i am out.

Avoiding pain, rather than having the discipline and courage to confront it and live it through, only compounds suffering in the long run. The escape hatches people create in attempts to avoid or numb pain can actually be worse than the experience of pain they south to avoid in the first place.

~Sue Monk Kid
When the Heart Waits

~-~
i am having a difficult time walking away from something (one) that i met online.

it would seem i have more than one addiction, and i have had knowledge of this *thing* for quite some time. it ebbs and flows, accentuated in earlier times by my drinking. take away my drinking and we take away the problem, no?

uh, no.

you see, this is probably my core addiction -- intrigue. sounds silly, doesn't it? no, go ahead and laugh (just this once). i just responded on someone else's blog on a post she had about a girl that was "chatting" with her husband online and i was honest and said "you need to watch out for that..." i am learning to spot in others what is glaringly obvious in myself.

it is easy to want to cover up the pain of my *everyday* by going online into another world and finding friends. i have some really amazing friendships with men -- which i have placed very austere boundaries on -- and women. my online women friends talk to me on the phone when i feel hopeless, render advice in private emails and through blog comments, write me notes, and contribute a book i have yet to compile -- they have been an amazing source of strength to me. at this point, they are as important to me as my friends "in real life."

then i have this other "set" of (single) friends, and in speaking of them in a general way, they add a level of excitement and intrigue to my life. can you imagine being addicted to intrigue, to your own adrenaline? it is an escape, it is easy thing to do, and it takes a lot more strength than you can imagine not loading yahoo or msn instant messenger or not sending a text message of inquiry when a few days have gone by without contact.

seriously. i am not joking.

i actually even wrote an article on internet addiction/affairs. they really are only emotional affairs, right, so who are they hurting? i believe i cited that divorce can be the result of such an odd thing, and these are very real. funny, when i was posting things to my blog i maintained when i was in my English 101 course, i failed to post this. i thought everyone would be able to see right through me.

as if they couldn't with this other piece, right? (oh, there are more over there, trust me...)

i have a romantic nature. i love the romantic era and poetry and being swept away. there is something deep within me, however, that believes in entitlement and pouts like a child when same is not received, is not reciprocal. so i go into deprivation mode, try to slog through it, and what happens? i sit in the pain of it for perhaps a day or three and suddenly, without premeditation, the phone comes out and sends a text message. or yahoo is loaded and a message sent.

simple - delete phone number and yahoo account, right? i wish it were that easy. i have deleted my account at least 50 times. (i am a sick woman people, trust me.)

instead of actually feeling the sense of loss, sincerely sitting in the pain of whatever that loss is and seeing it through, i can go no longer than perhaps 7 to 10 days. when i realized i was headed down a certain road, without the alcohol in me, i realized that i needed to do something about it. so i "outed" myself. i have people i am accountable to, and now you in cyberland are also privy to my addiction. it has gotten less over time without the intake of alcohol, but it is still present and i need to be able to simply sit through the pain and make it to the other side.

i am uncertain whether anything awaits on that side. however, this morning, just to show my seriousness, i am deleting cell phone numbers which are inappropriate for me to have and am uninstalling my messenger services. i can start over today, regardless of my actions yesterday.

(or should i wait until after the weekend?)

(am kidding.)

so my "in repair" blog has taken yet another course. i may not discuss this all the time, but love addiction is now added to my list of disordered things and i am open to comments, as long as they are loving, nurturing, and non-judgmental :)

remember folks -- "There, but for the grace of God, go I."