free roxana!

this morning, while checking my e-mail on yahoo i see an article titled "us journalist sentenced to 8 years in iran" or something similar. my first thought is 'oh no! please don't be roxana!' as i click and a new window opens to reveal a familiar face.
roxana saberi graduated from my alma mater, concordia college, a couple years ahead of me. it's not a huge school & i knew of her while we attended, but don't know her personally. over a month ago, i was led to a facebook group, release and return journalist roxana saberi from ir custody.
this seems to be the classic case of a country that trumps up whatever charges it wants to convict someone they deem a 'threat'. she had been living in iran the last 6 years as a freelance journalist, with dual citizenship (her father is iranian and her mother japanese & live in fargo, nd). as i understand it, roxana was initially charged with purchasing a bottle wine, illegal in muslim iran. then, they charged her with illegally practicing journalism after her press credentials were revoked in 2006. this morning reports of her trial, a one-day affair behind closed doors that her father was not allowed to attend, say that she has been convicted of espionage, spying & reporting back to the us government, and sentenced to 8 years in prison. she has already been held in evin prison outside tehran since january and is understandably deteriorating mentally and emotionally, if not physically. she has been talked out of a hungerstrike once. i cannot imagine being held in an iranian prison, let alone being a woman imprisoned in these circumstances.
this is truly a travesty of justice. her father says roxana told him that she had been coerced into confessing and recanted the charges. both senators from north dakota have expressed their concerns and hilary rodham clinton is involved as well and presented a petition to the iranian government. roxana's lawyer (thank goodness she has a lawyer!) has stated that he will appeal the conviction.
please, please, please if you are so moved, say a prayer for roxana or contact your own congressperson. i will be.

loss

if surgery could cure what ails you, would you do it? especially if it meant possibly losing more than you gain? can losing a part of your physical body actually be considered a "cure"? and how long does the grief last?
lots of questions causing turmoil and no resolution in sight.
i realize this is the opposite of my post from yesterday. it's not that i'm not happy in certain aspects of my life, but other things constantly try to overshadow any contentment that works its way in. i guess maybe i'm being pessimistic. whenever things seem to be going well, something comes & blows it out of the water. why i still don't expect it after all this time, why i go glibly along during the good times & expect that they'll never end is beyond me.
my decision, and my loss, is basically already made, but that doesn't mean my mind doesn't still waffle back and forth over the supposed options.

frickin' frack!!

so i'm going along with life, just trying to get by and move forward. writing (surpassed 18,000 words last night!) and trying to take everyone's advice to sever s from my life, at least for a period of healing.
and now my stupid ex-bf has decided he wants to rekindle our friendship after more than 3 years. he's been incredibly apologetic for all the hurt he put me through (because he was getting over a past relationship himself, dulling his senses with alcohol, yada, yada). he wants us to have communication again. it's so much in my past that all it serves to do is remind me how painful things are right now & how much he hurt me was not even a tiny fraction of the agony i feel when i think about losing s.
i just want to look ahead to the future, not rehash the past. why is that so hard to understand?

he's (already) seeing someone else

oh g-d.

why does my life suck so much?

crying hangover

oh, the hyperventilating. and the headache. lord, the headache.
i just spent the last 3 hours crying. s pretty much told me that his feelings for me have faded (as if they hadn't when he originally broke up with me 2 months ago.) he was just more adamant about it this time because i asked some direct questions.
there's still some possibility that this is all ptsd-related, but i can't pin my hopes on that like i kinda had been.
i am so spent. how am i supposed to find someone else i can be that comfortable with? no one has made me feel more like my true self in 29 years.
addendum~and apparently s called my friend m & told her that i was upset & asked if she'd call me to see if i needed to talk. d@mn him! why does he have to go & be nice like that?

it should have been me that made it with you/sadly all my dreams turned blue/it should have been me that made it with you/but that's not your point of view---'blue' the clarks

one week

i thought maybe it'd be a little better by now. wednesday, thursday & friday were okay because i either saw or talked with s. not that i didn't cry over it because i seem to be able to keep my composure around anyone else but him. not seeing him at all makes me more miserable than seeing him. the thought of losing him entirely overwhelms me. yeah, yeah, i'll survive. strong woman, whatever. i just don't see why i'd want to.
last night at the bar with some friends who just got back into town. s stopped by & i got a ride home as the icestorm was just starting up. it worries me, seeing him nearly as pained as i am, but not letting me in. i don't know who's helping him through this. he just says that he can't be in a relationship with anyone right now, not more than friends. i wish he could understand that it's not always easy, but that's the time you have to work harder, together. i don't know, maybe my fairytale-my happy ending isn't to be. i hope that's not the case because he's worth every ounce of this pain i'm feeling right now; he's worth fighting for.

and i'm still not up to talking about this in any other medium than written. i'd just be incoherent.

and on the topic of one week, i'll be leaving in about a week. looking forward to meeting suzanne (of cuss), seeing nyc, going back to london & theatre (we've got tix to wicked & spamalot, plus one more not yet chosen play), not to mention the food. how i love me some food! my friend n has asked for bizarre british treats, so i'll see what i can smuggle back. also, i have to hit up at least one of the lush stores. i need to restock. there goes the idea of only carry-on luggage!
but back to work for me. apologies for all the angst, but that's my life.

barely getting by

somehow i've been able to fake my way through the work day. i highly doubt it's because i have hidden acting talent. when i walk through the door of my apartment at night, i break into body-wracking sobs that i've held in all day long. it's horrible.

and it's only been 3 days.

too bad you can't call in to work with a shattered heart. what's that brittle bone disease, osteogenesis imperfecta? is there a cardiogenesis imperfecta? i guess it'd just be that broken heart syndrome, stress cardiomyopathy.
*sigh*

"am i gonna be lonely for the rest of my life? ... unless you come around ... i'm dressed all in blue and i'm rememberin' you.." ---rhett miller

i am broken-it's over

last night, after dinner & a dvd, s told me it was over. we've officially been together for 15 months, which is an eternity for me with relationships, the longest i've ever had. him too. i felt as though i was living in a nightmare. i just wanted to wake up, for everything to be back to normal. now, nothing ever will be.
if i can wrap my mind around it properly, he doesn't know where tomorrow is going to take him, let alone next week, month or year. and he doesn't want to date me for three years, only to break up with me after all that time. what does that mean? it's not like i wanted to jump into matrimony this very second. even at 29, i'm not ready for that. yes, i wanted to live together, but not if he wasn't ready for it yet. he was the one who brought it up last year in the first place. i know that he's had trouble lately finding his way through life in general & his place in the world. but who hasn't had a quarter-life crisis? least of all everything he's been through.
and i can't stop the tears from rolling down my face. i don't know how to pick up my life from here. i've never been so truly happy and my real self around anyone before. how do you go 'back' to being just friends when you never really started that way in the first place? what am i supposed to do now?

please know i may not respond immediately to comments. this is all just too difficult to comprehend at this moment.