you know, i just found out in the last couple years that the con in 'con man' stood for confidence.
i have been struggling with confidence for the last few weeks.
i don't really know why. i was fantastic before that. maybe because i was getting enough in the way of compliments and encouragement sporadically to feel pretty good about myself. leave it to one boy to make me wonder if i'm good enough in all the ways that count.
and i cannot figure out what the hell is going on with me right now. but i feel pretty fucking shitty. maybe 36 hours now? of fighting tears, not the happy variety.
i think the beginning of it is figuring out that i'm back where i started, with that whole 'only-want-one-boy-to-notice-me' thing that used to puzzle and mystify kit when i first started thinking like a single person.
it is my own problem, too. the absence of interaction is having a terrible effect on me, even though i don't want it to. it sucks. well, it doesn't suck. i kinda suck.
because i cannot seem to fucking pull myself out of it.
i'm going to hope that in the next few days i have cramps, because it feels like untimely hormonal imbalances. i feel like it's too soon for pms, but it's a lot like that. i'm probably syncing up with aubree now. i am so susceptible to getting moved around by the women around me.
this weekend has been pretty great, too. which is fucking me up more, because i have NOTHING to be sad about!
friday, i got home from work at like 4, un-nailed the window to the roof on top of my bedroom, grabbed a pbr, and went with a towel and the sound dock. and i wrote in paper journal for over an hour, and then turned over and just relaxed in the sun, smiling up at it for over an hour. had some beer, ate some dinner, and camped out. it was really pretty amazing. i spent two and a half hours basking in the sun.
and then went to beer week kickoff with kit that night. which was also awesome. i mean, an exercise in patience, because the bar was retardedly crowded. but we were out in the festivities, which was fun. and we spent a long time out, and talking, which we needed.
i really enjoyed my time with her. and she busted out with this seed of brilliance, toward the end of the night when i was talking about greg.
so, when we're stuck in traffic, and there's a merge lane, one day she had yelled, 'BASKETWEAVE, MOTHERFUCKER!' it was the funniest shit at the time, and it's so fitting, so now it's a thing.
people here are just not the most considerate drivers, and the majority of the time, people will not let you in, in traffic.
but when i was telling her about my struggle to deal with being crazy about someone who is also crazy about me, but has very little time for me, she gave me the same nugget of wisdom:
'relax. he's going to make time for you in his crazy busy life. basketweave, motherfucker! it will happen, but it can't happen all at once.'
she's right. i know she is right. this is not a problem of what i think, for the most part. i mean, my brain and logic is totally fucked up in its own right. but it's how i'm feeling that i am not okay with, and that overwhelms me.
and i just checked, because i was worried... thankfully i made a shrink appointment for tuesday morning! what a relief. i need HELP.
is it that i'm so afraid of losing this that it makes me want to keep taking the pulse? is it that i'm so trained for heartbreak that i look for the tiny signs everywhere and just wait for it to happen?
you know, i feel like i keep pushing the envelope a little with things i say. and any sane person in their right mind would understand that i get enough of that back to not worry.
but all i do is worry.
i mean, the letter i sent. that was torturous for a few days, until he excitedly told me he got a letter from me. with an exclamation mark.
but since that email on friday? not a peep. and i'm trying to protect myself a little, because i know how it makes me feel to be the instigator, to be the one making contact. i feel like i'm forcing something, and i refuse to do that with him.
and i'm too afraid of what i'd be interrupting to do anything to make myself feel better by trying to get a response out of him. because he should be able to go away and not have me bothering him and checking in. even though it's not in a negative way.
i'm trying to be okay with the space, and i'm simultaneously trying to not tip him off to the fact that all i want is to be around him all the fucking time.
because i am so so afraid to lose it, like i always have at the first mention of that before.
i think part of my fear, too, is a lopsidedness. i'm so afraid of being so vulnerable. it's something i really honestly didn't see myself doing this soon.
and i'm so bad at pace. i'm so good at swimming and drowning in the wonderful feelings that happen in the beginning. and forgetting to come up for air.
i'm an addict. all i want is more, and it's breaking my spirit more than i want it to, to not get more.
and i think of myself as patient about fifty percent of the time. but NEVER in relationships. because i have always given the wrong people the benefit of the doubt. and this is the first person who fucking DESERVES the benefit of the doubt, and i can't seem to give it to him.
when he left the other night, and i asked him if he got home safe, i fell asleep before getting a text back that said he was home safely, two hours later.
and my brain did some pretty stupid shit in light of that the next morning and subsequent day. the thoughts are too embarrassing to even admit in this forum. and his email the next night fixed it, and i realized that all of that brain work was a total waste. it was all unnecessary torment i put on myself. if i was normal, i wouldn't be thinking like that. but i'm not, so i did.
and i realized that i need to STOP. but my brain just won't. it's like it can't. and i need to learn how to train my brain to be optimistic again. i need my shrink to give me some magical formula to retrain my brain to take different paths that i've never taken when i start to think like that. i need to grow and fix myself so that i can deal with this budding relationship and not fucking BLOW IT.
