State of the Neko address: week 51, part 2

song+ Better Than Revenge- Taylor Swift- Speak Now
book+ In the Garden
quest+ getting decent thread for my sewing machine
upper+ i'm making progress on the Showgirl dress
downer+ i'm still feeling itchy and a bit restless
attire+ pants and layered tanks
drink+ milk

i had a bizarre dream early this morning. i'd headed up to the comic shop at opening (Wednesday is new comic day) and decided to spend the day there catching up on everything that's come out in the last month or so, and for some reason every passing acquaintance i've made in the past 10 years managed to stop in for a moment and ask how i was doing. in dream-time it took most of the day, but it didn't get weird until (early evening dream-time) my ex and her twin stopped in. conversation was started up as though there were never harsh words (mostly hers) or problems, as though we'd stayed friends after breaking up. she walked around as if she was a regular and i was the one who was a novelty at the shop, and for some reason she was really good friends with everyone working there, friendly enough to be allowed behind the counter (which had been rearranged- that confused me) the really bizarre part was when she merged with my favorite store employee while i was turned away. i was talking and there were both twins and the cashier, then i turned to look at something behind me and when i looked back Twin2 was there, but Twin1 (the ex) had taken on some characteristics of the cashier and there were just the twins behind the counter. then the new hybrid person started flirting with me. X.x i've dealt with flirting from the employee before, but it was in the vein of friendly banter, with no intention behind it. you know, stage whispers of "hey there sexy! wink-wink" and "shh, not while my boyfriend can hear" while holding Kyu's hand.. then laughs all around, harmless fun with neither of us actually interested in anything. xD so i've been known to flirt back some, but in my dream after they merged into one person, it took on the desperate 'you HAVE to love me!' tone that much of my interactions with the ex had toward the end. at that point everything she said or did or even thought was very 'i'm more invested in this and it terrifies me so i need your constant reassurance that you won't leave, even though i don't believe you at all' which is really a lot of pressure to operate under. lots of what happened then was unfair to her, but damned if it was fair for me either. i made some poor choices i'll admit, but the poorest was agreeing to try to fall in love with someone because they manipulated me into it.

i've said before that agreeing to date her was mostly a clutch of panic along the lines of 'oh shit, i only have like three friends, if i say no i'm down to like one!' (generally if you piss off one twin you piss them both off, it's a solidarity thing) i was in a bad place. i'd recently been raped (less than 12 months previously) and in reaction had thrown myself into platonic SAFE friendships with girls because they were penis-less and that's all i could handle, and then i found myself with one of my few close friends becoming increasingly affectionate (with words and touches) and dropping some of the broadest hints EVER that she was in love with me. not attracted to me, in love, that's what it was supposed to be from the beginning. when i hesitated to reciprocate, she found a 'boyfriend'. someone she said she was dating, but never even really touched with even hand-holding, just spent time with as an excuse to ignore me and make me feel less needed. (which i didn't see clearly until later) and i managed to convince myself that the feelings of abandonment were jealousy and i had to feel something similar after all. and hey, still penis-less, so a relatively safe bet overall. after breaking up with the 'boyfriend' she used semi-romantic quotes from books we'd both enjoyed to convey her feelings. it kinda bothered me that she couldn't even use her own original words, but i'd had a taste of emotional solitude and it scared me, so i said maybe i was feeling something too and we could see what it grew into. i replied using the quotes that corresponded to hers, i rationalized that it made the lies more okay since it wasn't my own words deceiving. yes, wrong, but i've admitted such before. most of our relationship was hand-holding and tentative kissing because her parents were controlling and she was afraid to rebel or disappoint, so we were hiding it from them but that made it easier for me. i like women, and i have been attracted to them before, but i was more 'fondly affectionate' for her than 'desperately lustful' and i was still afraid that any physical intimacy at all would take me straight back to the trauma i'd repressed and refused to deal with in any way. i wouldn't admit anything like that then though, it was easier to smile and say "it's okay, we don't have to rush anything, there's plenty of time". i suppose somehow that was heard as 'we'll have forever and i'll never want anyone but YOU!' though i recall being careful to avoid promises i wasn't sure i could keep. the one promise i did make that i shouldn't have was "i'll never hurt you" and i've since realized it's a promise no one can keep. i now stick with "i don't want you to hurt, so i'll do my best to avoid it" which is much fairer for all involved. i did love her though i wasn't in love, so that made it easier to justify the relationship, i cared too much to hurt her and figured it was possible i'd grow to be in love.

