The truth about my past.

I am not defective. I do not destroy everything I touch. I am allowed to be happy. I deserve to be treated well.

These sound like simple statements to some, I suppose. But they are something I had not fully realized until this weekend and, largely, before quite possibly the most intimate conversation I've ever had with my best girl friend, C. She came over on Wednesday for a late lunch, because I wanted to be girly and gush about my weekend. We went to get salads and margaritas (the upgraded version of the chef salads we used to eat with our fingers in high school), and I started gushing essentially immediately. It was along the same lines of my last entry, with maybe a little more blushing and giggling.

I was emphasizing to her how it makes me a little nervous how much I like The Optimist and what a strong connection I feel with him. She reminded me that it is, indeed, OK to be swept off your feet sometimes. I just haven't been open to it in a long time. So we started talking about why I was so hesitant to believe that people might like me or that I might even be worth liking.

A little background: I am quite confident about myself, when it comes to two things - my writing and my sexual prowess. (Yes, that's largely why this blog exists, haha.) But Relationships, in the traditional sense, terrify me. I capitalize the R in Relationships intentionally, because I mean those in the more standard and socially acceptable sense. Those kind terrify me because I hold myself solely responsible for the demise of the few Relationships I've had. I have always done something to fuck it up, and because of that I've always felt like I deserved to be left. I haven't felt like I deserved someone in a long time.

I have told myself that I was OK with being the secret, the secondary. And in many ways, I am. But my justification, which I still believe, is that it was unreasonable to expect any single person to be everything someone needed. That was based not so much in my inability to believe that someone could be everything I needed, but that I would never be enough for someone. After all, I screw up Relationships. Sex, I'm good at. Friendships, I can usually manage. But Relationships? Absolutely not.

Perhaps the most spectacular example, in my mind, of my botching a good thing and thereby indicative of my inability to carry out a Relationship was how things ended with Ex. We were together (on and off, but mostly on) for five years. We made the decision to stay together for the first year of college, even though we were going to school across the country from one another. When we were both home for Christmas that year, he gave me a ring. It was expressly NOT an engagement ring, but I wore it (with his permission) on my left-hand ring finger. It was white gold (he knew I don't wear much gold or yellow), sapphire and diamonds. It was beautiful.

Five months later, after flying across the country to drive home with me, he broke up with me.

I have always held myself responsible for this. I don't know that I could even supply the reasoning, but there has never been any doubt in my mind that it was my fault that he didn't love me anymore. In the course of our Relationship, he had always been the stable one. He's pragmatic to a fault, and I (even more so then) am emotional and impulsive. Clearly, it was something I had done that had driven him away. I had been a bad girlfriend, because I didn't have the Girlfriend Gene.

C knew this is how I've felt. Despite an incident that first summer where The Scientist quite literally yelled at me to stop defending Ex and believe that he hurt me and he was wrong to do so, I held myself responsible. I deserved it, after all.

But today at lunch, C and I were talking about my insecurities and my fears about Relationships and how I destroy them. And she just looked at me and said "No, you don't." I looked at her with appropriate confusion.

"You didn't destroy things with Ex. In fact, you didn't do anything wrong. You didn't change anything about you or who you were. He changed, not you. It had everything to do with him, and nothing to do with you. He fucked up by giving you that ring when he wasn't sure about your Relationship. But all you did was believe what he led you to believe. He decided ON HIS OWN that you two weren't going to work. He did it on his own. It was. Not. Your. Fault. He mislead you. You're just a good person that got fucked over."

I didn't know whether to cry or start giggling. I had honestly never thought of it like that. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized she was right. I believed what he said to me, what he told me was true. That was it. The decision, really, in the end, didn't have anything to do with me. (I don't mean to imply here that I was the perfect girlfriend throughout the relationship, because I certainly did things wrong. But in that period when we were separated, I actually was a committed, faithful and devoted girlfriend.)

It was an earth-shattering realization. No one had ever explained it to me like that. And I had been too hard on myself to see it from that angle. As the tears started welling up behind my eyes, though, it sunk in. She was right. The truth about my past isn't that I'm defective or inherently unlovable or perpetually insufficient. The truth about my past is that I got hurt when I wasn't expecting it. And when I didn't deserve it. That's it.

And I have built so many of my beliefs presently on the firm belief that I am simply insufficient and defective, that hearing C say this to me, and honestly believing her, was truly astounding. And I can already feel the ramifications. It means that I am allowed to be happy. Because it means that maybe things aren't inherently doomed. It means that I can be silly, because I don't have to worry about a responsibility to warn my partners about what a danger I am to them. It means that I don't have to automatically invalidate and be suspicious of strong feelings I might have. Because they aren't necessarily going to end in disappointment and heartache.

Perhaps this seems like an excessively sweeping revelation for something ostensibly solely regarding a Relationship that is far away and gone. But that Relationship was so important, that showing me a different perspective on that has shown me a different perspective on so many other things. It doesn't change my childhood. It doesn't change the pessimism or skepticism that growing up with my family has bred into me. It doesn't change the fact that I'm still not sure monogamy will ever be right for me. It doesn't invalidate the Relationships and relationships I've had since Ex.

But it might change the future. It does change what I think I am capable of. It changes what I think I am worthy of. It changes my no-other-options pessimism about Relationships. In many ways, it redefines who I might be able to become. To myself, and even maybe to someone else. For the first time, I actually believe that I am worthy of it. I believe that I deserve to be loved. I deserve to be so lucky to be surrounded by incredible friends and lovers. Who are honest and beautiful and brilliant and making my world and the world at large a better place simply by being in it. I believe that I might have the capacity to make people happy. I believe that I might be worthy of being loved, someday.

