where's the beef?

I find myself craving the comfort of my eating disorder lately. Or the school routine. Or going to live abroad for yet another "gap year." Or moving to the east coast. Anything to not be *here.* Anything for a chance to recreate myself. To try again at making friends. To create a rhythm of life that doesn't leave me going to bed alone at 8pm on Saturday nights. I don't know if I just need to grow up. I don't know how to help myself. I don't know if I need to stay instead of bolting.

get physical, get a physical

I absolutely hate being this person. This woman. This anxious, can't sleep, won't be able to rest while spooning kind of woman. Who has to get up to process her thoughts in a 4 AM blog post rather than wait until a more reasonable hour. I don't know why these situations keep triggering such extreme reactions. The same thing happened with Chris in France. And I hated it. The same thing probably would have happened with Guillaume and in some ways did happen with Guillaume though physically we never went so far. Regardless, I hate it. Hate that I slipped so effortlessly into this role of the Classic Anxious Girl. Eric is telling me to just not think but I don't know how to do that.. Can/t imagine doing that. Especially not with someone who stresses the point through example. That only makes me more anxious that no one is worrying about the concerns that should be worried about.

So just what the hell am I stressed over?

Well, for starters, I think we have the basic connections between both the relationships that happened in France and this new relationship. Some may question whether this is a rebound. Maybe it is...I don't know. I think perhaps Eric and I are using each other without meaning to. I feel very similar boundaries and routines being pushed between Eric and Chris. I hate to admit it but I feel the same basis of attraction just disappearing as things move ahead physically. It's like a total disconnect, a total loss of interest. I actually really like Eric, unlike Chris. I find him attractive. But that pull--that desire to be physically surrounded by and consumed with him is simply not present. And the more he touches me, the more he advances things, the less I want it and consequently the more used I feel as it happens. I am worried.

Which brings us to the next point. Eric's comments about what he wants from this, including, "memories." Ha. I threw out there the idea that he wouldn't miss me for more than a week and he said probably not, then "maybe two/more than that." But I can tell that he is being insincere for fear of sounding like a shallow asshole. So I don't trust him. More importantly I keep feeling the knife of realization that this little thing means very little to him and as he said, he will definitely not be "miserable" in the weeks ahead. Wow. What a charmer. He did say he doesn't want me to be miserable but I just wanted to shout at him, "too fucking late, pal!" Not that I can blame him at all. I just fear that I am being too easy, too willing to give all to someone who truly does not love me back. I feel like I'm trading my soul for this. Again. I feel like the fact that I love so easily and deeply is once again being shit on. I am worried.

(I am telling myself stories that may not be true.)

The trust thing, though....that's really what the issue is. That's where the problem lies. Because I really felt really connected with Eric. I felt like he was a gentleman, I felt safe with him. I felt home. And now...bullshit. All bullshit. Eric doesn't have an ounce of deep feelings for me he just wants sex before he goes off to college. (I am telling myself stories that may or may not be true.) I guess I can't say I'm surprised. Or rather I can't say I have a right to feel upset because if I had been thinking more objectively and willing to progress things less physically it would have been okay. I could have seen that disconnect and instead of pushing it aside, paid attention to it. I thought I was different for Eric. I think I am just a play thing--an exotic older woman who happened to think the world of him.

I don't feel loved or special or valuable with Eric after tonight. I feel cheap. I feel...unattractive and non-compelling. I thought there were real things here but no...it's just another guy who knows how to "not think" when it's inconvenient or there are complicated matters to be parsed out. I am angry at myself for falling for him. I am angry at myself for succumbing. I am angry, angry, angry. Pissed, perhaps. I just want to go lie with him now and try to forget all the ways this is killing me.

I don't know what to tell Mackenzie. I feel wrong having done this in her house when no one but Eric was here. I feel it is necessary to lie to mom and dad about where I was. I feel scared that things will progress to sleeping with Eric before he leaves. I am most scared, Abba, that I am losing You once again in all of this for the sake of cheap thrills with a guy. I don't want cheap thrills. I don't want to be so grown up. But I think the thing you realize as you grow up is that the complex, hard-to-swallow truths of connection and loss are unavoidable whether you pay for them up front or after. You have to feel your way through them. Maybe that implies not being so reckless in love. Or at least not so reckless in the aftermath.

