Am I THAT broken?

I’m supposed to be doing great. I’m in a successful relationship, I started my own business, I make my own hours, I get to sleep in most days, everything is, for lack of a better word, perfect. So why am I depressed? I don’t enjoy the things I used to. I go through motions. I am in a better mood after I’ve worked for a few hours, but does that mean I’m only happy when I’m making improvements (somewhere)? Maybe this is a fluke. Maybe I’m tired of being alone, even though I struggle to let others into my space, maybe I just haven’t figured myself out yet… maybe I wish I had a father who loved me and didn’t die. Maybe I wish I had a brother who wanted a sister. Maybe I wish I had a mother who didn’t need me to take care of her. Maybe I don’t want any more people to need me. Maybe I want all the people to need me. Maybe I want both and the dichotomy makes me cry myself to sleep.

Rocky Road

It’s almost two months later and “rocky road” is probably the best way to describe how it’s been going. There are certainly positives, but there are certainly negatives too.

It’s easy to remember why I wanted to be single; why, even though it was lonely, I enjoyed spending time with myself: there are very few complaints from myself. Although I will definitely find times to hate myself for something or other, it’s relatively infrequent. Being with someone, I’m constantly confronted with another person who isn’t me…and therefore doesn’t want to do what I want to do, doesn’t see the rationale for things the way I do, pays attention to very little unlike how I work, the list goes on. Similarly, I am not the “plays well with others” type. I don’t want to do your thing, I don’t see the rationale for not doing things (OHIO, fucker: ONLY. HANDLE. [THAT SHIT.] ONCE.), and I fucking hate repeating myself!

The real problem here is that I’m the world’s biggest hypocrite. Here’s what I wanted [out of a relationship] when asked only a few short months ago (e.g., July): someone to live their life independent of mine that could also connect with me at times. To be fair, that is suuuuuper vague and I have no idea how, logistically, it would even work. Especially not when you add [my] crazy girl brain to the mix. See, CGB is like the Hormone Monster in Big Mouth – it goes against my best judgement. It takes what I want, throws it out the window, and tells me what I “really” want instead… which, as it turns out, is all the control, all the time, with minimal sass back. Reasonable, right? (LOLZ.)

I can’t make the claim that we’re two different people with two different sets of habits and needs, then refuse to do any busy work because he’s not. See how that doesn’t work out? My argument holds no water, and I have no other defense outside of “I DON’T LIKE IT SO DO IT MY WAY AND SHUT UP!”

I really don’t deserve love. I’m sure I’ve mentioned in one (or several) of these posts that Rob and I used to joke about a line from Father of the Pride that happened so quickly in passing that no one else in the world would even pick it up… one of the lions says “I deserve love!” and the other replies, “no, you do not.” Honestly, I don’t even know if it was both lions in the dialogue, but those are the lines, and they are delivered in jest, and we retained them in jest, but really, why? Was it because I felt that way already (that I don’t deserve love), in a relationship over 15 years ago, or is it because he was actually an asshole and wanted me to feel that way about myself, or is it something else (either serious or not)?

Anyway, this whole post feels like it feels in my brain: a jumble of whoknowswhat. All I can say is that I’m both into this whole relationship thing and not into it at all, and I don’t even know what to do about it. Just wait, I guess. Maybe tonight isn’t the night to figure it out.

self-sabotage

So here’s the latest, and the way my brain has historically worked (against me): The Boy and I are good. So good, in fact, that we admitted to loving one another just recently. “Great! Congrats!” you say? Hold that thought.

Since that time, my brain has found a way to plant fear and doubt into my pretty little love story. For starters, the dreams. Two of them, in succession, about him wanting me to be at a thing (with family, friends) and me fleeing. Then, my brain started highlighting things… first, it was making demands instead of requests. Then, it was how I feel like I do everything (to his credit, he asks if I want him to help me). Now, it’s become our blatant differences. We’re so opposite on so many things: politics, cleanliness, structure vs. spontaneity, leasing vs. owning a car, waffles vs. pancakes…the list varies in both scope and magnitude. And it’s bumming me out.

