How?

How do you change the love you have for someone into another kind of love? How does it transform into the friendship kind of love that is the only kind possible right now? How do you stop being in love and just love?

I can't make my brain stop. I can't make my heart stop. It's impossible. Even after all these months. Even after all the tears and the heartache and the pain I still love her. She is one of my best friends. She knows more about me than anyone on Earth. She is the first person I want to share good news with and bad news with. She is the person I want to give me a hug and comfort me when I've had a bad day, and it's her smile I want to see when I've had a good day.

And yet sometimes I feel lonely, even when I'm with her. I want her to hold my hand and wrap her arms around me because she loves me, not because she is my friend but because she feels something inside her that makes her want to do it. I want the smile I used to see when I walked in the door. I want to fall asleep in her arms, not just her falling asleep with mine around her.

I want more than just a friend and companion. And maybe it is only that time will tell. Maybe sometime in the future it will work itself out. Maybe someone else will come into my life who fulfills those desires. Until then I will have to settle with being with myself.

I think the good thing is that every day I feel a little stronger and a little happier. I feel a little better being inside my skin and a little better being inside my head. It's definitely been quieter in my head. Oh, don't get me wrong, there are still days when it goes a little crazy, but I haven't had a day where I spontaneously burst into tears in a while so I think that's a good thing.

Although, today was close. But that's okay. It's that time of the month and the hormones are flowing. Maybe it's because kc actually came to my house the other night. She hasn't snuggled with me at my house in months and I was actually a little surprised that she wanted to come over since it had been so long.

But she did and it was nice. I fell asleep on her while she read in bed which hasn't happened in a while. It was snowing when I woke up so I called my boss and told her I would be late since traffic was a mess and we went and had breakfast. It was actually a pretty good day.

The crappy part was when I came home along later in the evening. I stayed in the library and studied while kc was at her evening class and then gave her a ride home from school and we had dinner and watched South Park, and then I had to go home. Home all alone.

I've become pretty used to being home alone. And yes, I do still love living alone. But after such a good day with kc, snuggling would have been nice. Shit a kiss goodbye would have been nice but since I haven't received a kiss in a really long time I'm not going to get my hopes up anytime soon for that to happen.

Which leads me back to my original question. How do I change the love I have for her?

I Hate You

My therapist thought it would be a good idea to make a list of all the things I hate about my former stepdad...so here goes:

I hate you
I hate you for taking away years of my life
I hate you for ruining my childhood
I hate that I can't remember the good times because you made the other times so bad my brain did its best to erase them
I hate you for all the things you threatened us with and all the things you did
I hate that I have glimpses of memories of things you did to me that I will never know for certain
I hate that you told me - A CHILD - that I was worthless and would amount to nothing
I hate that my sister is an alcoholic with no self-esteem because of you
I hate that she bases her self-worth on how men treat her and that she accepts being with a substandard man because she never saw how a relationship was supposed to be
I hate that I can't open up and trust people because I'm scared
I hate that you have made me feel like I am unworthy of love because I am damaged
I hate that you have had these effects on my life and that it still affects me
I hate having panic attacks near guns
I hate you causing me so much stress that my stomach has been irreparably damaged
I hate that you didn't treat my mom the way she deserves to be treated and loved
I hate that if you thought our hands weren't clean enough you would make us eat dinner on the floor with the dog
I hate that you alwasy fed me more than my sister, wouldn't let me leave the table until I was done, all the while calling me fat
I hate that I had to hide under my bed from you
I hate that you teased me mercilessly about anything
I hate that you would tickle me until I started crying because it hurt so bad
I hate the way you used to hit our wrists with your hand as hard as you could
I hate that you did nothing and laughed when your nephew exposed himself to me and tried to make me touch him
I hate that you wouldn't let me listen to any music other than country
I hate that you made us eat meat and potatoes every night and wouldn't let mom make anything else
I hate that you put me down so much I can't stand up for myself
I hate that you tried to kill my mom
I hate that you only spent 1 night in jail for it
I hate that to teach me baseball you threw the ball at my head as hard as you could
I hate that people tell me to just get over it
I hate having to explain to people why I'm a vegetarian, why I hate country music, and why I hate guns
I hate that after you did all that to us you had the audacity to request custody
I hate that I told my gram to stop waving her hands when she had a knife in it because I saw enough of that at home
I hate that my mom had to take on your debt to stay in the house
I hate that every time I look at the wall in the living room I know the patch for the hole where the arrow hit is hidden behind my sister's school picture
I hate that my gram felt like she had to rescue us on the weekends but I love that she did

There are so many things that I don't remember him doing to me that I don't want to remember. But how am I supposed to move past it if I can't remember it and process it? I don't want to remember, I don't want to know for sure, but I hate having suspicions.

