I am so confused. I always thought I knew what I wanted. But I have this great guy... granted, I've only known him like a week. And he is giving himself to me and I am... pulling away. What the fuck. I wish for something and focus my energy towards getting it and then I... freak out?

We don't have as much in common as I'd like. He can't stand my Japanese music and deep conversation isn't exactly a thing for us unless we are entering dark territory. He has a history that is hard to deal with. But so do I. And I don't think that's really what is bothering me.

He's sweet and cute and cuddly and protective... but for the first time in my life, I don't want to be protected. I want to be able to defend myself. I want to be my own person. And I feel like with him, that might not be an option. I'm flattered by the jealousy and the protectiveness but... Is that really what I need?

Still, he sees my heart, the good part of it anyway, and he adores me. And there are moments of perfection.

I just want to let it play out. Go with the flow, let things happen. But I fear he's falling fast and that just scares me away. I never thought I'd be on this end. If we could just go back to Friday and not have that conversation I initiated.

No. No regrets. Just have to work from here. First on me. That's my priority this year. And then I can work it out with him.

 I wish I had a good explanation for this feeling. But everything is foreign. I've felt this once before, around the same time last year. Right before doing things that still make me question who I am. And it was in the same place where it started. What is it over there? This ugly sun-bleached energy that takes away all that is me, all that is comforting and familiar?

I feel like I'm going insane and I'm not so sure I'm not.

 Sometimes, I think I'm not a person anymore. Not a real person. I'm just this animal set to survive, with this faint memory of an idea called happiness that keeps me from being satisfied with merely achieving that goal.

 It Is What It Is by Lifehouse is one of the most heart-wrenching songs I've heard in quite a while. Trying hard not to cry here.

 Restless. Nights where he's not here tend to find me this way. I know I've already written in here twice, both times within the past half hour but I still feel that need to put fingers to keys and make words happen.

There's a lot going on inside me, though it doesn't feel so much centered in my head. Less like thoughts and more like thoughts, hopes, interests, sparks and desires.

I want to read more. Nix that, I've started reading more. I tend to go in cycles as far as book-consuming is concerned. I don't know if they are measurable or consistent cycles, but I'll have week-long, sometimes multiple week spurts where I'm just reading up a storm. I had one of these around right after I first met Neal. When we started snatching up all the books we could get our hands on at Goodwill and other thrift shops, a past-time we haven't indulged in in a while and I quite miss. Though I can't honestly say I've made use of everything we purchased before (not even close), which is really what's keeping me from suggesting it. For the later part of July, I don't think I was reading that much but August found me picking back up The Vampire Lestat, along with the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series.

Lestat, I'm still working on. I've yet to start with the second Anita Blake book, but I am currently very much wrapped up in The Novice, second book of The Black Magician Trilogy. And I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love for the third (err, maybe fourth actually) time. These three books satisfy three different literary hungers for me. Both The Vampire Lestat and The Novice feed my appetite for adventure and romance, the latter appealing more to the vastness of my imagination and the former appealing to my love of poetry and desire to acquire new words for my vocabulary. Eat, Pray, Love, on the other hand, is comfort food. A familiar and encouraging voice telling a story (or several stories really) that apply very much to the real life I am living and the real world I'm living in. An account of world travels from a kindred spirit, a guide to the kind of adventure and freedom I hope to experience some day. And a sympathetic recollection of the same kind of co-dependency that's been making me a crazy person since the end of last year--maybe earlier, come to think of it.

Each of these books give me something different. And though I read them all for pleasure, they also serve as learning tools. Example texts. The only true way to learn how to write well (aside from, you know, writing) is to read fervently and pay close attention to how the author makes magic out of these words. Each carefully selected word, it's placement amongst the others and the use punctuation that tells you how to break the sentence up in your head or what kind of emphasis to put on things.

Learning from writing is not that different to learning from music. It's all about selection, placement, spacing and emphasis. Words and notes are your colors with which to paint what you "see" inside.

