Confessions.of.a.NYC.Lezie

I picture us all, putting our left hands in to the center, a photo being taken of all of us with diamonds on our ring fingers. Soon, I think, we'll be old married folks. And after that, well, we're all following that age old path. Marriage, babies, homes and more. I know some people see it as this avoided path. They don't need a [wo]man to define them, they don't want to have children until they are done getting all the selfishness out of their systems, they don't want to have to spend their money on college savings and home ownership.

That's not me. I don't even think of it in those terms. Sure, I know it takes a lot of things, time, money, commitment, budgets, community, self sacrifice. I'm ready for all of that... and I am so excited to do it in tandem with such dear friends.

I still feel young, and ready for the next step, and yet sometimes I feel like we're all growing up so fast and the next phase of life is coming really quickly on the heals of engagements, marriages and homes bought.

I've always been one to follow the typical path, and I'm still solidly on that winding road, ready for the ups and downs (Because we all know there are more downs in the journey).

There is a pretty young lady who caught my eye about a few months ago. Things are progressively going slower than I thought. I always thought I could “get” anyone I wanted but alas, clearly I am not able to this time - or ever.

I always write about the people I have crushes on and to some extent, it keeps my blog alive. This time though, I don’t think I can possibly speak about the women in my life. For the first time, I am concentrated on one person…nothing seem to be alive around me, the clocks stop ticking, the seasons remain the same, life itself blossoms as my heartbeat remains at its slowest pace. I have been on this ride for quite a while now and I just can’t push to the stop button just yet, even when I know it can’t possibly go anywhere. I have this one desire and it is to stay on that rollercoaster in the loops, feeling that warm breeze as I am frozen with fear because I will never be able to continue the ride. And so, I stay glued to my seat awaiting a moment that will bring constant warmth to my heart.

I am not someone who pressures and pushes people into making a life altering decision. I don’t bother asking to bask in their world. She, like every girl I grow fond of happen to admire the opposite sex which leaves me with a big “no-no, she is straight” thought. I keep telling myself that there will never be anything good coming out of it. One of us will have a blistering heart. I know it. Its all been said once before. I don’t want to repeat history - especially when it involves me scrapping off my broken heart from the cold concrete of reality. I can’t seem to learn. Repetition is my forte. I keep putting myself in these uncertain situations and I can’t escape them.

There, you have it….lost and delirious.

It was a Saturday. I ran some errands in the morning, which lasted up until late afternoon. A bit of rain showers that evening was enough to send me under my warm Egyptian cotton comforter with the company of crappy reality TV. For the first time in a very long time, I did not want to be at a bar chatting with strangers and drinking 8 dollar city beers.

Late in the evening, I received a text from an ex. She was out drinking and wanted to come over to misbehave. I decided some company would suit me just fine. An hour passed and my doorbell rang. I answered in my usual shorts and tank combo with a beer in each hand – one for her and I. She wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me in for a typical hello kiss.

We curled up on the couch, and she started talking about the young lass she was recently dating and presently in the midst of a wicked break up. I looked at her baffled and said it was inappropriate to talk about a soon to be ex, while she was cuddled under a blanket with me. I began to question her coming here and as the questions seemed to emerge like 50 cents toy candy dispensers, I moved my body away from her, until I was tucked in right next to the arm of the couch, as far from her as I could be on this piece of furniture.

Then it went on about why we broke up in the first place and questioning what we were doing and why we were so obsessed with one another, which seem to always lead to awkward, and yet incredible lust. But we broke up a long time ago however we still had an eccentric and intimate connection.

She leaned toward me and pulled me out of a tight ball of legs and couch pillows.

“I should despise you.” I objected, as my body unfolded under hers.

“I know you should”, she said, pressing her chest on top of mine and burying her soft lips on my neck. My mind was racing, debating if I should push her off and scream and keep going with the fight we had or just relax, stop harboring feelings from years ago and go along with the physical relationship we’d started anew. She knew I was cranky and bringing up the woman she dumped me for wasn’t the best move. I was now literally putty in her hands, short of breath and soothed.


And then it happened.

We were in bed and I was underneath her. Asking for her to hold me. She slid her hands underneath my back and cupped her hands around my shoulders. I could feel my face flush in the beginnings of tears fill my eyes, which I tried really hard to keep them in. But as the tears piled up and I could no longer keep them in, I reached up with my hands to wipe my face and shield my eyes from her.

She paused. “Are you crying?” she asked.

That was all it took and my tears broke through the invisible barrier and ran down my cheeks.

“I’m fine.” I said.

“Why are you crying?” she asked, calmly. “Am I doing something wrong?”

