Well it’s that time of year to think back at what made 2006 memorable and to plan for 2007. For me 2006 was one of the most difficult years of my entire life. There’s nothing to celebrate or look back with fond memories on. Mostly it was a year filled with struggles with relationships and too much sadness and feeling very lonely. If there’s any good to come of it hopefully I will be able to reassess who I am, what’s missing from my life and discover how to change it.
Family: tough on all fronts. Giving up hope of ever seeing my kids again. It’s been twelve painful years since we had any contact. I’ve hung on to the faint hope that someday they will smarten up and realize I was a good father who gave his all for them and who loves them very much. It’s been incredibly hard to live with them not knowing that Dad passed away last year. Accepting that I will never see them again burns a hole in my heart and adds to my loneliness.
My birth family has been torn apart, first by the loss of my dear father. The memory of the day he died still haunts me like it was yesterday. I can still see him lying face down in the water and me dragging him up the beach and giving him CPR, desperately tryin to bring him back. The paramedics working on him and my mother crying uncontrollably on the porch, and the idiot cop asking me questions while I watched my father die in front of me. My mother has gone from an otherwise healthy vibrant woman who suffered from Alzheimer’s, to a shell of a woman. She has lost at least sixty pounds and is frail and unable to function. She hasn’t eaten for days and now has uterine cancer on top of everything else. Her doctors say that the hysterectomy she needs will probably kill her, so we now face the choice of her having the operation with poor chances of her surviving it, or watching her waste away from the ravages of cancer. Not great choices.
My brother pulled yet another one on me, sending me into a frenzy trying to get money to close yet another one of his hair-brained schemes going in Thailand. There were over fifty calls from Thailand in just over a week and I finally managed to get him the money, only to have the deal fall apart and leave everyone pissed at me for helping him. Barely a thank you from him. Then he came home and started pushing me about all the decisions I made with Mum, questioning everything I did and not helping a bit with her care. Unbelievably selfish, as usual.
It was a year of huge change for Mum. I sold her place after working my butt off renovating it and finally managed to get her into a care facility after eight months of pushing anyone who would talk to me. The time I cared for her after losing Dad was the most trying time in my life. Being thrown out on a regular basis; being told I was “f*ckin useless” and the daily abuse was really hard on me and there were times I thought I would lose it. My sister added to the strain by being in denial that there was anything wrong with Mum. Only after she took her to Revelstoke did she get a glimmer of what I had been dealing with, and she still worked all week and only visited Mum. She never dealt with the 24/7 I did, yet she was still on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of Mum. She took Mum out of the care facility it had taken me eight months to get her into, and put her into what was basically a “bed and breakfast” care facility, who weren’t capable of providing the care Mum needed. She was eventually hospitalized and finally got into a new care facility, but it was too late. Now she is just waiting to die. If they had left her in the facility in Kelowna, where she got the care level she needed, and where she was starting to make friends, she might still be with us, healthy and happy and dealing with her Alzheimers.
The saddest of all for me was that my nephew, on learning of just what I had been through caring for Mum, said Wendy and Kevin thought I had “done nothing”. That cut ike a knife. I wanted nothing more to do with either of them.
Friends: not much to say here. When I think back to the good years of boating and camping and partying and hanging with the group of at least thirty of us, it’s sad that everyone has gone their separate ways. I have almost no contact with anyone, even the ones I considered close friends. This all came to a head when I moved in June. I’m normally the one helping everyone, but I sent out an email in desperation because I simply couldn’t move everything myself. The response from all the people I’d helped over the years? One person, and not even a close friend. George learned of my need from Bianca in Alberta and saved my butt by working all day in oppressive heat. He was a life-saver that day. I was very hurt and angry that my so-called “friends” couldn’t give me a hand when I so desperately needed it.
Work: taking on this project has meant untold hours of really tough work. There’s certainly been some challenges, but it’s been gratifying to see things coming along. It’s been a very lonely pursuit though as no one ever offers to help me with anything. When I think how I’ve done so much work for other people over the years, it hurts that it never comes back. Makes me feel very used and abused.
