pride (in the name of love)

i miss you.

i laugh now, that i think about it, that i actually miss you. what do i miss? what did we share? am i over-romanticizing it? am i being silly?

you know, i swore i wouldn’t say anything about it. i wouldn’t write about it, that i wouldn’t even think about it. that i am grasping for straws in a time when i need to be concentrating on *me*. on making myself whole.

i guess what spurred this, was that lately i had been hungering for steak. i really wanted roast beef, with gravy and fresh mashed potatoes (not boxed as i am wont to have), but unless i cooked it myself, i couldn’t think of a place that would serve such a feast. so i told foosi about that, and we went to sizzler (home to white trash america) this past evening. as we were sitting down, the family sitting in front of us, the man looked just like alan! i sat there, with baited breath, and stared. Could it be, after all these years, he’s come back, and living so close?

The family was leaving as we were sitting down to dinner, and i remembered what it was like. i remember that passion he and i felt, and the ups and the down, and the turmoils.

this brought you to mind, of course. my two men. both who i loved so deeply, only to be severely rejected in the process. i remember i used to think ‘oh it will never be the end with alan’, as i waited, loving him, slowly dying inside for him, losing all sense of reality and touch with myself.

and i remember now, this ‘grasp of hope’ i have. for you, for us. how, later on in the evening, i spoke to a new friend on the phone. he finds me ‘brilliant’ and ‘interesting’ and i am ‘much more dynamic then the average person’. he’s interesting himself, but, he’s a friend, and i wish to keep him that way. old patterns starting new, and i couldn’t handle that.

he found it most interesting that, in all of my writings, i don’t mention “how” the break-ups occurred, just that, one day i was so in love, and the next, i was sobbing my heart out for the guy.

i recounted the story of how you and i had met. starting over a year ago, and ending till recently. I told him all of it, from beginning to end. There is no mention anywhere on anything about it. not even in email letters. it just was this thing that we both knew subconsciously would always be happening. it dawned on me, when i had hung up the phone, that, the problem with telling all of “this” (you are so brave he said for putting your world on the web), is that, anyone who “reads” this, any of it. or if i put to paper, *our* story, they would envy it. be jealous of it. those long drawn out pregnant pauses, and the intensity! and that sexual heat. goddamn, i can still feel flashbacks of that intensity. they would expect me to manufacture that kind of feeling for them. i have done it twice in my life time now. with you and with Alan. And where did it leave me? more broken-hearted, more wise, and surprisingly, more serene. i am not angry anymore.

i remember, for some reason, sitting on your couch, and you had started tracing my tattoo (internally i was happy i had remembered to shave that day!). and i just looked at you. and i was happy. i remember wanting to lean over and kiss you. i know it wouldn’t have happened, but i remember that. that was the first time i had seen you gentle, and i had liked it.

i also remember us having a great time at the club. and i remember as we were dancing, and you left for the rest room, how our hands touched for the briefest of moments, and you held it. i remember watching you walk back across the floor towards me, cutting through the dancers, and i had thought “he is so beautiful to me”. and my heart welled up with pride and of love.

it is too soon to tell, for now, how things are going to be for me. I see patterns now, in things I do. Is this not what you predicted but two weeks ago? I had debated strongly, “should I put this up? what if he goes to my site? Will he find it and will he laugh? what will he do?”

And I realized I didn’t care what you did. But, I absolved myself of not mentioning your name. You know who you are. The world does not matter, just what I am feeling today.

I will not let these patterns dictate my life. I see myself, musing over your words “i will walk into each relationship with a smile, knowing it will be doomed from the start”, and i found myself explaining this to my new friend, and I laughed (in between the yawns) about it to myself and shook my head. it was the irony, such as that of us both laying on your bed, to look up at the stars, and putting our legs up at the same time.

i have redefined the relationships to myself. I don’t want anyone anymore. I don’t want to go through that ecstasy again, because i gave it all to you.

I had also told my new friend, that, all he had to do, was read all my previous writings. *our* story is there, listed carefully, between the buildups of everything else. you were, in a sense, my last hope. i gave my heart to you, and you crushed it beyond repair. i feel relief, surprisingly, about it, due to not having the responsibility of caring for someone else.

my plan is quit simple, really. The time is for a “gentler, kinder lisa”. What i so did not want to happen (emotionally distraught, nervous breakdown) did. Our meeting so blew up in my face, that the backlash is still felt two weeks later. I still look for you, you know, everywhere I go. And when I am in a store, and i unzip and unbelted my jacket, I feel you with me. Is this not insane? you told me, so bluntly, it was not going to work, and i still cannot deny, in my inter most hearts, that i still love you?

we are both stubborn, prideful fools. i will never assume, or guess, or even really know what was going on inside your head. but, i must be realistic, and take your words to heart, and take that as the truth. i keep in mind though, the few god things we shared, and keep that close to me.

i still wonder, in the back of my mind, what would have happened with us. what would have made us okay, or what would have happened to have work. i still wonder what would have happened if we would have made love, and how it would have been. i think about you still, (the irony of all the hateful things i said in that last letter), when i masturbate. and the more i dwell about it, the more painful it seems.
(you know, my friend shelly and i celebrate a friendship anniversary every year on jan 15. she sent me an e card, and this is what the beginning said: HEY Lisa Marie (Louise) Rabey-Slater (christian that is), and she signed it: Shelly Carinne Brown-Outlaw-Pitt(brad that is))

I realized I still loved Alan, after all these years. Seeing that impostor today, watching my heart drop to the floor, and still getting that same warm gush, made me realize that I was always going to love you as well, no matter what we screamed at each other, or how we sat there debating it, i am always going to love you.