I hate Eric. I hate that he can just sleep silently through all this while I am frantically trying to parse through my mind in the upstairs dining room. I want to go sleep with him; I want to not care for a few hours. I am angry that I smell like someone else he knows. I am terrified of whom. I am disgusted at how quickly my impulse is to go buy all new hair products when I have no money for that and we are only talking of less than a couple weeks of togetherness. I want to go cry in his arms as much as I want to lay silent, a muted, non-sensing humanoid who can just warm the mattress for one night before I disappear without seeing him ever again. I am worried. I don't want to be worried. I don't want to not be worried.

(I am telling myself stories that may or may not be true.)

Abba, will You come? I don't know what to do. This is confusing. I'm afraid of truth and I'm afraid to ignore truth. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I can't stop thinking while I simultaneously can't think. What do I do? What would You have me do? I don't believe Eric when he says he cares that I'm not miserable or that I'm able to sleep tonight. I don't trust him. And yet...as humans, I feel we have a duty to care for each other and not cause undue harm. (Well any harm, but you catch my drift.) Here, where we could pursue things for 1.5 weeks or let it go, forever unexplored...we're both a bit jaded, a bit calloused. And it's harmful to future connections I think...maybe. Or maybe we're just growing up? Becoming more used to loss? Maybe it's perfectly okay to fall hard and then leave? The problem is that it will never be a 50/50 split. (Which, BTW, brings me to my other concern of whether or not Eric is actually attracted to me at all. He says he wasn't initially which terrifies me as much as I try to pretend having a good personality is worth something. He also said that he only really realized he liked me pretty recently. Also terrifying. Although maybe my ego can save itself from some shame by pretending that I have a knack for sensing out early on who I will work well with as a partner?? It seems to be a theme that guys don't realize until later on that we are good together. I don't know.)

your control is my destruction

But how can you not miss me? How can you not think about me at all? How can you stay strong about not reaching out to contact me?

I think about you every day. Still. 2.5 months after my departure. I stalk your Facebook pages and Linkedin profiles (not signed in, of course) and wonder what's changed. If anything has changed. If there are still lingering questions. If there are still thoughts of my time with you all.

I've cut my hair and gotten glasses and tanned my body through long days on the beach. And still it lingers, this saggy cast of who I was. Under my skin but on top of my bones so that it's there enough to never collapse but not obvious enough to be apparent to others. I can never remove the reality of that year in France. I hate the thought that it will never go away completely, just dull.

You're the only people who can truly help me grieve, who went through the experience with me. But of course you're the only people on the planet I can't process with.

I rub my eyes and dream of carving tally marks on my skin. I want to run till I puke. I want to puke till my throats raw. I want to eat carrot sticks until hunger drives me insane.

cycles

I'm back to being unable to eat again. Ugh. There are always these cycles. I hate them...

It's like...I just...can't. I know it sounds stupid and it must look weird to outsiders but. I don't know. Nothing sounds appetizing. I don't care about any of the foods we have in the house. And in fact, just the thought of eating any of them reminds me of all the times I'd purge those exact items into the toilet upstairs. I can hear the sloppy, wet sounds of half-moistened food chunks slapping into the water. I can feel the push of those uneaten balls up through my esophagus and the saliva dripping down my knuckles. And it just makes me not want to eat anything. Even junk food doesn't appeal because all I can think of then are the calories and how disgustingly fat I could get.

I don't know how to get over this. I've never really found a good way to deal with it because normally after a few weeks it passes. I think maybe it's stress-induced. This interview tomorrow and the fear of not finding a job and the unprocessed anxiety of transitioning home from France. All of it I think might be bubbling just beneath the surface. I don't feel stressed but that doesn't mean my subconscious isn't on another page. This type of hunger but lack of appetite is generally a sign that something deeper is amiss.

im scared you dont miss me

I’m too full today. Disgustingly full. I feel awful. I want to go purge in the toilet but I just drank a dark chocolate mocha so that would taste like hell. I hate today. I guess it hasn’t been all bad but it feels like it. I just miss G and the kids so fucking much. It hurts. The lack of it all hurts. Who knew not being touched would hurt. Who knew not laughing would hurt. Who knew not doing the school run and the bedtime routine and the Saturday night dinners would hurt. 

I’m so scared you don’t miss me. 

