(In which the only (steady) theme is incorrect use of punctuation.)

I'm monologing to the mirror again, so it's time for some lovely painful prose.

I've been thinking a lot about people who aren't in my life anymore.

I've been thinking a lot about relationships that ended without resolution. C. C., for example. My best friend in Williamsburg that just dropped me without a word last semester. In the G.-tastrophe and business of Pledge Staff I never really took time to mourn that loss, but it's hitting me now. I loved her and I miss her. She was my friend and there are conversations that we never finished. I have stories I want to tell her, things I want to ask about. How is she? Is she engaged yet? I was supposed to visit her in Louisiana and help her plan her wedding right about now. I still have flavored cigars we were going to smoke off my back porch or her balcony. She was my loyal friend-- the one who might not tell me the truth I don't want to hear, but who would always have my back and give dirty looks to anyone who caused me pain. Now, I can't even find her on facebook. We've always been different in that she's the sweep-it-under-the-rug type, where she'd rather just never talk than talk about it. So I guess that's part of what gets us here: I have no idea where things went wrong and no way of finding out.
(AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!)
File this under Things that make me want to scream.

Another example of places where I have no idea where things went wrong and no way of finding out, short of super-creeping-stalking-espionage or super-overly-obsessively-intense-conversations, is T.A. Not gonna lie (because that defeats the purpose of exclusive, obscenely honest, painfully self-aware blogging, and compromises my moral code) but I still very well might have a reasonably large crush on him. It's lurking somewhere under the surface, is definitely a bad idea (due to distance, lack of interest, status as a long-freaking-shot and excessive use of parenthesis) and possibly a mere symptom of emotional boredom, but there it is, cropping up a whole year, some months, and two loves later. I'm tempted to erase this whole paragraph since this is getting close to marrow that is embarrassing to talk about, but I had (have) zero shot with this guy. I employed all my game-- my best game, which is my honest and restrained game (an explanation or justification for what this is would have to be the subject of a different, much longer blog)-- and he didn't want me at all. I've been avoiding the thought of it, because this fellow popped up in my life for three weeks maybe and manages to make the top five in major romantic rejections in my life (up to this point. There is still time for him to be eclipsed. Ech.) This is too long and too late already to tell the whole story. (If I can't sleep in an hour and I'm still thinking about it, maybe I'll come back.) The heart of it is that I got to know him somewhat, and liked everything I found. I let him get to know me-- was truly comfortable and utterly genuine with him. I thought our one hang-out session had gone well, and he expressed a desire to see me again. We texted briefly and then he fell off the face of the planet. I have no idea what I did wrong. Maybe I just was wrong.
I've been on the other side of this before-- earnestly liking people but, as I get to know them, realizing that they aren't for me. Not bad, just not for me. It's an awkward place to be, and I hate it. Partly I hate it because I know it's not as bad as the other side, the side I was on with T. The side where you haven't gotten a chance to see for yourself why it couldn't work out. The side where you haven't found anything to take that person off their pedestal before they have ejected you from their presence permanently. The side where you don't know what it is about yourself that they rejected. As debilitating as it can be, I find it helpful to know. When I know where I've been rejected, I can localize the insecurity. I can turn the rejection into either constructive criticism or responsive rejection. Either, "Oh, I had no idea this was noticably unattractive and I don't care about it so now I can change it," or, "Actually, that's pretty important to me and I love it more than you, so if you don't like it I don't want you either." Not having any idea leaves me to brainstorm. I don't recommend it; although creative it's rather destructive. (Which is nonsense requiring even MORE parenthesis!) (Lots of parenthesis!) (Let's THROW the parenthesis!) --Mark the time: 12:21 am is when I devolved into nonsense, driven insane by lack of knowledge as to the direct nature of the rejections I have suffered and utter inability to stay firmly on point.--

What is most likely when I consider the situation most rationally and realistically (I believe-- but I'm highly biased and therefore unreliable, like all first-person sources) is that there was someone else on T's radar at the same time; someone better known, in closer contact, more convenient or more interesting or possibly someone with whom he already shared some history. This hurts less, but I had still given it my best, and my best failed.
I gave the next thing my best and made it better, that time. It failed and failed bigger.

What if my best is really my worst? What if I only want what I somehow know I can't have?
What if my heart is really working towards its own destruction?
How does a person overcome, survive even, if any of these are true?

I can't seem to stay content in my singleness. I can't seem to stay in communion with God, satisfied in His presence. So I am up, past my bedtime, restless and thinking too much about boys and spilled milk situations when my heart is really the issue. Well, my heart and God is the issue but my heart is the problem and God is the cure. I just don't know how to get the problem to the cure and then get it to stay there. Funny, really: my body has no energy but my mind can still run in circles and my heart can still waver and turn from it's rightful place. (Which is humble before the throne.)

I have been disappointed that I haven't already found my man for the past few days. I haven't asked God why this is the case because that is a question I can answer myself: I am why. I am not ready. And that has nothing to do with the fact that I can't keep my life together and I am a mess, because really that would make this the perfect time for him to show up. It has everything to do with the fact that I want a different him than Him to tell me that I'm lovely and worth the oxygen I'm using. I won't need to have everything together before I meet him, but I will need to be sunk deep, deep, deep into the love of Him. I need to love Jesus more than I will ever love my man. And I need to love Jesus because of who He is and what He's done, not because it is the key to getting that man or anything else I want.

Yikes. The truth about me is intensely ugly-- I am so far from what I should be. I am too tired to strive for the beautiful should. I cannot lift my sword, I cannot paint my dreams. I cannot make myself over into someone with something worthy to give. I have only two tired copper pennies to offer up; that I see the should, and that I want the should. For now, I suspect that is enough.

It's an hour later but I'm no longer thinking about T.A., so goodnight (and yikes- publish post.)