Anyway, hoping that all made sense. I need to do the sleeps. G'night, errbody.

 Staying up to five thirty in the morning is okay if you're re-discovering your love for music.... right? ^^;

 It's kind of funny that one of the typical signs of insanity is talking to yourself when it's one of the few things that keeps me sane. That's what writing a journal or any kind of monologue is, really. A conversation with yourself. And I do miss my conversations.

Talking everything out--or typing everything out really--on these digital pages gave me a very strong sense of self, a centered-ness and feeling of command that I, most of the time, took for granted. When I poured my heart and soul out in the shapes of letters and words into the electronic ether, I was creating my very own gravity. I just didn't full realize it at the time. I was too busy searching, desperately, for something else. My magic cure. My knight in shining armor. The hero I simultaneously petulantly pouted for, wondering what the hell was taking so long, with a sense of entitlement while also holding little faith in, not truly believing that I was deserving of such a hero. I was never certain for too long whether or not I was worthy of this fantasy but I never once wavered in my belief that such a man would make everything alright. That everything would change completely, if only by some subtle magic.

Let me tell you right now, that's not how it works. But maybe I don't need to tell you. Anyone that might be reading this probably already knows, has probably already experienced this reality firsthand a long time ago. But we all learn at our own pace, in our own pattern and our own way. Mine seems to be quite divergent from the norm, which is perfectly okay. Because at least I am actually growing and learning, even it seemed to take a long time to get here.

But back to the point. This knight in shining armor. He finally came, but not at all when I expected or at all in the way I expected. I guess you could say the first one was a test before the real thing. Not knowing that at the time though, I gave my all to that wonderful decoy, that seemingly perfect hero of my dreams. Gave just enough to be not much more than a shell of a person when at last he removed himself from my possession and brought my almost-fairy tale to an abrupt and heart-shattering end.

And it really was pretty damn close to a fairy tale. An atypical one, perhaps, but that does tend to be the case with me. For one, it was a pleasant surprise that my long search came to an end not with me finding the man of my dreams but with him finding me. Quite fitting. Two, the fact that he looked nothing at all like I imagined but somehow still managed to capture my heart and be one of the cutest, sexiest damn things I'd ever seen. Not being the stereotypical hot guy with an athletic affluence also meant that it wasn't an uneven relationship in which I constantly felt the need to keep up and earn his affections. That was never the case, seeing as he pretty much adored me from the get-go. And I believed him. He made me believe I was worth it. And in the aftermath of the collapse of it all, I still believe he meant it. I'll just never fully understand why he stopped feeling it. Why I stopped being the one for him. The best I'll ever get is that it just wasn't meant to be, and honestly, that just might be good enough. Because I believe that what I have now was meant to be. That anything that started in the time or place that it did would not stand a snowball's chance in hell of lasting very long unless there was really something there.

A general rule of thumb is that you do not begin a relationship two weeks after your last one ended. Because it will inevitably end up being a rebound. Something I didn't give serious consideration to until about the second week of us being together. That fear, this all-consuming dread that that was somehow what I was doing without realizing it, almost ruined us. Or it would have. Should have under normal circumstances. But Neal's not a normal guy. He's the kind of guy you can have been dating for only a week and a half (of course it felt longer) before you get a call from your ex that sends you into a spiral of fear and guilt, making you push him away and (being me) eventually confess to him--choked out between sobs--that you are terrified you are going to hurt him the same way the ex did you--and he will just hold you and comfort you as long as it takes, brush away your tears and assure you that he will be around as long as you want him to. That he'll wait if you need him to.

