I’m Not In Love And That’s Weird

March 22nd, 2017

I’m always in love, aren’t I?

I’m always falling or fallen and pained because of it. There’s always someone. A person. Him. Occasionally Her.

For over half my life. Nearly every day of every year.

I am good at being in love, even if I am not good at being in a relationship.

But I am not in love now.

I haven’t been, not for a year. Give or take (and it usually is take).

I am infatuated with dead celebrities. Attracted to assholes who are terrible in bed. Curious about new people. But I am not in love.

That is okay, of course. I don’t always have to be in love. Sometimes I don’t even want to be in love.

But you can become accustomed to things that you don’t want or need. We do it all the time, even when we shouldn’t. Especially when we shouldn’t.

So when I realized that I wasn’t in love and that this is the longest stretch in my entire adult life where I haven’t been in love, it gave me pause.

Still, it feels good. Somehow. I am not in love, but I know I will yet again fall in love. I can look forward to the good (and brace myself for the bad) of falling in love.

I am something of a fresh slate, ready to be written. Then crossed off and erased. Modified and corrected. Maybe it’ll even be a happy story for a time.

Either way, it’ll be fodder for this blog. For my writing.

I’m not in love now. That’s okay. I’ve got time.

It’ll happen sooner than we all think, anyway.

 

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Categories: Dating

Confession

February 20th, 2016

Listen. This sucks.

I really, really, really like you.

I like you so much that it scares me. It’s always scared me. I fell too hard and too soon. And that was okay as long as we both thought you were into it, too.

But, even then, I thought this was too good to be true. As much as I thought “finally, this is it!”, I was terrified that it wasn’t.

And going from talking half the day away to not speaking at all is hard, okay? Fucking hard. I simply miss your presence, our wordplay, the laughter you brought to my life. I miss it all.

It’s no mystery why I would fall for you.

Maybe the hardest part of it is how I am falling away from you. Just another person for me to get over.

And I’m getting far too good at that.

 

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Categories: Dating

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A list of thoughts

August 17th, 2015

I had when I realized my ex-husband has a child with the woman he was (probably) cheating on me with before we split up.

  • Of course he was cheating on me. Why did I ignore the signs? How could I have been so stupid?
  • Was I stupid for the entire thing? Do I suddenly regret everything?
  • How can she think being with him is a good idea?
  • Why do they look so happy? Are they really?
  • Don’t I deserve happiness?
  • Why wasn’t I worth working it out with?
  • Was it all my fault? Maybe he’s not as bad as I think he was?
  • Perhaps he suddenly changed? Was I holding him back?
  • She’s cute.. and not as thin as I would have expected.
  • I wonder if I would like her if I met her in another situation.
  • I do hope he’s happy at least.
  • Their relationship will probably end anyway, statistically speaking.
  • What a terrible name for a child.
  • What have I been doing these last five years? Is everything really awesome? Or does it amount to nothing?
  • How much does his mother like her?
  • Was there any way I could have succeeded in her eyes?
  • Why did this have to happen on a day when I’m so emotional about the bartender?
  • At least I’m upset about the situation and not hung up on him.
  • But why do I keep picking cowardly people who aren’t honest with me? Or is it just that most people are cowards?
  • How will I ever sleep again?
  • Why do I even care? It doesn’t matter. I’m not in love with him. I’m in love with another asshole, in fact. And it doesn’t change anything. We’d still be split up for almost five years.

And a million other thoughts. Ugh!

They’re not healthy or secure for the most part.

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Categories: Everything Else

All The Things You’ve Given Me

March 22nd, 2015

In 2015, I am in the middle of a heartbreak. I know it will not last forever. I know that it may not be my greatest to date. And it may not be the greatest I’ll ever experience. That knowledge offers solace in its own way.

But now is not the time for solace. Now is the time to be grateful and to achieve that, I have been musing over all the things that the bartender has given me throughout our long and tumultuous triste. And I can think of no better way to do this than by saying “thank you.”

Thank you for surprising me. I am no psychic. I cannot see the future, and sometimes I assume that my inability to do so means that nothing good will ever happen. You proved me wrong. You proved that good times and amazing memories and even love, the type of loves that pushes you to the ground and knocks the breath out of you and leaves your vision in swirls, can come from unexpected places when you least expect it. It gives me hope that the future truly is better than I can imagine and that something good might just be around the corner.

And you are just the latest in a parade of people, flirtationships, partners, almost lovers and more, who have give me perhaps more than I deserve.