Have you seen “in love and war” yet, about the story of hemingway (ernest that is) and his first love, agnes? If not, go rent it! but, here is hate premises of the story. hemingway meets her in italy during world war 1. she’s 8 years older than he is (chris o’donnell plays hemmingway..*swoon*) she is captivated by him as well, and they have this intense “understanding” while he is getting well in the red cross hospital she’s working at, and she realizes she’s in love with him. they spend one night together, and he goes back to the states. she promises him that she will marry him when the war ends and she comes home. in the interim, one of the local doctors is smitten with her, and starts seducing her after he leaves. she starts thinking about how young he is, and etc, and she writes him a letter, which tells him that she is accepting the good doctors hand in marriage.

and he, obviously, goes berserk. a year after the war ends, she tracks down a mutual friend of her’s and ernie’s, and she hunts ernie down. she realized, that she was wrong, in accepting the doctors hand in marriage, and didn’t marry him, but when she told ernie this, that she loved him and only him, he’s changed. he’s grown up now. and while he still loves her, he rejects her.

pride jaz (this is obviously an acronym of your name).

stupid fucking pride.

i haven’t cried since I’ve been home, and i feel like i should be. actually, that is wrong, i have cried. i purchased the soundtrack to “The titanic” and cry when I listen to it. I cry for the loss of love. for the bittersweet ending. for the never held memories. for the loss of hope.

i will not be so stupid as to think i will ever hear from you again. nor will i be so bitchy as to whine about you via text. i have said, the things to you, that i have will ever need to say again. i will not wait for you, unconditionally, pining away for you. but i do love you. it hurts to say these things. it hurts to be rejected, it hurts to see it go ka-ploey. but i forgive you. i forgive myself. i make myself go on. i know someday, if you were not the one, that someone will reciprocate to me what i so badly want and deserve.

life goes on.

there are so many things that i want to tell you and ask you, and it seems foolish now, despite all of this. you were different jaz. you gave me hope. you gave me desire. you gave me strength. rejecting me was crucial. you showed me, by doing that, what i had been neglecting for so long. what i was doing, even though i hadn’t thought i was doing it.

-January 16, 1998

later on that week..
I have been agonizing over whether or not to put this piece up. Because it’s the SAME fucking crap I have been bitching and whining about for oh so goddamn long.

I have been spending time these early morning hours, perusing my other pieces, redoing the main page. Nearly 50 different pieces are here. How I wonder if I will change this format. If I will *truly* grow into *something*, if not nothing.

and then I weep. I light up one of my few remaining cigarettes (which prompts me that I have to go to the store) and read prelude and i laugh, in a quiet way. would be the exact same words that i write now. and i feel, nothing has changed. nothing has really changed. the meeting never took place, it never occurred. because it is still the same.

i don’t really, still, understand. maybe.

the patterns start up again. keep meeting these people that will not do good things for me. it will die. i even went so far, as to tell one person that. i described, his and i’s romantic relationship, even though there isn’t one. he’s, not surprisingly, an o’ist, but not a randite. and he says that for someone who rejects rationale, i am quite rational. and i don’t really think (by the touch of your hand), what i am anymore.

and this whole file. the one i agonized, over and over with. i had to speak my mind. and i realize, its the 49th file on my site. when i had assumed only 25. and i read them. and its the SAME DAMN THING.

patterns patterns everywhere. catch them if you dare.

it is hard, letting you go, more for the seemingly understanding that we had about everything. that is what i told one person last night. i miss the friendship. i miss having this “one” special person to speak to, who could relate to me on levels. i miss that, i miss that quit a bit.

pride will prevent me from, of course, emailing you. pride will, of course, prevent me from calling you. pride will, of course, prevent me from doing anything “different”.

and it was bad. and i know it. i know that i romanticized too much. but, i can’t help but not feel, lonely without you there. the irony is i gave so much, and yet, received little. maybe you gave, in your own fucked up way, but, i can’t rationalize that right now.

Foosi asked me, when I scream out that you are the epitome of all evil, why i still harbour these feelings. why i still ache. i do not know. i wish i did. something to make my life feel “complete”? that, everyone has this “someone” they are stuck upon, and only i have you? and its fucked?

you laughed at me, in your snide way, and said that this will become nothing but a fuck file. perhaps you were wise to think that, and it ended up becoming true. but, i had no were else to go. really. you said i get off on writing about my life. and i laughed at your contempt little boy, but, the truth of the matter is, all i wanted was understanding. i thought, i could reach out to people, and say to them “hey! you are not the only one who feels this badly or this crappy,and yeah, i’ve been down that road called love, and i’ve been burned and i’ve burned people too.”

all i wanted was, understanding.

and someone to love me for who i am

and i was so totally wrong, about it all, with you.

and pride will not let me dictate, that, despite when its said and done. i am always going to love you, no matter how much it hurts, how much it seems unreal, and no matter how painful it may be.