Justifying The Means ?
I feel positively worse than yesterday.
So, I caved and bought a pack. I’m not proud of myself but…I don’t know. I just think I’m going about this "quitting" thing the wrong way; I’m not addicted to nicotine, I’m addicted to hurting my body as a form of stress-relief (see: all that Mountain Dew, and my old unfortunate habit of cutting). What I said about coping mechanisms a few entries ago rings true. I’m still not sure if I’m done after this pack or if I’m going to buy another. Dustin isn’t happy but he isn’t ripping me apart either.
Speaking of which, the two of us had a nice long discussion last night. He drove around in circles in the city and we talked. I was talking out all the problems as of late with him, which was difficult. He isn’t very responsive sometimes, which makes me feel like I’m talking to myself or the wind or something. At one point I managed enough courage to bring up Brandon to him, and I got a cold reply, "Well, I don’t really see how that’s a bad thing, Amanda. That he’s not here, I mean." I burst into tears and he kept talking, but I cut him off and choked out, "Because it still hurts." He told me he understood that but–I cut him off again and said, "And according to you, it’s not OK. You understand WHY I feel the way I do, but you still think it’s not OK for me to feel upset about it." He disagreed with me and I stayed silent for awhile, and he picked up the trail again, until I interrupted again, "And I think sometimes you forget that I haven’t done this before."
"You’re right," he conceded, his hands tightening on the wheel. "It’s easy for me to look in the mirror and think, ‘Why can’t anyone else do this like I can?’".
I think we reached a mutual understanding there, for a moment.
"Sometimes I feel," I said sometime later, "that you think I value him above you or something."
"No," he hesitated. "You just sometimes talk about him like he was your one true love that got away."
Guilt.
He’s right; that’s how I’ve been acting, even in trying NOT to act like that. Yeah, I might not bring up the subject all the time to Dustin, but I do tend to carry on about it in here. It probably reverberates through my very being, in the way my body tightens up each time a silver car passes by. I don’t know, but it isn’t good.
And in truth, as much as I carry on about the subject, Brandon doesn’t interrupt much of my waking thoughts. Even despite what I wrote in the last entry. I am way too focused on moving out, on school, on work. It’s just easy to look at all the things going wrong, all the stress and frustration in my life, and loop Brandon in with it. It’s easy to dwell on it because it’s easier to mourn the things I can’t change than to stimulate the action necessary to alter the things that can be changed.
It is one of my flaws, but I am working on it.
And I never meant to make Dustin feel like that. HE is my one true love; why else would I have flown back home? Why else would I have mourned HIS departure so many times, even when I had Brandon secure with me, or some other nobhead? I am here with him for a reason, I have chosen him time and time again for a reason. The whole reason things happened the way they did last July was because I selfishly didn’t want to let anything go — not because I valued Brandon more, not because I loved Brandon, not because I picked Brandon, and certainly not because I was bored. I just knew the inevitable was coming and I avoided the pain & suffering the only way I knew how.
Moving on.
I also clarified my position on Dustin’s diet — I harp and carry on all the time about it to him and I know it irritates him. Especially when I have cigarette slip-ups like this. I told him that, yes, of COURSE I’d like to see him healthy & fit & etc. But I love him regardless.
"I’d love you if you were 160 lbs. I’d love you if you were 300 lbs. I’d love you if you were 400 lbs," I told him.
I also wondered out loud about vices. I know it sounds like I’m justifying my smoking here, but I’m not. I’m just noticing that we (collectively) identify and attempt to cast off these vices—-for what? For a few extra years at the end of our lives? We all have to die of something. And if you are a religious person, and you believe that God will take you when he’s meant to take you, why worry about all this? I’m not saying that anyone should go on a cocaine binge to thwart God, but is an extra cupcake after dinner really going to end your life? I don’t know. I guess the biggest question is: does the end justify the means? Is the reward great enough to justify the suffering?
Sigh. I’m procrastinating again.
Love,
Amanda