finding the light

I have tripped more in the past 2 months than in the past 2 years. I have experienced more life changes in the past 7 months than in the past 7 years. I have been more unhappy, more confused, more distraught, more frustrated, and more lonely in the past year than in the past 10 years. And in that same year, I have learned more about myself than I've ever thought to know. I've opened a window into my ability to react to change, to adjust to the unforeseen, to adapt to life's funny curveballs. I am still not happy, but I haven't completely given up on trying to be happy again.

Kept on looking for a sign in the middle of the night/ But I couldn't see the light

How to be happy. I have so many books (100 secrets of happy people, don't sweat the small stuff, etc.) that suggest happiness can be just a page away. Just a simple lifestyle change in your future. Just a smile and 10 minutes ahead of you. If happiness, real happiness, were that easy to attain, wouldn't we all be bumbling happy idiots by now? The journey is the important part. The long, bumpy, winding road to happiness what makes the happiness so worth it. But I'm probably just saying that to somehow beautify my own fear that the road in front of me is a very, very, unreasonably long one.

Kept on looking for a way to take me through the night/ I couldn't get it right

This bumpy road has run me into walls, into concrete floors, into shower doors, and into my own personal dark place. I've followed it into weekends of sleep, into days of confusion, and into nights remembered only by photographs. I tried continuing with my original plans, but that didn't feel right. I am a changed person and I need to let myself grow along with these changes. I have tried rethinking my future and I've gotten nowhere. Planning is futile. Maybe the next best thing is to just... Go.

Restless feeling really got a hold/ I started searching for a better way

But still that aching fear that I'll keep falling.

That I'll never get it right.

L

*lyrics from Climax Blues Band's "Couldn't Get It Right"

again and again and again

Oh how it kills me that you still have so much control over my emotions. You still pluck at my heart strings as though you're playing D'yer Maker at a live show in LA. It breaks up my plan of attack everytime you appear because I cannot prepare for what you have ready to throw my way. Oh how you kill me. Slowly, but surely. Every time.

You say that I'd be better off, better off, sleeping by myself and wondering...

You send me for a spin. For days I'm waiting in line, waiting for the attention, waiting for the call, and then suddenly I'm admitted onto a ride I didn't know I was in line for. Suddenly I'm being sent for a curve I wasn't prepared for. Suddenly I'm off the ground, I'm confused, I'm scared, and no one is there to tell me it will be okay. Suddenly you aren't the guy I thought I was waiting for. Oh how it kills me to have to rethink my decisions. I thought I knew right from wrong. Something in your kiss confuses my sense of direction.

...wondering if I'm better off, better off without you, boy.

Knowing all too well that I'm damaged, broken, and unable to handle any more heartache, I insist on sticking around. Of course my heart can't take anymore pain, but my ego craves redemption. I must be good enough. I am. I know I am. I am brilliant and wonderful. I am a catch. I wish you still saw that. I wish you still knew that. I wish you would notice. God how it kills me that you don't care enough to notice.

I'm not gonna stand here feeling lonely but I won't forget you, and I wont think this was just a waste of time.

So, no. I won't move away with you. It was tempting, and I wanted to say yes. I did say yes, although I hadn't told you. I won't. I shouldn't. I can't. My life cannot be an endless game of cat and mouse, even though playing with you was the most fun I've had in years. At the end of every round you steal my heart, and you don't play fair. You keep it, you hide it, and I don't get it back for weeks. You are good for me when you're here, and bad for me the other 7 days of the week. I've never loved someone so much for so little. And you continue to play. You continue to kill me. Oh how I love the way you chase me down just to kill me a little more each time. God how I love it.

but don't just leave me hanging on....

Oh how it kills me.

Again and again and again.

L

*lyrics from Colbie Callait's The Little Things

damaged

A few weeks ago I burnt my leg. I gave myself a really good second degree burn. It was pretty disgusting. At first it felt like fire. I held iced towels against it and took tons of ibuprofen. When the pain died down, it started trying to heal itself. It wasn't pretty, but you could tell that my immune system was sending valuable nutrients to the surface area to help heal the skin. It kept being not pretty. Now it isn't as disgusting to look at. In fact, it's healing really well. But it is still there. I know I shouldn't swim because it's still vulnerable to infection. I still need to put neosporin on it everyday. It is still painfully visible, and it will scar. There will always be a big scar on my leg to remind me of the time I got clumsy.

There's no physical scar to remind me of the times I've been clumsy with my feelings, with my heart. Sometimes I forget that I am not completely healed. There is no visual reminder that I need to take care of my emotional safety. I feel healed, I feel fine, and then I feel the infection setting in. I've done things to aggravate the wound left by J and since I can't see the bleeding, I don't know how to stop it. It tries to heal itself, but I can't protect it. I can't fix it myself.

