Chapter Three: Overtake

"We all have someone that digs at us
At least we dig each other
So when weakness turns my ego up
I know you'll count on the me from yesterday

If I turn into another
Dig me out from under what is covering the better part of me
Sing this song
Remind me that we'll always have each other
When everything else is gone
Each other, when everything else is gone..."


Today I had a wonderful morning catching up over a cafe breakfast with my girls. It felt so good. I really am starting to realize how cut off I've been from everyone but Jared... like I'm falling behind them on the road of life, being overtaken by everyone... I really need to keep on top of it. It's such a nice feeling to be back in a group of girls... I even followed Deanna into her AUT lecture, which is where I am now. This morning has made me see just how much I actually miss school... not the classes, obviously, but the atmosphere and the connection with everybody; seeing the same people every day, being up-to-date with everyone just through "the grapevine"... and being at the same institution at the same time, day in, day out. Deanna is one of my best, best friends, but I somehow managed to not seek out to talk to her for months. (Hi De, if you're reading this later haha) Just spending an hour in her company makes me feel so happy and loved. How could I have forgotten that? Resolution- keep up with Deanna.

Ironically, the lecture I'm chilling in right now is about how relationships work. It's kind of interesting, though for someone who overthinks everything like I do, it's kinda commonsense-ish.

The lecturer just said "the substance of relationships is communication". It's so simple, and so true.

Perusal

"Well hey, hey baby it's never too late
When I'm gone you won't remember a thing
But I can't stay and you know I won't wait
I was gone from the very first day

Oh...

You've never been so used as I'm using you
Abusing you, my little decoy
Don't look so blue, you should've seen right through
I'm using you, my little decoy

Oh, I'm not sorry at all...
I won't be sorry at all...
I'd do it over again."


Girls go out window shopping. It's a thing that we do. Even if we can't afford, don't need, or even don't want anything new, we'll go out and look at clothes in shops. It's a fun activity. It's like dressing up dolls, except you're the doll (maybe we're conditioned to do this from childhood, when we're given dolls and shown how to dress them up?)... sometimes we'll even try the clothes on. But the important bit is that even if we're looking, we have no intention of buying them.

Guys don't seem to be able to understand this at all. Maybe that's why girls get accused of being teases, or of leading guys on. A guy catches us looking at him or talking to him in a certain way and as soon as he finds out we're not single, or not interested, we are discarded and labeled a tease. Well, I say "we"... I mean me. It seems to happen to me a lot.

Maybe if guys could be made to see the merits and the fun of window shopping, they'd get this. We're looking at them. We're talking to them. Once in a while maybe we're even flirting with them. But we have no intention of going any further with them. We can't afford to (no spare time or affection), we don't need (aren't single) or want (aren't interested in) a relationship. But if we didn't try boys on for size, we'd never figure out what we really want or need.

I guess where this is really coming from is this: I've just recently realized that, contrary to popular belief, there are a LOT of decent guys in the world. And I mean a lot. You just need to look in the right places. In my tutorials alone there's at least three guys who interest me (one of them only mildly, but still). And I'm lucky enough to be considered attractive to quite a number of boys who come in contact with me (I know it's pretty conceited for me to say that, but I don't feel like being down on myself today, and if I give in to my logical brain, the evidence for this claim is there. Starkly).

Since I've started comparing notes with Jared, I've become disillusioned with the male species. I used to think (or maybe hope) that heterosexual guys could talk to girls with the sole aim of wanting to get to know them, as a friend. As in, with nothing to do with getting into their pants, or hooking up with them, or thinking "damn, she's hot. I'd better talk to her". Jared assures me this is not possible. And as he is a boy, I have to take his word for it.

That being said, it's not just his word. With two of the guys who have been rather obviously interested in me, as soon as I've mentioned a boyfriend they have backed off somewhat.
EXAMPLE ONE: Guy from my ENGLISH101 Tutorial. He was all friendly and very, very obviously keen, but as soon as I mentioned Jared he started sitting somewhere else.
EXAMPLE TWO: Today a guy from my LINGUIST101 Tutorial was talking to me while I was standing waiting for Jared, and by and by he asked me what I was waiting for. "Boy," I said, pointing to where I could see Jared coming up the hill. "Oh, right," he said. "Well, see ya." And he walked off. It was very sudden. It almost made me laugh.
(Now, I'm willing to give in if anyone wants to object to the way I'm reading these situations. I'm fully open to other interpretations. But with my woman's intuition that's how they seem to come across.)

It kind of makes me a bit sad when this happens. I admit freely- I enjoy being noticed and talked to by guys. It makes me feel attractive, and not just physically. Everyone wants to feel like an attractive person, no matter what they say about "I don't need a man" etc. It's also nice to know that I'm attractive to people other than Jared. So it makes me kinda sad when I mention a boyfriend and the other guy immediately loses interest. Would it be so hard for him to continue to talk to me without me being available?

My brother and his wife and Jared and I went to see a comedy show thing today, and one of the comedians went off on a rant that interested me very much. He was talking about how girls complain that all the guys they meet in bars are chauvinistic, horrible pigs. He objected. He got quite agitated actually. He said, "There are guys out there who want to love you! Who want to bring you flowers and think about you and to... to place you on the pedestal you deserve! But they're not the ones you tend to fuck!"

