I turned 35 this weekend. I'm not where I thought I'd be at 35 (maybe I never really thought I would be 35 whatsoever).... still in graduate school (i.e. not financially stable), still living in a rented college-ish apartment and driving a shitty car, still forever unsure of whatever relationship I am in, despite how good or bad it goes. no house of my own, no recognizeable (at least in terms of salary) job, no husband. I can let myself get a little down about this stuff sometimes. particularly on a weekend as significant as one's 35th birthday. the first bday I've spent in the U.S. in six years.

But on the other hand.... I have a good family who cares about me. friends to celebrate happy hour with, and friends who are there when I need them. a boyfriend who loves and misses me, and whom I love and miss (he's out of town for the next while on work). a job I appreciate even if I don't always like it lately. a beautiful kitty with the softest ears and the cutest meow who seems to instinctively know when I'm feeling a little down and then invite herself to curl up on my lap. I have a lot of good things. I want to be the kind of person who remembers that more often.

wow - 35 seems old.

So I haven't really lived up to my promise to keep up with this more. in part, life has just gotten too complicated, in ways that don't feel appropriate for blogging. in some ways, I feel like the last couple of months have really ceased to be about me (which would make them appropriate for blogging) and have been about everyone else's crises. which has been, selfishly, at times frustrating.

but here I am..... perhaps too much to catch up on, so I think (although I'm sure this won't draw any readers) I'll just jump right in to what I'm thinking right now. post difficult conversation with the boyfriend.

so here's what I'm thinking, logically or illogically..... I come from a stable family. stable meaning my parents are still together, my family is still intact. not something to be taken for granted, I know. I have so many friends from split families, sometimes in which they never knew one of their parents, or sometimes in which their parents harboured many bad feelings toward each other. and I am very very thankful that my parents are still together, and still good friends, and still love each other. but many of my friends from those split families have a difficult time with forging their own relationships with a significant other. and often they cite the failure of their parents to provide a good example, or the fear of abandonment as instilled by one parent, as reasons for their lack of trust in other people. which are totally legitimate and reasonable explanations for their failures in the relationship department. I don't have these excuses - my parents love each other, have rarely if ever argued in front of me, have always made a point of "being there" for me. nevertheless, I clearly have issues with trusting people, whether its friends, or boyfriends, or professional relationships. I always have a backup plan in mind, I'm always looking for that first sign that someone is losing interest. and it hit me tonight, after (admittedly) three glasses of wine with my friend V (who never really knew her father, and certainly has issues with trusting men), maybe if you never learned, early on, not to trust people, maybe it hits you that much harder, as an adult, when you realize you have been naive. when you realize that even the best guys eventually get bored with you, or frustrated with you, or have expectations that you can't meet. especially when you are one of those people (and I think most people are) who wants to get everything right, all the time. and having to realize that you can't, over and over and over again.

not that its the same, as losing trust early on, but that its still significant.

clearly I'm not in the cheeriest state of mind. its weird..... my boyfriend went through something really significant (sorry, I'm overusing this word, but....) over the past couple of months, and I tried (and, I think, more or less succeeded) to be there for him during that. and I felt like it gave me (well, I felt like it gave "us", but am figuring out that the "we" versus "me" part was maybe just in my imagination) a new perspective on our relationship, and a new appreciation for each other. but then we had our first (post significant event) fight, and within minutes everything seems to be back in the (bad) place it was in pre-significant-event. and I realized that it was just a sort of transient calm, and that very little really changed. and that I am doing the same things, and having the same expectations, that I was in my last bad relationship. and that maybe I haven't learned as much as I thought I had. which sort of sucks.

more cheery and pretentiously deep thoughts later....

He's going through something incredibly difficult. It is somehow making me love him more. Is it just because I feel needed???? or is it that this incredibly difficult thing is breaking down barriers? why is loving someone so hard to figure out? It should be the simplest thing in the world.

