Boredom comes from not being obsessed with something. I wish I was obsessed with something. I want to be obsessed with something creative, productive, engaging, and skill enhancing. I guess that’s a bit much to ask though, isn’t it? I’ve gone back to working on my computer-game-design, but it’s not very engaging. There is nothing exciting about it. It’s just a bunch of text and concept art. Tables, and descriptions and stats aren’t very easy to be obsessed with.
Crusifer isn’t here often enough for me to really obsess over him, and even if he was, he never wants anything. I could shower him with affection, attention, and doing what he wants to do, but it hardly makes a difference to him at all. I mean, he’ll notice, but he’ll say “it’s nice and all, but not really necessary.”
I have anime music blasting through my headphones right now, so that I don’t have to hear the music emitting from Crusifer’s headphones. He’s drawing, looking adorable as he does so. He’s drawing a chick out of a magazine for “anatomy practice.” This is something he does periodically, usually filling an entire page with random sketches. I don’t have the type of drive to do something like that. I’m all about a finished product, when the finished product is disappointing or long in coming I tend to have a habit of quitting.
I suppose that’s one reason why art appeals to me. Why ever quit a picture? It won’t take that long to finish it. And, it’s more appealing to look at every moment that you work on it (to a degree).
I’d like to complete this computer game design and submit it to a company... After some research on how that’s done. How do you submit something without them just stealing the ideas they want and then rejecting your proposal? I know there are ways, but of course I don’t really know much about it. Copyrighting your work and such. It would be nice if they would steal the entire thing and do it just the way I outlined it, but more likely they’d steal several key ideas and dump the rest, and then I couldn’t even prove they ever “stole” anything.
Anyway, say I could submit it without it being stolen, then there is fact that they probably won’t even give it a second glance because I have no degree or work experience in the field. Yet, there is a chance someone might look at and take in the uniqueness of the ideas presented, and see that there is a good sized market for such a game. But that chance will hang in impossibility without a complete design to look at.
I won’t consider the design complete until all aspects of the game are covered, all races, all items, all spells, all functions, all abilities, all disciplines, all realms and terrains, and maps and so on. I’d like all the concept art to be all complete too, but that’s a lot of concept art. The interface design is not a problem for me, but the concept art is really more than I could hope to accomplish. Crusifer and I together could probably do all of it, but relying on Crusifer for something like that (I’ve learned) is folly.
There is no point in asking myself if it is worth it or not to complete the design, because it most certainly is even though the chance of it ever being used for the template for a real game is slim. If but nothing but for my pride.
There is also the chance of putting together a team to design it with me with an agreed about of percentages of payoff (if and) when there is one. My major issue with that is how low quality the game would be if I managed to do that. Saga clearly took a very long time in the making and it’s coding is clearly crap because the load times are terrible for a game with low graphics and small playing fields. This leads me to believe that they have the inexperienced coders as well as average-joe modelers. And while Saga’s game concept is very good, the whole game (as it is now) doesn’t have draw after a certain point in the game for the economical strategist. I want this game to be made much more professionally.
I’m getting that sick to my stomach feeling again. I get it every time I start to believe that Crusifer and I might not be... Good for each other?
He said to me last week (and has written on several occasions) that he wants to quit drinking. This morning he said that he doesn’t want to quit. I think it’s over, that’s what I think. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon enough. As fast as life flies by it’ll be over and in the past before I can really comprehend why.
What happened to all of his talk of forever? What happened to all of mine? He’s not willing to budge an inch for me. Well, I guess a few inches. I don’t have enough time with him to prove my points to him. I don’t have enough time with him to really understand him, to really understand where our relationship stands.
He hardly ever admits to changing his mind, or tells me that he has changed his mind. It’s always “well I think...” or “I feel...” about whatever it is, and it’s almost always different than the last time. I don’t think I know him as well as I thought I did. I don’t think he wants this as bad as I thought he did.
