This blog is exclusively about our relationship, I guess. And I write too much.

8/30/11

            For the past couple of years, I’ve been overwhelmed by this inexplicable feeling of wanting to go home. No matter where I am, I want to go home. It’s sad, really, because by all accounts, I am at home:

This summer I worked at my university

            that I have attended for three academic years

                        that is located in my hometown

                                    where I have lived my entire life.

            Aside from a couple of summers in the Black Hills of South Dakota, this is where I’ve been and where everyone seems to think I am going to stay.

            I don’t want to.

            I just want to go home, wherever that is now. At first I thought returning to live with my parents would do the trick, but it does not. It’s their home now. Not that I don’t belong, but the saying “You can’t go home again” in that context seems true. I’m twenty-two years old, for crying out loud. I know I’m welcomed by two of the most loving, caring, supportive parents in the entire world, but I can’t just drive the twenty miles over and whine to mommy and daddy… again.

            So I thought maybe if I really tried to make my home on campus, the panic would subside. If for once I could just separate my college life and my childhood, and make real friends at school, and settle into a routine on campus, things would be okay. So I did that, to no effect. No matter how many months in a row I study/work here, it isn’t my home. It is, at best, a wonderful site for making memories and gaining useful knowledge, and at worst, temporary housing while I wait for real life to start. I can’t make any kind of a living here, and that adds to the kind of desperation I’ve experienced ever since I graduated high school.

            Then I thought maybe getting closer to my boyfriend would solve the problem. It does feel really good having someone to stand beside you and want to be your friend and lover and husband and father to your (potential) child(ren). It feels so safe, the way home should be, but at the same time I can’t expect him to be all that for me.

            He wants forever. I don’t know about forever. I asked him if that meant marriage and he said yes. I asked him if that meant kids and he said yes. Marriage I’m perfectly fine with, but I’m not sure I want a kid. I think I would be a horrible mother. He would constantly have to be the stable one, and that’s too much to ask of one person.

           Besides, forever??  I love him, but maybe I can’t give him forever. How long does forever work out?  I mean, sure, it sounds great in theory, but maybe it’s time for humankind to just acknowledge that people eventually get really fucking sick of each other. I fear that’s what will happen to us: one day, poof, he vanishes. The greatest thing in my life, ever, will disappear one day and his only reasoning behind it will be, “I just don’t want to be with you anymore.” I don’t think I could bear that if it happened.

----- (9/12/11)

            He’s eventually going to find someone better. He’s going to find someone smarter, prettier, funnier, sexier, and generally more irreplaceable than me. Anything I can do, she can do better; she can do anything better than me. It’s not like that kind of girl would be hard to find.

            Sure I’m his girl, for now. Sure I’m the only one he wants, for now. But then we’re going to graduate and a whole new world is going to open up for him. He never seems to understand that he is out of my league. I’m the right fielder for AAA and he’s pitching for the majors.

            He is such a catch. Granted, I’m biased, but even upon first meeting him, I knew this: He would never intentionally humiliate anyone. He is polite, he is honest, and he is funny without trying too hard. He appears stable. He is not an attention whore. He is not a complete douche bag. And to top it all off: he’s adorable.

            A guy like that is more difficult to find in today’s society than one might think.

            Meanwhile, it is much easier to find a girl who’s better than me. Let’s run down that list again:

            Smarter. It would be pretty easy to find a girl who’s smarter than me. I have the memory of a goldfish about every third day. My academic interests are extremely limited; I don’t keep up with current events as much as I should (and I’m a Goddamn Political Science major); it is beyond my ability to interpret statistics correctly. The extent of my scientific knowledge is Intro to Geology and half a semester of Organic Chem. I routinely forget and have to be re-taught how to play Euchre. I often walk into screen/glass doors. I’m kind of an idiot.

