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We discussed our situation tonight and decided that breaking up would be the cowardly thing to do. We developed a kiss and don’t tell policy that will fill the self-satisfying hedonist in both of us. I was once told that once a relationship moves into ‘open waters’ it’s doomed. It’s what’s best for now though. As I told him, “life is about risks. I can’t go on meeting guys at bars and burning out after five months. I’m ready for the next step”. I was scared that he was scared. He wasn’t. Now my job is letting things happen around me. Good advice. The worst vice is advice, though. 

Tearjerk[er]

I made a decision based on experience and self-reliance. Personal happiness and free-will fueled me to break up with the man I love, the one who still has the gift I gave him, and I still have his: virginity.

My heart keeps doing something...my brain something else. I'm just afraid of my eyes and what they'll do.

X

Samsonite

Where did it all go? The passion, the friends, the satisfaction. It seems like everything has a stigma. It isn’t coincidence that I haven’t written since late May—I met a new boy: B*

To quote a mediocre poet “I threw him in a fire”. Because it the pain was starting; I was beginning to like him in an incredibly unreciprocated dynamic. I began to see the parts of the ex in him that I hated: fear, hesitation, deficient of communication, withholding emotion—he isn’t ready.

I’ve realized that people in their 30s will always enter a new relationship with a full set of luggage. Every time I date a new guy I’m dating a slew of women with whom he’s fucked. Women who taught him, fought with him, loved and hated him. Then (depending on the break-up) they become memories of a flawless goddess or a winged serpent devil of a woman. Bradley has the former.  I spent all of my time competing with the memory of his four year long relationship, and one cannot compete with a memory. Memories are perfect. My imperfections reek. So in an effort to obviate another  heartbreak, I withdrew. Let’s see if she’s got any staying power, folks. 

Dickensonian

Dickinson used a carriage metaphor to symbolize the motion and verity of death, “the Carriage held but just Ourselves –  And Immortality.” 

With respect to our pasty and suicidal poet, I will re-appropriate the carriage to symbolize fate.  

This metaphor is contingent on the reader being willing to give this author a bit of wiggle room to state the following:  when it arrives, greet it and do a ride-along. This metaphor is crap. 

As i get older, however, I wonder--could my body continue its ascension towards the sun, while my will combats the naturally developing maturity? 

Will I continue to grow up, but reject the responsibilities of adulthood? Can this frog please, oh please, remain a tadpole? 

It feels so blasé and bourgeois to worry about the future, especially when the focus is financial. 

Why do I minimize it, though? This is real. 

Because…this was never mine. I never owned a bit of this before, and it’s all I encompass: grown-up worry. Another one bites the dust. 

"Sheeted" is a Word

Our conversations are like chess games. I methodically plan my next statement, then his and twenty versions of the latter. All at the same time. Ten steps ahead, that’s what I am. And miserable. 

I leave nothing to anyone else, control everything, and then realize that the moment is passing me by. And the glimpses of it I see are actually just perfectionist paragons of ‘us’ in all of our youthful and carefree love. These glimpses are lies. I’ve filled my moment up with deception and ridiculous expectations.

So, taking my understanding of self-preservation too far, and maybe even in an attempt to work towards that relationship paradigm, I explained my feelings of being a non-priority to him. Friends and work have always been the gods to which he prays. He was hit with pangs of depression upon hearing this and now lies in his bed, sheeted with self-wallow. He weeps for not being perfect. I dream about the perfection that could be if only I could make it. So I try to make it by telling him and then he weeps for not being perfect. Chess games don’t go on forever though…so how does this end? I was always terrible at chess. Perhaps a bit more defense than offense? Perhaps just let things happen. Perhaps I’ll switch to backgammon. My people did something right. 

Making Beds

He always said I was a "passing" anyway. That he knew I wouldn't be around forever; "you can't even take the same way home two days in a row," he'd say, "so how could I be sure you'll stay with me for a sustained amount of time?" I guess he was right. Whether it was the distance--LA to San Jose--the imperfections, my insanity, fear of commitment and what will be--he was right.

He said he never took me for granted. I believe him. I don't think he ever got bored. I did. I began wishing we'd break-up and get back together when we were 30--well, he'd be 28. Maybe we'd be compatible still. He wasn't buying it. He said I was being an idealist. I called him a pessimistic Realist. He just said Realist.

He said it was bound to happen sooner or later. The break-up because of the distance. And then San Diego. And then Argentina. And then east coast. And then, and then, and then.

So many hopes, that's why I wished to have met him later. He's settle down material. I have all this life to live, all these boys to kiss and fuck, all these jobs in all these different towns to live in.

I made my bed, I'll lie in it. I'll lie in my made bed. Alone, yet in company of great thought.

X

Regress and Press

We are in a relationship again. What happened? I’ve been wondering about needs. How everyone has them and how their ubiquity trickles into different facets of life. Needs from friends, boyfriend, self…although the role of the boyfriend is always played by a man on the stage of my life, there is always, and there always will be, an understudy. The one currently playing the role is S*. And when we arrive at my needs, he makes me feel guilty for having them. I need to feel important to him. I need to feel like an excellent version of myself. But these needs are not met and now I need to stop thinking about him. 

Feelings Are Not Facts

In a letter to L*:

"I am, as they say, single. It's a liberating and morose feeling, really. I realized that 23 + long distance relationship = not cool. So I did something about it. Now I'm seated with a Hesse book in hand wondering what to do with all these notions of forever."

X

August Moons

This is the year I turn August from what is typically the most uneventful month of the year to one in which I thrive. I have begun to establish closure with the ex. While he has yet to be seen completely in the past (I recycle memories and instant replays), I’ve gone minutes building up to hours without thinking of him.

