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8:42 a.m. - 2007-09-26
true love will find you in the end or not

I'm beginning to think there are some people that are not meant for "ever after". I'm starting to think I may be one of those people.

For a long time I believed that true love was a falsehood, a myth perpetuated by Hollywood and Hallmark. And let's face it - women. I'm going to make myself seem sexist against my own kind here but, well, I think it's true. As a whole, women are love-crazy. How many jokes are there about men being afraid of commitment? It is more rare to hear of a woman who isn't ready to tie herself, if not permanently at least for a long while, to the man she falls for. Weddings! They are all about the woman. Girls dream of their wedding days, plan for them, make them into a huge life event. I'm not saying marriage isn't a huge life event - I'm saying weddings don't necessarily have to be.

I'm a never-romantic. I am not the type of girl to swoon over candlelight dinners, roses, over the top proclamations of love. Or am I? I don't really know - I haven't had much experience with it. I say that I don't care for it and even if it was offered I wouldn't be interested. Is that only a defense because it isn't offered? Nonetheless - I'm definitely a girl who isn't thrilled with the prospect of weddings (or marriage). I never push for commitment (or almost never). I've had several boyfriends in the past bring it up to me - timidly, as if telling bad news. Those are the fellas who I'm not too big on staying with. If my intentions aren't clear already, well then, I'd say I have no intentions where they are concerned. I'm never the first one to say those three dirty little words (I love you). If anything, I hesitate longer than necessary to say it - if only to protect myself from making a bad decision.

All of that aside, my view on love in general has changed drastically over the years. I no longer associate it with heartache, I'm no longer terrified of serious relationships, I don't cringe at the mention of commitment. Am I a starry eyed romantic? Hell no. But am I willing to accept the idea that true love is possible for some people? Yes. It's just not possible for me.

Don't get me wrong - I've certainly felt I've found "it" before. I've invested too much of myself in relationships that eventually fall flat on their one sided faces. I'm not unwilling to invest myself again. I know, now, that taking a chance makes all the difference. I also know that there is no Prince Charming waiting around the corner on his sparkling white steed to sweep me off my feet and spend the rest of his life doing that every single day. What there are - men. Humans. Flawed. Dealing with their own issues, fears, insecurities. Culpable. Simply put - I've finally recognized that men are like....well, me. I'm certainly not Cinderella. Why should I expect a Prince Charming?

I've made it sound as if I have unrealistic expectations for the men in my life. I don't. I really don't. I don't expect more than it is possible for them to give. It is when they don't care to give, when they are too distracted, crass, distant to give that I am disappointed. Who wouldn't be? Truth be told, I think I'm a damned easy girl to be with. I'm certainly not high maintenance. I never try to make a guy "parent" my kid (that's my job, thankyouverymuch). I'm satisfied with seeing a guy every now and then as long as we talk often and I feel secure. When I'm down? I'd sure as hell rather be left alone. Doesn't that make it quite a bit easier? Why do the fellas I choose find it so hard to live up to my expectations then??

I spent so much time blaming myself for every relationship that failed. Even when I knew the guy was a total jackass, it was hard for me to shrug off the feeling that I should have done more, been better, given and given and given. Not so much these days. I recognise that I've picked some...erm....let's put it this way to stay polite - uncomplimentary men to be in a relationship with. My problem is that I think everyone has something great in them. Even the people that no one else can understand it - I find something to love or to think is beautiful and grand about them all. Which often leads me to ignore those glaringly obvious red flags waving in my face - WARNING! STOP! BUMPY ROAD AHEAD!! Nowadays, I'm able to see when it's not all my fault. I'm good at pointing fingers and actually knowing that I'm not wrong in doing so.

Okay, so I do still blame me a little. I should. It's my unhappiness with myself, my doubt, my lack of esteem, that ruins many of my relationships. I gotta be happy with me before I can be happy in a relationship. I don't try to fool myself into believing that when I do finally feel okay with myself I will meet "Mr. Right" immediately. Because I'm a damned hard case to match up with. There isn't anyone that is my perfect counterpoint (that I've ever seen and that I think I ever will).

