I am behind

No truer statement was ever made - at least for how things are at this point in time. Perhaps the only truer statement is I am frustrated. I am.

Every day things are happening "to" me, not with me or for me or maybe even against me, but to me. I find this unfortunate. I experience an endless amount of frustrations. To those people that say "things can always be/get worse", you are right.

Sure it's only the little things. An extra bill here, a lower paycheck there, a phone call, an extra frustration. It all adds up. And when you're already at a point where you feel you can't take it any more - well, then it's monumental. The smallest thing can send you over the edge.

I am VERY tired of harboring this much frustration and hostility.

How does one release all of this irritation? You can only change how you respond to someone so much. Passivity and attempted forgiveness isn't working. Retaliation isn't appropriate.

Is it ok to not so much "go after" someone, but is it ok to go after what should be yours?

I've been taught to "turn the other cheek". In my upbringing that was more likely to be the other ass cheek so it could be beaten, but still. I took it to heart. A soft answer turneth away wrath. But how far is taking that too far? There's a point when people are walking all over you. I feel like I'm at that point. I feel like I'm impotent, and yet I know that I'm not.

The stupid thing is that I'm ALLOWING myself to feel/be this way. And I think this is wrong. At some point we cross the line of standing up for ourselves in the sense of just standing up, and have to take almost an offensive approach to moving forward. It's finding strength to do whatever is possible to get what needs to be done, done. I think I'm there.

I'm finding myself, though, using every excuse (and making some new ones up) to keep from doing things that put me into this position. Maybe I'm afraid that I won't get what I want or accomplishe what I need to, but there's no way for me to find that out unless I try. Yes it's scary. But hopefully I'm in no worse of a position for trying than I would be if I didn't. the only way to hope is to make an effort.

Which reminds me. I need to write an email.

Somewhere in between

You know how you can fall asleep and then wake up but not be entirely awake... your senses are somehow more acute, because maybe you don't have all that baggage of being fully awake to bog you down.. or maybe it's because it's dark and your brain isn't trying to discern color, or for some other reason.. but you're acutely aware of everything going on around you - but it also seems so surreal. The lights are a little bit "trippy", and things seem to float a different way. You're caught somewhere in between the state of awake and asleep, but you're neither and both.

My roommate in college, who was not devout, but rather a learned Catholic, once described Purgatory to me as if it were playing cards in a boat for the rest of eternity. I never fully understood what it was she meant. I pictured for myself, a small row boat, wooden of course; the oars, another party on the opposite bench and we're rocking back and forth with the lapping waves. it's dark (why it has to be dark, I don't know - we're dead) and we've got a hand full of cards. I have no idea what card game we're playing.. maybe Hearts or Spades or some other game that requires you to hold a handful of cards. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose, but as long as you're playing you never seem to get anywhere... the boat rocks, another hand is dealt... there's no true winner, the game is never over, and the boat never gets anywhere. That's purgatory.

Perhaps, just perhaps, I've died and now I'm stuck in purgatory.

It's not like I haven't had opportunities to die. I've certainly been in situations where I "should" have died - most people would have in that situation, but I didn't. or at least I thought I didn't. And I walked out of the situations basically unharmed. It's not possible to kill the already dead.

There's a movie that I watched not that long ago where the crew is in Purgatory. They somehow know they are dead and they also believe that they're not supposed to be there. They go on an epic journey to get out of purgatory and both simultaneously wake up in the ER, one from a drug overdose and another from slitting his wrists. Even though they actually attempted suicide, they never believed that they were supposed to be there.

I have something to do here. I don't fully understand what it is, but I have something to do. I've thought off and on for the last few years that it was to open up a wellness center, and I still feel inclined to do so. However, I can't seem to make any progress towards that goal. All of my attempts to complete my training have failed or been slowed down or blocked. I keep trying to change my approach but I'm not getting anywhere.
There are other things that I feel like I'm here to do, or at least I want to do, and I'm not moving towards accomplishing any of them either. I'm stuck in a goddamn boat playing cards. Did I mention that I hate cards, AND I hate boats?