The timing, however, is suspect. Literally 12 hours after “I love you” is exchanged, these things float to the surface? I call bullshit. Thank you, anxious brain, for trying to protect me, but do me a favor and fuck off. We share personalities, senses of humor, ideals, and communicate like motherfucking champs. So is that enough to keep two opposites attracted? I guess we’ll find out.

One of those super boring blog posts.

It was one off those 10-hour days where I had little time to myself, and I don’t remember these even though they occur so regularly. So avert your eyes, general public, this one’s just for me, someday 10 or 20 years down the road…

I had the worst night. Actually, I had a good night, I played guitar at 3 a.m., something I haven’t done in a while, with the expectation that I could stay in bed until close to 11 a.m. Except at 6-something, a nearby vehicle decided to play something-with-a-sick-beat for about 20 minutes. Not even the magical AirPod Pros had enough noise cancellation for that bass. So my peaceful dreamtime was interrupted quickly. I may have been able to sleep again until almost 11, but the damage had been done.

I was expecting a phone call appointment from Chase at noon to talk about setting up my business checking account, but I also felt like they might be expecting me to actually go there (the instructions are super unclear), so I erred on the side of caution (it’s only about a 12 minute walk from my house, so best case I was there and worst case I talked on the phone with them for 12 minutes until I was home).

They did not call. I was expected to show up, something that was not specified in the instructions, but it was moot because I was there at 12:03. I walked in and was immediately escorted out by the security guard…I had to wait on the line, despite my insistence that I had an appointment. I used all the patience I could muster and waited…10 minutes. When I got to the front of the line and [security] was asking everyone “window or ATM?” I again told her I had an appointment, almost 15 minutes ago, with someone at a desk. “Why didn’t you say so?” she asked, and I was so pleased with their adhering to COVID-19 safety that I just responded, “I didn’t know that would have made a difference; we learned,” and stood on the other side where “people who have meetings scheduled stand.” Grrrrr.

Almost an hour and a half later, I leave, with one business checking, one business savings, and one credit card application complete. I reward myself with a deli salad (I fucking LOVE THOSE THINGS) and took :20 to relax and eat. I intended to follow it with a potential :30-:40 nap, but something convinced me to review my bank documents, which is when I noticed my business name was spelled wrong. I called the bank. It was re-routed to corporate. I emailed the dude who helped me, grateful he had given me his card. And I waited.

Once I was in my 3:00 session, he called. To his credit, he tried both numbers (cell and WiFi), and I finally picked one up and said “I can’t talk now,” and hung up on him. He emailed. Between my 3:00 and 4:00 consult, I read it and learned that I had to re-sign documents with the correct name on them. He was there until 5:00 today and 2:00 tomorrow (when I would be on LI as early as 10 a.m.). I quickly asked what other options we had, maybe first thing the next morning? Or Monday?

I jumped onto my 4:00 consult, which only lasted about :15. I received the dude’s response, reminding me that Monday is a holiday for normal people and providing options Tuesday or Wednesday. “I’ll be there in 15 min but I need to be back at my house by 5,” I replied, and took off. Fortunately, I knew the security protocol and my wait was much shorter this time around. I speed-walked to & from, signed what I had to, got new starter checks, and was home with 10 minutes to spare.

I had forgotten that my cousin called me during my 3:00 session also, so on my walk home I called back. She wanted to talk without time constraints, so I agreed to call after I was done for the day around 6. I saw my 5:00 appointment, sent the parents of my 3 and 5 follow up emails, and called my cousin. Family member in crisis, what do they do, (thanks for the referral, mom)… provided a social worker’s name/number, promised to look for appropriate groups, gave a few questions to ask and reminders to repeat. Immediately emailed said social worker, giving him the heads up that he might be contacted with a snapshot of what’s up, told my mother that they had reached out to me and what I offered, reached out to my networks for group resources… poured a glass of wine.

