Going Backwards

Without negating myself I have put myself in your place every time I have a concern.  Each and every time it comes down to this...you are spreading yourself too thin.

My mind inevitably sees a man that pursued me with confidence and consistency until you accomplished the simple goal of calling me your girlfriend in a short four months after meeting you.  I still often refer to you as the guy I'm seeing/boyfriend sort of.  I see a man that sees only through is eyes, but doesn't see me.  You do considerate things when you are not with me and want me to acknowledge what a good boyfriend you are before I get the chance to do it on my own.  You want me to be patient and understanding when you fall short of promise or expectation given.  You say you love me, a lot.  Well, admittedly you've dropped off in the last couple of days.  You said you were worried you felt more strongly for me that I do for you because I don't say it.  You admit that I do show it and that you have never been treated better, ever. 

Thanks for the used vinyl.  Thanks for new. It really makes up for the time you don't invest in me, with me.  

I do not thank you for the times you've given me an expectation and then changed the plan leaving me with so much less than I deserve.  You acknowledge it.  You accept that I am probably angry, but you hope not too much.  How could I complain?  We don't have enough time to even address it without me looking like a shrew.

I like to make sure I know where my feelings are coming from before I put them forward.  A few times I have dealt with my own issue quietly without including or inflicting my feelings on you.  Unfortunately, for the last month or so,  we are just going backwards.  All the things that put you in front of me, mainly you and your drive and effort, aren't there anymore.  Those little things that seem to be other forces bringing people together are disbanding.  I continue to respect you.  I am patient when I could be within relationship rights and be a total twunt but I have no interest in putting forth that kind of effort.  You are slacking and expecting me to make a lot out of a little... ... ... and the old me flickers and wants to start me on that path of building something out of almost nothing.  However, she flickers, like deaths last struggled breaths to hold onto its dysfunctional life.  The new me just won't do it.

I am so interested in wasting my time. 


A man, a woman...we are the sum of our actions.  Words mean nothing.  You moved fast and I am watching you respond to your inner demons with no self check, no thought.  I am seeing a man that lacks confidence.  That supposes he can heal a thing that is falling down with patch-work fixes and empty words.

You're spread too thin and for all the I love you's you don't Really want to do the work.

Focus on your daughter.  She's 17 and probably still needs you and her mom.  Focus on dealing with your most recent past mistakes that you are still actually paying for.  Focus on getting a stable home of your own when you are done paying for the one you signed a contract on and are paying for but not living in.  Focus on the final ending of that relationship and getting out of your parents house (even if you only camp there when you are briefly in town).  Focus on your new advancement at work and buy records for just yourself and let me buy my own.  Then you only owe yourself gratitude. Focus on your professional success and stability, then maybe you can find time to add someone to your life.

I find it interesting that you are surrounded by people who want to see you happy.  Who warned me not to hurt you.  No one warned you not to hurt me...
How could you?  You're the nice guy right?  You just can't understand...after-all, you bought me records, you'd text and call.  You'd tag me on Facebook.  You bought Interpol tickets for San Francisco.  Happy Valentines Day Babe.  Or was that happy birthday?  The show is after Valentines, and way before my birthday, but yeah...Thanks Babe.  I won't go into how your turn yourself inside out the second your daughter stands up and you helicopter her to the point of her getting short with you.  And PLEASE don't get me wrong.  I respect you as a father!  I really like your daughter.  She's a really neat kid and I like her despite your behavior.  But again...maybe you should just focus on her, your career, and getting your own place.

My conflict...

I met a really nice guy (or so it seemed) and that's so new to me.  Am I being frustrated by the new job, less time, and his dedication to his daughter?  Would I be putting off a really kind man out of my life and self-sabotaging?

So I think... ...