I wonder what it all means. I wonder what the purpose of all of this is. Why am I being given the hand of cards (goddamn cards) that I'm being dealt right now? What is it that I'm supposed to learn? Am I fulfilling someone else's karmic debt? What's the answer?

I don't understand a whole lot right now. I'm angry and frustrated a lot of the time. Those are 2 emotions that I'd rather not ever feel. I WANT to move forward. I WANT to make progress, but I'm stuck.
How do I get unstuck?

Never pray for patience

This was one of the lines given to me today by a good friend. I have to say, I never do pray for patience. The Universe is still trying to teach it to me though.

I woke up this morning in a decent mood, which progressed into a foul mood, which progressed into an odd mood, which progressed into a frustrated mood, which progressed into a ......
get the picture?

I really don't know how to feel about anything anymore. Can't seem to get a straight answer. Can't seem to get a break. I really feel like I'm being jerked around... marionette comes to mind. And so, we still hurry up and wait while the rest of the world decides they're going to pull their heads out of their asses.. oh yes.. this is my FAVORITE!

I have to wonder though. If I know what I want to do with my life, when I grow up, whatever.. then why can't I do it? At this point it seems that the circumstances that I'm not willing to give up are my kids. The rest of it can go fuck itself. Call me arrogant, but I don't feel like they'd grow up to be semi-well-adjusted people without me - not that they won't be screwed up anyway.. because after all, if you lived through some of the shit that they did, you'd be screwed up too.. this explains a lot of society.

Regardless, I'm amazed and astounded that we're not further along the progressional wall is the word that came to me, than we are. I can't fathom how things are holding so still. I also can't fathom why I can't seem to find a stick of dynamite when I need one.

How do you break through the walls and boundaries that you've given yourself (or have been given to you)? How do you, despite every bit of crap that you're given, still succeed?

I know I've led a charmed life. It hasn't felt like it for the last few years, but I have. I had decent paying jobs. I hated them, but I did. I was able to go back to school after being out for a while. I have accomplished some things that others can only dream of. Of course they all seem pretty boring to me, but it's true. I feel like I've led a pretty uninteresting life as far as what I hear from others, but it's mine and I'll take it. If I was meant for all of that other stuff, that would've happened too.. and it might, but not so far.
When faced with a shitty situation, it's hard for me to sit and wait to see how things are going to pan out. One thing my jaded little life has told me is that you can't count on anybody to do anything for you. If you do, you're likely to end up in a bad spot and disappointed. This is where I am now.

Once again, I knew that I shouldn't let this happen, and yet I did. Of course, all the plans I have made have been changed. Every time I thought that I was making progress, it got stopped somehow. This is really frustrating. And now, given what could be considered a major bone in progressing me (or other people in relation to me), I still feel like I'm being held back. How much more trauma is necessary before we can move on already? Did I ever say that I'm an impatient person? BTW, admitting that does not mean that I'm asking for patience. While some things may be worth the wait, others aren't, and I don't believe that people should have to suffer just to live their lives.

What does it mean? Why is it happening this way? What do I need to learn from this? If it's not to trust other people - DONE! Got it.. the tick mark has been made on my brain and it is due-ly noted.

What if it's not my lesson to learn though? This goes back to what I was talking about yesterday. Why is it that we have to participate in someone else's lessons? Why do others have to suffer because of our stupidity (or we suffer because of theirs)? I wish I understood these things. Not just that, but I wish that I could stop them. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just smack each other upside the head with 2 x 4s, rather than the Universe doing it, and people would "get" it and be able to stop things before they got out of hand.