I'm a mess of emotions lately. not really something I am comfortable with. trying to be there for him and disappointed in myself as I realize most of what I am feeling is ultimately selfish. spent yesterday in the depths of despair, feeling as though he didn't need or want my help. now that he does, feeling obtusely worried about whether I will really be able to give it in the right spirit.

despite the incredibly difficult thing, spent much of last week obsessing over a random comment made by a random person that maybe possibly insinuated that I am right to feel suspicious about his Overly Interested Friend Who Is A Girl. The one who never invites me to her parties and fails to recognize me (at least in any way obvious to me) as his girlfriend. received a somewhat cold inquiry from this OIFWIAG about the incredibly difficult thing. An inquiry that tried its best not to acknowledge that I might know more about the incredibly difficult thing than she did. I feel this is portentous (which I think means of significance?) but at the same time is probably something that should not be brought up. but still can tell that this situation (this situation referring, I suppose, really just to his relationship with the OIFWIAG) is likely to blow up as soon as the incredibly difficult thing has been given enough time. which makes me like myself less - I should be someone who can let this go. but I'm not convinced that I am.

am feeling more and more disillusioned with this. I know that he is away, and that it is different when you are "away" than when you are the person left behind. I know he said it might be "good for us" to have some time apart. I also know he said he would call, and he hasn't, and despite myself I am waiting on it, and all I'm left with is feeling empty.

our relationship is in a bad place, and its been there before, but I felt like before we were both in it together. both trying to make it better together. now its just me. alone. feeling empty.

To J:

Here are (the?) things that bother me:

1.) We cannot end this with you calling me a bitch and screaming at me to get out of your apartment. I deserved that (really, I did, I nagged until all hours of the night), but still....Your friendship is too important to me. and we have to work together for at least another year, and I'm not sure how I would do that if I had to know that's how you feel about me.

2.) You chose her. It may have been just for a night, and it may have been a special occasion, but still.... you chose her. Over me. After I made it very very clear that it was a big issue for me. That choice only made it more of a big issue.

3.) Subconsciously or consciously, you do not include me when you are with her. Obviously having me around must change the dynamic in some way. Maybe it's just that you have to watch out for me, to integrate me, when I'm there, and that's more work than relaxing. But maybe its more. I trust you, but maybe it's more.

4.) You cannot spend the night (sleeping bag or not) at another woman's house without telling me. This is not me being jealous. This is normal. I've taken a poll.

5.) Many of our friends, who have been dating much less time than we have, are now engaged, or married, or at least live together. We aren't anywhere close to that. Part of me argues that all relationships follow their own path. But part of me wonders that if we were right this would have happened for us too.

6.) You are the best person I have ever dated. I love you. But I've never been quite sure if I'm ready to give up all the single person behavior that made up my life before you.

Here's a question for M, my first real boyfriend. what did we fight about? because I know we fought, I know that there were times when I felt panicky, and angry, and trapped around you. and I know that, although I will always want you as a friend, I no longer want you as a significant other. But when I looked back on my relationships, you're the only one that I felt really knew me, the real me, and accepted (most of) me, insecurities and all. do I feel this way because so much time has passed, because all the bad parts are (mostly) forgotten and only the good parts remain? or because I didn't know myself as well back then? or have my insecurities simply grown so much, over the past 10 years, that they are no longer bearable, when once they were?

J and I are in a bad place. and we can't seem to communicate, effectively at least, about it, which makes me think we will not be able to get back to a good place. and a lot of it is stemming from my insecurities (and some of it from his). we had two big blowouts this week. both initiated by me. but he was the one to bring up the breaking up part of it. he was the one to make the jump from "we need to fix this" to "it can't be fixed". then he took it back, sortof, and said he wanted to work on things. which is apparently to be followed by a weekend of squeezing me in between other social engagements. with other women.

I just woke up, following this really strange and terrible dream, and thought I'd write it down before I forgot. though already the details are starting to slip and I am not sure its something I want to remember anyway. perhaps it speaks a little too well of all the insecurities I pretend I no longer really have.

In my dream I am in my apartment with my mother, waiting on someone to drop off a package. we are just chatting, and she says something slightly deregatory about her self (I can't remember this clearly, but likely about her weight - my mother has always obsessed about her weight). I of course step in and tell her I think she looks great (she really does, both in the dream and real life). This someone segues (sp?) into how she is sorry that I am not more attractive. how my younger sister got all of her and my dad's good features, while I didn't get any of them. how she wishes that she was better off, so that she could afford to help me out with a little cosmetic surgery. I protest, saying that I know I had a lot of ankward phases growing up, and that I've never been a really pretty girl, but that I feel like I grew into my looks somewhat and mostly think of myself as attractive these days. but she just shakes her head, and insists that I am not. eventually I get angry with her, asking her why she would want to tell me something so cruel. she says she is sorry, she really is, to have to tell me this, but its true and she feels like it needed to be said. the next part is vague, I guess she leaves, and the dream shifts to one of me running (in the same neighborhood as my dream apartment). given that in real life running is my make-myself-feel-better strategy, I suspect even my dream self couldn't handle this and essentially decided to run away.

