but you love me as i leave

pretty but dull I think

[tennsylvania]

Part 3 - The Now.

The now is this. You have a crush on a married man as a married woman. You’ve been here before. But maybe, you’ve never wanted it this badly. You want that fiery passion and spark and to have someone be so obsessed with you. The high. The goddamn, NRE high. 

I don’t know how to get this without blowing up my life. But I also know that I desperately want and would experience this again. It would have to be someone other than my husband, because it couldn’t really ever, truly be him again.

I met someone this year and it’s giving 2015 crush. Stupidly painful but so vivid. He isn’t even that inappropriate with me. It’s not like he comes by my desk at a frequent basis.

Who am I to ruin this happy workplace for him? 

But it could also be, who am I to deny him a year of passion and giddiness and general Feeling Aliveness?

He’s in his late 30s. Prime time for thinking outside of the box. But maybe he’s such a good person, such a good man. And I’m a disgusting whore. But what good man would have been so neurotic around me?

Can I just let this go? Can I just have those 2 weeks of flirting, and start flirting with strangers? Eventually I find someone who ticks all the right boxes? But what if this connection I perceive I have with P is rarer than I think?

So I’m here, stuck in a hole. And I don’t know how to get out. Because the reality of an a----- is so ugly. Could either of us handle it?  ENM is also an option... but I’m terrified I would lose J. 

[tennsylvania]

Part 2 - What do I want?

I just want to feel those butterflies again. That feeling you get when you’re about to hang out with someone for the first time.

He likes me, he doesn’t. He does like me.

I remember that Friday during the project week, we were the only two people in the room. I casually stuck around for an hour, just pretending like I was too lazy to get up and go back to my desk. 

We didn’t discuss much outside of the project. But then he started an off-topic discussion (still work-related) but it somewhat felt inappropriate for him to go off-tangent. It felt inappropriate because we were alone. And I have no idea if he was thinking the same. But I remember he kind of giggled when I asked him a stupid question. I was playing dumb, and he was playing the Smart Intelligent Man who was teaching me something. It was so hot, to me. I gave him so much eye contact (obviously without making it weird). I was flirting with someone. That’s what I was doing. 

I remember leaving home early that day and listening to all the giddy pop songs.

Truthfully, I got very little done that week. The sexual tension was so distracting.

But it’s so fucking hot to be desperately wanted by someone. J will never feel those feelings for me again. 

It was when I got a call during a workshop and he was paying attention to my person, and asked me who it was.

It was when he asked me to change “N” to “&”, and my mind went blank, as I couldn’t calculate what the fuck “andpersand” meant.

It was when he was uttering to himself that nobody had any idea how hard I was working, saying this aloud, in front of me. Internally I was like “hey, it’s just a project. I’m fine”. Why was he so comfortable sharing his inner monologue? Is/was he like this with everyone? Why hasn’t anyone else done this with me? Am I going crazy?

What I have for J started off so intense and strong. And I absolutely still have affection for him. But we come home. He goes on his phone. He hates the weekends. He plays video games. I feel disconnected. He’s craving for an escape as well. Not from each other, but from the monotony of it all. 

P would put his life at risk for me, he wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t. Who would?

[tennsylvania]

Part 1 - Where I have been in a little while.

I’m 28. Turning the bend on 30. 

I went on a family vacation in March. It was a baptism. I was essentially dreading the trip leading up to it. I just tend to cloak upcoming things that potentially cause me anxiety with shimmer of potential disappoint, so I don’t actually get disappointed. Sometimes it works. This time, for whatever reason, nothing really triggered my anxiety. If anything, it was an absolutely rejuvenating trip. I flew out on a Thursday and came back on a Wednesday, right to work. I felt quite proud of myself, because my anxiety is always sort of lurking in the back of my mind.

From March to mid-May, I felt content. The days drained down the sink and I was just coasting. 

I have had bouts of limerence before. But it’s never been this... present.

I was tasked to work on a 2 week intensive project with people outside of my department. One of them was P. I had met P before in some reoccurring update meetings. Insert thought: It’s not that interesting, but I often think about the time before... before I knew him. How I never thought about him. How a radar for him in my mind didn’t exist. And now it does and I wonder when it will go away.

Anyway, I nominated P to be the lead. In our previous meetings, he had expressed interest in leading one of these projects. I guess, like most of the things in life that tend to rock me in some capacity, it was all of my own devising. I’m a bit of a mastermind.

The first day or two, I simply, hmm, he’s kind of tall. And has a good head of hair. But more importantly, he was smart. There was an air of domineerance to him. Maybe it is all imaginary, but it stuck with me. Maybe it’s how he gave security the hardest time as he was trying to get thru. Maybe it was his mannerisms. I honestly don’t know.

