Sunday, March 28, 2010

Back handed compliments and my screwed up nature.

I give lousy compliments because I don't know how to take them because of my self-loathing nature.

I was sitting on my couch with Tim on Saturday night. I looked at him and said, "I know this is going to sound stupid, but you are the best parts of everyone who ever broke my heart. You are so much more than just that though." He hugged me close and I tried hard not to cry. I let myself tear up. In a whispered voice, I spoke to him and told him how in so many small, but wonderful ways he makes me feel better about myself. I know my voice broke half a dozen times from choking back tears, but I didn't care. I was speaking to someone that could hear me. I can't remember the last time someone heard me, or I let them hear me.

I think that over the years, I lost the ability to speak. I mean I talk all the time. Ask anyone that really knows me. I talk a lot. I guess I normally don't really say anything. There's talking and there's talking. I know that in the past I tried to talk to guys I was with. I would say, "Let's talk." And then the dreaded, "What do you want to talk about?" would come up. I would die inside. Also whenever a guy would tell me, "Let's talk" that's douche bag code for, "You're getting dumped and I'm thinly veiling it with the premise of conversation." (I swear I could write a book on moron code.) I think that alone as scared me from conversation.

How is it that the people that hurt us most make us who we are? I mean my dad basically ignored me for the first 16 years of my life. Just about every guy that has ever dated me has left because of my parents, his parents, my friends, his friends, his inability to commit, his lack of self esteem, his unwillingness to stick with a long distance relationship, and his general stupidity. In some funny way, I almost thank them. ALMOST. Not really. Then again, it's those stupid assholes that break our hearts, cheat on us, break us down, and treat us like crap that make us better people. I mean if it weren't for the fact that I had gotten tossed out more times than my grandmother's fruitcake, that I wouldn't be who I am. I mean I think I got a little better every time I got passed over. God that's a fucked up way of putting it.

I guess I have to laugh about it now. I'm dating the nerdiest guy I've ever known. I'm dating someone who has to be so much of me equal and the whole time I've been dating my opposite. I mean he talks and I hear him. I believe that there is such a thing as speaking in a language that others can hear. Every once in a while we find that person that we hear. Maybe I finally have someone that I can hear and he can listen to me. Only time will tell.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Standing in the rain

Ever watched School Ties? You know the movie with Brendan Fraser and Matt Damon about the Jewish kid that goes to a private school and gets the crap beaten out of him for not belonging? (He was Jewish.) My favorite and most memorable scene from that movie is when Brendan's character is standing out on the lawn of the school to challenge the other guys to a fight. It starts to rain and the guys are all looking out the window at him and he's standing there staring up at the dorm window screaming, "Cowards!"

How many times have you ever wanted to do that? I know I have. Lately, more than ever. I want to stand up and point my finger in the face of all that I have been frightened of and say, "You will hurt me no more. You will not ignore me. I will finally be heard." It's a little late for that now.

I wish I had done this long ago. I wish I had stood out in the rain and called out in a voice that would be heard no matter what. I wish I had been stronger sooner.

Tim listened last night as I talked to a friend on the phone and recounted some of the events of the week in no specific detail. The truths I knew. The stories exchanged. The lies and back peddling. Tim seethed. He was amazed that I stood for so long through so much. Some would trivialize it. Some may never believe it. I knew in my heart it would happen again. It did. It will again.

I think I've finally moved into the final two stages of grief. I'm sitting in between anger and acceptance. I'm ok with where I am, but somehow I'm finally really angry about how I was treated. It's a very confusing state to be in. I'm happy without him but at the same time, I want to vent my anger as vocally as I can.

Looking back at some of my blogs, I hope he doesn't think for a fucking second any of my poetry was about him. Someone as emotionally hollow as him could never bring those words out of me. I never wrote anything outside of a handful of cards the entire time we were together. The poetry was the gateway to my emotional blossoming. The more I realized I was feeling again, the more I came to terms with my anger and pain and I was able to start writing this blog in the voice you now here. The voice that is ready to scream in the rain.

For the record.

I'm not in love with Frank. I have not been for months now. I dislike him. I do not like what he put me through, what he has put others through and how he behaves.

How does one politely say "fuck off?"

I know I won't ever get to see his dog in person again and you know, that's fine. I'll have a puppy of my own one day. I'm just partial to Fritz.

Perhaps recent events have let my true anger come to light.

I was good before him. I'm great without him. I miss his family and the time I spent with his friends. I don't know him anymore, nor do I think anyone else really does.

Frank Davis, if you can read this, get over yourself. You're not that hot. You're not that smart. You're not that awesome. You need people to feed your ego. You need to hurt others to make yourself feel better. Grow up, you twit.

I'm done. I will continue to write for the sake of my own heart and mind which is why I started writing to let people know me and see me for who I am. I need no one to validate me. I am a good person.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

In love with a ghost and unknown allies.