I think that I just need to move past without remembering since nothing is going to bring back the memories. It was hard enough to just think of the list and it was emotionally draining.

In other news school is kicking my ass. I'm working hard to get work done but so many distractions keep coming up. And lately I've been feeling weird with kc. I mean, I don't expect our relationship to be like what it was. I'm just mad at myself for having these reactions.

It's like, I know she's busy, I know she has school, I don't know if she's seeing anyone. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe that's what I need for closure and to move on in our friendship. Or maybe I just need to stop thinking about it. It's not like I couldn't move on and have a friends with benefits thing going on with ds.

But I'm not really feeling things with her. We went on a date a few weeks back, and it was nice and all, but I wasn't feeling it. Then she wanted to have sex later and at least I stopped that from happening. Except lately I've actually been feeling a little fired up, and maybe that's why I don't want to hang out with her, is because I know I don't want to sleep with her on an emotional level, but I'd probably sleep with her on a physical level.

That would be going against what I'm trying to accomplish right now though. I want to get to know someone and actually like them and have feelings for them before I sleep with them. The only problem is that the only person who is sparking any sort of sexual interest in me is kc, and that's not good since I know she is definitely not feeling that way about me. If she is she's keeping it hidden pretty well. I doubt that though, probably just my overactive imagination.

I hate being this way. I hate being in this sad state. I hate second guessing myself. I hate questioning everything that is going on in my head when I know that it is only delusional things that aren't real and that I'm just making mountains out of mole hills.

Such is my life. I'm still seeing my therapist every week and it's going well. I think if I keep going running maybe this weird sweating thing will stop. I think it's just because I haven't been working out or playing rugby which really sucks. I miss playing but school has got to be the priority and it is. I resisted going to the St. Patty's Day parade downtown today so I could get some homework done. I resisted beer pong last night so I could wake up and go running and do homework.

I need to be running more during the week and at least it's staying lighter out later. It means I should probably not stay at kc's house after I drop her off after school and actually go home and do stuff. I do homework and study at her house but I don't go running like I want because I want to spend time with her. But I really want this weird sweating thing to stop. I just randomly start sweating uncontrollably even if i'm not hot. My palms get sweaty, my armpits get stinky, sometimes my whole body gets sweaty, it's pretty fucking gross actually. Or maybe I should see a doctor about it since this is definitely not normal, at least for me.

Climbing Slowly

So I think that this professional help thing may work. Yeah, it's definitely not going to be easy, and it's going to take a while. But big holes are hard to climb out of. Last time I think I climbed out of the hole a little too quickly and I think it's kinda like when deep sea divers come up out of the ocean too quickly and something happens in their brains.

This time I'm coming up slowly. VERY FUCKING SLOWLY! Enough of this shit already. I want to be able to not get paralyzed with fear when a relationship that by all intents and purposes could've been fucknig wonderful comes along. Why can't I stop myself from overthinking and overanalyzing every damn thing that happens?

Well, we're starting to get past the preliminaries in therapy and getting to the shit that keeps fucking me up. She wants me to practice saying a self affirming mantra everyday and meditating 3 times a day for 10 seconds at a time. Like I said, we're starting off slowly.

At this point I will try anything. I'm trying to level the playing field in my head to get the underdog to come out on top, to stop always thinking the worst case scenario and then in an effort to learn how to express my feelings I think it's a good fucking idea to express the feelings in my head which are totally and completely unfounded and just make me seem neurotic and insane.

And on Monday I hit the big 3-0. That's right, 30. I thought I was okay with it. I think I'm okay with it. It's just weird. I mean, I knew this day was coming, but it always seemed so far away. And here I am staring it in the face, wondering how the fuck I got into this hole I'm in, and thankful it didn't take me 'til I was 40 to figure out I was even in a hole.

School started this past Monday. Failed my p chem test so I gotta take p chem 2 and get a B or better. At least I was only taking one class so now I'm taking 2, instrumental analysis and p chem 2. This will at least keep my mind occupied.

Stupid people snuggling in this movie. I want some snuggling. I want some comfort. Damn and a sex scene. I want some of that too. Except I think I figured out my problem. I have one-nighters with girls that I'm not attracted to in an effort to keep myself attached to kc just in case. I gotta let go of the just in case. Which means no more one-nighters. At least with girls I'm not attracted to. I was at least attracted to rc, but not so much sm or jj.