The first meeting was when it really started. We presented our project scope with the stakeholders. I was sort of guiding him and his co-lead, but I vividly remember one of the stakeholders questioning us on something. I started somewhat confidently responding to his question, and I looked at P, the lead, for some reassurance, and he just immediately looked down at his lap. I then further elaborated and answered the question, satisfying the stakeholder. 

I was so stunned. I mean, OK OK, breaking eye contact can mean a million different things. Other men don’t often break eye contact with me, with maybe exception of another coworker... Maybe he was on drugs. Maybe he was tired. He was nervous.. this engineer who clearly knows a thing or two about a thing or two. Why the fuck would he be? 

And then the thought popped into my head.. what if he finds me attractive?

I’m a short, skinny brunette with long hair and doe-eye brown eyes. I guess, of course he would be? 

But more importantly, who cares if he finds me attractive? It’s such an un-interesting thought... 

Anyway, I went home that day and started daydreaming about him. It was intense. I was at a game night and all I could think about was him, what if he was here, sitting next to me, instead of J. 

[tennsylvania]

On eroticism and reminiscing

I just watched the movie Secretary (2002) with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and geez, that movie really nailed eroticism. 

I can’t help but have a flashback to the first time I felt eroticism in the flesh. I was freaking fourteen years old (I don’t know how to feel about THAT), and I was at my moving away sleepover. My best friends at the time invited their 2 best guy friends. I remember the whole thing being exhilarating, partly because my friend lived in a mansion, but also because boys were now in our party. 

The first hour was awkward. Or maybe it was just the first 15 min. I remember being drawn to Sebastian the most though. He made a joke, and I was the only one who sincerely laughed at it. 

We moved the party to the den, and I took a seat next to him on the couch. I remember thinking it would be pretty daring to sit right next to him, but I was feeling forward. I didn’t want Kaley to sit next to him. I wanted him for myself.

So we took photos, talked about Ke$ha, talked about movies, and I remember feeling very confident in his presence. I guess I was a bit awkward, but still charming at that age. I was saying words and making people laugh. 

Eventually it was just me and Sebastian on the couch. He was sitting with his two feet planted on the ground to my right. I was curled up on the couch, sort of sitting on my legs and I noticed that my knees were in contact with his sides, perpendicularly. 

He has his hand on his thigh, as one would. Out of nowhere, he moves over his hand closer to my knees, and starts to gently rub my knees repeatedly with his thumb. Tracing a circular pattern on them. He continued conversations with others, but there he kept his hand. We didn’t acknowledge it. 

Completely stunned, I had encountered the rush that all those pop songs euphemized. I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want to have sex, then, of course. But he did something that completely floored me. I think he knew it too.

I never saw him in person again. Over the course of 7 years, he’d contact me once out of the year to say hello. Maybe for a 2 week period when I was 16, the flirt-texting was a bit more forceful. He now has a gorgeous girlfriend, lives that THC enlightened life, and I think of him fondly. 

Returning to the Secretary, that movie was delicious. The ending reminded me why I’m with my current boyfriend, who has similar sensibilities. It made me reminisce our first, intense sex marathon after weeks of teasing.

[tennsylvania]

i know i wrote a lot in this blog when i was a miserable teen. that version of me exists only in the early posts of this blog. the artifacts are here, just scroll back.

i am very happy with my life now. it’s as if, why was i in all that pain in 2015?  everything is resolved and clean. if only my younger self knew what was to come.

[tennsylvania]

sometimes I feel like my brain is filled with nothing. First day ever of playing an improv game, and I could feel myself standing at the edge of an abyss of nothingness that was terrifying when I was supposed to build on to a continuing bit. Of course, I can write about it. But I want to cure that nothingness. I want to be able to speak off of the top of my head. I want to be emotive and likable. The first half of the class, I was mildly in my head. I was good at coming up with silly suggestions, but bad at building off of others. Typical for a new improviser, I guess. I’m just glad I was able to experience it. I can go to as many classes and workshops and suck terribly until something sticks, right? I’m not sure whether I’ll ever be chosen for a team or project, or if this will turn into a legitimate, fulfilling hobby, but I do know this. I am totally fascinated and enthralled by the art of improv. Taking this class will be therapeutic for my social anxiety. Maybe I will find out whether I am truly clever, or just think I am. 

