What’s that? You say it’s Friday night, and I’m twenty-six years old, and I live in a pretty cool city that actually has a nightlife and I have someone I find incredibly fun, incredibly attractive, and incredibly tall with whom to go out? Huh? What are you talking about? Don’t you know that I have to stay in and obsessively read journal archives of various people I think are cool and secretly wish I was just so I could write like they do? I have to sit here in the basement office of my boyfriend’s house and hunch over the iBook which isn’t mine and laugh at all the funny people. Outside, Friday night goes on.

Okay, well technically it’s not Friday night yet as I read this because it’s a quarter to six and you don’t really go out until at least seven, right? So if I write real quick…um, no one will think I’m dorky. No one, that is, who hasn’t already seen me wear my very bright raspberry pink polarfleece sweater, anyway.

All I have to say, really, is that I’m going to have a hell of a midlife crisis.

But here’s something I want to talk about. I want to talk about love. As in love, baby, that’s where it’s at. Luuuuuuuv.
I like love very much. Love is great. I actually love a lot of people, which is also great. I think at least a couple of those people love me back (hi Mom!). But right now, y’all…I can’t even explain what I want to explain here.

I’m looking for the instruction book, here, folks. The Love Instruction Book. I kind of hate that about myself…I wish my brain would just do the math:

You love Someone.
Someone loves You.
Have fun. Be happy. Knock yourself out.

Right? No, sadly. Wrong. Instead, this is my inner monologue:

“But what if he doesn’t really love me? What if he’ s just lying? What if it’s all meaningless and a joke? What if I’m meant to be with someone else and so is he meant to be with someone else and we can’t go be with these other people that we’re supposed to be with because, well, we like each other so much? Do I love him too much? Do I love him more than he loves me? Is there some way to stop loving him until I’m really sure that he loves me, and then go back to loving him? Should I have dated more people, so that I would know he was really the person for me? How do I know there even is a person for me?” So on and so forth.

Those of you with the brains that won’t shut up will recognize this type of thing. It’s like you have this part of you that was really unhappy at various points in your life, and that part became really good at Having A Hard Time. I mean, hey, whatever, it’s a skill, right? I used to have this joke with my friend Peter, about who got to be in charge of Low Self-Esteem for the day. “Oh, you go ahead, ” one of us would sigh. “I’m no good at it anyway.” Get it? Ha! Anyway, so that part is good at feeling bad, and you know, practice makes perfect, so sometimes it feels bad even when things are going well. Relatively well, actually well, whatever, doesn’t matter to this part. This part has it down, as far as convincing your other parts…the parts that are funny, that can bellydance, that got all As for a brief time in their educational history, that look really good in red…that it doesn’t matter how good things get, because secretly they’re always bad. Somehow. This part is good at what it does, which you’d think would make it feel better and bake a nice lemon pound cake. But no.

I just read that last paragraph and discovered it made no sense. Whatever. So, yes, the tape that plays in my head and won’t let me relax and see how good things can get, because somehow…I don’t know, I guess because things being good, if only for a little while, is sort of new and strange and scary and this part isn’t quite sure what to do about that. I mean, what’s it going to bitch about to all its friends?

I realize that this entry makes absolutely no sense. For the record, I would like to state that I really dig Carl so so much (hi, [SPN!]) and that I feel really good with him and that I’m doing fine. So is he. I thought I would just sit down and write a little tonight, and this is what came out. Otherwise, it’s been a fine day. So, there you go, I’m going to end before That Part of me (what should I call it?) decides to break out of its shell and ruin the rest of my evening. Personally, I’m getting tired of it.

Posted on February 2nd, 2002 by Chiara
Filed under: Everything