I am slowly regaining hope for the human race. The more I converse with me mother the more her words stick in my heart to surface as little reminders of faith and chase away the seeds of doubt that occasionally sprout in my mind. I have been so worried for the state of the world as of late, as if this upcoming election marks an assured change- though in what direction I am uncertain. But it makes me quite nervous. My mother however, has no qualms about the direction our society is headed because she places faith in my generation. Apparently 80%* of volunteers over the past year are under the age of 30. It was an interesting car conversation because on the one side, or backseat rather, I have my brother – a complete cynic with no faith whatsoever in human values. He is convinced that a majority of these volunteers are doing so to take advantage of the credentials and addition to their self-image. But my mom is convinced that the youth of my generation have a better sense of global perspective and that people are generally good at the core, and willing to put the survival of others before themselves. I believe that leaves me somewhere in the middle, struggling for balance between the two extremes.
* I place no faith in statistics and so any statistic I use ever could indeed be completely falsified. But I find comfort in them nonetheless.
I think one of my problems here is that I have not done enough to hold onto myself. I stopped writing, reading, listening to my music- lost faith in love for a while. Where did I go? I stopped dreaming and it’s nearly drown me out. Well, I’m back, full force. I want to be a starry-eyed romantic. I guess I worried that being in college meant beginning ‘real life’; it meant growing up. I feared that if I didn’t this big scary real world would chew me up and spit me out- just as everyone thought it would. So I hardened myself; my outlook, my attitude, and more than anything else, my heart. In doing so I nearly lost sight of myself. There is a young pretty girl in a flowing white dress with wide eyes and an even bigger heart, and I put her behind bars. She withered. But all I need is room to run, to laugh, to dream and I’ll be back. I need more of ME in my life. The influences of my own personality, because otherwise I’ve become this tangled web of everyone around me and it has made me miserable. I want the Princess Bride, Beauty and the Beast, Jason Mraz, fields of wild flowers, daydreams that make me late (instead of laziness) and an appreciation for beauty.
My roommate asked me if she was high-maintenance to which I scoffed allowed and said, yes- yes you are. She asked what it was and whether it was a bad thing. I defined it as having high expectations for your relationship and significant other: demanding a lot of attention in the forms of time, effort, money etc. And decided that it is not necessarily a bad thing in small doses but that it is often abused to the point of gaining a bad rep.
Then she asked if I was high-maintenance. Again, I scoffed. I think I am the most low-maintenance girlfriend I’ve ever met. Well, my other-soon-to-be-roommate is, I suppose. But she’s been with her boyfriend for over two and a half years now, so I credit a certain amount of that to their level of comfort and security as a couple. I, on the other hand, am in a fairly new relationship and am still ridiculously low-maintenance. I don’t wait around for phone calls, or even expect them really. I hardly get jealous, and never to an extreme level. I don’t expect my boyfriend to pay for anything and don’t expect gifts except perhaps on my birthday. (Not even on Christmas because my birthday is so close to Christmas I am accustomed to getting Birth-mas gifts. And I think Valentine’s Day is a joke.)
I am about as low-maintenance as they come. The only thing I expect out of a relationship is loyalty and honesty. But gaging my most recent track record, I’d say that’s expecting a lot. The thing is, I return it. I am not saintly enough to say that I have never cheated. I was young and stupid and in love with someone else for years - and even those are not good enough excuses to make up for it. The boy I was with at the time has no idea and I could never tell him. We are too good of friends for me chance ruining it over something that happened long ago. Aside from that, it was a secret affair (which made it all the more appealing and thrilling at the time) and what good are those if everyone knows about them. But because of this, I am loyal to fault now. I am extremely trusting, loving, and adoring while I am with someone - and would not cheat were an opportunity to come up. I am sure of this in my heart. Even if Fred were to come home - as much as stupid heart still longs for that kind of love - were he to appear at my doorstep and beg for me back, I would go to Alex before anything else.
I guess I should come to a point, because I could talk myself in circles coming up with examples, scenarios, and analyzing my behavior patterns — I don’t love like other people do.
When I love, it is not shallow or fleeting, or forgettable. When I love, it is deep, sincere, wholly, life-altering (for me at least). And easy. God, it’s so easy for me to fall in love. That kind, the serious kind. The kind with implications. I almost wish that my heart had reins so I could hold it back before I fall on my face and get hurt. But it doesn’t. And after my train of thought today, I’m glad. Because if I were able to do that, if I try - like I have been recently, I lose myself. I lose a part of who I am. That is a major part of who I am and rare enough that it ought to be treasured. I’ve just got to find the right person who will do so. I’ve got to find someone who I can trust it with, who deserves it.