I continued to repeat over and over that I was fine and that I didn’t know why I was crying. She said that I obviously wasn’t. I begged her to just ignore it, to keep going, to be with me. She listened at first, But when I didn’t she protested that she was hurting me and she just couldn’t hurt me anymore.

“I am not crying because I don’t want to be with you.” I said.

“You are crying because you do.” She said, her voice soft and fading. Almost seemed like an echo in the room – a constant reminder of the truth.

She whispered softly, “I am sorry I can’t give you what you want.”

I have never felt so raw and weak and useless and desperate and alone. I wasn’t just crying for her. I was crying for every woman who ever left, who ever lied, who ever didn’t want me, who passed the time with me even though she didn’t care about me. I cried for that college girl who drank and kissed too much to cover the pain. I cried for the adult woman who couldn’t love.
We talked as she held me in her arms, rocking me and gently rubbing her fingertips around my back.

“Look, you are intelligent and funny and I love your company and talking to you,” she said. “But, you just weren’t it and I knew that all along.”

She stumbled over the last part. And as much as it hurt to hear and as embarrassed as I was, I finally got the break up speech she never bothered to deliver years ago. And for better or for worst, I finally knew.

She got up and dressed herself. She was gone in less than 5 minutes. Without any words, we exchanged our goodbyes with a simple eye contact and a nod.

I felt alone and unloved. So I did what people who feel alone and unloved do: I cried some more. Until I was shocking on my sobs.

Until I couldn’t produce any tears.

Until I passed out from the exhaustion of being so vulnerable, so melodramatic, so emotional.

I felt alone.

There is this longing in my personal life for something more than single serve takeout dinners and bad reality television. And it has been evident, painfully so, for quite some time. But by never doing anything about it, by never fully dragging myself out there, by nesting in my comfy cocoon, I can save myself a modicum of rejection. I suppose.

But the one-note, work-all-of-the-time lifestyle isn’t saving me heartbreak anymore. If being rejected and feeling unloved by one particular woman stings, I’ve realized lately that setting myself up to feel completely rejected by the world might hurt even more. I should giggle and enjoy a silly movie about love or hearing about an acquaintance’s engagement or a college friend’s new baby. Instead I’m angry and bitter and twisted and moved only to the point where I’m asking, “What about me?”

I do want to be the Woman in the Song – the one who makes her crazy, keeps her up at night, without whom her days would all be nights. And even as I think that, I immediately reject the notion of such as pure fantasy. We don’t all get to be the heroine. We aren’t all the Woman in the Song.

Not that I would ever give myself the chance to be Her. I’m too wrapped up in other things to truly put myself in much of a position to be loved. It’s much easier to stay stuck and blame my lack of love on anything and everything else.

I’ve become whiny. My true personality is almost unrecognizable at times. I look in the mirror and I see drive and dedication to something external. And when I do turn that focus on myself, it is only superficial – a haircut or a shopping trip or a new handbag. For someone who can be so self-centered sometimes, I sure haven’t figured out how to focus any self absorption on soothing my own soul, quieting my own fears and making myself any less alone (or lonely).

Anytime I do manage to project an air of aloof calmness, my I don’t care attitude is purely a front. As it was the other night when, after asking for my card three weeks ago, saying she would call (she didn’t) and alluding in e-mail to the fact that we would be seeing each other before last Thursday’s group outing to a concert (we didn’t), a certain L. ignored me during said group outing. (And I’m not writing about her right now, but if I were I’d mention how unacceptable and rude that behavior was.) To my girlfriends, I rolled my eyes, bought my own beers and announced that I was over the snub because clearly she wasn’t worth it. To myself, I wondered if he’d notice my relaxed attitude and how much fun I could have on my own and grimaced when couples danced to one of my favorite songs.

Lame.

An Ex accused me of using her the other night, when I rebuffed her late-night advances but had earlier accepted a glass of wine from her at a bar. (And yes, she was in the wrong – I had my card out to pay for my glass of wine and she made a show of telling the bartender to put it on her tab. And even if I had demanded a free drink, I don’t subscribe to the notion that I owe any woman anything in that or most any situation.) What struck me was that she might actually be right. I am letting her stroke my ego every few weeks. And I shouldn’t need attention from someone I don’t care about.

My point, which I seem to have lost, is that I am wholly unfocused toward any personal life goal right now. I shudder at the thought that I will wake up ten years from now, all by myself in this same two-person bed of my own making.

And, if only for right now and if only as a start, I’m not going to hide my fear of being alone because I want to seem strong or independent or evolved or modern.

There is one place in the world that I can go when I feel overwhelmed, confused, nearing the apex of my anxieties and doubts of myself. It is in the dark warm corner of my Grandmother's living room, seated at the old white Grand piano, my fingers resting gently on the cool familiar keys, whose pression responds to my fingertips with delicious recognition.

