The Joys of a Stressed Out Adulthood

As I have explained in my previous posts, things have been mighty difficult. My newest hurdle is learning to do things when I think I should rather than waiting.

I have made this discovery after an opportunity has arisen to make my life go back to what I feel is normal but, due to my pessimism or procrastination or whatever the hell is wrong with me I am unprepared and it will be my downfall. And I have no one to blame but myself.

I hope I learn from this. I hope that I do not take this and simply forget. I hope that it works out, but I suffer the consequences of my wrongdoing.

But really I just hope it works. Prayer hands.

Being alone in a relationship

I have always felt alone in one way or another. I have struggled throughout my life to find my group, tribe, what have you, and that continues into my present situation. It has always been hard to find connections with the people around me and because I have had this trouble I feel very isolated. Even now with my tiny friend group, a boyfriend, and a family, all filled with great people who I love very much I can not always find the connection that I crave.

I’ve always felt that maybe it’s because the things that I like are weird or that I am too intense when it comes to connections. But then, at certain times, I feel that because I have these thoughts it causes me to come across as closed off and distant. And this has in fact been feedback that I have received from relationships that have failed. I am distant and cold when they just want me to be present. But I am afraid to be present. I am afraid to open myself and allow people to truly know me. I’m afraid they will run from my interests and recoil at my signs of affection. I’m afraid that if I do not choose to be alone and isolated the choice being made for me will hurt ten fold.

This comes up frequently with my current friendships and my romantic relationship.

I always have a feeling that, when with friends, that I’m not really wanted. Like they invite me just to be nice, to ensure that I remain unaware of their dislike for my company. Because of this I struggle to engage at the beginning of meetings and then end up talking too much by the end. I feel unsure of myself with the language I use and the interests or life events I talk about. I feel disconnected from them as well as their life experiences. I worry that they will outgrow me and leave me behind. And at my age I am worried I will not be able to recover. I have not yet been able to find a way around this feeling, or around the behavior that manifests due to those feelings. I also feel that this will be the ultimate reason why they walk away from me.

My romantic relationship is also a worry to me. At one point, a terrible boyfriend I had in high school told me that I’m only happy when I’m miserable. It is a great fear of mine that he is right. I worry that I will push my current boyfriend away. That one day I will go too far with my meness and he will discover that I am not someone he wants to be with. I am all about people being themselves and if someone doesn’t like it, well fuck them. But when I think that of myself I just think of all the logical reasons someone would have for walking away from me for being the person I am. I’m a weirdo! I know that! I wouldn’t blame my boyfriend if he came up the stairs right now and told me he no longer wanted to be with me and gave me until the end of the week to pack my stuff and go.

Writing this all out sounds so silly to me, but I’m still in tears thinking about it. I’m still alone and isolated. And the scary thing and upsetting thing is is that I don’t think I know how to be any other way.

Things Have Been Difficult

Recently, my life has gone through an unfortunate adjustment. I have been extremely depressed, lost, and broken.

This time last year I had accepted my dream job and was over the moon excited to start my career. However, in late April of this year that was no longer available. Because of that I had to take more time than I thought I would to recover from this. I now feel like I have taken enough time to really get back into the swing of things.

With that said, I will be trying to come on every day and write at least a little something. I am also starting a new project with a couple of friends which I will talk more about as a release date gets closer.

I hope that everyone can understand that sometimes it is necessary to take time to recover from loss in every way, shape, and form, and sometimes it takes longer than others.

Please Don’t Tell Him I Love Him

Part of my personality is that I am extremely under emotional. I try so hard to ensure that I am not going to be hurt by anything that I actively push away at anything that even poses the risk. Because of this terrible habit I am awful when starting, continuing, or ending relationships.

