Fail on the way to win

It is taking some adjustment to be in a happy, healthy relationship. Joey accepts me, unconditionally. He is patient and loving. With him, I am not pushy, or intense, and when he tells me he's eaten some horrible food covered in cheese and I chastise him, he tells me to push harder because he wants to be healthy--he's got myriad seasonal allergies and has a shit immune system and I'm trying to help him eat better, and he loves that I care and give him helpful suggestions of things he can eat that are healthier. With him, I haven't experienced any anxiousness at all, at any moment, aside from the anxiety and frustration I feel that he is so far away from me and there's not much to be done about it right now. It's been three and a half weeks since I last saw him, and my finances are currently in a shambles (it's the 7th and I have $0 toward rent, so rent plus other bills and debts I'm behind on total $2574.39, all due before August 5th. Normally, that would be totally doable, but my work has slowed to a crawl, and I'm transitioning into other work that so far is also proving to be a bust. It seemed like this new job would be something that would really open me up to getting squared financially and starting some savings and finally being on my way to buying a house, but it's been completely disappointing thus far. It is something that can potentially pick up, though, so I'm going to persevere. And quit the other job to devote more time to this.

So, the happiness and excitement I felt initially when I began this work has resolved itself as the image of a brick wall, again. The wall I've seen for the last year, the wall that says, "Sarah, you're almost 35, and you're a failure."

Today, I realized something important, though. I realized that having someone like Joey in my life does not make me a failure. I have had people love me, care for me, be patient with me, but not like this. He is a natural caretaker of the anxious and the neurotic. His actions are preemptive. I never react badly because there's nothing to react badly to. He curtails my usual fears by simply being himself. Instead of being frustrated that we haven't seen one another and that our next meeting is uncertain because I can't afford to get there (he's got a 9-5 M-F job, so coming to see me doesn't make much sense, especially since flying is several times more expensive than me traveling to him by bus), he just says that everything will be okay, that he'll be there any time I can get to him. He tells me he misses me every day, but his patience is contagious. It's okay, it's all okay. Three weeks may feel like a long time, but by October 1st, which is two months and three weeks away, I'll be living there, and I can see him all the time.

Yes, I'm moving to Louisville. I will be getting an inheritance of $5,000 from my grandma's estate, and it should arrive within the next month or so. I had really hoped I could piggyback another few thousand onto that and buy a house, but I will have to wait. It is what it is, and it is what I have to accept.

I am learning how to make sense of someone good. I am feeling my neural pathways reset. To stop craving extremes, and to accept that being with someone so even-keeled is going to mean being bored or not wholly stimulated all the time. I am going to have to learn to be easier going. And I am.

What's most noticeable to me is how I perceive the world around me now. I have always made excuses for bad behavior because I understand it. One of my first therapists always cautioned me against this behavior in myself, and while I took his advice to heart, I was never able to act on it. I find myself doing it now. There are so many things about Chris and our relationship that were destructive. From the first hours. Within the first 24 hours, we had gotten into two minor fights and he'd made me cry by being insensitive and rude. We had an intense connection, and we got on famously in so many ways, but looking back on that, that kind of constant intensity and tension, it frightens me a little. He is not a bad person, but that was not a good relationship. It pains me so much to say that, and to acknowledge it, and I find myself feeling angry with myself and at him. I know what I could have done to be better, but I also know he needs a lot of help to be better himself. I am also seeing how I have been an enabler to so many of my lovers and boyfriends and friends. Chris is a mean drunk. And he IS a drunk. I made excuses for him, when he told me he was an alcoholic, I told him that it wasn't true. But it is true. He doesn't get through more than a day or two without getting drunk. And he is rude, and unpredictable, and he blacks out when he drinks, and so much of our fighting happened in those situations, and yet I always encouraged us drinking a bottle of wine together, or him drinking when we were out. I, and Chris, and Lindsay, have been operating in the mindset of drinking = fun. But I'm finding out that's simply not true. I go out and don't drink or drink half the amount I used to, and I am still having a ton of fun. I'm just choosing much better people to have fun with, these days.

I may have curbed Drunk, Slutty Sarah a while ago, but Drunk Sarah remained. A friend is going through AA. She's really together and amazing now. I was an enabler to her as well, and I'm ashamed. She is far more fun now than she ever was drunk, but yet I always encouraged her drinking, even though I knew she didn't know when to stop.

