so the third arm of that post, besides being both excited and nervous, was being paranoid. my writing was cut short by an impromptu trip to new jersey, wherein kit and i got lost for the better part of half an hour, trying to find a mall. when i came back, i'd lost my train of thought, and just wrapped it up.
but i was just getting to the good part. the most important part. because it's what goes on inside my head all day every day.
this is the thing:
i'm a paranoid girl.
in my day to day, i fear things. when i used to smoke pot, it cranked the paranoia to eleven. always has, probably always will. i have to remind myself that i am okay. which is my main reason for not going out of my way to smoke at all anymore these days.
but this is how it relates to my current life:
now that i'm living a single life, while still technically married to a crazy person, i feel like i'm constantly looking over my shoulder.
with regards to chalk and intern, there are the exact same fears. one is that we would be smoking on my stoop and ever would go by. or a friend of his would go by. and he would somehow see/find out.
another is that i'll be out with one of them, and will either run into ever or a friend. if it's with intern, things get exponentially worse, because everyone who knows ever knows who he is. at least with chalk, it's just some random dude to these people. no one would have a way to reference him or figure out who exactly he is.
aside from that, i fear mutual friends on fb noticing that a comment is made, and extrapolating from there. or pictures.
so these are the common fears. and really, if it was a third person, not intern and not chalk, i'd fear the same things.
but then there are separate fears.
with chalk, i know we will go out for dinner. and/or drinks. and part of me wants to go to a completely different neighborhood to do that. because i have a feeling it's going to seem date-like, despite the fact that it's not a date.
it's not a date, because i'm not allowed to date. yet. not until february 14th of 2011.
which is the worst day of all to be allowed to go on a date.
if i was allowed, i wouldn't choose to go with chalk, because he's not someone i'm interested in dating.
in any case, things will appear differently when i'm out with chalk than if, for example, intern decides to go see a movie with me this weekend.
not a date. nothing even remotely resembling a date. but, somehow, entirely inappropriate. ever is a firm believer that men and women cannot be friends. he thinks it's physically impossible. because one of them will always want to fuck the other.
i do not agree. but in these particular examples, i would be dead wrong.
but still, going out with intern cannot be misconstrued, because there would be nothing to misconstrue.
but chalk has plans to seduce me upon arrival, so anything and everything he says and does will be ripe for construing. and he is relentless, so he will be shameless. and depending on where we are, i'll probably follow suit after a drink or five.
when nina was here, i noted it. that first day out, in the city (which is something i rarely ever do, but did with her) i saw nine people i knew in about three hours.
when applying this math to being out anywhere in the city with a boy, and adding murphy's law into the equation, it makes me fear leaving my apartment for any reason, at all.
even to have cigarettes. both boys smoke, so it's not like i can just sit out front alone and smoke and make them stay inside.
so then i started to wonder. if i smoke out my kitchen window with the fan blowing out, would landlord smell it? without a doubt, my answer is yes. he'd probably let himself in to investigate a possible fire on the second floor.
it would serve him right if he saw the naked kitchen smokefest. not to mention, it would be grounds for breaking my lease. because no landlord should ever be in a situation wherein they see their tenant naked. under any circumstances.
these thought processes just reconfirm the idea in my brain that i need to go home.
no one back home will be a spy for ever. ever would never be there. no one would run into me and have juicy gossip to share with him or his crew.
and it is both stupid and shitty, and also lame, that i let my fear of him influence my life without him.
intern would be a low blow. i promised him i'd never fuck anyone he is friends with. i can redefine 'friend' and justify intern. but it doesn't really matter. he knows him. he introduced us. it's not cool. but i cannot help myself.
and i know he'd flip the fuck out if he ever saw me out, with any boy, ever.
and his growing posse would text him upon discovery if they saw me. especially if they saw me without me seeing them. anonymous tips. ugh.
see how paranoid i am? i spend hours a day, and even more when i'm trying to go to sleep at night, thinking about this bullshit.
