the worst piece of baggage i seem to have always shows up as a sincere anger towards my boyfriend. he never does enough. ever. no boyfriend has made a big enough deal or gotten me a thoughtful enough present in the history of my whole life.

well, at least that is how i saw it.

so this year i let it go. this year i had absolutely no expectations about my birthday gifts from alex. (ok, mostly)

so what i got was a wonderful slow dance where he sang to me all the words to boys to men “i’ll make love to you” (my favorite song in seventh grade! – holy shit, dig those outfits), and then it came true…

that dude fucked me well. real well.

after a long and painful push. lots of crying on my part. lots of avoidance and sadness.

he took his bed and his couch and all his things.

then he came over for a game of cards – i know, i’m a sucker. but i really like being around him.
and he said this thing – a thing that caught me off guard – a thing that made be say “wait, you have to repeat that.”

he said, “kansas, i figured out that you are the girl i want to be with. moving out was so painful and now i know that i want you in my life.”

!!!

?what?

maybe to you all in the internet void saw it coming, but i was flabbergasted. he flipped 180 in what seems like days – but actually, when i think about it, we haven’t had a real talk in weeks. i’ve just been focusing on my own shit and letting go of him.

now, is this a trick? is this a moment of severe weakness? is this just a reaction to the pain of loss?
i guess we have yet to see. it has been a week.
we made out once. it was sweet and fucking hot. just kissing, then i told him i had to go.

one thing i forgot to mention is that he asked “have i missed the bus? because i completely understand if you are done with me.”

i kept him waiting for a few days till i let him know that he had not, in fact, “missed the bus” but i didn’t quite know what that meant.

so here we are. in a state of “i don’t know what that means.”

it feels good. though i am afraid i will gain all that weight back and turn into the frumpy sexless beast i was before. but the month of april is my time to shine. i will take all the lessons i have learned over the last few months and reinforce them – make them a part of my life.

he will live in his apartment and i will live in my house and we will map out the next stage.

maybe i will even write about the sex we have – goddamnit it is gonna be great.

i don’t wanna be cloudy right now. i need all my wits about me.

but now i understand why my father is such a weirdo. my pops goes out a lot, love to go to clubs and see music etc. but he hasn’t drank in over 30 years. now i know why he is the fidgety annoying antisocial bastard he is. it is hard to find your place in a room full of yelling drunk people.

my god. i guess i just have to stay at home during my sober time. being sober makes the nights so hard and long, but the days sunny and bright.

i’ll take sunny and bright.

I have felt depression. oh, how i have been depressed.
but sadness, that is a whole other ballgame.

depression is a cloudy, foggy, heavy thing – sadness is sharp with a light quality. sadness feels real, where depression feels like you are watching yourself live your own life.

i much prefer sadness. it has honesty about it.

depression is what results when you are trying to refrain from feeling your feelings.

so, from here on out – i am feeling every god damned feeling that rises up in me.

it makes my childhood so much clearer – but it is so stupid that i have to feel all these feelings over again.

the one thing it gives me is a little more understanding of my parents…and why they did the things they did. but, fuck, what a hard lesson to learn.

it also drives me to not want to make the same mistakes – but does that mean i try harder with this relationship or let it go faster.

it is amazing how quickly i thought i would let it go. how i thought i would bounce back and be fine. how confident i was that i could move on without much pain. how i thought i wasn’t really invested.

and then amazing how fast i could negate those thoughts and go crying into alex’s room once a week – begging for him to ‘think things through all the way.’

throughout our entire relationship he always accused me of not believing him – not in a ‘i think you are lying’ way, but rather in a ‘i don’t think you thought that one through and you will change your mind as soon as you see a different perspective’ way. now, the second one may be true but how is it my place to make that decision for him. that is straight up disrespectful.

and that is exactly what i am doing right fucking now.