In the middle of February, when I was the most happy with this relationship if he had threatened to break up with me I would have bent over backwards to change his mind. I would have given up anything, picked up anything, given him more freedoms, done anything but feel the heartbreak surely to come. I see so much of myself in him that I expected him to be the same way. I thought if I expressed that I felt it wasn’t working... If I told him I was having second thoughts... If I made it clear that his actions were upsetting me, depressing me and pushing me away... I thought if I told him those things that he would suddenly be a panic to keep me, the way I would be and have been over him.
I was sorely wrong.
He barely seems to care. I want to say that this is because he hardly shows any emotions, but perhaps it’s because he doesn’t feel things. He says things like “I’m human too you know” but how can I remember that when he hardly shows it?
I don’t believe that I’m not crying right now. That shows how close to the end it really is. I’m already starting to accept my heart cracking down the center. I’m already beginning to accept that I need to find a life outside of him. I’m already accepting the fact that I have to be independent... Some part of me (that I don’t know to well) is preparing for it, some part of me that is wiser than the part of me that has control.
How can I leave him? He’s a good man. He is. He’s a beautiful artist. He’s beautiful in general. He makes good money with his talent. He has worth while goals. He has stamina. I want to say he’s passionate, as I’ve said before, but I’m not sure that word applies so much anymore. I see it more and more as lust and not passion. Passion implies emotions, and deep emotions at that. Oddly I see him more and more as a less emotional being, and more robotic and cruel.
Why do I see that? It’s not even a logical assertion! He’s not violent (like Tre was), he’s not messy (like Tre was), he’s not a drug dealer (like Tre was), and he is logical (like Tre wasn’t)... Or is he logical? I’m having trouble with that one these days too. So have I just scratched off passionate and logical with one blow? That certainly is a lot. If I scratch those off it’s a lot harder to make a good case for him. Have I deluded myself into thinking he’s more than he is?
He did buy me a laptop. He does give me incredible orgasms. Why don’t those things matter in the face of how he speaks to me? I’m so word-oriented. I keep believing his words. Perhaps out of spite for him not believing mine?
I want to sink into being suicidal. I want to declare that my life is over!
I also want to be more mature than that.
So is maturity... Break up? It’s tempting in the way that I wouldn’t have to keep trying to work it out. It’s tempting in that there would never been another screaming fit. Christ! When did breaking up with him become tempting? My love, my future, my plans and attachments are slipping right through my fingers! I’m standing in sand. I’m in quicksand. And I’m sinking, sinking, sinking... Sinking out of love with him?
I feel the beginnings of tears. I don’t want to cry, oddly. I usually can’t wait to cry when I feel like this. Just get it out you know? But I know once I start to cry the little negative voices will chirp up. The ones that say things like, “this is all your fault,” and “it’s because you’re ugly,” and “if you weren’t such a retard, like he said,” and “if you weren’t such a needy baby,” and “you just don’t love him enough,” and “if only you’d just let him drink,” and “maybe you can settle for less,” and “maybe if you change and adapt enough you won’t feel this way,” and “maybe if you were more considerate,” and “maybe if you lost weight,” and “maybe if you gained weight,” and “maybe if you had sex with him more often,” and so on, and so on, and so on!
I’m trying to be rational here. If I keep being rational I can hold those thoughts at bay. Why is this really happening? It’s because I have needs that he can’t satisfy. I want a companion, for several hours a day, (preferably more, but three or four is a good minimum) that will give me affection, talk to me, kiss me, possibly sleep with me (at least once a week, preferably two to five times) and tell me how wonderful I am, (while I tell them how wonderful they are) who will work with me on a project (the actual content of the project not being half as important as the fact that we’re doing it together) and then another project and then another over time and years, who will comfort me if I cry, who will care for me (instead of saying I’m a pussy, or that I’m weak, or that I’m being a typical woman), and who will make me feel special. And at least one day out of the week, (really the minimum is more like two days a week, I guess I made an exception for Crusifer) spends time with me all day long, where we might go out together, where we get dressed together, brush our teeth together, hold hands along a nice walk, wash each other’s faces, take a bath together, clean each other’s toe nails, scratch each other’s heads, watch a good movie, draw together, read together, write together, play video games together...
