Forgetting Whatsername

There is a little green monster that lives inside me. I’ve tried to kill it, tried to starve it, tried to convince it to move out – but nothing works.

I wonder if it was easier before the internet, easier to deal with the fact of your lovers’ histories when those histories weren’t easily accessible. I mean, I started dating people before the internet was all-encompassing (read: the 90s) but I didn’t really have history – and the people I was dating didn’t really have history, either.

I wonder if it was easier to not obsess about your lover’s exes when those exes weren’t on Facebook. When cell phones and texts and emails and social networks and flickr weren’t available, and all we would ever find out about long-gone exes would be the occasional saved love letter or birthday card. We would have a name, but maybe not a face.

And without a face to connect to a name, was it easier to stop obsessing about the why of it all? “She’s prettier than I am, why would he be with me?” Lying awake next to him, wondering if he compares my body to one of the Hers who came before.

No, I guess it probably wasn’t. I don’t think that it ever was any easier to stop wondering about the Heathers and Melissas and Gwens and Michaelas and Jessicas (to name a few) if that was something you were going to be wondering about in the first place. The healthiest thing, of course, is not to wonder about them. But how can you help it? How can you train yourself not to wonder how you stack up against past lovers, girlfriends or wives?

That last word is where my brain goes into overdrive. He and I have been together for almost two years, two brilliantly, goofily, disgustingly happy years, and while neither of us is interested in marriage, the conversation has turned to a future that includes growing old together. But once upon a time, he loved another woman enough to ask her to marry him, and she said yes, and they were married in a cathedral with their whole families around them. And it ended miserably, bitterly. And while I have no envy for that part of it, I wonder what it must have been like for him to love some other woman enough to go through all that – and then, five years after that, to meet and fall in love with me.

A part of my brain tells me that of course he isn’t thinking about one of the Hers, the ex-wife or any of the girlfriends who came between, that he’s not comparing – at least, not in a bad way. When he tells me that he’s never been this in love or felt this right or experienced this much pleasure, I do believe him. Maybe that’s my mistake, but I believe him because it’s true for me. I have never been this in love, or this happy, or had anyone know how to love my body as immediately and perfectly as he did (and still does.) And every time we see each other, it just gets better.

Every time we’re in bed - it gets better, every time we cook together – there’s greater synchrony, every time we find something new to do – it’s more full of joy. Our conversations are deep and honest and true and fun – at least for me. And he says that all the same goes for him, so I may as well believe him. After all, not believing him would just belie the trust we’re working so hard to have for each other.

But the little green monster doesn’t go away. The little green monster thinks that he must want someone else, something else, and whispers about it in my ear. I know that it’s entirely my problem, and not his – and that somehow makes it all the more frustrating that I can’t let go of the shreds of jealousy that drift across my path. I mean, I can’t even remember the bodies of men that I used to love. Curves and muscles and shapes and bone structures that I was so sure I would never forget – I can’t summon them up if I try. Why should he be thinking about another woman’s body when we’re in each other’s arms, when he’s whispering in my ear how much he loves me? I’m certainly not thinking about anyone else’s body. Truth be hold, I haven’t thought about anyone else’s body since the day we fell into bed together.

I wish I knew a way to just let go of the sad, old habits, and fall fully into trust. It’s astonishing how much harder it is to trust than it is to love.

We are the people our parents warned us about.

Well, I am, anyway. Actually, not quite. They told me to never trust anyone over thirty. Oddly, they were in their thirties at the time.

Anyway! Take deux. Maybe I’ll have the attention for this now that it’s not so cold. Oh hush, that makes perfect sense. Somewhere.

I read a blog post the other day from someone who moved from where I live (New York) to the city from whence I moved (let’s call that Old City.) He was ranting about how much he hates Old City, and wants to come back to New York – and oddly enough, all of the things he hates about Old City are exactly the things I hate about New York. It’s hard to get around in Old City? Excuse me, but once upon a time, in Old City, I had a 15 minute commute. And it was awesome. My commute in New York is generally between an hour and an hour and a half. But at least I don’t have to drive!

He also complained that you have to plan 4 months in advance to hang out with friends in Old City. That you have to suggest something seven weeks out, and then, the day before, you can be sure that your friend will call and reschedule.

If I had to describe social life in New York, that would be it precisely.

So that got me to thinking that perhaps these are not issues that can be tied so much to a specific city, but which are endemic to simply living in any city. The price we pay for being busy, busy, busy Americans is basically that: everything takes time. And we don’t have enough of it.

I’m reading The United States of Arugula, which is really fun, breezy read if you’re interested in the social history of dining in the United States. It’s given me a surprising amount of food for thought, (Ha! See what I did there?) especially regarding this issue of how Americans have been trained to believe that there’s never enough time, and that spending what time there is on basics like taking care of ourselves is a terrible, terrible waste.

See: the development of the fast food nation.

