10/17/2013

i hope you’re in the long run for this.

you should read this entry knowing i am back on the pill and i am crazy as fuck. pretty much everything that was remotely stable in my life has been shot down as all these hormones invade my body and make me question my sanity.

my mom and chris tied the knot at the courthouse downtown yesterday. it’s not like i didn’t see it coming and up until a week or so ago i was so happy for both of them. as yesterday approached, however, i got anxious and sad and angry. i feel childish and it took me a little while to pinpoint what my problem was. i’m chalking it up to two things: the relationship i had with my mom is forever changed and my life will never go back to the way it was.

duh, right? those are things that should’ve been obvious but i hadn’t thought of them. a huge chapter of my life is over. maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal except i am constantly being bombarded with lots of changes lately and i’m not sure how many more changes i can handle over the next few weeks.

the relationship i had with my mom needed to change. i didn’t need to be her sounding board. she needed her own life. while the change has left me feeling a little abandoned and lonely, it’ll pass and i’ll be okay.

i did some terrible things to alan. i haven’t written about most of it and i haven’t told anyone most of the secrets. i’m hesitant to write them out here because then i have to claim the things i’ve done but i have to spill my thoughts somewhere. that said, i’m making lots of bad choices that i recognize as bad choices. i am doing stupid things. i see all of this completely clearly.

i’ll start with mark.

mark is the sous chef at the restaurant i work at. he’s tall and dark and tattooed. he’s also super hot. for about the first month of work, every time i walked away from the kitchen i’d have this huge grin on my face because of mark. he’s that hot. i couldn’t understand why i was so giddy all the time and about the time i was able to actually speak to mark without blushing, we talked about long road trips and he kissed my hand and blurted out an invitation to lunch.

i thought it was weird that he asked me to lunch because as far as i knew, mark was married. he also knows alan because we all work for the same overarching company and mark oversees some stuff at the place alan works. either way, i said yes. i found out from a coworker the night before we were supposed to go to lunch that he was getting divorced

lunch was awkward and i had a few glasses of wine and we mostly small talked about the food scene. he texted me almost immediately asking me out again soon. i’m very different than the people he hangs around. i don’t have tattoos and i’m not rough. i’m not an artist and i’m not cool.

so we go for a hike a few days later. sometime on the hike we decide to find a place with water and we end up just out of town in this wooded area with a fresh spring. we went drinking and dancing and stumbled back to my place. i remember sitting on his lap at the bar, two stepping to old country music, climbing on top of him at my apartment, and waking up completely entangled in mark. i was still with alan and he called me forty times that night.  i was too drunk to notice that night and i thought i’d left my phone somewhere the next morning.

i immediately asked for space and broke up with him a day later. alan found out about mark when he barged into my apartment and found mark’s bike. i fucked up. i ended things with the most gentle, kind man in the most awful way. it was disrespectful and cruel and permanent. it was a clear sign that it was time.

but mark.

mark and his long arms and dark hair. mark and his tattoos. mark and braised beef cheeks and fior di latte polenta with oyster mushroom ragout at three am. the longest limbs i could climb over all day. he is outspoken and crude and he drinks entirely too much and he is hugely faulted. he is somewhere between self destruction and finding himself and when i stand back and watch him, i feel like i’m watching a train wreck but it’s so beautiful and hopeful that i can’t stop watching.

where to start? with the divorce? or the probation? the manipulative personality? the whiskey? the quick wit? the pure meanness that ensues when he’s drunk? the way he seems to disbelieve everything i say? his obvious dislike and distrust of women? the jealousy? the quick temper? the brooding? the selfishness that encompasses it all?

but it’s not my problem and i hold my tongue about the drinking because this is not a man i am out to change. after trying to change my last several boyfriends, i’ve realized there isn’t any changing anyone ever. it’s a stupid and blind reason to attach myself to someone.

it’s not realistic because i don’t know how i’d bring him around. even though he’s one of the most talented guys in the food scene in this city right now, that doesn’t trump his tattoos (my family is STILL weird about tattoos. i don’t get it at all) and his fairly long record.

despite all of this, i enjoy hanging out with mark. we eat delicious food and have late afternoon sex and talk a lot of shit to each other. i don’t talk about dating him because he said initially and solidly, "i don’t want to date anyone right now. i can’t"

but he talks about wanting to date. he asks me what "we’re doing" in the context of an "us". he tells me he feels bad for not being able to give me what i deserve.

he’s confused and conflicted about everything.

i like him a lot in the simplest way possible. i can’t involve myself in most of his life because it’s too much for me to take on. parts of me want to delve into his past and everything he’s done and where he’s lived and why he’s the way he is but i can’t.

i know that as soon as i have any empathy for him i’ll break.

i want to touch him all the time. i could trace my fingers on his skin for hours. his eyelashes. his hands. his full lips. jeez.

school starts on tuesday for me. i’m nervous and excited and hopefully it’ll give me something to do and i’ll be able to manage my time better.

for the next few days, though, it’s going to be sleepy kisses and drunken secrets and cooler fall weather.