Breaking Point

I really struggled with today's entry. It is very hard for me to be critical of someone that I care about deeply and do not want to hurt, but this is some of what went through my mind today.

People reach a point where they need some time apart from one another and last night was one of those times. As much as I like Brenda, I still need some time for myself. Yesterday had been a long boring day for me at work and by the time that I got to Brenda's house I was tired and just wanted to go to sleep. She took this the wrong way and she started to wonder if she had done something wrong.

If I had not gone over there last night, I imagine it would have made things even worse. My being there gave me a chance to explain what was going on in my mind. I have to do this very carefully though, because the amount of emotional impact that Brenda assigns to actions and words is frightening at times. Like and love are worlds apart and what I say and do has a tremdous impact on her.

Very little of this new to me. When I was with Tracy, I had to entertain her all of the time and I got very little time for myself. So after a while I did start to resent her. At first I did not see this happening with Brenda, because she is capable of taking care of herself. She even asks me if I am sure that this is what I want every so often. I answer yes and start to wonder if the problem lies within me.

The kindest way to describe my mood swings would be the phrase artistic temperament. I am not always a pleasant person to be around. There are days when I would rather not talk to anyone. This does not mean that I am angry or upset, all that it means it that I need some time by myself. I had forgotten that this hurts the person that I am seeing and Brenda is no exception. She was hurt by the fact that I didn't think to get her involved in whatever was bothering me. She kept telling me that I had an attitude.

On paper there are some parallels between Brenda and Tracy. Both were newly divorced when I started to see them and both of them smoked and drank. Now that is where the similarity ends. I like to think that Brenda is a much stronger person than Tracy. As I mentioned earlier, Brenda is capable of supporting herself and even makes more money than I do. Yes, I realize that the job might be making up for something lacking in her life and that does not prevent her from being lonely.

An earlier college girlfriend told me that she tried to be busy all of the time, so that she wouldn't have time to think. It was much easier just to keep moving and avoid any problems that she might have in her life.

When Brenda gets upset, it bothers me. Last night she said that I should just go to bed if I was tired and I did. When I woke up a few hours later, she was not in bed. I went to look for her and found her asleep on the couch. I was not going to let her sleep on the couch, when there was plenty of room in the bed. It took me about ten minutes to wake her and get her to come to bed.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? Life is not simple and people can not be broken down into categories without taking something away from them. Do I sacrifice too much for her? Maybe, but she also does things for me. Do I see her as being too controlling? Maybe, but I am still my own person. I still have my own life. Do I see her in a negative light? I really hestitate to label her as anything except Brenda. I think that when a person starts to label another person that person ceases to be a person and becomes an object. Brenda is not an object to me.

I do not regret any of the time that we spent together in the past two weeks and hope for more weeks with her. I also like to think that Brenda and I will still be seeing one another months from now, but I can not predict the future.

Both of us were much happier in the morning.

I sat through yet another demo this afternoon at work and this final product might be the one that we choose as our new application.

Time for some reality about the web.