Overwhelmed & The Cost of Living

I feel like I can't even breathe. Why is everything so confusing? Why are thoughts racing around my mind a million miles a minute? (Say that ten times fast!)I just want to cry, but tears won't even come out at this point. I feel my heart beating faster than ever - but it's not a healthy beat, it's a sickly, depressive, anxiety inducing rhythm that just won't let up.

Does God or some Divine Force exist? I'm not sure. I believe in the sublime and serendipity. Fate, Destiny, whatnot - I just don't know. I want *SO BADLY* for the universe to reach out and throw me a sign, a bone, to grab me by the balls and shove me face first into whatever the hell it is I'm supposed to be doing. I feel like a visitor to this planet, to my life, to my body, instead of permanent resident. How sad is that? I don't even feel like I own my own skin.

Things were so much simpler as a child, and I thought they were so difficult then - HA, If I only knew the half of what was to come! I'm at an impasse, a blockade in my life and I can't take it anymore. It's painful, it hurts real bad, and I'm wandering further and further down the dark emotional alley, when instead I want to be headed into the light. At 24 years old, I literally have nothing to my name. I want to badly to be on my own, to escape and live a life for myself. I don't know how or where to go though. I don't have the financial means. The sad part is, I have been thinking about this a lot lately - is that I am better off financially dead than alive. I would never kill myself, but it's just a sad thing to realize that your monetary value to the world is absolutely zero. If I were to go back to school in NYC I wouldn't be able to afford having an apartment in the city, and I have no job there and no self confidence to get one, and no idea what I want to do. Whenever I have gotten jobs in the past it has alway been in positions where I got vasty underpaid and extremely taken advantage of from positions of authority. I can't have that anymore - I can't have people treating me like a little bitch when I am a nice, friendly, kindhearted person. But to know you are worth essentially zero the universe and that you can have zero of the things you want - that hurts. I want to live in NY and FL at the same time, but no one can defy the laws of physics. I don't mind being far from my parents at this point, but I do *NOT* want to be far from my grandparents. It would break my heart to be far from them. BUT - I can't afford to live in the city either. Why couldn't I just be like everyone else? I am so smart - why couldn't I have graduated from a good school in 4 years, have a high paying job in something I like with health insurance and a matching 401k plan, contribute the maximum allowable amount on a sliding scale to a Roth IRA, be a sexy gay gym muscleboy with a closet full of diesel clothes, an amazing lifepartner and an adopted child, and a "happily ever after". My best asset - my mind, is apparently also my worst enemy. How the hell do you deal with *THAT*?

My mom is getting on my case like crazy every single day and I don't know what to tell her. "You need health insurance! You need to go back to school! You need to stay living at home! You need a good job, etc!" Don't you think I want all those things??? (minus the living at home!). Ughhh. Everything seems SO overwhelming and out of reach. Where is my "seed money" so that I can go out in the world and make it for myself. Every single day I talk to people who left home at 17 and made it for themselves. I am *NOT* that type of person - I'm not independent, I'm not outgoing, I'm not cocky, I'm not a top, I'm not a take charge person, I don't have self confidence, and how the heck am I supposed to live a life for myself like that? My younger sister, who I am far smarter than (sorry Dana) is doing AMAZING in school and work and whatnot b/c from the moment she was born, she has always been a take-charge, grade-A, no excuses, all out BITCH! I should have been born that way, but it wasn't my nature. I like being a kind soul, though. But I don't want to live in poverty and misery with my parents.

It's really sad that, in the end -it call comes down to money. If you have it you can do whatever you want - live in multiple places, start your own business, help out those you love, take your time deciding what you want in life, have your own home/apartment, wear decent clothes, have food on the table, not have to worry about health insurance, etc. But without it I'm lost. I'm trapped in indentured servitude. Do I continue majoring in something I don't like just so I have a piece of paper in a year and a half? Will that get me anywhere? It maybe would if i also had a job at the same time and lived in the city, but what job would pay enough for that while being in school on Mondays and Wednesdays? Do I move far away but be away from my grandparents and then have them die? (You know with my luck, it would happen). I just feel screwed - like if there *IS* someone up there, any move I make, he will be waiting to strike me down with his fist the instant I'm happy. Does that make sense? B/C that's all that has ever happened in the past, especially in the past 6 years. I'm better off financially dead, and my family would have a huge burden lifted off of them if I was gone too. How sad is that? I'd never do anything about it, and with my luck I'll live till age 101 in a cardboard box out on the road. I just feel screwed. I want to be a happy person that moves along and makes something out of my life, creates greateness and does great things. I want to be able to help myself and help other people. I want to be inspiring. I want to go places. I want to make it all happen and open up for myself. But instead I'm stuck in a black hole. What do I do? :(

I'm worthless :(

Screw You, Pandora - and your Box!!!