My days are mundane and regular; I no longer try to escape from the suffering of everyday life. I embrace the days, sometimes idly flittering them away, and sometimes fucking them hard in the ass. Either way, Eleanor and therapy have helped tremendously and I am in an amazing state of mental and psychological health. Could this all be because I’m sober and actually allowing myself to feel process emotions and thoughts? Just could be. 

Regress and Try Again

It’s strange reading past excerpts. The days of confusion and dissatisfaction began to haunt me as my perusal went on—so I stopped reading. I needed to stop. I fear abandoning the clarity and satisfaction gained in the past six months. Truth is, whether I read my past words or not, I am regressing.

I haven’t written, studied or painted for a month. This was what the beginning of he and I was. We’ve been spending a lot of time together lately. Again. I can’t call it a relationship…because we’ve already failed at that. So I’ll call it a dynamic. ‘We have a great post-break up dynamic’. But, when facing up to this brain-fuck I realize that no matter how I put it, it equals regression. 

Happy Heart Day

This used to be my favorite holiday, but its novelty has expired. The time of making valentines is over. The days have passed, only to be replaced with drunken declarations explaining the inevitable solitude of what will be my twilight years.

I’m tired of the nights; the bar scene is stale and boring. And all the cutest boys, for their own respective reasons, are unappealing. Indeed, I vie for the attention from boys who aren’t as smart or fun as I am, who don’t get me or make me laugh, while in addition to never making me happy make me miserable. These laws of property surround me and I fall victim. But I am ever so eager for gravity to take its course and for one of them to fall for me. 

One Foot in Yesterday and One in Today

I hesitate writing this for I fear its dissipation upon recognition...His ghost has been exorcised. I have serenity. All the events of the past year have led to a sense of peace in the present moment. The prospect of fulfilling my life with things that don’t involve him elate me. I regret not having cut men out of the equation of my ultimate fulfillment sooner, but that’s the thing about the past, it’s always mocking you. 

Saved

There's nothing that I wish I was doing right now. Not even this act of scribble helps me find a place to mentally belong. I am homeless.

So much for the poor little rich girl. 

What happens when scholarly pursuits don't suffice? What the fuck am I supposed to do with all this education? 

I just add more; and in between learning German and perfecting Persian calligraphy, an annoying little bug starts biting my ass to let me know it's not enough. It's never enough..."there's never enough time."
-Jesse Spano

X

The Heineken Factory Is across the Street

I hear my Swatch ticking. The one my dad bought me in the Amsterdam airport during our nine hour layover heading to Iran. 

Time surrounds the room—every room I enter. I feel so conscious of time—in the sense that I’m always waiting for something. It’s the classic waiting for Godot act: awaiting that which makes us happy. Constantly waiting. Unlike the protagonist in Beckett’s masterpiece however, I do know what my Godot’s are—too many to count. 

The point is that “here and now” offers more than ‘there and then’. Because they are real. I want to stop waiting and simply see that I have found Godot and I am wasting my time with this longing. Wait, maybe that was Beckett’s point? Fucking genius. Fucking Estragon. 

Unleaded

I see my reflection through a most disturbing object: a pair of men’s eyes. 

These noxious and deceiving things have superseded mirrors, and in addition to my less than expected reflection bring with them disturbing realizations. It is only through male perception that I conceptualize myself; they suggest my beauty, my intelligence, my ability to love, my self-worth. Without them, perhaps I don’t exist. And without this notion, if only I could rid myself of it, I may be able to live a semblance of a fulfilled life. 

Time, Again?

The man I love, that I lost my virginity to, is gone. Almost dead in my active thought process. I do think of him, but the feelings that erupt inside of me are hardly explanatory. I can't say that I'm in a horrible amount of pain or totally remorseful. It's almost like my wounds are scabbing. After 8 days.

What baffles me is how stable I am. Why fight it? Because it's eeriness is killing me. 

The idea of us getting back together becomes more fantasy than realistic fiction...if that's even a genre. It offered an insecure and dependent hope at the initial moment, but is now an incredible event indeed. Fantastical really.

I don't know where I'll be in ten years. Maybe in his arms, maybe in a woman's or maybe just my own. Wherever it is, I would just like to accept it. Appreciate the future as something so trivial and vain upon which to muse, because in turn I lose moments in the present.

Now, today and at this moment I'm OK. To think of him doesn't offer comfort as much as it does fear. The ugliness might just start the next time we talk. Deciding to 'maintain' the friendship that never existed could cause the negative repurcussions I've been avoiding. Maybe all this bad shit will unleash then...the badness between he and I, I and I, and maybe just I. Oh, how self-absorbed is the writer to assume somebody cares. I refer to the self more often than not.

Fearing the future won't get me anywhere except to a very tired point. So I enjoy the moment and don't question it, realizing this multi-faceted thing called 'Eleanor.'

X

Sculpture

He thought that he, that all men, trickled away, changing constantly, until they finally dissolved, while their artist-created images remained unchangeable the same.

-Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

Plexiglass

The ‘platonic friendship’ (possible or not) is slowly developing. He came over—even brought a pizza. We laughed, played video games, and then I went to bed. I won’t say that there wasn’t sexual tension…it could have shattered glass. Maybe even Plexiglas. I can’t say that I didn’t attempt to suggest myself, but then I realized the futility in the long run of such a task. This is the wrong time for us. We’ve already tried twice. One must learn. Experience can’t just be the anthem of the loser. How about putting it to some use?

Belly full of Jelly

I know now that idealism distorted my relationship with the ex. When he cheated everything shattered and this realism flooded in. I wish it could have been a trickle, but there was no way. Every day I recover and strengthen from this malnourished relationship. Since the nucleus of our relationship was attraction, I think now about self-absorption and how to achieve fulfillment with no connection to men.