September 15–20, 2002 — Significant fractions

When I last wrote a journal entry, Alex and I had broken things off a day or two before. After that, we were on and off for a few weeks, and we’ve now broken things off in a far more permanent way than before. We’re still talking, but we’ve resigned ourselves to the fact that it’s probably not meant to be.

After breaking up and getting back together so many times, the difference between the two states started to become unnoticeable. I just felt numb. And a bit hollow. Or maybe heartless. But definitely not able to be in a relationship for any reason except to use the other person. Which I don’t think I can live with.

But now I’m alone again, and I think it’s for the best. I’m not well suited for relationships. And it only took me five tries to figure this out for sure. At least I’ve plenty of reminders from failed attempts to keep me in line. If nothing else.

I’ve been dreaming about Kerry lately, for reasons I don’t quite understand.

Two dreams in particular stand out in my mind: In one, back at home in Richmond, I was walking to the vacant lot near my house where monarch butterflies used to congregate and feed on the field’s milkweed. As I was walking, Kerry appeared in the distance and waved to me. Then she went into a house belonging to a pair of kids who used to invite me over to play video games and then try to convince me to go to their Pentecostal church on Sundays.

Confused, I walked into the vacant lot and the dream ended.

In the second dream, I was in front of my computer when Kerry suddenly emailed me four times. We arranged to meet in an Olympic-sized swimming pool inside a barn. When she arrived, we both swam until she got mad at me for not preparing enough for our conversation. Then she left.

I kept swimming for awhile. When I went outside, a person I went to high school with (but who I’d rarely talked to and never been friends with) was riding down a hill while lying on a skateboard. He ran into a wall and one of his legs was torn off. I woke up trying to remember how to tie a tourniquet.

I’ve seen Erika a couple of times in the last month, and I go several times a week to the subway station where I last spoke with her, almost a year and a half ago. I still feel quite a bit of guilt, and I still feel like I played a role in making decisions that I shouldn’t have had any influence over. I made a bad decision when I let things go as far as they did, and another when I didn’t put enough effort into keeping our relationship together over the summer when we lived hours apart. I manage to find no shortage of reasons to regret both decisions, with regret for the latter at its worst when I see her in person.

One day I might stop being a coward and talk to her again. For now, though, I just have to go on pretending that I learned something.

The one thing that I’m noticing in each of these failed relationships is that my feelings always seem a lot stronger after the relationship ends. I’ve been starting to suspect that I can only feel passion in retrospect, or that the most powerful emotions that I’m capable of feeling only kick in when I’ve lost something, not when I’ve something that I should never want to lose.

Nathan burned me a CD when I visited a week or two ago, an older And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead album. The first song includes the lyrics, “If I could make a list / Of my mistakes and regrets / I’d put your name on top / And every line after it”. It’s a very good song, and I like to sing along to it. What I’m realizing, though, is that I don’t have anyone who deserves to top my list of mistakes and regrets. So even while feeling passion only in retrospect, I still don’t have the energy to regret someone that much.

Looking back, there are bits of each relationship that make me wince, but nothing that I would erase from memory given the chance, none that I regret that much. But I still sing along, pretending that I’ve been hurt that much, knowing that I haven’t.

I’ve also come to realize that any and all ranting I’ve done about not being ready for another relationship is probably false. It takes less and less time for me to feel my normal self after a breakup, so if I do say that I’m “taking time off from relationships”, it’s probably because I don’t think I’ll be able to find the nerve to try to start one, not because I’m not ready for it emotionally.

I’m just trying to save face.

I don’t know where I was going with this. But I don’t know quite what else to say. Maybe I’ll try to finish this some other time...