Disturbia

The saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same horrifies me. I wrote the below about Pirate almost two years ago. Recently, I was feeling angry and confused with myself for throwing out such a significant relationship event – I don’t want to live together anymore – so abruptly. But now, reading back in my journal at all the times I expressed doubt and considered the possibility of break-up, I see that maybe saying I don’t want to live together anymore is finally my way of communicating my need to end this relationship. When Pirate announced he was leaving for Russia at the end of August, I sincerely felt that he was initiating the breakup. I may have said I didn’t want to live together anymore, but I never said the word “breakup,” I claimed that my reasons for wanting to move back home were purely financial, and I wasn’t the one leaving the country after all. Now I can see that finances were just my cover art. Still, he had to have understood that there were problems with our relationship for me to know that my moving out was more than just a matter of saving $12k.

Elle

I’m constantly in between the ideas that I exaggerate the things about you that irk me and that these are giant red flags directing me to a speedy exit. I get tired of being patient about the length of time it’s taking you to trust me — tired of being at the mercy of your past experiences when I’ve done nothing to compromise your trust. Occasionally, it’s so frustrating that it’s tempting to give satisfaction to your cynicism. Those long blank stares when you won’t tell me what you’re thinking. When you say that we don’t communicate well, but that we have a lifetime to change that, and yet still, those habits never change between us. It makes me miss the days when we were still more formal, and you were polite enough to assuage me with some kind of answer. I hate that I cry in front of you. The little hints you make at changing me as we stay together longer, that I’ve always tried to ignore for fear that I’m not overreacting. The persistent jokes about you developing my interests for cooking, programming, and roller blading. The irony that you dislike noise pollution, and yet are content to live in a dirt cloud. Your aversion that at some times and in some ways, I just don’t want to share my body and don’t feel that I have to. I don’t deal well with the length and isolation of your bad moods and you don’t know how to deal with the sudden neediness of mine. Whether sarcastic or thoughtful, that you make many lukewarm assumptions about me without bothering to ask questions for verification. And when I protest, you say that I don’t tell you enough to prevent these false assumptions, as if my mind reading skills are on a lazy, extended vacation.

And I know that there are so many worse qualities and quirks a person could have. You’re not abusive, aren’t developing anthrax in your refrigerator, aren’t apt to set things on fire, and don’t castrate cats. And yet, it sometimes it all cumulates or there is a particularly bad occurrence, and I feel at a crossroads.

In a magazine today, I read a woman saying that she was much more ready for marriage when she was younger. But now, a decade later, she’s so independent and stable in her lifestyle that she’s no longer ready for the compromise and uproot that marriage demands. And, I thought, “That will be me.” I’m not one of those girls to devote her life to reining in a man. The more I grow into myself and my own goals, the less someone else’s complications feel like a valuable use of my patience and energy. I have patience now, but there’s not guarantee on how long it will take for you to fully trust me or for you to be willing to tell me what you’re thinking without excuses and annoyed glares. I can’t share myself so much with someone who’s not willing not to share with me, and sometimes it feels like prompting is my way of holding on to you.