Inner Turmoil  I dreamed that I was ill, dying.  Even with the help of a hanbo, too short really to stand in for a cane, walking was difficult with the great pain inside my guts, and the weakness of my limbs.  There was a great huge building in the woods where we'd been gathered.  I had chosen among many gauzy articles of clothing some to layer upon myself, in rich colors.  I grew weary of the party, and felt the time had come, so sought out the less trafficked areas of the building from which to make my exit.  But my cousins had seen me leaving, only four or five or so, and nervously told me their goodbyes as I hobbled out into the woods, hand gripping tightly the top of the half staff, the other arm just as tight around my middle.  My feet carefully picked their way among the bushes and the vines, toward the chasm I knew lay ahead, but could not see through the thick foliage.       Last night, I'd wished I were dead.  My love, the love with which I'd always wanted to heal, seems to be a poison.  Because there is too much?  Too much for any one person?  Because I need to love more than one person?      Brooklynguy thinks I've been too love starved growing up.  I can agree.  He thinks though that I throw my love away on those who hurt me, those who take advantage of me and do not really love me.  Is that true?  He thinks I need love from many sources, but that doesn't feel true; it feels I need to give love to many recipients.  And I have no tolerance for the cruel.  I have too much self-respect to allow myself to be mistreated.      Can one person be all that another needs?  Am I stupid to be unable to see a way?  No one food contains all the nutrients a human body needs to ingest, no one school class contains all the knowledge a student needs to learn, so how can one human provide for all the needs of another's soul?      He told me that it is terrible to see me lonely this way.  I hadn't realized I was lonely, which was stupid, because my heart was aching for contact with another.  I think that is the definition of loneliness, isn't it?      It looks like we are breaking up.  I don't want to.  Nothing seems right.  A life of monogamy seems a guarantee that I will be "lonely this way" though not always, at least during the quiet times, wondering how they are doing, who is hurting, who is healing, how they fare without my presence (which is probably better than how they fared within it).      Then again, it feels like I don't love enough.  In between the last paragraph and this one, they hubby and I went to the marriage counselor, and aired out some of our problems.  The ball is in my court.  Am I willing to give it another go?  Am I ready to forgive?  Am I going to take each day as it comes?  Can I trust again?      This is very complex, and I have cried about two bucketfulls in the last few hours, some of them on the phone with Brooklynguy, some of them in the van with the hubby.      I have been working on the rest of this entry for several hours now, deleting everything over and over.  It's just too complex, and yet it comes down to the same basic question:  can I live happily with another human ever again?  Can I?      It often seems like the best thing for everyone concerned is for me to just stand alone, forge nothing more than a momentary alliance with anyone.      I sound like Zach.      I sound like Russ.      This is scary.      -- Spring