I haven't written anything for AGES, and I just felt I should, but I don't have much to say...everything I have to talk about is either to boring to post or to crazy to post...and I'm in a weird listless funk right now, probably a hangover from piling ten tons of activities and chores and studying into one weekend, so I'm even less inclined to have something exciting to say.
Well, I tried. Lemme think a bit more and get back to you.
God, I am in such a "depressive" funk these days...I'm stuck in this terrible rut and I feel like my life is a big pile of quicksand and I just keep getting caught up deeper and deeper in the mire and I can't get anywhere! I didn't think I was gonna have a bg senior year freak out because I know what I want to do with my life and I'm no more terrified for my future now than I ever am, but maybe this is some strain of the freak out virus. Every little stupid thing keeps going wrong - my computer is completely dead, I go to the gym nearly every day and yet make no progress, my senior honor's thesis is going absolutely nowhere, I've stopped doing homework, my apartment's falling apart, I have no time to see my friends and everyday is like a string of things I don't want to do with no real promise of impending fun and adventure to get me through it. I didn't go to class yesterday because I couldn't work myself into caring that much to actually leave my bed and go to school...I spent the day watching Ricki Lake and that like and lolling about on the futon. I forced myself to go out to the post office and it took willpower of immense proportions.
I need a carrot. I have nothing enticing dangling in front of me to make all this work bearable. The smallest things, like blogging or emailing seem like immensely tiring ordeals. I haven't really responded to any emails in weeks. I can't! I can't write to ten thousand people about the monotony and drabness of my life right now...I managed to force myself to write this entry, and that's about enough for me today.
I am back in New York. And it's as boring as I remembered. I know it seems like if you live in NYC, you should have limitless choices on what to do with your time, but um, that is not my life. See, here's the deal. Number one, I only have one really close friend in the city, and somehow I am always busy when she's not and vice versa, so we never get to hang out. Number two, any at-home improvement projects, such as painting my room, putting together a photo album, waxing my legs, etc. are precluded due to the fact that, as you all well know by now, my apartment is too hot to do anything except pant in there. Number three, I have very little money. Number four, I am not quite yet 21, so that cuts nightlife possibilities in half. And I have truly exhausted all the non-carding bars/venues in the city. Number five, I am not artsy or hipster or athletic or anything that might lend a girl to having some specific interests that lead her to a heaping pile of activities. I write email. I read. I drink alot of Diet Coke. Finally, my apartment being not in the most secure-feeling neighborhood in the mundo, I am loathe to always being walking home by myself late. So generally I have little else to do but go to the movies or the computer lab alone, and trudge home with wary eyes and my keys tightly gripped in sweaty palm.
But enough about what sucks about my life, check this shit out -- I had a....(dun dun dun DAAA!).....epiphany recently regarding that which consumes my thoughts most of the time, that being love. It's no big secret that I have been experiencing a year of romantic disapointments. Committment phobes, major social blunders on my part, long distance barriers, perfectionism, a bad temper and a terrible heart-on-sleeve syndrome, (mine, of course), have all contributed to failure after failure after failure in the romantic department. In fact, out of the dozen or so (ok, maybe more like 20 or so), boys I have hooked up with/gone out with/lusted after in the past three years, only once was a bonefied relationship established, and even that was short-lived. So anyway, I've let these many fuck ups get me all "depressive"-like and it has all slowly chipped away at my happy-go-lucky Independent Woman status I worked so hard to develop after my BIG BREAKUP in high school. But I totally realized, (and yes, ten thousand words later, here's where the epiphany comes in), that I am (for the most part) really not too bothered by my singleness anymore. Aside from the insane action-getting withdrawal, I am actually fairly satisfied with being on my own right now. Not that I am at that aloof "not looking for a relationship" phase by any means. I would probably sell my kidney to have someone to cuddle with, watch cartoons with, eat ice cream with, come home to, blah, blah blah. And I am farily certain I would auction off some non-important body part, like a toe or something, to get some really good play. But I am happy because I feel like IT is coming. Like I have been through the quagmire of terrible relationship failure and here's the part where I arise triumphant and rescue the handsome prince on my white horse, or something like that. Sort of a "darkest hour is just before dawn"-type statement on my relationship status. Well, and its not even like I think that Mr. Marvelous is waiting for me just around the bend, either. It's more like I just finally know that I can be confident and stuff that there are boys out there that meet the requirements for boyfriendliness, and that I don't have to try to force bad relationships with the wrong people. I now really truly know exactly what I want and being a super-goal oriented, list making sort of gal, I know that where organization and clear goals go, sucess follows. So I've made my mental list, checked it twice, and I'm not gonna sit around grasping desperately at all the wrong things ANYMORE.
