And so...

I haven't been heard from in a while in the forum. The reasons are various -- the holidays, laziness, the inability to access the blog at work etc. -- but mostly because I have been wearing my cranky pants for the better part of two months now. They are binding. They chafe. Not to mention the fact that they are extremely unflattering (though they do coordinate nicely with the hair shirt I insist on wearing). Yet, somehow, I have be unable -- or perhaps unwilling -- to take them off.

It hasn't made me a hell of a lot of fun to be around. That is for sure. I have some moments of buoyancy, but then I retreat into my disgruntled, agitated ways feeling sorry for myself amidst an embarrassment of riches.

With 2008 having arrived just in the nick of time, I am grateful for having occasion to turn the page and attempt to dispassionately sort out the wheat from the chaff when it comes to all of the matters swimming around in my head, and to get myself back in a better mindset.

A few things I have figured out (listed in bullet point format due to the author's laziness and the fact that writing anything lately has become akin to squeezing blood from a stone, so she will take what she can get):

- In equal measure, both processed sugar and prolonged stress exacerbate my moodiness. It is not coincidental that my slipping back into the cranky pants coincided with my slipping back into my former ways of comforting myself with sugar -- the highs and lows of which are jarring -- and the high stress of the holiday season. 5 days after being freed from obligatory cheer and detoxing from processed sugar, I feel much more grounded.

- In a topic which I want to address in greater detail soon, I did realize over the holidays that it is not lack of affection in my formative years that has left me emotionally stunted and unable to effectively communicate when it comes to my feelings. Rather, it is the fact that my entire family suffers from an inability to communicate, feelings and otherwise. Whereas, once upon a time I believed the title of "drama queen" to be mine and mine alone within my family hierarchy, it is now clear that everyone in my 7 person clan shares this trait in equal measure. Makes family get-togethers very colorful, and very unpredictable.

- I have long been told that my standards are too high, that I am going to have to compromise if I want to avoid being alone. As of late, for the first time, I have started to believe that maybe people who offer forth such advice are right, and I wonder why I am the way I am, and exactly which of the 4,072 romantic comedies/soapy TV dramas I have watched in my life pushed me over the edge into believing that this bizarro world where there is "the one" actually exists. I has narrowed it down to a toss up between Say Anything with its urban legend that is Lloyd Dobbler (Damn you Cusack!) and The Matrix with its talk of there being no spoon, prophecies, oracles, and of course, Neo. But I take all of those heretical thoughts back. The gospel according to CLC is not derived from sudsy screenwriting, rather, it is derived from the well edited "reality" show I have been living for the last 30 years. My life, for as much as I complain about it, has been a charmed one to this point. I have long lived in a beautiful bubble, with its fair share of inclement weather, but where the terrain was populated by truly amazing people. Perhaps, more than the fair share of emotionally damaged people, but amazing nonetheless. People who were star athletes, honors students, ambitious and successful peers, and dead ringers for Abercrombie & Fitch models to boot. This has been true for me since I was in high school. Having it "all" doesn't seem so impossible, because I have known people like that forever. Of course, none of them have ever had any interest in me... but that brings me to my next point.

- My profound love of anyone emotionally damaged. If a man has significant emotional issues, like a dog drawn to a silent whistle, I cannot help but seek him out and offer forth my immediate and undying devotion, whether he wants it (ha!) or not. I apparently fancy myself the lady liberty of such men: Give me your closeted, conflicted, closed off, insecure, narcissistic, body dysmorphic, ultra-macho, testosterone -driven etc. Of course, my affections does not provide them liberty, nor comfort, nor anything other than annoyance. I, however, am unable to take a hint, and simply continue to pine away from afar, for years (and years and years) till something catastrophic finally happens that forces me to accept the reality of the situation. The reality that, but for my apparently rich fantasy life that creates these faux-relationships for me, I am alone, and that, in the company of these spectral men, that is unlikely to change.

- I think I may want to be alone. Being with someone else is frightening and I have never been in a romantic relationship where I have been myself. I am not sure if it is possible for someone to love me if I were "being myself" and I think I may be afraid that if someone were to love me when I were "myself" that the power of my feelings towards them would be so overwhelming that I am not sure I could take it. I would be so grateful, so relieved, so happy, and yet, so terrified. Terrified to lose it. Loving the emotionally unavailable shields me from that.

- I don't trust my own judgment. At least not with matters of the heart. After all, look at the colossal mistakes I have made over the years. The infinitely bad choices. Though what can one expect from the woman who is still struggling to accurately see herself in the mirror. The eyes deceive, so does the heart necessarily follow? JT Leroy would says so, but he is a figment of someone's imagination too. There have been folks whom I thought I could love if I just spent enough time convincing myself that I did (or those I thought I should love, if I could spend enough time forgetting that I did not), but I always worry, if I throw my efforts into convincing or forgetting, will I miss out on the one that won't require the invocation of such onerous and antithetical verbs. Of course, I suppose my own sadness could do the very same thing.

- I really want a partner in this life, but I am scared of getting close. Most of my intimate moments in this life have involved consumption of a fair amount of alcohol prior to the fact. I dare say nearly all of them. I have never really enjoyed most of them. I dare say nearly all of them. I feel so far removed from them. They feel more clinical than anything else. An odd thing to say when both parties aren't wearing any clothes, and yet it is true. There are only two times that I can think of where this was not true -- and serve now only to make it all the more difficult to sever myself from one of my spectral relationships. (Wow, how does one break up with oneself? Do I let myself down easy? Do I take myself to a restaurant so that I do not have a scene? Hope is a batshit crazy mistress. Leaving her is hard and one does so at one's own peril.)