Things are changing. It's so good. Every day is still a challenge, but I am surrounded by the love and support of my family and friends and a man with a tremendous heart. I'll be a winner yet, by gum!

Therapy, it turns out, is therapeutic.

This morning I was feeling solidly fucked up. 30 Rock viewing did not help me, as even the slightest similarity to my current situation is liable to give me false hope which is subsequently dashed by the vagaries and whims of television writing, which then causes some kind of fissure in any semblance of rational thought I have put together for myself, made of tenuous, fragile bonds.

It doesn't help, either, that practically everything is somehow related to Andy. He'd become so completely, comfortably enmeshed in my life so quickly, and then just as quickly, completely ripped from it. It's been almost a month now. A whole, sad, month.

And so, I walked to therapy today, which I've been excited about for the past few days, which, having been in and out of therapy for the last 20 years, I am fully aware of how beneficial a session can be, but I cried as I walked, somehow still able to be sad despite the Lady GaGa thumping in my ears.

And I cried in my session, with a perfect stranger. Three times. I saw my previous therapist, Monica, for about four months and didn't cry once. The eyes welled up, but no actual loss of saline was made. Monica pointed out numerous times that I seemed to be detached from the tales and problems in my life, that I could talk about very emotional situations and express no emotion about them at all. Which was curious, since I was genuinely feeling emotion, and I wasn't the least bit uncomfortable with her; I was, somehow, detached, though. But not today! No, the waterworks flowed with ease. I went from feeling borderline hysterical, considering rushing over to Andy's today so I could see him, to feeling quite calm and centered, considering.

I like this new girl. She seems to be of similar demeanor to Monica, but Katie is a touch younger, prettier, and she's got a sense of humour. Monica wasn't a wet blanket, but she was also not the sort of gal that I'd ever go out and have a glass of wine with. Which was what I liked about her. She was completely non-judgemental, honest, even blunt with me. Katie's a bit more laid back. She dropped an F-bomb at one point, which I respected. And she laughed at my jokes.

I told her how I'd never cried with Monica, and how Monica had pointed out my detachment. I feel it's Andy that's changed this. I became better with Andy. The best version of myself. I need to get back to that, without Andy. And I think I can. Deciding against Drunk, Slutty Sarah, against casual smooches, against heavy drinking at all, that's a huge step. As is the realisation that I need to begin putting myself in the position to be ready for marriage and a child. I'm two, three years away from that, and that's if I pull it together as of yesterday and make dramatic life changes. Maybe Andy doesn't fit into this plan in the greater sense, but he's certainly been the catalyst for it.

Why do my hands smell like meat?

R.I.P. Drunk, Slutty Sarah

This is the time of day I miss him most. About two hours after sundown, until about midnight. The time, if things were not as they are, that we'd likely be making dinner, drinking tea, having kisses, embraces, flopped on a couch, lazing on a bed, listening to music, reading books, gabbing about music and books and pop culture and the lives we live and want to live and the people we love and have loved. It would be nice. It would be cozy. It would be the life I want to live. But, this is not the life I am living. Well, I am, but it is without him. Without Andy.

It has been five days, two hours and eight minutes since I last contacted him. Obviously, since I know this to the minute, it has not been easy, and the time has moved with something of the quality of sludge. But he asked this of me, and it's necessary. The level of drama was driving him insane and he couldn't sustain it any longer. I don't blame him, nor do I disagree with him. After this request and the subsequent indignation/fear of losing him that completely sent me into a fever pitch/tailspin/feedback loop of my own--while at work which actually makes it much easier to manage as I've got something physical to focus on and thus cannot curl into the fetal position and give into the feeling as I would likely do were I not at work--a very clear voice in my brainpan gave me what I recognised as my only two options, of which only one was viable: 1.) Continue falling apart, letting the beams holding me together and all the work I've done the past year to be better at this than this just crumble to nothing, refuse to stop contacting him, allow sheer panic to make me behave like an idiot, driving him further and further away, or 2.) Calm the fuck down and just let the boy go because I HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE.

I chose number 2.

And my lord, I'm a good decision maker. Seems I couldn't sustain the drama any longer either. The nausea is gone. I can drink coffee again without the caffeine making my heart thump directly out of my chest. Hell, my heart isn't even trying a little bit to thump out of my chest, it actually appears to be in a resting state! I mean, there are little spikes of fear, but mostly, I feel good, I'm no longer feeling like a crazy person, and logic has found a roost once again.