            Prettier. Again, this is fairly easy. I am blind as a bat and wear glasses at night; the rest of the time, I am squinting through my contacts. My hair often attacks my face; my eyebrows are bushy and I have more body hair per square inch than any woman should have. I already have wrinkles on my forehead and around my eyes; my posture is atrocious; my clothes are regularly messy/mismatched/inappropriate for the occasion; and my general countenance is one of confusion and/or irritation, according to friends. In addition, I am by no means that breed of human female who isn’t beautiful, but can pull off “cute.” I’m just scary.

            Funnier. Where to begin? 50% of any given day, I cannot pick up on: sarcasm, non-verbal cues, awkward pauses, awkward phrases, etc., which hinders my ability to tell jokes. Nor am I better at listening to jokes because I will either lose interest and fake my way through it, or completely misunderstand and think it’s funny for a reason other than that intended.

            Sexier. Probably easiest of all. I do NOT look that good in lingerie or naked. My tits are minuscule, my thighs are huge, and my belly is never a consistent shape or size. Sure, he likes me now, but that’s just because he’s never had another girl. If that happens, I’m afraid he’ll drop me in a second. I don’t know for sure, but I have a sinking suspicion that even now, he’s not getting what he really wants in bed and is just too polite to say so.

            Generally irreplaceable. Good girlfriends have hobbies and interests and a life. I have none of those things. Good girlfriends probably also have good career goals, but I can’t even decide on a career. Granted, he has interests and hobbies, but no life or career goals, so we’ve got that in common, but he can at least imagine the future, whereas I cannot.

            I honestly can’t figure out why he likes me at all. It has to be that because I am the first girl who ever hit on him, dated him, kissed him, slept with him, and wanted to spend the majority of my time with him, he is too nice to want to break up.

            But one day, he will leave me for another. This is one of my biggest fears.

----- (9/22/11)

            He loves me. He really does. Despite my being stupid and fat and ugly and awkward and unfunny and generally replaceable, and, oh my God, did I mention stupid, he loves me. There’s only one way I know: his eyes.

            The man has the most beautiful, expressive brown eyes I have ever seen. They change from playfulness to anger to love to pleasure and back again, all in an instant. I look at his eyes, but he looks into mine; and as much as I keep loading all of my writing with lame cliches, it truly is like he’s staring into my soul. Sometimes he doesn’t even say anything, and I can just look at his eyes, full of what I (probably naively) assume is love and trust and friendship, and I feel like everything is going to be okay.

            He can keep me calm, in a way that no one else I know can. Merely to spend a few minutes with the guy is enough to improve my mood. I don’t know how to tell him this, what he really means to me. Sure, I can tell him a million times that I love him, but it’s more than that.

            Yeah, I seem like I’m idealizing my first real boyfriend, and young love, and all those worn-out notions that have been used and over-used in romance novels. But this is how it is. I pray to God every night that I have the same calming effect on him, and that the feeling never goes away.

I Love You

I love how you said "I love you" first.

I love how when I am spouting insanity and incomplete sentences, you know what I mean.

I love how even when I'm not talking, you still know what I mean.

I love how you don't smother me, and you put up with me smothering you.

I love how you manage to care about little things that are happening to me, like job interviews.

I love how you don't really give a shit what most other people think of you.

I love how you're right about a lot of things, but you don't rub it in anyone's face.

I love how we wake up together on some mornings. I want to wake up, with you, like that, pretty much forever. Can we?

Whatever happened to...

• slinkies?
• cruising in your car with the windows down and the radio up?
• cooking your own food?
• reading for enjoyment and enrichment?
• standing by your man?
• thinking for yourself?
• getting your news once a day?
• using a phone to call someone?
• working with your hands?
• taking pride in your work?
• experience being valued over education?
• unconditional love?
• reason being valued over emotion?
• lincoln logs and legos?

Dear Boy,

This is just kind of an open letter to you, since I technically should be writing my paper but I can't get you off my mind. Big surprise.

You are my shooting star, my cherry on top, my friend I tell most everything. You are the reason I look forward to weekends now.

