MY DREADFULLY BORING LIFE

Well, I haven't been updating this terribly regularly, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that I am just not doing much. I spent most of my remaining cash on a new power adapter for my computer, so it's not like I'm rushing off to the theatre every night.

Sometimes it seems a little surreal. I go to bed at night, get up in the morning, commute into London, look for work for as long as I can take it, then get back on a train and go home. Eventually I go to bed. I play solitaire some nights, and sometimes talk to Matthew in a pretty much useless attempt to try to be friends.

Sometimes I think that God is actually punishing me. I guess this sounds stupid in a way, but most things my brain comes up with on its own are. It's like people are always saying "be careful what you ask for." So, you know, I really wanted to live in London, and then I finally got to come here earlier this year, only to spend every night crying. And I was so exhausted, working 80 hour weeks, wishing for a break, and then I finally got this break and had no idea how difficult it would be to be completely alone, unable to work, unable to do anything because I had no money.

Things are much better here in London this time than they were in Spokane. I do have occasional contact with people, albeit not much. And at least I feel like there is some possibility of having good things happen eventually.

I may have mentioned this before, but I'm not sure. I guess I feel like I should explain why it is that I've tried so hard to fix things with Matthew.

It's true that he has treated me pretty awfully, and he's been generally consistent when it comes to that. I could rationalize it or whatever, but I'm not going to. When men abuse women, even if it's "only" emotionally, it's amazing how the bitch always deserves it.

I'm not going to fall back in love with him, although I think I do care about him. I'm not always sure. I couldn't be in a romantic relationship with him. I guess it probably wouldn't make sense to anyone else that this is a person I am not giving up on.

This is going to be really hard to explain. Matthew is, for me, the world in microcosm. There's this situation with him, where I've been treated unjustly. I tried really hard to do the right thing, and people who were deliberately doing mean and hurtful things "won." Every day that the situation continues in the way it now is, they win another day. The only thing that will change the situation is if Matthew decides to change it.

Every injustice in the world--the great ones like terrorism or war in the Middle East--ultimately begin and end in the hearts of individual human beings. Every one of those situations is just as impossible as the one that exists between me and Matthew. Every one of them will continue on until individual human beings decide to change things.

I don't want to live in a world that God has abandoned. I don't want to live in a world in which trying to do the right thing only guarantees your own failure and mistreatment. I don't want to believe that there is no possibility of peace between people, and that the only solution is to throw everything out and start over somewhere else.

As a person raised in a religious background, I was taught that the world is headed toward a Great Tribulation. That God has at least once in the past destroyed almost

the entire world, and that he will do it one more time in the future. He said that the signs that would indicate that it was coming is that there would be worldwide war, that we'd be keeping track of people's identities, and that people would be willing to sell their souls for an illusion of security. That people would forget how to care about each other because there would be so much 'iniquity' in the world.

And I don't believe that the only way to fix things is to throw them out and start over. I believe that seeing peace in the Middle East is impossible. I believe that an end to political corruption is impossible. I believe that fixing things with Matthew is impossible. And I believe that the probable state--the continuance of bad things--is unnecessary.

I'm sure I'm naive, and that eventually I'll have to come to terms with believing that the world is the way it is, but I don't want to.

I hear all of the recriminations. I know that every person in an abusive relationship always convinces herself of something that sounds noble to herself, but just results in continuing abuse. I know that I'm far from perfect, and that I'm not the always-good person who is on the receiving end of never-deserved abuse. I know that maybe the person I'm fighting is God. I don't particularly want to fight at all. But for now, it's where I am.