So much drama

A couple weeks ago I had a one night stand. I know. Seriously, I know. This is so far out of character I don't even know what to think of myself right now.

He's only 20, and I was just supposed to be earning a bit of spending money by helping him with a research paper, but somehow I got distracted. There is an incomparable strangeness here, it goes without saying that I didn't feel at all like myself at the time, but I'm surprised by how strong and capable I did feel. There wasn't even a trace of the shrinking, guilty, unworthy feeling that I've always had any time any guy shows even the slightest interest in me. Instead I felt confident and somehow almost… superior? Not quite, but I'm not sure how to describe it. Maybe I just felt like I was on equal footing with someone for once, and I'm so unused to the feeling that I have trouble recognizing it. I felt self-controlled and in control of the situation, which makes my choices even stranger and more suspect. And I specifically informed him that he would not be seeing me again, and that I didn't want him forming any sort of attachment. And I meant it. Who am I and what have I done with myself?

All the same, I resolved not waste too much of my time moping and feeling guilty about it. I refuse to just sit around and mourn the loss of David, or try to save a place for him in my life. Errors in judgment aside, that night was a good exercise in both; I had a genuinely good time, and sleeping with someone else goes a long way to ensuring that David won't share my bed again, even if he did feel the momentary impulse to do so. I'm still pretty conflicted about that last one, but I expect it will be better for me in the long run.

Then a couple nights later, I was hanging out with John and we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning talking and… cuddling, I suppose, though I didn't think of it in those terms at the time. I enjoy his personality quite a bit, I'm not even remotely attracted to him, and he's been eager to spend time with me lately. All of this had me very happy and hopeful; it's so hard to move from acquaintances to friends, and I thought it was a sure bet with him. But, no. Apparently his interest is at least partly romantic. And, like an idiot, I didn't notice until way too late. He was so subtle about it, everything had a double meaning, and at some point I just realized that while I was exulting in having a friend I could share some simple, uncomplicated affection with, he was over there thinking of this as a date, and trying to take things somewhere I really didn't want them to go. If I had caught on sooner, or stayed calm at least, I'm sure there was a graceful way to deal with the situation. I was completely incapable of that, though, and instead worked myself into a hard little knot of anxiety that blossomed into a full blown panic attack the next day. I'm sure I confused him to no end.

I'm still trying to figure out what frightened me so much about it. I felt completely powerless and incapable of doing anything right, and I'm not sure whether that was cause, effect, both, or neither. And the thing is, I need to figure this out. I recognize it as the same thing I felt with Ben, and that didn't go so well for me. John's a sweet guy and he deserves a tactful, honest explanation. I have no idea what I'm going to say the next time I see him.

And I didn't get much of a chance to think about it before being distracted; a couple nights after that, David called. We talked from 8:30 until well past 5 in the morning. He told me about his new (largely failed) romance, and it's obvious that she's taking advantage of him and he thinks he deserves it after what he put me through. I don't know what to say to him about it, past explaining that if I don't hold it against him, then certainly no one else has the right to any sort of punishment, and I sincerely want him to be happy. Telling him all that, however, made him cry, which left me even more flummoxed and stuttery. He sobbed, to the point he couldn't even speak, and was less in control of himself than I've ever seen before, completely unselfconsciously heartbroken. I don't know if it was about her or me or both. When he recovered enough to communicate intelligibly, he told me that of all the girls he's been with, I'm the one he thinks the most of, and then went on to enumerate my virtues. I had no idea how to respond, especially when he went on to say that he loves me and always will. Which isn't that strange of a thing for an ex-boyfriend to tell you, except that he never directly said he loved me when we were dating. Unsurprisingly, I was crying by this point as well.

We went on to exchange some truly ill-timed tenderness and encouragement, and eventually recovered with some light jokes (all of which hinged on our knowing each other so well, but neither of us addressed that part). We talked about music and exchanged some songs, listened to a couple together and cried shamelessly during the sad ones. I think he might still be in love with me, and I don't know what to make of that after months of trying to reconcile myself to the idea that he never was. I did my best to be gentle and honest, but still self-controlled and aware of the situation we're in. There is too much history, too many things in the way at this point, to pretend that just caring for each other fixes anything.

It still felt incredible to hear it.

He's promised to help me get my grad school applications in, despite my telling him several times not to. I hadn't told anyone about dropping the ball with all that, but somehow he must have guessed… no, that's not giving him enough credit. He knows me very, very well, and I'm every bit as overwhelmed and terrified now as he was two years ago when I held his hand and cajoled and nagged him into completing his own applications, knowing all the while that in doing so I was setting him up to leave me. He insists that he's going to do the same for me. And he knows me so well that he can manipulate me completely overtly and with light-hearted references to pushing my buttons, and still have me completely under his thumb. He checked on all the deadlines for each of the schools I want to apply to and helped me (read:bullied) put together a to-do list , and told me he'll be disappointed if I don't get everything done on time. Flagrant manipulation, and it worked like a charm. I don't think it's a good idea to lean on him or give him such an important role in my life, but at the same time I hadn't so much as looked at a GRE schedule before I talked to him, and now I've scheduled my GRE, written emails requesting my letters of rec, and started three different applications. And he's called three times in less than 48 hours to make sure I'm on schedule. I love him more than I can say, and I'm so afraid that's just going to bring me more pain.

So now, I need to figure out how I'm going to comport myself as a sexually active adult, explain to a sweet, gentle guy that I'd love to be his friend but won't even consider anything more, and try to keep some significant emotional distance from the man I love even as he forcefully inserts himself into my life entirely at his expense and for my own good. God, I'm so confused. Sometimes I think things were easier when I was all awkwardness and bad hair and got noticed at best once every couple years. I have no idea whatsoever how to deal with positive male attention, and I need to figure it out, quick.

