i say i'm okay, but i'm not

in a meeting last week, one of my coworkers put photographs down on the conference room table of my ex-boyfriend eric and his girlfriend karen. i must have looked agitated because she moved them away from me and flipped them over. we took a fifteen minute break, and i left for an hour and a half. how i felt, in order:

• despair
• betrayal
  
• jealousy
• anger at myself for feeling anything
• fear that no space is safe: not random clubs in san francisco, not a conference room in my workplace after he's left, not the interweb, nowhere within five miles of stanford
  
• the urge to cut out everyone in my life who is friends with him
• the urge to move farther away, like new york
  
• the urge to break a window
  

instead of acting on any of that, i drank some milk because i need calcium. then, i prodded my sister about college essays; went to drew's birthday party; flaked out on evan; ran errands; had dim sum with eugene alicia lisa kevin brian; chanted ohm at yoga; ate dinner with brendan joanna john; had brunch with the girls; and worked all day sunday.

i still had time to inflict self pain that included facebook stalking and replaying the entire month of february in my head. nothing really helps: talking to people about it, not talking to people about it, pretending like i have goals, etc. sometimes it gets better and other times a lot worse.

i don't know what it is that i can't accept or get my head around. i try to work things out by telling stories to myself and summarizing him into tidy lessons, but nothing really seems to work. people have suggested the following mistakes that i made (a few weeks ago, eugene made me cry during lunch because i felt like he blamed me):

• being too passive and trusting
  
• not keeping things spicy
  
• poor communication
• not being able to see the end
  

none of those things seem true. it is simply that he wanted to be with someone more than me, someone that understands or appreciates him better. that, is something i have felt before and understand: it is hard to want something for yourself and know that that hurts someone you care about. it's confusing to love more than one person. there's nothing for me to hate or to be angry about. this shit is complicated. somehow, i just have to figure out how to live with that; i haven't figured it out yet.

i explain this to people and they think i'm naive or good-hearted: you are too forgiving, you are too tolerant, you are too optimistic about human nature, you only see good things. i don't think those things are true. i have a long memory, i don't trust anyone, i start out disliking most people i know (it takes a long time to win me over).

i don't know how to work it out. i have no conclusions to draw about eric. all i know is that a while ago i felt like i had gotten one thing in my life right, and that it was the beginning to lots of other positive things. i guess i got it wrong like everything else.

recently, i've felt more and more bitter. also, vindictive. not against eric, just against men in general. i want to live my life a certain way and to try to look for the best in things, but i feel so let down and very tired. i don't have any next steps.