You don't want to know what I have been thinking.

But I am going to subject you to it anyway. And I do know how everything sounds... and please try not to worry. I won't do these things. It's just how I feel. It is how I ache right now. I just want to be able to say how I feel. Because it helps people to understand how I am feeling so much better.

Wednesday, the day after was pretty terrible. I wanted to hurt. I couldn't stop crying, or crying out. I fantasized about taking too many pills... drinking nail polish remover... stabbing myself in the legs with a screwdriver... driving my car into a telephone pole on the freeway. Burning myself. Cutting myself. Shaving off all my skin. I wanted so badly for my physical pain to mirror my emotional one.

I had to work very hard, but I took (an appropriate amount) of medicine and went to sleep for several hours. Everything feels differently when you sleep. And my feelings weren't as intense when I woke up. I was by no means in a good place, but I think the immediate danger had passed. The sleep was restless though. I woke up several times and sat straight up in my sleep several times, screaming at the top of my lungs. In my haze I kept thinking someone had broken into my house.

I had a therapy appointment on Thursday. I haven't been sleeping well, obviously. I couldn't fall asleep until well after 5am and set the alarm for 11am so I wouldn't miss my appointment at 1pm. When I woke up it felt too early to get ready since I had no intention whatsoever of showering or changing my clothes. I ended up falling back asleep and waking up at 1pm on the nose. It was a 25 minute drive to the appointment. I had to pay a $50 copay to be seen for the remaining 20 minutes. I told her everything. She was sort of stunned, as have we all been. She just took control though and signed me up for some crisis intervention support out patient therapy thing. It's supposed to be like 3 hours a day. But when Kaiser says 3 hours, it usually means more like 5 hours. I think it's every day. I don't know how long it goes on or anything about it. I just know I felt dumped by my therapist when she said she wouldn't schedule me for another appointment with her until after my class was over. This makes no sense to me.

I keep trying to forget. But if I do, it's only for a few moments before the sound of that door slamming and the glass breaking rip through my ears again.

I still sleep with his shirt. It's all that is left of the man I loved. I hold it and I cry. It smells like him.

I rear-ended a woman today on the street. I was going fast. And not looking. I stood on the brakes but it wasn't enough and I hit her. We pulled over and there was virtually no damage at all to either of our cars. Some bird poop from my car to hers had been smeared on her bumper but that seemed to be it. It is amazing there was no damage. I was probably going 40mph and she was completely stopped.

She told me it was ok and I could go and I guess I started to get teary eyed and she said, "Oh, honey, no! Don't cry! It's ok!" And she grabbed me. And then I just started telling her everything. What he had done. What I felt I had to do. How much pain I was in. And I cried, and cried. She said to me she didn't know about me but she was a Christian and she told me to sit down on the hood of my car and we talked. If angels exist... I surely met one today. What happened on the side of the road today was nothing but... I don't know. An unbelievable act of kindness on her part.

I can't remember everything she said, even from the moment the conversation ended I was already fading, but the feeling of how important that conversation was stayed. The one thing she did stay that I managed to hold on to, was how there was a purpose and plan for everything, and that this was supposed to happen. It happened to teach me something. She said that the person I was in love with was no different than a character in a play or an actor in a movie. But that didn't mean he didn't care either. That after so much time together, it hard to believe anyone wouldn't care at that point. And that what this taught me, was the person I thought he was, is the person I am supposed to be with. That the image he portrayed to me is who I want in a partner, and that is my match. And I won't take anything less than that now that I know.

That's what she said. I can't believe it now. But I do hear it. And I will remember it. Right now, to trust anyone anymore is not possible. He even lied to me about his name. I have a stack of love letters here for him that he hadn't picked up yet. They are all address to Matt Timmons. Or Matthew J. Timmons. His real last name is Matthew D. Langford. Even his name was a lie. How?