My Life in five words

In my very first entry I described my life in five words.  I just came up with an update to that:

College nostalgic but presently serene. 

That is all.

Hooking up and making love in 2009

I want my life to be like The L Word, where beautiful women who love women only have relationship issues, make enough money to hire a nanny in this economy, become flegling writers featured in The New Yorker, and always, always have great jobs and exciting lives all the time.  Or maybe I want to be like Sex and the City where they always, always have a guy around who wants to be with them.  Who cares if they’re screwed up?  I just want their jobs, their friends, their wardrobes, their men and their women, even if they are the wrong men and women.  Or maybe I want to be like the girls from In Living Single.  Maybe Good Times.  I’ll take that.

I’ve thought about this because I can feel myself intellectualizing, tricking myself into believing I don’t want to be with him.  I had so much more time when I was single.  So much freedom!  I didn’t have to answer to anyone and I could do whatever I want, which usually included watching reruns of the L Word, Sex and the City, Living Single and Good Times.  I could dash of to yoga at a whim.  Catch a movie, go see an art show.  I could hog the bed and have it all to myself, and my phone would be charged (He took mine by accident).  I look at these shows and I see my peers who’ve delved off into hookup land.  The passion!  The mystery!  The high drama!  The uncertainty of romance and it’s possibilities, of soul crushing revelations and simulataneous multiple orgasms.  I’m not feeling the passion, the uncertainty anymore, and I ask constantly, am I selling out?  I told a friend about My Love and he pretended to choke.  “You have mono!” he said, disgusted.  “I thought you were edgier than that.”  And I am sure my college friends would shake their heads, like, we could’ve predicted you would do something like this.  You chose comfort over questioning this heterosexist society we live in.

My Love and I don’t talk like that often.  A few weeks ago my former roommate entered my room as I was packing.  He sprawled out on the bed, taking a break and reading a back issue of “The New Yorker” when my roommate talked about the new Exclusive Hookup she got involved in.  Even though she had only known this dude for a few days she broached the exclusivity talk.  When I asked her if she knew what she wanted, she seemed surprised by what my love and I were doing.  It seemed simple, strange and boring.  “We’re having a relationship.  What seems so strange about that?”  He asked.  But looking around at my room, the jazz playing in the background, the lit mags lying about, me talking about baking cookies and such, the domesticity of this scene was foreign to my ears and eyes.  I didn’t know what to do with it.  I was more used to the pattern my roommate was experiencing.  Becoming passionately involved, mating within weeks and then resulting in this tug of war of I love you I don’t love you that lasts weeks, months or years.

This isn’t to say that I’m not used to observing relationships.  But the ones I’ve seen have always moved quickly where it’s tumultous and passionate, where they move in and take vacations and want to run around bragging, saying this person’s name every thirty seconds and insisting that everyone be happy for their revelation.  That they feel like they’re known each other all their lives even though they just met.  Then they break up and repeat the pace with someone else.  I feared becoming that person.  That I’ll lose myself in this, that my behavior towards him could become obsessive with clocking his every move, that I may try to demand he clear a space in his medicine cabinet for my aspirin and tampons, that he may not want to spend as much time with me as I do with him.  That I may become marriage obsssed, started talking about babies, shun my friends and stop working on myself.   That I may get kidnapped in this relationship.  It even feels weird to say that I’m in a relationship, as much as I’ve longed for one.

But I know the reason this anxiety has sprung forth.  I’m afraid my love will not be good enough for him.  I’m afraid of feeling for him the way I felt about my exes whom, I gave my all.  I tried to show love and indepdence.  I tried to accomodate them and give them what they needed.  I was patient, sweet, loving and kind, and I was never ever the girlfriend-zilla I just described in the above paragraph.  But I still got kicked to the curb!  And not only that, but they usually ran off to have successful relationships with other people.  My first love got engaged after he broke it off with me.  My second love believes he may have found the love of his life whom he left me for.  And there are countless others who found what they were looking for but they couldn’t find it with me.  I suffered more than they did.  It just seemed like they used my love and that my love will only be useful to repair, but never to reciprocate.  I’m afraid of history repeating itself with this guy.  That he’ll look over at me one morning and say, I don’t want you.

