There is no way that this winter is ever going to end as long as this groundhog keeps seeing his shadow. I don’t see any other way out. He’s got to be stopped. And I have to stop him.
I don’t even need to remember things anymore, not when I have Google. The internet remembers things for me. Google helps me find them. However Google doesn’t once ask, “Are you sure you want to search for this?” This where trouble occurs. Sometimes you find things that you don’t want to find.
You know how sometimes it doesn’t matter how old something is, it can still feel like it just happened? It’s the same way you can watch a movie you’ve seen countless times but it still moves you. Like when the bum pops up from behind the dumpster in “Mulholland Dr.” I freak out every single time. I know it’s coming, and I try to prepare myself, but it still scares me.
To paraphrase the cowboy from “Mulholland Dr.” let’s get right down to it, shall we?
I’m sick of being a back-up. I’m never the first choice. I am like Ralph Wiggum. Lisa didn’t “choo choo choose” him. She took a valentine card given to her, crossed off her name, and gave it to Ralph to make him feel better about how no one cho cho chose him. I am a second-hand valentine card. Am I being irrational? Maybe. But looking back on my dating history, I feel like I’ve come to a horrible realization that anyone I’ve dated and/or “dated” was with me because they weren’t with who they really want to be with. If their girlfriend hadn’t broken up with them, they wouldn’t have been with me. And I wonder how many other people feel the same way about themselves. And I wonder if we’re all just dating out of desperation. Because the person we want doesn’t want us.
My friend countered with something like, “No you just haven’t met the right guy yet! And any guy who doesn’t want to be with you isn’t worth your time!” To which I say, even the right guy for me…will only be with me because he’s not with somebody else. In that, he’ll always have the ghost.
Do we ever really give up the ghost? The past is everywhere. It’s never leaving. Thanks to the internet it will always be there.
At what point do you acknowledge the past without letting it ruin your present, let alone future? You can forgive someone. It’s like I said (and yes, I am about to quote myself), “There comes a moment in every 20-something’s life when they realize, ‘Holy shit, I’m a total asshole.'” We all do stupid things when we’re young and touching people and liking it. So you can understand and you can forgive. But how do you forget if you can’t really, short of brain damage, forget?
I don’t really know how to explain what I’m feeling any better than the Groundhog Day quote posted above. Except I’m not feeling that about a groundhog. But you know?
Too early for flapjacks?
Time Of The Assassins — Charlotte Gainsbourg
Long diatribe ahead since I related a lot with this post:
First off, I want to say that I am really appreciative of you being so open and truly wearing your heart on your sleeve. It is refreshing to know that someone I admire and respect so much can be vulnerable instead of prancing around acting like everything is perfect and nothing hurts.
Secondly, I will reveal something here that I’ve never really vocalized to you: I read you because you remind me a lot of me, but me 3 years previous (which makes sense seeing that we are about 3 years apart). A lot of what I see you go through takes me back to things I have gone through, and some of it I am just “learning my way out of” even now. That is mostly why I always tell you to give things time: because that’s really the only true path to freedom which is brought upon when learning the lessons our mistakes teach us. And this is where not forgetting benefits us. Pain is meant to do one thing and one thing only: keep us from further paining ourselves. When we hurt our ankle, for example, we experience the most pain when we aggravate the injury, you find the most relief when you take the weight and the pressure off of the injury and allow it to heal. If someone were impervious to pain they might very well never heal because they constantly aggravate the injury and don’t give it the rest it needs.
Our hearts are a muscle. When muscles are torn and hurt, they grow back stronger so that they can endure more in the future and not get torn as easily. The same is true of our hearts. When our hearts hurt and are broken, they form a resilience to future pain in the way of memory and emotions tied to said memories. Your experiences are not only going to prevent you from making the same mistakes again, but they will also help you not to hurt others in the same way you have been hurt as well. Sometimes we may have to make the same mistake over and over, but we eventually get wise to what’s hurting us and stop repeating our errors (unless there is a deeper psychological issue which requires counseling or therapy — which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for some people).