it's all worry and stress.
and the thing is? i should NOT CARE. but i do.
at 32, i still care what people think about me. i wish i didn't. because it is my life. and this is my freedom. i am paying and will continue to pay a high price for it.
and somehow it doesn't change the fact that i still live in fear of the shadow my husband casts over me.
there was a day when i was out with alice. i was still living in the house, but we'd split. and no one knew because ever hadn't told anyone he worked with.
and we were at a bar, for brunch. and had a cigarette out front. and the girl who now lives with ever drove by and saw me and yelled my name.
it's little things like that, when i'm not doing something wrong, when i'm not kissing some boy in public, that reaffirm my paranoid belief system.
plus, like the power of positive thinking, if you think you're going to get busted, you act in ways that will make you more likely to get busted. like making the first right turn when a cop gets behind you. never a good idea. learned that watching 'cops'.
i don't remember if i wrote it before or not, but when i was out with brownies, she said something about being surprised that ever let me out of the house to see her in new york.
and it didn't make me angry, like she thought it would. and it didn't make me feel bad then, either.
but it's one of those things. at the time, you say, 'ha! that's funny. totally not how it is'.
and then you think about it and you think about it. and you start to put together all the little pieces, and you realize, 'hey. that's not funny at all. how can this person who was completely removed from my life know my life better than i have, when i've been living it for the past ten years?'
it's strange. i'd never have said that ever was controlling when i was with him. because he was good at it. by way of guilt.
and here i sit, free from him for five months now. and he's STILL controlling me. by way of my guilt. because i know what he would say/think/feel/do if he only knew what i was doing.
it's a mindfuck.
i don't want to think like this. i don't want to be afraid. i don't want to make decisions based on ever anymore. i did that for so long, though, that maybe it will take years of undoing.
or maybe it will just take a change of scenery. which is how i justify moving home. because it's not that i'm running away from ever or my problems. it's that i need a place to just be myself. where he can't see me and won't catch wind of it.
and sure, there are 783112365468 places in this world to live, besides phila. but at the same time, there's no place like home. right? i mean, it's in 'the wizard of oz'. it must be true.
i want all the comforts of home, only on my own terms. i want my family to be nearby, but wouldn't live with them.
i want the pool. i really really miss that pool. every single day, i miss that pool. and when i am awake at night, i miss it even more. just being able to wear myself out swimming laps under the moon and summer constellations. i want the magic back.
i want a new social setting. some of the same people as the ones who were in my old life before ever, plus new people i'll meet along the way. i made a few new friends in the two weeks i was home, and was only out a few nights.
but i also want different settings. i like the places that i would hang out now. and would actively seek out others, until i create my own place. none of the old haunts are really around anymore. everything back home has changed.
thinking about it has given my age-old dream of having a coffee house back to me. i've reclaimed it. i only thought that i didn't want it, because i'm burnt on it right now. but after a break, i am back in it. and i just had to realize that the place i work every day now is not what i want for myself. but the only way to get what i want is to keep going to work.
i just have to add craft beer to the mix, and really awesome food, and it will be perfect.
and that makes me feel a lot better about anything i'm going to face in the next year. because the reward of all of this will be so much sweeter in the end.
when i was writing to the writer, i honestly thought that my dream had died, and i felt both hopeless and lost. i felt like there was no guiding force to keep me on track. to keep my focus in the right place.
and now, i just want it all. and i want it now.
and i'll wait, because good things come to those who do. but i have to work on some things in the meantime.
mental processes and such.
luckily, i have an appointment with my shrink next week. on tuesday. i don't really know what will happen or come from it. i do know that i wish that i could have a double session. but other than that, i am interested to get her take on things.
particularly in regards to motivating factors. because i know that something bigger is going on inside my head. but just like good advice, it's easy to see it in others and not in yourself.
every decision i make has a series of effectors. and if i can figure out what the effectors are, then i'll be better off.
she's going to have a field day.
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