smiled brightly. His first sight of me and he smiled. There was no surprise in his eyes... nothing but warmth, acceptance and a mild form of curiosity.

But he changed after he went back home.

I can't talk about him anymore. I need to just push him out of my mind. Completely gone. He made his choice.

buck up kiddo. He ain't for you. Get over it.

So, back to the point...

My sister made this observation...

People often say things they can't speak in the way they live. A form of living art, so to speak. non-verbal expression.

She said that what she saw in the way I had lived in that room... so filthy, so full of nothing but shit. What that was saying about me is that I have been rejected so harshly, so completely, that I can not let anyone close enough to reject me again.

She said that the mess she saw did not say 'too lazy to clean up her mess' but instead said something akin to, 'I hurt too much for you to get close.'

And you know what? As much as I absolutely detest admitting it... she's right.

This heart inside me is flesh on the outside, but the meat of my heart is only an eighth of an inch thick. Under that meat, is about a quarter of an inch of stone. under the stone? Nothing. Hollow. fear, hurt... so much hurt.

Why?

I don't know.

Read Dev's "cheating" entry. That's taken from a book he's currently reading with the genders reversed. Well, reverse them back and that's me.

I read that entry and was completely and totally speachless. Hard to believe, I know... But... *shrugs* It hit me so damned hard.

Could I be so fucked up because I still want "daddy" to say he loves me?

*shakes her head* It can't possibly be that simple.

It couldn't possibly be.

But, if it is... then what do I do with all this hurt?

I can't cry as my father holds me. What's that for? Yeah, right. 31 years old and bawling like a farggin baby in Daddy's arms. not.

I don't cry.

I can't.

I won't.

Crying is weak. It's a show of weakness. And I can't be weak.

6'1" tall and 400 lbs of line-backer-esque physique crying?

No.

I can't.

It won't ever hurt that much. I won't let it. The pain will go away. It's only temporary.best man and got married to me.