[tennsylvania]

sometimes I feel like my brain is filled with nothing. First day ever of playing an improv game, and I could feel myself standing at the edge of an abyss of nothingness that was terrifying when I was supposed to build on to a continuing bit. Of course, I can write about it. But I want to cure that nothingness. I want to be able to speak off of the top of my head. I want to be emotive and likable. The first half of the class, I was mildly in my head. I was good at coming up with silly suggestions, but bad at building off of others. Typical for a new improviser, I guess. I’m just glad I was able to experience it. I can go to as many classes and workshops and suck terribly until something sticks, right? I’m not sure whether I’ll ever be chosen for a team or project, or if this will turn into a legitimate, fulfilling hobby, but I do know this. I am totally fascinated and enthralled by the art of improv. Taking this class will be therapeutic for my social anxiety. Maybe I will find out whether I am truly clever, or just think I am. 

[tennsylvania]

I’m a melancholic, or maybe I just like to remember the initial blinding

I love having you in my house, even though I know it’s OUR own house. And you’re not in Laus Am I the only one who thinks the distance is fun? Doesn’t mean I’m wrong   Like when I didn’t know who you were,  Like when the explosion had yet to occur, Like when you challenge me, as if I’m somebody you’ve yet to have seen

[limitlessplaylist]

Visit Original Link

I’m not sorry I met you I’m not sorry it’s over I’m not sorry there’s nothing to say

[tennsylvania]

I ran into someone I had a brief, sexual, emotional, one-sided, and whimsical relationship with today. I was with my lovely new boyfriend. At first it was like, “For fucks sake!!!!!! How does this happen? My mind constantly worries about running into this person, and apparently, my mind has a strange, and CORRECT intuition!” Small campus, I guess. But the truth is, I had been anticipating this event forever. The world is small, you learn this at the age of 21.

But it was that moment. That moment when I was inadvertently showing off my hot new boyfriend in the most natural way to a guy who wanted nothing to do with me. How could someone I had wanted, want NOTHING to do with me!? How dare they! You know, that ego thing. 

Anyway, they were with their new person, and I was with mine. And then, I suddenly felt sad because all of this meant time was passing. I was growing up. How did these 2 years pass by so fast? 

Mostly, it was the realization and reminder that was then isn’t now. We are both completely different people, despite being the same persons who did those things in the past. Isn’t that just the strangest thing?

This song captures this unidentifiable experience, when you see that person who affected you in your wide-eyed youth, when things were shiny and new. All the weirdness, bitterness, nostalgia, happiness, and relief is this song. Thank you, Stars, for this wonderful piece.

[tennsylvania]

But like, if I were like on the outside looking in, I would totally hate myself. Like, how DARE she have a super sexy AND smart boyfriend??? 

I can only imagine what the boys who were playing Lite Dating Me must have felt like when the only notification they received of me not being so single and actually being in a Official relationship with a Real Person must have felt like. 

I mean, I know I’m not the only fish in the sea. But I’ve been that girl. I’ve been the girl on the other-side, getting the status of her relationship thru a notification of Facebook. It’s just so strange that I did something that I had been done to before, knowing what a sucky feeling it must be. Not only that, but that I’m even being proudly coveted. By a 2 in 1 package. An actual hottie. Chris Pratt’s doppelganger.

Even my bff Wyatt expressed a simpatico feeling in the beginning. I remember Wyatt being like, “OMG. Wait you actually have a boyfriend?? Congrats!! Like I thought this would never happen for you!!!!” kind of deal. And it was true.

No, it wasn’t true that I would never be in a relationship or find someone who was good for me.

It was true that that was what I projected. My lonely shit. And that I somehow changed my projection. I changed, voluntarily or not, to suddenly not care about this stuff. And then it all happened, very wonderfully. Maybe it isn’t very unique, finding a good relationship. But it’s interesting that those around me were as surprised as I was. It was the Taylor Swift desperation that became the conception of this vision. If everyone knew I was a mess because I said so, then I was a mess.

[tennsylvania]

drunk

My eyes were drooling over this view. Not with tears. I was so happy. This view of the warmth, of the menu of draft beers doodled all over the chalk wall, of your plaid shirt and 5 o’clock shadow, how the room looked so much brighter than it actually was. This weird effect, where someone turns into a lightbulb and emits light and light only to me, has only happened once in my life before. And there it was, again. Your poor, sober friend was begrudgingly soaking up our sloshy stupor as he slurped his soup, but we both didn’t care. You told me how this was a pinnacle moment of happiness for you and you just had to exclaim it, a night out with your best friend and a girl. That girl is me. You begin to tell me about some Riemann theory that I’m barely grasping on to as the alcohol starts to infiltrate my veins, with a heavier pace, but this monkey bar of conversation was fun, and you kept talking, so excited about your research, and you genuinely believed I understood it (I didn’t), and then you said you believed I could understand it (I liked that you thought this). You kept me up all night to make sure I was okay, since I overstepped my bounds and overestimated myself with a few too many drinks, stupid liquid confidence. I know one of these days I’m going to say the wrong thing or bore the shit out of you or be totally transparent. But it has only been a week and I feel like we’ve reached the Earth’s atmosphere so ridiculously fast, much faster than either one of us predicted, and I really don’t want to come down. Not yet.

