i can

I can successfully balance my workload. I can take three courses, teach three courses, serve as a senator for my department, research for my thesis, and pledge a fraternity all in the same semester. It is possible.

Self, it is time you stopped undercutting your own needs / happiness. You can argue me but it really is time. It was time, like, yesterday.

maybe

I go through phases. I go through phases for many things in my life. These phases usually cycle. I cycle back and forth from being reasonably content about my body / weight to harboring contempt for the thing in the mirror. I go through cycles of fiscal responsibility--these particular cycles are brief, sometime flipping back and forth three times in a twenty-four hour period. I also go in cycles about relationships. Sometimes I feel like I am ready for one, other times I feel like it is the last possible thing I need in my life. Right now I am ready for one.

In the fashion of such people as my life coach, I attempt to be logical about these things. While logic and reason don't always work in the real world when faced with real pressures and fears this logical life-plan has been rather successful. One thing it has taught me is that I don't logically need a boyfriend. I have the oxygen I need to breathe and a book to keep me occupied, what could I possibly do with a boyfriend? Boyfriends aren't practical. I am a narcissist--who isn't these days?--and narcissists don't get along well with people who demand things of them. Boyfriends demand things of people and that's not nice. Letting someone in requires that I become "okay" with that person asking for time, time to be together and time to be apart. The real problem is that his demands might not match up with what I am willing to give. It gets complicated, and it would likely get ugly more than once.

This unorganized list of reasons not to let someone into my life doesn't keep me from wanting one. My heart aches with desire sometimes. I have never had a "boyfriend." I went about things all wrong a few years ago and that probably left me more damaged than the actual coming out process--that was easy. What is not easy is giving yourself over to be a sex-object in someone else's passion play. Here tonight, gone in the morning, please don't contact me. Talk about contributing negativity to my self-worth. I decided to stop doing that and in a way I decided not to let anyone in. I needed time to process who I was. But now I might be ready. I might already be in love but like Kate Winslet's character in The Holiday this love is unrequited and I don't always know that I know (or he knows) why. But that's fine. I made the decision long ago to keep him as a friend and nothing more. But he will always be some milestone on my road to emotional recovery--the first time love--yes, even unrequited love--came knocking and I didn't run away from it.

My heart is just so heavy. Maybe I don't want to be a self-centered narcissist all my life. Maybe I need someone to care for just a little bit. Maybe someone out there appreciates getting flowers every once in a while. Maybe someone out there still likes mixed CDs and hand-written letters. Maybe someone out there won't mind my head on his shoulders while we watch a romantic comedy. Maybe someone out there...