To the first one after my divorce — so many years after my divorce. Thank you for being comfortable, for being a kind person with whom to experience such a terrifying experience anew. You gave me the confidence and the assurance that it wasn’t so terrifying to be with someone else. You made me feel desirable.

Thank you you for liking me as much as you did. I needed that. I am sorry that I couldn’t provide the same for you in return. I hope you will have fond memories anyway.

Where would I be without the hot geek, the guy who felt like he would be my one who got away for years? Despite the fact that I know this is no longer the case, I wouldn’t be even a fraction of who I am without his accidental assistance.

Thank you, then, to him who taught me I am a nice person. I had never dared consider that about myself before him. Thank you for flirting and laughter and cuddles and the best kisses of my adult life. Thank you for allowing me to (re)discover my geekery. Thanks for being humble despite being such a treat for my eyes to feast upon.

I hope the woman you found does all of this for you and more!

To my ex-husband, the person who deserves thanks in various and confusing ways. I know I will miss things that could be added to this list, but four years is a long time to remember all those little things.

Thank you for the inside jokes, your adorable silliness and for being the first person with whom I could express my sexual side without hiding it. Thank you for, literally, showing me the world. The time away from my home town and my family made me appreciate them all the more when it was finally time to return to them.

Thank you for making me believe in the institution of marriage, for the first time in my life, if only for a little while. Thank you for bringing a sense of calm and serenity to my life and for being the first person to hold me together, physically and emotionally.

I am forever in your debt, not only for sharing a life, money and a home, but for the pets we would adopt together. Thank you for allowing me to keep them. During out time together, I was finally able to feel like I wasn’t facing this world alone. I felt like I was part of a team, and that other people understood the same struggles we were going through.

And, finally, thank you for leaving me. I am not sure when, or if, I ever would have had the courage to leave our marriage. I loved you so much, but you were slowly killing me. Although I still disagree with your reasons and ultimately think that our marriage could have worked had we better worked together, the sudden change in the direction my life went in is the single greatest motivation I’ve ever had to be happy. And I needed that.

It was through our separation and divorce that I finally found a counselor who clicked and a counseling style that I still rely on to this day. It was through those trials and many, many errors that I would build the foundation of the adult that I am today — well-adjusted, compassionate, caring, helpful, three-dimensional, sex positive and more.  While I cannot say for sure that it wouldn’t have happened anyway given time, thank you for pushing it to happen more quickly. I am glad to have the worst behind me.

Thank you for showing me that I needed to believe in myself so that I could avoid the same mistakes we made with future partners. I hope you’ve learned anything at all from us. Without you, I am not sure I would be able to feel grateful to anyone who came after you.

Thank you.

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Categories: Dating, The Bartender

She, Tigress

February 22nd, 2015

When my best friend talks about her marriage, it’s as though she’s describing life as a caged tiger in a zoo. But she wasn’t plucked from her homeland by hunters who wanted to make a quick buck and fast. Rather, she followed the metaphorical steak, so tantalizing that it usurped her entire field of vision, right into that cage. And she was the one who locked it tight after the door swung shut.

My best friend, the tiger, spends most of her time lamenting about unhappiness inside the cage. Yet, she sees no way to make her escape. Not only has she locked the door behind her, but the things that happen once one marries — financial burdens and children specifically — have piled up on the inside of that door, making it seem all bit impossible that she could even escape.

After some eight years of marriage, three children, moving across the world and back and no less than three Army bases, she has begun to lose some of her luster. Her hair is thinning. She looks more haggard than ever before. We play, but not as frequently as before and, perhaps more importantly, it lacks a certain sense of freedom that we once shared. This, I imagine, is similar to the tiger’s life in captivity. His stripes will be a little less intense. His fur will be less shiny. He might mope around, or he may do nothing at all.

My friend’s thoughts of liberation are confused at best. She fiercely wants to protect her cubs. From the cruel world outside. From her husband and their terrible never-ending fights and sometimes, I suspect, from her own self. It cannot be an easy slavery. She describes the lack of romance from her husband. Sex occurs rarely. I suspect he views physical coupling as a way for them to connect. She does not. He must coerce her. The times that their romps have been notable she can count on one hand. I cannot imagine a sex life so dismal.

And I would be remiss if I called her husband her captive. I think, if I am being honest, he is like another animal. I am not entirely sure that he is a tiger she like, and this might be where the problems arise. But he is also a caged beast, and like most beasts, he does not know how to communicate his thoughts or feelings. Instead, he emits a roar loud enough to get attention but perhaps too feeble to get anything done.