My current relationship is something of a mystery to me. I don’t understand any part of it. My boyfriend is sweet, kind, loving, well balanced, and extremely emotionally intelligent.  If he ever says a bad word about anyone it is justified, he is understanding of boundaries and will be as gentle about them as one could be, if he feels he is being overly dramatic or irrational he will admit to it and talk him way through the problem. It is because of this that I am afraid.

In my teens I dated a boy who was the complete opposite of this. This boy was cruel, manipulative, erratic, and just a horrifying individual. When I was 16 he put me in the car to “go to lunch”. We stopped in front of our local free clinic and he told me I had an appointment in 5 minutes. He had scheduled me to get a birth control shot. Because I was afraid of him I went. About two weeks later he raped me for the first time.

When I told my boyfriend this story he held my hand and just let me talk. I could tell he was trying not to make faces as I told him of the horrible year I spent with this thing I called my boyfriend. I held his hand back and for the first time I told this story without saying I was stupid. And the only reason why I didn’t say I was was because of him face. He just looked at me. Listening. No words spoken by someone who wasn’t there. Who hadn’t been in the situation. Who didn’t know. For the first time I had told that story there were no comments.

I love him. And I want so badly to tell him. I want to look him in the eyes and tell him I feel a way about him that I thought I had felt before, but clearly hadn’t. I want to tell him that I look at him, talk to him, think about him, in a way that I had forced myself to look, talk, and think about others. He is so effortlessly easy to be around. And I want to tell him.

But there’s always the thought in the back of my mind, that he won’t take it well. That he will change if I say that.

But even just writing that I know that’s not true. I feel that right down to my core.

Everything will be fine. With or without words.

Breakfast with my straight boyfriend

This year I was lucky enough to meet a wonderful man. When I found him on OkCupid I was not looking to date anyone. And specifically, I was not looking to date a man.

At the time, I was actively trying to avoid talking to men. It wasn’t that I had anything against men, it was just something I wanted to do. Searching through the profiles in the state where I live was depressing however. The only girl I was interested in I had already dated and I didn’t want to go down that road again, everyone else was okay, but not really my type. Oh, and also, there were only like five of women on the site.

I changed my profile to once again include men after I had gone on a few dates with lovely women who just weren’t into me, nor I into them. I feel like the whole point of online dating is to get the attention and conversation you want. If that works out and you get married and live happily ever after, rad. But most of the time you just end up hanging with them, or talking to them for a little bit and then it fizzles out and whateves. The fun comes from that initial conversation, and that’s what I was missing.

My boyfriend messaged me at the last possible moment he could. The site had sent the “last chance” message with an ice breaker and he responded to it. Going back, we didn’t have the typical flirty back and forth that was common for me. It wasn’t any weird, pushy behavior that I had experienced before. They were real conversations I would have with a friend.

When his face popped up in my messages I was immediately like, “Okay, this has to be a joke”. He was waaaaay out of my league. He is athletic, healthy, and outdoorsy. I couldn’t believe that he would even want to say hello to my pizza eating, squishy, indoorsy ass. When he wanted to meet me I felt like I was going to be walking into a joke. I’ve always been nervous when meeting new romantic prospects that all their friends will be at the meeting place and the person will laugh and exclaim how they can’t believe they I thought they would want to go out with me.

Just last night we were driving and I told him that I tried my hardest not to be weird when we first met. I tried to be the ideal me, but gave up half way through the date. I laughed and told him that was too much work. He told me that it wouldn’t have mattered when he got to know I was weird, because at any point he was already in too deep to care.

When were first started dating I had told a friend I was nervous that if I talked about ex’s or people who I had liked that were women. I didn’t want him to be the type who was then angry or jealous every time I looked at anyone. But during a trip to a nearby town we went into a store where a girl I had been interested in worked. I didn’t feel like we could walk in without him knowing this, so I casually told him the story. I was grateful when rather than freaking out he tried to guess which girl it was.

I guess the point of this post is to show that the right person will accept you. If they love you they will take all of you, not just sections. It’s important to have those people in your life. They make life easier and the world a little less cold.