That’s what I want, most simply put.
He has needs that I can’t satisfy as well. He wants to listen to loud rap music. (It has to be loud, it has to be rap.) In the future he hopes to have his own room far away enough from mine where he can blare his music loud as he wants. (He’ll never understand that I can’t stand it no matter what I say. He won’t believe it. I’m just being a pussy after all. (This is a moment where you’d think I roll my eyes, but rather I’m too upset to stop staring blankly at the screen.))
He also needs his friends. This one is hard to argue with really. Everyone has friends. Everyone but me. And at this point in my life it’s actually my choice. Perhaps I’m so used to not having friends that I’ve become comfortable with it?
It’s occurred to me that his quest to not being enslaved (as he puts it) is leading him to try and enslave me. He told me this morning that men have more say in the relationship, and that is the way it’s always been, and always will be. I tried not to hear him. I was disgusted, but I tried to pretend that he was kidding. He started laughing afterwards, like it was a joke, but it wasn’t a joke. He’s trying to pin me under his thumb. Once I let him listen to his blaring loud rap music, and let him drink, and let him bring friends over, and let him go out with friends, then he’ll be excited to marry me. And then I won’t be interested anymore.
I never thought these issues would escalate. I remember saying to Crusifer, “I can’t imagine what problems we’ll have,” and he replied, “We won’t have any.”
What a naive reply! And how much denial it really shows in him. Or hopefulness?
Perhaps he’s in denial that this isn’t working. Or perhaps he’s just quietly separating himself from me, the way I know I am somewhere deep inside of me. That’s that pain we feel in our chest. I’ve concluded that feeling is the soul ripping apart. My soul is slowly, one tiny spot at a time tearing away from his, and the change in energy is centering in my stomach, making me sway with uneasiness, making my chest vibrate and ache. If I cry, I’ll try to heal the tear inside of me, I’ll try to calm my restless energies. Perhaps I shouldn’t cry yet. I need to keep tearing, tearing, tearing away from a man who wants to control me. A man who wants to party, drink, smoke, blare his rap music and “chill wit da boys.”
I can’t believe my own thoughts! I’m thinking about the fact that I ought to try dating a white guy. I’m thinking about actually trying to find someone else! God help me! Someone help me!
I will. Not. Cry. Yet.
I think I understand something about him now. Why he doesn’t cry. Crying leads you back to safety. I’ll cry my way back into Crusifer’s arms and peacefully forget how I felt, and why I felt that way. Tears lead me back into my emotions, back away from logic, they allow me to let go what I’m holding back right now so that I can analyze.
Right now I need to choose. To pull away from Crusifer, or to try and mend it. Again, again, again. I’ve tried this before. I’ve tried mending it several times. We tried the compromises. Sadly it’s not even what he does at the moment. It’s the things he’s said.
I don’t want to keep being called a retard (even from the same man that calls me a genius – neither of which I am I suppose) and I don’t want to be treated the way I was this morning. The way he cut me off, the way he wouldn’t listen, the way he called me full of shit again.
He’ll never keep his promises, will he? It’s been a year and a half and he’s still drinking, and I’m still a liar, and he still won’t believe that the sound of music is really disturbing enough to matter, and I feel more and more and more alone. I feel so lonely I could burst.
I will. Not. Cry yet. Not yet, not yet, not yet.
He’s been better than Isadora’s Josh. He’s not a big baby. He started off like Isadora’s Bean. (I’m talking about Isadora Wing, from the three-book series by Erica Jong.) He started off making love to me in the most amazing ways. We were sex maniacs together, and after the sex we talked and talked and talked until the mornings. He was understanding. Our pasts related to each other. I understood him in ways he had not been understood before, and he did the same for me. We were so affectionate. Oh how I miss how he used to touch me!
