LJ Idol Week Three - I want you so much but I hate your guts.
It's the end of March, Alex and I are in his van filled with our worldly possessions plus one bunny rabbit and we are driving towards what will be my last season at the Lodge. I am feeling unsettled, disconnected. This is our last day of being monogamous, after today everything will be different. I can't help but feel a certain amount of melodrama about this, and feel like this trip is our literal and figurative drive towards the biggest transition of our relationship.
I've had three months to prepare, and I sometimes even believe that I'm ready for this. I've read all the literature, I've done all the crying, I feel like I've had several epiphanies and filled several journals with my fears, hopes, worries, desires, I even feel like I want it for myself. I hope all of the crying and worrying I've done will serve to be helpful when things do happen - like I'm already putting in the emotional time and things are bound to be much worse in my head than they are in real life. I don't know if that's how it works but I would really love it if it was.
We've discussed that we mostly plan to use the Lodge as our transitionary phase as we settle in to our new lifestyle of guilt-free flirtation and fostering relationships without boundaries. I expect it will be very touch-and-go as we establish these connections outside of our relationship. I just wish I could stop thinking about a few weekends ago when Alex went away and flirted with girls and put their numbers in his phone and didn't tell any of them he had a girlfriend.
I notice my hands are shaking, I clasp them tightly. Alex looks over and gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. I attempt to smile back. "I'm fine," I say, unconvinced.
I return to my thoughts. I think one theory I have resigned myself to is my near certainty that Alex is going to have more immediate success at the Lodge than I will. He told me that he has doubts about how much jealousy he anticipates feeling. I don't know why, but I feel hurt by this speculation. I suppose its a jumble of ideations: he won't have to try as hard to distract himself from jealousy, he doesn't worry about losing me, he doesn't care as much.
I'm jealous that all of this seems so easy for him, and how eager I perceive him to be about seeking connections with other women when I feel anxious and not even nearly as confident that I'll find partners and not feel jealousy.
I try not to let Jealousy take over my entire brain and define everything I do. I'm constantly battling to own it and still losing more than I'm winning. I hate it, I hate myself for it. Alex tells me he feels certain that something will happen between him and one of his best friends, which in turn leads me to fixate on things and people Alex might do or become involved with because I am deficient in some way or another and I can't think like this. It's toxic and it leads me right to the edge of the downward spiral that ends with a solo drunken pity party and all of the loneliness I ever felt comes back so vividly and I laugh at the idea that anyone could ever love me, let alone multiple people, and I can't go back there. I want to jump out of the car, out of my skin, out of all of this.
I try to steady myself, shift my thoughts to the staff accommodation we'll be living in this year. They call it the Eyrie, it's at the highest point of the property in the middle of the woods. It's private, lush, filled with daylight and comfort and will feel immediately like home. It will be my safe space, the space just for the two of us, our castle in the clouds. I'm grateful for the time we will get to spend away from one another when he returns to the mainland shortly after helping me and our things get settled. At night I'll be able to see the stars from the skylight above my bed, unfettered by light pollution. I'll be the batty young Rapunzel with my floppy-eared friend, high up in my tower. Safe.
[image descriptions: several shots showing a small cabin-like house in the middle of the woods, a black and white lop eared rabbit cameos in a few. The last image is the view from the Eyrie into the provincial park with mountains looming in the distance.]
I've had three months to prepare, and I sometimes even believe that I'm ready for this. I've read all the literature, I've done all the crying, I feel like I've had several epiphanies and filled several journals with my fears, hopes, worries, desires, I even feel like I want it for myself. I hope all of the crying and worrying I've done will serve to be helpful when things do happen - like I'm already putting in the emotional time and things are bound to be much worse in my head than they are in real life. I don't know if that's how it works but I would really love it if it was.
We've discussed that we mostly plan to use the Lodge as our transitionary phase as we settle in to our new lifestyle of guilt-free flirtation and fostering relationships without boundaries. I expect it will be very touch-and-go as we establish these connections outside of our relationship. I just wish I could stop thinking about a few weekends ago when Alex went away and flirted with girls and put their numbers in his phone and didn't tell any of them he had a girlfriend.
I notice my hands are shaking, I clasp them tightly. Alex looks over and gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. I attempt to smile back. "I'm fine," I say, unconvinced.
I return to my thoughts. I think one theory I have resigned myself to is my near certainty that Alex is going to have more immediate success at the Lodge than I will. He told me that he has doubts about how much jealousy he anticipates feeling. I don't know why, but I feel hurt by this speculation. I suppose its a jumble of ideations: he won't have to try as hard to distract himself from jealousy, he doesn't worry about losing me, he doesn't care as much.
I'm jealous that all of this seems so easy for him, and how eager I perceive him to be about seeking connections with other women when I feel anxious and not even nearly as confident that I'll find partners and not feel jealousy.
I try not to let Jealousy take over my entire brain and define everything I do. I'm constantly battling to own it and still losing more than I'm winning. I hate it, I hate myself for it. Alex tells me he feels certain that something will happen between him and one of his best friends, which in turn leads me to fixate on things and people Alex might do or become involved with because I am deficient in some way or another and I can't think like this. It's toxic and it leads me right to the edge of the downward spiral that ends with a solo drunken pity party and all of the loneliness I ever felt comes back so vividly and I laugh at the idea that anyone could ever love me, let alone multiple people, and I can't go back there. I want to jump out of the car, out of my skin, out of all of this.
I try to steady myself, shift my thoughts to the staff accommodation we'll be living in this year. They call it the Eyrie, it's at the highest point of the property in the middle of the woods. It's private, lush, filled with daylight and comfort and will feel immediately like home. It will be my safe space, the space just for the two of us, our castle in the clouds. I'm grateful for the time we will get to spend away from one another when he returns to the mainland shortly after helping me and our things get settled. At night I'll be able to see the stars from the skylight above my bed, unfettered by light pollution. I'll be the batty young Rapunzel with my floppy-eared friend, high up in my tower. Safe.
[image descriptions: several shots showing a small cabin-like house in the middle of the woods, a black and white lop eared rabbit cameos in a few. The last image is the view from the Eyrie into the provincial park with mountains looming in the distance.]