The combination of that blog post I read (which I would link, but I can’t remember who wrote it) and the thoughtful bits that David Kamp (author of Arugula) offers up has lead me to a slowly dawning realization: there is enough time. Somehow. The math hasn’t been working out for me, though. Approximately 3 hours a day commuting, plus 8 hours at my day job, plus 3 to 4 (or 5 or 6…) hours at my theater job (or, if not that, then a trip to the gym and laundry) makes 14 or 15 hours of already committed time, 5 days a week. And given a self-imposed requirement that I get at least 6 hours of sleep a night, (this is new – I used to think I was thriving on three. Turns out it was making me stupid.) we’re up to 20 or 21 hours of committed time.

What to do with the remaining 3? I suppose that’s where the opportunities lie. As long as whoever I’m trying to connect with has the same free three hours. (Doubtful.) And I will admit – I do need a little alone time.

Ok, so I haven’t quite worked it out. But I’m convinced that there’s something wrong with our way of life generally, and not just in little pockets of specific cities. Urban speed is ruining our ability to connect and breathe and nourish ourselves. I’m looking for a better way. Any ideas?

Take Care

I must admit, there are days when I think about being driven to school as a child, and wish that someone would drive me to work. I think longingly of the warm coziness of my parents’ car, the soothing rumble of the engine, the light doze that was not unlike the light doze people fall into on the train, only without the fear that someone will masturbate in your hair or steal your stuff.

On mornings as cold as this one, it really sounds like the only appealing way to get to work. No train, no bus, certainly no taxi with those TV screens – just a warm, clean, familiar car, driven by someone who loves you.

It’s unusual for me to have a serious moment of “world, take care of me!” And even when I do have those moments, I squash them down and laugh at myself. I’m nearly 30 years old, after all. The world owes me absolutely nothing, and certainly doesn’t owe me any care.

Nonetheless, I’ve been in my office for almost two hours, and my hands still haven’t warmed up. I worked a 20 hour day yesterday, and while I don’t particularly want to whine, I can’t tear myself away from the thought of being someplace warm, safe and quiet where I could curl myself into a ball and let today slip by in a haze of napping and reading.

As they say, she has a rich inner fantasy life.

What would you rather be doing today?

My Empire of Dirt

Sometimes I still can’t believe I live in New York. Sometimes, I still don’t believe it’s a good idea.

But my heart has been here for a very long time. Ever since that weird, half-remembered night that ended in my company-rented room at the Roosevelt Hotel just months after the twin towers fell, this has been, for me, a city of immense possibility.

For example, that was the night when I realized that it was possible that someone other than one of my girlfriends might buy me a drink, and that that drink might be bought for reasons other than simple cameraderie. When I ran into old friends at an underground bar somewhere midtown, the scowl that darkened the brow of my evening’s first companion was something of a revelation.

Possibility, you see?

When the known bad seed of the group started buying me my gin-and-tonics, and the dark haired co-worker whose name I can’t remember (though I wonder if I would be able to, had I kept the drinking within reasonable bounds) receded into the dim background of the bar, I knew the night would end in something fiercer than cigarettes and gin. Knowing he was trouble, and knowing that I was trouble, too, meant only one of two things.

Sex, or violence.

Although to be honest, in the end, it wound up being both. He wound up covered in bruises that I can’t imagine how he explained away. And I wound up with a puppy dog who reached across space and time for several years to try and maintain contact. But really, how could I respect someone who let me treat them that way, and for only a few gin and tonics?

I had a lot of growing up to do – a disturbing amount, really. The next several years were dark, darker than I could ever have imagined from the vantage of a 21-year-old innocence. Because while I was trouble, I knew next to nothing about the world, about reality, about myself. Now, sitting in years of experience (though not necessarily wisdom,) I can see the sad and desperate little girl I was, the wall I was about to hit, and the seemingly eternal downward spiral that would take years to get through. But then, I thought I was all danger and sex and edge and bravery.

I think I may have been one of those. And it’s hard to say which.

This is all very basic for those who grew up with healthful self-awareness, but it took me another four years after that to realize that it’s in the process of forgiving one’s self that we can move on. And I wonder, sometimes, if I really have forgiven myself for that behavior. For the years that followed, when I took every liberty and tried to see how far it would bend. I hoped it would all bend until it broke, and in breaking, break me.

Have I mentioned that this bitch is pure klass? Oh yes, indeed!

Hello world!

Here’s where we say good morning! Or oh hai! Or something like that!

I have a “real” blog somewhere else. But here’s the thing y’guys… Over the last couple of years, my blog life and my real life have completely overlapped. And this is both awesome and less than awesome. Because I have wonderful, beautiful, fantastic friends… who read my blog.

So where am I supposed to whine? Where am I supposed to gush? Where am I supposed to tell you about the things I can’t tell anyone in real life?

It just seemed like time. Past time, probably. Because many things have slipped through the grasp of my memory when I avoided writing about them at my other bloghouse. I don’t want that to happen forever.

So.

What do you need to know about me?

If this was a social networking site, it might go something along the lines of “I’m female, 29 and in a relationship.”

Oh, and I’m employed.

I’d say that about covers it. Let’s roll.