loneliness on Christmas

Sometimes playing dress-up is far too easy and far too deceiving.  I live six hours from where I grew up in an apartment that I pay for with my paycheck.  After enough of that paycheck flows out to fund corporate America, I have enough left over to fill my empty days and nights (those that aren't spent using my researching, thinking, and paper-writing skills) with more than the appropriate amount of fun.  I own my car (albeit it a paid-for-by-a-check gift from my father), enough technology to keep me semi-current, and a few well-placed designer shoes, sweaters, shoes, scarfs and leather goods.  Except for a few closely-held friends and this online journal that no one reads, I keep my personal feelings and problems to myself.  It is with all of these things that I keep at the end of a micromanaged leash that I can say that at a bare minimum, I leave my house every day feeling a tad more than presentable and the image I project is one of self-confidence and success.

Here's the thing though, it is all a mirage.  I may look and sound like my shit is together, but at the core I feel like I am spinning on a merry-go-round barely able to keep myself on the ride let alone keep the real parts of me (emotions, desires, wishes, obsessions, etc.) from spinning off into oblivion.  Today, my thoughts resound with the phrase "epic fail."  Despite being surrounded by my family, I am essentially alone on Christmas.  I make no secret about the fact that I wish for a partner, someone to share my life with.  I envision something The Family Stone-esque--coming home with a man in tow and having someone to go to bed with, someone special to exchange gifts with, and someone to drive home with.  Not having it is driving me crazy.  My family is driving me crazy and I want classic, old Hollywood love to give my sanity back to me.

Perhaps wishing for something before its fruition is the biggest folly and the most telling sign of my immaturity. 

reflections from the home front

I really don't like this feeling of being home.  I have been here for four days and I have felt nothing but listlessness sort of like I am a touch empty on the inside.  This most likely stems from the fact that I really enjoy being around people; it is weird to come back to where I grew up and went to undergrad only to find that the people from both times in my life are strangely absent.  When they aren't absent, they are a bit different or the situations in which we meet are different.  It was the same feeling when I was at the tail end of my Paris experience.  Some people had jetted back to the States; others had left to spend their last few weeks in Europe traveling.  I was among the group who had a few days left to kill in the city.  At least there were people around who I was friendly with but in all honesty, the situation was different.  The balance of the group was off and when you combine that with the sadness of leaving part of your life behind it makes for a queasy stomach and now I feel it all over again--life here is changed and I find myself wanting to interact with friends from Ames who are all home on break and out of the Ames social scene--they aren't really interested in keeping up with it all.

In other news it is weird to see people from home, to be away and then come back.  Sort of like reverse culture shock.  I blew off at least three people at the store today.  Part of it is the whole Christmas family thing.  I am not in the socializing mindset at the moment.  Now is the time for family and laying around the house.  Unfortunately the weather sucks so my dad is stuck in Saint Louis and my sister is stuck in Springfield.  It is just my brother and me holding down the fort.  It is such a screwed up situation that my dog Jules is sleeping alone in my dad's bed waiting for him to come home.  I don't think anyone can grasp this totally awkward social atmosphere.

In other news, to make myself feel better, I purchased a new MacBook.  Go me. 

go fucking figure

"nothing can fill the deep void in the part me that wants to be held, cuddled, and kissed.* It's only been a week and now it seems as if the world and God himself are against us being together.* "Give up," my mind shouts to me. "It's just a crush," it reasons. Something inside me can not let go.* It's just how I am. I am stuck."

Go fucking figure.

a hug

The scent of the skin on your neck, like alcohol tinted ivory. The feel of your skin on my lips--utterly human, fleshy and real--pulls me out of my head, pulls me back to reality. That look in your eyes and the unchecked pout of your lips betraying fatigue of the body and the soul. The concept of real. A solid body, a thin layer of skin between my hands and your blood--a real, live boy; a foreign object realized once again. My senses telling me about you but also confirming something about me, sewing up the tears in my soul, putting the pieces back together again. All these things I can't tell you; words that my tongue won't cooperate with when I am in your presence. How could I tell you? It goes beyond logic, that a simple hug signals infinite synapses swirling in a hurricane of ambiguity that makes my heart breathe again.

new apartment, new outlook?

Here I am living in Ames, IA. Same general location, new apartment, new roommate. I am laying in bed trying to figure some things out, and I have come to the conclusion that it is too soon to make any conclusions. Let's ponder the positives: In the last four months I have lost fifteen of the seven hundred billion pounds that I gained while I was on antidepressants (and am getting a gym membership on Monday), I have proved to myself that I can survive, thrive, even enjoy living while distanced from my family, and I have done reasonably well the first semester of my masters program. The negatives? Really there is just one: I feel like I might be ready to take a step or two towards what I want in my life, and I have faltered in this place before. This is the place, about three years ago, that I felt free, unburdened, and myself for the first time in my life. I overstepped, I misstepped, I got scared, I lost control, and I turned and ran. I thought I was ready for this, but I screwed up again and it feels like I am standing over a crevasse with one leg on each side. What happens when the space between where I am and where I want to go gets too wide and I have to make a choice? I hope I don't screw it up.

something so appropriate

When I first registered this blog I was sort of tired of the whole blog scene. I had been doing it for years (way before it was a popular thing that blogging engines made popular and easy). Eventually I grew tired of paying for my own website and doing the graphic design for a new layout every time I felt the need to express a new moment in my life. After a couple of years of having a blog hosted by myself, I spent a few years writing at Xanga. When I came to blogger I was worn out and wanted something new. I spent a couple of weeks pondering what I would call my new blog and eventually settled on "bring on the fear so i can find my courage." The idea came from the novel Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan. "I find my greatest strength in wanting to be strong. I find my greatest bravery in deciding to be brave. ... If there's no feeling of fear, then ther's no need for courage." At the time I was sitting pretty at Illinois College--resting comfortably on my dad's checkbook and the experience three years in one place brings. I guess you could say I saw Levithan's concept as something noble. In retrospect, I don't tink I could have judged how important the title of this blog would be. Now I sit in my studio apartment in Ames, Iowa, two months into my first semester of grad school. I pay my own bills according to a budget that I haven't followed. I find myself awoken in a cold sweat worried about money or a lesson plan for the next day that I am not sure will work. I ride the bus and I eat lots of tuna (it's cheap you know) and haven't bought a new article of clothing for at least a month. Most of all though, I worry about where my life is going. Continuing one's education in hopes of getting a better job is nice. Being a part of the education process for younger students is great. Not being a garbace collector or a factory worker is peachy. But really, what is it all worth if you aren't surrounded by amazing people? I find myself looking into the past at all the great times and wondering why they have been mostly absent since I moved here. I know the adage that you don't recognize the good times until you look at them in retrospect, but sometimes that doesn't seem good enough. I have had good friends, I have had great friends, now I want a boyfriend. I want someone to share my life with, even if the sharing only lasts for a week. I want that experience. Wanting doesn't do anything, and if I am not careful, I will end up barking up the wrong tree. I am just lonely and every once in a while, I want that loneliness to stop.