My own little world of Whatever
Tuesday, October 03, 2006 | posted by Kate |
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I don't mean this metaphorically. I am being serious. After unpacking a kitchen table, two chairs, a small couch and a bedside table (all from IKEA) it looked like my cute apartment was being swallowed by cardboard. I had to make two trips down to the dumpsters, unceremoniously dragging these large boxes (wrappers, etc) behind me, apologizing to fellow residents for hogging the elevator and the hallway. Also: IKEA is a fabulous place to obtain furniture (which I assembled all by myself! Woo!) but is a giant clusterfuck, aka the most fun I NEVER want to have again. But they did have awfully good food. (Maybe I'll find a man who wants to take me on a dinner date to IKEA. Haha. Maybe not.)
On Living Alone
I realize that I haven't been out here "on my own" for very long, but I guess I thought I would feel more lonely. Feelings tend to hit me right away, and hit me hard. What I am trying to say is that if I was going to be depressed here, I would already be there. I have realized that my priority is that I feel that there are people that care about me, people that know me. Further, this doesn't have to be embodied in one person.
We only have to be in this alone if we make it so. I choose to not be in it alone. Being single and being in my own place can be filled with exuberance, triumph and enthusiasm; or it can be filled with despair, loneliness and sadness. I choose the former.
I look out my floor-to-ceiling windows, over the dazzling city and into the night sky and am filled with contentment and hope. I have not cried any tears in this place, in my place. My new place.
On Being Real
I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to "be yourself." There are a lot of versions of this that decidedly miss the point:
Being who people expect you to be
Being who you think people expect you to be
Being what you think someone would like or want
The nice thing about not being yourself completely is that if people don't like it, then they haven't rejected YOU because you weren't being yourself. But what is sad is that you didn't give them the chance to like you because you weren't being yourself, either.
It will take a lot of strength for me to consistently be myself across the board, and respect the rejection I may encounter, acknowledging that everyone is not going to find my quirks "cute" or "amusing." Someone will. I certainly do. I crack my shit up if I must say so myself.
I didn't steal your boyfriend
Okay, so the thought of having a boyfriend right now makes me feel decidedly claustrophobic. It sounds selfish, but to have to deal with someone else's whatever while I am still getting settled in makes me break out into hives. I'll be ready for commitment at some point, but I will understand what the true cost of that relationship is. Time spent with that boyfriend is time that I am not choosing to do whatever I want, time that I am not laying around my house, etc.
But on second thought, the idea of having a boyfriend makes me feel a little bit excited too.
The feel of a man's hand on the small of my back. His voice in the middle of the night: "Oh, sweetheart, can't you sleep?" while he pats the smooth cool of his chest for me to crawl into. Maybe I've been reading too many romance novels. Let's try to be realistic. Okay. Rephrase. Someone who has his own place, his own job, his own world that he allows me to visit every now and again.
