The Old Familiar Problems, Just More…Absurd. June 9, 2009

I just really don’t know what to do with guys sometimes.  They’re kind of retarded.  If you don’t count that whole staying-home-with-the-kids thing, The Lawyer was really the only one I’ve been with who wasn’t completely clueless about life.  Long story (actually following) short, The Jerk is back and he’s writing me letters!  I mean, seriously!  At least I have good sense about me now, unlike I did, oh, a year ago.

He’s been IMing me like crazy lately, and it all revolves around some problems he’s been having (has had) with his wife (yup) and trying to decide what career he wants.  I swear, the guy changes his mind everyday.  Apparently, according to him, he’s past thinking about the “what if” of our relationship and has just learned to accept it.  Good, because I decided that a while ago.  Actually being with someone normal and compassionate can do that to a person.  But I think he’s been fighting with his wife most of the time, and so I guess he needs someone to talk to.  And now he’s writing letters, apparently trying revive that time in our lives when we were writing each other letters and felt really connected.  But I don’t feel really connected anymore, and writing him a letter just seems absurd to me.  I mean, granted, I am talking to him, and I’m not ignoring him or what not.  It’s not that I’m complaining about this, and I’m certainly not confused about what is going on.  I’m observing the fucked-upness of this situation.

He IMed me the other night to urge me to write him back.  He feels comfortable writing to me because I “know his soul.”  Which is true, I guess, in a way, because back in the day we did really understand each other in some strange way.  But it’s gone now.  Absolutely gone.  I can’t write to him like I did then, nor do I want to.  When I read his letter, I was reading it from a very unattached point of view.

I think what I feel is very sorry for him.  I knew that he was making a bad decision, but it wasn’t mine to make.  I feel sorry that he is so lost and unhappy and that he is having problems with the wife he hasn’t even been married to for a year yet.  I also feel kind of annoyed that when I talk to him on IM, he won’t let me get anything in, he just keeps talking and talking and talking about himself and the same problems.  He wants to feel like someone cares about him, I guess, and he probably thinks that person is me.  But it’s not.  I’ll listen to him when he IMs, but I’m not going to coddle him or write him passionate letters revealing my soul.  Perhaps I’ll write him a polite letter because we are friends, but I’m only doing that because I can now and it doesn’t hurt me anymore.  I wouldn’t be doing this if there was still some kind of emotional attachment there still.  I think we could’ve been happy together before everything went to shit, but then again, I don’t think things were supposed to not go to shit.  This is the kind of person he is, and I would not have been happy with that long term.  He wanted me to be who he wanted me to be, and I was not having that.  Apparently he’s still trying.  What he doesn’t realize is that I’ve been with someone who treated me far better than he ever did.  Sometimes I want to shove that in his face, but of course I won’t.

But anyway, boys are kinda dumb.  No commitments for me until I’m older and have found my place in life.  Not before then.  For now, I’ll just have fun with boys, which is apparently something I can actually do!  Life outside of Evangelical Institution is freaking awesome.  I never knew what I was capable of until now.  I know that sounds completely, um, retarded for me to be saying out loud, but I guess I just don’t really care because I’m having fun after years of practically being a nun.  And because of the fact that this blog has been super boring and depressing for the past few months, here are some fun anecdotes for you, who no longer reads this blog.

Last weekend, I went to a party with some people from my roommate’s school, and one of the guys there was flirting with me, which I noticed, and I did a little flirting back.  Nothing with any intentions, just fun.  When we started talking again, some other girl he knew was like “OMG!  You have that date tomorrow night!  What are you going to DO?”  And then that flirting died.  Then, later on in the evening, as I progressed through the jungle juice, I met a literature master’s person at local university.  We were talking about literature (of course) and about how it’s nice to finally talk to someone who isn’t trying to become a doctor.  We ended up exchanging phone numbers, and then my roommate was practically pushing me out the door to go to the Donut Dinette because that’s what he had been planning on doing after drinking.  Well, lit guy texted me while we were walking there and was pretty coherent in the first one, but it went downhill from there.  I should have known (because I was still coherent enough to be talking about my research area and getting annoyed when he kept saying “you have to do the dance” in reference to hoop-jumping in academia) that all people who attend local university are RETARDED.  This has been my general experience while living here.  I have neighbors who went/go there (retarded), and I know other people who did.  They’re retarded.  So when his texts started getting incoherent, I realized the error of my ways.