But I think that I need to be friends first. That seems to work out better for me. I get a chance to relax and be myself and not who I think I should be and it seems to set up a better foundation for an actual relationship. So I'm just gonna meet people and make friends. And go through a lot of batteries. I'm going to be out of the hole before I start walking along that path again.

I don't get it

Well, it's certainly been an interesting couple of weeks for me. I rang in the New Year in a way I never saw coming. I jumped in the reservoir for the polar plunge. I have successfully found a therapist I like. She has decided that weekly meetings are going to be best for now, until things start going better for me. We're sorting through childhood issues, why I have a problem expressing my anger, what is holding me back from having a successful relationship. So that's good.

But I still don't know what to do with kc. She was away on vacation for the last 2 weeks and I only talked to her a couple times. And the first 2 times were good, however the last one was really awkward and ended up with her accusing me of sleeping with one of my friends.

It's like, she doesn't want to know what I do, if I see other people, if I sleep with other people, and yet it feels like she takes pride in "catching me" in a lie. She's the one that wants me to lie to her, so what the fuck? It's not like it was even a lie. I was going to hang out with rc and sr (who by the way are now a couple and moving in together) and since kc hates rc since I slept with her, what, like a fucking year ago, I have to not tell kc when I hang out with her. It's not like I want rc, if I did, I wouldn't have gone back to kc after all that shit last year.

It's just that, when we were talking on the phone the other night, she said it. She said I love you. Where the hell did that come from? Then she gets mad at me for not saying it back and says I just gave myself away and that she caught me. Excuse me? Sorry for not saying it back, but really, I thought that the first time she said it to me, she would be looking at me, seeing me, and telling me something coming from her heart and I would feel special and it would be wonderful.

Let's backtrack a second. A couple weeks ago we went to a party and when we got back to kc's house she laid into me about not being able to open up and how she had wanted so badly to fall in love with me and that she loves me but she's not in love with me. And it got ugly and there was screaming and it didn't end well. But we moved past it, however it still stings so much to hear I love you but I'm not in love with you. And then she goes and says I love you on the phone to me. How the fuck am I supposed to react to that? What did she expect? It certainly didn't make me feel special and I think the first time you say it to someone it shouldn't be on the phone unless there are just some ridiculously extenuating circumstances. And I don't think being on vacation qualifies since she was only gone for 2 weeks and we've been doing this thing for almost 2 years now.

Holy shit, 2 years. Last night before I had to pick kc up at the airport I was talking to her roommate and she asked why I was still here. She thinks that I put up with a lot of shit from kc, and no one (apparently this is a source of discussion for a lot of people) understands why I put up with it.

I have just started feeling lately like things are completely one-sided in our "relationship". For example, Christmas morning I woke up early at my house and just sent her a good morning text. She sends me a text at 7am and asks if I'm still awake because she has a tummy ache and would really love some 7up. I was still awake so I got up, made some coffee, and made my way over to her house with some 7up and some soup. I'm a nice friend like that and being sick sucks. Then, 2 days later I wake up feeling not so hot and she's all, you should drink some 7up. But would she bring me some so I could lay in bed and try and feel better, no.

I can't really remember the last time she came over to my house. I always go over to her house. Usually I don't care, it's more fun, there's more people, and I need to socialize more. It's just sometimes it would be nice if she actually came to see me, made the effort, made me feel like she wants me in her life. And lately, it's just making me sad.

It's like she wants her cake and the icing and to have it served on a silver platter. She wants all of the good parts of a relationship with me, the snuggling, the attention, the talking, but she also wants to go out and date and look for other people. But I can't do the same. She freaks out. Fuck, she'd probably lose her shit if she knew everything that I did on New Year's and First Friday.

I don't know why I care so much. Well, I do. It's because I do love her. She may never have been in love with me, but I'm still in love with her. Maybe we do have to take a step back and not be together or see each other for a little while. Maybe that's the only way. Except, in my head, I want her to miss me, to think, to realize what she could lose. I don't think that would happen.

Maybe I'm still taking it from her because I have some delusional hope that she will get her shit together and figure it out and acutally be in love with me. It's hard, we have/had such a great connection. I have never felt this way about anyone before. Maybe I am a sadist for taking it. Maybe I enjoy the pain. Well, no, I don't enjoy the pain, but the happiness of the good times just feels so good and so right that it's hard to not put up with the pain in the hopes that the happy times will return.

Although, my therapist made a good point this morning. I was talking about how bfr and I would take care of each other in college. We had the buddy system. One night it would be my turn to be the drunk girl, another night it would be her turn. We would look out for each other, make sure the other made it home safe in her intoxicated state. And that's how a relationship is supposed to go. It should be an equal amount of give and take. And it's not that way with kc right now. It's me giving and her taking.

