Oh shit...
What have I fucking done?
Dear Taze,
Obviously, I'm never going to let you read this... But I've got to write it, for my own peace of mind. Or something to that effect.
I crawled into your bed around 4.40 in the morning last night. Today. Whatever. You were having some kind of dream, and woke up, and I told you that I'd locked myself out of my house.
That much was true.
You snuggled up next to me, and warmed me up from having been outside, and you put your face against my chest, and asked, "ohhh, what's that smell???"
I said it was probably fishsticks from work, or shampoo or something. That part wasn't true. As a matter of fact, it was probably Chris's Acqua di Gio cologne there on my breast.
I came home from work last night, talked to Chris for a few minutes on the phone, invited him over, had some Bailey's straight out of the bottle, checked my email, and had sex with him on my living room floor. Afterwards, I went to get cigarettes at Price Chopper, and accidentally locked myself out. That was when I came to your place.
There you go -- the truth. I'm a cheat.
I honestly don't know how you'd respond if I told you any of this. Maybe you'd be really upset, maybe you'd think nothing of it. Maybe you'd think I'm a shitty girlfriend, maybe you're enlightened enough not to take the Jerry Springer approach. You've got some pretty liberal views about most things. But we never really talked about cheating. Do you consider it cheating for me to sleep with somebody else? Most people would. I don't know about you.
There are many things I don't know about you. You're so unpredictable, and I wonder if I've got a chance in hell of ever halfway understanding you. Remember the night we watched "Eraserhead"? You got upset when I asked to bum a cigarette from you -- I guess you figured we should be close enough so that we don't have to ask each other. But then you got upset when I tried to close the window because I was cold. You said the room would get smoky. So which is it? Which things am I supposed to ask about, and which things should I just DO, because we're close enough not to have to ask?
I'm sorry, but I don't understand. I love you -- I'm pretty sure of that -- but I don't have any idea what you're all about.
Sometimes, I DO feel incredibly close to you. When you're cuddled up next to me, and we're whispering sweet dorky nothings about Ralphie and Brittany, and Satanic rectums... When you're playing the guitar and turn around to look at me, and say, "wow, I love that!" When we decided that pedestrians should always have the right of way.
But other times, I don't think you could be further away. I wanted so much for you to see "Dancer in the Dark" with me, but you wanted to play your guitar. I want so much for you to come over to my house once in awhile instead of me always coming over there. I want so much for you to read my play, but you haven't yet. I want to sit with you in the living room while you grab books off your shelves and explain the meaning of god to me, like we used to do. Instead, your life has centered around your guitar, and I have almost no place anymore.
The other night, when we rented videos, we watched one, and we made love, and then we watched the other, and then you got up to play your guitar all night. It was almost as if, after watching movies and having sex, there was nothing more you wanted to do with me.
PLEASE do not think I disapprove of your music. I love it, and I love you all the more for your ability to be so passionate about your art. I think you are beautiful when your face is so radiant from playing something really extraordinary. I would never, EVER ask you to put down your guitar for me, for a movie, or a chat, or sex, or anything. I respect your music, and I respect your love for it, and I do not presume that anything about me takes presidence over it. No matter what happens between you and me, no matter what has ever happened between you and your past girlfriends or ANYBODY, you'll always have your music, and it's beautiful, and it is part of you, part of your whole being. I will never take that away from you, never try to make you feel guilty about it, never ridicule you for it. I love you, and your music is a part of you.
But sometimes, I get lonely. What am I supposed to do for seven hours while you play your guitar? You take it as some kind of insult if I go home, but you don't want to put down the guitar to spend time with me, and you don't want me to pester you to do so. You're so defensive of that guitar... So I sit on the futon and wait. I read until my head hurts. I write until my arm hurts. I wait until I'm 90% asleep. And then I can't even quite fall asleep, because you're playing, and it is fairly distracting.
So I'm lonely. And dammit, I'm sick of waiting. And for the past few weeks, I haven't been able to think of anything except escaping: getting on a bus and riding until I can't ride anymore; just walking and walking until there's no more road to walk on; running away to Asheville and spending a day or two with Jason... I don't even know what. I'm just so sick of being lonely and bored and feeling inadequate. Of COURSE I'm not as important to you as your music, and I don't expect that I ever would be. But I'm sick of putting my own life on hold until you decide you're ready to put down your guitar and remember I'm there.
None of this is your fault, and this is not a guilt-trip. I'm not whining for more attention; just explaining that I need more.
You said, when we first started seeing each other, that relationships are best when both people retain their identities completely.
You have retained yours: your music, your school, your friends... And in order to be with you, to spend time with you, I have to give up my own identity. I don't go out with my friends much anymore. I don't HAVE many friends anymore. I don't write in my journal as often. I don't watch TV much anymore, and I certainly don't listen to my music anymore, except on the way to and from work, because, if you hated Emerson Lake and Palmer, I can't imagine what you'd say about Tori Amos or Poe.
