On love that makes us what we are.

An open letter to a lost love: I haven’t spoken to you in years — we’re not friends anymore — but I know where to find you if I need to. The Internet is a vast, open file cabinet of information, so maybe once a year, I search for you just to see how you are. You look really happy. And she looks like she’s a wonderful girl. She looks like one of those artsy, hipster, earthy girls I’m always perplexed by; I just don’t know how they pull it off day in and day out. She looks smart, and she looks kind. And she looks like someone who fits better with you and your family than I ever could. I don’t know if you search for me, too (but in my world, you would). Know that I’m happy, and that I wasn’t the monster you thought I was toward the end. I was young and I was still very immature. Losing you hurt a lot, mostly because it should not have happened the way it did. I would never send this to you because it would prove I would still think of you. You might think I wasn’t happy with my new love (I am, and I promise, but nothing’s perfect). I just hate unfinished business — and as loose ends go, you’re one I wish had been tied neatly a long time ago. I just want you to be happy — and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wish a tiny, miniscule part of me wished you were still happy being with me.

A year later

I can’t believe I just dropped this blog. I found it a few weeks ago and was shocked to find that I didn’t completely hate myself for what I’d written. So, what do you want to know?

A year later, and Z and I are still together. Things are generally always pretty great. He stands up for me and treats me better than any other guy has. Sometimes, I don’t know if we’ll last forever, or even that much longer; I just know that for right now things are working.

I’ve gained a ton of weight. Maybe that comes with being with a feeder.

Maybe it’s grad school (I got into my dream program).

And maybe it’s just because I’ve lost all control of anything.

More later. Maybe.

Paging Mr. Hyde

I decided to move back to the city. I’ll be moved back by September 1, once Ellen finds us an apartment and we sign the lease. This, of course, complicates things with Z. He is 100% supportive, he says, of my move, and I believe him. I just wonder, then, why I’m the one freaking out. I’m getting clingier, and when he had to change our plans to help out one of his friends I threw my first tantrum and we got into our first fight. I was drunk, he was not, and a flurry of mean text messages were exchanged. Now he’s a little sore, and I’m trying to get him to see me so I can apologize. I am an idiot.

This entry is not interesting to anyone but me. I just wish I didn’t do stuff like this. But I suppose everyone does. Do they? Who knows.

I guess a dirtier, sexier entry will come later. But this is how I feel today.

Losing game

Sometimes I
really think I’m going crazy.
It takes almost nothing
to trip
me
up.

I know I’m not ready
for love
or even like
when I’m kept tossing
and turning
thinking about losing
and hating what’s going.

I guess I wanted to feel
and touch and
remember what
this
felt
like

once.

I don’t know if you’re it
But it doesn’t matter
because I’m not able
right now
I’m not stable
I’m not really here.

Mood swung.

Z meets me in the bar where I sit with my friends, watching another friend play acoustic guitar up on stage. I’ve been drinking Diet Coke. I swirl two straws in the giant plastic cup and listen to my friends talk about other friends and laugh about things we did while drunk. I’m tired, and I feel a bit off in a way I know well but can’t quite describe. Z smiles with his perfect teeth, then laughs at something someone says, and his brown eyes look bright and almost green in the setting sunlight. He looks at me a lot, says ‘hey’ and asks me how I’m doing. We talk and I can’t help but slip away into that place I go sometimes, where I’m not quite sure how to act or what to say or how to prove I’m happy and nothing is wrong (I think I am, I think nothing is).

But something is, and I don’t know what to say. I hate being her, this girl with the intimacy issues. I’m reeling, trying not to freak out about the fact that he could throw me away at any second.

He’s too sweet to me and keeps asking if I’m okay (I hate being this). He knows I’m not okay once I sort of whisper I’m nervous sex might have changed things. Even though I know, sort of, that him even being here, with his arm wrapped around me, means it didn’t. But still he drives us to a park down the street, near where his grandma lives. Once we’re there, away from the bar, I inexplicably unwind. I’m able to talk and debate politics and laugh and knock him over on accident on the swings. One of the swing chains hits him in the face, and he stumbles, laughing.

When girls cause injuries to boys it’s always very awkward.

“I was trying to be cute,” I’ll say, thinking about how I shouldn’t have said that — shouldn’t have admitted I was trying much of anything — and laughing nervously.
But he’s still laughing, hard, repeating what I said and then kissing me on the cheek.

I guess it was okay to say it. The business of this — relationships and falling for someone — you forget how awkward all of it is in the beginning.

I always forget what it feels like to feel someone out.

We lay on the grass. I’m laying on my stomach and smoking a cigarette, watching it burn between my fingers, thinking about things I want to say but things I probably don’t need to say. We joke and then there’s silence. Lighting bugs and the swing set remind me of those days in high school when I was a virgin, still moody, on playgrounds with boys who could never quite figure me out. Even when I didn’t have the sex problem I had the trust problem. The closeness problem.

I’ve been doing this for years. So much changes and I’m pissed the things I want to change the most always stay the same.

