you sting me

i suppose i deserve it, right
you do to me what i've done to you
i suppose it makes you feel pretty good inside
it makes me feel pretty awful

and i believe every word you say
but i don't really, not at all
maybe i just want to in the moment when you look so sincere

and you can't be straight with me either
can't look me in the eye
you've become a good liar
did i help with that?

you want me behind closed doors
but hardly acknowledge me in public
i can't even begin to understand the mentality behind that thinking
or why you think i'd be okay with that
or freely give myself to you the way you want

i can hardly be mad at you but have plenty of reasons to be
you remind me of my father
you remind me of your father
you sting me

i miss you to the moon

i miss you to the moon
and more than that
you woke me up again tonight

i miss you to the moon
even though you keep me far away
and i keep you tucked inside

i miss you to the moon
i said ask me a year later
and my answer is still the same

i miss you to the moon
"i wish it could have been easier
instead of any longer"

i miss you to the moon
dammit
i miss you to the moon

deep thoughts

so here i sit in front of the tv. i will openly admit that the idea of work made me sick today. coming off of the holiday vacation i assumed i would be a bit more ready to throw myself...all of my freakin self...back into my job so that my clients, the schools, and community partners could blow up my phone, email, and office with complaints, problems, and requests for interventions or advise.

with that said, i called in. i'm not proud of it but i don't feel guilty either. what i do feel guilty about is that i'm still in sweats...but they are my favorite sweats if that matters (Tennessee sweat pants and an Alabama sweat shirt...yeah, yeah, i know that doesn't go together in a lot of ways) and i have also been watching America's next top model for about 8 hours straight. How does that happen??? I've already seen these very shows about a million times... (it's the next to last season with arrogant Jade...seriously want to punch her in her mouth but she is quite stunning...i also have a slight crush on Nigel but i can't tell if he's gay...a common flaw of mine).

all i've been able to think about today is moving to florida, landing a fabulous well paying job, renting a house right on the beach and buying a boat that all my friends who will come visit me can enjoy. when i get into these modes i pretty much am worthless for the day. i come up with every strategy possible to make it happen soon pushing away all the sad parts about moving because then they would mess up my 24 hour obsession.

there is snow everywhere outside and it's colder than icicles everywhere i go. my friend bri loooooooves this weather. she constantly sends pictures to my phone from her fancy office window 13 stories up---Minnesota layered in white sheets of snow. the picture is then followed by a request to come visit her. maybe i should tell her that's really not the best way to allure me to visit....hey bri...that's really not the best way to allure me to visit.

i've been eating peanut butter and crackers all day, mostly because thats about all we have in our cabinets since Roscoe has figured out with his dog paws how to open our cabinets and eat everything he can get too...awesome.

i'm also ready to go over seas again. i've thought about that some today too. the funds are limited, specifically after the holidays...ooooooooooohhhhhhhhh my gosh, i'm broke...or at least more broke than i want to be, but i have to get out of here...HAVE to feel far away soon, have to see something new and experience something that moves my soul and connects me to the rest of the world/universe...my body aches for it.

Azniv moved today. it was sad. i stayed up late with her last night. she's been such a great friend and i hate HATE that she will be so far away. But she promised us a gig at "the earl" in Atlanta and we promised to drive to come hear her show. i don't like when my friends move away. it seems like that's happened a lot this past year.

i've started a new book, The Glass House. I love it.


i haven't stopped eating for about 3 weeks now...nor have i exercised. my clothes are pissed at me. everytime i step on the scales i make sure to take off anything that is very weighing just to make myself feel better...ha... i'm ready for a hair cut...maybe some bangs...Yes...i like that idea...but will my very round face and humongous cheek bones agree...

America's next top model kinda makes me feel bad about my body...wait no...it makes me want to get an eye lift actually...my poor eyes reflect a rough year... dark circles and recovering depression...i have aged a bit...i'm okay with it...mostly because i'm just glad to feel happy again. i refuse to drown this year.

i have to teach dance tonight... a few couples and then a group class...i love it so. I'm competing in February but my dance partners car has broken down and he lives far from me. the only option i have to practice is to pick him up and drop him off...yeah...that's not happening...is that terrible of me??? yeah it is, maybe i'll call him now.

i have a good feeling about 2008. i suppose i have to after last year. from the very start to the very finish it was difficult. but thus far, 3 whole days, has been quite enjoyable... i'll keep my fingers crossed and my mind/emotions in check. when i visualize 2008...like really see the numbers in my head...i see a sunshine around them...that could be because the forecast of sunny weather is in the bottom right hand side of my computer...but still...i will hold it as a promise.

...

Imagine his surprise to discover that the happiest, most confident woman he'd ever met was actually---when you got her alone---a murky hole of bottomless grief. Once again, I could not stop crying. This is when he started to retreat, and that's when I saw the other side of my passionate romantic hero---the man who was solitary as a castaway, cool to the touch, in need of more personal space than a herd of American bison.

His sudden emotional back-stepping probably would've been a catastrophe for me even under the best of circumstances, given that I am the planet's most affectionate life form (something like a cross between a golden retriever and a barnacle), but this was my very worst of circumstances. I was despondent and dependent, needing more care than an armful of premature infant triplets. His withdrawal only made me more needy, and my neediness only advance his withdrawals, until soon he was retreating under fire of my weeping pleas of, "where are you going? what happened to us?"

(Dating tip-Men LOVE this.)

The fact is, I had become addicted to him (in my defense, he had fostered this, being something of a "man-fatale"), and now that his attention was wavering, I was suffering the easily foreseeable consequences. Addiction is the hallmark of every of every infatuation based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never dared to admit that you wanted--an emotional speed ball, perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense attention, with the hungry obsession of any junkie.

When the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore---despite the fact that you KNOW he has it hidden somewhere, goddamn it, because HE USED TO GIVE IT TO YOU FOR FREE).

Next stage finds you skinny and shaking in the corner, certain only that you would sell your soul or rob you neighbors just to have THAT THING one more time. Meanwhile, the object of your adoration has now become repulsed by you. He looks at you like you are someone he has never met before, much less someone he once loved with high passion. The irony is, you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You're a pathetic mess, unrecognizable even to your own eyes.

So that's it. You have now reached infatuation's final destination---the complete and merciless devaluation of self.

The fact that I can even write calmly about this today is mighty evidence of time's healing powers.

We continued to have our bouts of fun and compatibility during the days, but at night, in his bed, I become the only survivor of a nuclear winter as he VISIBLY retreated from me, more every day, as though I were infectious....Most mornings, he would wake to find me sleeping fitfully on the floor beside his bed, huddled on a pile of bathroom towels, like a dog.

"What happened now?" he would ask---another man thoroughly exhausted by me.

...But then there emerged a pattern: I would separate from him, get my strength and confidence back, and then ( attracted as always by my strenth and confidence) his passion for me would rekindle...It HAD to work, didn't it? Reunited with fresh hopes, we'd share a few deliriously happy days together...but eventually he would retreat from me once more and I would cling to him (or I would cling to him and he would retreat---you never could figure out how it got triggered) and I'd end up destroyed all over again. And he'd end up gone.

He was catnip and kryptonite to me.

~elizabeth gilbert~
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