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05.22.07 - 11:56 p.m. What is there to say? Long phone conversation with mom has me relieved and feeling so much safer now that we are back on the same page. I am thankful that my family is talking. Dan has been in a weird mood for the past few weeks and it leaves me feeling anxious. Mom and i talked much about this: she doesnt like that were sleeping together (though we dont talk about it) and sometimes when i think about it i dont like it either. I know that i have used dan as a form of procrastination ever since i met him eight months ago. I didnt want to start on my life because i knew it was going to be hard--i mean, i put off the smallest and biggest of things for months with the exact same equinimity. i feel like things are changing. Going home gave me some real clarity. Talking to mom. I have used dan as procrastination, and the only way to realize what he means to me is to start making my own life. I need to unpack my suitcase, clean my room--there is so much that i dont get done because im with him and its wearing me out and i know that im taking it out on him and frankly im just tired of thinking of it. I need my own life back--i think working and chipping away at my own path is the thing that will keep me from being so crazy obsessed with him because right now hes getting all the energy that should go toward writing and looking at teaching jobs and generally being a content 27 year old. 28 on saturday. though ive been saying all of this for years. Every journal since college has lamented the same thing: loss of self. Its hard to try and get it back--heres what pierre wrote: Pierre: if you don't toughen up a little - soon - you're not going to get over your insecurities, realize EVERYONE has them, and you're not going to be able to break out of the self-pity and, possibly, the self-loathing, and you're DEFINITELY not going to be able to persue any relationship the way that you would want to, where both consenting parties are repectful to each other and not jealous and suspicious all the time Of course, this from the man i slept with twice before he got married. I do have to posit myself somewhere. I have to plant myself somewhere. But the thing is, my poor dan, he is trying. Tomorrow he is having lunch with his friend from the English Department to see if he can get me in. I think, in his mind, he wants a life that looks like this: we both work at the same university (the sort of hipster fantasy of the academic minded) come home to our small apartment, talk about our students, grade some papers, make dinner, watch law and order, have good sex and fall asleep. But i still have some desire to walk home from work at night to my small and lonesome apartment, get stoned, watch the history channel, take a long bath, talk to god, meditate and go to bed. My life looks like this: Full time teaching gig with benefits, small sexy cold old house with a good old dog on the porch. I never picture anyone else in these thoughts except for maybe a man who drives past every now and then in a pick up truck. Hold on, is that right? I always think of myself as being so needy, but when i close my eyes and when i am most happy, i am by myself. When i am with dan i am either anxious or elated. I dont know what a normal life with him feels like. Lately we have fallen into these long, not uncomfortable silences with each other, then in the next moment, we are feeding off of each others anxieties, and in the next moment he is kissing the inside of my wrist and were trying to figure out whether BD Wong is right in his psychological interpretations of the serial rapist. The WORST part of all of this is that if he left me right now i really dont see how i would make it and this is the worst feeling of all. The bad part about life is that we dont die when we feel like we need to, that is the great joke: we have no control. And thats the thing with dan, i think. I feel so out of control because im not doing anything except being with him so he holds on his shoulders my financial situation, my career, my family, my friends, i expect him to say the right collection of things to make everything better. All of it. And thats what freaks me out so much about his current behaviour--while i realize i need a life outside of him, im not quite ready to admit it and im not quite ready to take on the responsibility. But i feel like it could tip at any moment. At any moment, he could dump me and where would i be? And thats the good and terrible part. I would be exactly where i am. Nothing would change for me. I would go to the same jobs, do the same things, eat the same food, worry about the same things. It just seems like people deal with things better than i do. Or they deal with less of it than i do. Its like...hmm...well, whereas most people deal with the tip of the iceburg, the visible part, i feel like i swallow the whole thing at once. And i feel like if i can just tell one person the depth of how much i am feeling, that it will be better. But its like speaking to someone who doesnt know the language. God, i have to start writing again, my metaphors are getting so lame. And im pretty sure this Birth Control has something to do with it, but i cant make anyone believe that either, which makes me not believe it myself. But there are parts of me that do love dan. You know, the thing is, i have been putting SO much time into trying to figure out how i feel about dan, that ive had time for nothing else. Maybe ill stop wondering how i feel about dan. People say, you know, just trust him, but its not like that. If i trust him and he leaves me, i am in the kind of position where i dont even want to imagine the repercussions, so maybe instead of wondering how i feel about him, i should start trying to make myself. Make myself feel better. I feel better right now. I feel better knowing i can take a bath and not have sex and just lay down in my bed. Though i miss his presence because its like 3/4 of me being gone, the 1/4 of me that is still around is shaky and scared, but its here. Its here. Its here. Im here. If dan and i are ever going to work, its only going to happen if I become an "I", and not merely a part of him. "Im in love with you" he tells me, and sometimes i believe him. And whats it matter if he does? Or if he believes it? Or if i believe him? Or if he really is still talking to katie from oregon? There are people everywhere in love with people everywhere. And, you know, i got all torn up about joel, remember? i didnt know WHAT to do, and then i couldnt do anything else but end it, and now hes in thailand and its 11:30 am tomorrow and were chatting about streetside vendors and i feel nothing at all. im tired � 
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