'Love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah...'

Today I've been thinking a lot. (I know, you guys are like, so totally shocked!) About all sorts of things, many of them not solid or cohesive enough to turn into their own blog post. At least, not just yet. Musings on my relationship and all that. You all know how fucked up you get after you break up with someone- in some ways I think it's worse being the dumper, because then there's always the tempting and torturous possibility of changing your mind.

As though changing my mind would fix something, as though just the act of breaking up could have somehow changed our relationship, changed all the problems- erased all those times when I spoke to him, needing something, and not getting it, whatever it was. I don't really understand it myself. Things just weren't there. It feels horrible- I've never had someone try so hard for me, give everything they had just to please me like that. For it still to not be enough makes me hurt so much.

I don't know if I could go back, go to him and say 'I'm sorry, I've changed my mind- can we go back to the way things were?' and hope that he would take me back. Mostly because while I want him back, I don't want to go back to the way things were- things were difficult, and I spent most of my time, especially when I wasn't with him, torturing myself for not feeling the way I wanted to- about our relationship, about him. And it was horrible. As much as he was the sweetest boy, and caring and giving...god, he gave so much to me, it just wasn't enough. I don't know why... all that time I spent trying to make myself love him. I know, it seems so stupid now- you can't make yourself love someone, no matter how much you want to, no matter how much they might deserve it. I guess you especially can't love someone just because they love you. How different would the world be if you could?

To think all this musing started from some boy's smile on TV. His smile reminded me of the boy somehow, in some way, and I started thinking about how my early relationships have shaped (and are shaping) the kind of boy I'm attracted to. That little smile he had...I don't know what it was about it, just something. Some feeling, some association I made- that little smile makes me think of the good things- when he was giving, and sweet and forgiving and a soft place to fall. I still want that quality in someone else, and I've pegged it to the visual of that little, slyly subtle mousey smile. Crazy, I know.


I've been trying to reclaim my music today, too- some songs that I sort of associated with the boy, listening to them and ignoring the pain, trying to make them -mine- again. They were mine once, and I want them back. Some really sweet powerful songs- like Matis Yahu's "King Without a Crown" and other sillier ones like Wiseacre's "Girl With a Hole In Her Pants"... actually probably neither of those songs were ever just mine, since I discovered them while I was with the boy. But I want them to be mine now. It's hard though, King Without a Crown, while it dragged me out of some (of the many) deep holes I'd gotten into, making me hopeful and optimistic, is still mostly associated with the times I listened to it with the boy- in front of the computer, turned up loud, my back pressed against his chest, his arms around my waist- swaying gently and singing along. Him in that silly whispery little voice of his.

Wiseacre's memories are a bit less silly, even though the songs aren't- it was the first gig we went to together (while we were together, anyway, we both went to The Herd separately before we were going out, and met up with mutual friends there) and even though I was expecting to have a miserable time (because I was miserable) it was fantastic- we danced and cuddled and it filled me with hope and optimism for us- the belief that yes, I could feel the way I wanted, if I really wanted.

I think one of the scariest things at the moment is the possibility that the only reason I didn't love him was because of my anxiety/depression, rather than him just being someone I couldn't love. I am really scared of that, because if it's true then it means I might never fall in love with someone I can actually have. It might sound ridiculous, but it seems very real to me- was it just 'not right' or did I just cut myself off from my feelings somehow, unconciously, because I was too scared?

At first, the first night we met, and our first date (non-official) things were fantastic, the feelings were all there and right and stuff- it wasn't til I had the freak out on that weekend that I stopped having feelings for him. At least I think so- but it's a chicken/egg question, really- did I stop having the feelings cause I freaked out, or did I freak out because I stopped having the feelings? I always felt like it was the second one, but shrinks and friends all reckon that maybe the anxiety and the depression started first, and made me not feel, I tried very hard to believe them- thinking that once I got done being depressed/anxious I would like/love him again.

I don't know. I know that getting to know someone better, and maybe deciding they aren't who you thought they were is just part of the process. But it all seemed so sudden- although I got a bit stressed out at him (while drunk) on the friday night before our date, about some Suicidegirls thing (I stressed that I wasn't 'alternative' enough for him) things were okay then, and then suddenly saturday WHAMMO while talking to him, I start feeling like I'm humouring him, and I don't want to be humouring him- I want to find him interesting and fascinating, especially on our second bloody date, so I freak out. He's really sweet about it. And seven (nearly eight) months later, here I am, trying to figure out the same problem that plagued me from the start. I don't want this relationship to be something that I will always not quite understand, you know? Was he just 'not right' for me? Was it just that I didn't like him? Or did I really feel for him, and somehow un-conciously drive those feelings away?

I'm so lost and scared right now, and rambling, so that's it.

g