Still no word on whether my nephew comes or not. He is making all kinds of enquiries and all that's clear is that is hard as fuck, and expensive as fuck, to even try to study here. Try to, there's not even a guarantee that making all that investment will mean he stays to study and can afford to stay.

Or even afford to get a visa. To apply for any kind of UK visa from my country one must travel to Panama or Colombia. The closest is two hours by plane and tickets are expensive, not to mention all the money needed to stay there for a couple of days. That's some fucking bullshit.

So I understand that my sister is reluctant to make the effort. It is worth trying, but we just don't have that kind of money. My nephew keeps his head up, and so do Andrew and I here, but I'm also bracing for hearing my sister say, "no, sorry, let's try somewhere else".

*Sigh*

***

These past weeks I've been reading The tenant of Wildfell Hall and watching Jessica Jones. Lord, it has stirred up so many things in me about Joseph. Look, he never abused me. He never called me names, or tried to control any aspect of my life, or physically hurt me intentionally (I feel the first time he fingered me was a blurry rape-like event, but it was really a devastating miscommunication). He did manipulate me the first time he broke up with me by, well, breaking up with me. And perhaps he did other small stuff that I do not remember by now. What I'm trying to say is that he was not a monster like Mr Huntingdon or Kilgrave but still being in touch with those characters remind me so much of him and what I went through with him when he dumped me.

I think I'm mostly traumatized by his absence and not by his presence.

Him being always in my head, or me being constantly reminded of things he did that were so hurtful and drove me mad to the point of being sleepless. Or having to remember how he paraded his wonderful new relationship when I was still around, and said things that I thought should have been for me but were for her. Or having my broken heart completely disregarded as such and having to deal with him as the victim.

I think I dreamed of Joseph after watching the first episodes of JJ (and I couldn't watch more than one at times). It was about Joseph being with two girls and making sure I was looking. Except Joseph was Andrew, and when I woke up I was still reeling from the pain and I was...Jeez, I was angry at and hurt by Andrew. It was during that phase in which you're coming out of the dream and everything's foggy, in that stage when you're figuring out if the dream was real or not. As I became more conscious I obviously was not mad at Andrew but horrified at how my mind chose to deal with this. And I felt deeply sad for the entire morning.

I spent some days like this, obsessed with Joseph. What is he doing now, doesn't he ever think of what he did to me, does he even understand how he dumping me and yet refusing to disappear from my life destroyed a part of me? I can't even say what part because I was entirely functional during and after the break-up but...hey, look at me, I'm still talking about it, I'm still feeling hurt and in anguish about what happened. It's been almost eight years! Eight years and I do not stop feeling wounded. How is that even possible?

I kept thinking about him but not in a "I hope one day we get back together" kind of way. In the worst days of this relapse I'd lay in bed next to Andrew and apologize, in general, for letting the past suck so much of my energy, when in reality I wake up next to someone I love so much every morning. Eventually I got more than I bargained for when Joseph dumped me: I dodged a bullet (in retrospective, as much as I was in love with him, I was afraid and uncertain of Joseph as a husband), and I found a wonderful life with a wonderful partner. And I try to focus on this. Andrew and I have an amazing relationship, as wonderful as a marriage can get, and I wouldn't trade him for anything or anybody else.

So I don't know what it is. I mean, I know, I'm stuck on the pain, it's the why's and the solutions to it that escape me. I'm stuck on feeling I was wronged and wishing Joseph felt that and hurt over the things he did that devastated me. But most likely he just doesn't feel it or think about it (hello Mr Huntingdon), and it wouldn't be healthy for me to find that out. And anyway, I don't think the Joseph I met and think of is still alive. The most logical thing is, I try to convince myself, that I've disappeared from his thoughts, that I'm just a name on his list of exes, with sad claims to fame such as the most boring, or the one that never gave him an orgasm.

I guess I should stop. There is no way out of this.

You wouldn't know it from this entry but please do remember I have a life outside this diary, and it's going great.

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