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.

From the quiet corner

Embers remain where flames once hallowed me empty. I can't cope with the fact that we've lost it. We're done. That whatever we had or I thought we had was actually just a phantom. That you verbally dance in the second degree with everyone. You walk into the room and my body slips into feathers. Oh your face, those eyes, that French-accented "Hiii." No matter how many soirs I prepare myself for your entrance, you always end up as a banana peel to my mind. You're here and I'm here and suddenly I can't remember a thing I had planned to say. So I assume an exaggerated attitude of distraction to keep from being discovered. 

OhheyhowsitgoingmydaywasgoodthanksandyoursokayKidsletsgoplay. 

I feel like a cliché when she asks if women at work commented on your new clothes. Ah. I see. I am not the first femme to blush under your gaze. You are A Catch to people besides me. And of course I can see how that would be a self-evident truth. But I also know that I didn't love you when I initially came here. I thought you were nice and had a good family but that's it. There was no spark; I would not have approached you in a bar. I would not have stared at pictures of you. But now, oh holy shit, I am a goner. Months of bonding, bonding, bonding has led to this. I can't tell if I would be okay with us just being friends. 

...

Last night we looked at pictures of your family. You and her and your adventures in Jakarta and when you first bought your house and when your littles were born. It changed something for me. Just a smidge. But it peeled a layer of the steeliness inside me. It made more willing to give, to accept that I may be in love with you but we are not meant to be together. That you have a history and a future without me and it will always be that way and, most importantly, I should not try and force it to be something else just so I can feel powerful enough to control my own story. You can still mean something precious to me without things turning physical. I can still feel deeply attached to you without needing to have an affair. I want to learn what I can from you, from our time together. I want to just grow however I can grow. I want us to be friends. Like when you texted me the f-bomb and when I confided in you that I miss the routine of French class. That sort of thing. Just friends. Someone I can trust and who trusts me. Someone who I can throw a couple beers back with on Friday night and who I can teach to bake and who can, respectively, teach me how to cook. 

engaged

My desire for you is difficult to describe. I crave and loathe you at the same time. I'm trying to get other shit done but each day I find myself wasting hours thinking, thinking, thinking about you.

I don't know what I'm doing. What you're doing. What we're doing.

Is everything I think to be happening imagined? Am I reading into things too much? Everything could be explained away. Unless you've been here awhile. Unless you've seen the transition. Unless, unless, unless. But even then, maybe not. Maybe nothing is going on. Maybe there's no energy or chemistry here. Maybe we're just becoming better friends. Maybe you're just being nice. Maybe I'm being too obvious, too eager. I don't know. Things feel out of control, though. Undefined and therefore possibly going to go too far but not until hindsight. Not until we can't take it back. I feel like there is something here. It feels like things did with Ryan. There just is that thing, you know? But...maybe not. Maybe I don't know.

I've gained boatloads of weight. Or should I say bloat-loads of weight. (Har har puns.) It could be all the bread and cookies and cookies and cookies and sometimes a few cookies I've been eating. I don't know. Maybe the cheese at every meal? The peanut butter and Nutella? I cannot wait to be out of the house, distracted by French classes and in my routine of not eating much but exercising lots. I just want to be skinny again. The fat is bubbling upon around my thighs. Jeans look ridiculous on me. Skirts are my safe-haven but even those make me look pudgy. Can anyone really ever hide weight gain? I don't think so.


I just want to pretend my ankle is not in pain. That it will magically heal on its own. That I don't need to do anything in particular to rescue it. That I can workout on it and it won't hurt. I can't lose my workouts. I can't lose my salvation. I want to be so busy I can hardly stand up. I want to be exhausted from working out. Not really...but kind of. I don't want to think. Faith is such a burden. I mean that believing there is another way forces you to be honest that you're not seeking that way. That you've screwed up. That you're not all you should be. It is somewhat hopeful but also exhausting. I'm not saying I wish we were all doomed but...I don't know. Sometimes I think it'd be easier to live with.

business or pleasure

Im in a peculiar mood today. Not really upset about anything; not really satisfied. The day's moving a bit too slowly for me. I'm tempted to see a movie after work but that's always meant binging and I'm trying to make it a week without any behaviors. Maybe I'll just go home. Maybe I'll see Kingsmen and just get a diet, caffeine free coke. Starve my body a little. Slim down a bit. Feel powerful and sexy and hot.


I think my favorite thing about work at present is simply that I feel confident. That's really the thing. I definitely make mistakes sometimes but I know how to work fast and well for the most part. I like being able to help people; I like the challenge of lifting heavy boxes. I like joking around and having such a great braid of personalities to volley back and forth with. I really love working with so many guys; they have good energy. Wayyyy better than working in a room full of women all day. I like feeling strong. Just strong. I know I have cellulite but it doesn't haunt me here because I know I can lift things and squat and walk fast. And those traits count for more than the smoothness of the skin under my jeans. I've given up on the idea that Mark or Justin could like me and have settled in to just taking the little bit of flirting I get from a few of the guys I would never date. They're pretty adorable and funny and I just like being with them in the freeing, no-commitment sense. Also no sex haha. I feel attractive but not sexual and that's a good, rare thing I think. That's not always a given. I feel so sleepy at the end of the day but I love it. I think that's maybe why I'm so satisfied with this work: because it's so emotionally up and down yet I also have such steady routine. So I don't stress about not doing what I want but I also use up a lot of my crazy emotional energy so that by the end of the day I typically feel like I've had a great adventure and am ready to settle in for bed.

respite

this is my favorite little part of the day: being hidden away in a nearly abandoned hallway to eat my lunch in peace. 90% of the time im invisible to the eyes and bodies of coworkers and can finally catch my breath. its like being backstage after a long performance. when you manage people, your time is there time all the time. you are there to serve and be selfless and present and alert. breaks are the only time you can stop smiling and be left in peace. don't get me wrong, I love what I do! I enjoy helping people and showing them what to do and how to do it. I like interacting with them and I even tolerate/like the messy, stressful situations in which im forced to stretch my patience. those moments come with the good ones and so I endure them. but ahhh its so relaxing to be alone.


these days at Lawrence really go fast. at least for me. I like them. before you know it the mornings over, then lunch speeds by, and then you're pacing yourself through the few remaining afternoon hours. I hope o get to stay here for a while. I wonder if LMS will hire me. a part of me cant imagine leaving.

now's not a good time for me

One of my favorite au pair families thus far just sent me a rejection letter today. Right before we were about to Skype. I feel sad.


And I wonder if this is what I should be doing.


What if I'm not meant to go au pair? What if I'm just not enough for any family? What if this is a huge mistake and I'm wasting my life and I should just give up? It's hard to settle down when your mind is constantly describing you as being in a transition phase. I just finished college and yet here I am, once again, just making do and getting by before "real life" begins. The months are ticking on quickly. What if Paris doesn't happen? Despite me telling 7,000 people that its the plan for me? I want to start living, really start. I tell myself that then, then I'd finally get control of my eating disorder. Then I'd make friends and start saving money. As soon as real life starts and I feel like an adult, I'll get my act together. There's always a future time to plan for, isn't there?

But I need to change now. I need to get serious now. I keep bolting instead. I keep eating and going mindless and numb and in the meantime I end up being unable to think about anything I need to do. Or I get serious for a few days and go really strict. And then the pressure comes and I get so tired of being good that I break down and splurge on food, movies, and pleasure. Or torture, really. Let's not pretend these things actually satisfy.


*sigh*