I believe that I do NOT deserve to have people like Edward still sending me messages and emails. I believe that I do NOT deserve to be made to feel guilty for being honest about who I am and what I do. I believe that I do NOT need to apologize for the same. I believe that I am NOT solely responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened to me.

And I feel so free.

I am not defective. I do not destroy everything I touch. I am allowed to be happy. I deserve to be treated well.

on NOT having sex.

EDIT: Re-reading this, it's terribly scatter-brained. Ah well. I assume you've all come to expect nothing less from me, right?

Obviously, I spend a lot of time talking, thinking, and writing about sex. It's something I enjoy doing - Foucault would most certainly peg me as one of those people convinced that discussing sex is taboo and by doing so I'm being subversive, though I don't necessarily think that. (Maybe because I've spent too much time reading Foucault...) But I haven't gotten laid recently. Which, I actually believe, given everything that's happened lately, is a good thing. Although it does make it a little difficult to maintain a sex blog. Or so it would seem through my lack of posts with any kind of substance. I'm reminded of a scene in the final season of Sex and the City, when Carrie thinks her column is being cancelled:

(To Samantha) These are troubled times, my friend... People with REAL jobs are unemployed - this is not a good time to be whipped cream!... I'm not getting laid, so I'm getting laid off!

But here's the thing. By NOT having sex as of late, I've actually had a little more time to clear my head and, ironically, think about sex. Perhaps more in the relationship sense. I suppose it's an unintentional consequence, but I think, for the time being, I'm done with one-night stands. I'm not about to say that I've suddenly become monogamous or anything like that, but I think I'm going to stick to sleeping with people I know. I've been talking/emailing with friends, and especially those at home have expressed some really serious concern that I'm going to get hurt if I open myself up right now, being vulnerable and what not.

I've received emails and messages from a few friends, and recently had a conversation with P about all this. I have a hard time trusting people, especially here. I'm hesitant to do so, because I first assume that everyone doesn't like me. I know, that doesn't speak well of my self-esteem, but that's my default. I either assume that people actively dislike me or simply don't notice me. Which, yes, is why I was so taken aback when this happened. But as I was talking to P about it, he mentioned that it sounded like my pessimism was starting to border on paranoia. And I think he has a point. I always feel like I need to prove to people that I'm not a bitch, that I'm actually smart and worth spending time with. The paranoia aspect is perhaps most prevalent in regards to my fellow program-mates here. I went out this weekend and ended up running into most of them who were on the pre-semester seminar with me. I ended up talking to one of the guys, who reminds me of an old friend who royally fucked me over, emotionally, and he asked me several times why I don't come out with he and his friends (the seminar-mates). I told him, first and foremost, that it's because they don't invite me. But I also pointed out that more importantly, I feel out of place in the group. I feel like they don't like me and that I'm the weird, quiet, "curvy" girl who everyone thinks is kind of a bitch. He insisted that he's never heard anyone speak badly about me. That people, when they found out about Kirsten through the grapevine, were amazed at how well I was handling it, felt bad for not knowing... And that even before, though, they wanted me to come out with them on the weekends and didn't know why I didn't.

I'm hesitant to believe him, because I think it all sounds like just telling me what I want to hear (or what he assumes I want to hear). But talking with P about it the next day, I was able to step away a little bit and analyze that thought process. I'm actually incapable of believing he was being honest. I have so convinced myself that people here hate me that I can't even fathom any other option. I think that's officially paranoid. And I don't think I like it much.

So I'm going to try to do something about it. I still don't think I'll be going out with giant groups of Americans, but this weekend, I experimented with letting people in, just a little bit, and I was incredibly richly rewarded. In fact, there's a chance I'm crushing on someone here in the program (woah!) a little bit... But I'm holding off on writing about it because I really, really don't want to jinx anything. But hopefully expect a post soon gushing about how all that is going and how calm I feel around him and who he reminds me of and how he's different at the same time.

And now, in an effort to bring this full-circle... I think the crushing might have a little bit to do with this renewed drive to NOT have sex. It's a strange effect, in my opinion, because usually when I start liking someone, the first thing I want to do is jump their bones. The idea that I just want to spend time with this guy, want more hugs, want more late-night conversations, is something new for me. At least in recent memory. It's not exactly that I'm saving myself for him or anything like that, but maybe I'm realizing THAT is what I need right now more than a quick lay. Which is also kind of a mindfuck. My mind is getting fucked a lot lately. But basically, to those of you who were/are/have been worried... I promise, I'm proceeding with caution. Maybe a little too much, sometimes - something even P agreed with me on. (And, of course, I trust P more than just about anyone in the world and he knows me, in all seriousness, better than I know myself.)

In closing, and in an effort to put people's concerns at ease, I smiled this weekend. A lot. I wasn't quite so up in my head. I still find it rather difficult to get images of Kirsten out of my head, and I'm absolutely still processing, but I think I might have really realized that I am allowed to be happy, even while mourning. And maybe it's sinking in that I KNOW she would want me to make the best of this experience. As a good friend back in New York (and my only outside friend who personally knew Kirsten) told me, Kirsten would kick my ass if I went home now.

"Sometimes it all still feels like a mass of dots. But more and more these days, I feel like we're all connected. And it's beautiful... and funny... and good."
(Bonus points to anyone who can name where that quote is from. WITHOUT imdb'ing it!)