I've been trying to find my way around the recent past. Basically... it has me stumped.

N has been doing much better lately.

But after I had to call the cops to check on her, I felt done in. In a way I can't describe. I thought I was strong enough to just keep chugging on, but I hit some kind of wall, and at first it felt okay to have hit that wall, to decide to take a little space for me...

to date (I'm trying out dating)
to start working again
to settle down a bit
and so forth.

And it seemed okay. I mean, N started to get better, it seemed. She found someone down in AZ who is older and present and familiar with being around people who are struggling, and he seemed to be the wonder she needed. I don't know if it was him alone, or just time, or a shift that was inevitable, or what, but I was grateful that someone came along who was able to give her just the amount of attention she needed to pull through a bit. And so I backed away, refusing to talk to her except via text messages. I felt like I couldn't handle another incident like that one. And the only other time I talked to N, it seemed like the conversation was heading that way, so I hung up. And switched to only text messages... sending her a message a day telling her I loved her and was thinking of her, and that's it.

And now she's getting better. I still try not to hold my breath too long in the hopes that it holds, but it's been about two weeks now. And she's starting to sound like her old self, though her memory and perceptions of what happened are 'gappy' to say the least.

But what I was afraid of -- on two accounts -- is beginning to happen.

1) She is starting to realize. She is starting to wake up, as if from a nightmare, and really see what has happened. That she has lost her partner, her home, many of her items; that she has wracked up an incredible financial debt, some of which she 'owes' to her friends (including me, but I have dealt with its loss and don't want it back); that she has damaged countless friendships; that she has damaged her body; that her body is damaged; that her life is spread apart the country in shards and bad memories.

And that, on the one hand, she is the one responsible for this, but on the other hand, she is responsible for none of it. How do you reconcile yourself to having acted without control, that you have lost without throwing away? I can't even begin to imagine it. Waking up. To that.

I feel such sorrow and compassion and love and pain for her.

But (2) I still feel done in. I feel like, though she was not responsible -- that the people who abused her are responsible, and the disease that entered her brain is responsible -- that nonetheless I feel differently. I cringe when she calls. I zone out when she talks. I try to escape. I view her imminent (August) migration to the PacNW with dread. I don't want to tell her anything, I don't want to talk. I am not at all angry, but I feel done in.

And I'm having a hard time reconciling my understanding 1 with my feelings of 2. How can I be so cold? Is that what friendship is worth? How can I be the person I want to be, someone whose compassion releases all resentment, hurt, and fear?

I don't know. But I'm trying to work through it, trying to figure out what I need to do to feel the friendship again. And in the midst, I think N knows something is screwy: she talks about burning me CDs; she's read my runes for me; she keeps trying to financially pay me back though I tell her I don't want that; she purposefully and pointedly asks how I am doing, and she gives me space. She knows, and yet she's flailing around as much as I am (well... more). I feel like I owe it to her -- or better yet, that I want to be there for her -- to let it go, but I don't know how to. Yet.

Didn't know how complicated love can be. Life's a delicate thing, I guess.