Saturday, October 30, 2010

It's amazing what you can learn when you're honest with yourself

I'm going through one of my darker moments tonight. It took me completely by surprise since I had a wonderful day, spent the afternoon with that girl I'm crazy about, went to an actual haunted house that was decorated as Halloween haunted house. It was a fun day until about an hour ago.

For the last few years, I have these moments where I start off feeling depressed and that turns into either anger or numbness both of which result in restlessness and I just need to do something but nothing I do eases the restlessness. And that feeling of impotence, I guess, not being able to do what I need to do, leads back to depression. It's all just a horrible cycle.

Tonight is one of those nights. But tonight, when I got to feeling restlessness, I went for a walk. It was after dark, I walked through the sketchy area of downtown, cut through some alleys, basically put myself in some potentially dangerous - but not too dangerous - situations. And I didn't feel anything, no fear, just 'who gives a fuck' numbness. As I was doing this, my mind couldn't help but wander to the possible dangers, like being attacked, being rape, being harassed. And I was slightly stunned to realize that I would almost welcome a dangerous situation because it would make me feel alive; it would give me a rush.

I spent the last hour walking around trying to think of something that would cure this deep feeling of restlessness and the only things I could think of where life endangering. And, because I'm big on finding the bigger meaning behind things, I focused on that longing for a rush, something that would wake me up and make me feel alive.

I'm pursuing a degree in addictions counselling, so right now, my life is all about addictions. I long ago accepted that I have an addictive personality, by which I mean that I could easily become addicted to tobacco or alcohol if I wasn't careful and didn't monitor myself. But I never once thought that I would ever take a chance with any of the more 'hardcore' drugs. And I still don't think I will. But tonight I realized that I am one experiment away from having a dangerous addiction. On nights like tonight, I know that the initial rush of drug-use would draw me into her loving arms and fight like a bitch to keep me there and I would willingly return again and again.

Luckily for me, I don't know any drug users, so I don't have easy access to drugs nor do I know anyone who would introduce me to drugs. While my willpower is strong, I think my need to feel is stronger and it would only be a matter of time before I gave in.

And realizing that, I started to brainstorm other ways to feel a rush, to get my adrenaline up, something legal. Something amazing. Something that has the potential to put my life in danger but that wouldn't destroy my life or myself, unlike drugs. I came up with mountain biking, snowboarding/skiing, racecar driving (a little unrealistic), riding a motorbike, skydiving, and base jumping. I think the most realistic and satisfying would be mountain biking and snowboarding/skiing. Of course, that's where it starts and then you need a bigger thrill, something new and exciting and more dangerous. But I need to try something before I do something stupid.

Any suggestions?

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Life happens

In this, my second post since I kicked cancer's ass, I am not going to talk about cancer or how I made it my bitch. Instead, I'm am going to talk about how love has made me her bitch. Again.

So, I was scrolling through my old posts because I'm bored and just killing time until I can go hop in the pool for my laps and I came across a posting about this girl that I used to work with before I left that job and that city and who I was completely crazy about, but never, ever did anything about that because she was only seventeen (I believe she's 18 now and definitely legal - still not going there). And I can now say that, while I was very attracted to her and quite enjoyed spending time with her, I was NOT in love with her - Thank God! That made me feel like a dirty, old perv... maybe not old, I am only 27, afterall. The reason I know that I was never in love with her is because I now find myself feeling something much more powerful and moving than what I ever felt around her.

As I said, I've moved cities. Relocated because I desperately needed a change after dealing with a break-in at my house - while I was home! - and, not even a year later, cancer. I needed to start new, get my life back on track, and rediscover myself, so to speak, also, I'm starting a degree that is only offered in this city. And it worked amazingly well, I feel fantastic, much happier and definitely more like myself. Of course, the hard part is that I miss everyone that I left behind. The upside of cancer, I get to go back several times a year for checkups and, thus, get to see everyone again. Yay!

Anyway, I moved to a city that I have lived in before, so not so scary and new, but where I no longer knew anyone. And it's ultraconservative and religious, so yay for being gay here. So, not wanting to be friendless/single for the entirety of my time here, I started to browse an internet dating site. Not my favorite way to meet people, but whatevs. It worked. I met this amazing woman with whom I have so much in common. I mean, we have the same taste in movies and music (extremely rare for me), we enjoy the same past times, we're passionate about the same things, we have a great time together. Everything is fantastic on paper. But she is very confusing. We'd go out one night and I'd be sure she was interested in me and that we'd end up dating, the next time we'd go out, she'd be a little distant and I was sure we were just friends. Mixed signals all over the place. Drove me crazy! And I loved it. Also, she's beautiful.

