fleeting fumbles
i can’t sleep. i think the oversized, delicious mexican mocha i treated myself to way too late in the evening had something to do with it. i asked the barista to suggest something that would make me feel warm & fuzzy and i think he gave me a larger size than i paid for just to be nice. it made for warm-fuzzy-feeling coffee-sharing times with erica and haley as we passed around the enormous bowl to slurp on. one beer, a few white russians and an unnecessary shot (gift from the bartender) later i am feeling perfectly sober, sort of warbly-bellied and restless. i feel like i could just travel home right now to save time in the morning, but i’m not in athens anymore and my route home would be questionable at this hour. Plus it’s just nice to crash at a good friend (erica)’s place sometimes. Obviously it takes away from this achy, unavoidable feeling of loneliness that rolls in shortly after being rejected. that, and the rush of terrible, generalizing and insecure thoughts. in the end, i can look logically and pretend to understand that it wasn’t me. but it’s hard to understand entirely when there aren’t any answers. It was handled in such a rude, distant way - just a quick phone call, “i can’t, bye” …something so cruel can only force me to conclude that it wasn’t me at all. still, i couldn’t help but sprinkle the laundry i was folding with little tear dribbles and blow my snotty, dripping nose into dryer sheets. grah. i just sank a little bit more yet again.
it’s such a familiar sinking situation that it almost feels good to come back to it. in my giddy excitement i was also terrified to be genuinely enjoying myself with someone new. i struggle with two conflicting impulses now - the “so it goes,” and the nervous pattern interpreting. connecting with people can be really difficult…. and it’s sometimes easy to fall into the false belief that no one is capable of really understanding you. I imagine I make it even more difficult for people to feel close to me because sometimes the language just isn’t there. sometimes it is just a rotating image i really wish they could watch with me. maybe then they’d get it. right now there is just a strange drippy mass slowly sliding down my body onto the floor. i guess the weight of all of my failed connections sliding away from me. and i’m just standing here, (in the rotating image…but really i’m sitting with erica’s computer on my lap…a cold breeze from the open window brushing my exposed legs while the rest of me is warm [he said he liked that feeling, too]) and it just makes sense.
the fear of good things is a problem for sure. a stifling, cyclical problem. but then i interrupt myself once again to stop this crucifixion - it was not all me.
and I guess I’m thinking more about romantic connections here, because not all of my connections have failed. to say connections alone would be terrible/silly. two amazing friends spent the evening with me, talking, wandering, listening, laughing. other wonderful friends occupying other spaces possibly would’ve acted similarly.
on our train ride home tonight erica and i were both quiet - deeply lost in our individual self-reflections from our own emotional conflicts, probably being a little too unfair to ourselves. we both kind of snapped out of it at about the same time, too… half way to her apartment. she turned with a knowing, familiar smile that acknowledged that we were in a similar place before we even said anything about it. something about that image just replays in my mind with warmth…like that visual sequence would fit perfectly in my imaginary dictionary for “friendship” in this moment. it’s something that comes from time, vulnerabilities, silly things and talked-out conflicts.
I guess that’s the thing that hurts the most about my romantic history - I’ve never been given the time. And it’s funny to think I’m posting this personal little blurb on tumblr (though I’ll probably nervously delete it later, even though nobody will be looking by then) because tumblr feels like such an ephemeral system. this will be sandwiched between a cat meme and some photo of an angsty message written on a piece of paper. it will look long, personal and unappealing. it will be hidden 12 pages back within a few minutes. but really, i appreciate it if you took the time to get to this point, thanks. oh, and sorry.