i spent so many years being an optimist before ever came along. i was too good at it. and the overcompensation on the other end, when i was being optimistic with him when i shouldn't have, and then went to the other end of the spectrum, where i knew nothing good could happen with him. and ran for my life.
and i've been a pessimist since. for the most part. not entirely, but too much of the time.
and if i could just realize that i should feel secure in this, my life would be so much better.
the problem with the awesome email is that he said he'd probably call and text all weekend. and if i could just breathe and relax into this, i wouldn't care too much that he didn't. but he gave me a set of expectations based on that. and i guess the reason it's fucking with me is that i was off the grid last weekend and went to great lengths to send him little notes that said i was thinking about him and he loved it. and he probably doesn't have my same set of insecurities, so it probably didn't do anything for him, like it would do for me to just hear a 'good morning. i miss you.'
but because i don't know what he thought about the letter, or when he will have a little more time for me this week, i cannot seem to stop being obsessed with getting some variety of feedback from him.
and then, once i do, and get all happy (which would have normally been followed with one of my infamous happy cries, which i haven't had in a week now), it will just be something else. something else i said that i don't know how it was taken, some other way to need some reassurance from him. to be sad for a day or three, until i get it.
and maybe this is all because i feel so crazy all the time, and need to know that this time it's different. this time i'm not as crazy, because at least i'm a variation of crazy that has some roots in reality. not AS crazy as i usually am. crazy in a good way, this time.
crazy for someone who is crazy for me, too.
yesterday was an amazing day for me as well.
i woke up at 1030 or so, and put on my bathing suit. and laid out in the sun literally all day. and wrote and thought and listened to music. and when the sun went away, i stayed out on the deck until i think 7. eight hours on my awesome deck. getting my first tan lines of the season.
i felt fantastic. until the thoughts kept creeping back in.
and i can fight them off slightly, in the sun.
but today i woke up sad, and the gloomy morning is making me fight tears. sad music is fitting, and what i want, and is making me fight them, too.
aubree, mike, and i went to see 'bridesmaids' last night. and i haven't laughed that hard at a movie in ages. through and through, from start to finish, in hysterics.
and i didn't cry when i thought i was going to, but cried only at the end.
and drove home feeling totally broken. and went to bed after a beer, feeling totally brokenhearted.
and woke up feeling unbelievably broken hearted.
checking my email in vain. checking my phone in vain.
which makes me feel obsessed and crazy even more. it's this cycle i loathe. and one that i'm having an impossible time escaping.
because i felt fine with being alone and independent before i met him. and now that i am in this thing without a name, i guess that it's putting me so far back into my own past that i question whether i've really changed at all. it's a constant struggle. and an inner battle that i always lose.
i told kim and pam that they make pills for this. they make pills that quiet your brain, so that things just roll off your back, and turn down the knob on the worrying.
but i don't want to take a pill to feel better. and i don't know if i can go on like this, because it just feels so wrong and bad.
will i ever relax into it? will i be able to fix myself enough to not need something from him that i can't expect him to give me? that he shouldn't have to give me? that it's unfair of me to expect of him?
i just feel so self conscious. not confident at all. and the very processes inside of me that are making me feel like this are the reason i know i'm not ready for a relationship. because i'm still broken inside, in ways that are only just now coming to light in the onset of this thing with him.
i want to be fixed. i want to be able to handle whatever comes my way with him. i don't want to rush it, because i know from multiple experiences that it doesn't work. it never works that way. and more than anything, i want him to be the only one. i don't want anything different with anyone else. and i don't want to want more from him than he is giving me right now, because i don't want to push him, much less push him away, for moving at a different pace than me.
i'm setting off for a shower. which might help, or inspire a cry. and then into the car to get aubree a bike. and to spend my donut groupon finally. luckily aubree is a really fun distraction, who makes me laugh and feel better about everything.
hopefully this distraction lasts until he beacons back to me. until i let his words make me happy for a bit.
i want to be happy on my own. i thought i was doing a pretty good job of it, until these past few weeks. i have got to find the balance in this, and i just don't know where to start.
it's impossible for me. luckily, i only have one more day until i can get some help with it. and i know it's silly to put so much weight on my shrink, but she's like the little light in the distance, giving me hope for making my way out of this messy situation.
my lighthouse.
all i want is to be away from the craggy shore, feeling relief that i escaped a near disaster, where i went down in some shipwreck before i even made it out into the bay.
all i want is to set off on an adventure. and it's like i only organized a skeleton crew to keep my boat afloat. and immediately after setting out, realized that i have one tenth of the crew that i need, and that i'm totally and completely ill equipped to deal with any of what i'm about to endure.
i just want to survive it. and at the end of the day, sail off into the sunset feeling good, smiling. and hopefully holding the hand of a boy who signed up for the adventure.
here's to continuing to try to not fuck it all up.
i'm smashing a figurative bottle of champagne on the bow for good luck, in hopes of safe travels. a christening, for a boat that is brand new and exciting and scary all at the same time.
it's deserving of a celebration. and all i can do is worry about the only face i want to see in the crowd, making his way to me...
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