I've also found myself having nostalgic feelings about finding that one true love the way I thought it would happen. Paul and I didn't happen that way. He is much too... something for that. Unromantic, hardened, I'm not sure how to put it. And I've felt much too bad about myself the whole time I've known him, and been dealing with a lot of residual crap from my last relationship. It's been a true love connection, and a romantic connection, but mostly a serious attachment. There hasn't been a lot of romance, a lot of me feeling like Paul felt romantically about me. Because he doesn't really, not the way I define romantic. There's been no starry-eyed stuff. I mean, what there is is better, I think. It hasn't come easy, by far. I know that we have the kind of relationship that lasts fifty years.
But I am getting nervous. Paul quit smoking a couple of days ago and has been being a real pain in the ass since then. It also coincided with the first day I've really sort of let go of these food issues. That's one way that I'm really feeling like my old self again. Hard to explain, but some of that heaviness from the last five years left me. It's weird timing.
I'm not sure why, but I'm feeling worried that Paul is going to leave me, which is probably the worst thing I can imagine happening. I don't know why I feel that way, maybe a weird twisting of how I'm feeling and projecting it on to him, I don't know. He just told me, "I love you, I'll always love you, I'll never leave you," and yet I still don't believe it. I wonder sometimes if I secretly have doubts. We talk about getting married and agree that it's a matter of accomplishing x, y, and z first, but I wonder. I wonder if he knows what he's doing. I wonder if you can really ever know another person. I wonder if I'm going to hear him tell me he doesn't want any of this stuff anymore, and sit in that moment thinking "I knew it, I knew this wasn't right." I feel crazy to think that. At the same time I know that if that were to happen, I might very well stay single permanently. This is the kind of relationship that doesn't happen twice and is so big and all-consuming that I think if it leaves you, it sort of takes all that desire to be in a relationship with it.
There is some conflict and I react poorly to it because of the conditioning of the last 5 years. It's not good, but it's the way I am now. It sucks. But I'm so sensitive to being mistreated that I'm just a live wire. I don't know what is going on with Paul; he's being an asshole right now, and I hope it's because of the smoking. He makes me feel insecure, and then makes me feel like a jerk for feeling insecure. It's hard to stay mad because it's obvious how much he cares for me, but at the same time, having a conflictual relationship, although granted it's about 1% as conflictual as my last one... I'm just so over it. I just want some peace and respect. Paul thinks I am a genius and tells me so all the time, but he also laughs at my ambitions. He didn't used to do that. It hurts.
I imagine the changes that I will make and what I will be like on the other side. I worry that Paul and I will not be a match then. I don't know why. Maybe because he loves me the way I am now, even if he is a dick about things. I fear that, but now it's too late, enough has already shifted internally that I know there is no going back and that the changes will occur. I am afraid it will tear Paul and me apart. I am afraid that we're not just bickering and that we are separating. I'm freaking out, obviously, because it's only been two days like this. But it feels so awful, I can't help it. When he is not acting like himself, I feel alone again.
© beotch at
11:58 p.m.
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