In real life, my mother would never ever say anything about this. she has always been a loving, kind mother. I have, however, felt like I have really disappointed her in more recent years, in terms of my professional and personal choices. And I do have a very clear memory (at quite a young age) of a relative saying something to this effect - that I looked like one parent, my twin sis looked like the other (odd, as this relative could never differentiate us anyway, but....), and that my youngest sister got the best of both parents. Although I don't think this relative meant it to sound this way, it has remained very clear in my memory and I suspect was one of the first times I began to realize that my little sis was very pretty and I .... wasn't.

my mother has been on my mind a lot the past few days, as I tried calling her several times and recieved no reply, which eventually I decided was odd and began to worry about. I was also having trouble reaching my sisters and somewhere in my head began to create some scenario that something bad had happened and no one was telling me. this particular insecurity stems (at least somewhat) from the fact that my relationship with my twin sis is somewhat strained these days as she has been a little judgemental about my involvement in the family, and in my own insecurity and paranoia I can almost tell myself that she might keep some sort of information from me just to make a point (in my more secure moments, I know this likely isn't true). in any case, the strained relationship with her has served to make me feel even more disconnected from the rest of the family, and less willing to become more involved and thus available for judgement.

And the insecurity about how I look.... in general I feel about this the same way that I stated in the dream. I used to be terribly gawky and adorned with braces and glasses, way back in junior high. but I have always thought I came into my own more in college. and that while I will never ever be the prettiest girl in the room (or even the second prettiest), I am generally someone thought of as relatively attractive (wow, I put a lot of qualifiers on that). maybe that [dream feeling] stems from a general lack of high self esteem lately, mostly just because school has been terribly hard (and I've let that time/energy crunch turn into not so much exercising, which I know is a mistake) and the boyfriend situation is complicated and disappointing of late. or perhaps its been on my mind more lately as I recently took a road trip with a good friend, one who is still super-attractive and grew up that way, in the whole "I was a cheerleader and terribly popular" kind of fashion. we were (on this trip) at some point having a conversation in which it became clear to me that (with the exception of having put on a few pounds that she is always trying to take off) she has never thought of herself as unattractive, and usually thinks that she will be one of the more attractive people in the room. which made me stop and think a bit, about what that must be like. which in general I just can't imagine. (just an aside to bitch for a moment, she was also, that night, doing that really annoying thing some people do of putting themselves down in a way that both a.) is actually flattering themselves (i.e. my curly auburn hair always just stands out so much as all the other women (myself included) always have such straight hair) and b.) somehow seems to require that you, the listener, step in and assure them that really, in this case, your hair is so much more beautiful. this is one of my pet peeves.)

In any case, the dream was disorienting and likely doesn't say anything positive about the state of my life right now. and as such probably isn't worth thinking about too much. but I did want to get it down, before the details got too hazy and vague, as it seems like the sort of thing people generally write about.

I'm more alone when I am with him than when I am not. he's going through this thing, this big thing in his life, and he can't talk about it. won't talk about it. says its private. I have to respect that. but still, it makes me lonely. it makes me unable to talk about the things that are bothering me, which are so much less. it makes me feel inadequate, for how can someone go through this and not need to talk about it. he must, he just doesn't need it from me. so we just go on (I go on) talking about fake things, and pretending its all fine. I guess all this independence just readies each of us for leaving the other. but part of me would rather it end with a bang. like it meant something.

he used to tell me that he couldn't sleep at night, he wanted so badly to fuck me. now its never about fucking me. he touches much of my body like he almost thinks I'm beautiful. but he never says that. and he never touches the parts that count with anything close to enthusiasm. he never says more than he likes the way my ass looks in a certain pair of underwear. after two years, I want him to like more than that.

he thought it was amusing, the other day, when one of my (high maintenence but fabulous) friends said he should tell me I look beautiful, as I walked by on my way out from the gym, hot and sweaty and nowhere close to attractive. he knew that a compliment such as that would only make me uncomfortable. and unbelieving. and he was right. but even if I were to be unbelieving, I wish he would still say it, every now and then.