It is 1:14pm at the moment.
I’m terrified of regretting my current actions later. If My boyfriend and I go ahead and get married and have children, and four years down the line we’re still having the same arguments, I might very well wish that I had left him back when it was "easy" to do it. (Easy in retrospect from the future...)
But, on the other hand, if I were to leave him now, I might find that all relationships have arguments, and most have worse arguments. I might discover that having just one night a week with My boyfriend is better than entire weeks with other men or women. I might realize that it wasn’t so hard, that it wasn’t so bad, and that being alone is far worse than arguing with My boyfriend over drinking and being out.
I also could discover a world of great lovers and relationships unknown to me in my teens. I might discover that being single isn’t so bad. I might discover that I’m really a lesbian after all. I might, I might, but I doubt that. Though, why I don’t know. I shouldn’t doubt that there are better fish in the sea, because after all, a short month after Jeremy left me, Tre came along, and a short month after I left Tre (after two years of bickering) along came My boyfriend. And this was without even trying to find a man.
And yet, and yet... And yet it’s just so hard to believe that I’m beautiful. It’s so hard to believe that I’m lovable. It’s so hard to believe that people can be honest, trustworthy, interesting and smart.
But other fish in the sea is only about five to ten percent of my dilemma with leaving My boyfriend over this. There is also all of the dreams and plans I’d have to give up. We’d never have a tattoo shop together, I would have no art to scan and clean and rearrange. My artistic muse would be gone from my life, and my art would cease to exist at all. (After all, I hardly drew at all while I was with Tre, and when I did, it was mostly because I was at school and there was nothing better to occupy my mind and hands.)
Let’s put thus reasons so far like this: 5% of it is that I don’t believe I could find something I truly be happier with. 15% is all the dreams I’d have to give up. Then comes the whopper of course, the pain of being separated from someone you love so dearly. If I were to leave My boyfriend, I’d do it the same way I did with Tre. I’d bottle my pain and my anger, until my tears dry up, and the love wilts, so that I don’t have to break myself in the process of saying it’s over and more than necessary. The only problem with that theory is that My boyfriend will never make me feel that bad. My boyfriend would never throw my head into a wall, or point a gun at my head, or tell me that I’d be worthless without him, or threaten to kill my whole family and next boyfriend if I left him. My boyfriend is a nice guy. He’s just an insecure nice guy who wants to be a macho-man.
5% is the lack of fish in the sea. 15% is the dreams I’d leave behind. 10% is how alone I’d be in the days to follow. 70% is the pain from being separated from him, now that he’s become embedded into my soul. And even that first five-percent is a compelling reason not to do it.
So now that I’ve cancelled out the first option on my list of options. (My options: leave him, compromise with El, demand that he do things my way or else, separate myself slowly through making new hobbies and friends away from him, take more control of his life through crude and unfair methods.)
El suggested last night that he get three nights a week, and I get the other four. Ha! Ha! Yeah, right. He has no idea what it’s like for me to have no company at night to look forward to. "But why can’t you come with us?" He asks. (Not even the first time we’ve been over this.)
"The smell of cigarettes gives me a pounding headache that lasts all night. Besides, I wouldn’t enjoy myself and that would bring you guys down. I have nothing in common with the sort of people you guys hang out with. I want nothing to do with the drugs, the terrible eating habits, the party life-style or any of it. I don’t even have anything to talk about with those people."
"You can’t just expect My boyfriend to give up the other half of his life."
At this point I want to scoff. Partying is not life, at least, not the way they party. Getting drunk, and high, and talking to random people about nothing in some bootleg house all night, night after night, is not living at all. I can respect a single person who does this after work to let loose, to look for a mate or for friends. I can even respect a couple who goes to clubs to dance and have a good time once a week. But the people at the parties they go to don’t even have a life outside of partying. They work ho-hum jobs at drug stores, have no hobbies, and do drugs seven days a week. And I’m not just talking weed and boos. I’m talking cocaine, dexing, ecstacy, acid, opium, and some of them perhaps even crack.
Seeing people snot cocaine makes my stomach turn. A girl that could be beautiful, that could be smart, that could have a future, bouncing around after a cocaine high, falling all over the floor, and onto the men in the room, laughing about nothing, shaking uncontrollably is just scary. It makes me want to shake her (as if she isn’t shaking enough) and scream "what the fuck are you doing with your life!?"
I don’t want to talk to people who gossip about other people, who talk about drug experiences, sports, maybe video games, and previous parties as their center of conversation. How incredibly boring. Why not discus the inner-plot of a recent movie and character’s motives? Why not a good book we’ve all read? Why not our different religious and spiritual believes? Why not odd things we know about animals? Why not dreams and what we think they mean? Anything but football, tits and drugs.