I'm walking into "tomorrow" (tomorrow starts after I wake up - clocks rarely mean anything to me - in case you haven't figured that out), and I'm trying to be patient. I've been waiting for what I hope will be a positive answer for 11 months. Patience gets hard after that amount of time. It gets hard for resolution. It gets hard for faith. I'm afraid that I've lost a lot of my faith, simply because things haven't been going "my" way. That may be selfish, but it's true. Throw a girl a bone, will ya? I keep praying that others will see and listen to reason, that they'll see what the issues are and things will make sense for them so that they will just let go and let everybody (including themselves) move on with our lives. I know that I can't "make" that happen, but it's still something that I wish would happen.
is Wishing wrong? Is it pointless? It sure feels that way. But I hope that I'm wrong. I love being wrong in situations like this. I love it when people surprise me and are more and better or whatever than I am giving them credit for. I really hope this is one of those cases.. please please please let it be.

level of insanity - unknown

What is it that sets people off? Why do they operate the way that they do? How is it that you can be up and excited and optimistic one second and down in the toilet the next? As I mentioned to a friend of mine today, when asked how I was doing, everything is shite. His response? is English Shite worse than American Shit? and I said yes, but it goes better with Guiness.

I was in the teller line at the bank today and the very sweet little girl behind the counter asked me how I was doing today. I don't remember what exactly I said, but it was something to the effect of "not good". and then I said that I think that it's going around. She said she understood. And then she looked like she wanted so badly to talk about it, and that maybe she was going to cry, but she couldn't - because she was a teller in a very public banking line.

There's so much suffering right now, so much pain. Why is it that we're all suffering so much? Some think that it's karmic or cosmic or because of the stars. I don't know. It would be nice to have that excuse. Then you'd know that it was going to come to an end - whenever the stars align or disalign again.. or whenever that karmic debt was repaid. It never seems to be that simple though. It's because all of our paths intertwine with each other. They fold and twist and weave together into something that can on ly resemble organized chaos - of course not to us, but to whatever beings cohesively created it. Why is it that we are all having to fulfill parts in each others' paths? Why can't we just fuck our own selves up?

History repeats itself, does it not? Why? Why is it necessary for us to do the same things over and over and over again? Even within the same lifetime? It's like being an Alzheimer's patient repeating the same story and exacting the same erratic behavior.. the only difference is that the Alzheimer's patient doesn't know what they're doing or saying. They don't know that they're being ridiculous. We do. Or at least some of us do. And to the outsiders viewing the illness it's so frustrating and infuriating and just saddening to be watching it occur over and over and over again. There's nothing you can do. You can't beat them into remembering. You can't make them see what they're doing or that it's wrong or misguided or sad or anything. It just keeps happening.

How do we step out of that cycle of repetition? Is it possible to not be someone else's "karmic soulmate"? Is it possible to not have anyone else as yours? Does that mean that we must completely isolate ourselves from other people so we don't fulfill that role (and they don't either)? It all seems to dysfunctional.

I want to break out of the cycle that I've been in for so long. There have been things that I've tried to do to "reset" my life. Some have taken me away from where I was, but I'm not sure I've been reset.. Others have derailed me entirely. Some I feel like have helped me, but I'm still far, far away from where I feel like I need to be. I just really REALLY want to break free.

Last night I talked about wishing on a star. This is so much part of it. I feel like I've exacted enough pain towards some specific others and that they've exacted enough pain on me and the other people in my life. I feel like it's time for this to stop. One gesture is all it will take to start to bring it to a halt. And as much as I wish it were my gesture to make (maybe it is and I'm looking at it all wrong), it's not. Karmic debt paid. Time to move on.

something's got to give

I had the joy and privilege to work with a lovely lady today that has a similar issue as myself. She's a giver. You know us givers. We are more than willing to take care of everybody else and can't seem to find the time (or make the time) to take care of ourselves. Well, she's been nursing an injury for many years and it's really taken its toll on her life.

I empathize.

Today I received some pictures from a friend on facebook of me yesterday. I am so unbelievably fat that I can't even comprehend it anymore. Now, I've been MUCH fatter, but I never wanted to see myself looking this way again. I've made some minor attempts over the last couple of months at trying to make some changes, but nothing has "stuck". Just about the time that I think I'm getting into a groove with working out again, something distracts me or I get really stressed out or something and I take several days off in a row and it's all shot again. Of course I know that it involves more than just exercise, but for me that's a huge component of it. diet is a little bit more forgiving if you're burning that shit off... right?

