Feeling: relieved
Listening to: karaoke goodness
Reading/Watching:

I would just like to say: "How dare you."

How dare you say I was just fine, I was amazing, I was great, but then gaze off longingly into the distance and talk about your ex, so that I would try to paint myself in her shades to be what you would want most. How dare you gently, sweetly, passive-aggressively hint at the ways I didn't conform to your 'type,' so that I might cut myself to fit. How dare you smile at me, say you still love me, but because we're not perfect, you're walking away, so that I twist and bend and tie myself in knots.

For you I was a painting, a paper doll, and a pretzel, and it still wasn't enough. Somehow I came off thinking the problem was me, because I wasn't through with guilt and blame from the last disaster. I hung around, waiting, feigning patience, trying food and clothing and television and music your way, always your way, exploding with insecurity and anger when your line of defense never budged. I kept shifting long after you stopped my choreography."

And how dare I fall for it.

Somewhere in between the waiting, the crying, the blaming, the begging, and the exhausting tango of Sandman and me, I got sick of it. Although I continued to dance, because he continued to lead.

I met any number of guys. I renewed friendships I let slide, I went out and tried for once to be utterly, unapologetically myself. I prayed that at some point, I would figure out who that was. I played an alter-ego in Maureen from Rent, and realized how much of her I was, and wasn't.

And there was this guy. I'm going to call him Will, like Good Will Hunting, predominantly because if he reads this, it will piss him off (hee hee). He started out being nothing more than the friend of a friend, a guy in a bar, who could outmatch me in a verbal tussle (and wow, was that hot). He seemed rather indifferent, preoccupied, with sharp edges, an intimidating intellect, and many better things to do. He was going through a rough break-up of his own and I offered a listening ear, if he ever wanted it. The progression of the following four months had a pace that multiplied on itself, and we went from friends and confidantes to dating to lovers. At some point, casual became continuous. At some point, I stopped talking to Sandman because I realized the tango would never stop, and I was exhausted. It didn't help that Will called it what it was, and said I needed to let go of one of them.

Will never told me who I was. He never told me who I should be, who he wished I was, etc etc. I wasn't sure at all what I meant to him, what part to play, because he wouldn't give me the cues. I had to play myself, because that alone caught his attention. At one point, he was so intent on watching me talk to Hope across a table that he allowed a forkful of gravy-covered something to drip on his pants (I didn't see it, but Hope was rather tickled). At one point, I flicked my hair over my shoulder and he literally closed his eyes to enjoy the waft of scent. I'd think he was crazy, except he's so clearly sane the rest of the time.

I still have no idea who he wants me to be. I have to play it straight, do what I do, say what I mean, because if I cast it at an angle, he knows (he reads people easily; it's spooky). If I start to diverge in the presence of other people, he brings me back to myself with jokes or teasing. I have never felt uneasy that I am boring him, that I have to entertain.

Until recent weeks, I never realized just how exhausting it was to play a part in the presence of the one you love. Because it was just something I did, so much of the time. I had made an art of it for years, ever since I started liking Christian rock because of my first boyfriend in high school. Perhaps earlier, when I was playing Shirley Temple and the Undateable Teen Nun and Mary Poppins for my family.

That's a hard muscle to unkink, I must say. I'm still massaging out the cramp.

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