Love: well, this is the big one for 2006. It’s been a year of unbelievable turmoil that has left me very wounded and unhappy. I fell hard for someone who just never felt the same way about me, no matter how hard I tried. I did everything I could to make her happy. I told her and showed her how much I cared about her. I supported her when she needed me. I spent literally thousands of dollars I didn’t have thinking we were “dating” and that she would eventually show me some sign that we would spend the rest of our lives together. I wanted her with every fibre of my being, yet I respected her morals about not sleeping together until we were married, which, for a guy who needs love and affection, is really tough, but I was patient because I loved her. We talked for hours, every single day and we laughed and we danced and we enjoyed so many things together. To finally find someone to care for again, after the horrible sadness of the break-up with Tracy, warmed my heart and gave me such hope for the future. I was blinded by my love.
On the one weekend that had such promise for her to finally let me into her heart – the weekend in Vancouver that I had planned so carefully for us to enjoy every minute of, she got annoyed at me for something trivial and we had an argument, and she shut down completely. We drove all the way home in silence and she dumped me like last week’s trash. Never called. Never once showed any sign she cared how much I had done for her, or how just ending it was hurting me, knowing how much I loved her. It was so very cruel and not deserved at all on any level.
One of the most emotional moments for me in my life was to see her at the Corral with her arm around a new guy, affectionately stroking his arm, something I would have killed for from her. It brought tears to my eyes and made me feel completely worthless. The only thing that saved me that night was my friend Debi putting her arm around me and telling me she knew how much it was hurting me to see that. She knew the pain I was in, and it helped to know I was right to feel the way I did. It was truly a low point in how I felt about myself as a man.
Circumstances changed and brought her into my life again. After everything I had been through with her I knew I had to be careful not to let my heart take over again. I had to be a supportive friend and nothing more, but I failed miserably. Despite how badly she had treated me I never stopped loving her, which is truly pathetic, I know. I wanted to forgive her, thinking she had learned from our time apart and now might hopefully realize how good I was to her and give me a chance. I was wrong yet again. There was nothing from her, in fact, it was worse. No affection. No cuddling. No fighting any urges this time. Nothing.
This is probably the most pathetic thing I have ever admitted to doing. I finally accept that I just have to stop thinking things will ever be different for her. She has been going out with other guys and it’s been killing me. She even invited one of them to Christmas dinner, which was something I was so looking forward to with her parents. I got to help in the kitchen and watch her spend time with the other guy. She didn’t understand when I had to leave right after dinner because I was so upset. I could feel the anger and the sadness well up inside of me and knew I would fall apart at any moment. I had to get out of there. When I came home I knew this was the end. No one can bear feeling so taken for granted and hurting all the time. Even before he showed up I had said I would get us tickets for New Years at the Corral. Her response? That was fine and she was really looking forward to going “alone” this year. That was really good for my ego. I truly am a nobody to her.
Oh, the “pathetic” part. I asked her to go out for dinner and a movie last night – one last “date”, if only for me. I actually asked her to pretend I was one of the new men in her life and show me a little affection, for just one night in this whole last year. Yes, truly pathetic, but too much to ask? I guess so. After all we have been through and all I have done for her she couldn’t even bring herself to hold my hand for just one night, knowing how much this would mean to me. When I took her home the sadness of this got to me and I was on the verge of tears. I hugged her, told her one last time that I loved her, and left. It was a tough drive home through my tears. I have never in my life felt worse about myself as a man.
Not exactly a great ending for 2006. Next year can’t possibly be this bad, can it?
I’m going to fight off the urge to just give up and I’m going to go ahead and go to the Corral tonight, if only because I bought the tickets and I’ve rented a vest and tie to go with my tux to make the night “special”. I know I won’t be feeling very special about anything. I even asked her if I could crash on her couch tonight so I didn’t worry about the drinking at all, but, of course, that was too much to ask as well. I guess with how I’m feeling that it’s just as well that I can’t get drunk. That would only make me feel worse about myself.
Oh, and Happy New Year! lol