spin&stir.

mislaid my spark

I think I’ve finally realized that I will never be normal or do anything in a timely fashion. I was homeschooled, I never graduated from anything, I never went to prom or parties, I had never been really drunk until my 23rd birthday week.
The one guy I got involved with IS IN PRISON. And we still talk, and he works too many miles away, and I foolishly let him talk me into seeing him too many times. Even now he’s trying to get me to see him. I’m glad I missed his phone call, because now I have a hilarious and almost desperate voicemail on my phone. He tried to come off flippant and devil-may-care, but he’s an addict in more ways than one, and he wants me to see him yesterday—he doesn’t want to wait. I’m having fun being able to separate myself from the stupidity that would’ve had me seeing him tomorrow without hesitation. This time I actually have plans, I have something else to occupy my time. And I love it—that sense of control.

It seems everyone is moving on to the proper conclusions in their lives. If not that definite, then they are at least on the right path for change. But I’m the opposite—always.
One of these days I might come to terms with not being “normal”—by my own standards of normal which are lax, and only depresses me more—but for now I am really, really bitter by the hand dealt to me. I have such ridiculous hangups that I don’t think I will ever overcome that I will be doomed to be exactly what I am—a spinster. I don’t want the world, I don’t want the moon, I don’t want all the tea in China. I just want a semblance of normalcy I can’t get even if I did everything I could to fix it. It’s broken, it’s not changing.

It’s almost four in the morning. I am exhausted, but I know that undoubtedly I will finally pass out only to wake up in a couple of hours still tired but unable to stay asleep. My appetite is still very off—and the mirror remains my worst enemy. Some days I can appreciate all of my hardwork that went into the changes taking place. And most days I want to go back to the way I was over a year ago—fifty pounds heavier and content in my miserable aloneness.

Because it’s scarier to put myself out there, to accept companionship, to open myself up to that inevitable hurt that is waiting. A thousand times scarier to do that, to love someone, than it is to be alone…because in reality I love being with people. I love talking. I love learning. I love listening. I love being human with another human. When you live with animals and for so long they are your only source of entertainment and company, you appreciate even the brief respite of talking to another person.

I started this post with very different intentions. And I feel like I am just repeating myself with more of the same vitriol and melancholy.

I am admittedly bitter about the changes going on in friends lives. I hate seeing them move on and I stand still, never able to catch up, to relate, to understand their circumstances anymore than they can understand mine. And the gap widens and the friendship lessens.

But at least I have Bethany. Except even that was bittersweet—finally meeting her after so many years, knowing her half my life. There were of course several years where we might’ve emailed each other once or twice in an entire year. But somehow she and I always kept in touch, until about two years ago it became a more regular occurrence, and the emails started getting longer, and we started sharing more of our deepest hurts and longings. It wasn’t long before we realized that we experience and share a lot of pain, but also a lot of the same joy. I could have never hoped or dreamed to find someone who could so closely relate to the things I can’t and won’t tell anyone else because they would laugh, they would stare at me in bewilderment, and they would just never understand. The few days she stayed went by too fast. We had long talks that mirrored the brutally honest emails. We laughed and imbibed a lot of liquor, we did things we probably shouldn’t have, but I would never say I regret them. And when she left the little safe haven she brought with her vanished again. I felt so alone. I cried. I laid in bed with the dogs so miserable, wondering why I can’t figure out how to handle being happy and then stay happy even when the source of happiness has to leave. I don’t know how to savor the good, to keep it for a rainy day.
I’m either hot or I’m cold, but never in between.
And sometimes medium would seem the happiest place on earth if only I could get there.