Well, of course it's not so simple. Why is it that we (I) can't seem to do for ourselves what we know that we need to do? Why do we let things go and get so out of hand?

Weight for me is baggage in the very literal sense. I know why I've gained some of the weight that I'm carrying right now. I KNOW it.. but I can't seem to let it go.
A couple years ago when I was going through what I can now call a very reckless and yet very liberating phase, I lowered my standards to attempt to raise myself up. My calibre of relationships was *ahem* lacking and it really took a toll on me. It took a toll on my health. I let a lot of things go - whether it was my attitude or my body or whatever. It wasn't until that combined with the stress of everything that I thought I was working towards fell apart last summer that I really lost it. I stopped working out and my diet further deteriorated. And now here I sit.. blobular. I have problems breathing. I'm uncomfortable in my skin (again/still) and I don't feel all that great about myself. I certainly don't feel spectacular about my appearance.

Part of this is self-protective. No one will be attracted to me if I'm fat, right? Apparently that's not true - which further disheartens me. Since I seem to only attract men that I'm not really attracted to, why would I want to settle for someone who is attracted to a me that doesn't feel attractive? did you follow that? if so? 500 gold toilet stickers for you! It's one thing to meet someone who loves me for who and what I am, no changes and no expectations. But why not be attracted to a happy version of me - that's the one who feels better about how she looks.  To me that makes better sense. A secure woman is a beautiful woman.

Why is it that I can't take care of myself?

I'm not looking to anyone to take care of me, and yet I reluctantly rely and maybe hope that they will. I know that no one can do this for me - that I HAVE to do it myself. It's so much easier to counsel someone else on what THEY should do, rather than to do it myself. But I KNOW what needs to be done - on many levels.

This is the first exploration on this topic that I will do. What is it that I need to do to be healthy?
is it exercise? is it diet? is it surrounding myself with people that encourage me to be who and what I am? is it to stand on my own two feet without being dependent on anyone or anything else?

I'm challenging myself: In a week I want to feel better than I do now. Whether I accomplish this by working out every day or getting rid of stuff, or surrounding myself with lovely people, or just simply stop consuming sugar/soda - it doesn't matter.. whatever is needed to feel better and be healthier. It's only a week, and from there I can resolve to try another week and another..

Perhaps that information would have been more helpful, YESTERDAY

I know I said that I'd start this on 9/11. Things come up. things change.. excuse excuse excuse.

I guess the only thing I can say is, never assume anything. Making plans is for sissies. And perhaps the whole idea that things will stay the same (or not get worse) is for assumptive morons.

The Universe sometimes has some "interesting" ways of manifesting things that you ask for. It rarely, if ever, goes the way that you expect it to.

For the last, well, close to a year, I've been making the same wish upon a star. Every night that I can see the stars in the sky I make the same wish. It's evolved a little bit, but it's basically stayed the same. Even though I have felt many times that there was no way that my wish would come true, I still made it, and I'm still making it even now.

I have known that there were/are a lot of things in my life that needed to change. I wasn't sure how I was going to change them, but I knew they needed to. I was doing what I thought was the best thing to do to change those things. But I had no clue what was going on in the background. Nothing has been "settled" yet. The shoe has not yet dropped; but it's going to, and I know it.

it seemed like times were so much more simple when I was less aware of what was going on around me. If I had a "problem", I would lay out simple steps to try to change it (not always so easy, but simple) and it would get changed. When I wanted to pay down debts so it would be easier for me to go back to school full time and not work, I spent time doing that - making far more progress than even I expected. When I had clear goals, I came up with clear solutions, and fairly easily accomplished them. Of course there may have been drama, but at this point, I don't remember it.