If that is half of My boyfriend’s life, I’m not sure I want to be involved in any part of his life. Hearing El put it that way really shifted my perspective. Obviously this is important to him. Despite My boyfriend’s intellect, despite his interest in books, taking apart computers, different religions, and theosophy, he still wants to waste half of his free time being a couch-potato.
The level of how depressing that is for me is so high that I can’t even begin to describe it. It’s so upsetting and so real that it’s struck a fervent doubt into my core. The doubt that turned into disgust with Tre. This is my worst fear, and it’s happening and how to deal with that is just blowing my mind.
"You do realize that My boyfriend blows me off as much as he blows you off," El says. I think about this for a while. El is really trying to come up with a compromise. But El can still go off and have a love interest, and have other friends. He knows a lot of other people. Why does he need My boyfriend’s time? I fully understand now that El isn’t my problem. My boyfriend is the problem. My boyfriend’s wants are my problem, just like my wants are his problem. He wants to go out, and I don’t want him to, simple as that, really?
And who gets what they want? In his view-point (I think) he believes he should be able to go out and do drugs if he wants to because he brings home the money. Through my perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to do these things because they’re not only bad for his health, but it also hurts my feelings, and on top of that, if he didn’t have me, then he wouldn’t have this room, this pussy, clean clothes, clean dishes, good food, love, affection, attention and a considerable amount of understanding on his side.
True, without him, I wouldn’t have a lot of things too. After all, I don’t have what I want and need from him when he’s gone. No love, no attention, no affection, no sex, no one to talk to, no interaction to be gained. Why, why don’t video games satisfy me like they used to? Why, why, why would I rather lay on the bed stroking his hair, listening to his day than play Civilization, Tekken, CivCity, Eudemons, Spyro, Sims, or any of the games I own? Why does other company bore me to death? Why do I cry when he leaves? Why does him wanting to leave make my stomach clench and my chest ache?
It’s not natural, and I know it’s not. People cry after arguments, or during them, but not because their man wants to spend a night or so out... He’s not coming home tonight, and at least I know in advance this time. But it made me wake up sad. It makes the whole day seem moot and pointless. It makes going to bed at 5:00pm appealing. It makes everything seem doubly worthless and pointless as it already often does.
It’s out of the question for me to go with them. I’m not going. It would be pointless. It’s out of the question for me to just let him leave me, once, twice, three times a week, and stay here, alone, miserable, and hating myself. If that was the case, I might as well give up right now. As I said to El,
"If I were to agree to that, part of the deal would mean having another boyfriend. Which is actually why My boyfriend and I have been looking for a girlfriend. He’d get more pussy, and I’d get more company. The problems with that however are numerous. Imagine a girl that is actually compatible with both him and me?" I snort and shake my head, "It’s impossible. I’ve never met a girl I get along with enough to want to see everyday. I’ve never had a friend. It’s always been me and one other guy or nothing. Going out and finding myself friends is not appealing or satisfying, and finding a girlfriend is impossible and poses a number of threats and issues all on it’s own."
Both El and Coriver are convinced there is some sort of compromise possible. I used to believe that too. After yesterday, I don’t believe there is any way that we’ll all be satisfied. If El got his way, I’d be miserable, and if I got mine, My boyfriend and El would see each other once a month or so, which would leave El feeling jipped as all hell. And the worst part? There isn’t just El and me to consider. There is My boyfriend’s mother, and his cousins, and his coworkers. Tonight he’s going out with Nikki and Frank. El won’t even be there.
I have no New Years plans that I know of. I don’t even want plans if I won’t be with My boyfriend. I don’t want to even be awake. Why am I so damn addicted? It can’t be normal, it can’t be reasonable. The more he’s out, the more desperate and irrational I get. I start acting like the fiend when he’s out.
He’ll tell me he misses me when he’s gone. He’ll say he’s sorry. He’ll make promises. I’m done believing. I’m not sure I can ask him to change anymore. I think I have to force it, deal with this, or leave. Since we’ve covered dealing with it, and leaving, that moves on to forcing him to do things my way. This isn’t a pretty picture either.
That would mean completely jipping El out of hanging out with his best friend. That would mean completely jipping My boyfriend out of one his favorite people in the world. And it would require drastic methods like picking My boyfriend up from work everyday, punishing him severely with no sex, and no favors in general when he defies me, rewarding him profusely for being with me (which I always try to do, everyday as is) and aggressively reminding him of the consequences of leaving, and of staying. I think that it might work, but I also think that it might back fire. If I hold too tightly he’s going to feel trapped, and he’ll lash out.