Sat down in the yard with the laptop, iPad, and phone available for next steps. Sent receipts to anyone still who needed one from the week’s appointments. Transferred funds out of my fake business checking and savings accounts, then called customer service at C1-360 (twice) to close them due to the two new ones at Chase. Transferred loan funds, paid both credit cards, moved savings money from my August income to savings, emailed my accountant some questions, scheduled a phone call the following day with him, calculated my third quarter taxes… poured a vodka coke.

…fielded a few responses from my inquiries on listservs, culled through their emails from the day, replied to a potential lead, and took a break to snap a few photos of the new creature that lives somewhere near me… the opossum (or three. I’ve either seen the same one three times now or there are three of them.). After the raccoon family earlier in the summer, the stray cat afterward, and the locust/cicada the other night, I just had to stop and laugh… made a sodastream Diet Coke bottle… poured a second vodka coke.

I ordered a few essentials on Amazon, coordinated meetings for the following day, made myself a plan for the weekend, and noticed it was nearing 11 p.m. and I hadn’t eaten again since the salad. So I ordered in some comfort foods (chicken fingers, disco fries), shoo’ed the opossum who clearly came ‘round after smelling it, and have been writing this while dining.

My life is made significantly easier by my backyard, even if it leads to hilarious and/or terrifying rodent/creature and insect stories (the fleas, however, were not a laughing matter). I also appreciated the 9/11 lights that were on earlier but are off now. Some real perspective there. I may have whined when I saw other people complaining about their initially calling off the light display because of COVID, but I’m now grateful that they’re still doing it.

And now…it’s about 11:30, and I have to be up around 7:30/8 to get out to LI before the traffic makes me want to drive into a ditch. I still have packages that were delivered today that I haven’t had the chance to open, but they’ll be there tomorrow night when I get back. I have no idea how I lost this kind of control over my own existence, but I’m at the mercy of all the things until… well, I don’t even know. I’m sure I’ll bore you to tears with it. So stay tuned.

The saga continues…

I have done a thing. I have agreed to share my 2020 Happy Place with The Boy. I’ve also agreed to share my personal space while I’m working, which could go horribly, and in advance of sharing my 2020 Happy Place.

He was here two days ago. We have spoken now each day since then (on the actual phone like old people). I even think he almost canceled plans (albeit tentative ones) to join me on a visit to my 2020 Happy Place this Sunday. Fortunately, there wasn’t a ticket available at the time I’m going, so this can move a little more slowly more naturally.

I’m excited, don’t misunderstand me, but I’m guarded, and even knowing someone for 20 years doesn’t give them a free pass to spend the bigger chunks of of my self-care time together. I’m slowly opening up my very solitary life to another person, and although it’s relatively easy, it’s not at all easy.

So next week he will be here on a day where I spend six hours working, and he will also work and make us creme brûlée (to take us back to that hiking trip from 10 years ago), and then my workday will be over and there will be a person here. It will be awkward and it will be wonderful. But I have “breaks” between appointments, and I typically use that time to get other work done, whatever that might be… answer work-related emails, attempt to contribute to contribute to articles, work on my own business-related tasks or other organizations that I have a hand in’s tasks, the list is endless. The potential for him to commandeer that time will be there and I’m going to have to get better at “using my words” and keeping my work boundaries very clear, a thing I’ve never had to do before, really.

And then the following week we have tickets to return to my 2020 Happy Place so he can see what I see and love about it. To some people this is like barely spending any time together, but to me this feels like 0 to 95. Again, I I’ve already shared more of my life with him than I have anyone else in six years. I even had to stop myself from asking if he wanted to come on my solo trip to MA next weekend, wherein I plan to camp overnight. Do I want the company? Yes. Do I also want to have that experience alone? Absolutely. I’m not convinced I won’t still ask him, but let’s just see what happens next week first. ONE. Step. At. A. Time.

::nervous laughter::

Not unexpectedly (and because he hasn’t had his own dedicated blog post)…

Twenty years ago (when I was 18), I met a boy. He was at a small get-together at a friend’s house, that I recently learned (maybe knew but forgot, in that case, recently re-learned) was through some randos connecting with my friends on some web-based service (AOL?) because that’s what you did in 2000. It was all the rage. A/S/L … 18/f/Long Island, NY … done deal. So this boy, who doesn’t not resemble Ben Affleck, is some weird combo of dork, clown, and cool guy and I’m like yeah, he’ll do (for my external validation, because I wasn’t quite getting it internally at age 18). The rest of this timeline is fuzzy, mostly because it’s been re-structured from photos, posts, and stories each of us can remember.