At this stage in my life, I don't think I can say that there's not drama. LOL. And nothing has been all that simple to fix. The solutions that are being handed to me aren't quite so easy or simple - but I see why they're being handed to me, and I can honestly say, that while I didn't expect it to go down THIS way, and I'm not looking forward to dealing with things going down THIS way, I asked for this. I'm being given what I asked for, and for that I'm really grateful. I asked, and the Universe is answering. And frankly, I am in awe.

I really don't have a clue how I'm going to get through all of this. One path seems so much easier than the other (not that it's easy by any stretch), and I am, frankly, hoping that the "easier" path is the one that I am allowed to take or given or whatever. Either way, this is just the beginning of a long period of work and self-discovery.

Right now, I am at the Universe's mercy and I'm not really comfortable with that. We all hope that we have some measure of control over our lives, and maybe we do.. but it's disarming to feel so out of control of our own decisions. Part of me says to trust and have faith; the other says to run and hide but doesn't know where or how. But overall, the loudest voice is saying to be still, and know that in the end, it will all be ok. I like that voice the best. I hope it's right.

When you wake up in the morning

When you wake up in the morning, you never know what the day is going to hold. Some days start out good and end bad. Some start out bad and end good. And some are a rollercoaster of everything in between. I spend WAAAYY too much time by myself - too much time sitting and thinking, analyzing, working on what I've got going on in my head. Today I'm wearing my favorite T-shirt: "The voices aren't real, but they have some good ideas".

I wrote this a few days ago, and since I'm not willing to sit and write something new today - here's what we've got.

Some days, I wish I could be normal. Not normal, like boring normal - but normal in the sense of like other people. Of course, this is usually about sometihngn like having normal sized feet, or going to bed at a "normal time". Especially the bedtime part, because here I sit writing at 1:30 am and I have to get up at 7. Can you say cranky, boys and girls? I'm NOT a morning person.

I meant entirely to sit in front of the TV and watch some movie on the independent film channel about a prostitute whose phone gets run over by a car, but instead I got sucked into the computer where I offered advice to not one, not two, but three different guys, and participated in one guy's fantasy.

What a bizarre night.

You know that saying "those who can't do, teach"? Well, that applies to me - at least in the sense of relationships.

I've never been much good at them. I tend to be very literal, almost always the dumper, and believe it or not, far too tolerant of being used. It's hard for me to take my perspective about relationship dynamics into my own situations.

I'm the survivor of a 14 year marriage. I guess you could say that it failed, since we're not together anymore - but I grew a TON during the marriage and especially after the divorce. The divorce was one of the most liberating things I've done in my life and even though things have been hard in other ways since then, I don't regret it for a second. I learned that I HAD to follow my intuition about everything that I did. It only took me about 13 years to figure that out. The rest is just time and drama.

Prior to, and since my marriage, my longest relationship was about 4 months. I don't have a whole lot of patience with people and learn fairly quickly that it's not going to work. I've dated some guys that were an ego boost for me. You know those guys that I'm talking about? Much younger, good looking, the guy who was very educated, the adventurer. You know? those guys that make you seem adventurous or provocative or dangerous.. or stupid. Most of them were flings that somehow turned into short term relationships and I realized that I didn't have any business with them. I was into guys that were into me, until I realized that I really wasn't into them. That's when we split up.

I thought I fell in love once. It was an adventurer with amazing energy and all kinds of tales to tell. We had great chemistry and great conversation and well, great other things. But we lacked something really important - that respect that each of us wanted something different from the other. All of those good things that we had paled in comparison to needing to go different directions with our lives. It took me a long time to get over my relationship with him - lots of pain, lots of heartache, and a few demons over my bed.

But having been in so many on/off relationships and being ever the one that lends her shoulder, I guess I've somehow come up with Andrea's canon of relationships. Not just that, but having watched enough people crumble because of them, I figured out what the root of all death in relationships is.. it's fear.