anyhow, we dated for a little under a year. as things progressed she found ways to manipulate me into doing what she wanted. guilt and misdirection with a healthy bit of my own denial, it became easier for a time to just let myself be pushed into what she wanted me to be. when my Best Friend moved away i became more committed to sticking it out since messing up would leave me entirely friendless (homophobia and religious fanaticism had made an impact already on my social interactions) ..then a few months into dating, i met my Turnip. meeting him was terrifying, he made me scared because the possibility of confronting all the issues related to boys was suddenly more real. we became friends and that panicked everyone for different reasons (mostly all based in guilt, longing, and/or fear though) and that friendship lead me to others (speaking to James and reconnecting with Naku) and i was now a little less trapped and actually had to wake up and start making choices again. i figured the safest way to start getting over my abundant ISSUES was to try a platonic friendship with a guy, and it was scary, and even more scary since i found myself feeling for him what i should have been feeling for my girlfriend. i was VERY careful that our forays into friend-type outings were absolutely appropriate, we were never alone together, there was never touching of any sort beyond maybe a high-five. goodbye hugs were no different than the ones i'd give other friends, and lasted no longer. i practiced a little flirting because he knew i was already committed to someone else and it seemed safe enough (not kind by any stretch of the imagination, but safe) and when i learned he had feelings for me i stopped the flirting and tried to not be interested because i'd promised not to hurt someone and falling for someone else is an easy way to hurt someone. there was a fair bit of manipulation going on throughout this, to make me feel bad for having (and enjoying) other friendships, conversations designed to trick me into admitting any feelings for anyone else (example: someday if we decided we wanted kids and we wanted one of our friends to donate genetic material to help, who would you pick? there's no safe answer to that kind of question), blanket statements of "Person A (not Kyu, incidentally) likes you and i don't like that. what are you going to do about it?" "..uhh tell them i'm already committed to you?" "they already know that, i think you should stop being friends. it's not fair to me or to Person A to have that temptation there." nowhere in there are my feelings a factor.

the tipping point of it all, the beginning of the end was when Kyu's girlfriend (he'd decided the best way to not like me was to try to like someone else- though i learned this later) asked me if he was really into her. i said yeah sure (because really, what did i know?) and her reply was that he seemed like she was his second choice and they both deserved better so they were breaking up and could i tell him? also that he could consider it mutual. i floundered with an 'uh, shouldn't you be the one to break up with him and not me?' but her reply was that really i was more likely to see him sooner and she'd appreciate it. X.x shortly thereafter he told me "look, i know you're already committed to Twin1, and you promised you'd never leave her, but i have strong feelings for you both. i'm doing my best to deal and i still want to be friends with you both, but i had to tell you, and i'm pretty sure you also feel something for me. you should be honest with yourself and with her and with me" hanging out got a little weird at that point, she didn't know because she refused to talk about it, and was reluctant to do anything just the three of us, and since he was right (but i wasn't ready to deal) i just made doubly sure that there was ALWAYS a third party when we were hanging out (Roro, or James, or Lachelle or SOMEONE). i asked everyone i thought had ANY perspective on relationships what they would do in the situation, playing the Pronoun Game rather heavily and letting them assume gender roles to suit their own comfort zones. every single person voted Kyu, and many said that door number one seemed kinda abusive emotionally. i dithered and cloaked myself in denial and that was okay for a while, then i admitted that yeah, i felt more for Kyu than i did for her, but a promise is a promise (foolish or not) and i wasn't going to be the one to end things, i knew telling her about the abundance of non-exclusive feelings would screw with everything since at that point i was fully aware of the sheen of jealousy that colored her perception of all my interactions with anyone that wasn't her. i told him i'd decided not to say anything to her about it. i guess he took it as a challenge of sorts, to be more awesome, more supportive and less demanding. it reached a point where i dunno what he felt (it was more than he was able to articulate, and it seemed cruel to pry when i was refusing him anything i thought would make the ex unhappy) but it ended when he wrote her a letter saying that he loved me, and he loved her and he was aware that i loved him, and i loved her (though i still hadn't admitted i wasn't in love with her) and due to poor choice of words and an unflinchingly stubborn disposition the result was a phone call on a Friday afternoon. i had people over (me, Kyu, Lachelle, Roro and a few others i can't recall) it was practically a party and everyone was laughing and having a great time when she called and the conversation quickly died while ours on the phone took a turn to "he said he loves you, did you know?" yes, i did "he says you love him, is that true?" yes, it is, i do "..is he there now?" he's not the only one, but yeah. and you were invited too, as you may recall. you declined to join us "well fine. we're done here, i hope you're happy with him" um thanks, but what did all that mean? then Monday i realized it meant i'd been dumped. she wrote me a rather mean note confirming that things had ended, calling me out for hurting her despite my promise not to (which i definitely had, though it was never my intention) and any number of other things that i may or may not have done. i don't recall them all now and i didn't keep the note. it wasn't until the next day that Kyu and i decided we'd see if we could make anything beyond friendship work for us. the first several months were really no different than before, except for some hand-holding. we were friends and we had feelings, but there was a lot of healing to do before anything more could grow between us.

