23 September—P is finally back from NYC, bearing gifts. Cupcakes for me and a couple cheapie things for the boys. How nice that he remembered this time. And yet, I don’t really want to get my hopes up with him. I don’t believe we will ever go back to the way we were. I am greatly disappointed in how little affection and love he does show me. It’s almost nonexistent.

I fought a lot of demons in my head all the way up to and including this morning.

For one, I am convinced that he’ll never move in with me, he’ll sleep over less and less, we most likely won’t have sex again and he’s absolutely not interested in marriage. I cannot control my obsessive thoughts.

I am calm when I believe he loves me, when he spends quality time with me. I am a lunatic when he does not.

I need to somehow focus on me. So much of what I desire is wrapped up in him. What am I, who am I all on my own? These are questions I sadly cannot answer.

Anyway, I need to try to see the positive. Hard to do.

In the meantime, I dreamed of Paul last night. And it’s no surprise. I spent some time last night stalking his sister’s Facebook page and there’s a picture of his new baby up on her wall. His baby looks like my babies. He’s quite beautiful. His name is Joel. I wonder if that was pulls pick. It would be nice to think it might be. My sons are both actually named after sources of love for Paul, come to think of it. Ahh, love. Mostly an illusion.

So, Liam stayed home sick yesterday and I suspect that Angel will do the same today. I sat with Liam and built the whole castle Lego set that grandmom got him. It took hours. But it was actually quite fun.

When P came over last night, I made dinner, we ate. I took the kids to their father’s and then P and I watched the news–completely alone, sitting on the sofa, not even holding hands. I drew no attention to this huge dating digression, or his coldness. P and I talked about nothing and kept everything quite shallow. Shallow as in what this country is going through. All the mortgage companies are bankrupt and the government is discussing a bailout. Jesus. What people won’t do for money. It’s like the fall of Rome. Anyway, I refrained from dumping my obsessions onto him. I pretended to be the perfectly contented girlfriend who was all smiles. I ate my cupcake, faked a few laughs and pecked him on the lips on his way out at 10pm.