Okay...

So, I made a big mistake. Every now and then (as in every few months or years, depending) I check up online to see what my ex boyfriend Joey is up to. Yes, that's right - once upon a time - just once! - I was not the world's youngest old maid, and I had a boyfriend. I have been feeling extra melancholy and contemplative lately, and decided to check up on the only person that ever loved me romantically, and the only person I ever had a relationship with. Sure, it ended over 6 and a half years ago, but it was the most meaningful extra familial relationship I've ever had in my life.

7 years ago - in July of 1998 I met who, to this day, is the only boyfriend I have ever had. It was the Summer after Junior year, and he had just graduated from the other high school in my town, and was bound for University of Maryland, College Park in 2 months. We met on AOL of all places, but when we met in person - it was like nothing I had ever experienced before in my life. (The first gay guy I ever met, at 16, was another 16 year old boy-whore I met off AOL who forced me to give him road head before he even gave me my first kiss, and then kicked me out of his car and dropped me back off at the mall where my parents picked me up - ick!) I can't go into rehashing the whole relationship, the amazing times, the painful PAINFUL fallout/breakup and the ensuing years of misery, but it was special and it was intense. That first Summer was AMAZING! I was out to my family, but wasn't comfortable letting them know I had a boyfriend. He never knew he was gay before me (ha!), but started coming out to his friends immediately. We snuck around all Summer, met at the mall, hung out at people's houses, etc. It wasn't the mature kind of relationship I'd hope to have today - where my boyfriend and I could be out in the open and go out on actual dates - but the moments we shared were the sweetest moments I have ever had. We spend so many hidden Summer evenings under the stars on people's lawns, at a park, on the bridge, in a hammock, etc - it was so sweet. More than anything, I really felt a true and honest connection with him. To this day I still do, even though we haven't spoken in years and I haven't seen him in person in 5 years. In any event, I signed up to go to University of Maryland, College Park in the Fall of 1999 because of him (but also because I loved the school), but he had broken up with me in April 1999 as he "fell out of love" with me. My first year there I was pretty much able to avoid him like the plague, although of course we kept running into each other at inopportune times. In a weird string of fate, my roommate was sleeping with this girl who wanted to set me up with her "gay best friend", but we figured out from talking that this friend was - you guessed it, Joey - my ex boyfriend. This is a school with 40,000 students, mind you. Grrr. Although the days and Summer after he broke up with me were the darkest times in my life, going to UMCP was probably the best overall period in my life. I made gay friends, was in school, was away from the family, was starting to make a life for myself. However, at the beginning of the second year, I got a *REALLY* shitty homophobic roommate, and Joey suddenly became new best friends with all my gay friends and that circle was closed off to me. I was confused, alone, and returned home from school in October of 2000. Things have never been quite right ever since, except for temporary moments of reprieve. Maybe I get too hurt from bad experiences, but I'll have to learn to work on that.

