Alive

It's always at the moments I feel most connected to and aware of life that I experience the overwhelming urge to break down in tears.

I spend the majority of my time trying to simplify, or complicate, or avoid, alter, shut-out, change, or in some way filter what I experience in the world. This comes from many different motivations, but usually it's because my altered reality is easier to interpret and deal with than the truth. If I can choose how things affect me and how I perceive things, I have better control over how I deal with them. And more often than not, life, in all it's glorious intricacy, is hard for me to process.

I stumbled upon a list of 11 songs you're supposed to listen to to boost productivity or whatever. And the first one was from an album entitled "Music for Airports", and it's designed to “defuse the tense, anxious atmosphere of an airport terminal”. Which for me (someone who thrives in airports, because I love the bustle and movement of everything around me), turned out to be not relaxing at all, and instead brought me to tears in my kitchen. 

I do my studying to 10 hour loops of Bangarang. When I need to focus on something, the only, only way for me to do this is to forcibly shut everything else out of my mind so I can hone in and hyperfocus on the thing I need to do. This is achieved by loud (often angry/intense) music, chugging water, and cramming. I simply don't see "relaxing" as a prerequisite to accomplishing things.

This is why, at my most connected moments, I often break down. When on hikes (alone), when in really hard workout classes, when listening to pensive music, when watching sunsets, when simply happy. Feeling truly alive has always been a little much, emotionally, for me to handle. I choose numbness over being connected, and I choose it predictably, consistently, and willingly.

This is hard. This causes me trouble in a lot of regards. It's incredibly difficult for me to simply be still and quiet, and I almost always have some other thought running through my mind. It sucks, and I'm perpetually dreaming or longing for a thing that may never come to fruition. I'm always dreaming of the "more", all while trying to think and experience less. 

It's a fucking paradox. And I'm so burned out and simultaneously exhausted by life and yearning for more and I don't know what to do about it all.

I'm [Not] In Love

Over the summer, I fell for a guy. Call him G. He's funny, smart, charismatic, attractive, charming, has good taste in movies, is a good cook, isn't so bad in the realm of PG-13 activities, and is just all-around a really fun person to spend time with.

It's been a while since I've been emotionally invested in a person, so I took G to heart very quickly. We had fun, we hung out (in various stages of sobriety), we hooked up a few times. He was nice and took [drunken] interest in the things I was studying. He had conversations with me about real things. He learned things about me, and I learned things about him.

I moved out of the fraternity I was living in this summer, and G completely fell out of my life. Not surprisingly- G was never good with responding to texts even when we lived under the same roof, and I knew this would happen, somewhere inside. I texted him a few times, and he responded once. He has made no indication that he wants to see me ever again (although I know he enjoyed the time we spent together this summer), and I, for the most part, am not surprised.

I am hurting, however. I'm not going to pretend like he didn't mean anything to me in any capacity, because I miss him as a friend more than anything. I miss talking to him, drunkenly cooking with him, playing video games with him, drinking good beer with him, making popcorn with him at midnight, and yes, I miss snuggling with him. I didn't allow myself to fully develop feelings for him, but I was maybe a little more careless with that block than I usually am. I didn't do a perfect job of reminding myself that I shouldn't fall for him, and a little of my affection fell through the cracks.

Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal. A little affection is not a hard thing to get over and remedy. My problem is that it has been so long since I have genuinely allowed myself to care about another person on a romantic level. So long, in fact, that this tiny fraction of affection I somehow allowed myself to feel for G got completely magnified out of all sensible proportion. I'm not in the habit of dealing with my bruised feelings, because I'm in such good habit of protecting my feelings from being bruised in the first place. I've spent so long playing the defensive that I completely forgot that I took all my manpower off of the offensive to do so.

I don't love G. I don't even come close to loving G. I know that he's a dumb frat boy who falls off roofs, gets facial scars, is a little bit racist, sexist, and doesn't use the correct "you're" in his text messages. He all but ignores me, and therefore isn't worthy of much of my attention. He has just a little too much self-confidence for his own good, and he's sorta a player.

I am, however, completely in love with the idea of loving G. I have so much love to give and it's been so long since I've allowed myself to even tap into that capacity that I forgot how good it feels to care about another person. I want someone in my life that I make happy. I want to have someone to snuggle with, someone to cook with, someone I can watch (or not watch) movies with, someone who can make me laugh, someone whom I enjoy spending time with, someone who's a goof, and someone who genuinely has a good time in my company. And G filled all of those things. He's a loveable, intelligent, hard-working, beautiful, fun-loving goof. And for someone that's been single and "strong and independent" for as long as I have, that was absolutely all I needed.

Now here I am, alone at 2 am on another sleepless night. Nobody to text, nobody to expect to be here with me except my lovable roommate E. And nine nights out of ten, I'm completely okay with that. I can only ask for my friends to be here for me (which they are), and for them to love me (which they do). I can only ask to be studying something that interests me (which I am), and have a family who supports me (which I do).

I am, however, completely terrified of what will happen when I genuinely fall for a guy. I'm slightly head-over-heels for G, a guy that I know full-well is not the guy for me. What happens when I genuinely find someone that I want to spend time with, that I want to be with? How will I react? What will I do? What will I learn about myself, for the better or for worse?

Love terrifies me. Loving an idea of something is one thing, loving another person romantically is a completely different ball game. I love many of my friends platonically. I give love to the world like nobody you've ever seen. I love, fiercely, passionately, unconditionally. But romantic love, from me, is rare. It takes time to develop and often times, I confuse a combination of platonic love and hormones for romantic love (which has gotten me into trouble before). And I'm terrified of it. Completely terrified.

G was nowhere close to romantic love from me. But it was an echo, just real enough to remind me that I'm capable of romantic love and that when I experience it to it's fullest, it can and will have the capacity to knock me senseless. And that, just the reminder of that, was enough to completely scare me shitless this summer.