To complicate things even more, I’m having trouble coping with him with other girls now. It seemed like a good freedom to give him. Something logical and simple. Something other relationships don’t have. A way to not-conform and to be understanding to his nimpfadic tenancies. (Yes, I said nimpfadic, want to pick a bone about it, or what?)
But time has made me more attached, more possessive, more controlling, more afraid, deeper in love, deeper in desperation, deeper in jealousy. When we first got together I didn’t give a hoot if he slept with other girls, (as long as he used a condom of course.) After all, he’d slept with other girls before, so what did it matter anyway? When he did do it, it did make me jealous and upset, but I recovered quickly enough and went on with things. It didn’t dwell in my mind more than a day or so.
The second time wasn’t so bad either, though it hurt worse emotionally, I was able to conceal it even better. Though now thinking about it makes me upset. I feel like my time, my space, my body, my memories, my bliss-cloud is being invaded. I’ve never been this jealous before. I’ve never felt this emotionally fucked by it before. And I feel like I’m trying to trap him in a box all at once, and I don’t know how to not do so. The alternative is to break my own heart over and over again.
Monday the 31st of December, 2007.
It is 6:40pm at the moment.
Hi Tina!
You seem to have changed your phone number again. I don't know of any way to get a hold of you at the moment. I wanted to see what you were doing for New Years. We're having a small get together over here.
I had a thought totally unrelated to the above that I'd really like to speak with you in person about. Being that you're in the army, and have some sort of income, even though it's limited/in lump sums etc., it could be a logical thing for us to move in together some time in the future.
The reason why I bring this up is because there is a good chance my father will move out soon, which means that we'd have to give up the house. My boyfriend doesn't make enough to support it. Though in that event, it wouldn't take THAT much more to support it, and you'd have access to everything you'd have in an apartment or more. (Phone, heat, water, electric, cable, DVR, high-speed internet, food)
The other reason I bring it up is because in the event that we have to move out, it would be nice to have a room mate, and I'd be able to babysit your baby while you're at work (& while My boyfriend is at work for that matter) very easily, and then instead of paying me directly for the babysitting, you'd just contribute to the bills. We would also get a chance to get to know each other better and such.
I don't really know what your situation is with your Mom, but obviously the baby will need it's own room when it get's older, and in the event that my father move's out, it would make enough extra room for you and your baby to have more space than (I assume) you have now. I really hope that you consider the idea, and I'd like to talk about it more in person.
I'm really lonely with all this time Crusifer spends at work, and I have too much time to think about all the negative stuff in life sometimes. Call me anytime. 536 9226
~Atara Phoenix
Monday the 31st of December, 2007.
It is 9:39pm at the moment.
He doesn’t call me with his changes of plans. He doesn’t take my feelings into consideration. He isn’t willing to quit drinking and partying. I feel like it’s already over right now. Every part of my chest, stomach, just everything is roiling in pain. The fire of anger has burned up my tears of agony, and I don’t know what to do.
I have no interest in anything. I’ve wasted another year of my life! Another fucking year! And now I’ll have to start from scratch. I’ll have to get a job. I’ll have to find myself someone new to love, and live with this heartache. I hate myself. I hate. I hate, hate, hate myself. Why won’t I just keel over and die? I wish I was dead, right this moment!
Oh god, no I don’t, I don’t want my mommy to come looking for me when I’m laying here motionless... But what am I living for? What am I looking forward to? What dream do I have that’s worth getting up out of bed for?
He is who he is, and he’s not changing, and I can’t do anything about it. It’s deal with it or leave, and if this is dealing with it, then there is no dealing to be done. Why, why, why, whywhwywhywhwywhy...?
But, but, but... Mary said he was the one. She saw it? So why isn’t it working? Why is everything so terrible? I’m back to where I was with Tre, where he’s causing me and equal amount of pain and pleasure. This is so awful. I don’t want to do this again. I thought I had made so much progress, and I thought I had come so far, but I’ve done nothing. Nothing! It’s all been a waste, it’s for nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing!
Fuck this world. Fuck it all. Fuck everything that you stand for. I don’t belong. I don’t exist. I refuse to give a shit. Don’t ever judge me. Fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck everything that you stand for. I won’t belong, I don’t even exist, I don’t give a shit. Don’t ever judge me!
Burn me alive, strangle my voodoo doll, twist my neck one-notch short of breaking and tie me there. Needles in my eyes. Crucify me. Leave me hanging, douse me with water to prolong my agony. Watch me bleed and scream, and devour thou favorite meal.
Pulverize me. Gimp me. Gag me with a spoon, and a fork too.
