Back to Sleeplessness

It's a calming feeling really. It's familiar and true and wraps around me the way that depression can: where I wear it like a blanket and like I've never been safe or true without these feelings. I'm not saying I'm depressed, I'm not. But I'm not sleeping and that confusion dazy haze makes all the music sound like sad music. All the words don't quite wrap around my tongue or push out of my mouth at the same time. And, the most common of it all, of this being alone again and not sleeping, is the calm in not wondering every once in a while, but believing for sure that none of my friends like me. I don't know why I call myself an asshole outloud when I'm just sitting around at home on my own, or why I let so many of them have so much to do with pressuring me into being alone, but I did, and now I'm back. I'm free as well. No longer annoyed and ignored in the room with her, just alone. Just alone.

They wanted me to come out with them today, but I'd already seen the movie, and somehow I don't have any money anymore, even though the raise was supposed to go through and I've been bragging that I'm getting paid for my work. Not yet.

And I was there when the other group was making their plans, and I was trying to help, but I did cringe at all their bars, because I'm not welcome there. I may be welcome with them, but there won't be anyone else like me there, and the women in the bathroom will think I'm in the wrong place, because it's still cold enough outside to not show my stomach or wear only tight t-shirts.

I don't like scaring people. I enjoy feeling safer with my big coat and winter hat on as I walk the streets alone, but I still cross the street. These times it's because I know the fear these young women in front of me are trying to ignore as I walk behind them, a figure that they don't immediatlely recognize by high heels and big breats--I must be a man.

It's not what I have that confuses this Midwest culture about who I am, it's what I refuse to buy into. I know not all high heels and skirts are worn simply cuz it slows her down, but what if something goes wrong? I can't help anyone, including myself, if I can't move.

We're not any better either. I'm not allowed to wear high heels because some days I like to wear ties. In the summer I just want to put on my grey skirt and spaghetti straps, but then I'm not who I'm supposed to be. It's always about who I'm supposed to be.

We started talking about vacations yesterday and all I wanted to do was go home and open a bottle of red wine to share while we talked about sad childhood stories. I wanted to talk about being forced to the table, and lectured, and laughed at, but no matter how hard I tried, eating cereal couldn't make me stop crying. Yes. I remember what he said. I remember Mom not stopping him. I remember that Mar had left me a goodbye message, on a machine an ocean away, and I got yelled at for sitting in a hammock and writing.

That was a bad year. It only got worse.

This morning I didn't work. I went and 'trained' the still-new-girl on how to request a new vendor, so she could pay her women artists, and then we talked. Of course we talked about The Ex. I didn't tell that when I couldn't sleep last night, I opened the personal file in My Documents and found a 79 page long conversation with her. I started reading.

I took a tangent to talk about Mom and her hate letter and how often she tells me I'm ugly. She got goosebumps and covered her mouth and didn't blink a lot. She said that she'd heard of it, but I was the first real person.

I don't think I know either. Did she always hate me? I look back and I know I blocked out so much, but I thought it'd only be the bad parts. I only remember soccer, and that only hardly. I remember the back yard and crying and never being good enough. I remember sprinting and sprinting and being content to just not have anyone talk to me because then it couldn't be mean. I remember them openly laughing at me in line, thinking I couldn't hear directly behind me; then even asking me to turn around, pointing at my hands, picking them up in theirs; more laughing.

The other night on the couch, a new friend looked to me for strength and courage and comfort, but I don't think I calmed her fears. Her roommate started talking about a different point in all of our pasts, and I got sad again. I told that story I'm so proud of. I told the story of Mom actually believing me. It's the only time I remember her believing what I said without question. It was the only time I remember her trusting my version of my life and not telling me that she knew better. I could only do it because she gave him what I had wanted for so long, had been asking for for so long, and when she showed our inherent differences in her mind--why he deserved it and I didn't, why I was being a whiner and wrong--I finally got through to her, because the same thing was happening to me, only worse.

My mom looked so confused when I told her that I got made fun of. That I got made fun of everyday. She didn't seem betrayed, just surprised because it wasn't what she thought. She didn't really seem to mind, and was sure that as soon as she gave me this one thing I'd been asking for, she could go back to her world of a happy, straight daughter. A happy, normal daughter.

I used to try to figure out what it was that she wanted. Because maybe if I knew I could give it to her. I wasn't ever myself anyway, just a representation of what I thought would make me her stop hating me so much. It never worked. I only did wrong.

I still have a hard time realizing that. The memories didn't used to matter, because I was still trying to give her what she wanted. She said the right words at the right times, so she was good to go. Each time I left the door she said she loved me and told me that my clothes were wrong and that I better get all A's and be smart and not be so late and take a shower that night and brush my hair and not keep them all waiting--but I was ready first. She said "I love you" though. She moved her lips and her tongue and the sounds of the words "I love you" came out and she finally stopped forcing the hugging, but she said it and I had to say it back and it didn't mean anything.

You'd think that means I'm good at saying. I'll write it at times to the women of my past. To the friends that I could say it to back then. Because I'd said it before and they're still around all these years later, well I guess I can say it to them again. Not anyone new. Gretchen says it and Mimi says it and I've said it once or twice, but I don't want to anymore. You'd think that I'd be better at it having said it so hollowly for year after year after year.

It doesn't work that way for me.

Everyone thought they wanted me to break up with Jessa. But I had friends when I was with Jessa. People knew how to look at me and want to hang out with me and see me as this wounded, misguided girl with a woman that didn't deserve me. But now I'm alone. Now The Ex will be back, is back, and I might not talk about her much yet, but she's back. I don't sleep and I don't filter and you all thought you wanted me to break up with Jessa, but now you're left just with me. Who wants me?