The healthy kind of pre-trip jitters

I'm kindof freaking out about my trip, as I tend to do, briefly debating whether I should cancel, even though that's impossible. I am hopng to take the week to really think about how I want to live my life, why I make the same kinds of mistakes over and over. Not that the trip is a mistake, necessarily, but for a supposedly independent woman, I realize that I tend to leap at the chance to be with people, even when the relationships are all all wrong. That's kindof been me this year, trying to get over S., trying to figure out what I want, yet continually attracting and being attracted to people who don't provide that. It'll be okay, and I do need to get out of New York before it kills me, at least for a brief respite, and I'm sure I will have a wonderful time, yet there is a part of me that truly wishes I were going off to a cabin, alone. I think I'm good at finding inappropriate people to latch onto, ones who are sweet and sexy, who certainly have wonderful qualities, but are not right for me. I did that several times this year, so grateful for any shred of affection tossed my way, still lingering under this belief that if S. didn't want me, why would anyone. I certainly feel that way sometimes, because I don't want me plenty of the time. I hate so many of my behaviors, my patterns, my messes, and some I have worked hard to solve and fix and better this year, but many I haven't.

It's infinitely seductive, then, to try to get involved with people who make me forget about those problems, who put a smile on my face, who bring me somehwere new and erotic and hopeful. Seductive, until it comes crashing down, and I realize that I'm just fooling myself with all the walls I've built around me to keep myself alone. So I'm looking forward to being away, to not doing the subway morning commute, to sleeping in and seeing friends and yes, to the man I'm going to see, but there is a pause, an edge, a "but" that I'm glad I have, glad I can recognize rather than just push aside. Because what I ultimately want is a real relationship, one that is not about distance, physical or otherwise, but about closeness, about seeing just how intimate we can be. About asking questions and giving answers that you don't give to anyone else. About whispers and jokes and privacy. About so much that I know I've only been half-heartedly searching for. I have a date, I think, when I get back, and though who knows what will happen, I'm really looking forward to it, am hopeful about it. I almost never go on dates, instead drifting into relationships with people for all the wrong reasons, only to later find myself not at all where I want to be, feeling more alone than I do when I'm single.

This was not how I wanted to end my year, frantic, last-minute copyediting and packing, the same adrenaline rush of will-I-make-the-plane. But I also recognize that I can't fix everything wrong with me in a day, or, clearly, a year. Perhaps not even in a lifetime. But I can do my best, and recognize my mistakes when I make them, my desire to run away into someone else's arms...as long as they aren't in New York. Heaven forbid I try to date someone here. Though this year I did try, and I'm glad I did, even though the results weren't anything worth sharing. I know I've made progress, but I also recognize how much farther I have to go, and I guess I will just have to see what unfolds, one day at a time. That's not at all in my control-freaking nature, but I'll just have to work slowly, in baby steps, at my own pace. And I know for all my pre-trip doubts, I'll be grateful to get out of here and clear my head a bit and hopefully let out a lot of the negativity I've been living with the past few weeks. At the very least, I will have a week of sleeping with the lights out, something that's on my half-formed list of resolutions, one of those awful habits that I just find hard to break. So yes, part of me wishes I were going somewhere all by myself for New Year's, but I also know that I needed to do this, for reasons that may not yet be clear. Sometimes impulsiveness can be a good thing.