Sorting his coins, buying him pizza, hanging up his hoddie, collecting up his laundry, waiting for the few minutes I’d get to have before he got ready and went out with his boss and I don’t even get a phone call to let me know that he’s at a fucking house party in the mean time. I told him I hated him. He told me he was going to get trashed. He hung up. I called back. He didn’t answer. I left a message saying that if he got trashed to never come back. (While crying uncontrollably.)
The whole day is a waste. Nothing I said to him has gotten through, none of it meant anything. It’s all one big lie. I’m living one big lie again. All my hopes are worthless. I’m shedding my leaves, a slowly dying tree; a slowly callousing heart.
Every incident is another blow. Every day like this is another day closer to the inevitable.
Tuesday the 1st of January, 2008.
It is 3:27am at the moment.
Happy New Year! Oh, the cheer.
So we went to Asa’s house, which I’ll admit was ten times better than laying on my bed crying for all of these hours, which I may very well have done if we hadn’t gone. I was crying hysterically when the phone rang and my mom said, "are you ready to go?" and I wiped the tears from my face, took a deep breath and said that I would be right down.
I had to sit there and stare into space for several minutes before coming to terms with facing a social situation when I feel like my life is falling apart, but somehow, somehow I have to convince myself that it is better not to mope.
Honestly, I disgust myself. My antics, my crying, my moping, my depression. It’s all flat out disgusting. Though I’d be highly offended if anybody said this to me, and try to back up the way I feel, and also try to explain that I don’t want to feel this way, that I am trying not to feel this way, but how do you change how you feel?
At Asa’s house, my brother Robert, myself, Asa, Mom and Dad all sat around a board game that I don’t know the name of. A first time play for almost all of us. I lost miserably, and I ate something Mom and I made, which had too much sugar in it, and gave me an awful stomachache. It was so bad that I forced myself to vomit for the first time in my life, multiple times in fact, trying to get it all up so that I wouldn’t be in pain all night. It seems to have worked since I feel fine now. I’ll remember next time I make a bad eating choice that vomiting isn’t as bad as being bloated and in pain for hours upon hours.
At least I was too busy with losing, the food, the ache, the puking that for a little while I didn’t miss My boyfriend. This is a huge accomplishment for me. I feel genuinely proud of myself for it. When we got home, I suggested since it’s late, and since the three of us are together (myself and my parents) which is kinda rare, that we talk.
We talked about My boyfriend and related topics at great length. They both gave me new ideas, new options, though not too far removed from the things I had thought of myself. They brought out the things I already knew and connected them differently. My conclusions:
My boyfriend needs to slay his own dragon, and he has to do it his way.
By telling My boyfriend I won’t be with him if he drinks or if he attends parties, I’m telling him that I don’t accept him for who he is.
By not going out of the house with him, and my not allowing him to drink anywhere near me, I push him away, and force him to associate with influences in opposition to me while he’s drinking and socializing, and consequentially making his fun less satisfying because he’s too busy being stressed because of me to really enjoy himself.
Going cold turkey doesn’t work for everybody just because it works for me.
Pushing and rushing somebody only makes them rebel more, and further pushes them away.
I need to take away all expectations and start over.
Tuesday the 1st of January, 2008.
It is 6:20pm at the moment.
"He won’t forgive me," is what I wrote at noon. After writing that, I had nothing left to write. I hate how an imminent breakup turns me into a fucking slave. I feel like I can’t ask for anything. Now I’m the one who feels trapped. Trapped in never having what I’m looking for, what I’ve been working for, and towards. I feel like a failure.
He says he forgives me. For being ignorant last night. I forgive him, obviously since I’m still trying so hard to make this work. But I feel the distinct feeling of failure. It’s like I already lost the race, but let’s keep going to my marks won’t be that bad.
I had a decent day so far. It really hasn’t been terrible. I’m doing the compromising thing. I told him he can go out, any day of the week, except for days off. He can drink, he can smoke, whatever, just don’t bring company home, and try not to be an ass hole when you’re drunk. I did this so our relationship wouldn’t be ruined, but my plans, my hopes, my dreams were crushed by making this compromise. And worse yet, he’s not particularly happy with it!
"What if I wanna bring niggas to the build? Niggas aint tryin’ to always be out."
*sigh* If this still doesn’t work then I’ll have no choice but to give up. How long to give things? I don’t know. I feel completely desolate. I thought I didn’t have much to look forward to before, but now I’m not even sure what I’m trying to work towards. I did make sure to reiterate that I was not marrying a man who drinks.