This is NOT your fault. It's just something you overlooked, I think. I've kind of been forced to choose between the life I've always lived, and being your girlfriend. It's been so nice, being with you, spending time with you, having someone to eat with, having someone to watch movies with, having a freaking intelligent human being to talk to... The stupid sweet nothings...
Of course I sacrificed a lot. And now I'm sort of regretting it, because I feel I've stopped doing Carolyn-things in favor of waiting on the futon for you to finish playing your guitar and hang out with me.
And I've been fantasizing about ending it. Because I'm losing myself, and now I feel like I'm losing you as well. Perhaps I'm just not so interesting anymore. Maybe your creative muse hasn't given you a rest. But I cannot and will not compete with your guitar. So I've been imagining myself running away. I imagine myself off in California again. I imagine what Idaho might look like, and Washington. I wish I was back in Maryland, in North Carolina, even Florida... Even Santa Fe. I'm looking for me, because I know I misplaced myself somewhere, and no matter how hard I look, I just can't seem to find myself here anymore.
The vertigo of Santa Fe is back on me. Then, I lost my family, my home, my money, my dog, Robbie, Steve, Derek, Jason, Brian, and Java Joe's. I didn't know who I was anymore. I'm not sure I know who I am now. I'm not sure some mornings where I am when I wake up. I awake thinking I'm "back home," which is sometimes my dad's house, sometimes my grandparent's house, sometimes Santa Fe, sometimes Danny's room... I don't know anymore, where I am, who I am, and where I belong.
I'm lonely.
I love you, and I'm lonely.
I've been thinking so long and hard about what to do... I didn't want to break up with you. I didn't want to hurt you, or tell you that I'm not happy, because sometimes -- often -- I am so very happy with you, and I don't want you to ever think otherwise.
I imagined having a secret affair, lasting a long, long time. I imagined telling you I was going to visit relatives and visiting Jason instead -- having a crazy, secret, long-term affair with him. Jason has always brought me back to myself, made me feel everything that is so profoundly ME: the joy, the dorky bubbliness, the longing for expression and discussions about all things artistic and intellectual, and even the absolute pain. I can't be with Jason. But perhaps, I fantasized, we could be secret lovers for a long long time, while I remained with you, loving your quirkiness and the way you make me smile...
But 900 miles is a long way.
I slept with Chris because I like him, because he's my friend, because he's attractive and I enjoyed having sex with him before you and I got together. Because suddenly, last night, he was in my living room, and we were cuddling, and I wanted to feel like I wasn't alone. Because it turned me on to think of doing something other than waiting on the futon. Because you were most likely at your apartment playing your guitar, oblivious to my existence, and my entire existence has been questionable lately, and I wanted to be reconnected to the world and do something that I liked doing before we started dating. Something that goes against all the good-girl rules of fidelity. If being faithful means waiting, then FUCK fidelity.
I didn't do it to hurt you. I didn't do it to shame you for having music as your first love, or to rebel against any sort of weird oppressive expectations. I did it because I like Chris, and I don't like reading for seven hours by myself. If I had done it to hurt you, I would tell you about it, and I'm not going to tell you a thing about it.
I wonder, often, if you like having me as your girlfriend. There's nothing so special that you like about me that you couldn't find elsewhere. I'm not the most educated person in the world, and I have trouble communicating intelligently without sounding like a complete airhead most of the time. I know you love your books, and I know you like having nice philosophical conversations, and I know damn well I'm not a very good companion for that. I'm NOT stupid, and I know I'm not stupid, but I recognize that verbal communication is not my strongest point. Sometimes, after you've gone to school and I'm alone in your apartment, I pick up a random book off your shelf, and I get myself absorbed in it, and I understand everything perfectly, although I don't always know how to pronounce all the words. I try very hard to sound like an educated adult instead of a dropout 20-year-old, and I've gone so far as to write down numerous words I don't know and look them up in the dictionary just to be able to communicate with you on a better level. But I know that there are plenty of people older and wiser and more capable of holding a nice long conversation with you.
I know too that I am 20 years old, and that, after seven lovers, I still don't know what I'm doing. I'm used to virgins and homos who didn't know what they were doing either. I don't suppose it's enough for you that I'm cute and I have a nice body, the way it's been enough for everyone else. Somehow, after four lovers who had sex with me because I'm cute and have a nice body, and two lovers who had sex with me out of unbearable tension and a certain unnameable emotional desire, I'm supposed to have found some special technique? Some way of moving and kissing and touching to make sex more enjoyable? I don't have any idea how to please my lover. It's always been enough that I'm cute and have a nice body. Or that there was some electrically charged emotional thing present. I've picked up a few positions here and there; I've learned a few good places to touch, and a few good places to kiss... I know that ear-nibbling usually works, and certain kinds of sounds tend to turn my lover on... I don't know why none of my dumb little tricks don't work with you, why it's not enough to be cute and have a nice body. It always worked before.