When fear takes hold of me, it's rarely actually the other person that pulls me back. I usually just have to talk myself up to or into it. And that usually happens right here or somewhere quite similar. Not with Neal. Maybe things having changed in my life as much as they have can account for part of it. Doubt creeps in even easier than usual. My flight response far outweighs my fight or stay response these days. There are times when I have seriously questioned whether it's all right, whether I should or even want to be in a relationship at this point. Times when I can only see the differences, the obstacles, the scar tissue that won't ever seem to fully heal. Times when I have wandered off by myself, either physically or just emotionally. And each time... either the universe shifts to arrange a Neal intervention or he surprises me all on his own. But every time, whether it's a surprise rainstorm and an overheating car in the middle of downtown forcing me to call on him for help or simply looking over at him in the passenger seat to see that amazingly contagious, heart-warming smile on his face for no foreseeable reason--he just always finds a way back into my heart. Not just to be there as The One or as my true love but to heal me in a way that I don't think I could ever heal myself. Or that anyone else could either.

Our love isn't a super romantic one. It's definitely not the fairy tale of the first one, which ended more like a traditional fairy tale than a Disney version. It's not the cinematic breed you see in the movies. It's something else altogether. Something I almost have trouble recognizing as love, the way our culture has defined it. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be... Right. It's just right. And that's all that matters.

There was another point in there to be made. About how finding that person doesn't automatically fix everything (except in times of emotional crisis when they smile). And about losing yourself in a person as the solution when it just won't work without one essential element: You. I still want to make those points, expand on those ideas. But it's nearly four in the morning and I've been up since pretty early. Sleep is a necessity. So I will be following this up in the morn... Or post-noon.

 The caffeine coursing through my blood mixes with the fear and desperation of the past and current situations, resulting in adrenalin that stimulates my whole body into this uncomfortable jitter. My jaw quivers, my hands shake, my whole body trembles as my heart pumps far faster than it should and my breath jerks in and out raggedly.

This is what I do to myself. This is what he does to me. But it's really still what I do to myself. Is it ok to hate him now?

 Facebook is such a public thing. And such a fake thing. Any place where people you hate are there as your 'friends' isn't a very genuine place. And it's because of that that I can't say how I feel there. Not that I should need to make a declaration of how I feel but, you know, sometimes it helps. Bottling shit up and watching what I say so as not to bait the wolves is a pretty miserable thing.

On here, it's okay to say I feel broken. That things were getting better but the past few days have not been so good. That I'm gonna miss Wendy a lot and I feel both good and bad about not directly saying that. That I don't think I will ever hear from Jordan again. That it bugs me more that it's without a reason than that it's happening. That when I read that brief comment from fuckface, I felt something inside me crumble. And for a couple hours I was in that same place he always seems to put me.

I know that I can't do this much longer. Something's got to give, got to change. What's it going to take? Counseling? Antidepressants? Jesus? Or is it really as simple as leaving this godforsaken place behind? It is all pretty centralized to here. The thing is, the one place I might be able to go isn't truly the place I want to be. It's far better than here but... it's not New York.

And starting over is hard. It would mean no more Katey, no more Leighlin. But I think they'd be ok somehow... And somehow I would meet new people, even if it takes time. That time would help me learn to be ok with being alone. So... if I were to decide to do this (and knowing myself too well, I wouldn't bet on it), the next step would be applying to Geico's Virginia Beach location. Or looking up apartments and the cost of living there. Or looking up schools. Err. Not really sure which of those should be first. But one of them, for sure.

You found it in yourself but you lost it in other people.
You found truth but forgot it to feel less special.
You cling tight to pride you'd deny ever having when the world leaves you on your own.
Any tattered shred, any fraying rope.
Any shard of glass reflecting what you would like to call hope.
You found yourself but you lost him in other people.
You found the world but you drowned it in you because it made you feel unraveled.
You found a friend, you found a goal
If you stop for too long, you'll fall down a hole
And once you're there, you'll find something else
A corpse, skeletal, a ghost of the self
You found who you were in the pain of the day
In the slow-motion sound of the way that you break
You found who you are in the words you won't speak
In the changes you see that no one else sees