Heavy

Like anything worth having, anything that comes with a great reward, my affection comes with a price.

I've written before about my intensity and how I think it scares people away. I wanna dive deeper. This is my diary after all, right? You're just a tourist. So why not go down that road? I'm scared of being judged sure... but in light of my current, undefined relationship with Columbia, this has been a major part of what's on my mind lately. And now that I've cried in front of him it's swimming in my brain faster than a hungry shark, and I need to write it out.

In my daily life I'm a strong and powerful person. I readily shoulder the emotional burden of other people's needs, I go to ridiculous lengths to get what I want, I steamroll my way along the long, hard road toward my career goal, I push my body to extremes, I force myself to make ends meet and I do it all with a huge smile on my face, meeting a nigh-constant onslaught of pessimism and adversity with a positive attitude, absorbing every bit of negativity that comes my way.

This intensity that I keep mentioning, it's not just my depression, or my bipolarness or whatever. It's a burning need to have everything taken from me: my power, my dignity, my pride, my sense of self. Those things have a lot of weight, and when they're taken from me the weight is lifted and for a brief period of time I'm free. I can breathe. I can let go of the negativity and untangle the emotional knots that build up underneath. And I can just....be....me. Just a pile of flesh and bones. Defenseless and vulnerable and hurt and scared.

I know it's a lot to take on; I carry it with me every day. I don't expect anyone to want to bear the weight of the challenging life I willingly choose, not to mention the emotional baggage I have been accumulating over twenty-three years. You'd have to be crazy to accept that crushing heaviness. I know. I know.

Does that mean it's crazy for me to hope that someone else will want me bad enough to take on that weight?


It's been really nice for a few weeks. I've enjoyed spending time with Columbia. He's done a good job of lifting the weight for a moment here and there. But now that I've cried in front of him the danger is coming. This is how it goes:

1) He now knows I am an emotional trainwreck.

2) If he accepts me in spite of this knowledge I will become overattached.

3) My attachment will scare him away.

4) Because I have become attached I will take it hard

5) I will become depressed.


The logical next step, then, is to bail before he does right? I know it's cliche. I know it's evasive. But this is survival... I need to avoid depression. It seems like it gets worse and worse each time and I just do not want it to come back. Columbia is nice. He's lovely. I enjoy his company and all but I'm not going to kid myself. He's a genius and next to him I'm just some flighty stupid girl who can't keep her mind on one thing at a time. He's a PhD student, and one day he'll graduate and move to Nowhere, USA for a job, far from New York and my career. And he's twenty-four. He's not ready to shoulder my burden, nor is he looking for a woman to love.

And let's face it. I'm a woman who either loves you or doesn't waste my time.