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it's incredible how well we can remember the several hours of one day in the past. i remember the many things i was doing this day, last year, with absolute clarity. what about the rest?

a year of great change. my father is in islamabad right now. i think he and my mother have made more arrangements towards the divorce. he spoke of mortgages, mom living in the other house, etc., all from vancouver airport. my grandfather was pretty ill and no one bothered to call. in fact, i didn't speak to anyone in my family after my visit. i left a message on my brother's answering machine, but that was all. i didn't hear anything until i got a message from my mother, yesterday morning. it is very painful, feeling both abandoned and abandoning.

as for my own "family" - myself, my partner...my hope wanes. did i even have any hope left? i saw fred today, but it was a very short session. i cried and said "fuck" about 50 times, dropped my cigarettes on the floor (he had no clue i ever smoked), and started bawling when it came to a close. i feel betrayed and used. i feel like me, as a person, is not enough for her. it's not enough for her to love herself, let alone me. i can't believe it. now that she needs something else, my usefulness is moot. i don't have what she believes she wants or "needs" so i am worthless. we haven't had sex in nearly a month and i'm wondering if we ever will again.

i love her so much...i still want and desire her, and still believe in "us", but she has given up. she's given up on me, and the relationship, and i just don't get it. at the same time, she is still asking me questions like, "would you ever want to live in england? maybe we could live there..." does she really think that dragging me across the world is going to make her love me more? or forget all those things that i can't be? i have no fucking clue.

all i know is that i feel like i can't leave her to her own devices because she will mess up...and she won't leave me because it's not "right" - my song with her has always been "keep me hanging on" - it was the theme of my courtship of her, and it seems like it will be the soundtrack to the slow death of our relationship.

i don't think that everything is just peachy, but i don't act like everything is wrong, either. i try to maintain some semblance of normalcy, of love and togetherness. i guess i think that if i just keep being me, she'll realize that she does still love me. i am the same person. or that she needs me for me, not for what i can do for her.

i know that this anniversary is just a prelude to an invasion of iraq, and all the loss we feel now will mean nothing compared to the fear and anger we will be trained to feel later. i feel a sadness for americans, that their lives and feelings are manipulated in these ways. i feel a sadness for us all, weak and impotent.