I was doing fine and well.

Until he e-mailed me today, once again waiting to do it until I was on my way home from work. Wanting to make arrangements for the transfer of stuff. Said if it didn't work out with Heather (I'm not sure why he knows this, if he still reads this- seems unlikely unless he really wants some masochism- or if she contacted him, which she hasn't mentioned to me.) when he got the car fixed he could drive it up. (Riiiight. Heard that one before, alas.)

It was very cold. Not that I'd expected anything different, and I was just as cold myself in response.

Still, it made me sad. I was doing fine not hearing from him. Having it reduced to this makes me sad.

I've been trying to block it all out as best I can. Been doing a pretty good job. But thinking "shit, is that all that's left?" didn't help, even when I knew it'd be better if we never spoke again after the stuff transfer. Hell, I got to talk to previous ex about the breakup bunches and bunches of times afterward and it never made anything better and it made him hate me, what good would it do to do that again now?

I wanted to talk to him. Good thing that he changed his phone number and I deleted the new one from the phone or else I would have and then cried at him. Tried to call Mom and cry at her instead, but she wasn't home (thank God, because she would have said, "Did you ask him about the laptop?" and then pissed me off). I just missed him. He was the one I talked to when I felt bad, it was horrible not being able to. It's horrible to have to be this cold to someone I trusted for so long, when I don't trust people in the first place. Makes me sick.

I suppose these moments will happen from time to time. I am trying to block them out as best I can because what good does it do for me to feel love for him now? He said it was hopeless (essentially). I could wait around forever for him to improve, but if he doesn't want to, then he doesn't want to. Nothing I can do about that. I tried my damndest, it didn't work. If he doesn't want me that much, then he doesn't. What good does it do me to think about the good things? Just makes me weak.

I distracted myself after awhile- Survivor came on, Heather came home and wanted to go out for Chinese, etc. That helped.

In preparation for the career counseling appointment tomorrow, I've been reading the aforementioned book "I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was." I am really relating to the second chapter, "The Sure Thing" about not wanting to take risks. I was really enjoying that one. So when I came home, I got done with it and went on to the next chapter, "Leaving The Ones You Love Behind," about fear of success. I nearly skipped this one because I was all, this is not my problem. But I read it anyway and after awhile it occurred to me:

That's why Dave kept fucking up. That's why he'd be late to work or forget to turn in paperwork or pay bills or blow all the money he had on him (or break up with me). All the fucking up was something he was doing (not necessarily consciously, mind you) to make sure he DIDN'T succeed. Because he must be outright afraid to.

The book offered some suggestions as to why someone would always sabotage themselves, and it hit me which one it was for him: "You come from a family with a history of failure." More specifically, "This protectiveness conflicts with your attempts to create your own success, as though success would say to your family, 'You didn't have what it takes,' or 'Your world isn't good enough for me. I've chosen a better one.'" Hell, that could very well apply to his friends too.

I mean, to be with me on my terms and to get what he supposedly wanted in life, he'd pretty much have to dump them all, in a way. Go to school where nobody goes to school, get a better job where everyone else has McDonald's on a good day, have a lot more money than everyone else and the problems that went along with that. He wouldn't have fit in with his world any more. He would have lost it because of me nagging him to leave it. And naturally, he was afraid to leave all he'd ever known. I was great and all, but abandoning everything just for me? He couldn't bring himself to do it, even if without me he was still miserable in the situation. It's too scary.

Incidentally, this also explains the strange thing he said a few weeks before the end, where he said that if he REALLY wanted to fix his financial situation he'd have to sell off everything he'd ever owned and pay off his bills one at a time very slowly and painfully and have a really shitty life with nothing happy in it. I was all, that's crazy, you don't HAVE to give up EVERYTHING, and he insisted that he did. AT the time, I didn't get it, but this book talks about how people tend to think that if they're going to make a change in their life it has to totally upend every single thing in it and rip it to shreds first. Maybe that's what he meant.

Can I blame him for that fear when I'm a scaredy-cat in other ways myself? I don't want to leave my own world either.

I finally get it now. I wish I had before this, so I could have told him before it was too late.

In a way, it makes me vaguely, stupidly hopeful to think this. That if he's damning himself to a crappy life because of fear, maybe someday he'll get over it, as opposed to damning himself because he just doesn't want to work and truly wants to be a fuckup.

But...I can't let myself get hopes up about that. It's not under my control and it never was.

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