The most worrying the part is that he doesn’t understand why. That’s actually more scary than the fact itself. He doesn’t understand why he should eat dinner with my parents and I on New Years Day. He doesn’t see why my Mom might be upset if he doesn’t at least sit down with us.
I’m so tired to working to find the right analogy, of working to find a solution to something that he can’t seem to understand. Like the gangster rap music. I’m really not trying to listen to "fuck bitches, get money" and "raised in the projects" and "36mafia" and other assorted lyrics, groups, "songs" and such because I can’t relate at all, it’s loud even when it’s quiet, it’s offensive most of the time, I’d hate to think that My boyfriend really felt the way these "artists" say they feel about things. And I don’t like the way it sounds either.
My boyfriend is about to pop his bottle now. And play Final Fantasy XII for PS2.
Wednesday the 2nd of January, 2008.
It is 4:01pm at the moment.
My boyfriend and I made a compromise. He can go out any days of the work week he feels like going out. He can even get fucked up. (This is just begging for something really awful to happen, but it’s worth a try.) All I’m asking is for his days off to myself, which currently consist of one day a week. The least time I’ve ever had with a boyfriend before. A pitiful group of hours amongst the mass of hours in a week.
He can even drink at home, as long as it’s two of something 5% or one Steel. This was my father’s idea, and My boyfriend is going along with it, or at least, he says he is. Then again, what is there to not go along with? Leave me on Sunday too? If that is to be the case, then I give up.
This is so frustrating. I can’t count on having anything to look forward to. I can’t count on anything or anyone. I just want to cry my time away. Of course he’s not really going to go out six days a week, but I have little doubt that things will only get worse from this point on.
I informed him that I wasn’t marrying him unless he quit drinking all together. And why is this considering changing him? He only started drinking three years ago, and for one of those years he was with me. He quit smoking cigarettes for me pretty easily. I don’t see what the big deal is, honestly. I quit drinking after one stupid night in Iowa, involving bad sex, crawling, ripping my pants and vomiting multiple times. I quit smoking weed on the basis that my memory was better without it.
I started both of those things when I was fourteen, and I smoked everyday for two years. And I simply quit both smoking weed and drinking.
Thursday the 3rd of January, 2008.
It is 7:14pm at the moment.
A lot can happen very fast if you let it. I almost left My boyfriend. In fact, I screamed at him to get the fuck out of the house. He didn’t. He rolled over and went to sleep. I compromised with him, or in the way I look at it, I gave him back his freedom. I didn’t get anything in particular out of it the way I look at it. He might stay home on his days off. I don’t believe anything.
I got a fucking job. I’m not happy about it at all. My "boss" wants to marry me, and the job is commission, not hourly. I’m supposed to recruit models and actors. Then I become their manager. Then I make a commission on them. Aaron is also allowing me to do photography for them, which is the only part that really sounds good to me.
I’m worried about having my time consumed, and I’m doubly worried about Aaron trying to hit on me. It’s not as straightforward as I’d like. Not like things were with my old boss and my old job. I miss working at the web-design place sometimes.
But because he’s not my boss in title, and because I work on commission I’m free to come and go as I please. Plus I’m getting my own office, and he gave me a cell phone for work purposes on the spot. Though it’s kinda cool that I can call myself a Talent Scout. I also was given a work e-mail, not that an e-mail is anything to hoot over.
The part I think that’s best about this whole deal is that I’m going to be able to run my Mary Kay business out of my office their, and do presentations for Mary Kay Cosmetics and Skin Care. That should be very profitable.
Though somehow I’m not excited about it at all. Mom pointed out that My boyfriend devotes all of his time towards being a famous tattoo artist because that’s what he wants to do with his life. I pointed out that becoming a tattoo artist is his main passion, that it’s his goal above all else, and that my main passion is completely un-career-related.
I want to run away from the task entirely already but everyone wants me to stick with it. I feel like it was never even my choice. Like somehow someone pushed me into it. Recruiting is not something I’m good at, even now that I’m offering a job that pays $50 to $150 a day. I want to be an extra, that sounds cool and profitable. Representing them, and finding them sounds scary.
And my mentor keeps dropping hints about wishing I was single, and how it would be cool if I went to Los Angeles with him. Heh, heh-heh. I said, "Only if I can take My boyfriend with me. My fiancé."
Aaron seems like a poor lonely puppy that doesn’t know how to do anything but make money. If you can’t make money of it, he’s not interested. And then there is Saundra, but she’s a different story.
A story that I seem to be too tired to type out. If you’re interested in more information about becoming an extra and getting paid to hang around a set, then you should call my work cell (716) 480-4985 Mon-Sat, 1:30pm to 9:00pm.
Thanks for all the support guys.
