2004-12-13 - 11:25 p.m.
I have an emotional hangover like you wouldn't believe.
My head is with the pounding, and if I could ungracefully puke it all up out of my system I would.
I made a mistake.
To be in perspective, it wasn't the largest of mistakes. People have made bigger ones and I could have made a way bigger one. I could have wiped out an endangered species or killed someone or something.
Really, it wasn't the biggest of things. The incident itself was all of 5 minutes maybe, and most people could easily write it off ... but I am having days' worth, and probably will have weeks' worth of ramifications.
It wasn't one of those mistakes where it takes you time to look back and go "oh, whoopsy, you know what? That was a mistake." It was one of those mistakes, where in the very first second, the neon sign of "mistake!!" lights up. And the wrongness of it grates on you in every possible way, like how a blackboard must feel when someone runs their fingernails down it.
I'm trying to avoid mentioning the specific incident of mistakeyness, because (a) it's not very interesting in itself and in a way there is much reason to go "...so what?" and (b) I want to keep it to myself, in so much as, I don't really want to post it in the ever swallowing void that is the internet.
Only the ramifications are really important, anyway. The immediate ones consisted of a lot of crying, a world championship amount of crying within a small time frame. Cue the scene of me sitting on the bathroom floor. I had just come home, and had been standing but my legs just sort of folded from under me. I sobbed silently onto the tiles, careful not to make a sound lest I should wake anyone.
Then I went to bed and woke up again 3 hours later, and cried for another hour, and then fell asleep for another few hours. I spent the day at annual Shelley's picnic thingy, crying on and off while hopefully no-one was noticing. I consequently dubbed myself "Shelley's freaky crying friend".
Then I walked. I kept walking til I was too tired to hurt anymore, by which time I was 2/3rds of the way home anyway. When I got home I was too numb to do anything but fall asleep in the warm light of the tv, with my dear friend couch.
And then there was today, which was day of severe emotional hangover. I've slept a lot but I'm so tired. And my brain is ticking away constantly, since though it was a bad mistake there are a lot of good things I can take away from it (mistakes and learning! see, tv was right). The only thing now is I'm not sure I'm taking the right things away, not sure about where I should assign the blame...
I learned the most about me and my feelings towards me and the resulting me that occurs. I always knew it was a sucky equation, but mistake personified this in blinding unequivocal undeniable terms. Probably because, it was me that I betrayed the most.
I even in some twisted way now understand why lovely x and I broke up. How does that nursery rhyme go? "There was a little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead, when she was good she was very good, but when she was bad she was horrid." And I can even accept the break up more, because as much as I want him, I don't want him with me. I want him with a beautiful, normal, non-head-fucked girl who loves him as much as I do, and won't hurt him, unintentionally or otherwise.
This said, that is probably the full amount of letting go I will do. Mistake was also unequivocal in the fact that my heart's still with him, wherever he is. And the parts left behind still have him written all over them, as if they'd absorbed him into DNA.
And I finally understand that line in that song by everything but the girl "And I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain,". I thought I got it before, but no, I really get it now. Typical. He's always brought me to higher levels of understanding, and now he can do that without actually doing anything.
I miss him as a friend, on top of everything. I miss him a lot. That was probably actually part of what made me vulnerable to mistake, but most of it was just me.
Oh, I may as well just tell you. In a way I hope that lovely x doesn't still read this, because I feel like I've cheated on him, even though I can't have since he did dump me. I suppose I cheated on my feelings for him and thus mostly cheated on me.