Today I met a friend, a very loose friend, for coffee.  He was the first person I met when I moved to this part of California in '89/'90.  He was my 'boyfriend' when I'd come to the city with my grandparents every weekend while they were helping my grandmother's sister with their mother as she convalesced in my great aunt's home.  It was short lived and we were mostly friends.  We moved in far different directions and it was interesting catching up on the last 25 years.  We talked for four hours.  He's done so much in that stretch of time and he's a bit self absorbed but his stories are good.  All over the US.  All over the world.  Always doing something along with his military career.  He'll retire Lieutenant Cornell in four years.  He will go to Germany and be dad to his two youngest and he has plans within schemes within plans.

He is only interested in what's fun and if it ain't fun he ain't doin it.  He's undecided about relationships.  He thinks I am bored.  I might be.

I think I am focused where I have always been focused.  I have two boys.  One almost ready to graduate with no plan and one a freshman.  I'd like to see them move into their lives.  I envy my friends freedom in knowing that the mother's of his children are doing a good job and giving him the freedom to pursue whatever it is he decides he'll pursue...mainly his military career.

He said I have always been blunt, something another male friend said to me (of close to the same many years of knowing each other).  He also said I was aloof.  One friend said I was the same old (insert my name)...living in the moment.

This moment is what it is.  I can't invest in someone that doesn't know what he wants, or someone that is nice but inevitably leaves someone (me) behind as he tries to make everyone happy...and feels secure enough to expect me to be patient and understanding.  Hell, grateful, somehow for his being in my life.

My conclusion today...relationships are complicated and I find men in general have no idea what is going on, and frequently don't want to know as long as things flow their way.

   
 

Rapunzel, Rapunzel...Let Down Your Hair. No.

What would you be willing to do
To gain my heart and make me come to you
What would you be willing to do
To hear me sigh your name while I say I love you
What would you be willing to do
To get closer to the core of me where I smolder and burn
What would you be willing to do
To thaw what encases me that I fall into your arms

The best possible time is now.  Your eyes burn with wanting to break the code
You have my attention, my questioning mind
You are getting my response

Such a fast learner, like your life depended on it.

Like your life depended on it.

Oh Dear wouldn't you be willing to hear me when I say
I don't care what you say
I'm paying attention to you with my questioning mind.
My response was a flood tempered by smooth and unbreakable walls
I let you see the smolder and burn
I let you hear the sigh
I paced your course on the waters

I gave you the code.

And though you are kind.  And though you say you love me
And though you try with burning eyes when you touch me
And though you strive your passion fractures as an arrow caught by wind


I see you slipping your grip
My feeling comes and goes
Because you miss opportunities to add heat to the thawing ice

Now I am dropping lines in the water where you flounder
Hoping to recapture the passion you cast my way
The passion you don't sense is missing the mark

What would you change if you become complacent.

Don't let me down.  Please let me down.  Don't let me down
Don't be complacent
I'll be lost to you
And I will feel as though I failed something not meant to be mine

The Sweet Life

I sit here thinking, how could I speak to what is in my mind?
I am not as well spoken as he is.  My voice trips over itself and I stub my tongue on the stones of my teeth.
I am not as delicate as she is with prose fragile feelings and empathy.  My mental fingers grasp and fumble and shatter beautiful things.
I am not as blunt, as honest, as true as those two opposite sides of the coin.  The woman that feels she is selling herself and the man that would pay any price to let her know she is precious.
I lie to myself.  I hide my truths under translucent blankets that don't cover my feet or my face or my shoulders.  I am so fucking vulnerable and my words have become anorexic.  Thin and malnourished.
I have forgotten how to read and never knew how to write or speak, even after those remedial classes.
I have taken to listening to others words, viewing others minds and art, feeling others feelings.
I use them to define my own.  I use them to validate myself, to anchor my raft on unsettled and rolling waters.  Everything touches me.  Everything moves me.
So I set myself apart.  I did this a long time ago.  My little slip set adrift and seeing nothing but the tempest I have never had a reason to come to shore.

I have begun to eat words.  I have begun to feed on art, music.

Well, I suppose I will see what comes of it.  At the moment I am distracted.