I will not cry yet! Not yet! Not yet!
I miss being happy with him. I miss being sure. I was so fucking sure! I was sure! I wanted nobody but him! I wanted to marry him! I wanted his kids! I did this all over again! All fucking over again! (Not yet!)
Why is this all in past tense? I have not given up, have I? Christ, I’m not even sure about that! Please forgive me for my sins, for I am thinking this isn’t going to work, and I’m thinking that I should cut it off sooner rather than later, and my heart is pounding, and my face is contorted from holding back tears, and my lips are fidgeting, and I’m paralyzed from the neck down aside from my fingers, clacking, taping, jittering, pressing, moving, like spider’s legs across the keyboard, finding the next letter, seeking, searching, searching, searching the way I am for love, for affection, for companionship, for someone to feel the way I feel.
I want him to feel how I feel.
I just want him to fucking feel the way I fucking feel.
I’m degrading, I’m falling apart, my logic is failing me, my heart is burning. I want to curl up in his arms and I want to cry. I want him to tell me I’m beautiful. I want him to tell me he’s sorry. I want to believe that this will work... Will work... Will work... Will work...
Predictably, I left my entry this morning to sprawl on my bed and cry. I think I wept loudly for about five minutes, quietly for another five, stared at nothingness for around ten minutes and then I decided to focus my entry into the drawing I’m working on. It’s an anime rendition of Crusifer and I together. What I like about the picture most is that it actually looks like Crusifer, and it kinda really looks like me too. Except that we both have big anime eyes, and our heads are rather large for the bodies, and the bodies are longer and thinner, and the necks very thin, especially mine. I love how the picture is coming out.
Crusifer inspires my art time and time and time again. I don’t want to give up, but I also don’t want to “waste” my time with him. Not that I really believe it’s a waste, because after all we’re learning from each other (from the negative and the positive experiences). I still have hope for our relationship, but this morning was another punch to the tit. Telling me that I was full of shit again really socked it to me. And then bringing up the music thing again... Telling me the man should have the say in the relationship... Telling me that I shouldn’t go take a college class because one class is useless and a waste of money. Telling me that I’m spending all his money and preventing him from saving. Telling me he’s not very sure about marrying me, at all. And the real whopper, he doesn’t want to quit drinking, and doesn’t plan on it. He said that he wrote that he wanted to quit because I got the idea in his head, implying that I clouded his judgement. (As if beer doesn’t cloud one’s judgement...)
I’ve considered all the possibilities that I can, and I’ve come to a conclusion. I will take the summer college course (sculpting – mostly because that is the only art course there was that was at a somewhat reasonable hour and that sounded interesting enough and was at an entry level) and I will soon have my bike in the mail. When my bike arrives I will bike to and from work with Crusifer, which may improve our relationship, or it may not. Either way, I’ll get exercise and see the outdoors and will be exploring another possible area of our relationship. That would add another hour onto the amount of time we spend together each and every day that I bike with him to and from work. In addition, taking the course will give me something else to learn about, something else to focus on, and somewhere new to meet new people interested in similar things.
Another measure I’m taking is that I’m halting all the wedding and children talk. The man I saw this morning was absolutely not the man I’m going to marry. This morning did serious damage to my opinion of him, and this time I think the damage is more permanent than before. Previously I’ve been able to forgive him, to let him redeem himself with promises and kisses. I won’t take promises and kisses as redemption for the things he said to me this morning. I will not marry a man who drinks, no matter how little, or how often. It’s a disgusting habit and if he can’t kick it for me then I’m obviously not worth it to him, thus making him not worth it to me.