That may sound pretty basic. Isn't fear the root of destruction for everything? Greed? Power? Jealousy? Absolutely. But it makes us do weird things. It'll keep us from getting into and getting out of situations that we want to be in or don't have any business being in in the first place. In the beginning of relationships, most people are so afraid of showing who they really are, that they spend all this time creating fronts and playing games - who am I today? Is it candy and flowers or wanton sex goddess? (Oh wait, this doesn't apply to me.) Nobody wants to show their fat pictures, or tell that you watch Disney channel when your kids aren't there, or that you pick your nose in the shower. You want to put your best 'face' forward. But it's not your face at all. Every once in a while, you find the odd-ball that actually is willing to show who they are, but no one will believe them because they just assume that everybody actually is playing games.

I spend more time talking to people about fear than anything else. They only think we're talking about love. They're afraid they'll never find someone. They'll afraid their partner will leave. They're afraid they won't be able to have a child or that they won't know what to do if they do have one. The list goes on and on. People cling so tightly to what they think they want, and they claim to do it all in the name of love.

In this society, we seem to operate from a place of LACK. This is what I don't have. This is what I want. I WANT. I'm wanton. We're all so afraid of losing, missing, needing, wanting, doing without, that we've completely incapacitated ourselves at what we're really looking for.. oh wait.. looking? maybe that's another one.

I quit looking. "They" (whomever "they" are), say that once you quit looking, you'll find. I don't know that to be true - but I'm not all that worried about it. I suck at relationships. I'm an opinionated, yet very open woman. I'm strong. I don't always play well with others. I'm ruled by fear too.

I never thought I'd fall in love. I was married for 14 years to a man that I didn't love. 14 years!! in a loveless relationship. I don't believe he loved me either. We were 2 stupid kids that got married, had kids, and  woke up one day (well I woke up) and said.. "I deserve better, and so do you". And so I moved on (not quite so easy grasshoppah). I fell in love (at least I thought), and I was devastated when I couldn't sustain it. I could sustain the emotion, but not when it wasn't reciprocated long term. It just killed me.

But all of that has ruled my life.. these past experiences. I can look at everybody else's situation, learn from them, learn from mine even. But when it comes down to it, I'm not there. I'm not in the place of wanting to extend myself to someone else. How can I give my whole Self to someone else and not get lost in it? How can I give my Body, Mind, and Spirit to another - spending day and night with them, sharing everything with them? Nothing remains my own. How can I put up with someone else in my space? I can't even put up with myself in my space. How can I TRUST someone else? Hey, person, unknown person, whomever you are.. I'm giving you untold access to me - everything.. you game for it? Who is willing to say yes and NOT abuse that power?

I can't answer these questions. Part of me feels like I can "wait and see" if someone foots the bill to meet all of my "needs". But the reality is that I don't need anything. I'm stand alone. I come fully equipped with a brain (far too big for my head), a mostly functioning body, enough Energy to power a Universe.. what else could I possibly want? And I think that's part of the battle within myself. Why should I open myself up to someone else?

Of course there's some of the obvious reasons.. like going to bed alone every night; not having anyone to tell my crazy stories to, or better yet have them share the experiences with me; eating alone. You know, that kind of thing. The kind of things that make us want.

Stop the world, I wanna get off

What an emotional rollercoaster this life is. Last week I couldn't wait to hold the pen and this week I can barely hold it. Apparently the bar can always be lowered. There are the traumas (dramas) we face on a day to day basis, right? Just when you think you're at rock bottom, you're not - and rock bottom has become newly re-defined.

I was reminded, this week, of how isolated I've made myself. This is part of the whole relationships aspect of my life that needs serious adjusting. The short version of the story is that my car got totaled and my cat got dead (it's a Heywood Banks song). I needed people that love and care about me around me, and I didn't have them. I had my ex husband driving chauffeur and being just as distant as he ever was (not that I was looking to him for support) and a couple dozen people who love and care about me - but they do so by phone and internet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for them. I shed more than a few tears at their heartfelt words and reassurances, but it's not the same as being in someone's arms or on someone's shoulders. A compassionate touch makes all the difference - that passing of energy from one person to another... it just can't be rivaled. The week has been a struggle to remember my sense of humor and hope, and not my sense of longing which is so much more profound.