At the risk of losing some cool points, I will nonetheless share this: I used to work in the record industry. I was in a highly visible job representing countless nationally-signed artists, which you’ve certainly heard of, in my city. I met tens of thousands of people, rubbed elbows with celebrities (which is nothing you’re foreign to as well), and was very well known around town. I had once been a very large man (400 pounds) and had lost a lot of weight (more than half of that) just before I got this record label gig. This caused me to be a bit of a self-absorbed egotist and somewhat of a womanizer as I guess I started getting a taste myself of what some of my friends had when I was still huge. I still had a heart, however, and it pined for someone, but her focus at some point stopped being solely on me, so she wandered where she pleased (sometimes back to me, but oftentimes not). So, I proceeded to do exactly what you have described in this entry: I chased the ghost. And, to be honest, I proceeded to make a lot of women feel exactly like you do and have before. I was guilty of making a lot of them feel second-rate, and I went into relationships and dating situations knowing I wasn’t committed and would just ride the wave while it was fun, easy-going, and required little of me.
I look back on some of the people I touched and regret so much of my behavior. In all honesty, there were some remarkable people in my life that I threw away or treated with less than my best. I have been blessed to have people in my life that were and still are some of the most extraordinary and driven people I have ever known, and they are no longer in my life to any degree. And the person that they were all playing second fiddle to isn’t either. She and I parted long ago, and now I just shake my head at my own behavior and have to take it as a melancholy reminder that everyone loses when you treat people like that, but I mostly feel regret for hurting others and look at my own disappointment as penance for my actions: I did it to myself.
I’ve mentioned my last relationship a few times with you and how much of a wreck it turned out to be, how much it deeply cut me. And, the truth is that the tables were turned on me and I was the one who was playing second fiddle to some other dude. It was as if karma had said “I know you’ve grown up and out of your ‘asshole’ phase, but I need to make sure you’ve truly learned your lesson” and then it unleashed its payment on me.
Now I am in a place where I am no longer casually dating (not my recommendation for everyone else, but it’s my personal choice), and really desire for my next relationship to be with someone who is so kick ass and shares chemistry with me so immensely that I won’t have any choice but to give them my all and see them as second to none. If that means waiting a couple of years then that is exactly what I will do. I am busy with the band I am in along with community involvement, work, and friends. I can afford to enjoy my singleness right now, I have the rest of my life to be in a long-term relationship and have something that remains with me into my old age, so why not give it a little time to cultivate into something I can devote my life to?
And I say all that to say this: You are in the midst of the emotional storm and everything is going to cut at you, like little paper-cuts nipping at you incessantly. You are going to continue to feel pain, continue to ask “what if I had ___________ differently,” look back on the good times and wish they could still be, and feel your heartstrings being tugged, little hooks tearing at you. You have to remind yourself that this pain is going to eventually be your strength; this pain is going to be a flag of memory in the future that will prevent you from getting into situations which hurt you the same way again.
But, the important thing to realize is this: if you felt like second fiddle, or have felt like you are second rate, then goddammit it’s GREAT that the asshole reared his ugly head, showed you who he really was, and got the fuck out of your life. Can you imagine feeling that way for the rest of your life with someone who is half-assed to you either in a dating situation or a relationship? Talk about REAL misery, yeah?
There’s a lot to like about you, Almie. You have a good energy; you’re charming, socially-inclined, successful (especially with your recent book success), beautiful, well-spoken, intelligent, and graciously whimsical. You have instantly-recognizable traits and quirks about you that attracts people to you, and then you have much more beyond that to show, to offer. As passionate as you are about so many things, that is going to spill into any relationship you’re in. You ARE going to attract someone, someone worth a damn, someone who is never going to make you feel less than #1 to them. And you will feel the same way towards them. You’re too great of a woman for this not to happen. In the meantime, let these lessons you painfully learn teach you what they should: wear your heart on your sleeve, but be careful about giving it away unless someone truly earns it. By all means, get to know people, date (when you are ready to, don’t do it prematurely or use it as a bandaid to cover up current hurts), go out, interact. But, the moment you start to feel less than priority #1 (in a healthy manner) to the other person, recognize where it has landed you before (where you are now), and tell yourself “I will not let this happen to me again,” and pull a Rex-Kwon-Do: snap the wrist and walk away.
I apologize for the novel I have just written. I only say these things because I know how you feel, maybe not every specific detail and how we process or react to things is different, I am sure, but I have a general sense and empathy regarding what you are going through. It sucks, but it will get better and make you stronger. One day. I promise.
sincerely, always,
d
Wow D, you sound like you really have your shit together. Good for you man! And that’s some wonderful advise there.
Phil: Can I be serious with you with you for a minute?
Rita: I don’t know. Can you?
Hello you
For a long time, I was you.
