I say what I have to say to get through the day. Knowing I’m not a person anyone will ever love. I’m not relationship material. I don’t love easily. Some people fall in and out of love. I don’t. Once I fall, that’s it. You’ve got me. And even after you break my heart, part of me will always love you to some degree. Can’t help it. I’m loyal and I genuinely care about people. Even people who hate me.
I realized after my heartbreak last year that I’m not someone anyone wants long term. I’m not worth the long term. Not good enough. And I can list every fault I have that makes me not worth it. Lol. At least once a day I remind myself not to ever hope for anything long term or serious again because that’s not in the cards for me. Casual is fine. The hurt will be minimal with casual when they finally get tired of me.
Growing up my mom always told me I was too fat and not pretty enough and my dad always told me I was crazy. And surprise, those are the exact reasons I’ve been told I’m not relationship material. Plus, boring. Lol.
I start to do ok. To focus on me and my goals and be ok with casual dating. And be ok with who and what I am. And be ok with not being enough. And then someone I have loved will just pop into my life to remind me that I’m not worth a long term relationship. And it shouldn’t hurt but it so does.
I may not have a nice body, or be pretty, or be well adjusted but in general I’m kind, generous, caring, empathetic, sweet… ya know, a mildly decent person. And I don’t feel like I deserve to have my heart crushed repeatedly. I get that I’m not good enough but isn’t telling me that once enough? Do we have to keep doing this??
For as long as I can remember, in every relationship I’ve had – as a daughter, as a mother, as a wife, as a friend – whenever there is a conflict I’m usually the one who apologizes first and tries to fix the situation. Maybe it’s because I don’t like conflict or maybe it’s because I’m scared to lose people. But I can tell you this: no one is scared to lose me. The people who are closest to me continue, year after year, to walk all over me, say hurtful things, and never once worry if I’m hurt or care. I’m tired of always being the bad guy. I’m tired of no one caring if they hurt me or worry that someday they might push me too far and lose me. I would love for someone, one day to give a shit, but they won’t. Because I’m too forgiving and too much of a doormat. So I need to go hermit mode for a while. I’m tired of being walked on.
I don’t check my stats every day. I really only check them when I’ve posted something new. Gotta get that sweet, sweet dopamine by seeing my views go up. But if I haven’t posted that day or the day before, I typically don’t bother to check.
That’s why it completely escaped my notice that on February 22, someone found my blog and just went nuts. I mean they were reading some really old stuff. And embarrassing stuff at that.
Why was it embarrassing? I would say mostly because a lot, A LOT, of my old writing doesn’t reflect who I am anymore. And rereading some of them I wonder how much they reflected who I was at the time. I suppose they did. But so much of my life was wrapped up in trying to fit into the church world of rural Missouri that I honestly can’t say if much of what I wrote then was me. I censored myself a lot back then. I wanted to speak truth to power but in a likable way. I wanted to rock the boat enough but not tip it over. I wanted to persuade with pretty, witty writing and I feared angering the people in my life.
Yesterday I found myself in a parking ramp I hadn’t been in for about a year. The last time I was there I had a boyfriend and I thought we were in love. If I’m being honest, I hoped we’d be together for a very long time. We broke up a few months later. We’re still very good friends but being in that parking ramp today brought back a flood of memories and emotions from a year ago. And I realized just how much has changed in a year, how much I’ve changed.
Change.
I started this blog over 11 years ago because I frequently had a lot on my mind and I wanted an outlet for it. And yet, I still censored myself and tried to make myself palatable for my readers. Looking through what my mysterious fan read on the 22nd, I can’t believe just how much my life has changed. Especially in the last 3.5 years since my ex-husband left. This blog and my Instagram account (which I started in 2010) have both acted as a kind of public diary for life and the lives of my kids for a long time now. So any time I go in and do a deep dive on either account I get a glimpse into the past, and often I don’t like what I see.
But recent events in my life have been putting things in perspective for me. And something I’ve realized is just how much I’ve been running from who I was and running from problems I didn’t want to face. I took a good, hard look at myself yesterday and realized I had been lying to myself about a lot of things for quite a while.
There are parts of me that are so beautiful and powerful. Parts that’ve been with me since I was young. I see those parts here in my past and now in my present. And there are parts of me that are embarrassing, parts that are corrupt, parts that are dishonest, parts that are unkind. I see those in both my past and present as well. Looking over who I’ve been before and who I am now, I realize how much I want to nurture those beautiful, powerful parts of me. And seeing all the times I’ve lied to myself, and all the running I’ve done these last few years, I know I have to stop running and start being honest.