Other realisations come to based on my fruit loop actions the past two weeks: 1.) I don't give a fuck about either of the residual crushes/loves that were doing a bit of haunting me while with Andy. The first showed up at the bar the night of my previous blog. He started texting me at 4 a.m. about how we should talk. The next day, we "talked" via text, as that's really the only way he knows how to communicate with any profusion and even at that he's terrifically poor as nearly every emotion he manifests is somewhere along the rage-fear continuum. He wanted to apologise for accusing me of raping him, isn't that nice? You see, he'd felt "trapped" before, and that seemed a truly logical way of pushing me out of his life and so he's sorry! It was just a whoopsie. He also made horrifically disparaging remarks about the girl he was supposedly in love with while he and I were "friends", and claimed that she'd made him a misogynist. Of course, he always was. But... turns out I didn't really give a shit about any of this. Sure, I appreciate the apology, however weak it is, but mostly I didn't care to engage him in my life, felt no pangs of anything other than knowledge of the past and indifference. Huh. And here I thought I'd be stuck with that one for another five years before I muddled through it completely.

The other one, the Mexican Who Don't Want Me, well, he popped back up on my facebook friends last week. After I'd deleted him a month ago. How this internet chicanery went down I do not know, but it was as if the Universe had decided to say, "Hey, are you sure? You think maybe you wanna write him a 'Are you sure you don't wanna fuck me?' letter? Or perhaps something brief and witty about how you'd deleted him but hey, there he was again, what an amusing thing!?!? I mean, we have the same birthday, so probably there's some kind of cosmic alliance, right?" Nope. There was confusion and mild revulsion. Delete button pressed again, this time, hopefully, for good.

2.) In the same vein as the Mexican Who Don't Want Me, the Universe also put a tiny, baby crush dating back to August in my path again. I, shitfaced Drunk, Slutty Sarah, smooched on him and it was lovely and all and he and I made plans to canoodle and fuck about in the near future. Except the next day I just felt like puking (a combination of the act and the liquor, but psychologically, the act). And I went over to Andy's that night to drop off some things I had for him, distraught, not wanting to see him as I knew my then-tenuous equilibrium would be smashed, but he insinuated we should talk, so we did, and lo, equilibrium decimation, with a mother fucking boulder, anvil, Mack truck, a dumpster and a small handful of metaphorical coffee beans.

Andy misses me! Andy's uncertain about his decision!

FUCK.

My brain does some serious spiraling out of control and by the next night, I'm texting him about how he's robbed me, how he's shitting on love, and mostly, how it was completely fucking UNFAIR of him to say that to me without having any intention of acting on it. My panicked rage via text, email and phone call onslaught led to last Tuesday's request that I just leave him alone. Which, as previously stated, I have done, and it's been good.

Anyway. This brings me to 3.) I have zero interest in being Drunk, Slutty Sarah anymore. I reverted to her last week, and despite being greeted with applause by everyone who has been lonely without me during the past couple dating Andy months, I find she really fucking sucks. She has to sleep 'til 2 to get over the bulk of the drunk, and then she feels like shit the whole god damned day. She acts without thinking, she speaks without thinking, she is a lot of fun to be around, but she is not who I want to be. Not anymore.

Which, while with Andy, I lamented her passing. Was uncertain I was ready to throw in the towel on her. Felt a little trapped not being her.

Turns out she's quite the bore to be anymore. Not interested.

All of this information just comes back to the same spot.

I'm in love with Andy. I am comfortable with Andy.

I hope like hell his path brings him to the conclusion of the same toward me. And if he doesn't, then I've made some solid progress on myself that I will continue to build upon. I'm starting therapy again. Something has rattled loose these past couple weeks, and while I could parse it out myself, I'm certain an impartial party can only be beneficial.

It's all good, it's all growth. And little of it would have happened if Andy and I had remained together, awkwardly dealing with separate but equal panics.

/end blog

On How I Am Hilarious

Text from last night, not from Texts From Last Night.

"I found a replacement crush. You're off the hook."

See... I write shit like that when I'm shit-bombed and some people get it, some people don't. I suspect the lad who received said text is in the latter party.

HE HAS NO IDEA I GIGGLE LIKE A SCHOOLGIRL WHEN I WRITE SHIT LIKE THAT.

lulz.

Short blog, said shit three times.

Good work, me.