So I've been flying blind for the past 7 months. I thought I was fine, healed, progressing beautifully, but I'd just been doing a good job at bandaging the injury. And now, for some reason, I'm out of gauze. It's exposed and it's catching everything that flies toward it. It stings again. It hurts, it aches, it keeps me awake, and it forces me to sleep. I can't face the pain so I have no choice but to sleep all day. I'm safer if I stay inside. It can't get worse if I never face the elements. It has to heal eventually, and I have to shelter it until then.

I thought I'd sheltered it enough in June. I thought so in July. I was fine in August. September. But October has been like pouring rubbing alcohol into cut skin. Weeks of constant, burning, unbearable pain from which I can find no escape but sleep. Maybe friends can help? Only a few. Some even exacerbate the pain. Some pour more alcohol into the cut. It's safer to stay inside. The worse the wound gets, the longer the wound stays open, the darker the scar will be. So I'm going to shelter it. Shelter myself. Hide away from the elements, the world, everything out there that makes life worth living. I'm safer inside.

So thats where I'll be.

L

safety vs the spark

Is there possibility for a relationship to last if there is no real honeymoon period? I don't think so, but I'm open to opinions. Here's a scenario to get you thinking:

B is a nice guy. Sweet, good looking, friendly, intelligent, funny, optimistic, and to top it all off, he treats me well. Where's the downside? On paper, this guy is perfect. He is well adjusted and easy to get along with. My friends like him. His friends like me. Downside? The downside is that I can describe him, his personality, his interactions with me and my friends, and all with a completely steady hand, steady heart, and without having to fight back a smile. There are no butterflies. There is no spark. We are already coexisting as if we'd been together for months.

So the question, again: can this last? And even if yes, is it worth it? I don't think so, but I'm too frightened to be sure.

Thinking of C still gives my heart a rush. When I see C in my dreams I wake up with a smile. Even the simplest text from C gives me a shot of adrenaline. A text from B makes me smile, but in the same way a text from a friend does- I am happy to know someone is thinking of me. A text from C puts my mind at ease.

Perhaps I'm setting impossible standards. Perhaps no guy, no matter how perfect, can really ever make my heart race as long as I have such a susceptibility to the virus C's carrying.

So: 1. succumb to safety, give up on the spark and butterflies and the rush of the honeymoon-happy-period? or 2. forget safety- keep tripping, falling, breaking down piece by piece in hopes that the spark appears again to light my way?

I wonder what's behind door #3.

L

evolution of a story

Wouldn't ya know it? The second I decide I love relationships with stories I walk into one with absolutely NO story to speak of, and it is the most promising one I've encountered in months.

I realized that this one had no story at all when someone asked me "so, how'd you two meet?" and I had NO answer. Want to hear how we met? It is a boring boring non-story. Here goes:

July 4: He and his friends meet a friend of mine and her friends (not me) in Tahoe. My friend gets his number.

Some time in August: The friend of mine invites "this guy she met in Tahoe" and his friends to meet us at a bar for this bars weekly Tuesday night fiesta. He is there. I meet him. I remember adding him to my facebook on my phone. That's the extent of it for the night.

Random nights throughout August: He texts me to ask if I'm going out, I say yes, I say where, and I don't remember what he looks like so I am not even thinking about finding him at these locations.

September 4: He and some of his friends attend my birthday celebration. I said hi to him, but didn't know who he was. Like I said, forgot what he looked like in person. It'd been weeks and I'd been a party animal.

September 25: He texts to ask if I'm going to be out downtown, cos he will be. I am playing Capture the Flag with friends, so I tell him no, but maybe after. On my way home from the game playing, I text the boy to see where he and his friends are. I am considering a beer before bed. I meet him and his friends at Streets of London. I join them on a walk to Zebra Club.

September 26 (AM): We walk from Zebra back to my house. We have a couple drinks there, too.

September 26 (PM): I go to his house for a movie-watching night.

September 27: I go to his house for a BBQ with his friends.

September 28: We go to dinner and ice cream, then home to watch movies.

September 29-October 1: We text, we e-mail, we make plans for the weekend.

[If I could read you the future, It'd show October 2-5: Out downtown, Brewfest with friends, Football watching, Non-stop time in each others' company.]

See how the 'story' doesn't actually start? It is a failure story. We have no story to speak of... But we do have chemistry. And any guy who keeps texting me for 2 months with no attention back is a guy worth some attention in my book.

By the way, just to calm some curiosity, the guy from the airport was an epic failure. He was very very full of himself; he was convinced he was God's gift to me and all women (and he did let me know about ALL THE WOMEN who wanted to be in my position...). He was rude to the waitress and gave off a creepy vibe. In addition, at one point he asked me if I'd rather have a Chanel or Prada bag, given the choice... and then he made a funny face when I answered Chanel. Label snob? Italian label snob? With a penis? Perhaps not. Airport boy was given the go ahead for departure.

And wouldn't ya know it, 6 hours later I decided to answer B's text and meet him for a beer on my way home.

Maybe the story is still spinning.

Spin, little story, spin away. :)

L