When I'm there, the whole world melts away. I can play a few songs for memory, songs I taught myself as a girl and others I have learned along the course of my music schooling, sometimes the passages come and go, but when my heart and my body meld, they just pour out of my fingertips and for once in my life, serenity is simple and effortless.

Thoughtless muscle memory unlocks something miles deep inside of me, to the place that no one has ever touched, and when that music comes breathlessly I feel like it's my heart singing.

I love that piano. It's old and probably out of tune and sometimes the keys stick a little. Its full of dust and it's wise.

Last night, in a terrible fit of paralyzing stormy thoughts, I sat down to play and I kept hitting traps. Passages I couldn't remember. My fingers felt frantic, amnesiac, like strangers, as if all the energy and weight inside them had flown out. Nothing felt right. I touched key after key, searching for the right note, determined to find it, determined to get through that song. But I couldn't. I sat with my eyes closed and my hands resting on the keys and I felt completely lost.I abandoned the song that would not come, and I played some low and mismatched chords I made up as I went along.

I went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night with the sheets twisted in knots close around my body. I'd thrown the comforter completely off. I was shivering.

When I woke up this morning, I silently made myself breakfast. I read the paper. I glanced at the work I'd done the night before, still sprawled out on the dining room table. I pulled a blanket around me and I walked into the living room and sat down at the piano.

I put my hands out to play a different song, afraid to tackle the same as the night before in case the loss of memory was permanent. That's what kept me tossing and turning all night. I can't bear to lose that song, that song in particular.

It was the first love song, and the only one. But anyway, my hands took over and I played it. With a few mistakes but I played it through and by the end I felt the door unlock. I knew I couldn't lose that song forever. Its too much a part of me.

There are some things that get inside of your bones. And they'll never leave you.

I’m an open book. I really don’t hide much, and there isn’t TMI when it comes to what I’ll share, and what others can share with me. I balance this with being acutely aware of when people just aren’t interested. If I don’t think the person really wants to know a story, or hear about something in my life, I don’t tell it. My last friend once told me that I was an enigma to her; she declared that she couldn’t figure me out. I was at a loss for an explanation, simply telling her that I’m pretty much an open book and questioning what it was she couldn’t figure out. She of course didn’t have an answer. I suspect it was because I didn’t really think she cared, and maybe a bit of intimidation. I didn’t want to open myself up to her, because I know it was a surface need of hers to have people be completely open, she craved knowing everything and having that control over people.

That’s not who I share with.

Sometimes, I think I take for granted my openness and desire to share what I feel and who I am, sometimes I forget that although I work in casual environments, I shouldn’t always say what I feel. But then, as I think about it and wonder if I don’t have a filter, I’ll flash to a picture of myself in social situation where I don’t really talk about myself for hours. Where is the middle ground?

This week at work I complained about something I was asked to do, and wasn’t shy about saying I didn’t want to do it, to my co-workers. When I thought about it that night as I shampooed, I worried, did I just take for granted how open I can be at work as a result of the casual “come as you are and say how you feel” environment? Maybe it is a sense of entitlement I have for being told, and feeling, that I’m a smart and very capable employee and I think the task is something I shouldn’t have to do anymore, instead of considering that part of the reason I’m being asked to do it is to expose me to something new, including new people. I know I can complain to these people about everything, but I do have to draw the line. As I thought about it more, I flashed to sometimes feeling like I haven’t said a word after hours with my friends. What’s the difference? Where’s the middle ground?

Talking to someone this summer after an emotional breakthrough (in which my Mom told me that she had been trying for months to get me to just talk about myself. She would ask how I was as we began conversations, but it proved fruitless, as I’d just shrug it off. She said my pattern would be to let her go first and only after she was done would I open up) she confided that she felt that often too, like she would dominate conversations and worry that I didn’t talk about myself, worry that she wasn’t being a good friend. Why do I do that? And how do I still be an open person while doing that?

I let it out when I need to, I’ve dominated many a conversation. When it feels right, and I’m comfortable and I know the person really wants to hear it, that’s when I open up. With my friends, I want to make sure they are getting everything they need from me before I lay my stuff on them, I want to take care of the people I love. At work, I have a different relationship with close co-workers. We take care of each other, and that means complaining and venting and knowing it’s safe. These people haven’t yet become someone who I let go first.

For me, I’m most open when I’m letting others be truly vulnerable, because they get to see who I really am in those moments, and I know when I need the roles reversed they will be.

….I do apologize for not writing in nearly a month. I don’t really have a really good reason or a valid reason rather. I just didn’t write.

Lies.

My life has been on slow motion. Things have gone pretty dry and boring. So no juice could be spilled here.

Sorry.