[tennsylvania]

All this time, I thought I would end up with someone as lighthearted as me. A bit facetious. There is a sense of freedom of being someone, and realizing the way you talk, and the way they are with you, is so superficial. It’s ridiculously freeing. Maybe because, subconsciously I am not as lighthearted as I think I am. And then, you meet someone, and things aren’t lighthearted at all. 

It just absolutely terrifies me that I may have found A One within the span of a week. It’s been a literal week, and I already know about his darkest moments. He’s dark. He’s so deliciously dark, but this is the first day in 5 days where I’ve been alone with myself and I’m scatterbrained.  I could go back to a lifestyle of me wishing, wishing, waiting, wishing, and explore more personalities. 

I just don’t think I’m gonna find someone like him.

[tennsylvania]

that sheer panic I get when I see Diane from Bojack Horseman develop sheer panic over the fact that Mr. Peanutbutter loves her and she loves him but they don’t understand each other at all and then think hey, I am living thru this too

yep

[istillwriteincursive]

Meet Hedon-ist.

I want his dark and musky voice to overpower me as he whispers from behind, near my earlobes, long and low, things he’s been wanting to say to me for a long time, as he pushes me against a counter. 

I mean, this guy won’t be the one. God, hopefully not. He probably thinks I’m a dumb-shit, I’m probably not intellectual enough for him, and eh, I’m sure I’ll get bored of him. He isn’t funny. He wears Abercrombie, too. But here I am, wanting him, in the best and most empowering way. Emotions, locked. Locked locked locked away!!!!! I don’t want marriage. Unless it’s with a guy who’s tall and wears fancy shoes to the grocer and constantly riddles me. I want to marry an escape. I want to marry a guy who can dance and do long and short form improv with.

It sounds OH SO dramatic, but I fell in love once. Saying it out loud is dumb. But trust me, it was fucking magical. The best night of my life. Didn’t even involve sex. I stayed up too late with a fellow and he did not touch me but he may as well have cut me open and see my insides, as I reached a level of intimacy that was more intimate than “getting intimate”. And then he broke me. Nobody likes black holes. Sometimes I wonder if I’m turning into one.  Not that it matters, because all I want is someone intense, someone who doesn’t make me think of the past or anything at all, someone someone someone

[tennsylvania]

I like the way that when I’m with him, I feel like I am with my family. Warm, safe, familiar, a place where I can breathe and stretch my wings. I think that’s when I realized that he wasn’t going to go away. We were sitting on a couch, on his porch watching a storm, not saying anything, like an old married couple who had done so numerous times and I thought to myself “How did I get here? How was this all so easy?”. And it is all so easy. I am still terrified about telling him that we have never endured something difficult together, and I kind of long for that. For the drama, the anxiety, even though it’s’ irrational. I want to paint the town red, and go on adventures with him. Being an old married couple is nice, don’t get me wrong, but I have terrible wanderlust and I think he could be the one to accompany me. I also want to tell him about the funny hell I experienced weeks before I met him, the past break-ups and all. The emotional intimacy can be fixed, I hope. I remember when I first met him, it was like looking in a mirror. We were in a shitty Chinese restaurant and we could barely say a word, we just kept smiling. It wasn’t a big production piece, it didn’t shake up my life, per se, it was more like a good bowl of ice cream you have on a Sunday afternoon. It is so strange, the rarity of finding someone you are 100% comfortable with. It is so comfortable with him. 

[tennsylvania]

ehh I’m over the Bachelorette this season, she let go of two of the most emotionally intelligent men this week, DEREK AND WELLS, R U SRS? Almost every dude left makes me wanna explode when they start talking, they’re all monotone (except Jordan) and not to mention Jojo is boring which is probably why she’s picking all these bozos ugh bye 

[tennsylvania]

omg I’m so glad I discovered Thomas Middleditch, totally in love with him. Not even in just like sexual-marry-me kinda way but like, he is probably my 47th soulmate. His improv and comedic skills are amazing and GOD I love how emotionally intelligent and intuitive he comes across. A total INFP. A 10/10, all of my hats off to him *heart eyes*