After two months of knowing each other, four weeks of that with no contact because we just weren't in town at the same time, we went out with a couple of her friends one Saturday night. It started off just drinking at her place, but they wanted to go dancing, not my scene, but not going to say to going out with her. So we go to this club, I'm not a big dancer, not comfortable looking like I'm having a seizure on the dance floor. But she asked and I didn't need even a second to consider my answer. Anyway, at one point we end up dancing in a group and this guy is creeping on us and I mean CREEPING. We're all trying to ignore him, he's watching the girls dance (explanation: there are four lesbians definitely pairing off and focusing on their partner), we're moving away. So, my dance partner turns her back to me, presses against my front, brings my hands to her hips and puts one of her hands on my thigh and we dance like that. That's a sign! We had hugged twice before that and that was the extent of our contact. Suddenly, we're dancing all pressed together, there's handholding going on through the night, she, at one point, rubbed my thigh while we were sitting. This is a huge change, like zero to sixty in no time. I'm thinking 'Yes! She likes me.' Before the end of the night, she's grown quiet and distant and I'm more confused than ever. The next two times I see her, things have definitely changed, she's careful to keep her distance and there's zero touching. More confused.

So, the third time we see each other (and all four of these nights are within the same week), we're watching The Holiday, a romantic movie that I usually quite enjoy. This time, I'm so confused and the damn movie is making me so depressed, that at the end of the night, I finally just asked what was going on between us. She informs me that she's wants to be friends, but it took her a long time to reach that conclusion. I totally play it cool (read: awkward) and say I thought as much.

This was two weeks ago, we've seen each other since. I mean, I don't particularly want to be in the friendzone, but it's better than nothing. I'm totally hung up on her, so anything is better than the alternative. And I've been thinking about that night in the bar and I feel like I may have an idea of what put her off. See, I don't have cable, therefore, I don't watch TV. When I'm in a place that has TV, I tend to get caught up in it if there's something worth getting caught up in. It just so happens that on the night that we were in the bar, Larry King was on the TV above the bar, right where I could see while we were on the dance floor (of course, I wasn't watching it when she was all pressed up against me. Did not have the brain power to do much, let alone notice what was on TV). That night, Larry was talking about gay marriage in the states (Prop. 8 had just been declared unconstitutional) and I was trying to read the little info boxes at the bottom of the screen to see what was going on. I believe that my lady friend thinks I may have been checking out other women. Not a good message to send! And so not the way I am. Christ, I'm so hooked on this woman that I can't even watch romantic comedies because they make me depressed because I can't have her. Not to mention, the thigh touching had me turned on for DAYS afterward. When someone has that kind of affect on me, I do not need to be looking elsewhere! I've been put in the friendzone and I still don't want to look elsewhere.

I know, I know, you're all like 'Jeez, get over it.' But I can't. I have never met anyone who affected me so much. I'm 27 and for the first time in my life, I've met someone who I can actually imagine a future with and quite easily at that. I've always had trouble imagining the next date with someone I was seeing, but with her, I can imagine what she'll look like in a wedding dress and how amazing building our lives together and living together would be and how great she'd be with kids. I feel like she's The One (capitals necessary) and the thought that I'm never going to have her kills me; I could actually cry every time I think about it. I want to know what made her decide that we should just be friends and I want to change that, I want her to want me as much as I want her. And it'll kill me to see her with someone else when she meets someone, because this is not a girl people are going to ignore.

So, if you have constructive advice, please, share! I'm head over heels for this woman and I just want her to give me a chance. Ugh, I am so love's bitch.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Im back... again!

So, after a bit of a hiatus, I'm back. Again. Cancer has a crazy way of interfering with life and preventing you from doing the things you enjoy. But I'm healthy now and so I hope to stay back this time.

I will do a real post this week, I don't have the time now as I'm running around getting ready for school tomorrow (YAY). Things have happened in my life, cancer being only one of them. My life has changed vastly in the last year and I will bring you up to date as soon as I can. And then you can read while I moan about the little things. Sounds fun, doesn't it? Okay, okay, I'll try to keep the moaning to a minimum.

Anyway, later!