Two years ago, I went on 46 dates in a year.
And it was exhausting.
One of my friends likened it to interviewing for 46 jobs I didn’t really want yet being understandably disappointed when I didn’t get them.
And like Phil endured, it was repetitive but not GOOD repetitive, just repetitive (I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank piña coladas. At sunset, we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn’t I get that day over, and over, and over… )
Eventually I started thinking not about whether they were interested in me, whether I was the back up and what was their deal but whether *I* was interested in them and whether they were really my cup of tea.
You are incredibly interesting and (this is totally retch worthy greeting card but hold on anyway) …special. You’re a god. You’re not THE god, but you’re a god(dess).
Are these dates even worthy of you?
NB: In the end, Bill Murray gets his girl.
He gets his girl because he goes through endless repetitive horror and then finally it works out.
I think dating is like that.
One day, you’ll just wake up, and you’ll be with someone delightful and do you know what you’ll think? You’ll think, damn it, I am so awesome at dating now and I know so much about the people I’m dating and how to play the game and it’s all wasted now because I’m stopping dating because I’m with someone who I’ll stay with forever (or at least a really good while) and if we break up, *I’ll* be the pin up and everyone else will be the back up. And you’ll freaking drink to world peace.
It’s grim in the meantime, though.
Hold on tight. You’ll push through.
x
Thank you for this and for the Groundhog Day quotes, those are always helpful. xo.
I don’t think the ghosts of our past relationships ever go away, nor should they! Whether for better or worse, they teach us a lot and are formative in the people we are today. I don’t think there’s “the one” right person out there for you, I think it’s more like “the eleven”.
Just because a relationship didn’t work out doesn’t cheapen it, or make it any less substantial. Just because you’ve loved people before doesn’t (or shouldn’t) decrease you’re ability to love someone new.
I think the best you can do is hope to feel like the line from that song “Your ex-lover is dead” by Stars, and when you see them or think of them find yourself thinking “I’m not sorry I met you/I’m not sorry it’s over/I’m not sorry, there’s nothing to say.” Then move forward. You’ll fall again, and you’ll be a better person in your next relationship b/c of your past.
I know it seems ridiculous to have a stranger on the internet tell you this, but truly, you ARE worth someone’s time and effort and energy and love, but sometimes you gotta kiss a lot (A LOT) of frogs first. And that might seem like a depressing notion, but at the end of it, you will come out knowing so much more about yourself and what you want in a partner that you will realize all this is really sort of invaluable. (I know it doesn’t seem like that now, though, so I apologize for making you roll your eyes right in to the back of your head.)
When I was 16, my first real relationship was with this boy I adored. We were best friends, talked on the phone every night, and eventually added “with benefits” to our friendship. Then one day some older girl hit on him at a bar, they started dating, I got super freaked out and upset, even though I was supposed to be okay with it. I finally proclaimed my love, and he never talked to me again at his girlfriends request.
Shattered does not describe the pain I felt for the next year or so. Thankfully I went off to college, and had lots of things to distract me. But even now, almost 8 years later, I always think I see him walking down the street. And whenever I think it’s really him, I’m sixteen again and I have to literally go into spy mode, and make sure he doesn’t see me while I watch and make sure it’s not really him.
Ever since that time, I’ve thought that I just wasn’t worth being someone’s #1 girl. I was always going to take a backseat, and I felt I should be grateful I got that far. I thought I’d grow up and just have some alternative lifestyle where I had children for my gay BFF and live with a bunch of people, none of whom were truly in romantic love with me.
It’s not the experience, but the perspective it gives you and the feelings that you hold onto that really make the difference. You may feel like you’ll always be second fiddle, but someday you won’t, and it might feel scary, and take you some time to actually believe it, but it will feel so good when it happens.
I relate to this as well. I want someone who looks at me and thinks, “This is it. This is her.” I’ve had two relationships where I was always way down on the list. And I accepted it. Now, however, I am in the unique position of dating someone who has never really had a “before me” girl. Somehow, I still feel like he wouldn’t have chosen me under normal circumstances. Although, I’m not sure how less normal our circumstances could have been. I want to feel special to him and I don’t think there is anything that can actually do that. Because I think the problem lies in me. I know that in my first two relationships I was not special. I was not the one they would have chosen. I was the one that they settled for because they couldn’t have who they wanted. I don’t know that now. I don’t even think that’s true about this guy. But I still feel like there is something that he is going to want/like/love/need more than me.