You tell me that I don't really know what I'm doing, and I know you're right. I don't have any idea what I'm doing. I have vague ideas of what I like, and vague ideas of what other people are supposed to like, but nothing is concrete, and I always kind of rely on chance and daydreams to make it really special. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not a very good lover. I've been sexually active for almost four years; you've been sexually active for about seventeen -- how am I supposed to equal seventeen years of experience when all of my lovers (except you and Jason) have been pretty close to my own age and ALSO didn't know what the hell they were doing?
I've been feeling very unsexy lately.
It felt very, very good to have a good old-fashioned fuck with Chris -- Chris who is unconcerned with how hard I kiss, or whether or not I raise the proper amount of tension. Chris, who, like me, is young and relatively inexperienced, and who, like me, is sort of overwhelmed by everything about sex, such that tension and technique and movement and kissing and everything are too much to concentrate on all at once. We had sex and it was very nice, and very pleasant, and there wasn't really very much pressure to do things quite right, and feel things and act on them all at once. There wasn't a tempo to move with; it wasn't a symphony. And it wasn't as physically satisfying as sex with you, but it was a lot easier, and I wasn't scared of not pleasing him. I like that a lot.
When I came over to your apartment last night, and we made love, and you kept telling me, "kiss me here," or "go slower," or "see, like this..." I was so unhappy. Just one more reminder that I don't measure up, and I didn't even really want to have sex anymore. I was so discouraged. You deserve somebody who can please you, and I'm going to keep trying, but it's so hard on me sometimes: like a chemistry exam or something. Sometimes, it's a real turn-off to be reminded that I'm sexually clueless.
I know I'm not the best lover you could have, and I know I'm not the most interesting person to converse with, and I know I'm not an artform and I haven't any idea what the hell's the difference between a diminished chord and a bass drum. I love you, and I suspect that you truly mean it when you say you love me, but sometimes, that isn't enough. Sometimes, I want to feel like I'm giving somebody real pleasure in sex. Sometimes I like to feel as though I'm doing my own thing, not just waiting for you to finish yours. Sometimes, I want to run away, and I want to have a life that I cannot tell you about, so that I don't have to postpone it until you're ready to join me in doing something I enjoy.
Chris said to me, "but I'm just your friend, Carolyn. He's your boyfriend." And he's right. I care very deeply about Chris, but I'm not in love with him, and our relationship right now is that of two friends who go to Dunkin Donuts sometimes in the middle of the night to gossip, and who have had some really nice sex a few times. Soon, Chris will be my neighbor, and we're going to have to figure a few things out. Like, whether or not we can continue to see each other outside the boundaries of... well... clothing... Like whether or not we feel okay having sex sometimes even though I'm dating you, even though I love you, even though I don't suspect you'd ever do something like this to me.
I imagine -- and this is just a small thought, not any particular plan -- that I'm going to continue to have sex with people who aren't you -- maybe Chris, maybe not; that will depend on things that Chris and I have yet to talk about. I imagine I'm not going to tell you a thing about it. I imagine it will be my little secret. My little secret life. My little escape when I can't stand waiting anymore.
I told Jason that monogamy and Binghamton do not go well together. I'm not ready for a monogamous relationship with somebody who's got so much of his life figured out already -- so much more than myself. I can see myself disappearing into you, into your habits and passions and needs. Neglecting my own because I'm not sure what they are yet. This is my way of separating myself from you just a little bit -- just enough to maintain my sense of what the fuck *I* want... I don't know what I want, but I know I'm not exactly happy and I'm not completely ready for the relationship we have. I'm not aware enough of myself. I don't want to lose you, and I don't want to destroy what we've got already, because it could be really fantastic in a little while, after I've thought about some things, and learned some things, and grown up a little bit. I don't want to make you wait, or put anything on hold, or give anything up for me -- I want things to go on as they have been between the two of us.
I can't believe I'm doing this to you.
Certainly, this is not the best way to handle things. But I've never had a boyfriend before -- not one who worked out, not one I was happy to be with. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm young, I'm inexperienced, and I like the idea of having something completely separate from you, something you can't be part of, something I won't be tempted to give you.
Forgive me.
Love me.
Be my lover and expect things from me that I don't quite know how to give. Teach me how to be a girlfriend -- I honestly don't know how. Be patient with me and I'll figure out how to be more interesting and less of an airhead when we talk; to say what I mean and leave the "like's" and "y'know's" out of it. I love you and I find great pleasure in you, and I don't foresee that changing much.
Forgive me.
I need this.
Love Always,
~Carolyn*