07.31.03 - 1:22 a.m.

einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

I wish i was one of those people who have one of those realizations...those all of a sudden realizations and you stop what youre doing and then after that, you make some sort of change. As is, i make no changes. I think what i really do is wait until my world changes and then i deal with it.

And then there is all sorts of stuff about living your own life instead of it living you and all the other things that its too late to think about.

I cant wait till i learn that i am the one who is responsible for how i am feeling and the last thing i need to do is let someone else make me feel. And then, maybe, thats the first thing i need to do.

Tonight, afterwards, we were standing on the street corner and there were police as there always are and i looked over to the salon, our name over the door, the windows, and i didnt want to leave. I could have stayed staring down that street forever. Something about the bugs and the sound they were making, adn something about the way everything smelled. I wanted to stay out there, but not with him. I wanted him to just disappear without having to explain that he could go inside now and i would just stand outside his house and watch the street. I must have been saving something. I sat on the stoop of the salon with my knees to my chest and smoked two cigarettes and i thought.

Usually i stew. I cant define what i am feeling so i just sit with it in my lap; an uncomfortable but familiar weight...an all-bones dog. Tonight i found disappointment.

I dont know in what. I dont know. Justin maybe, and myself, and the fact that sometimes things happen and turn us all around and then leave without leaving any names. I wanted to stay with him but only because i was hoping he would find whatever puzzle peice had loosened itself from my chest so he could fit it back in and i wouldnt feel so lonely. But he couldnt, and he wanted me to leave, he would never say it but i recognize it all the same.

And i am disappointed in myself that i am settling, but if i never settled i would only ever have that ONE thing and i dont know if thats worth it either. I fight all about living everything and living nothing but perfect; those two things trading punches with equal passion and strength inside me all the time. I dont know what to do. I do dumb things now all the time. I forget to wash the conditioner out of my hair, i stub my toes on cabinets that ive known in the same place for 25 years. I feel something like a numbness. I know i should feel a thousand things but my mind cant focus on one and so instead i feel nothing. I cant decide on what to wear. I try stuff on that i havent worn in years and then toss it on my bed. My old stand bys are too hot or too loose or too tight or theyre all wrong. I want to walk around naked because nothing else seems to be right.

Im probably a little neurotic. I wish i could be so excited and nothing else but i was prepare to go into everything new with the worst case scenario strapped to my back. I dont want to be in school with all that baggage. I dont want to be in dc thinking about justin. and i know i wont for long but thats only because someone else will come along and take all that passion and confusion like a cologne and cover himself in it and ill turn and follow him instead.

Im confused that hes not in love with me. I feel like i did something wrong and im letting all of his feelings for me build a papier mache version of myself that i crawl into everyday; a girl that suddenly looks dumb in jeans and a white tee shirt. I cant do that but i cant not. I cant not. I cant change everything at once. He would die if he knew i did that. He hates that. I dont tell him, and one after another after another i tie myself up against men who want women who are nothing like me. I know it seems like im beating myself up, but i havent mastered the art of constructing that positive life changing mantra that im supposed to offer myself after a journal entry like this.

Maybe im just happier when im sad. Or im happier when im knee deep in feelings that make me crazy. Maybe i need a xanax.

In any case, as it turns out i AM over my job, they were all right. Im sick to death of it. The stylists are fine but im tired of being the bottom rung of a ladder i care NOTHING about climbing. I wish i were just there in someways.

There is something in my heart that aches when i say that and the first thing i think of is justin. Not my family who would bleed to the death for me but dumb justin. I hate that im the kind of girl that i cant stand, sometimes. I dont want to miss him but more than that i want him to miss me. I think it must say something about me to have someone miss me like that. That i must be worth something for someone to miss me like i dream of being missed. And in the end, i let everyone construct me. i THINK i go back to myself but im not even sure. I dont know if id know me if i saw me. I just dont know. Could anything be any more terrifying than that fact? It haunts me and jabs at my ribs when im eating, riding the elevator, kissing this man who doesnt even want to be my boyfriend. I have a college degree, he cant even manage to keep his electricity on and goddamn, poor kid, he always gets the raw end of the deal when i am hating myself like this. He never asked for me to accept him. I did and then i come here and tear him apart when its my OWN issues that have me sleepless and cranky (Brad, please dont think im crazy and renege on me...its doing this that makes me functional and i know you trust that.) And maybe not even functional in a healthy maybe it just lets me keep lying to myself or keep shalacking something that really needs to be uncovered. Maybe i just talk and talk and talk around something until that something gets dizzy and then i bury it. I dont know. I dont know what the answer is and sometimes i am amazed that no one can tell how mud brown and messy i am on the inside.

Tonight i feel worse instead of better. My medicine, this journal, sometimes i shoudl try to go to sleep without it. I want to not pursue this with justin but i would miss hanging out with him. Or maybe i would miss trying to make him see what he is missing and then hating him for not seeing it. Maybe i would miss that. If i knew i could bail on him without excuses and it wouldnt hurt his feelings and without feeling like i had bailed on something that was emotionally significant/difficult, then i would. But i dont want to regret this situation and i feel like if i bailed on it and ignored him then i would have turned my back on something that was important. And apparantly im the one who has made myself solely responsible for our relationship, and honestly im afraid that if i didnt pursue him then he wouldnt pursue me, and maybe i think that would be a big mistake. But maybe i should let him be a thirty year old and make these decisions on his own. I dont know what makes me think i can make decisions for him better than he can do it for himself. I dont want to play games either but maybe i need to pull back a little and if he doesnt take the reins that i will pack my boxes and tie up my loose ends and buy him a present. Ill do all that anyway, i guess. I just need to not take all of this on my shoulders. I need to not make this all mine. He needs to come to me, not because im playing hard to get but male/female relationships are complicated and sometimes you try to take it all on yourself and fashion it into something that is palatable for you and you forget that you are only 50%. I will try to be more 50%. I hate limiting myself like that but i want him to do what he wants to do and buck up if he wants to spend time with me.

I want to let him do what he wants to do. Thats a favor really. Not me giving up, but sitting down, crossing my legs, relaxed.

I will let him do what he wants. I wont ask him to be all the things ive built out of toothpicks in my head; delicate and entirely impractical.

And i will work at going to bed on time.

And i do feel better.

Goodnight

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