7 October—I am devastated. I cried all night long, twisting in pain, suffering as if poisoned by strychnine. I feel like I am losing everything. That my life and my love are slipping away from me. That I am turning ugly.

I am turning ugly. My head is pounding. My peace slipping. I feel so alone. So completely alone.

P says he loves me, I keep telling myself this. But yet, it’s empty. I now believe that every nice thing he says to me is out of pity and guilt. That he just doesn’t want to hurt my feelings.

I feel as though I scared him away. Rushed things. Pushed too hard. Demanded too much. This is all too much for my brain to handle.

God, I don’t want to lose him, but I feel that I personally have set this loss in motion and now, it cannot be stopped. All because I am needy, impatient, pushy, foolish. I have completely and utterly lost myself. All my strength has been sucked out of me. I am not who I thought I was. I am nothing. I am an empty vessel. I have no life and no interests outside of P. I wait for him.

Tracy, pull it together. In this journal you complain incessantly that he doesn’t touch you or kiss you or have sex with you. He doesn’t come over or sleep over. You have well-founded complaints. Don’t give up on yourself. This is his loss too. Is it? It doesn’t feel like it.

And stop assuming that he’s done with you and ready to dump you. Maybe he just needs a break. Pull yourself together. You fought long and hard to bring yourself to a place of peace. Put things into perspective. Change your paradigm. Hold on.

You see, this is you at age 15 all over again. You’re alone in the house. Everyone is out. And suddenly you’ve got stomach pains. Horrible stomach pains, and you have no idea where they came from. You get them often, and your mother just says it’s hereditary, it runs in the family, but you’re beginning to suspect that they only come on when you feel left alone, abandoned, afraid something’s going to happen to you that you can’t quite figure out. The ghosts of your unstable, unpredictable dark childhood gnawing at you.  You call your bestie. You need her to get you medicine. Take the pain away. Come over and comfort you. You just need her present. Sometimes that’s all it takes.  But, she has to study for an algebra test. She can’t help you. And besides, she’s only 16. She doesn’t know how to take care of anyone.  She doesn’t know what to do. But you’re dying. You’re in pain. Something might happen to you. Who cares about algebra when you’re dying. You start yelling at her, screaming, She’s not taking you seriously. Don’t do this to me! I need you! You have to fucking come over! She yells back, You’ll be fine. Go to sleep. And she quickly hangs up. You’re completely alone with your drama, your pain, your suffering and your anger. You’ve lost your one opportunity for comfort. You’ve lost your lifeline. You don’t talk to your best friends for weeks. It’s awkward. You made a fool of yourself, begging for something that ended up blowing over the second your mother came home.

Well, the same thing happened last night. I was 15 again. My uncle is dying, my mother is no where near, P is silent and retreating. The reality that I am completely alone and must take care of myself horrifies me. It horrifies me because I have nothing to hide behind. I have no obsessive love to distract me from the blunt force of my own mundane life.

When I called P back last night, he was tender, caring, empathetic. He said, “I do love you.” And he said, “imagine me hugging you right now.” And yet, for the first time, it didn’t feel like it meant anything. I told him I missed him and he said he misses me too, and we left it at that.

You have a long journey into the unknown today, girl. You have an impending, significant death to deal with, and you have the emotional extremes of reconciling your feelings for P. Blank is the end, blank is the beginning…both pregnant and empty.