Thus, the pair of them, with their litters, lives in a cage from which they both would like freedom but neither of them are sure how to escape. Truth be told, they’re not entirely sure what freedom looks like anymore. and that scares them. They’ve been together for most of a decade, and the world outside their cage surely doesn’t resemble their lives before their mating in any way. Freedom is change, and change is terrifying.

Isn’t it unfortunate, then, that everyone on the outside of the cage feels so sorry for these two? My heart breaks for my best friend, but she is in part master of her own captivity. The boulders against the door are as much in her head and, from the outside, I can see that the key has never been removed from the lock. All she has to do is reach around to open the door.

Scary? Absolutely. I’ve been in a similar position, and looking forward was nigh impossible given how terrifying it was. Damning? Hardly. Here I stand, on the other side, ready to hold her hand and help her to take her first shaky steps on new legs. If only she would stand up first.

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Categories: Everything Else

Judging His Cover

February 15th, 2015

He was plain. There was nothing special about him. He was lanky with too much gut from years of drinking. His hair was thinning prematurely, and he tried to hide it by wearing it long or, more frequently, wearing hats.

He was tall enough to look awkward. All of his t-shirts looked two sizes too large. If we’re being honest, they were. It’s hard to clothe that frame.

He wore glasses ill-suited to his face shape. Without anti-glare, looking at him was like looking into some sort of abyss. It was empty and soulless.

Whenever he gained weight, his face ballooned out like a chipmunk foraging for its very survival. He tried to hide this by growing a beard. To a certain extent, it worked, but he let it become unruly. At this point, his childlike nose poked out from between the whiskers, and he just looked silly.

That’s all he was: silly.

And yet with all this silliness, his mediocrity and his inability to style himself in a manner that indicated any thought at all, he was confident. He was cool. He was fun. He was the laid back type of person whom you always want to be around because he makes everything look so damned easy.

So despite his awkwardness, his overly-worn hats and glasses that made it impossible to tell whether his eyes were green or blue anyway, I fell in love with him. In spite of myself, I found my mind drifting to him whenever it wanted, whether or not I wanted it to at all.

And despite all of his own insecurities, he carried himself with enough confidence that he was magnetic, his charisma always pulling me closer to him when his arms weren’t physically wrapping around me and bending me to his will. He twisted and pulled and I melted against him, this plain, not-special, awkward boy who was trying too hard to be a man.

What was it about him? It wasn’t visible. It was chemical, running through his veins and jolting across neural pathways. It was gustatory, sliding across my tongue and sticking in my mouth with a sweetness that was only as bitter as I imagined. It was tangible, electric, breath-quickening and pulse-quickening.

What it was that drew me to him, kept me at his side and begging for me, left me looking after him when he’d already walked away, was an eddy of forces so subtle and quick that I was already gasping for breath by the time that I realized what had happened. And by then, his animal magnetism had already replaced oxygen as my primary source of survival.

That is the power of the main who looks plain from the outside but feels like a storm once he’s inside you. Flowery descriptions seem so far from apropos when it comes to the boy who slouches and drinks too much and isn’t sure of his own self worth.

But when I think of the awkward boy with all his flaws, even through the filter of my broken heart, I cannot help but see a little beauty.

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Categories: The Bartender

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Love, Yourself

November 19th, 2014

They say you have to love yourself before others can love you. Or maybe they say you need to love yourself first, before you can love another. And no doubt that a love shared between people who love and respect themselves with be a truer and more respectful love, but they don’t tell you how people will love you anyway. And you’ll love others, too. It will be messier because you’re so far from self-actualization, but this won’t make it any less powerful.

And you won’t be able to let people truly love you as long as you don’t believe you’re deserving of it. Sometimes, they’ll walk away. But some people, people like myself, with love you all the harder because of it, because of the potential we see in you, the light of hope in your eyes.

People will get hurt. It’s inevitable. Even people who know they’re hoping against hope in a reality that just can’t cater to them. Even when no one wants to get hurt. Even when, at the end of the day, there could be love between people. People get hurts.

I guess that’s life. I suppose it’s easier to sing along with that lesson as an Alanis song than to learn it yourself, especially when it takes so many times for that lesson to really sink it. i’m not entirely sure why that is. Perhaps it’s just hard to be a realistic when you have the heart of an optimist. Maybe I am doomed to always see the best in people even if, in reality, they’re more likely to hut me than to be their best.

How many more times do I ignore warning signs, I wonder, before I turn off this path?

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Categories: Dating, Everything Else, The Bartender

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