I'm feeling a shift in me... I don't know if it's one of those temporary things that will back off in a few days or if it's more permanent, but I'm feeling a shift none the less. It's weird... cause there are times when you know the right words to say and you think you feel it, so you say the right words... but in the end it wasn't actually true. You were just saying the right words. Your head knew the truth but you didn't *feel* it. And then something twists inside of you and suddenly you are saying the right words still, but the feeling is different. You mean them in a way that you didn't this whole time. In a way that you'd forgotten you knew. In a way that's so familiar, and yet so new. That's how I'm feeling now.
I'm not even sure that makes sense.
Since Nathan died I've talked a lot about being special. I've made jokes about how dumb all the guys are who don't see it. I've blogged about it on more than one occasion.. I've gone on at length to some very patient friends about how I think I'm awesome and I'd totally be my own friend... but even with all that. I wasn't feeling it. I was saying the right words... sometimes saying some crazily arrogant sounding words and I thought I meant it... but a lot of that was just trying to convince myself... you know, say it enough times to make it true? Someone who believes in themselves enough doesn't need to shout quite so loudly or long...ly.
My confidence has always been people centered. I need a seed friend to be myself. Thus why my freshman year was so horrible... I had no seed friends... I couldn't be who I was because I couldn't trust anyone to go into a group liking me already. I just need to know on some bone deep level that even if I make an utter and complete fool of myself that someone will be pre-dispositioned to give me the benefit of a doubt... to like me in spite of my quirks... to grin and roll their eyes at me and ask me what I'm doing tomorrow. Nathan was my seed love. It was a lot easier to believe that guys could be interested in me from the safety of a happy marriage. From the perspective of a gal who already knows that someone in this world thinks she's great enough to refuse to let anyone else get a chance. And then he was gone, and I didn't know what to do... So I started blowing my own horn. But secretly I was thinking that I'm damaged goods. What guy could be interested in me when he knows that I was married before? Who wouldn't turn the other direction before giving me the benefit of a doubt? Who wants to deal with the emotional baggage of a widow when they could date a "normal" girl? What sort of a man wouldn't be scared that beneath my normal exterior there is a crazy weepy needy fruit-loop just waiting to be unleashed? Plus if no one ever wants to be the "first" guy I date after Nathan then there never will be a guy after Nathan. I just didn't think that anyone would be willing to get to know me well enough to find out that I'm actually not too much to handle.... much less to think I'm anywhere close to special enough to want to invest in.
So I did what I always did in HS and College. I got a crush on a guy who I knew wasn't interested. It's not like I plan these things... but... I definitely have a pattern. It's just... safe. You can pine from afar and you don't have to actually worry about getting your heart broken, because they just aren't interested and you know that going in. And you can have all the giggling and butterflies and drama, but none of the *real* stuff. And I don't know that I'm doing it until after the fact.
You see I've been chasing "finding someone." From the moment that Nathan died and I was struck by that soul-rending lonliness, I've been craving it. But I knew the right words to say. "I don't need it, I just want it." "I don't need a boyfriend to be happy." But that's not how I was feeling. If it was I wouldn't have been checking e-harmony obsessively. I wouldn't have been worrying about what their every single glance or word or deed meant about how this boy or that boy felt about me. I wouldn't have worried about what my every glance or word or deed was communicating about me.
Let it be, let it be. Let it be, let it be.
Of course, now that I say all that, how can I be sure that these aren't just the right words and I actually am not in the place that I think I am now. And my answer to that is the very unsatisfying, "Because it just feels different." I stopped checking e-harmony (I still get the e-mails so if someone sends me communication I will know.) I've let go of the crush, and I can be alone several days in a row without obsessively calling someone to hang out with. Don't worry I still love people, it's just not quite so frantic. I guess in general, I'm just feeling far less desperate and far more like myself- a blunt and painfully direct, oddly shy, quirky, hilarious, conundrum of a girl (or should that just read, "girl?") And while I'm open to whatever the universe decides to send my way... Well I guess I just feel less obsessive... like I'm opening that fist up a bit.
So I suppose we'll see how long this lasts, or if I relapse in a couple of days. :)
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