I've spent time in the last day or so trying to figure out how I got this way. Not that I haven't worked on this issue before now.. well, work is a subjective term.. I've spent time thinking about it while driving the car or doing the dishes or whatever... no time ACTUALLY working on it.. The paper hasn't been written "I have no friends" with a "Pros" on one side and a "Cons" on the other. It seems self-evident.

I miss my cat, and I don't miss my cat. She was a pain in the ass. When she was 'healthier', she'd scream at me because there were 4 pieces of food out of her bowl.. and she's go outside the litter box and she'd shed, OMG she would shed EVERYWHERE. At one point I was looking into those creepy dog knitting patterns there was so much fur - although it would be cat and much better by default.. still eeewww! She was old.. Jesus.. 16.. which is old for a cat.. not monumentally old, but old.. and when your old cat get sick and you don't have an extra million laying around (another issue) - you can either wait for them to kick off and hope that they don't suffer, or put everyone out of their misery. I say all of this in jest, because I have to.. It was a horrible decision to have to make.. Very difficult and very painful. The loss of her is painful because of one thing primarily. She was a fixture in my life, and now she's not. It's like losing your best friend who you fight with all the time. Sure they drove you absolutely nuts, but you loved them anyway. Like sisters.

Given how I was raised, and how I've lived my life until this point, that's about the best I've got.

I have to wonder, why I keep people at so much of a distance. I've had friends before, long term, and for the most part we've either parted ways by drifting or there was some abrupt event. I'm not saying that it didn't make me sad - but I think it takes two to keep it going. There are some people that I wish I was still friends with or close with at least, and some that I can easily accept that we are not close for a reason, and that's ok. But I've only had the closeness of a true friend once, and I miss him terribly. Whether we were calling each other at a moment's notice to go hang out on the beach or bitching about each other's relationship status. It didn't matter. He was like my gay(not gay) boyfriend that I could talk about anything with. There wasn't any sexual tension (on my side anyway) and he really did know most of the stuff about me (barring a few private matters of course).

Sitting here, trying to figure out what made me let him in, I'm dumbfounded. I know what made me exclude him and as much as it hurts me to say it, I'm ok with it.

But even as I sit here and try to figure out what happened to make me detach so hard from the rest of the world, I just can't obviously see why I've become such a recluse. I don't go out, hardly ever. I claim it's because I don't want to deal with the possibility of a romantic relationship, or that I don't want to form any new bonds because I really want to leave this area (which is true) and I don't want there to be any loose ends, or for whatever excuse... but the reality is, that's what I want the most. I want someone to be there for me. I'm willing to be there for them. I want that in return.

The issue in some respects is fear. Fear for romantic relationships sure. I don't really know how to be in one. The only one that I've supposedly really been in was so dysfunctional and one-sided that I know I don't want to ever be in anything like that again. Did I say that all of my dating relationships have been that way as well? I may have neglected to mention that. Even the guy that I thought I'd fallen in love with - everything was for his convenience and sense of expression - he didn't think about me, at least not enough to be truly honest, and that hurt me terribly. Why should I want to trust someone in that sense? Of course, the whole partnership thing is a HUGE issue that this is only the tip of.. That's a topic for another day. I know, you can smack me for not dealing with that now.

Self-esteem.. now there's a hot button. What could I possibly have to offer someone, as a friend? Actually, a lot. Once someone is in my circle, they're in my circle. Even my friends that I've lost by time/space/circumstance, I still love them. And if they called me up and asked me for something, I'd do my best to try to accommodate them. That's just how I am. I live and die by my friends, and I expect that in return. Maybe that's why I don't have any... because I never seem to get that in return.

At some point, we realize that no woman is an island. I think I'm there. I'm just not sure how to add to the chain. Making friends/acquaintances is easy. Letting them in is hard. Not much else to offer, I guess.

So, this is one of my issues. Letting people in. I'm challenging myself this weekend, to expose myself to someone (only above the waist) and see what happens. No strings attached, no expectations.