Girls go window shopping. For guys, too. It's just idle perusal. Some guys can be very pleasing to the eye, too. For a little while you can pretend that you do have time and affection, or that you're single, or that you'd like a boyfriend. Just as trying on clothes makes you feel trendy and good-looking, trying on guys makes you feel attractive and appealing. And what girl doesn't want that?




I should really start writing my advice book for guys decoding the female mind...

Purgatory

"The world is a drought when out of love
Please come back to us
You're all of the above
'I'm making a choice to be out of touch.
Leave me be,' He said, he said, he said...

'Leave me here in my stark raving, sick, sad little world!
Leave me here in my stark raving, sick, sad little world!'"



I haven't posted for a while... I guess there hasn't really been anything to say. I'd closed that chapter- it was quite a short one I guess. I thought it'd be that easy. Cut the ties. Turn in a new direction. Start a new chapter. I should've known.
It was really weird actually. I was thinking that as I loaded up my blog, and then the latest entry under Danny's blog said something quite similar. That seems to happen to us a lot.

Today I logged into msn for the first time in ages to sort out my mess of a hotmail inbox. There was a message from Shadowboy in it, just a general thing sent out to everyone. He called it Travel Log, and it was just an account of what'd happened to him so far... but reading it made me so... so sad. I suddenly realized that, by cutting the ties I had to him as more than a friend, I'd almost cut him out of my life. Made him someone neutral, normal, unknown. And it hurt. Evidently there are still some sore spots from where I cut the ties, and they haven't healed yet.
So, patience. I must have patience and wait for them to heal. Silly really- I shouldn't've thought that it'd be that fast and easy. I should've listened to you, Danny, when you said time. Twice.

I'm in purgatory. In limbo. Just waiting.

Unbound

"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test and don't ask why.
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time.

It's something unpredictable but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs and still frames in your mind.
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time.
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial.
For what it's worth,it was worth all the while.

It's something unpredictable but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life."



So much agonizing over such a simple thing. One little kiss on the cheek. And I agonized over it.
He kissed me on the cheek when we came in the door. And with that the spell of worry was broken. It was obviously and ridiculously normal.

I got a bit drunk at the party, actually. It'd been a while. As stupid as this sounds I need to control myself when I'm drunk and try not to be such an idiot, cause I can see myself doing it and it's just not cool. I say really dumb things. And it doesn't work when the people around me aren't drunk at all.
Also I've noticed that when I'm drunk I'm good at things that I'm usually bad at, and bad at things I'm usually good at...

Anyway. It was a really good night. I didn't feel any pangs or any worry at all. Until it was coming up to time to leave. I thought to myself, this is it. This is your last chance to figure this out, to look at him face-to-face and arrange a spot for him in the correct place in your head.

I hugged him. He lifted me off the ground and hugged me tight back. I kissed his cheek and begged him to take care of himself. He said he would. I told him I'd miss him, and he said he'd miss me too. And then we left.

In the car on the way back, I felt sad. I'd said goodbye to him, my Shadowboy. I would never see him in that way again. That's when I knew that I wasn't done yet. If I was sad, I wasn't finished. That's when I realized that was only the introduction. The rest had to be done inside my head. So I sat back and instead of avoiding all the images of He and I together that had haunted me for years, I closed my eyes and stared and stared at them.

I feasted on them until they were all I could see. Then I forced them into long pieces like ribbons, and visualized them as connecting my heart and His. Then I lifted my hands and took up a pair of imaginary scissors. I concentrated on each one individually. He and I. Our held hands, on every occasion they were and every one I'd imagined. I began to cut, as close to my own heart as I could. As cleanly as I could. I didn't watch the ties falling away. I didn't look back. Focus, focus. On to the next. His face close to mine. That look in his eyes that only couples share with each other. Our lips meeting. The scissors snipped. They were very sharp. Focus, last one now. Me and him, alone, intimacy uninterrupted by any other person. Us as lovers, for life. It was hard to look at that one, but I made myself. Focus. Cut the ties that bind. Become unbound.
The scissors met. The ties fell away. I didn't watch them.

I opened my eyes and looked straight over at Jared, filling my heart and soul with the quiet joy that I had my life companion, forever, the one I was meant to be with. Forever. Forever. No pain, no uncertainty. Forever.


A few minutes later I made myself examine my heart, make sure that everyone was in their proper place. It seemed correct, everything seemed in order- Jared filling the romantic like a ray of warm, soft sunlight, and my friends all glittering in the platonic like crystal rainbows. And that's when I saw him. When I had a sudden revelation.
He was still there. But he was in the right place. He mixed in to the platonic with ease, as if he'd never been anywhere else.
It seemed stupid right after the blinding moment of realization, but it was such a huge thing at the time; he was my friend. He could still be my friend. I didn't have to cut him out of my life. He could be my friend. Just like it should have been all along. It was so simple and astonishing that I smiled and almost laughed aloud.

I had the best. The best of all worlds. Unbound friendship... abounding love.