Right now she is being all wishy washy and unsure and not the confident self-assured person that I fell in love with. Except right now I'm also that way. And a relationship doesn't work when both people are sick, it only works when one person is there for the other when they need it and vice versa. It's an even amount of give and take, not one person giving and the other person taking.

I think I just need to ask her what set her off after the party and where the I love you came from. Then maybe we can figure out where to go from there.

Bored...hmmm

This has kinda been a lonely little time for me. I've actually started looking for a therapist. I mean, yeah, I think I got some shit to work out before I can move on. I think that I am officially putting women on the back burner for now. I just can't deal with the shit anymore, it's fucking me up. So much so that I am seeking professional help. Fuck.

I know I've got some issues, who doesn't, but when you can't move on and you don't want to look even though she's sending you the most ridiculously clear signals that it's time to move on because for all you know she's already started looking, then it's time to seek help. Really, why can't she just get over herself? Perfect doesn't fucking exist, or maybe I'm just trying too hard, or I just don't have the right standards. I don't fucking know.

The only thing I know is that I can't seem to move on, I'm holding on to some ridiculously stupid hope that she will get a piano dropped on her head and wake up and suddenly realize that she is indeed making a huge mistake not trying to figure out how to make it work. And not really caring.

Oh, she'd say she cares, that's why we can't be together, because it just wasn't ever going to work. But I don't think she realizes just how mean she has been to me lately. Apparently, "I just want an alone night" means I'm gonna get drunk with my roommates and some friends and puke. Whatever, maybe I just have too many alone nights. Apparently, midnight is a good time to say...I just need to be alone tonight, but I wish we could have taken a bath together, since I didn't get an alone night last night because I got drunk with people.

She told me that it would hurt when I started dating again. She said just don't tell her, don't let her find out. But she still wants to snuggle. Sometimes. When it's good for her.

I know her life is fucking crazy right now. Her kitchen is being remodeled so her house is trashed basically everyday, and every night she cleans it again, only for it to be trashed the next day. Her cats don't like all this craziness so one of them is constantly going to the bathroom not in the litter box. But that's still no excuse to be mean to me. Maybe she doesn't even realize it. At least I'm getting better at telling her what's on her mind.

The other day I came close to burning down my work, yes, I hate it that much. So I stopped by her house after I talked to my professor to just bitch and get it out of my system, and she starts telling me what I should do and giving me her opinion. I was like, please, stop, I don't want to hear what I should do, I know what I should do, I just want to bitch and be done with it. She was definitely surprised.

I don't know why I put up with it. I mean, I do, everyone does, doesn't mean it's a good place to be. Maybe it is okay that she doesn't want to be around me all that much anymore. She never really came to my house anyway. I always have to go to her house. Most of the time I don't mind, but sometimes it would be nice if she just wanted to come here. Sometimes she misses me. I doubt really all that much, but who knows, she doesn't ever really express her feelings so I have no idea.

Someday my princess will come. Someday someone will bring me flowers. Someday someone will love me best, someone will choose to be with me. Today isn't that day. Tomorrow probably won't be either. I really hope my someday is out there, that would suck if it wasn't.

When Hell Freezes Over

That is probably what will happen the next time I get laid. Let's just say the prospects just really aren't all that good. I love a girl who just can't be with me that way. So we just snuggle. That's it...just snuggle.

Which is really nice, but I have needs. But I don't want to go out and just get laid. I want someone who is okay with being in a relationship with me, who won't keep going back and forth, but yeah, they have to be a good snuggler.

I'm a close sleeper, I like the feeling of her next to me, and so does she. And I've found, with the number of people that I've slept next to, that not everyone likes it, actually, most people don't. I don't get it, but, hey, I just can't be with them.

I want someone who likes to surprise me and do sweet things. Have yet to find that, well, almost.

Oh well, I'm pretty much occupied by work and school, so I don't really have that much time, so it'd be nice if someone else was in that situation so they wouldn't be disappointed that I can't be with them all the time. Plus I like my space. I like living alone. A lot.

But ya know, not every night. I want to feel special, loved, appreciated, I want to feel those things for someone who can return them.

In other news...I rocked my inorganic final! I got a 44/50 and brought my grade up to a B. It was a pretty close call there, before the final I had the bottom of a C and you have to get a B- to pass the class. There are 4 masters core courses and you have to get a B- in all of them. So if I do really well on my presentation then I should get a solid B in the class and not have to do extra work. He said if I didn't have a B- I would have to do extra work over winter and spring semesters to show I understand what the class is about. Hopefully I do well on my presentation.

