:: Searching for Puck... ::

:: Friday, July 25, 2003 ::

A gentle warning: Heavy thought ahead. Don't read if you're looking for anecdotes or humor, today.

When I started this weblog, it was for one reason. I was getting tired of repeating the same stories to people, specifically bad things. No one likes to repeat bad things, or stupid things, over and over. So, I posted the dark and inane bits of my life here, and the beginning of the world-after-Marco dating saga.

I realize now, that, through time, I've learned to temper my entries to be less offensive, less sharp. Diplomacy has snuck into my writing. I do not lie to people but sometimes I will omit the truths I consider unimportant to spare feelings. I notice it more and more these days. So here, at 2 in the morning on a friday that started out perfect and ended with me crying at 1:30 am on the drive home from Red Bank, are my conclusions of why I am unhappy.

There are a lot of men in my life. That's my own fault. Men as themselves are not bad things, but emotionally, they cause issues. I'm tired of stipulations. I'm tired of being good enough to sleep with but not good enough to make, so to speak, an honest woman of. I'm tired of sneaking around and only hearing from people at 1 in the morning when they're lost and lonely and need someone to anchor them to the world through horizontal physics or a sympathetic ear, and ending up stranded like this when I want, when I need, something to remind me that the cosmos does indeed know I exist and feel.

Of the aforementioned men, there are A, B, C, and D.

A will let me sleep over, talks about his family, acknowledges I exist to his friends, will not sleep with me, will fool around with me, will not commit. Never seen him in daylight, we're completely incompatible. He knows it, we agree.

B won't/can't let me sleep over, I've met part of his family but was under strict orders to be totally platonic, enthusiastically admits I exist to his friends, won't sleep with me, will sort of fool around with me, won't/can't commit. Mostly daytime, we're completely incompatible. He knows it, we agree.

C won't sleep over, won't introduce me to his family, won't sleep with me even though he did once before, will fool around with me, won't commit. Seen him in daylight twice, I used to think we were compatible, but he's so apathetic and prone to bouts of all-media silence that I'll never know. I like him to a degree, but I'm only willing to do so much chasing and prodding. He maintains he really does like me, but does absolutely nothing to reinforce it, and never has.

D won't sleep over, won't introduce me to his family, will happily sleep with me, definately fool around with me, won't commit. Seen him in both halves of the day a handful of times. We disagree, sometimes heatedly, about a number of things, but, unfortunately, even reminding myself of this fact isn't getting him out of my head. I've fallen, and pretty hard, at that. Don't know what he thinks of 'us'.

So there you have it. Four men, four months, nothing to show for it but bedpost notches, jadedness, broken dreams, and a broken heart. I tried everything - treating it all casually and 'just having fun', and that blew up at me. I tried looking for a decent guy. I tried not looking for a decent guy. I tried meeting someone through similar interests. I tried being friends with someone first. I tried dating a virgin to get the sex stress out of things. Nothing.

I had one of the best six hour periods of my life today, and six hours later I was listening to the radio, crying until my eyes hurt, and cursing the music producers that put out so many songs about love, lust, and pain. I feel pain about the uncertain nature of my life and heart - that horrible wrenching stomach-ice-fear type of pain, and guilt. Someone knocked themselves out for me today to give me a great day, and I all but ruin it by letting my emotions get the better of me.

I think the most frustrating feeling in the entire world is knowing exactly what you want to say, but not even having the strength to say it because you know the futility before it even forms itself on your tongue. Second only to that is being angry, furious at that fact, and having not a single justifiable outlet.

You can make someone know something, but understanding can never be taught by force. A very smart guy told me that today.

Seven months ago, I was laying in the bed Jon had bought me for my birthday, in our apartment, at night, alone. I was crying, exhausted, and suicidal. Jon had given the final word on the end of us, and I had made an ass out of myself in the middle of the complex hallway, begging him not to, earlier in the evening. Two of his friends dragged me off and away, and I was left in the tomb of our place, filled with eight months of what was to be my new, adult life with him, and I thought my life was over. I was out dignity, a job, all my friends, a home, and a school - all because of one man's cruelty. And you know what, even that didn't hurt.

What hurt was when I asked him why, and he splayed his palm out, and told me to put mine on it, so our hands were flat together. He was asian, Jon, so he had small hands. The first joints of my fingers extended past where our hands met. He looked at it and said, "That's why." I think that those two words hurt me more then Marco slamming my head into a doorframe in a drunk rage. They echoed in my mind more then the violation I felt at the hands of my attacker, two years before. He had looked at me with such undisguised contempt at that moment, and all for something he had taken me knowing, and knew I couldn't change. I felt like a grain of dirt - insignifigant and base. I started, subconsiously, seeing myself as this huge lumbering thing of a woman that no man would ever want. I have a problem with eating, even now, months after. I shouldn't let it get me, but it does all the same.

The point is, that today, someone took that pain I've been shouldering all this time, away. My gratitude is unspeakable. Those two words, that action, had changed what I'd seen in the mirror for almost eight months now. I'm finally starting to see what I really am, after all this time. He didn't mean to do it, he didn't set out to heroically right my wrongs. He just treated me like a human being, and a desirable one. It seems a silly little interlude, but for me, it's the difference between pretending to be okay with my body and actually being so. Talk all you want about how unhealthy it is to need vindication, because I don't. I just needed to remember, not to be pronounced as perfect or beautiful. I just wanted to let him know how much I appreciate what he does for me, intentional or not.


~Fox
:: Fox 7/25/2003 02:39:00 AM [Say what?] ::
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