I need to be more picky. I wonder if that will make me high-maintenance. I don’t think I care.
I want to be a starving artist. Bone-thin, tall and gangly because of it, and jealous of girls with natural curves. I want to have a shitty apartment that is dirt cheap and maybe a little dangerous. I want there to be a gray cat waiting for me when I come in from my minimum wage bistro job. He’ll be named after the brooding main character from some great literary work. I’ll walk in, pet the cat for a little bit and then turn left into the kitchenette that has dingy linoleum countertops that match the yellowed and peeling linoleum floor. There will be some terrible brown and orange tile pattern on the back wall above the counter leering out at me from the midst of whatever hell the 70’s retired to. I’ll open a faded painted wood cabinet to one bag of cat food, a jar of peanut butter, a bottle of PAM cooking spray, and a can of stewed mushrooms. I grab the cat food and pour Heathcliff, who is curving around my legs a bowl of food. “It’s a feast for you good sir.” I mutter as I bow to him and my own stomach growls. I stare at the cabinet for a moment and then at the cat, who is happily munching away on his banquet. I walk into my bedroom that barely fits a twin mattress and a beat up dresser, and begin dropping all of my bags and coat and scarf etc - until I’m in nothing but my skimmies. I bend down and scrounge through the mess I just made until I find a thin cotton t-shirt and pull it over my head. I walk back into the kitchen, grab the single clean spoon from its drawer and before reaching in to grab the jar of peanut butter, lovingly ruffle the cats head. Into the living room I go, I settle onto the sagging couch with it’s horrid flower pattern (if the pattern on the linoleum and the kitchen tile had a baby and it barfed all over - it would be the color of my couch) and reach under the seat cushion for the remote. If I leave it out Heathcliff will press the buttons all day, turning the tv off and on and spiking my electric bill. I turn on the fuzzy tv and flip through the 3 channels I get with my foil antenna and settle into my life.
It just occurred to me how terrified I am to leave for the summer.
The realization did not spawn from some jealous moment or instant of obvious insecurity, but instead because of how preciously I was treating each moment I spend with him before that time comes. I don’t remember ever feeling this tender toward someone. It’s just that there is nothing wrong thus far - and that in itself, being aware of me and my history of relationships - seems wrong. But it’s not. It’s wonderful. And he’s pretty wonderful. I’m just so happy spending time with him. The last few days that we’ve been at his parent’s house to watch his younger brother have just been amazing. Not in the sense that anything spectacular happened, in fact, mostly because nothing spectacular happened. We watched went out to dinner, did laundry, watched a movie, made pizza, cleaned up the house a bit, mowed the lawn, lounged- all normal weekend activities. It just seemed so normal, like we did it every day. And it was so nice being able to be around him whenever I wanted. I love how casual we are with each other. Something changed this weekend, deepened. We are no longer a new couple, I can feel it. We crossed some imaginary line that advanced us into a new comfort zone.
He just walked up to me, kissed me and when I paused for explanation, he said, “That’s it.” and walked away. It’s official, I’m pretty crazy about him.
But knowing that, and knowing that I am leaving for the summer has made me treat each moment that I am with him as if it is something beautiful and fragile. I suppose this is not a bad thing, but for what it means to me. You see, I often take things for granted and if I am not it is for a reason. I am making this time worth it because I worry it will be all we have. It’s not his fault I was cheated on last summer and therefore wary of long-distance relationships ( although truth be told I had very good reasons to be wary before but wasn’t wise enough to ) And so I feel terrible knowing the in my subconscious I have trouble trusting men. I suppose all I can do is be grateful that I am happy and able to appreciate it (no matter what the reason behind it is)
I don’t think I’ve truly grasped how intricate the WordPress world is yet. I just did a bit of a scan through my homepage and realized how many options I have ignored. I have no categories, no pictures, have not imported or exported anything yet. I felt brave and adventurous, the way you do after your first kiss - that is, until you learn about sex and everything in between and realize you’d just stumbled onto the tip of an iceberg and have opened the door to a world you’d been previously unaware of. You know what they say; kissing leads to other things. I only wanted a new blog but now I’m worried that I’ve gotten myself into something I won’t be able to get out of - I will just get more and more involved in the wordpress community until I no longer have a life outside it! And lose all identity except that of my wordpress blog!
Okay, so it’s not that serious, but honestly, I can see myself spending more and more time on here. Though I’ve decided that is no tragedy, my vocabulary could use the encouragement. I haven’t read a novel for myself in longer than I would like to admit to myself, and having abandoned journaling for the year, I have avoided any kind of enriching activity therefore demolishing the vocabulary I had painstakingly built over the years. It’ll be refreshing.