But then there’s Z. I flop over on my back and consider the stars, and the corniness of this whole scenario isn’t lost on me. I catch him looking at me with that sort of open tenderness I’ve seen in certain sets of eyes laid on me before. And I ask him “what?” and he says “nothing” and we both know that’s kind of the furthest thing from the truth. He’s as wide open as a reaching palm. And I’m a fist trying to unclench.

I’ve been living on coffee and nicotine …

… and my body feels about ready to collapse at any second. I do this thing where I either binge eat or eat nothing at all. Just one more totally fucked-up thing about being me, but I hear it’s pretty common. Stars are dancing in the corner of my eyes and I’m supposed to be a journalist and it’s all I can do to sit here and look like I’m not working and not scream my fucking head off because I’m so strung out. Everyone has bad days, and this would be one of them for me. I’m feeling more unsure than usual. Is it because I haven’t had any food? Is it because I’m unhappy? Do I need therapy? I fucking have no idea.

I want to be a kid again and have no responsibility. This is all a horrible, fucking joke.

Boyfriend material?

I made it three weeks before having sex with Z. Funny how that’s a long time, nowadays. Everyone I told acted like I was holding out for years. In other news, I feel okay about it. I don’t think it changed anything, and we decided afterward to only see each other. That would make him my boyfriend. Right?

I guess, though, there’s always this little insecure part of me that wonders, now that he’s had it, is he going to back away? Will the dates stop? Will the cuddling stop? Will the, “I really like you’s” and the “You’re amazings” become few and far between?

Just because I decided to have sex with him?

He’s a great guy, and I believe that he likes me, but I’ve been burned enough times that it’s hard for me to not wait for the other shoe to drop. The “I’m not looking for a relationship” phone call, or a lack of phone calls at all. I get scared, and I don’t want to ask for reassurance or confirmation. I just want to trust the fact that I’m the kind of girl he could like. I think I am. Right?

Slip and Slide

So Z and I have gotten into the habit of making the 45-minute journey to each other’s homes. Until last night, things had been relatively nonsexual, basically due to the fact that one or both of us tends to have too much to drink when we meet up. And neither of us really want, to put it bluntly, to fuck things up by fucking.

So it was interesting to be fully, soberly aware of tongues and lips and necks when we started kissing last night. And it felt so hot to feel almost ticklish at the touch of his hand sliding into my underwear — I thought it sweet that he didn’t know if it was okay to go there yet, and I almost grew impatient. All of that self-consciousness that comes with being in a new relationship is there, although I’m trying to get over it. So I put his hands where I needed them to go (he didn’t need much help) and really, truly tried to turn my brain off. I wanted to feel, not think, and I think I did better than okay this first time around.

It’s not like I’ve never done any of this before. I’ve done a lot of it before. And I find it unnerving that I’ve been willing to screw the brains out of people I like about a fraction as much as Z. But when it comes to him, I feel like what I’m starting to hold onto is too precious to give up with something forced or shallow.

An exercise in self-hatred.

I am on day number 2 of a no-carb diet, day number 5 on a seemingly endless bout of PMS and day number oh it’s countless stuck in this brain of mine.

I get so nervous when I don’t hear back from Z in a timely manner, like he’s just gonna blink and decide he doesn’t want to see me or talk to me again. A big part of me is scared he’s going to figure me all out and realize I’m so not what he thought I was. When will I get to the point where I feel sure that he’ll be on the other end, even if I’m not calling?

I am hungry. I’m tired of feeling fat, but I’m also tired of my jeans cinching into places that were much slimmer a few months ago. I know diets don’t work, but crash diets do, and I am a big fan of instant gratification.

I hate myself today. I hate everything today. I want to go home, but I’ll hate that too. Some days, the only answer is sleep.

Newness

I started this blog with intent to write about my conquests, because when I started this, I had many of them. Not all at once, but certainly enough people added up over time, becoming these embarrassing memories I somehow decided to share.

Drinking, sex, drinking, drugs, dating, rejection, fear, boredom, variety. That, unfortunately, has been what my life has amounted to in the past year and a half or so. I never thought I’d become this, and I constantly try to get back to where I started. I really like who I used to be.

But this post isn’t supposed to be depressing.

I intended to take time off. I promised myself I would. That lasted about a week. I’ve been seeing one person, Z, for a few weeks now. And so far, we’ve only kissed. We drink together and I tend to babble about how much I don’t want to screw things up with sex. How much I want us to eventually, after awhile, have sex while we’re both sober. I tell him about how much I like him, how much he makes me laugh and how smart I think he is. In a word, he’s awesome, one of the sweetest guys I could ever imagine meeting. Like, holds-the-door-open, pays-attention-to-my-stories and is-SO-kind-to-my-friends kind of sweet. He’s totally disarming. I feel really lucky.

So who knows if I will hold this together? I am probably too fucked up to sustain a relationship, but maybe I’m becoming more self-aware. Maybe I really did learn something from my last heartbreak. Maybe I’ll want to hold onto him, because he’s actually someone I could convince myself I deserve.

I just like the newness of him and the total surprise this whole thing has been. Most of all, I like how wonderful it feels to have someone drive so many miles so late at night just to lie down next to me.