1. Never too early for flapjacks.
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyuCwCN78lA
2a. Memmmmmmmories, like the corners of my mind
2b. The Way We Were is totally on Netflix’s instant-watch site, so if you feel like playing the crying game you know what to do.
3. Sometimes, I feel like saying fuck you to the Internet and auld lang syne and all that bullshit because I HATE waiting to get over things and it’s just like Babs says in The Way We Were: “Wouldn’t it be lovely if we were old? We’d have survived all this.” And wouldn’t it? Let’s pretend it’s December and everything’s better.
a) Every time you comment on my blog I geek out like a sixth grader with a (girl) crush.
b) I so, so, SO feel you on this. I went out to dinner with a big group of people the other day, one of whom happened to be my ex (things ended badly and we didn’t speak for four months after, but now we’re friendly-ish and occasionally hang out in groups) (but it’s still pretty awkward). I knew he was going to be there and hadn’t seen him in six weeks, so I had all these fantasies of being perfectly smooth/witty/skinny/indifferent/subtly evil. By some cruel trick of fate, we ended up wedged next to each other in the corner of the table. He got really drunk, and I got all BORING and NICE and barely said two words all night.
Anyway, it completely threw me how much I still lose my shit around him, no matter how over him I am (and really…I am over him). The killer is, I feel like I view this as some kind of personal fault of mine, like, what’s wrong with me that I can’t be normal around you despite the fact that you put me through severe mental distress for literally years? And even though I don’t want him anymore, there’s still that part of me that wants HIM to want ME, and wonders why I wasn’t good enough in the first place, and that segues into all the cynical and self-doubty bullshit you’re talking about. It’s a horrible game we play with ourselves.
Then I went home and drank half a bottle of wine. Which I already know you approve of.
Dear Almie/ Apocalypstick,
No guy will ever be good enough for you. Because you are the coolest woman to ever walk the Earth and I would vote for you for president on that platform alone (the Coolest Woman Ever campaign).
That being said, why should we feel threatened by the ghost? It is dead and grey and translucent. We are flesh and blood and sexy and alive. We win.
With love,
Brittany from Some Ironic Title
I think with relationships we have to be honest. No bullshit, I can’t stand the way you sneeze, I hate your voice, seriously raw, blatant, face burning honesty. There’s a time to romanticize and be sweet about it but right now in this state of confusion and retrospect, we need facts. We need to stop hanging out with assholes, who we know are flaky but who are interesting and endearing anyway. We need discipline to not fuck up and settle for convenience. If you’re worried about being second choice, then don’t let them choose. You need to be robotic and just say what you want (a fling, everlasting love, friendship, etc) and if there are freaky skeletons in his closet that will hurt your feelings, you need to make yourself vulnerable for a second and tell him how you feel before you invest any more time falling in love. You get points for being sincere. Other than this, you need to believe in a future beyond these ghosts. If you get that tight feeling in your chest just thinking about them, let them go. Think about a place where they don’t exist and transport yourself there. Be mean. Why do these assholes matter? People can say to you that some guys aren’t worth your time, but do you honestly believe that? That’s like something a magnet in a artsy sassy ladies store says. It’s tacky, and you have to delve deeper than that and ask yourself if your time is worth anything. Why are you worth it? Find the reason to love yourself. I think a golden statue of self respect should be housed inside each of us, and if anyone tries to deface it, you better get your womping stick and tell them to watch themselves. If something didn’t work out, then it just wasn’t meant to be. Accept it, smile, and move on to better things. It’s okay to be down sometimes to regroup and contemplate, but no one’s haunting anyone, and it’s all in your head.
Okay, I hope that wasn’t harsh. I really like you.
Dude, I actually had forgotten about you, because I didn’t have my Bloglovin’ set to update me on your shit!!
Conversely, why is it that I think about Mulholland Dr. all the time? Scarred for life.
Excuse me while I go delete every single Facebook album I have from high school.
This post reminds me a lot of the song “Fuck & Run” by Liz Phair, you should listen to it, it will be recreational.
So, I guess I can jus say: pain is there for a reason and you jus got to hang in there, and kick some ass.
“Ghost Inside” by the Broken Bells. This post reminds me of that song.
And dating sucks. But if it didn’t suck, we’d never learn, I guess. Hang in there, we’ll all figure it out eventually. That sweater vest-wearing, tall, skinny, perfect man is out there somewhere….