Friday, June 15

To kc:


I am not scared or intimidated by you, you intrigue me. You are like no one I have ever met before. I am scared of my feelings for you and that is what you see. When I met you I had just gotten out of a 4 1/2 year relationship which drained everything I had in me. It took away so much from me and I should've gotten out of it sooner, I have no one to blame but myself for that. I didn't think that I would meet anyone, wasn't even trying, didn't really want to. On my birthday, al was supposed to drive me home. Had she not been so baked who knows what might have happened. I had planned on spending a lot of time by myself, doing the things that I want to do, rediscovering the inner me. And then I met you.

And I honestly did think that that night would be it and then it wasn't. And because I was scared of getting hurt again so soon I held back. And you saw that but I couldn't help it. I was on guard because, after all, I barely knew you, and I do have trust issues with people I have just met. I don't generally care what people think of me, but why should I open up to them if I think that they may hurt me? I had no idea what was going to happen and I still don't. I held back because I knew I still needed to work on me and then something happened.

I decided that I couldn't be scared of that anymore. If you decide to read any other entries you will see that development. And then I started to open up, to attempt to put myself out there, and you started to pull away. And I know that you started to pull away because I hadn't opened up before. My timing has never been good. But I still couldn't stop my feelings from developing and I couldn't stop you from pulling away further. And that fucking sucks.

And I didn't want a relationship and still don't believe that I am anywhere near close to being able to commit to one. I have too many things I need to work on for myself before I could even become close to being in a healthy one. And yet I saw that as the direction that things were heading, and it scared me, and it conflicted me, and I didn't know what to do. So I held back again. And then I didn't. It's like a giant fucking rollercoaster in my head and I can't make the damn thing stop. My brain is my own worst enemy. I overthink, overanalyze, overdo everything, and I tried to suppress it, to push it down, but it just comes back up again.

My shyness around other people (partly) is my attempting to not totally wear my heart on my sleeve and not have them see right through me to see how I feel about you and to tell you. I have clearly failed at that. And yes, I do know that I need to work on social settings. It just takes time for me though. I will eventually find my voice and the inner me that I want to express to other people. al and I never really did too many social things, we would hang out with her sister, her brother, or this girl she used to work with. That was it. Occasionally I would hang out with my friend from my old job. That is why I don't have too many friends out here. But I am working on it at least and at least it is something that I recognize that I need to do. It's like riding a bike, even if you don't do it for a long time you still remember how to, but you still might fall off it again. But bruises and wounds heal and eventually you won't fall off again. I have fallen off at least a few times in the last few months and will probably fall off again. But at least I know that I'll keep on trying.

I can't stop trying. But I can't be afraid to fall either. Too many times I have watched myself and tried to stop myself from exuding whatever it is that I put out there that is not me. And it horrifies me, but know that I have found my inner voice before and I will find it again. After am and I broke up I had 8 months to heal, to work on myself, to find myself, before I got involved with someone again. I may not have needed that long, but I knew that it was long enough. I met you 2 weeks after al and I broke up. And even though our relationship was over long before it was officially over, I still couldn't start the healing process until it was really over. And having to live with her and be around her is not how I heal and I think now that the living situation has changed, I will truly be able to get past that part of my life and move on. I can't help the timing and I couldn't help starting to have feelings for you. I thought that I could keep them down and then they just kept surfacing and I couldn't deny them to myself anymore. But I wanted more time. I need more time.

And therein lies the problem and the source of my conflict. I like you, more than I should, more than I thought I would, but my heart is still healing and my head is trying to help my heart heal. And to throw all of the other things that are going on right now into the mix and you can see where all of my stress is coming from. I haven't felt this kind of raw emotion in so long, I had relaxed, I had let go of the stress and anxiety. And then it reared its ugly head again.

But things are getting better. I am not homeless per se, although I will still feel a little out of place in a place that is not mine. But eventually I will find a place I like and it will be mine and it will be an expression of myself. And I am looking forward to it, but a good looking forward, not an anxious looking forward, which is nice. I get to pick out my own paint, my own decorations, whatever I want, and it's refreshing. I don't have to ask anyone's opinion or permission to do anything and that's a comforting and emboldening thought.

I may not enjoy my job everyday, but it keeps me above the poverty line and allows me to have a little fun. Working for the machine isn't the most ideal situation and I'm coming up with ideas to help me feel better about it, things I can do outside of work, projects that I can do that are things that I enjoy. Most people don't like their jobs, but most people also don't have a sudden windfall drop into their laps that allows them to go and find themselves without having to worry about the everyday things that most other people worry about. So my job is my job and eventually I will find a new one, but this one is good for now. And I enjoy the people I work with, they are fun, and through getting to know them I get to know more of myself and what I see in myself, what they see in me. And the more I get to know them, the more the real me comes through.

And that's why I asked that question yesterday. And I'm still not sure about the answer but it's okay. I just can't focus on that I guess. I just need to do what I need to do for me. I enjoy hanging out with you and spending time with you and snuggling with you, but I know that I would feel hurt if I saw you with anyone else, at least right now, and possibly for a while. And that may not be fair to you to tell you that or all of this, but that's how I'm feeling.

And I think that there are things, well, at least one thing that stands out in my mind, that you need to work on too. You need to learn how to say no. I understand why you can't, it's your family, it's your close friends, it's your sense of giving back for the gift that has been given to you, but at some point you will have to say no if you want to ever complete anything in a timely manner. Well, I can't say that you can't say no completely, you can say no to me and you have. And when I told you that I was feeling neglected before, it's because it feels as if I'm the only person that you can say no to. And maybe it is because I'm not your family, I'm not one of your close friends (I do want to be though), and I'm not your girlfriend. So I am the easiest one to say no to. Or maybe that's just what I see.

So I need to take some time and do what it is that I want. And if you want to join me for some of the things I would like that, but if you can't then I understand. I know that you are truly busy with everything and I hope for your sake that you are able to complete things. It will make your hair stop falling out. I think that my vacation and getting away from everything will be good for me. I'm excited about it. I'm excited to do the things that I'm going to do while I'm gone. I'm excited that when I come back I'll be out of my old living situation and be more able to focus on finding a new one. I'm excited that I have rugby and softball as well. They may suck to drive to, I don't even want to think about how much I'll spend in gas this summer, but they are fun and they are things that I want to do, and that's all that matters. They are what I want to do.

And the self-assured, confident person you know is inside of me will come out. It's there, I know it is, I've seen it before, I just have to remember how to find it. So have patience and hopefully you will rediscover what you saw in me in the first place before I fucked it up. And so I may not be any good at verbally expressing what is on my mind or in my heart (although I am DEFINITELY getting better at that and I know that) but I can write. I can put my thoughts down onto something tangible and go back and read them over again and learn from myself and learn about myself. And if you choose to read any other dates then you will learn more about me, maybe even the things that you wanted to know that I could never say out loud. Just know that they are my thoughts, my opinions, and my feelings, and they are completely and brutally honest.