I'm making it sound a little worse than it was. So anyway this, finally, is what happened -
I was somewhere that reminded me of lovely x which led to
*excessive missing him which partially led to
*not stopping drinking when I should have which led to
*not being drunk but being drunk enough to not be thinking properly which led to
*not realising some guy was about to start kissing me
And because I was slightly drunk and I have an old habit of just letting guys kiss me because my self-esteem is so so low, I just sat there and let him kiss me, which led to:
*me feeling disgusted and nauseous and starting to cry (because I'm still so in love with lovely x, more than even I knew) which led to *him asking if I had a boyfriend which led to
*me giving a tortured look and saying "no" which lead to
*silence which led to
*me going "I have to go home" which led to
*him going "Okay, let's go home" which led to
*me looking horrified and going "No, I have to go to my home, GOODBYE" which led to
*me running away to hide/cry in the bathroom which led to
*on the way bumping into the drummer from the band who just looked at me and said "so cheap, so cheap," which all led to
*me crying on my bathroom floor, etc. etc.
The drummer was right (although I later learned he at the time thought I was running off to go home with random-guy, which there is no way I ever ever EVER would have done). In a way I make me cheap, and this is the main part of the mistake that bothers me, aside from the still-in-love with lovely x part.
I'm cheap because I just put so little value on me. Confusingly, it's only because of lovely x that I realised this is the wrong way to be.
Once I told him that I loved and related to a line in 'Scar': I'm a little bit tired of fearing that I'll be the bad fruit nobody buys. Later he told me that that was wrong, that I was the fruit tree that nobody finds, and that he was so amazed he'd found me.
And god, I don't think he'd think that now. But that he did once still means so much to me. And it makes me think I'm worth more.
I don't know where all of this added together leaves me now. I don't know whether to just go "It was a mistake, you regret it immensely, but there are a lot of good lessons which you're learning from this," or to go "It was a mistake, which is undeniably reflective of who you are as a person, which is sucky. Now, please beat yourself up for this for as long as humanly possible." Habit dictates the latter while my new knowledge leans me towards the former, so I'm confused, and it doesn't help that I have this running commentary in my head which wonders how lovely x would feel if he knew, whether he'd be hurt or whether he'd just see it as a mistake and forgive me ... not that his forgiveness is something I should need but ... it kindof is. And the potential of hurting him makes me want to beat myself up especially, but me beating myself up could also hurt him.
So I don't know. Give me a hug and tell me what you think? The only thing that seems clear is that maybe I should join a nunnery. I'd be a rocking nun.
My head is with the pounding, and if I could ungracefully puke it all up out of my system I would.
I made a mistake.
To be in perspective, it wasn't the largest of mistakes. People have made bigger ones and I could have made a way bigger one. I could have wiped out an endangered species or killed someone or something.
Really, it wasn't the biggest of things. The incident itself was all of 5 minutes maybe, and most people could easily write it off ... but I am having days' worth, and probably will have weeks' worth of ramifications.
It wasn't one of those mistakes where it takes you time to look back and go "oh, whoopsy, you know what? That was a mistake." It was one of those mistakes, where in the very first second, the neon sign of "mistake!!" lights up. And the wrongness of it grates on you in every possible way, like how a blackboard must feel when someone runs their fingernails down it.
I'm trying to avoid mentioning the specific incident of mistakeyness, because (a) it's not very interesting in itself and in a way there is much reason to go "...so what?" and (b) I want to keep it to myself, in so much as, I don't really want to post it in the ever swallowing void that is the internet.
Only the ramifications are really important, anyway. The immediate ones consisted of a lot of crying, a world championship amount of crying within a small time frame. Cue the scene of me sitting on the bathroom floor. I had just come home, and had been standing but my legs just sort of folded from under me. I sobbed silently onto the tiles, careful not to make a sound lest I should wake anyone.
Then I went to bed and woke up again 3 hours later, and cried for another hour, and then fell asleep for another few hours. I spent the day at annual Shelley's picnic thingy, crying on and off while hopefully no-one was noticing. I consequently dubbed myself "Shelley's freaky crying friend".
Then I walked. I kept walking til I was too tired to hurt anymore, by which time I was 2/3rds of the way home anyway. When I got home I was too numb to do anything but fall asleep in the warm light of the tv, with my dear friend couch.
And then there was today, which was day of severe emotional hangover. I've slept a lot but I'm so tired. And my brain is ticking away constantly, since though it was a bad mistake there are a lot of good things I can take away from it (mistakes and learning! see, tv was right). The only thing now is I'm not sure I'm taking the right things away, not sure about where I should assign the blame...
