brian and i had been walking around bNn tonight (last night?) when i confessed my passion for bodice rippers. jackie collins, judith krantz — the whole strong woman whose been beaten, raped, damn near mutilated but by the time she’s 30 she’s the owner of her own successful company, beautiful, thin and perfect to the bone. And, you can’t forget, that in the end, she always gets her man.
i think those damn things are probably part of my problem. though i haven’t admittedly picked up a good old fashioned bodice ripper in ages (though jackie collins has released a few new books and i’m trying really hard not to read them), it brought to mind tonight after having sex with paul, part of my problem.
you see, i’m a reader. a voracious one at that. some freaky guy in texas has been keeping a book list since he was like four (there is of course the obvious link but i can’t find it now). and most of what i read, obviously has impact on my thoughts and feelings. and i’ll read anything, that i will, being the book whore that i am. i’ve already finished harry potter and the sorcerers stone and have books 2 and 3 on order with amazon. books by f scott fitzgerald, terry pratchett, and a biography on cleopatra sit on my bedstand (amongst others).
this all has to play about my idea about love and romance.
of fucking course (you knew this was going to be cliched didn’t you?)
i’ve always had this ideal — this man, who would come and take my blues away (like calgon — but with a penis). and every man i have ever dated and met has always lived short of that ideal because DING DIN GDING he doesn’t really exist. but he’s safe enough to make real and happy because then no one can touch me.
except for paul.
paul is a lot of wonderful things. pauls is also a lot of nasty things just as i am full of wonderful things as well as some very horrid things. for the last few days i’ve been in a snitch about something. there is no rhyme or reason to what i’ve been being in a snitch about just that I have been and that is important to this dialogue.
paul once said it would probably would have been better if i had a guy that was just a dog. because then that way everyone would be happy and i would stop bitching.
which is to say, that i say i want one thing and expect something else entirely.
(and this would suffice to say go on with the rant on why i generally hate the female species but i won’t go there).
I keep forgetting that relationships take work. and they take time to mature. i’m not talking about the passion here (insert oblig REM reference), i’m talking about understanding, love, friendship, and trust. Most, with me, does not come easy. YOU HAVE TO EARN IT BABY!
So yeah, i totally hate our media. i keep thinking of the “friends” episode where monica proposes to chandler, and i’m thinking “why don’t I have that?” and then it takes a ton of bricks to realize that i do have that. Pauls not fucking perfect. Well, neither am I. but together, we are perfect.
We have our bad days and we have our good days. and some days are better than others. But the thing is, we want to make this work. We want to make this relationship — really last and not be a flash in the pan of lust and hot sexors every night. And that some days I’m gonna want to either love him to pieces or rip his penis off and other days he’s going to want to chop my tits off.
BUT THAT IS US.
I mean, that is us, in a nutshell. because we are a real couple with real feelings, everything gets amplified. this isn’t something that is going to be solved on page 10 and our relationship isn’t going to end when the sweeps are over.
and that my friends, is what i can’t gel in my betty paige looking head.
like most people in america, i’m deathly afraid of commitment. but i’m also deathly afraid of being alone with 10 cats. i’m afraid of making the wrong decisions, the wrong choices and the wrong everything. i want my life to be a bodice ripper where everything gets worked out and my whole world will be boxed up neat and clean and set off by page 300. but real life isn’t like that. and that’s what i need to learn. that paul isn’t some schelp that i can abuse/use and that i’m not some sextoy for him to abuse/use. and we are both slowly coming to terms that that is what the problem is and that is what is making it scary and wonderful all at the same time.
because we are willing to make a stand with ourselves and willing to say hey, we love each other. this is going to work.
there are a million and one reasons why i love paul. and the best one i can think of that describes how i feel is that when my face is smushed up against his chest, THAT is home. it’s not the things around us or where we live or where we stand geographically to each other. it’s how i feel when he’s wrapped around me at night. what keeps me sane, through all my turbulent moods especially when it comes to men and relationships, is how paul treated me when my father died. his love and his understanding was what i would have wanted IDEALLY that having it happen was a dream come true.
the bottom line is, most people don’t know how to make a relationship work. because it’s hard. because it requires you to care about someone else and to provide for that person and frankly, i don’t think most people, hell adults, can make that kind of relationship work.
If i were to choose any one couple that best suited paul and i, i would have to say he was my rhett butler to my scarlett o’hara. but to those of you who are hip to GWTW, you know that Rhett leaves her at the end of the book. WRONG! In the sequel Scarlett, she does get her man.
Like me. 🙂