I realized something very important last week. I was sitting in this overstuffed armchair that I'm always in every other Tuesday. I was crying and the realization struck me like an open-palmed slap on the face. I looked up and knew why all my relationships had failed. I had tried so hard to be in one for the sake of not being alone.

That's a harrowing thought when you really get right down to it. I was with people so I wouldn't have to be alone. Even after I realized how much, at times, I didn't love or like the person I was with. I stayed. Just so I could say I had someone. Just so I would know I wasn't alone. Christ.

How stupid is that?

I guess I had become clichéd. I was in love with being in love or being with someone and not the actual person. How many times have people done that? How many times have I done that? I stopped to think about it and I sobbed harder. I had allowed myself to stay in places and with people that were poisonous to me for the sheer sake of escaping my loneliness to another place all together. A place that was worse.

Now, I find that another person has been blighted by him. She was given the same damned contrite lines I was the first time he left me. You would think he could come up with better material for a new person. I reached out to her in that moment because I had heard stories of how he treated her and I felt like I was reaching out to me from a year ago. God, how I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted for the longest time to just save her from what I knew would happen. Him leaving her. Breaking her heart. That by somehow saving her would save me from myself. Instead, I waited until I knew I could be of help rather than potential harm.

Meanwhile, she has been looking at my blogs all this time. So without me knowing, she knew of me. Life's funny like that. I want to help her the way others have helped me.

We both deserve better than him. He deserves nothing.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Memories I'd rather forget.

I was digging in my closet today and I found boxes of ornaments I had bought when I was still with my ex. Hallmark ornaments. Star Wars ornaments. All sorts of nerdery. I knelt there in the closet and I took them out of the box and I started crying. I started thinking about how I ended up with the ornaments in my possession again and I remember hanging some of them with friends on the tree the last Christmas we were together. The only time I was happy was when friends were there. When I was alone with him, it wasn't like that.

I couldn't bear to put any of them up this past holiday for the simple fact that it just didn't feel right hanging them up yet. The smell of his house was still on the boxes. I guess he thought he was going to get to keep them. No. Mine. He got to keep too damned much of me. I've finally reclaimed it all. Except for a Disney Couture Tinkerbell blouse. I consider it lost. I liked that shirt.

I guess I'm finally speaking honestly about things because I have to get it out. All of it. I don't care if he reads this. I don't think he gives a damn about anyone but himself deep down. He treated me like that in the end, and I let him. Even people close to him have said what a selfish ass he is. God knows I know it more than anyone else.

When I got most of my things from his house, he actually helped me get them out to my car. The last time I went there to get the straggling items remaining he said I wasn't allowed in the house and I would have to get them off the porch after a certain time. Off the fucking porch. He treated my clothes like trash. All balled up in trash bags and thrown in like something you'd haul to Goodwill. I can remember pulling up to his house and watching him pull away with his girlfriend. I parked my car at the curb and lugged the last few bags to my car. I sobbed and screamed into the steering wheel of the car. I drove to the park nearby and sat and watched people playing with their kids and I wailed because I knew I didn't matter to him. I had never been anything but nice and I (well, my things) were curbed like trash.

There is a part of me that still clings to that rage and grief. God knows, it's not healthy. I think what causes me to become so upset is because I gave and gave and gave and have nothing to show for it. When I work on something for a while, I usually have some sort of thing to show. A needlepoint. A model. A poem. From that disaster, I have nothing but anger.

The worst thing is that I miss Fritz, his dog. That little hairball stole my heart. He showed me love when Frank ignored me. When Frank would talk down to me, Fritz would sit outside with me and lean against my leg while I cried. When Fritz was sick or tired, he would come looking for me for comfort. I cry sometimes at night for him. An animal that probably has no memory of me. I have a whole box of toys and collars and treats that I'll never give him. Last May, I bought him a new chew toy and big rawhide bone for his birthday. I didn't have the heart to take it to him. Knowing that his birthday will be here soon makes me miss him more.

In just a few weeks, it'll be the anniversary of the break-up. Frank dumped me a few days before my best friend Rebecca's birthday. We still had the party at his place. I remember thinking, "I should just cancel, but I can't do this to Becca." So, I faked happy one last night for all my friends. I laughed and tried not to cry. I acted like everything was ok. I remember I barely ate that night. I remember when everyone was inside and it was just Fritz and I for a moment. I remember I looked at Fritz and I thought, "I'm going to miss these moments." I once asked Frank if I could come see Fritz sometime. He looked at me and said, "He's just a dog. You don't get to see him."

I don't know why I keep bringing things out of me. It's like I'm emotionally taking my pain out to the curb. I have this horrible habit of keeping everything in. I'm all about keeping up appearances. I guess I'm trying to rationalize it by saying that after ten years of repression and silence, I'm trying to pull it all out of me. Every held back tear. Every bit lip. Every time I chewed the inside of my cheeks raw.