- So here I am in 2008 left with far less hope than ever before. In many ways this is good. I am trying very hard to work on focusing on creating clean lines that are the boundaries of my life. Simplifying my personal calculus a bit -- what do I need, avoid what I do not, treat my body as a temple, give my mind the permission to be at ease -- to worry less, to dream more. I can focus on this because so much of my hope was torn away last year. I carry less cobwebs of my own delusion with me. And that is good. But there is a little sadness because I haven't quite figured out how to make myself stop wanting (and therefore to make it stop hurting) quite yet. Then again, the year is still young. There are 11 more months to figure it out.

So Who's Chasing You?

George Downes: Michael's chasing Kimmy?
Julianne Potter: Yes!
George Downes: You're chasing Michael?
Julianne Potter: YES!
George Downes: So who's chasing you... nobody, get it? There's your answer.

A few years back, at the beginning of what would become a rather remarkable pattern of people breaking up with me though it was always made clear we were not "dating," I had a long drawn out deja vu-like conversation at a suburban Starbucks with a man who had told me three months before that he was not ready for a relationship, who at the time was telling me he was now in a relationship, and who, six months later -- on my birthday no less -- would in fact marry the woman he was now in a relationship with and to whom he was at this time clumsily, and uninvitingly, comparing me: "It isn't really fair to make a comparison between you and her. If I were to really try, it would be like comparing pizza and a baked chicken breast." Fool that I was, I had to know: "And I would be?" No pause: "Well, the pizza, of course." Ah yes, a greasy, cheese-loaded, carb-laden junk food. Cold comfort for the lactose intolerant.

This was my first experience with feeling like I was living out the 1998 Julia Roberts' comeback vehicle My Best Friend's Wedding. At the time, my first instinct had been that it was a shoddy real life parody of the "Who is the dog in this situation?" scene from When Harry Met Sally, but it was subsequently pointed out to me that it was far more resonant with the "Jello versus Creme Brulee" scene from My Best Friend's Wedding. Indeed. Either way, it was cheesy (no pun intended) as hell. (But in retrospect quite befitting for a relationship between two emotional cripples, one of whom was aptly named after a common nickname for male genitalia.)

My second experience with living out My Best Friend's Wedding is not quite so literal. It is just one line from the movie that keeps running through my head. As quoted above, it is from the scene where Julia Roberts' character is chasing after her best friend, who is chasing after his fiancee, and all the while she is on the phone with her other friend in New York ranting about the situation at hand. When she finally stops to take a breath, her friend on the phone, aghast at what he is hearing, pointedly asks her, "So who's chasing you...Nobody, get it? There's your answer." Indeed. There is the answer.

Now while I am not necessarily chasing someone who is chasing another, I am generally fond of chasing those who want nothing whatsoever to do with me. When they ignore me, I have a world of excuses, some reasonable, some desperately attenuated. All excuses nonetheless. But I can't let go -- I convince myself, somewhere deep down, that to continue to try is a boldness, an irresistible self confidence, that might somehow karmically make up for my seemingly insurmountable self doubt and overall sense of creeping insecurity. Again, not so much.

Rather I am left running after someone running in an opposite direction, breathlessly trying to explain myself to my friends around me who are all just waiting for me to take a breath so that they can point out the hard facts -- no one is chasing me. Of course, it isn't like I would listen anyway.

Letter writing campaigns, gifts, calls, keeping a special place warm in my heart --oh the hope, always the damned hope. Sentimental and adoring acts -- all carried out in direct contravention to good, kind and realistic advice.

But sadly, difficult lessons are only learned on an individual's own excruciatingly slow timetable. Experience is always a better teacher than good advice.

So the question is, where does this realization that I am not wanted leave me? In a perfect world it would result in my instantaneously developing "to hell with 'em all" attitude, and embracing my life as a fulfillingly pleasant work and platonic relationships combination. The ideal nirvana of feeling nothing -- being above longing and desire. To rid myself of hope. But admittedly, it just leaves me feeling sad. Not paralyzingly sad, nor wracked with sobs sad. More like an ever-present and ongoing slow leak sad -- like something is missing or there isn't quite enough there.

Horribly incorrect I know. I am complete on my own. I should want for nothing else. I have a great new job. Everything is now supposed to be perfect.

I also know that the solution to this "sad" is that I am supposed to "get out there" and "open myself" to other people, and be friendlier than I am, and not be closed off, and not be so picky, and stop being so shallow, and smile, and try not to be so introverted, and attempt to tamp down the weird a bit.

But I don't want to do any of those things. Again, horribly incorrect, I know. But for the life of me, I just don't.

Though if I don't help myself then I deserve what I get (which is nothing).

So I know all of these things. I will (try to) apply them all soon enough. But for now, I am just going to mourn my long-deferred realization of the truth -- that in this race that I am running, much as I may want to delude myself otherwise, there is absolutely no one chasing me.

Today is the day

Today, I am 30.

Today, I am single. Today, I am independent. Today, I am self supporting. Today, I am anxious. Today, I am funny. Today. I am scared. Today, I am hopeful. Today, I am skittish. Today, I am mildly self assured. Today, I am snarky. Today, I am independent. Today, I am less naive. Today, I am slightly more wise. Today, I am smart. Today, I am dumb. Today, I am less crazy. Today, I am more eccentric. Today, I am less vulnerable. Today, I am more empathetic. Today, I am tipsy. Today, I am determined.

Today. I am lucky.

Today. I am loved.

(Today, I think I am me.)