I don’t want you to be happy without me. I don’t want this new au pair to be a great experience for anyone. I want it to hurt. I want it to suck. I want you to want me and only me back. I want you to be in as much pain as I am. I’m supposed to be doing job applications and resume submissions and cover letters and I just don’t care about any of it. I just want to die. I want to be back in France. I WANT TO BE WITH YOU.

Tell me you love me without saying a word. Text me something hilarious. Sit outside with me on a hot summer night and sip beer and let the fireflies flicker around us. Come with me to the farmer’s market on Sunday morning. Cook something amazing. Tease me about America being a developing nation. Brush my collarbone. Hold me. Know me. Let me breathe in your cologne again. I don’t want to keep crying over this. I don’t want to keep lying awake at night. I just want to be back with you. I could have it a million times worse, I know. But I just miss you so much. It’s so cliché. But I do. God, just let me go back. Let me go back, please. I want to go back. I want to cleave to G; I want to wrap myself around him, skin on skin, and never leave. I want to lay on top of him and know he’s there. I want to feel him breathe while he sleeps. I want to play with the kids and laugh and run and make jokes and celebrate birthdays and take your son to climbing lessons and get groceries. I want to do all of it again with them. I can’t accept that this year is over. Or I can but it just feels heavy and painful. I don’t want it to be true. 

home, sick.

I'm not doing too well with being home. Because I'm mad at you, you see. Furious. Hurt. Longing. I miss you and those kids more than I know how to say. The missing is weird. It's not like every other time I've missed someone or some place. This time everything is off. The corners don't line up and the experience of the feelings themselves mimics those that would come if you were sitting alone in a bland, finished cellar somewhere. You're there because maybe you were starting laundry or looking for a pair of old work boots. And you've just been running, running, running all day so when you eye a dusty folding chair, you decide to slouch for a minute, massage your face. (Who will know that you rested?) And that's when your mind finally acknowledges the brush of damning, dark thoughts you've been letting float between the hallow of your skull's marrow and brain's squish for days. And you just lounge there, feeling the brush and elbowing its source back and altogether sure that life has never been so hallow.

That's how it feels when I think of you, of France, of everything I gave up.

give the dog a bone

I've spent a year being married men's emotional play things. Being the girl who laughs at their jokes and wonders at their accomplishments and compliments their style and touches their arms. The one who makes them feel like motherfucking desirable men. Working out and turning my wrists and tugging the corners of black-laced lingerie so that they can feel the femininity of my presence. Feel it and the accompanying, distantly familiar lust of their younger years. It's a great set up for them; they get all the flattery and energy of having some fresh-faced girl gaze longingly at them and give them ceaseless attention. And then they can go home and fuck their wives and play out whatever romantic fantasy could have been between us without me. And after months of investment, where do I end up? Alone. Empty. Disappointed. Pissed off. Exhausted. Two days of chemistry. Three days of silence. Five months of love. Six months of isolation. I can't trust myself. I fall in love too easily; I get on my knees too readily. (Not physically, of course; just emotionally. Trust me, it doesn't hurt any less.) It's humiliating and frustrating and primarily a waste of time. I have too many hours in a day to daydream and pen drama-ridden blog posts, I know. I should be falling in love with men my own age, right? Single ones who I can actually build a future with. But you see I don't know many guys like that and the ones I do are not attracted to me. I am second-rate; a broken little screw up whose only hope lies in these emotional affairs I seem able to conjure. But a real relationship? A real, requited connection? I don't know anything about that. I just know manipulation and how it feels to ride the edge of something forbidden. I'll bite the apple for a minute and taste bile for hours and do it again tomorrow.

It never begins intentionally No, see, circumstance just put us in each other's corners. A lot. And we just happen to have the same sense of humor. Like, really. And you're smart and I can talk economics and while you fix computers, I'm drawing flowers and somehow this oil-and-water thing is turning our "friendship" pretty fucking hot. Too hot to stay away from. God, you're irresistible. That is until suddenly you start talking about your wife and kids. And despite what others are whispering and the way your wife is suddenly pulling our her claws, you insist you don't want anything more. And you touch my lower back and hug me while I'm crying and follow me into my bedroom but no...we're just friends. Do you have any idea how fucking confusing and painful this is for me?! You're 40 and I'm 22! Don't let me do this! Don't respond. Cut me off. Give me the cold shoulder for fuck's sake.

Help me because I can't help myself.