I let myself be mistreated. I let myself be degraded. I let myself hold everything back. I let myself be changed. I let myself start to hate myself. I let myself question who I was.

Now, after all of what I went through, I find myself standing on my own emotionally for the first time without fear of judgement. I am not as perfect as I wish I were. I am fractured. I am damaged. I am weird. I am a nerd. I am flawed. I am not the daughter my mother wanted. I am not a huge success. I am not normal. I am a horrible singer.

I do have friends and people that care about me. I just hope they still accept me as I continue to find the me in me.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Sushi and emotions.

So I came home from my retail job and got a wild hair up my butt to roll sushi. I don't know why, but since I've started officially saying I'm dating Tim I have suddenly turned into Martha Stewart. (Well, except for the whole stock scandal thing. I'm too broke for that.) I spent the better part of 3 hours chopping, slicing, mixing, rolling, plating and packing the equivalent of 16 rolls of sushi. My shirt reeked of it and my hands were gummy from the rice. For some reason I felt like a had done something profound. I arrived at Tim's house with a bag full of food and Tim just hugged me and told "thank you". I almost cried.

I'm doing that a lot more. Crying, that is. Not from sadness really. I'm actually being more emotionally open than I used to be. I think I'm finally feeling again and being who I was repressing for so long. Sometimes, Tim and I will be sitting talking about our pasts and forget for a moment that this is not how I normally operate. I find myself truly speaking to him in a way I only talk to my closest friend Becca. I let myself get tears in my eyes and I don't fear him shying away or not being able to look in my eye.

I don't know whether it was the half bottle of sake I had knocked back or the fact that I really just like Tim. I told him there's a lot I keep hidden and I find myself a bit scared because I let myself be myself around him. I can't believe how much I really admit to him. In only a few weeks we have gotten so close. We're both scared a little of it. It's sort of nice being this scared and this happy at the same time.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Getting back to me

So, I guess I'm dating this guy, Tim, now. He's quite possibly the nerdiest guy I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. We used to just hang out for the past couple of months, but lately I have let myself get closer to him.

We had a conversation last night. (The sheer fact that we can have a real conversation about real things that matter still scares the crap about of me.) We spoke of how to explain us to people when they ask. I admitted I had already mentioned in conversation that he was a "guy I was dating". He smiled and said it made him happy to know I spoke of him like that.

I talked to a friend of mine about it. She said, "why don't you just say you're 'together'?" Could it really be that simple? I had to laugh at the matter.

I find myself disarmed by my feelings for him. I mean, I felt strongly for the one before him, but not to this extent. The one before started getting me to want to open up and let someone know me for the first time in quite a while. Then, before I knew it, he was pulling away and seeing someone else. I was left like an open wound, bleeding emotions and thoughts.

I opened up to Tim a couple of weeks ago and told him everything. About the other guy and me pulling away from him and him pulling away from me. I told him, "You were my only constant. You never stopped being yourself when I needed something that wasn't shifting around me." He just smiled and said, "I only want to get to know you." I damn near cried.

Last night we were talking and I told him that I found it remarkable what when we talked to each other that we weren't just being quiet until the other one stopped talking so we could speak. I had tears in my eyes and I apologized for crying. He told me to never be ashamed of my feelings.

I explained to him that my relationship with Frank was a relationship of silence. I always felt like no matter what I did, I wasn't good enough for him and I always had to try too f-ing hard to be something for him that stripped me my identity. Be thin. Be quiet. Be normal. Be pretty. Be anything but me. For the life of me, I think I hated myself more when I was with him than I ever did when I was alone. I think the only reason I wanted to be with him was because I thought it was better than being alone. But the cost of being myself...looking back, I wish I had walked away.

I don't know where things with Tim and I will go, but for the first time in years, I feel like I know who I am and I could very well with someone that won't try to change me. In 10 years of dating, I have chameleoned myself to be the perfect girlfriend for idiot after idiot. I learned sports, cooked, read books I hated, listened to music I despised and played nice to people that I had to bite my tongue around to keep myself from yelling at. All for the sake of not being alone.

You know, when I finally write it and say how stupid it was, I don't feel worse for having done it. Ten years of changing myself for the sake of "love" has brought me full circle back to myself. You know, when you get right down to it, I was good enough to begin with. It was everyone else that wasn't fit to be with me.

I'm still scared of when I do finally open up completely. I'm not sure if I'm ready to have company over in the vestibule of my heart, but I guess I better get ready because someone's at the door.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Writing a resume is like whoring yourself out. Some people just can't do it. I'm sitting here at work taking apart someone else's resume and trying to make them sound hirable. Does that make me a pimp? If so, I need some of those shoes with goldfish in them and a cane...with a D20 on it. Yeah. That's how I roll.

I'm too white to talk to like that. ugh.