Work...eh, it's a job. I have a goal. Everyday that I leave for school I just tell myself it'll be worth it in the end. Every Friday night I spend at home doing work or recovering from a rough week I know it will be worth it when it's over. I will appreciate every day that I don't have to do it. When I'll actually have leisure time, that will be nice.

Can't wait for Thanksgiving next week! No school all week, and I have Thursday and Friday off from work. No idea what I'm doing for Thanksgiving yet, but have invitations to a few different places.

Time to read my Cosmo and think about all the sex I'm not having. Sometimes it sucks. Today would be one of those days.

Bitchy Woman

So, I've been at this job for about 4 months now. I finally have health insurance...woo hoo!! But my boss has been back from maternity leave for about a month now and I gotta tell you, what the fuck is her problem? It's like she purposefully doesn't tell me stuff and then tries to make me feel bad when I mess something up. Which I wouldn't have messed up if she had just told me about it.

I don't get it, why would she do that? And she sends me the stupidest e-mails, she'll ask a question and it's like, um, if you had actually read the message I sent to you then your question would already be answered and you wouldn't be wasting my fucking time trying to deal with this shit.

Thursday was just a really bad day for me. I mean, fuck, I was crying on the way in to work when I was thinking about all the stuff I had to do. They sent me to a stupid meeting in Chicago, where the only high point was that I made friends with another girl who was also at the meeting, and we were flying the same airline so we hung out at the bar before our flights and that was nice. So I got to work Thursday morning and had 123 e-mails, and no, I'm not overexaggerating here, that's how many I really had. We had a conference call which was going over essentially the exact same thing that I had to do at the meeting so it was a huge waste of time. I had a giant bucket of samples that I had to measure and I've got dragon lady breathing down my neck for all sorts of stupid shit that she should be doing.

So the one lday who I like and is nice at work took me out for some coffee because she came by my next and saw me freaking out. So that was really nice. She thinks that dragon lady dumps all this shit on me because I'm smarter than her, which isn't really any consolation because this job isn't rocket science.

But work wasn't the only reason I was freaking out, it doesn't really make me freak out, just when you add onto it all the shit I have for school. I had a test that I was supposed to take on Wednesday but I had to take Tuesday morning because of the stupid Chicago trip so that sucked. I missed out on a day and a half of studying because of work.

And now I had a midterm in my advanced inorganic chemistry class on Tuesday. So Thursday I was supposed to go to practice because we had an exec board meeting afterward but I have just had to make peace with the fact that if something has to get cut back, it's my rugby time. I have to do really well on this test or I'm going to fail the class. My professor is a pain in the ass and he just doesn't understand why I don't get stuff. But it's like if he explains it a little different, or words something differently then I get it. I've been meeting with him for the last couple of weeks to review stuff so it's getting better, it just takes a lot of time. So I had to ditch practice on Thursday but I've been plowing through making my study cards so it was definitely a good thing that I missed it.

I just really wish I had more time. kc really wanted to have sex on Sunday night and I just passed out because I was so tired. That's pretty much never happened to me before and it sucks because it hasn't been all that frequently lately that she says she wants to have sex. But it's like she is more interested in me now because I have so much going on and I don't really have all that much time for her. I don't get it but at least I just don't really have time to think about it.

So yeah, if anyone has invented a way to make time stop so that I can get all my stuff done (or even have time to eat) please let me know. Otherwise, it seems like almost everything I love is getting pushed to the side so I can get school work done. Maybe I'll get a break for next weekend since my tests will be over and I'll actually get to enjoy rugby and stuff. Today I'm going to watch a game at the stadium, there are 2 games this weekend but I can only watch 1 because I need to keep studying and since our actual game is tomorrow and I won't be able to study then I need to get it done today.

I can't believe I've signed up for another 3 years of this. At least I think next semester will be better since it's a couple of repeat classes. But after that, fuck, it's going to be hard. I know, it's my own fault, I sgned up for this all on my own, and I knew it was going to be hard, I just didn't realize it was going to consume every free moment of my time and some moments that aren't free. I really wish I didn't have to scale back rugby so much because that is my release, but at least we have a game tomorrow. No idea how much I'll actually play since I haven't been to practice and there are 2 new girls who don't get told they're too skinny to prop. Oh well, hopefully I can at least get to play a half.

Fuck this is crazy. At least I don't want to jump off a bridge today. Wish I could have slept longer but I passed out early last night so at least I can get some studying in before the girls get here for the game.