Blech, this is a painful blog to write - why am I writing on this topic? It obviously hurts to think about it, grrr. Oh yeah - well earlier this week, I made the mistake of checking up on Joey online. Now, we can't really talk online and haven't done so except for maybe a quick hello about 3 years ago. Because of the way I feel (I'll always love him) and the way he feels (not the same way), it just doesn't work out. In 6 and a half years, I haven't had another boyfriend (although it's not for lack of wanting to find someone special!). I know that he was interested in someone at the time he broke up with me, had another boyfriend shortly after he broke up with me, dated another guy that Fall, had a long term (a year +) relationship with someone when I left the University of Maryland, and has dated since him. He has graduated college and is in school for his Master Degree. He is working somewhere and making decent money. WELL - Jesse the jerko made the mistake of seeking out his friendster profile to see what is new in Joey's life a few days ago. As I said, I have been feeling melancholy lately and thinking about him, so I just wanted to see what he was up to. I was hit with two whammy's at once - his marital status changed from dating to "Domestic Partnership" and his profile said something about being a homeowner. So basically, he is married. All I want to do is cry. I know I should be happy for him and all he has been able to acheieve and accomplish, but really - it just makes me want to cry. All I keep thinking is - what if. It's not that *I* don't want to be a homeowner (b/c I do - more than almost anything - except finding a lifepartner!), but it's more that I'm not living in a home with him. When I found out he is in a "domestic partnership", all I could think of was how I wish I could be his domestic partner, how I wish he could be my husband. I know that's ridiculous to say - for someone I haven't seen in 5 years, someone I haven't dated in 6 and a half years, and whatnot. But there has been a hole in my heart since the day it ended. I know I'm a big part of it ending and I am to blame for most of it, but it still hurts. I tried and tried to get back together, to become a better person, to be the person he would want me to be and someone he could be proud of - but as Bonnie Rait said so eloquently, "I can't make you love me". I have gone periods without thinking about him, I go by our anniversary not even thinking about it anymore, but every now and then, on some idle Tuesday - I'll think about him. Checking up on him was the worst thing I could have done - his new pictures make him look more amazing then ever, he seems like he is doing so much with his life, and obviously it's a full life with someone in it. "He wins". I'm the loser who is living at home with my family, doesn't have a dollar of my own to my name, and certainly doesn't own a home or have a "domestic partner". I know I have a lot to be thankful for, and a lot to look forward to in my future, but I guess it just hurts to see "the one that got away", and to know you'll never have him. To know that you truly loved someone and - I guess - they never loved you, when you were SO SURE that they did. It's a pattern that has repeated itself in my life. I have lost any other guy in my life that isn't my family eventually. Friends change, move away, or lose interest. Anyone I ever "almost dated" showed a lot of interest at first, but then changed their mind. I have come so close to finding a boyfriend a few other times - but it never happened. There is only one Joey. Somewhere in Washington, DC he is living in his house, with his "domestic partner" living the "happily ever after" I always thought I would have, and for whatever reason - it hurts.

In another strange move by Fate - I saw the Goo Goo Dolls on the Today show earlier in the week. (Was it just yesterday? I don't even remember at this point!). Now, you have to remember that "our song" was "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith, but "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls was definitely the unofficial second place for "our song". Everytime I hear either song I wanna cry. Now, Johnny Reznick or whatever his name is didn't sing "Iris" the other day, but having just read Joey's online profile and whatnot - it just made me think of him even more. *Sigh*. I always thought we would be together, and if we couldn't be together, I always thought I would be successful and find the one I was supposed to be with, to find my own way in the world, to adopt a child of my own, to "have it all". Instead, I feel like a girl watching from the sidelines as the man of my life walks away and I am trapped at home with mother. *SIGH* Why did I open Pandora's Box?

I am a living, breathing case of "The Glass Menagerie". Thanks a F*ckin lot, Tennessee Williams!!! :-*(

Virginia Woolf...

Like Virginia Woolf, I too wish to put rocks in my pockets and walk into the lake right about now. Blech :(

Cell Phone Hot Potato...

So, just a few minutes ago I called my friend William from South Beach, and instead I got to speak to the entire populace of The Palace. Actually, I did get to speak to William, along with other fabulous members of the 7th Gay Cavalry... B&T Mark, Army Jeremy, and of course The Countess of all Countesses - Mrs. Astor herself! It was like being at The Palace - except I wasn't actually physically there, and of course wished that I was! I love these guys...they are all the BEST! I just wanted to mention that I am sitting at my computer with a smile right now, b/c I just played "Cell Phone Hot Potato" with some of the best guys you will ever meet. And in this game of hot potato - everyone is a winner! :) At one point I even got to speak to Jeremy while he was in the bathroom at the Urinal. I don't know if "Cell Phone Water Sports" is a game you can play, but maybe that is a game for another time, lol! In any event, being able to talk to all these great people while they were enjoying The Palace was quite the treat. Now if only I could have spoken to all the other members of the 7th, while watching Miss Tiffany and Miss Sasha do their best "Diva Snap", then my life would be complete. Thanks guys for making my day!!! :-)