Kissing Hello

I don't know much about Columbia's life. He won't tell me much. I don't tell him that much either, but my talkative and narcissistic nature has leaked out plenty. He'd tell me if I asked, I'm sure, but I recently received some advice: don't ask a question if you aren't sure you want to hear the answer. For now I'm not sure. I know there's some girl in his past who never fully went away. (once again social networking ruins my ignorant bliss.) I'm not secure enough with our relationship to ask about it though.

I'm not sure I need to know either. There are other things bothering me. More pressing insecurities. He doesn't kiss me hello. He doesn't touch me in public. He might hold hands but only maybe. I have to ask for affection, and have to press hard for enough sex to meet my needs. His kisses are staccato, caring but rarely hungry. He is stressfully awkward in the same social situations I need to thrive. He can't make a decision about anything and criticizes my decisions unabashedly. If I ask him what or why or how about anything the answer is inevitably "It's unclear." It's as if he puts no thought into the world around him. A total lack of social awareness.

Am I just having trouble understanding someone who's a little different than me, or is this a fundamental compatibility issue? Am I asking too much or just not getting what I need?

Hiding in the Fortress of Solitude

I'm so afraid that I avoid him. I cling to him like glue when he's with me but when we're apart I don't call him, I don't send emails, I don't text. I only IM (our primary method of communication) in moments of weakness or excitation; otherwise I wait for him to come to me. It's pride. I fear making a fool of myself chasing rainbows.

So far he keeps coming back. More often than I expect. Stronger than I expect. Every time I steel myself for disappointment he surprises me by wanting to see me and humoring my silly ideas. He even let me take him out to meet my friends without complaint, despite the location being out of his comfort zone. He knows I'm scared, he recognizes it in my face and he holds me tight. I cried again, and when he asked why for the third time I told him I am terrified of getting hurt, barely grazing the surface of the matter. I wanted to pour everything out to him, but I just don't trust him enough yet. He kissed away my tears and told me not to be embarrassed for crying. He didn't lie and say he'd never hurt me, but he asked if he'd done anything to make me believe he would. Of course he hasn't--he is consistently patient and gentle. But when patient and gentle people hurt you it's worse because it isn't deliberate and it's never their fault. Who does that leave to blame?

Nightmarish scenarios pop into my head in which he tells me I'm nothing to him and he's just using me...but those are my words, not his. My rational mind interprets his soft kisses and caresses as the sweet things I actually want to hear. Still, I won't ever ask what he thinks of me because I'm afraid of what I'll hear. It's too soon to expect any kind of clarity on the subject anyway. I'm still trying to clarify my own feelings--clearly.

He likes my body, which is astonishing to me. He has this way of running his hands over my skin that makes me feel like he's building a force field to protect me from harm as, brick by brick, we dismantle my Fortress of Solitude. I kiss his hands because they make me feel safe, because they tear me down and build me up stronger. I cling harder to him. He wraps his arms around me. I feel safe. Wanted. Then suddenly the terror comes back and I am crippled by the thought of being left alone with no force field, my Fortress having been broken down by his tenderness.

And boy have there been some shipwrecks.

Never mind - Columbia is even (so even!) but he's certainly not boring.

He surprised me last weekend with a burst of affection I hadn't seen before. He stayed with me for three days. He talked about future times of staying together. He talked about coming to my races. He started running (!). He acted suspiciously like...I don't know...like a boyfriend?

I was not freaked out by this either, which is pretty significant since I'm basically terrified as hell of getting hurt again and resigned that he'll disappear the moment I allow myself to become attached. Instead of pulling away (although I wanted to) I cautiously let myself get taken up into the current and tried to let him show me the kind of relationship he sees for him and me.

He insists that we're like Eternal Sunshine: he's all boring and literal and I'm all exciting and abstract. The analogy sounded a little trite to me...I can only imagine swarms of hipster boys say that to their flighty, artistic girlfriends. But we do have a certain dissonance between us, kind of like the movie. Something about us as a couple doesn't make sense, something I can't quite put my finger on. And, like in the movie, being coupled with him feels good in spite of the dissonance. It feels warm in my tummy and lumpy in my throat.

Maybe I could get used to this.

Or maybe I'll get terribly hurt and want to pay someone to help me forget him.

I feel like this relationship is an out of body experience. But I don't think, after the sickening amounts of heartache I've been through in the last three years, that I could do it any other way without eliciting a fight or flight response.

Oh. And.