I started to write Maria tonight. I wrote about the summer, camp and then him. I got through all of the good times and how hard I fell, moved onto my first semester of college- but had to stop because I started writing about Christmas Break. Everything rushed back to me. I think it hurts more now than it did then. How does that happen? And to think, I talk so big everytime I hear about some scandalous guy cheating: “She should just dump his ass and be done! Why would she even consider taking him back?” yet, here I sit, pining after a prime example of a sleazeball. He didn’t even have the balls to admit his infidelity to me and in doing so broke the only promise he’d ever made me.
Tonight my roommate posed the hypothetical situation: If you had a negative opinion about a good friend’s relationship should you tell them? I decided that it depended on your relationship with the person and whether or not the relationship they were involved in was unhealthy for them and hurting them. She proceeded to tell me that she thought my boyfriend was rude and she was worried that his personality would rub off on me.
You know, I don’t really care that he is rude to my friends. I feel like maybe that ought to matter but truly, I don’t care how my boyfriend gets along with my friends. After years of being screwed over by both parties and often somehow relating to one another - I have decided that mixing my boyfriend with my friends is something that just never works out for me. After my best friend in eighth grade convinced me to break up with probably the only decent guy I’ve ever been with, and I had another ex leave me for one of my friends, etc. etc. After a few similar scenarios, I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe mixing my relationships with my circle of friends isn’t a good idea.
Now this isn’t as cut and dried of a rule as I make it sound; I have to date guys that I’m friends with. How am I supposed to be friends with guys without hanging out with them in a group of friends ever? Well, I have thought about it and to be more exact : I don’t care if my girlfriends get along with my boyfriend. In fact, I want to keep them away from my boyfriends, so really it is convenient for me that my 2 closest friends think he’s rude. I don’t have to worry about co-mingling and the drama that is sure to ensue because of it. Well, perhaps convenient is a bit of a stretch - I’m sure that him ever coming over to the apartment is going to be awkward, especially since I’m sharing a room with one of them, but I just assume I’ll sleep at his place when we do stay the night together.
One of my roommate’s points was that I might should worry about how he treats other people, but she mooted that point when she pointed out that he is only nice to the people he cares about. Not that I myself have that attitude, I am a bleeding heart and care about anything that has a heartbeat -a trait which often is abused by the people in my life- so I can’t exactly blame him for it. But I am someone he cares about and to this point in our relationship I don’t have a single complaint for the way he has treated me. We have never fought about anything, he is always open to my feelings and concerns, we’re able to have intelligentconversations, he puts up with me being irrational, he understands my humor and I his. I guess I’m a little grateful that my roommate is a mostly selfish person, she pointed out that he is indifferent only to people that don’t matter to him (thinking of herself). Her example was that she would like a “hey how’s it going?” everytime she sees him, but somehow it doesn’t bother me that for once when a guy walks into a room he’s all eyes and ears for me. In fact I think I’m a little flattered.
I suppose that this sentiment may change when I am looking for a more serious relationship. For example as far as my husband goes, I will look for that trait in my relationship. But for now, when I am content with who I am with and the level we function on, I don’t need my friends and my boyfriend to get along.
So sometimes I get a little nostalgic, sometimes I can’t help but let my mind drift back to old relationships. There is a folder in My Pictures labeled Ferdy that it has all of the pictures he sent me, the 1 picture of us together, and also all of the pictures his new girlfriend took of him (wow, don’t I feel like a creepster now.. they were posted on his facebook when we stopped talking for a while - though I think the explanation made me sound even creepier. Crap.)
As you can imagine it’s quite a bittersweet trip down Memory Lane - however, apparently I know myself well enough to provide roadblocks:
And here I thought Boot’s was snazzy for discovering something new.
I am longing for something again. It stems from the dissatisfaction with just about everything. I can’t explain why this happens to me. I manage to get through a few months just peachy keen, but somehow that steadily growing sense of discontent with my life, its direction, and just about everything - it tends to creep in. This is about the time I demand a sabbatical. It doesn’t matter that every possible part of my life is beginning to settle, that things are finally going well for me - or maybe that is it. Maybe Sean was right, maybe I enjoy things being difficult so much that I make them that way. I have to create a problem when there isn’t one because I am unhappy without something to solve. . . and I considered it for a second but it still sounds like the same old b.s. as when he said it. I miss my 16 year old self. I miss the girl I was then. I feel like now, not only am I not a person I admire, I am not progressing in any worthy way. I don’t know that it is that I am unhappy with the direction my life is taking - maybe it’s just that I don’t feel its enough. Like everything could be better and I know it: school, relationship, friendships, work. I feel like I am half-assing everything and I hate it. I want to be my own person. I just want nothing to do with anyone else. I resent having to rely on someone for anything. Wow, I just hit the root of so much. That would explain why I don’t like that I am getting close to anyone. That is why I don’t want to be around people, that is why I’ve been steering clear and avoiding contact.