I’m in no hurry to get out of this relationship, and at the moment I don’t even feel like I’m in a hurry to have kids and get married. I’m in no hurry to do anything in my love life at all. At the moment it’s functional, though somewhat upsetting at times. If I drop the marriage talk, the drinking talk, the kids talk, and an assortment of my other complaints about video games and people and such, then perhaps the arguing will stop, and perhaps things can mend from there. Perhaps biking with him will rekindle something between us that I feel is dying. Does he feel this way about to me too? I really believe that he does, based on the things he’s said and done. He just doesn’t seem committed, or sure that he wants this for himself, and that alone is enough to make me wonder if I’m with the wrong man.
I’m not putting him on some sort of trial, and I’m not going to test him. I don’t believe that he’s going to change. I’m going to push myself to socialize and find new avenues for myself this summer.
I’m going to try to adapt. If I can’t adapt, then I guess that’s that.
You know what really makes me sick though? I don’t feel like he’s really truly tried to do this my way, even under threat of breaking up. Perhaps February was a fluke and he was really just rushing home because it was cold. The back-rubs have stopped. The giddy cuddling is down below the minimum required for sanity in my life. The conversations become more and more argumentative and less and less productive (or even funny or thoughtful.) He doesn’t compliment me half as much as he used to. I get a “you look cute today” in a standard tone, with his standard admiration look... Sometimes he’s not even looking at me when he says it.
Oh, and I forgot the other sock to my guts he gave me last night. He brought up us having a girlfriend... After all this time of having dropped the subject, after ruling it out, after mutually deciding that it would ruin our relationship he brought it up again. I don’t really think it’s that bad that he brought it up, really. I mean, so it’s a nice fantasy and all, but it’s just so impossible to bring to reality, and if it did become reality I know we’d breakup over it. How do I know? I can imagine it clearly now... I know my jealousy better now...
I can see this pretty white girl, blond most likely, sitting on his lap while he’s at his computer. (I’m imagining this in print here, for the benefit of future recollection of my point.) He let’s her distract him from his computer (the way he would get mad at me for doing) and they kiss and kiss and kiss (the way we did when we were a new couple) and they sleep together often (making me feel out of place, jealous and angry and neglected) and she leaves most of the day, comes home when he does, and then they’re all over each other again, talking, laughing... It wouldn’t work unless I loved her too, unless she loved me too. Chances of that? Zilch.
Just thinking about it makes my blood boil. I want him to behave that way towards me again, not watch him behave the way towards a new woman!
I want his love and affection and attention so bad that I’m a wreak. I’m so blasted lonely in here that I could just set myself on fire. (That would take more guts than I really have.)
I’ve been working every single day towards getting that office done in the back. And it’s coming along quite well, as I’ve said before. It’s a good project to keep me distracted. All the boxes of books are out of there. All of the boxes of papers I have sorted through (tossing 90% of it – magazines and pamphlets and other text not written by either of my parents). I kept the stuff that had their signatures or handwriting and carefully filed it into a bin. The materials for my binders about my parents that I will create in the future.
All the tools I found I put in one box. I painted over the plain soot-covered shelves that the boxes had been on. The shelves are built into what is usually the knee-wall. They’re on both sides of the soon-to-be office. On the one side I’ve finished painting them black and there is the CD player, cleaning supplies, the bin full of old papers, trash bags, an assortment of now-empty binders, a box of reader’s digest magazines (from the late 80s and early 90s) and the box of tools.
The office project brings me closer to making Crusifer more comfortable and happy with our arrangement. He’ll probably be able to play music on the whole opposite end of the attic while I’m on the bed if there is a fan going in between, which there will be in the summer time. That would allow him music time on Sundays. I’m not too happy about not being with him during any part of our time together in the house, but then again, I’m obviously not happy about a lot of things, so compromises of any kind are helpful at the moment.
I’m not going to tell him about how I feel about this morning. I can’t really see the point. He knows what I want from him. He’ll notice that the chain I gave him (where he puts his engagement ring) is missing along with the bracelet, and promise ring are missing. He’ll notice that I won’t talk of marriage or kids anymore. It’s clear enough, just like it’s clear that I’m not his ideal wife either.