Then a few days later, the guy that I’ve been hooking up with calls me to invite me to another party.  We meet outside of the apartment and Hook Up Guy says, “so I hear that you were talking to Date Boy the other night.  He said he was flirting with you and then someone mentioned that he had a date and then you and your roommate started talking about it.”  Inwardly recognizing the hilarity of this situation (where Hook Up Guy is asking me if I was flirting with another guy) I just said, yeah sure.  So we walk into the party, and apparently Do the Dance Guy is there too.  So I’m like, crap, because I know that Hook Up Guy is going to want to hook up tonight, but Do the Dance Guy is going to be trying to do the same thing.  Awkward.  And Do the Dance Guy came through on this prediction.  He sees me come in and walks over and it begins.  He says “I’m so glad you’re here!  I didn’t think I would see you again!”  (I don’t think there’s  anything I hate more than guys who need to chill out initially and just back off a little).  Also, he starts asking me the exact same questions he did the other night, even including the phrase “you have to do the dance.”  At this point I’m still sober, so I’m not liking condescending questions like, “There’s been a lot of work done in that field; what are you doing to do to be original?”  Oh, so doing POSTCOLONIALISM on RUSHDIE at Retarded U.  is going to make you so original???  Ugh.  So I just start flirting a lot with Hook Up Guy and Do the Dance Guy gets the picture and starts getting kinda sulky.  Meanwhile, me and Date Guy are totally cool.  We were beer pong partners and gave the other guys a run for their money.  We didn’t win, alas.  Then on the way home, Hook Up Guy asks me if he’s really the one I wanted to come home with.  This might make me an asshole, but I find all of this completely amusing.  The end.

I’m Not Sorry There’s Nothing to Save May 3, 2009

A lot of things seem surreal right now.  Grad school, a certain four months of my life, and just, well, life.

I remember having a moment when I was five years old when I felt like I was outside of my body.  It wasn’t like I was floating above my body looking down or anything weird like that, but I remember having the distinct feeling that I wasn’t really living my life.  That I was just an observer to someone else’s life, and that this five-year-old body that was getting out of the car and walking through the garage wasn’t really mine.  I can remember standing there thinking this.  What the fuck kind of five-year-old thinks things like that?  I remember having more moments like that and I still have them now.  Sometimes I feel like my current apartment really isn’t mine and I’m not really living in it.  Maybe it’s because I’m sort of living an in between life right now, but it’s really strange.

Grad school is starting to feel surreal.  It’s actually happening, but I can’t help but think that it’s not actually happening.  I have visions of getting a letter from the school saying that they changed their minds and they don’t want me to come anymore.  I know that’s stupid, but it doesn’t seem to be unique to me.  Another girl I met at the recruitment weekend has the same kinds of thoughts a lot.

I finally got my enrollment package in the mail yesterday.  I signed up for my email address and what not, and soon I’ll be able to enroll in classes.  I had a little trouble just because stupid Evangelical Institution screwed up my transcripts.  I had to send new copies.  That might be why I haven’t really heard from the department since I accepted its offer.  I’m not really sure how this is supposed to go.  I think I’m supposed to hear from them regarding the precise class list and my teaching assignment.  I’m just not sure when I’m supposed to hear from them.  The other girl that I know already got her assignment, but she’s Ph.D., so I’m not sure if that has anything to do with it.  It’s probably because of my transcripts.  This just makes me worry more about my terror of the department renigging on its offer.

It all feels really surreal.  Honestly, I didn’t expect anything to turn out this well.  I didn’t think I was going to get funding.  I’m too hard on myself.  At first, I didn’t really want to apply to this school because of its location, but the more I looked into their program, the more I liked it.  And it’s crazy how well I fit into it.  The Graduate Admissions Director, when I visited, rattled off at least three reasons why he thought I would be a great fit in the program.  It’s exciting.  After four years of feeling really illegit in my undergrad studies, for whatever reason, I finally feel legit, like I’m supposed to be a part of this world.  I’m confident but scared shitless at the same time.  It’s a lot of pressure, and I’m worried about being prepared enough.  Did Evangelical Institution prepare me for grad school?  I have a feeling probably not, which is why I really need to beef up on theory this summer.  I feel good about my research abilities, ok about my writing abilities, and fine about my ability to handle the workload.  Hello, debate.

Overall, I know that I’ll be glad to be doing something that feels purposeful and is something that I enjoy.  I’ll enjoy being around other people like me, who are ambitious and smart and literate.  I didn’t get much of that in undergrad, and god knows I’m not getting that now.  Med students are a different breed of smart.  Will it feel real when it actually starts happening?

The other thing that feels totally surreal is the four months I spent with The Lawyer.  When we broke up, we totally cut each other off.  I haven’t heard from him since then, save for the letters we exchanged afterwards.  I’ve seen him around the neighborhood ramdomly, twice I think.  Everytime I see a fucking black BMW I freak out.  But the four months I spent with him were really great and then all of the sudden they were gone.  I’ve never really had an experience like that, and I think it sucks.  In fact, I’ve never been broken up with.  I’ve always done the breaking up, so I was in control and wanted it to happen.  Not the case this time.  Mostly I really hate not being in control of things like that.

But the other night I had a really long and dramatic dream about him.  I hate dreaming about exes.  Hate hate.  It ended with me running into him and we tried talking.  He started yelling at me about something.  He wanted me to leave him alone.  I wanted to know why, and he finally admitted that he needed to get over me, and I wasn’t helping by showing up.  How fucking awful to have a dream like that.

