3 May 2009

It has been a strange weekend. Weekend of both clarity and confusion, happiness and sadness.

It was a working weekend at Tenby, the holiday bungalow that my brothers and I built between us. It is full of happy memories for me. Memories of days when I could do things that a normal person can do. We have photos a;; around the place of us building it. Yes, happy memories.

But sad too. I watched as my brothers, sons, nephews, worked away and played and laughed. All I could do was to watch, offer the odd bit of advice - which anyone could probably have done. I know they don't resent it, but I do. I hate the fact that I can't join in. I love to watch the progress - I always did, but then I was part of it. Now I can't even chip in my share of the costs. It kills me. Somehow, it feels like a little piece of me has died.

I love being with my family, but I hate what MS has done to me.

Then it has been a continuation of the confusion over C. My ex-wife has become my confidante in some ways. We get on better than we have in years, but that nay be as much to do with me being an easier person to be friends with than a wife. She thinks it is unlike me to give up so easily if I really want something. I don't think I am giving up with C, I'm just having to accept that it's a situation I can't understand, C doesn't want to talk about it, so I either live with uncertainty and wait, or walk away. Which isn't much of an alternative, if the end result of waiting is that there's nothing.

I also talked to H. She is a dear friend who knows me as well as anyone. She knows I'm irritating and pedantic, pretty much all of my flaws, so she's a good judge of situations. She listened and asked me things, and then said that if I'm so hung up on C, I should just marry her. Well thanks for that! Always direct to the point of bluntness.

I am emotionally exhausted. This is how I felt on Friday, when I had made up my mind to just walk away. Since getting MS, I have had two relationships - one before the diagnosis - both of which have ended with me feeling lost, alone and smoking too much. I don't think I'm cut out for relationships. Not now anyway. I can take all the ups and downs, well mostly, and I crave the intimacy and warmth of a partner. But the pendulum swing of the loss is more than I can bear. So I get obsessive and my logical brain kicks into overdrive, demanding answers that probably aren't there. And when I can't find answers, I just feel more lost, more alone, more abandoned.

It seems the MS has left me more vulnerable than ever, and less well-equipped to deal with it.