I learned the most about me and my feelings towards me and the resulting me that occurs. I always knew it was a sucky equation, but mistake personified this in blinding unequivocal undeniable terms. Probably because, it was me that I betrayed the most.
I even in some twisted way now understand why lovely x and I broke up. How does that nursery rhyme go? "There was a little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead, when she was good she was very good, but when she was bad she was horrid." And I can even accept the break up more, because as much as I want him, I don't want him with me. I want him with a beautiful, normal, non-head-fucked girl who loves him as much as I do, and won't hurt him, unintentionally or otherwise.
This said, that is probably the full amount of letting go I will do. Mistake was also unequivocal in the fact that my heart's still with him, wherever he is. And the parts left behind still have him written all over them, as if they'd absorbed him into DNA.
And I finally understand that line in that song by everything but the girl "And I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain,". I thought I got it before, but no, I really get it now. Typical. He's always brought me to higher levels of understanding, and now he can do that without actually doing anything.
I miss him as a friend, on top of everything. I miss him a lot. That was probably actually part of what made me vulnerable to mistake, but most of it was just me.
Oh, I may as well just tell you. In a way I hope that lovely x doesn't still read this, because I feel like I've cheated on him, even though I can't have since he did dump me. I suppose I cheated on my feelings for him and thus mostly cheated on me.
I'm making it sound a little worse than it was. So anyway this, finally, is what happened -
I was somewhere that reminded me of lovely x which led to
*excessive missing him which partially led to
*not stopping drinking when I should have which led to
*not being drunk but being drunk enough to not be thinking properly which led to
*not realising some guy was about to start kissing me
And because I was slightly drunk and I have an old habit of just letting guys kiss me because my self-esteem is so so low, I just sat there and let him kiss me, which led to:
*me feeling disgusted and nauseous and starting to cry (because I'm still so in love with lovely x, more than even I knew) which led to *him asking if I had a boyfriend which led to
*me giving a tortured look and saying "no" which lead to
*silence which led to
*me going "I have to go home" which led to
*him going "Okay, let's go home" which led to
*me looking horrified and going "No, I have to go to my home, GOODBYE" which led to
*me running away to hide/cry in the bathroom which led to
*on the way bumping into the drummer from the band who just looked at me and said "so cheap, so cheap," which all led to
*me crying on my bathroom floor, etc. etc.
The drummer was right (although I later learned he at the time thought I was running off to go home with random-guy, which there is no way I ever ever EVER would have done). In a way I make me cheap, and this is the main part of the mistake that bothers me, aside from the still-in-love with lovely x part.
I'm cheap because I just put so little value on me. Confusingly, it's only because of lovely x that I realised this is the wrong way to be.
Once I told him that I loved and related to a line in 'Scar': I'm a little bit tired of fearing that I'll be the bad fruit nobody buys. Later he told me that that was wrong, that I was the fruit tree that nobody finds, and that he was so amazed he'd found me.
And god, I don't think he'd think that now. But that he did once still means so much to me. And it makes me think I'm worth more.
I don't know where all of this added together leaves me now. I don't know whether to just go "It was a mistake, you regret it immensely, but there are a lot of good lessons which you're learning from this," or to go "It was a mistake, which is undeniably reflective of who you are as a person, which is sucky. Now, please beat yourself up for this for as long as humanly possible." Habit dictates the latter while my new knowledge leans me towards the former, so I'm confused, and it doesn't help that I have this running commentary in my head which wonders how lovely x would feel if he knew, whether he'd be hurt or whether he'd just see it as a mistake and forgive me ... not that his forgiveness is something I should need but ... it kindof is. And the potential of hurting him makes me want to beat myself up especially, but me beating myself up could also hurt him.
So I don't know. Give me a hug and tell me what you think? The only thing that seems clear is that maybe I should join a nunnery. I'd be a rocking nun.
