voices trapped in yearning

after i had gotten home last night (exulted in the few hours of freedom of being both cathleen and justin-less), i had started reading old email while waiting for shelly to come on-line so that she and I could play backgammon.
i found an email sent to me from an “admirer” of sorts who was responding to both my page and the wired article that had appeared back in early February. and for some reason, that email tugged a cord at my heart. the person basically had said: make a concrete decision: either leave justin or accept the situation.
for the last three months, congruently, I’ve been struggling with the idea of what is right and what i want. for many people, as i have learned, their life is fairly mapped out for them and they have a basic sense of what they want and need. for instance, i had met a few girls from my political theory class. both girls are 20 and 21 respectively and are dating men who are older than me (27). both girls are ambitious enough to finish college within a short time period and get on with their life, however, they had both told their BFs that “they are done being children”. while i had admired their perseverance and energy, it bothered me that they were in such a hurry to grow up. at 26, i still find myself floundering in what course i want to take. Some days I want to be this organized and methodical person who desires a truly academic life. On the other hand, I want to be completely wild and crazy like Zelda Fitzgerald and live for the moment. both sides are true and both sides are untrue.
i was beginning (natch — being solitary) to wonder if i was the only one — but part of felt drawn to these girls because many of their fears and desires corresponded to my wants and desires. i could empathize and sympathize with getting ahead and doing something “more” with their life — but on the flip side, i had felt (and always felt) that there had to be time enough for love and life. so many opportunities i have let by — on the context (and pretext) that similar ones would come again. for the better part of my adult life — this has been true.
does this make me lucky or unlucky?
some would say, that in my aspects, i live a charmed life. i live in a great area (by someone’s standards), i have a decent job. i have a lot of friends who do care about me (michael 🙂 and i have many outside interests that help define me much more than me is being defined now (new obsessions: sarah again, henry rollins, zelda fitzgerald, unconventional philosophy, pentel r.s.v.p. pens in blue fine point). i still feel like I’m always this undercurrent of emotion. that my desires keep changing — thus while it makes ‘me’ me, but it also destroys any thing that could lead some sort of happiness for a brief time.
last week justin and i had another long talk (in fact several within the last few weeks). i finally told him point blank that i wasn’t in love with him. he knew! don’t get me wrong — for months I’ve been saying that he knew — and he did know. maybe he thought he could push it under the rug and it would go away. But as many of you who have been reading know I harp and harp on many of the same subjects for hours 🙂 hehe (literally — days worth of entries).
It was painful — but it still didn’t make my convictions “clear”. I still feel this overwhelming need to STAY with him. I don’t know what for — financially? emotionally? maybe I’m giving up?