Collapsing rooms

The way I deal with extreme emotional unrest is to compartmentalize. I suppose this is still a fairly new coping mechanism for me; it’s hard to say for sure, because I wasn’t entirely conscious of it at first, but I think I started a couple years ago. When I feel something that’s simply too much to take, I put it out of my mind during the day, when I’m out with people or when anything needs to get done. And then, when my responsibilities are taken care of and I’m alone, I let myself wallow in whatever anxiety or hurt I’ve been putting out of mind, give myself free reign to cry and sulk and generally be a big, blubbery mess. Overall, it seems to be a pretty good strategy. These past couple years I’ve been able to keep up with my practical responsibilities without totally cutting myself off from my emotions when things get rough. It seems to have broken my previous cycle of oscillating between irrational, purely emotional decision-making and total emotional shutdown and denial. Which is good, because neither of those ever worked that well, and this new system seems to have worked for a while. Except right now, it isn’t.

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with me. After more than four years of therapy largely focused on being aware of and honest with myself, that’s a strange and unpleasant thing to realize. I’ve had trouble putting my anger and hurt away for a while now, and worse, a lot of the time I can’t seem to fully feel anything when I’m alone and it’s safe to feel. Or, maybe, I’m afraid to feel any of it? I’m not sure. Which is in and of itself scary and anxiety-provoking. I’d gotten very used to being clear on what I was feeling and what I wanted, even if I couldn’t always do anything about either of them. I’m incredibly anxious right now, almost fearful, but I can’t say what about. It’s almost like there’s too much that I don’t want to feel, and I’m afraid of it on this peripheral, pre-conscious level, so I don’t quite feel the full impact of it but instead there’s this incredible stress of keeping it at bay.

And those times when I do feel it are really, really bad. Maybe it’s the build up of setting it aside for too long, but that hasn’t been an entirely conscious choice here lately. I’m being far too abstract for this to be clear. An example: right now, I’m sitting in a cafe full of quiet, studious people enjoying a peaceful afternoon. And I feel, on the whole, pretty good. I’m chatting intermittently with a friend on Facebook, and when he asks how I am, I surprise myself with how much sincerely positive stuff there is to say about my life right now. But a moment later, I look across the room and think about how many times David and I sat on that couch over there, sharing chamomile tea, and then I have to clamp down on that thought, and I can feel something huge and awful just on the periphery of my awareness.

And all of that sounds like good, effective compartmentalizing, but I’m not consciously choosing any of it, and I’m afraid to face that big, awful chunk of unprocessed emotion even when I’m in a good situation for it. It’s snuck up on me a couple times, and I haven’t coped well. This isn’t the usual melancholy that’s embarrassing and undignified but ultimately just part of life, the sort of thing I secretly get a kick out of. It’s… overwhelming and terrifying. I want to sort through it and analyze it here, but I can’t even begin because I haven’t faced up to enough of it to know what’s there. It’s way too much for me right now, and I don’t know yet how I’m going to deal with it.

On a completely unrelated note: I promised an updated version of that last poem, and though I’m still not quite satisfied with it, it’s much closer to done.


An Inquiry into the Basic Nature of Fluids –
Water Flowing Apart

I wanted to know if water
scooped from a stream
knows what it’s lost or
does it just feel
smaller
diminished, not divided
is it content to fill a space
or does it remember the flow

you won’t speak of it
these rivers beneath our skin
yours are gears and keys and bits of wire,
so very clever,
but they will never flow

like water that is poured
a measure in your glass, in mine,
and I will always wonder
do they know each other
sitting side by side

you have brought me more
poured out until
water, which can’t remember
how it came to be,
knows it is
full
to the brim

but still you insist
a watchmaker’s wasted hauling water

the drops between us,
sips and spills,
must be the loneliest of all

Hey, look, I still have a blog!

...And a year and a half later, I decide to come back to it.

I got a comment notification email a couple days ago from someone I've never met, and I have absolutely no idea how she found me, but it was encouraging and uplifting and just the nudge I needed to un-abandon my blog. (Thanks, Toyah. I was confused but very touched, and I'm glad this all is worth something to someone other than me.) I'd already been thinking lately about the sort of things I usually write here, my motivations for self-examination and sharing, and wondering whether or not to come back and post some more.

I hesitated to come back, because, well, blogs are kinda silly, "for people who like to hear themselves type" as David once put it. But I've got all these thoughts, and writing them all out can only help me sort through them and maybe figure out the things I've been missing, so why not? I'm not going to start anything too big tonight, seeing as it's already pretty late, but I've got (eek!) a poem that I've been staring at for a couple hours now, and I thought I'd share. It's really just a rough draft, but I couldn't say right now if anything more will come of it any time soon. This all just sort of fell out of my head as is, and I've got a strong suspicion I won't like it much in the morning and will feel the need to pick it to pieces, but for the moment, I have no idea what to do to improve it. So:

An Inquiry into the Basic Nature of Fluids –
Water Flowing Apart

I wanted to know if water
scooped from a stream
knows what it’s lost
or does it just feel
smaller
diminished, not divided
content to fill a space
no memory of the flow

when the pitcher is poured
and you and I each hold a glass
do they know each other
sitting side by side

you could have taught me or
together we might have learned
but you’re so certain
a watchmaker’s wasted hauling water

water measured in sips and spills
must be the loneliest of all