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greenstormDear people who felt, when I was writing about the breakup time with Michael, that you would have liked to see your name here more often,
It's pretty clear at this point that I use school and work as excuses, as reasons to explain why I can't do enough of what you want me to for you to be satisfied with me. It's something I can point to and say see, here, the other things that I'm spending my time on are worthwhile too so it's not my fault.
When work and school disappear, or even just school, then something happens. The excuses are gone. I do the things that I want to do, and it becomes clear that those things are not what you want me to be doing.
You want me to be spending more time with you. You know how I deal with you? By destroying your expectations.
I am not reliable. I cannot serve in anyone's life as their sole source of comfort, of love, of snuggles, of venting, of conversation, of anything at all. If you need something so badly that you will collapse into a sucking black hole of misery if you don't get it, do not look to get it from me. Even if I would ordinarily give it to you gladly, even if I would ordinarily be completely unburdened through this transaction, if I suspect you are leaning wholeheartedly on me in some regard I will drop your heart.
This is because I can't stand your disappointed expectations. When it becomes clear that, more often than not, you are disappointed rather than happy with our interactions, those interactions will cease.
It happens to everyone. God knows, it's happened to my own damn self, but I've spent long enough at this that I know what to ask for from myself.
You see, the breaking is an alchemical process. I stop trying to give you what you want, you fall, you break. The world ends for a little bit, then it resumes. If there was something between us that meant more than the leaning, you will learn to trust me to do the things I do for people: I love people, like crazy. I am there to hold you through the midnight crazy voices. I make a good tea partner, and I'm good to talk with. We can take walks through the back doors of your mind or of mine. I see beauty in you, and I take joy in your flight across the world.
You will have learned, through bitter experience, not to trust me where I cannot be trusted: I am not consistent. I do not emotionally distance well. I do not reliably see the dark or the light side of something as you need. And I am never a replacement for your own sense of self-worth, for your ability to find love in other people in the world, for parents or siblings, for financial support or your right hand in bed or your right and need to comfort yourself and walk yourself through your own difficulties and griefs.
Michael never loved me in the first place. There was no freighting of expectations on our time together; he obviously didn't need me. Can you imagine how much I needed that? Can you imagine how much I need to feel people close sometimes without knowing that they'll think I failed them, if not right that second, then within a day or two? Can you believe I could write about him without that act disappointing him because of the way it was phrased, because it did or didn't include the right topics, because there was or wasn't enough of a tone or a particular subject or connection?
Maybe you and I can make something together out of what happens after I break your expectations or maybe we can't, but it'll be all that's left. It's what you get.
Deal.
It's pretty clear at this point that I use school and work as excuses, as reasons to explain why I can't do enough of what you want me to for you to be satisfied with me. It's something I can point to and say see, here, the other things that I'm spending my time on are worthwhile too so it's not my fault.
When work and school disappear, or even just school, then something happens. The excuses are gone. I do the things that I want to do, and it becomes clear that those things are not what you want me to be doing.
You want me to be spending more time with you. You know how I deal with you? By destroying your expectations.
I am not reliable. I cannot serve in anyone's life as their sole source of comfort, of love, of snuggles, of venting, of conversation, of anything at all. If you need something so badly that you will collapse into a sucking black hole of misery if you don't get it, do not look to get it from me. Even if I would ordinarily give it to you gladly, even if I would ordinarily be completely unburdened through this transaction, if I suspect you are leaning wholeheartedly on me in some regard I will drop your heart.
This is because I can't stand your disappointed expectations. When it becomes clear that, more often than not, you are disappointed rather than happy with our interactions, those interactions will cease.
It happens to everyone. God knows, it's happened to my own damn self, but I've spent long enough at this that I know what to ask for from myself.
You see, the breaking is an alchemical process. I stop trying to give you what you want, you fall, you break. The world ends for a little bit, then it resumes. If there was something between us that meant more than the leaning, you will learn to trust me to do the things I do for people: I love people, like crazy. I am there to hold you through the midnight crazy voices. I make a good tea partner, and I'm good to talk with. We can take walks through the back doors of your mind or of mine. I see beauty in you, and I take joy in your flight across the world.
You will have learned, through bitter experience, not to trust me where I cannot be trusted: I am not consistent. I do not emotionally distance well. I do not reliably see the dark or the light side of something as you need. And I am never a replacement for your own sense of self-worth, for your ability to find love in other people in the world, for parents or siblings, for financial support or your right hand in bed or your right and need to comfort yourself and walk yourself through your own difficulties and griefs.
Michael never loved me in the first place. There was no freighting of expectations on our time together; he obviously didn't need me. Can you imagine how much I needed that? Can you imagine how much I need to feel people close sometimes without knowing that they'll think I failed them, if not right that second, then within a day or two? Can you believe I could write about him without that act disappointing him because of the way it was phrased, because it did or didn't include the right topics, because there was or wasn't enough of a tone or a particular subject or connection?
Maybe you and I can make something together out of what happens after I break your expectations or maybe we can't, but it'll be all that's left. It's what you get.
Deal.