True love. Possible. I've seen it. I know it's out there. I'm grateful that it is. I'm extra happy for the people I love that find it. Me? Not gonna happen. I'm not open, willing, romantic, or trusting enough for it to ever find me.

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10:45 p.m. - 2007-09-25
madness as a gene

What do I know of progress? I'm the daughter of addiction and cruelty. I'm the sister of paranoia and misplaced passion. I married ignorance, bred timidity. What choice did I ever have?

My therapist smiles too much.

She tells me things like, "It's NOT your fault"
and
"No more negative affirmations"
and
"You must know that you are strong, believe that"
and all I can think is....why is she always smiling when she says these things?

I nod a lot while she speaks.

She gave me "homework". She wants me to recognize the good in myself. I stared at her in disbelief.

I am to write a list of things that I do well as a parent.

"You seem to be a great mother. This should be an easy one!"
and
"You claim that you are agnostic, but you want to know what I think? I think your daughter is your faith"
and I'm supposed to write on a piece of paper all of the things I do right.

I do much better seeing the wrong.

I thought it would be easy. I've got four things down and after twenty minutes I turned on the television.

My mother has gone crazy (er). My sister tells me she seems confused all of the time now. She screams every where they go (that is nothing new) but now she screams about things that don't make sense.

She has a man living with her suddenly. He was married to one of the women that was her best friend while I was growing up. I'm not sure what happened to the former best friend. The ex-husband? He has had a few strokes. And he's missing some fingers. And she picked him up from a homeless shelter.

My sister tells me that mother takes him everywhere she goes. Like some sort of lap dog.

"She just CAN NOT stand to be alone. She had to dig up some guy, even if it some half dead relic from her past who barely knows what is going on around her. She has to have a man."

This coming from my sister. Typical. My sister's last boyfriend was named Tony. She was living with this fella named Mike whom she had been with for about three years. When she decided to leave Mike she just packed a few items of clothing and moved across the street to live with Tony and his family.

Tony was very young. Adrian was very unfair to him (as usual). I heard her pick and pick and pick at the guy. I walked into her kitchen one day and overheard Bill commiserating with him, "I KNOW man, it's hell. Betty never stops screaming." I've never screamed at him. Later, Bill told me he felt bad that he actually did love me and that I was a good person. He didn't want Tony to know how good things were for us because he felt sorry for him (ha, bet he wouldn't nowadays!).

Adrian punched Tony in the head ten times one night. TEN TIMES. When he told me, she started screaming at him that he didn't need to be spreading their business everywhere. The next night Tony went out, got sloshed, and came home rip-roaring drunk and ready to fight. Adrian wouldn't let him in so the fight ensued in the front yard. Cops were called. Tony, all 5'5", 135 lbs of him, wouldn't calm down. Seven cops beat the crap out of him in my sister's front yard.

He went to jail. My sister said, "well, that's that" and never went to pick him up or answered his phone calls. And then? Not even three weeks later I came over to find another guy hanging out there. Lord knows where she meets them. She doesn't got to shows (which is where I meet most of my guys) or ...well, anywhere. His name? Tony, too. That's what we call him - Tony 2.

Really. I'm surprised I'm as sane as I am!

Love in the Asylum
A stranger has come
To share my room in the house not right in the head,
A girl mad as birds

Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume.
Strait in the mazed bed
She deludes the heaven-proof house when entering clouds

Yet she deludes with walking the nightmarish room,
At large as the dead,
Or rides the imagined oceans of the male wards.

She has come possessed
Who admits the delusive light through the bouncing wall,
Possessed by the skies

She sleeps in the narrow trough yet she walks the dust
Yet raves at her will
On the madhouse boards worn thing by my walking tears.

And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last
I may without fail
Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars.

-Dylan Thomas

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9:08 a.m. - 2007-09-25
spt bathrooms 4 drowning

Self-Portrait Challenge bathrooms, week 4:

This, more than anything, is how I feel in my life right now - completely drowning. I gotta learn to swim.

Other pictures that I liked as well:

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before//after

previously...
1 - 2007-10-16
........................ - 2007-10-15
.............. - 2007-10-15
sunday time fillers - 2007-10-14
click it - 2007-10-13