Unoddly specific

Another Abraham tonight. As long as I get my fingers to the keyboard, it's all right.

So a lot of old relationship stuff has been resurfacing a bit, not too intensely, but worth noting. I found one of Alexa's paystubs, and I thought it would be decent of me to ask her before I disposed of it, so I sent her an e-mail. Also in the e-mail, I sheepishly said I wouldn't mind if she wanted to reconnect a bit. She said I could dispose of the paystub, and that she didn't want to reconnect.

Ostensibly, that's what I believe, too. It does not seem the right time for me. Still I felt hurt. It burns a little bit. I know why it's not good to reconnect now; I understand and respect why she doesn't want to. Still hurts.

I am so afraid to just write how I feel. Saying that I know that such and such is a good thing, but it still feels shitty, is making excuses. However, in my experience, people always misinterpret bald statements of feeling, so the qualifications are necessary. Maybe I just need to learn how to express them with more complexity? I run into this problem a lot, where I say something, and people respond to things that I have not technically said, but what they expect I might mean; or, which happens a lot at work, I say something, and people point out to me extra things surrounding that something, which I know already, I just did not happen to mention it; it wasn't directly relevant to the statement I had to make.

The end result is that I might say "I feel hurt by what you say," and then I need to add, "And, by the way, I understand what you say completely and it makes sense to me, but I feel hurt by it." It makes it rather inelegant. Why can't everyone hear that statement, "I feel hurt," and just take it as it is, and not think that I don't understand them or their situation or the reason why they said that thing that hurts me. It seems like a waste of energy and often a waste of heartache.

So I will stop with that thread right now - this has gone way beyond 5 minutes anyhow. I want to remark that Penelope and I are getting closer and closer; and she is asking me to peel off the layers; "turn off the edit," as she wrote. This is perhaps my largest sin, my biggest neurosis, my most pervasive problem: not being able to turn off the edit. The thinking mind; the conceiver, the divider, the criticizer. Removing me one step from experience. I want to get past it. I'm working at it - but it will take time, and I'm a little bit apprehensive that I won't be able to take down my defenses adequately. I can try. I can try to get to the root of my habits that take me deeper within the walls. I'm floored by Penelope, and I want it to work. But it's going to take work, and it makes me nervous.

But we'll see what emerges tomorrow, with so much built up over a week's worth of love notes, each one more direct than the last. Where will we go?

Good night all. (This was 3 Abrahams.)