It’s also really strange how you can be fine for a while and then all of the sudden the ex will start making sudden appearances in your thoughts and in real life.  I’ll start thinking about my ex and then all of a sudden he will show up in my life.  Nothing, and then everything happens all at once.  It happened with The Jerk all the time.  It was really uncanny how he could almost read my thoughts and contact me when I was feeling most vulnerable.  It freaked me out.  Well, I’ve been thinking about The Lawyer this weekend for whatever reason, and today I saw him.  I was walking to the grocery store, crossing the street, and it was him in his car which had to slow down for me as I was going across the crosswalk.  How does that happen?  And then my knees started getting weak and I couldn’t walk.  I was wandering through the grocery store trying to focus on what I wanted to get.  I think I made two circuits before I finally got it together.  I have weird physical reactions when things like that happen related to The Lawyer.  I literally start shaking if I see him around the area.  I puked the night we broke up.  I couldn’t eat for a month after that.  I lost 10 pounds.  I would start gagging everytime I would brush my teeth which coincided with the lack of appetite.  It pisses me off.  He was great, but he was so ultimately WRONG for me.  Why do I have these reactions?  This has never happened before in my life.  He made sure to say that he wants to know where I end up as far as grad school, so I guess I’ll email him and tell him.  I’m trying to decide if I want to meet him for coffee before I move.  I think mostly it would be weird, and who even knows if he would want to, but I think it would make things less surreal.  But then again I’d probably have weird physical reactions and start shaking or something.  I really don’t know.  There are times when I really enjoy being single.  I feel awesome and powerful and happy.  But every once in a while thinking about him makes it harder.  I had no clue when I started dating him that I would like him as much as I did.  Sometimes I just hate dating.  But there’s really no middle ground for me.  I just want to fucking move away already so I don’t have to walk around fearing that I’m going to run into him.  Seriously.  When will it end?

I guess what I really hate are my emotions.  I hate the fact that someone can do this to me.  That they can come into my life and ruin the illusions of autonomy that I have.  I hate that they make me physically ill.  What I really don’t understand is that I can know rationally that someone is wrong for me, and yet still be affected by him.  If we had the chance I would not go back to him, but I still think about him.  What really blows my mind is that I can have the excitement of grad school ahead of me and still wish that I was waking up next to him, feeling him wrap his arms around me as he woke up, pulling me closer to him and then kissing me before he got out of bed.  Why would I want to retrogress for physical affection?  IT MAKES NO SENSE.

I guess that’s why I’ve taken to demonizing him in my mind.  I try to think about that conversation we had about children and how he thought it’s important for the mom to stay home for the first few years.  That helps to allay the longing.  Picturing myself as a lawyer’s wife watching the kid at home while he goes off to try to become a judge and doesn’t get home til 8 pm really takes the romance out of it.  I guess I could just make up stories in my mind about how much he (doesn’t really) sucks.  I always reach this point where I want to sit the person down and just scream at them and let out my frusturation.  I’ve never been good at on-the-spot anger, and it’s something I really hate about myself.

And jeez, the motherfucking lyrics to this song.  My Spring playlist is actually really fucking depressing.  I just try not to listen too much to the lyrics.

I’m Not Sure Why I Feel This Way March 5, 2009

I just got back from visiting one of the two schools that has accepted me so far.  I really didn’t want to come back.  I wanted to stay with my dad and his partner because I like them and I feel comfortable in their house.  In some ways I wish I had decided to stay there this year.  I feel like I would have been so much happier and more at peace.  But I guess I can’t dwell on these things.

Going to visit the school made me feel really hopeful and sure about where my future is going.  I can’t even describe how excited I was to find out all the things I did and to feel like this was definitely where I’m supposed to be.  And then I got to spend time with my dad, who really likes the person I’ve become.

And yet, when I came back, I got into some kind of funk that I’m having a hard time shaking.  Maybe it’s because I want to get on with my life, but I really don’t know where this came from.  On Wednesday, which was my first day back at work, all of the sudden I started missing The Lawyer like crazy.  I don’t know why, because I really felt at peace about what had happened, and I knew that it was for the best.  But when I got back, I, not willfully, started thinking about him, and now all of the sudden so many things are reminding me of him.  It makes me sad, even though I have so much to be happy about right now.  There was this one seminal moment in our relationship where I feel like I should have said something different, even though I rationally know that it would not have made a difference in the outcome.  Sometimes I feel that I was calloused in some ways, but I know that letting him know the full extent of what I felt for him would have been fruitless.  I guess it’s just stupid analyzation, but I wish it would go away.  I woke up at 5 AM today and I kept rehashing that conversation in my mind.  Probably, if I would have said what I truly wanted to say, it would have made things harder.  I just wish that things could have worked out.  And I don’t understand why these things are coming to my mind right now, when I’ve been so ok with it over the past few weeks. I’m not sure why this is happening.  I really want to talk to him again, just for the sake of talking to him.  Other than that, I’m at a loss.  I think coming back here just made it worse.  I realized that I had to come back to this place that I’m not tied to anymore, but that I can’t leave for a few reasons, mainly rent and work.  But I want to get out of here.  I want to get on with my life.  I want to do what makes me happy and move on.  But I can’t.  For another 4 and a half months.  So I guess I’ll just have to get drunk a lot til then to make the time go faster.

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