Which brings me, alas, to a bit of a new dilemma. I have always been the type to be really accepting and experimental in the boy selection process. I don't have one single boy type, and I always feel like anyone could be a diamond in the rough kind of deal. I guess this is what comes from having a save-the-world-see-the-best-in-humanity type personality, (yes, mother, I know, I AM codependent. I'm sorry.) So anyway, when any guy is interested in me, or even nice to me, its pretty easy for me to fall for them, because I see the best in anyone. Experience tells me that the best hook-ups are not the super-pimped out hot boys, and that the best conversations often don't come from the extra-intellectual, articulate types. So under this new Accept No Substitutes, Be Tranqil in the Knowledge that Someday My Prince Will Come Manifesto, I can't do that anymore. Its one thing to be accepting and open, but another to be so freaking flexible that I can bend over backwards to make myself see a guy in the boyfriend-material light. I suppose I will have to learn to be more discriminating. I often worry that its just my own insecurities that make me think I should just adapt my tastes to the first person who shows interest. But at the same time, I do pride myself on seeing great things whether others can't, and I feel like the guy for me is definately going to be a not-so-obvious choice of men. So I'm kind of between a rock and a codependent place, hmmm....
Well, I haven't written such a vulnerable and neurotic post in a while, so I'm kinda nervous. Not to mention spell check ain't working so this shit is probably fraught with major spelling mistakes. I feel like I am climbing up on the shooting range wall again, just waiting to be gunned down by unkindness. But...well, fuck that. Because I am all pumped full of the bravado of several ephiphanies over the last few weeks, I leave my self out here in range.
Why am I forever getting myself into hapless scrapes of Lucille Ball proportions when it comes to romance?
Blind dates are one thing, when you are set up by the mutual friends and its all expected to fail. So then when something occasionally does develop, (a la my relationship with Josh last year), its like a pleasant surprise. But iniating a conversation via email and getting to know someone BEFORE the inevitable blind meeting means that when you meet there's all these expectations that it should suceed, since you already get along so well online. So there's bucketsful more pressure in this scenario than there is when you just get set up with someone.
And this is exactly the scenario I have put myself into, (again). After that whole Jeffrey thing, I should have known better. I DID know better, but I forgot. It's just too much goddamn pressure!
So.....
10:50 a.m. this morning: "OK, I'm just gonna email him and tell him I am a big flake face, but I just can not continue this whole shenanigans because there's too many expectations involved and the whole business is making me feel very self-conscious and self-doubting. That's it. Someday I will just meet someone in real life who likes me for me, like that cheesy song about Leonardo DiCaprio gloats, and this whole business will seem silly and unneccessary. Yep, that's it."
12:30: "Got to go print something out at the computer lab, and I can respond to that boy's email from last night....shit - wait - I decided not to carry this on anymore....but I really had things to say about his last email...should I respond as normal and then tack on this break off point at the end? No, that's silly....fuck."
1:00 "OK, open email...there's his....should I respond? Not respond. Respond? Try my luck with him even though its doomed? Nip all the madness in the bud? I don't know. I'll just blog about it and stew in indecision some more."
Now: "Argh. I still think its best to just cut my losses now...there's not much invested, I'm sure he won't care...but that damn overly romantic nature of mine is all whining about missed opportunites, taking chances in the pursuit of love. Oh shut up. I don't know what I'll do, beyond avoid decision making via shopping."
God, I have really got to get my shit together. I feel terrible right now, I just have this big ball of tension in my stomach over the state of my life - I am just not taking care of myself and as a result I'm slipping behind in all my schoolwork and otherwise. Once again, I slept until noon today, missing my last morning of fieldwork for my thesis, luckily I have time to make it up this afternoon, but I feel bad about being so slacker in the meantime...I've been eating nothing but junk recently, and I think that's part of the reason that I have been so exhausted as of late. And when I'm not knocked out asleep, I feel gross - all the shit I've been eating has finally caught up with me to make me feel 100% disgusting physically and mentally...its just dragging me down. I gotta pull myself together! I have so many things I want to pull off this semester, I need to be at my best to do it...sorry to subject y'all all to my own little mental pep talk, but it always makes me feel more resolute to write all this out. OK, I gotta go finish Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, (due two days ago at the library), and my Social Work reading, (due in two hours in class). Argh!