But he has never said those things.  He’s kind and loving.  He bought me flowers for Valentine’s day and the card said, with all my heart.  He calls when he says he will and spends time with me.  He tells me I’m beautiful, and when we make love, he whispers in my ear, I’m yours, all yours.  And I know things are not happily ever after with my first and second love.  My first love finally moved on from that girl, and I know my second love is having problems with his current (I overheard a phone conversation she was having about him with a friend in passing).  One of the things I love about My Love is that he’s loyal and stable.  I can trust him to be my anchor.  I’ve never experienced unwavering devotion before.

 I want to enter this with the reckless abandon that I did with the first two, but it’s hard.  I am afraid I may hurt him.  And myself.  I want to believe my love is good enough for him, but it’s still hard to trust that, given what has happened before.

Haiku: Rain

Sunshine of my youth,

Could you please leave and return

The sun for a while?

Good intentions gone wrong

One of the reasons I desired my own place is so I could invite friends over at any time without anyone’s permission.  I decided to create my own card to mail off to My Love so I called my Married Female Friend to see if she wanted to make cards together.  But when I asked her I knew cardmaking wasn’t on her mind. 

And then she droppd the bomb.  “I don’t think I want to be married anymore.”

I told her to come over so we could talk about it, and to bring along crafty stuff so I could make the card and she could make a collage for herself.  I promised I’d buy champagne.

So, I’m cutting away at pink and red pieces of construction paper in an attempt to make several hearts while she poured her heart out.  Another girl called her, claiming to have an affair with her husband.  She doesn’t have all the details and I have a fraction of those, but even if she took the girl out, the real issue was what’s up with the people he socializes.  I don’t want to divulge too much, but his behavior is the social equivalent of a dry drunk’s.  He’s no longer into what they are, but he feels attached to them.  I asked her if he’d consider giving up those friends and finding new ones, and from what I know of him, that’d be a dealbreaker.

The smile on my face faded because I didn’t want to seem like I was gloating, and I listened to her ramble on.  She’s not sure, but she can’t stay married like that, and they rushed the relationship, they bonded over some bad stuff, and then she asked me what I thought, so I told her the truth.  I don’t think they’re compatible, and I’ve felt that way since I met them a year and a half ago.  Then she got upset, then annoyed, then said I betrayed her because I didn’t reveal this info earlier, and maybe I didn’t support the marriage at all, and what friend was I not to tell her? 

I painted myself into a corner.  If I didn’t say anything I’d be condoning this behavior.  But since I said something I’m viewed at not being fully supportive.  I want what’s best for her (which I think would be a divorce) but I realize my worldviews can be black and white when it comes to relationships.  And I know this is her decision to make and hers alone.  But how do I support her when she’s unsure of what she wants?  How do I provide her with what she needs without getting absorbed into her drama?  Why did I wake up feeling so sluggish the next morning?

I asked My Love if I had said the wrong thing.  “Perhaps,” he shrugged.  “In those situations, people aren’t looking for someone to lean on, but for someone to transfer their anger to.”  I value his opinion, not because we’re together, but because he’s a counselor — so he has some experience in this.

I struggled with this line for years.  Someone comes along, wants a shoulder to cry on, a bowl of soup to warm their souls.   I can do that.  Want to talk on the phone for hours?  No problem.  Want to complain about the job market via gtalk?  Sure.  But I found it didn’t work because the action was unilateral and the other person just saw me as an outlet, not a person.  They let it all hang out, become emotionally slutty.  I was their emotional codependent.  This gets draining.

So as a way to combat that, I have to find a boundary. Like when I start feeling tired, just say I can’t talk about this.  Or change the subject.  Or tell them to go ask someone else’s whose opinions they value because mine aren’t it.  Okay, the last one was harsh, but that’s what I’ve started to say to my mom.  When I was a kid she had an affair with her married boss and I went to school with his oldest daughter, and I was shamed to secrecy about the details of their affair. I don’t think I want to deal with that type of pressure again.