Whoever you are that found my blog and brought up the past, thank you. You inadvertently caused me to have to take a real look at myself. I have to litigate my past and confront my present. I need to burn the chaff and salvage the sweetness and goodness that is in me. I need to stop running.
I constantly say I’m working on myself but now I wonder if that’s been a lie. I know I will be from now on.
Is ignorance bliss? Is self-awareness is a blessing or a curse? I don’t have answers to these questions. All I know is me.
If you know me or read me, you know I’m perpetually on a quest to know thyself and that I’m always aiming to improve myself. Reading any of my personal essays will clue you in to the fact that I am often a mess because healing isn’t linear but I never let my messiness stop me. You’ll also figure out that since my divorce, I think and write about romantic relationships, love, sex, marriage, and all that jizz jazz often. Why? Cuz I got dumped, dummy. LOL. Ok, but for real, it’s because like everyone on the planet I want to be loved and wanted and I don’t want to be alone. My fear that I’m inherently unlovable, undesirable, and will always be alone has driven me and not in healthy ways.
So it’ll come as no surprise at all that this personal essay is about that shit. Again. You’re bored already and I get it. I’m bored too. LOL. So for both of our sakes’ I will try to keep this brief.
Here is my latest theory and the reasons behind it, as quickly and as succinctly as my loquacious little fingers can write it:
Theory: I don’t think I will ever be in another serious relationship.
Reasons:
One: I rely too heavily on vibes.
I don’t really give people much of a chance on dating apps. If I don’t feel it pretty quickly, I move on. Truthfully, I find most of the “talking stage” to be so egregiously tedious that I would rather lose the ability to speak (something that might kill me) than to have to suffer through innumerable iterations of the mother fucking talking stage. KMN.
One A: If I don’t find you mentally stimulating, game over.
If I hate the talking stage so much, how will I ever find out if I find someone mentally stimulating? I don’t know, bitch. I don’t make the rules. Again, it’s about vibes. If the vibes are vibing then I’ll stick around long enough to find out if you’re a dumb dumb or not. If I find myself dissociating while you’re telling me a story, we probably aren’t gonna go on very many dates.
Two: I have a type and my type’s type is not me.
It’s cliche but I like me a bad boy with a heart of gold. Or to put it another way, there is a certain type of masculine energy that is absolute catnip for me. However, the type of masculinity that I’m attracted to is not attracted to soft, autistic, nerdy girls. They want the hot, baddie. The girl all the bad guys want is not me. LOL. And let’s be real just cuz Sandra Dee dressed up like a dominatrix at the end of Grease didn’t mean she was really a “bad girl”. I could try to play the part of a baddie, but the reality is I’m not. I’m an emotional, socially awkward, fat girl. (With a wicked sense of humor and entertaining writing style, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Two A: I know that to someone out there, I am absolute catnip. The problem is they are not catnip to me.
I’m talking about catnip a lot. The point is somewhere out in this wide world there are people who like my personality, think my face is pretty, and don’t mind my soft bod. But the people who like me I don’t typically vibe with. It’s extremely problematic. LOL.
I see one likely outcome, one “eh, idk, maybe” outcome, and one “would take an act of a deity to happen” outcome as a result of all this.
Likely: I continue to go on casual dates and make friends and have fun but never settle into another serious relationship. It’s a bummer but I’m starting to accept this as my fate for being such a picky ass.
Eh, Idk, Maybe: I settle for someone who is not my type but that likes me and I get along with. I mean, this could happen. I’ve settled before. I wouldn’t be alone. But I’d probably be bored.
Would Take An Act Of A Deity To Happen: I meet someone I fall head over heels for. We vibe. They stimulate me mentally. They’re a baddie with a heart of gold. And somehow, impossibly, I’m exactly what they want too. I know, sounds unlikely. One in a million.
That’s it guys. That’s my theory and the reasons behind it. I’ll be honest, today I am ok with the likely outcome of being alone forever. Today, I can handle it. Another day, who knows? But for now, I accept it. I accept myself as I am. And for today, I love myself.
I started this post asking if ignorance is bliss. Would I be happier if I weren’t so self-aware? If I wasn’t always reexamining myself in order to improve as a human being, would I just be a happy, ignorant, slut? IDFK. But at the moment, instead of making myself miserable because I’m not loved/wanted/with someone, I am accepting myself and my singleness and knowing that somehow it will all be ok.
Every Day Bonnie 