-Anais Nin 

Created on 3/21/01 from a letter written to Kate.
Response 2020.12.22
Some say familiarity breeds contempt. I've never really bought that. Familiarity, to me, should breed more interest and enjoyment. After all, if I can stay enthralled with a book that never changes, come back to it time and again and enjoy it in different way, learn more about the meaning of it, and so on, how ridiculous I would be to take less enjoyment out of a person who changes constantly? I could never get bored of such a person, and boredom, to me, breeds contempt. The aphorism needs updating, or at least clarifying.
I told Kate last night that I feel that I like her less when she is irritated with me without reason. And that is true, sadly. I have been dishonest with myself in the past, and tried to hide such feelings from her.
Our ability to communicate this well is the reason we work so well together. We are a team! Go team!
I've never been able to talk to anyone as I talk to her, and I doubt I could ever find anything anywhere near as satisfying. Our relationship is religious to me. Not that I deify her. But that I have such incredible faith in us, such devotion. I pray every night. I don't know if you know that. But I don't pray to any god, of course. I pray to the idea of us. I mean this honestly, I am not being poetic. I pray for her, her happiness. Guidance to make her happy. Content with me. Is it so wrong to have a religion of two people? It seems so pure and right. No dogma, just kisses and hugs.
She seems so sad recently. Well, beyond sad. Sad is not the word for it, but I cannot think of what the word might be. I have tried to talk to her about this, only to be met with irritation. Why is she guarding this? I try my hardest to be open to her. To tell her what is going on inside me.
I wish I knew what is causing her irritation. But I feel that it is not true irritation. Her irritation seems more like a defense mechanism from the world. One she didn't have before, because she didn't need it. But it pushes everything away from her. Me included. I do not like to be pushed away, and I certainly will not be. Which just irritates the mechanism more; make her more irritated with me because I won't go away and even dare to try to sneak under the mechanism. I wish she did not need to use this mechanism against me, too.
I am not faulting her for it. She is not controlling it. I feel that it is isolating her, and the isolation is making her feel worse, thus she needs to use the mechanism more. I could be completely wrong about this, but the fact that I am perceiving thing this way certainly should give her pause (funny note: I initially wrote "should give her paws" and pictured Kate with cat paws making cute meow noises and scratching at the air).
I love her, and even though my defenses go up sometime (which I am learning to control), I don't ever want to hurt her. She is the most important thing in my life right now. No, she will always be the most important thing in my life.
When I was reading The Bridge Across Forever again, I read the back cover. I don't think I ever did before, I just got it because it was Richard Bach. On the back cover is says "Have you ever missed someone you never met?" I realized that for much of my life, I had this dull ache within me. A part of me that was always crying. And when Kate and I started to get to know each other, that ache disappeared.
Even on our first date, I felt with her as I had never felt with anyone before. It wasn't a "Wow, this is the girl of my dreams feeling." (That came later) It was like a part of me came to life that I had never known before and I felt free. She made me a different person with one smile, one touch. She made me a person that I like so much more. And I had forgotten him for a while.
I started coasting through life, through action again. Pain was the only stimuli that urged me on. Either I was in pain, or avoiding pain. That was horrible. I couldn't stand it, but I didn't know it was going on. That part that always cried was getting seriously pissed at me. It was alive, a vibrant two year old, and I stuck a pacifier it his mouth and trapped him in a playpen. I don't know if you've dealt with many two year olds, but they tend to react to that the same way the bomb reacted to Hiroshima: a huge explosion and devastation. I let myself get carried away by all of this. Now that my mind has not been occupied with projects, I realize everything.
Now she is trapped in a cage too. I don't know what the key is. Whenever I come near enough to the cage to pick the lock, she claws at my hand so I stop. Before, when I had what I thought were better things to do than pick the lock on her pain (figuring she knew how to get out of the cage, anyway), I mourned for the cuts on my hand. But now I know that I should stop pitying these paper cuts. They hurt a lot at first, but they are so shallow that they disappear in moments. (I know this entry is very metaphorical. Sorry, I work best with metaphors, mixed though they may be.)
I don't care if I lose a hand, I want to help her out of this cage that her defense mechanisms have put her in. (If I lose my hand, I can replace it with a chainsaw!) There is a wonderful green and blue world out there that can't be experienced by such a huge soul as she if she is trapped in a 7'X7' cage.
I beseeched her to lower her defenses to me, because I need to help her. No good having my goddess pent up when there is a perfectly good pedestal (only as big as the one she carved for me, of course) waiting over there. Then she can see for miles and she will be happy. There are lots of lollipops, ice cream, Russian novels, and kittens on the pedestal. Oh, yes, and a very loving boyfriend who dreams of her kissing him every night. Mustn't forget him. And his hand is scratch free at the moment.