The Morning After

Diana and I threw the party of the year...in our minds...Saturday night. I had no idea we could fit that many people into our apartment. It's much bigger than I originally thought, which accounts for the large electric bill. Brushing past that many people that you know, meeting their friends, and subsequently adding more "friends" to your "list" is incredibly uplifting. There was remorse the next morning. I wondered if I'd spoken to all the people that I wanted to speak with. I wondered if I'd seemed flippant to anyone because of the the large volume of guests wanting to say hi and wanting to chat. I ran into many people that I'd like to be able to spend more time with, and hosting a party just doesn't allow for that kind of one on one action. I like being a guest because you can kind of pick your group of friends and hang out with them...and you don't have to clean up in the morning. To the guests of my party: I commend you for your recycling efforts. However, I might need a truck to get all of this to the recycling bins.

This past week has been strange. I have simultaneously had a desperate craving for human contact and fellowship and held on tightly to the rope of my own solitude. I find myself holding my breath trying not to make a million mistakes, trying to do the things that everyone says I should do, behave the way that everyone says I should behave. I've been terribly lonely, and overwhelmed with company, intimacy even. I'm probably entering the phase where it might be a good idea to get into therapy. I get lost in the loneliness. I miss Liam. I miss London. I ache even. I'm sick of trying to think of things as working or not working depending upon which way that you do them...or play them. My relationships with the people that I have loved passionately have begun in these spectacularly romantic ways and, subsequently, ended with my own terrifying revelation of insecurity, fear, and...hopelessness? The ends were never pretty. I wonder if that's possible. I also wonder if the big sweeping gestures that these guys made for me in the beginning were really worth it. They set my expectations in the stratosphere, and that's why it was so terrifying to lose them. Did they try to set my expectations so high because they had the same sort of expectations for me? There isn't enough organics in my relationships. I fall too fast, too far, drown too quickly. My heart begins to break the instant I realize I'm in love. Wish I could be cool. Wish I could have been cool.

What I'm trying to say is, what if I never figure that out? What if I never figure out how to be cool, how to be completely and utterly wrapped up in me. Whenever I asked what "cool" meant when I was a kid, I was always told that to be cool was to be myself. Which led me to ask the question, "when am I not myself?" And what if myself...is just incapable of being cool...or playing it cool. Different concepts, but very closely related. Also...what if no one ever figures that out. What if we're not supposed to. That's the other thing: thinking that things are supposed to be one way or another. Pretty sure that's not the way it is.