the story of my life

Aside from the continued hacking up of...(my lungs? what IS it exactly that keeps making me cough?), I'm good. Kindof alternatively antsy and melancholy lately. I get to this place where I feel overwhelmed with too much work and in the next moment am firing off pitches and plotting and planning. I'm so full of ideas, but also overall, save for my freakout moments, feel really calm. Good things are in the air. I mean, professionally. Personally, well, I feel like the closer I get to 30, which is about 6 weeks away, for those counting, the more centered I feel. The more super clearly I know what qualities I do and don't want in someone I might date. And it's not really anything I can put in a personal ad. I've been getting into Myspace, but mostly because I've been making new friends, and I don't want to meet people online like that. The things I'm looking for are so so basic and simple, almost anyone could potentially capture them. It kindof hit me the other day - I want someone I can take care of and someone who'll take care of me. Now, the ways that gets played out are variable, but I'm not gonna lie - I am drawn to people who I feel like I can help in some way. Not like they're a wounded bird and I can "fix" them, but, well, you tell me you've been hurt in some way and it just tugs on my heartstrings. And at the same time, I have such intense admiration for the people who navigate those hurts, who don't dwell on them but who use painful experiences to build themselves up, to look around, to look inward and outward and make something better for themselves and those around them.

I know it may look like I "do it all," that I can handle everything life throws my way, but honestly--I can't. I have breakdowns and freakouts and moments where I just can't even mentally project into the next hour, let alone the next day, because one or multiple problems seem inordinately overwhelming. And I have other moments where I am almost literally jumping up and down with excitement. And that's probably a negative quality, to have such vast mood swings, but that's me. And it's hard because in the "dating marketplace" it seems like it's best to put ONLY your best foot (face?) forward, to only show the good side, the you that everyone likes, the girl who's smiley and bubbly and sipping a cocktail. Who's wearing lipstick and having fun and can roll with any punches that are dealt to her. And I'm not a falling apart mess, at least, not all the time, but I'm not perfect. I'm moody and insecure and I fuck things up for myself all the time. But...I also could fall in love with someone and give them so, so much. I have learned, especially in the last year, not to be so open. But that's a very careful line, between guarded and...honest. I still believe. In love, in happiness, in finding someone who can really get me. At the same time, that belief has been very tested, and I pull back, I don't put myself out there to be rejected anymore because I just can't handle it. I throw myself into people and projects who I can safely handle. I don't want to be the girl everyone is talking and whispering about. I don't want people to say things like - she's undateable. She shouldn't be in a relationship. She's bad in bed. She's...And I guess that's a risk you always have to take. Obviously I put a lot of my life "out there," but that's not what I mean. It's a small city, a small world, and the circles I move in are pretty damn small so people know things, they tell you things, and that's okay, that's good, but I don't want someone to ever meet me and think they have me all figured out. Think they know everything that's in my heart and my head, because they don't, they can't. There are things inside that I know are just waiting to be discovered. I see the seeds, I see them chomping at the bit to open up, just a little bit.

I see them especially when I do that thing I do, when I "talk to people like there's no one else in the room." I've been realizing lately that I'm not so much up for the big group things anymore. There's a point where too many people are around, where interaction gets diminished and watered down. I like those one on one conversations. I like going home and knowing more about a person than I did before that night, and not just their favorite color or favorite food. I like seeing inside-inside to the things they didn't say, the things I observed by omission and body language, the things I saw just from quieting my head and listening. They make me want to know more, and more and more and more. I get so sick of myself, and I know that's probably, well, a cliche and a hypocrisy to write on my personal blog, but I do. I spent so much time in my head, in my to do lists, in my future, that I love to really dig into someone else's life, whether professionally as I interview them, or personally, as they become fuller and more real. I know that you can never learn what someone's really like from seeing their website, or even reading their book, or seeing them perform. I can know a lot, and I can make a certain level of connection, but there's always more, always more under the surface. And when I talk, or rather listen to people like there's no one else in the room, that's what I'm looking for. And I guess as I get older I'm just trying to properly evaluate those interactions, to not make too much of them, but not make too little either. It's scary how precisely I know exactly what I want, and it scares me because sometimes it feels like the more I come into myself, the more I get what I'm about and what I'm looking for, the farther away that seems. And I could self-destruct about it, could go back to nights of multiple martinis and analyzing and gossiping and fretting, or I could be a big girl about it. I just don't know the next step. I don't know where I am supposed to turn but I am hoping that it will come to me. That I will figure it out because as much as I can be all super stoic and independent, and I am looking forward to living alone for the first time ever, I'll meet a child who melts my heart, I'll talk to someone who, in a brief amount of time, changes me, changes what I think about the world, and I want that. I guess, maybe, I want it all, and I worry that I'm asking too much, so I write and I write and I write. I write every day, I pump out seemingly endless streams of what sometimes feels like nonsense, so I can have something to look at, something to count and quantify, something to make me feel important. And I guess I want someone to look at me the way I look at these people I fall for. To want to know more, to want to dig deeper, to want to see things nobody else sees, or rare people see. I'm sick of superficiality, I'm sick of doing the same things over and over, and I just feel ready for changes, whatever form it takes.

My whole point was that I wanted to link to this post by Robin about not getting what you don't want. Read it and think. I promise, I really was just going to post this link but that's what happens when you're me and you've got a keyboard in front of you, I guess.