i think Kyu and i had been dating tentatively for a little under a year when i got a letter from her- brief and catty, with pictures from the happy parts of our relationship included and an overall message that she hoped i wouldn't forget how good things were at those times. there was also one particular picture of bedroom eyes and a knowing smile and a hint of bare shoulders with the words "may you never forget the touch of my hands" written on the back side. it wasn't anything approaching kind or loving and it ripped me up. i spent about an hour after reading it just standing in the rain of a violent storm, hoping it'd just wash away everything i was feeling because it hurt SO much to feel it. yeah i made some (huge) mistakes with Twin1, but for almost a year i'd thrown everything i was into maintaining that relationship, and while i wasn't absolutely in love and focused to the exclusion of everything else, she did matter. i DID love her, even if i wasn't IN love. and i really really TRIED to be something good for her. i don't know what compelled her to do it, but it felt like a cruel attempt to contrast two different years and two very different relationships that grew from friendship into something else, one definitely more naturally than the other, possibly as a gesture like "we had the same thing and that fell apart, so this will too" though really the two can hardly be compared. also saying we fell apart is a ridiculous understatement. X.x whatever the purpose, it really only made me more sure that what i'd found with Kyu was (and continues to be) right for me. April 21st will actually be 9 full years together, and every day i find myself amazed at the love i feel for him. it can't be the wrong thing, as much as he's frustrated or infuriated me in all this time, more often he's thrilled me and made me feel loved and needed and like i really matter for who i am and not what i can do for anyone else. in spite of the very short time between ending one relationship officially and beginning the next (maybe a day in all honesty), being with Kyu was/is nothing like a rebound thing, and i never cheated on anyone. i've shared my views that monogamy isn't natural, but that it's the right thing to do even though it's hard at times. i believed it even then. being in a relationship doesn't make you blind to other people, but being a good person means that you make choices in loyalty and faithfulness.

the overall thing that i'm thinking though is last time i had a bizarre dream that had me contemplating What Used To Be it led to reconnecting with my best childhood friend, so i'm wondering if this is some kind of sign that maybe i should take steps to reconnect with my ex. especially since i walked into the craft store today and the head cashier (who shared different art classes with me and the ex in school) was all "oh hey, you just missed it, but i just spoke to Twin1!" ..really? as in.. "yeah! Twin1! she was just in here, it was crazy" huh.. haven't spoken to her since high school (understatement like WOAH since i dunno if the cashier is aware that i even dated Twin1. it was over long before i was friends with her) "yeah me either!" and Moose (who drove me up there) is all: O.o "and we JUST talked about all that too!" because i vented to her in the midst of drafting all this. so now i'm wondering if maybe it's the Universe telling me it's time for an overture or something. i really dunno. i suppose Facebook is the most natural place to start looking into bridging the gap..