I apparently got a joke that was reflective of Austin Powers, but I’m not entirely sure if I got the reference, just thought it was funny to begin with, or pretended to, because I was 100% about pretending I knew what everyone else was talking about when I had no idea at that time in my life. If it’s the third one, our entire relationship has been built on a farce, how amusing. In any event, that was enough for him to want to date me. Turns out he had only had two high school girlfriends, if you’d even call them that, so I was his first one for realsies. Except that I was some dumb high school senior, with no self-esteem, so any attention was enough to get me to agree to dating. (Dating did not include sex for me — I lost my virginity after high school to a carnie…. I really need to write that blog post, don’t I?)

We dated for a little while, and I’m awaiting this weekend to find the archives of what I journaled during that period in my life (they’re in my mother’s attic, on actual paper). I also mean like a few dates/make out sessions when I say “a little while.” I was the OG of ghosting, so after maybe a month I went dark. Back in the day, you didn’t just ghost someone and they moved on to their next Hinge match. First, because there was no Hinge, but also not this guy because he was not going to let a little ghosting end a good thing. He wrote me a love letter. A fucking love letter, you guys. Do you know how much 18-year-old me appreciated that letter? About 10% compared to how much 38-year-old me appreciates it (and basically dropped my panties hearing it read aloud by the author 20 years later). Well, guess what, it may have only had a 10% impact, but it worked, and we dated a little longer (again?). It didn’t matter though, because I’m pretty sure I ghosted again.

Somehow, at some point, we reconnected and I drove like 4 hours to visit him at college. It wasn’t to date again, it was definitely just a visit. Did we make out? Did we hook up? I have no idea. Where did I sleep? What did we do? Also blanks. He may know more, I will try to remember to ask.

I don’t think we stayed in touch long after that, but we did link up via Facebook when that became a thing, back when people communicated by publicly writing on each others’ walls (it was a simpler time then). So when I reactivate that Facebook account, I can see some of our chat. He was doing standup at his (newer, more local) college and I’m fairly certain a friend and I went to see it. I don’t think much came of that, other than a diner date with him and my friend after his show.

Facebook tells me that I sent several Happy Birthdays and a few “hey, I miss you, we should hang”s over the next several years. If I recall correctly, they were largely ignored (recognized, but not acted upon).

Fast-forward roughly ten years. He’s starting his own business, and during one of our many re-connects, he wants to sit down at a diner and tell me all about it. So we do, and he does. We were there a long time (our conversations are rarely less than 120 minutes). It also turns out a somewhat mutual friend (the person whose gathering we met at) was getting married in the near future, and wouldn’t it be perfect if we went together? We did. I got very drunk. Very. Drunk. I was a master at hiding my drinking back in those days, so I was able to blend in nicely. Well, I’m told recently that we had sex that night. I believe it, and I want to think I remember bits and pieces of it, but I think I was drinking in an effort to have the courage (see my dark blog for more detail on why I’m a sexual mess), and courage I had…recall I did not.

We apparently “try again.” We plan a hiking trip (weekend), we go on it, and it’s 80% awesome. I’m unable to find any documentation describing what my reservations were, but I know there were some. All I can fathom is that I found some of his mannerisms a little immature…like in settings that I didn’t think it was appropriate. Just the two of us? Fine, as long as he can have a serious conversation too. With everyone we encountered at every point we were around another person? Not cool, bro. I also get the impression I have embellished this in my head to make me feel better about the second thing… that I think I was struggling with sexual attraction. As my other blog will (eventually) confirm, this was not about him, but I didn’t know that at the time. I’m told I was kind of bitchy on that trip, and since we were “trying again” only in action (we didn’t define ourselves as together), he felt no obligation to try to work out the issue — which I likely would have rolled my eyes at anyway, because, well, I was kind of a bitch.

