You mean you're not supposed to eat the rind?

I've been trying to forget the Producer's existence, but it's kinda hard when I see a twenty-foot long mosaic of one of his friends on my way to work each morning. He still checks my old blog address, although I don't know if that will continue now that I shuffled the URL around a bit. I think he thinks I moved it for good. I'm not hard to find if you put in some thought and effort, but very few people seem to do that (which is A-OK by me).

As I passed the mural a little while ago I had a twinge of sadness about it all (going into detail would be oversharing). I felt dumb because of those feelings; after all I've dated other people during and since, and the whole thing was so fleeting...but why fall off the face of the planet like that?

I thought about it while I finished my errand. Sadness for me is rarely about the surface issue that triggers it, so on my way back to the office I racked my brain for the cause. I free associated a little, knowing that as soon as I stumbled on the root of my troubling emotions I would burst into tears. You might wonder if this is desirable on a sunny day, walking through SoHo to buy some crap for work. I wondered that too. I decided it was worth it--if I didn't just suck it up for five minutes, I'd be sad and pissed off all day.

Guess what did it? Guess!

My ex. Surprise, surprise.

I spent a long time trusting my ex...and trusting that we were okay and right and that we could be happy together forever. The contrary signs were there, but in my limitless trust I totally looked past them. So now it's hard to trust and to make myself available to other people. And I'm disappointed because for a while there I thought I had really let go of that, but I haven't. So I'm hiding from people. I'm putting pressure on myself to be more awesome, more funny, more clever, more amazing.

The other part of this is that I miss how comfortable and easy things were with him and how I always felt beautiful and how everything was more fun with him around. He was the best best friend ever, and I've been holding people to that standard. No wonder dating stresses me out! No wonder I feel like I don't have any "real" friends!

I had such a great awesome, amazing friendship that slowly tanked because I opened up and trusted and loved. That sucks. But it doesn't have to be that way with everyone... And I don't have to hide my self to protect myself. Far better to open up and be the real me, instead of trying to be some amazing, super awesome person that I'm not. Far better to really love people for who they are than to have this arbitrary standard that I want them to live up to.

I have got to stop comparing apples to oranges and start taking people for who they are. 'Not JH' is not valid as criteria for or against being close to someone. Having realized this, my plan is to let go, be happy, and start listening closer to others instead of using a checklist. The friends and lovers will develop naturally. I want to give a little more and wave my own 'I'm awesome, look at me' flag a little less. Maybe while I'm discovering other people I'll even learn something about myself.