Good intentions are always that…good.  They can go wrong when there’s some sort of miscommunication between whoever’s involved, and I think that’s what happened a few nights ago with my friend.  I thought I was doing the right thing but I let the proverbial cat out the bag and now she’s upset, or her frustration has been directed toward me.  I wish I could find some way to deflect this stuff when it happens, when someone drops a huge dilemma on me, but I haven’t found it yet.  I was groggy the next.  But I’m pretty okay now.

Seeing Someone

Okay, Okay, I’ve been holding out on y’all for a while on this one.  I updated my profiles to reflect this information, but if you don’t see those, here it is.

 

I am seeing someone.  No complications, no confusion.  I’m dating someone.  I’m in a relationship. 

 

And who said those internet networking sites didn’t work for something?  To my credit we didn’t meet via an online dating website.  It’s from a site that hosts platonic get togethers. Tired and run down from holiday blues (I had just spent $200 on gifts for friends and family, and no one got me anything), working and having little money because my roommates scammed me, I decided to put on my blue jeans and tourist top and dash off to a bar to have drinks with other 20 somethings who were looking for a little post holiday cheer.  I had a Guinness because I can only drink one of those for the night and spoke with other people.  He drank a sidecar.  I wish I could say I knew it was going to be a whirlwind affair from the moment he spoke his name, but it wasn’t instant passion.  The connection I felt to him was subtle, and perhaps stronger in its undercurrent.  As we talked about our past college life and where we were from and such, I got the impression that the space in his life was open.  We could grow together.  That’s a feeling I haven’t felt in years, and when we circulated to other people at this gathering I slightly leaned over and reached for his hand to test if he felt the same way, and when his fingertips caressed mine, I knew he did.

 

I wrote my contact info on a neon pink notepad and invited him out for Ethiopian because he’s never tried it.  Over time I introduced him to gelato and vegetarian restaurants, and he took me to sushi.  It was at one of those restaurants that he researched when he asked me to be his girl.  The pomegranate martini swirled in my head, although it was my real conscious talking. I was afraid.  What if he broke my heart like the last one did?  And this has been the first time that anyone has asked me to be their girlfriend.  How should one act when in a relationship?  I don’t know.  I know what I’ve witnessed, and I don’t want that.  But it’s been ages since I’ve felt this way about anyone.  Being someone’s girlfriend is a risk.  He may decide he doesn’t want me or that he’s just looking for someone to take care of him.  But all of his actions over time have demonstrated that he could be an anchor. I could, over time, trust him because he is trustworthy. I can’t get what I need from him or anyone else if I spend all my time being afraid of him.  So a few days later over lunch I said, yes, I want to be with you. 

 

It can be called a lot of things. He’s my beau, my boyfriend, my fruit (he can’t think of any real vegetables that he enjoys), my chicken.  I’m his girl, his spud, his datelady (what his coworkers call me), his other half. He thinks it’s adorable that I’m ticklish and doesn’t care if I shave my legs or do my hair.  I love that he’s so passionate about so much in his life.  He loves that I’m so full of surprises and I admire his drive.  He’s helped me move and bought me flowers.  I feel safe around him, and when I told him this, he told me he’ll keep me safe.  He likes me because he can be himself around me.  I am touched my his devotion.  We provide the relationship just by being ourselves and caring for the other.  Being with him is deep, and fun and overall very real.  That isn’t to say it’s all been easy or perfect, but every moment with him is pure bliss.

 

I would be very sad if he ever parted, and he feels that same.  I think that’s another way of both of us saying we want to be together.  Last Saturday I said goodbye to him on the steps of my new building.  It had rained throughout the night, so the air was denser, with a slight frost in the air.  Just like I thought, he said as he looked around.  It’s a beautiful day to have you as my girl.

 

And he was absolutely right.  It was a beautiful day to have him as my Love.