There’s another wedding later in 2010, a friend of his, and his ex-girlfriend is expected to be there… so, tit for tat, I go with him to that wedding. He’s still fun, still funny, still cute, and I’m still broken (I’m not un-broken until at least 2015, and even now there are still bits about me “in progress” as per my blog name). And in a relationship by then, that quite obviously did not work out. I can’t recall if it’s around this time or another time between 2010 and 2020, but we talk intermittently on the phone. To be fair, our history has been a lot of: I get upset, I call him, he makes me feel better, and then we don’t talk a while. Sometimes he calls, but I don’t answer/call back. And if I had to guess, I’d say that’s the thing that he got mad about. He doesn’t remember and I only know that I asked if he was mad at me, he said he kind of was and that we should talk about it. So I avoided it like the plague. Until June 2020, amidst a fucking pandemic. Turns out I waited long enough — he doesn’t remember. (Whew!)

I came across a NYT crossword mini that included a word I considered an inside joke between us from 2000 (he didn’t remember it; it was only actually amusing to me until I shared the story). Either way, yet again, reconnected. This time, however, is different. I’m a little (lot) more communicative. I understand myself a little (lot) better. I’m finally at a place in my life where I can stop putting dating on hold for yet another thing (internship, dissertation, licensure, moving somewhere I want to stay). And here he is.

Did he quarantine for two weeks to do the right thing for society? To be able to be near his parents? To kiss me? (Little column A, little B, little C?) And kiss me he did. He wasn’t here 30 minutes (okay, maybe he was here 30 minutes). I knew it would happen (or I wouldn’t have spent more than half of my 45-minute therapy session on my utter nervousness and intimacy problem in the hour before he was set to arrive). I may not be able to tell if it’s knowing someone for 20 years, not being anywhere near another person without a mask in 6 months, hearing the goddamned love letter read aloud, or the recent extended phone conversations, but I was fuckin’ ready. For that, at least.

What I was not ready for, was everything else. It was clear that it had the potential to go further. He had barely dated anyone in ten years (his new business demanded most of his time and energy and he was being screwed over left and right by close friends and family members), I hadn’t dated anyone except Bar Tano dude (see previous post) and one or two different dudes in Worcester (LOL, they totally don’t count) in 6 years. For some reason that made it a little easier (maybe “we both kind of suck at this?”), but by no means easy. I immediately did what my therapist had helped coach me through only hours earlier: I stopped, I explained that this was an area I felt “broken” and I tried through stutters and mixed up sentences to say that I don’t know how to enjoy sexual encounters. Did he hear me? I think so. He was pretty adamant that there were no sexpectations, but let’s be real… if you have a dick, you write a chick a love letter, stay loosely connected for 20 years, and you have a chance for it…you don’t fucking pass that shit up. So I don’t blame him for trying. Setting expectations at “I’m happy to just make out” is nice, but when your body tells a different story, you ask to move to the bedroom, and you give a “massage” (has he been checking on my pornhub history?!), it’s a little bit of a mixed message.

However, I did not spend thousands of out-of-pocket dollars on therapy to betray myself, so I used all of my mental energy to trust myself and trust him. I’m surprised to say that once I overlooked the mixed messages (I could’ve easily gotten held up by that and let it keep me skeptical and therefore on guard), I let my body feel. I won’t pretend I was good at staying out of my own head, but I was able to remind myself often enough to enjoy the moment(s). There was something a little magical about it… I felt more connected to this man than I have any day over the last 20 years. I was even able to shut the little voice up that worried about “falling in love” or “breaking his heart,” both extremes and nowhere near that current moment.

The rest of that time is actually private (I don’t write about other people’s shit anymore lately, just my own—I hope I stay on that trend), and although there were definitely bumps in the road that evening, and I had to stop myself from potentially crying twice (more from being emotionally overwhelmed than having something to cry about), it was generally positive. And for the record, he can be both completely ridiculous as well as completely serious. I can’t say I’ve seen any interactions with others, but maybe that doesn’t even fucking matter.

What happens next? ::shrug:: Stay tuned, I guess.