Is it terrible of me that despite the fact that I know this is probably his fault, I still miss him? The thing is, feel like my life is not enough. And I can’t fool myself, part of it is that I felt it was when I was with him, but mostly he set my bar high and I don’t want to settle but don’t want to work at achieving something higher. I don’t feel I should have to. I think I’ve been jerking my own chain. I can’t honestly believe that a) he’d want me back or b) it would be anything remotely like it was. But— perhaps this is because vegas found a guy who is so perfect for her in everyway, and I am jealous. Because I had that and lost it, by no fault of my own. (I have to hold to that belief or I will never forgive myself.) And not all of this ties to him, I won’t allow him that amount of flattery. No, in fact very little of it is credited to that direction.
I miss myself. I miss the girl I was 3 years ago. I miss the value system I lived my life by, the attitude I held towards the world, and the outlook I held. I was just generally a better person then. I think I need to adopt some of the mindset I held then. I want to be more self-sacrificing. I finally took everyone’s advice and grew a backbone, and I’m miserable. I hate the person I’ve become. I feel selfish and angry with myself all the time. If I get shit on and people take advantage of me - fine. At least I will be able to live with myself. It’ll be as my mom calls it, my little steps to heaven, she and I get there by mountains and mountains of forgiveness. I would much rather be self-sacrificing than selfish.
I am irritable tonight, with no legit reason, and that in itself makes me irritable. I am also anti-social. I really want very little to do with anyone else. Just walking the track, capturing the outdoor smell mingling with smoke in my hair and feeling cold wash over my face as the wind batters me, is enough.
Her heels clip like a Clydesdale as she dashes across the road. She leaps over the curb and comes to a stop at a plastic bubble-topped bus stop. She’s out of breath and leans against an advertisement for a play that stopped running last week. It is not quite night yet though the sky is darkening quickly. Or at least she thinks so, it’s hard to tell while in the midst of another Wisconsin winter, when there are no colors just darkening shades of gray. She checks her phone, she’s not quite late. She drops a large canvas bag onto the wet pavement and crouches to scrounge for bus fare. A fur-lined hood falls over her head as she bends it down to scratch at the lint in the corner, hoping it will turn into a nickel. It doesn’t, so she stands and saunters toward the young man sitting on the bench. “Excuse me,” she pulls out her best sheepish smile, “I seem to be short five cents, can you spare me a nickel?” She pauses as he considers. “I’ve got to get home to feed my cat.” She sits and stretches one leg out as goosebumps spread across her bare thigh. He mutters something and puts his hand into his pocket. She crosses the other leg and leans back on the bench. He hands her a nickel and she beams at him, as the bus pulls up to a screeching halt a few feet from them. She jumps up quickly with a “Thank you Mister!” and climbs aboard. She sits on a cushioned seat and leans her head against the windowpane, feeling every bump and jolt of the bus along her temple. She closes her eyes, letting her mind wander erratically, like the needle of a broken compass. A baby begins to wail to the left of her. A woman sings in Spanish in a low crooning voice, and she lets the sound wash over her, her head filled instantly with quick violins and an acoustic guitar, and a warm breeze drifting through the open doorways and mud walls of the little house. There is a window with sand outside of it, and red rock giants hunching in front of an open blue sky, and a baby in the back of the bus, with a woman crooning softly in Spanish. The florescent lights on the bus flicker as she sits up on the pale blue seat and grabs her bag before it falls to the ground when the bus stops with tired wheeze of brakes. She hops off on to the cement curb, clutches her coat around her and tucks her head from the oppressive sky. Ducking through the crowd she runs up cold steps and out of the gray day into a washed out hallway. Her feet pound quietly on the faded carpet as she practically runs up the stairs and past the drab walls. Her key turns in the lock and her kitty meows a little welcome, weaving his soft furry body around her ankles. She sighs and leans against the door absorbing the warmth of her apartment. The walls are painted a dark red that she’ll have to paint over when she leaves, she tosses her coat and bag onto the peeling linoleum countertop and picks up the cat to cuddle as she wanders into her bedroom to begin the search for her favorite baggy sweater. She pulls her hair out of its restraint and lets it fall loose around her shoulders. Hot water pours into a mug releasing scents of cinnamon and clove as it hits the teabag. She reaches for the remote flipping on some background noise and plops down on the suede couch, arranging pillows of sapphire and emerald around her so that she is sitting on a cloud. Reaching over to the end table with a framed sketch she picks up the novel there and opens it to a page, and settles in to lose herself in a world brighter than this.
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