Thanks for being so patient. I know-- we've waited years to get to this point. For me, it really was "love at first sight," or at least lust at first sight. Love is a sort of strong word. But it's been a wicked two years waiting for you to come around, and then you waiting for me to come around, and then both of us finally, finally coming around at the same time this fall. Has it been the same for you?

I must have seemed so ridiculous. First I wouldn't go out with you. Then I wouldn't kiss you (or anyone else for that matter-- it really was a phobia for years). Then you backed off, and I wanted you more than I've ever wanted anything. I went after you full force. Stalking isn't the appropriate word, but I definitely threw myself at you. Finally, wonder of wonders, you reciprocated. And now you're mine.

I mean, I'm yours, too, but mostly you're mine. You put up with a lot, including the fact that I have not been able to put out yet. Even that one night when you put on the condom and I wanted it so bad, but somehow it just didn't happen. That, in and of itself, is amazing. I wish I could do the things to you in bed that you do to me. Your hands are like heaven. You make me asthmatic, you cause heart attacks. But we just haven't gotten to the point where I can return the favor yet. We'll figure it out soon. Trust me, we're gonna laugh at this years from now.

You're too good for me. You have your shit together. I just don't. As I admitted to you yesterday, and have actually admitted to very few people, I'm lazy. I'm still fairly convinced I'm going to drop out and end up working at Taco Bell, honey. And you say you'd still see me. But let's be honest, I know this to be a lie. And the thought of not seeing you anymore hurts more than I can say.

So I need to finish this English paper so I can stay in college. Yeah.

Update

Let's see, on Tuesday the 2nd I had a complete mental breakdown. The weekend before I was contemplating suicide. The 2nd was the day before my foreign policy paper was due and I was NOT GETTING IT FINISHED. I started it two weeks ahead, it was supposed to be around 15 pages, and I could not hack the last four pages.

Anyway, to make a long story short: I couldn't think about anything other than I want to die. I do not want to be here. This sounds like it was just about the paper but it was really the culmination of a lot of different things, the main one being I still believe I am brainless, spineless, useless and would be better off dead or in prison. I couldn't quit crying. My mother called, knowing something was wrong, and asked if I wanted to go home. There was nothing I wanted more in that moment. I went home. I stayed home for six days.

I saw a medical doctor on Friday the 5th. She told me I am severely clinically depressed. I'm not really surprised considering I had a university doctor and a counselor tell me the exact same thing a week before. She prescribed Zoloft and counseling.

I'm still not living on campus. I'm doing work from home (that is, my parents' home) and commuting to class. Screw the apartment anyway. It's too quiet.

My boyfriend, God bless him, has been mostly understanding. I don't get this. He is so out of my league. Like, I am Class-A, maybe Class-A Advanced, and he's in the freakin' majors. I don't deserve him, but I'm glad he's there (even if, as he admits himself from time to time, he's somewhat inaccessible). Very few other people know I was suicidal, aside from my parents, the doctors, the counselor, and him.

I haven't told my friends or sorority sisters, not even my roommate from last year. I mean, what do you say?

I talked to the dean of student life. Since I've been distracted most of this semester, and I really messed up and didn't withdraw from foreign policy when I should have. She told me, given the circumstances, I could petition for a late withdrawal and I'm working on that.

I turned in my papers due last week on time and mostly complete. That is some kind of miracle.

As I told my boyfriend on Friday, "Either the Zoloft is working three times faster than the doctor said it would, I'm experiencing some super-awesome placebo effect, or this thing is going away on its own..."

Him: "So... is this like a state, or a condition?"

Me: "I was under the impression they were synonymous."

Him: "I mean is this for a couple weeks, or is this forever?"

I didn't know how to answer.

I've always been a rather melancholy, glass-half-empty kind of gal (see, um, all of my previous xanga entries for documentation). But I thought that was normal. Apparently, it's not. And obviously, wanting to die isn't normal under any circumstances. So yeah. I'm hoping the Zoloft/counseling thing helps with that.

At least I have my appetite back, and I'm not sleeping fourteen hours a day, like I was a month ago...