Columbia.

He's so even. So...just...even.

I am not an even person. I am dynamic. Extremely dynamic.

Is that good? Is that like the antidote to me?

Is it bad? Am I just latching onto stability that will ultimately bore me?


What is this? Why do I think it's so significant that I have to write it down for myself later?

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.

Bruised

That Comedy TV Show I Like Working On stopped calling me for additional days sometime before Christmas. I was never sure why. I stopped taking days during The Stunt Unit for that big fat movie, sure, but The Big Fish was still calling me when Stunt Unit was over. So I'd go. I'd work for Big Fish. I enjoyed being back at Comedy I Like. Then suddenly...CRASH. Nothing. I'd call Big Fish and he'd say he was booked. He acts dodgy now. He doesn't answer my texts. He still acts like he likes me, but I get no days. No love.

My real gripe here though is that there are people working for Comedy I Like, working for Big Fish, who are not as good as me. This may sound like elitism, but please know I am more than aware that I've only been on set for six months. I am more than humble. I try really hard to do a good job...the people I am talking about have worked no longer than me (in some cases less!) and are not as smart, not as knowledgeable, and not as quick to figure things out.

So what is it? What's the problem?

Is it my attitude? Am I too familiar? Is it my ambition? Am I overambitious? Is it my work ethic? Am I somehow not working hard enough? Did I miss my name on the walkie one too many times? Did I overstep a boundary?

For the love of all that is good, what did I do? What is it that makes Big Fish not want to hire me anymore?


And then there's Aunt J's Show. They've been nice about giving me a few days, and their key PA definitely noticed that I've come a long way since the last time I worked for him. But I still get the overwhelming feeling that Aunt J made him hire me (which is probably true) and that I will always have to prove that I'm not just another nepotism-milking must-hire (which is not true!).


On top of that, I have commercial work this week too. I know I shouldn't complain about any work right now, but I hate working as a PA for low budget non-union stuff. The commercial is paying very well, well enough to put up with it for three days, but still I hate it. I hate driving cube trucks, I hate doing pick-ups, I hate finding parking, and I hate when the producer tries to cut a corner by making me do ridiculous tasks and winds up spending double in the end anyway. AND they couldn't come through with petty cash for me so I'm out of my own pocket and stressing about money!


Friday night I got so upset that I cried to Columbia about it. He was so sweet, pretending that it wasn't a buzzkill for me to cry over my bruised ego and thin wallet the same day he went to a memorial for a deceased colleague. He's not much for verbal affection really, but he did a good job of comforting me.

Un Rendez-Vous à Propos

At the cafe where we met I wasn't exactly sure Columbia liked me. I'm still not wholly convinced, but I feel like that somehow makes it better. He's quiet, quieter than me even, which makes for conversations that are full of my inane prattle and punctuated by awkward silences. His thoughtful face is minimally expressive, which causes a little chill of terrible curiosity to run up and down my neck when I catch him looking at me. Every so often though I'd catch him with a look of such affection on his face that I know he enjoyed playing at being in love just as much as I did.

Though I think we're well-matched in intelligence, I find his advanced education intimidating; he's a PhD student at (guess!) Columbia University. I'm impressed that he can be so dedicated to studying just for its own sake. His passion is focused on just this one thing, where mine is divided up willy-nilly between my work, my dance, my running, my writing, my social life...

I may never see him again, and I know it. I'll be sad if I don't, but it was such a nice week that I can't possibly mind. After all, it certainly got my mind off Him, and he reminded me about something Aunt J said to me at New Year's Day brunch. She told me that it's easy to get wrapped up in your future, but the best way to be a successful PA is to work hard at the tasks assigned to you rather than to work hard at becoming an AD. Instead of worrying about the end goal it's far better to focus on where I am.

So again it comes up: focus on today. Enjoy the things I have right now. Stop worrying so much about the things I don't; they'll come in time. Columbia reminded me that it's the journey that teaches you, not the destination.

And he? He begins his semester on Tuesday. He anticipated preparing steadily for the next couple days and throwing himself into his studies for the duration. I'm quite sure that meant he probably doesn't have much, if any, time for a little out-of-work filmmaker begging him to alleviate her unemployment blues.

And I have my second half marathon coming up a week from today. And I'm booked to work on Aunt J's show on Tuesday and Wednesday. And I've no money, as in my bank account is at zero and I have no cash or checks to deposit. So there is plenty to keep me occupied this week, plenty of journey.