Monday, July 26, 2010

She sits, tears cascading turbulently down her cheeks. She wonders how she got here, to this place of pure petrification. Has she not been diligently working towards overcoming her demons, the monsters in her head?

Out her window shines a brilliant sunset, she leaves her stuffy room to enjoy this moment of beauty in her torrid world.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

At it again

Here I am, Sunday evening, needing sleep and unable to accomplish it. The only thing I've uttered in the last hour is "I'm overwhelmed". It softly exhaled out of my mouth without me knowing it was coming. And that subconscious escape was spot on. I am moving in with my grandmother within the week, need to buy a new car, have a budding relationship (that I am currently freaking out about,) need to figure out my school stuff, have to find a home for my cat...so on and so forth.

I feel as if my life has been flipped upside down, well, I know it has, so it's an appropriate feeling. I still have to pack up the majority of my place and I don't know when I will be able to move stuff to my grandmothers, because that responsibility was handed off to my aunt who's in town, and with that transference I was taken out of the loop. Which isn't a good thing for a micromanaging control freak like me. I'm trying to completely downsize, this means getting rid of things that I have acquired over the years that I found to be a great resource, aesthetically pleasing, or just part of my collection of shit that I like to call "mine". This hasn't been easy for me, and with all the other shit loaded on top of it I have more or less shut down.

This shutting down means I want to sabotage all the good things in my life, and those things are work and the wonderful man. I want to just tell my job to shove it until I have all this other stuff figured out, and I want to just distance myself (even more) from the wonderful man. As is, I have been so busy I rarely see him, and when I do, I feel so preoccupied I'm sure he feels like he's dating a reanimated corpse, sans the zombie thrill. But the thing is, I also want to cling to him. I want him around me to support me, to make me feel like I have a place in my crazy world, but I can't ask him for that...well, I did actually. I asked if he wanted to help me pack, and I was met with disgust. I think his words were "If I were moving I wouldn't expect you to pack up my shit" Not gonna lie, that one stung, and he has every right to say it, it's my shit, it's all my shit. It was my choice to move in with a stranger I call "Gramma", it was my choice to accumulate so many useless things, it was my choice to procrastinate my responsibilities and act on the frivolities, it's my shit...but now, in essence he too is part of my "shit". Or at least I want him to be...at this point I don't know if he is feeling the same way...and I just want to give it up instead of seeing if I'm wrong.

This is what I do, I would much rather cut and run than allow anyone to hurt me. If I hurt me that is something I can deal with, if I allow someone else to hurt me that equates to weakness for me. I don't like to be vulnerable, and I don't like to allow others the knowledge that I am anything but impervious. UPDATE! So, he just sent me an email, wants to make me dinner, AND introduce me to a friend of his...this would be a first. See...freaking out for no reason. Phew!

And instead of dwelling on all that other shit, I'm going to get off of here, bask in the glow of his wonderful thoughtfulness, and request my body rest the way it needs to.

Night
HMR

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Budding

I recently started dating a wonderful man, yes, wonderful, and a man. I thought this was an obsolete model. But, I found him. Here's the thing...I am freaking out. For the last few years I have been in a series of short-lived, casual relationships. For a while it was fine, then it got frustrating, it then reached a boiling point; I became down-right depressed about my dating life. I wondered all the normal self-hating things we as women think (even us self-sufficient, and confident women,) am I too flabby, am I not wearing the right style of clothing, should I start wearing scented lotions, and god-forbid, perfume? Am I too forward, not forward enough, too loud; would heels do the trick, or does that give off the impression I'm high maintenance? You name it, I thought it, but underneath all the learned self-doubt, I always knew those things weren't the problem, there was something I was missing, a piece to the puzzle that fell forgotten in some corner of my mind. It wasn't until today I found it.

This wonderful man and I went camping with some of my friends, this was the first official meeting, and I was a little nervous, one, because he's meeting my friends, and two, he was willing and excited to meet my friends. I should have been delighted at how well he fared, how easily he could talk to all of them, how quickly he melded with them. And, I suppose part of me was, but as the trip continued I became more and more withdrawn. The more he assured me through body language and gentle caresses, the more I holed up within my own head. What the hell is wrong with me!? Here, right in front of me, is a man willing to meet my friends after a few weeks of dating, allowing himself to be stuck in the woods with people he doesn't know, and he's not only knocking that out of the park, but he is showering me with subtle and not so subtle gestures that he is thinking of me, happy to be around me, appreciating me, desiring of me, and enjoying himself.

Back to that puzzle piece I was talking about. I found it, figured it out, found it's place in the great mystery that has been my dating life. He has potential, long-term potential. He is nearly everything I have been looking for, and as detailed as that list is, he is probably as close as anyone is going to come to fulfilling all my criteria. It makes me feel completely unworthy, and I know that's stupid. I'm intelligent, funny, compassionate, easy-going, motivated, and other things that sound nice when written out. I deserve to be happy, I deserve to be treated with respect. I deserve to have someone desire me, and all the things that go along with a healthy relationship, so what's the problem? I have never had a healthy relationship, not with my family, not with any of my long-term (or short-term) boyfriends, and not with a fair portion of my friends. I have always desired one, but have never experienced it in practice. I have been conditioned to believe I am not allowed happiness, that for me short-term bliss is all I will encounter. A long-term scenario has never crossed my path, and for that reason and that reason alone I am losing my shit. I'm throwin' up the walls as fast as I can, trying as hard as I can to come up with reasons it won't work ( I still haven't found any, by the way,) and the only person I'm hurting in this situation is myself.

Now that I know what is causing this asinine fear I can counteract it with logic, right? If only it was that easy. Now I'm thinking no matter what I do my crazy is going to show. I'm either going to transform into this shriveled version of the person he has known for the last few weeks, or I'm going to have to let him in on the dark undercurrent that is my learned abuse. And I don't think that he'd do so well hearing, "Hey, you're absolutely wonderful, and as far as I can tell, there isn't a single flaw in you, but I've been abused emotionally my whole life, and now that's all your problem, how do you feel about that?" I'm sure there is some middle ground in there...but I never see any gray area while in the midst of a self-induced mental doubt spiral.

The worst thing about this, I feel guilt, guilt for being treated kindly, lovingly. Guilt for him showering me with compliments and affection. Guilt for him acting like a gentleman and being chivalrous. Why the hell am I feeling guilty for finally getting the things I've always desired, and deserve? Fuck if I know. You fill in that blank for me, because I think although it's related to the whole abuse thing there is a subtle variation on it's root cause. The feeling of unworthiness I get, but this, this is out of my league. I rarely feel guilt, and this is so, because I attempt, and usually succeed at living my life in a way that makes guilt an impossible feeling for me to experience. I am always honest, I am caring, I am...all those really great things I talked about up in paragraph three. The only thing I can point to is my self-sufficiency. I have been the keeper of my own life, and the decider in nearly every relationship I've had. I have been the one in control, the planner, the doer. He is on top of his shit. He doesn't need help loading up the car to go camping, and was probably as efficient at that task as I would have been ( I pride myself on my organization skills,) he plans our dates and does a damn good job, most of the other guys I've dated wouldn't know what a date was if it was attached to a wrecking ball and smashed into them at high speed. But are these things really guilt-inducing?

I'm sure this will be the first of many installments, but for now I'm done, it's nearly midnight, and I need to sleep, not like putting down the laptop and walking away slowly will bring the much needed slumber. I never get sleep when I'm like this, too hopped up about potentialities that don't really exist, and if they do, can't do anything about at 11:50 PM on a Sunday night, or any night for that matter.

Fin
HMR