A Day at the Movies

I went to a movie today with my grandmother and aunt. I was sitting around on one of the rare days when I'm here watching TV and Oprah was on. She was talking to Julia Roberts about her role in "Eat, Pray, Love" and suddinly I saw a movie I had to watch and a book I have to read. It's funny that something like that with that story would come out right now in the time of my life. I am no where near the main characters age I am at her cross roads. I left what was essentially a marriage (three year relationship) and jumped into an all consuming relatinship that took over my every thought, word, and move. I love him. I don't want to lose my relationship with him. But I can not move forward from here, I can not heal from here, I can not figure out who I am from here, and he will not get to know the real me if I do not stop it now. We must step back. We must stop the mistake that will ruin our connection and ruin our chances of being together for the long haul. Moving in together now is a mistake. It will stunt my efforts to get better, my efforts to grieve, and will prevent me from being myself. It will stop him from being self sufficient, self confident, and a person of his own making. It will stop him from ceasing to be dependant on others for his ever waking decisions. I want to get to know him for who he is not for who he is by making me make all the decisions. I don't want to create a man to be with for if I create him, he will not be himself, and neither of us will be happy. I want to wake up and learn and workout and chose every day for myself what I am and who I want to be and what I want to do and I want to date. I want to date him, I wan't him to be my boyfriend as it should be, separately getting to know one another. Getting to know each others tastes, habits, favorite shows, laughter. I want to go by his place and know that everything in it is selected by him, for himself, and is apart of who he chooses to be. And I want him to come by my place and see what I do and the things that I keep around me and know that it all is destinctly me and is my taste for myself and is apart of who I choose to be. I want to go out to eat with him and for once not be asked, "What do I like?" And I ask you how does a person not know what they like themselves? Without giving each other space we are not choosing each other we are simply setteling for what we know we can do. We can choose to stay together and get married and go on with this battle of ADHD against high anxiety existance that will makes us both fat, unhappy, and die young. Or we can step back create ourselves and allow each other to choose if we fit right.

Problem being..... he doesn't want to choice. He just wants me to stay. He just wants someone to stay. He's never once been the person to break off a relationship. And I wonder if that's circumstance or if the truth is that he doesn't care who stays as long as someone stays. But that would mean that he doesn't really know who he loves, or what he loves, or what love is. He only knows the fear of being on his own and as long as he doesn't have to face that, as long as he's found some way to block that fear from becoming real then he finds the relationship successful. But his partners are worn out and strained with the responsibility of being responsible for someone who doesn't want to learn how to be responsible for himself or his decisions.

One of my other aunts said something to me last week when I talked with her that made sense to me, I don't remember where she got it but: "If you're scared....do it scared." And that's what I am scared. I have spent my 26 years of life just trying to feel safe and secure. Do I fear living on my own? Do I fear never being a wife? Ya I do. And the truth is that this step that is so hard on him is no picnic for me either. I had to get past the idea that this man, this friend that I have trusted since I was 15, is my last shot at being a wife and having a family. Because that's the panic I feel, that if I screw this on up, there's going to be no one else. And do I fear putting myself out in public? Going to workout classes? Getting to kow anyone? Ya I do. People have always made me anxious, have always left me sitting alone in corner by myself safe, and that anxiety has only worsened with the end of my last relationship and the death of my mother. But I have got to stop waiting for my life to happen to me and start living my life. Do I want a husband who is loving, attentive, and there for me? Hell ya who doesn't. But that kind of thing has to come naturally, and if I choose me, if I choose what I want, what I need, and this current relationship fails me then what was it anyway? I need a relationship that is a part of who I am, who chooses me for what I am, not simply for how much I am willing sacrifice for it, and certainly not one that makes me who I am.