‘oh, he’s not really over it. he will come back. he will see the light.’ i just can’t fathom why he would want to leave, mostly because i also wanted to break up then i changed my mind. so he’s gonna do it too. right?

the lessons i am taking away look like a lot like this:
-i really enjoy having a partner in my life.
-i tend to take for granted all the things that i love.
-i have tons of emotional walls built to safeguard me from rejection. and they don’t always work.
-alex is pretty unpredictable, and also much stronger than i thought.
-stability isn’t as scary as i thought for many years.
-patiently waiting doesn’t always get the response you wish for.
-i can be hurtful under the guise of being straightforward.
-when someone else is fucking your ex that you live with and still seem to hold a torch for, you want to do them extreme violent harm.
-i want to love someone through their faults. and them love me through mine.

what is really funny for me is that, for the first time in a long time, i don’t understand what is going on. i am generally the type that is on top of it. can see the shit coming. i have a plan. i have a way out.

but right now i am swimming in confusion and emotion. it is kind of nice in some ways, to give up control.

well. now it seems to be an ‘emotion blog’ and i understand if you all are totally bored.

patience i required. i suppose we will be back to our regularly scheduled program soon.
xo kansas

i told him to move out, i put my heart away, i closed off my feelings.

he said “i thought you would get over it and move on.”

i thought “i hoped you would get over her and come back.”

whatever. c’est la vie.

-take what life gives you, and enjoy it.
-love is like riding a motorcycle, you take tons of risks – but it feels so fucking good.
-enjoy what you have, while you have it.
-don’t confuse helplessness with martyrdom.
-getting two things at the same time is something i have always asked for, so deal with it.

questions i’ve been asking myself:

-because it feels good 75% of the time and real, real crappy 25% – does that mean it is wrong?
-does putting yourself in the line of fire mean you will actually get shot?
-does leaving your heart open for all to see mean you are pathetic?
-when you lament over someone you spent 6 months talking shit on, does that mean you are totally fucked in the head?
-when you refuse to put your heart away into that little lead box it was in before, does that mean it will be scarred irreparably?
-when someone tells you one thing and does another, does that mean you are crazy for believing what they do or they are crazy for saying the opposite?
-when you find yourself in a similar position as your kinda fucked up parents were once in, does that mean you are doomed to be just like their crazy asses?
-is this polyamory or am i just grasping at straws so i don’t have to change my home life?
-am i selling myself sort or reveling in the many facets of life and love?

updates on my mental condition:

-i don’t cry near as much.
-i’ve sort of moved on from the initial pain.
-i’ve decided to take a positive position on my love life.
-i know that i am an important part of alex’s life, and that means a lot.

updates on my physical condition:

-heartache is the best time for focusing on diet and health. been treating myself quite well.
-more sex than i’ve had in months.
-back hurts cuz i fell on the ice.
-i look vibrant in the mirror cuz i spend all my time focusing on the positive.

it is the most awful and penetrating pain i’ve ever felt.
the sadness is passing through into anger.
so much anger.

the visions i get of their time together wells up terrible violence in me. i want to lash out. cause pain and damage.

“i did it all wrong. i failed again.”

god, he doesn’t even know that i can’t sleep when he doesn’t come home. that i spend a lot of time crying. that i wish i could do it all over again with the feelings i have now. if i knew how much i loved him back them i would have tried harder. i would have implored. i would have worked at it.

+++

these are the things i felt a few days ago – i feel much less desperate now. it feels good.

he has been around. all things work out for the best, right? take what life gives you, right? follow your gut, right? no regrets.

i still feel my stomach drop when i watch him text her. but i can, at least, eat again.
my feelings hurt when i can’t go give him the hug and kiss that i want. but i can, at least, go a full 12 hours without crying.

i’m glad i felt the feelings i did. and i’m glad i continue to.

so i broke it off with adam for what then – seemed like many great reasons and now – seems like a pathetic attempt to reclaim some missing youth or some vain attempt to rediscover my old and very selfish self.

so we lived, much like we had before. separate bed rooms, sharing a car, laughing, joking, occasionally sleeping in the same bed (without sex), eating together, watching tv together, living pretty much as partners. it was great. it was actually, in a lot of ways, better.

the pressure was off. there was nothing but fun to be had. i didn’t care about his joblessness, about his lack of motivation, about his (as i realize a little later) obvious depression. none of it was my problem anymore.

god damn it, i’m cold. all i did was push him away and away. told him that my happiness revolved around him moving away – not because i didn’t want to be around him, but because i wanted him to see the world on his own terms. i pushed him and told him to go.

and now, here he is. trying to turn around and go and i won’t let him. he doesn’t want to move out and he doesn’t want to stop seeing that girl. he doesn’t want to stop having sex with me or being my life partner. in a few months he plans to move to the big city. alone.

and now, here i am. having grand ideas of patching up our relationship, holding on to those carefree days, and moving anywhere in the world with him. just to be with him.