I’m going to visit The Man tomorrow.  I’m hoping that quote holds true.

I was whining at kaya about my stress the other day. (You know, because she doesn’t seem like she’s at ALL busy these days, and my whining is so enjoyable to begin with.)

Instead of coming up with new material, I’ll just copy and paste portions of what I (possibly we) wrote here. I might edit my own words to be more concise. Shut up, I swear I can be concise.  (Ish.) 

I’m feeling utterly crappy.  I can’t fucking STAND this long distance shit anymore.   I’m supposed to be doing so many things.  What am I doing? Losing ground on ALL fronts.  I’ve got confidence to gain, weight to lose, plans to make, responsibility to take, and I can’t seem to do ANY of it.

Why?  It’s because I’m spending all my fucking energy just treading water here, so far from him.  I can’t seem to make any forward progress at all, because just keeping my head above the surface is taking ALL I’ve got.

I don’t do well without feeling SECURE and I don’t feel secure. 

How could I?  I’m in limbo and I’m sick of it. And I don’t know when it’s going to change. Part of me is wondering IF he wants it to change.  Or, if he does, in which direction?  So deep down, I’m scared.  Very, very scared.  It takes a lot out of me to admit that.  And it’s incredibly stupid of me to BE scared.  I know that.  I can’t help it.

And thus, because of that fear, my failure to make forward progress anywhere, and many other reasons, I become TERRIFIED of seeing him.

You know what it is?  It’s like school.  Relationships remind me of school, in a really roundabout way.  Just like school, I get nervous come finals week. And long distance? EVERY time we see each other is like finals week. 

I don’t get ANY down time, time when I get to learn or relax or turn in a small project and get some praise.  I get all the “here’s what you’re doing wrong” talks because together-time is a time to deal with Big Issues We Would Rather Talk About Face-to-face… And I can ruin *everything* if I’m slightly resistant or upset or self-conscious and… and… and… It’s hard. 

I LOVE the time with him and I want it so badly… But when it’s so little and so far between?  It feels like TOO MUCH is riding on every word and every movement and it STRESSES me right the fuck out. 

I just want to be in the classroom, you know?  I wouldn’t mind the tests so much if I felt like my daily life actually prepared me for them. 

I just feel like I’m walking into a final exam and haven’t been to class the whole semester.  

So I’m terrified.  So I won’t perform well.  Even when performing is just lying together, watching a movie.  I won’t do it RIGHT and I will be upset with myself and NERVOUS and jumpy and unable to relax.  And THAT will be the real problem – not my ability to pass the test – my ability to calm down enough during it.  No one wants 6 days of fun and togetherness ruined by a morose, emo, freaked out self-pitying wench.  Not me, and not him. 

Anyway… My focus this trip will be to talk to him about a PLAN.  A real one.  A solid one.  A “you’re moving in X number of days/months/whatever” plan.  That way, this darkening cone I feel trapped in can have its end cut off and I’ll finally be in a tunnel, and a tunnel with a light at the end of it. 

And then I think I will be okay.  THEN I can calm down enough to actually breathe. Then I can make progress, when I know there is something actually ahead of me to aim for, to work toward, to feel SURE about.

AND LOOK!  Quoted below, kaya actually agreed with me.  This is crucial to me because I feel FAR less insane if there is someone nodding along in the background as I’m going on with my raving monologues.

I get what you’re saying about how it has to be perfect and how easy it is to mess it up and how much that sucks fucking balls and… yeah. I get it. Master and I did the distance thing, well, mostly it was him traveling all the time, only home on the weekend or every other weekend or once a month- whatever! But I remember how any little negative on his time home ruined it, how stressful it was to try and make sure everything was perfect, and how I’d beat myself up for failing time after time.

And then how angry I’d get at HIM for expecting that I should somehow maintain that sort of perfection when I’d spent the last however-long letting things bottle up and stew and fester and worry and wonder. It was bound to blow at some point. FFS, man. He didn’t want to have the time we spent on the phone full of angst, he didn’t want to read emails that weren’t happy-happy-joy-joy, he didn’t want to come home and deal with it, so wtf was I supposed to do with it?

So yeah. You’re right. Just keeping one’s head above water takes every bit of energy there is. All of those other goals have to fade into the background, or you risk going under.

(Look how much shorter her version was!  Her paragraphs are like clown cars – a quarter the size of mine and holding ten times as much stuff.)

But… She’s right too. I KNOW Antonio doesn’t want to “deal” with my angst and my crap.  So I just plod on, as stoically as possible.  Keeping my head above water.  Not drowning, and not burdening him.  Waiting, waiting, waiting, without progressing.  Waiting until he is ready to do the thing I need him to do to feel calm and secure.

He worries me, sometimes.  There was a conversation a while back, about him being a solitary creature and that he isn’t going to change (blah blah blah.)  Anyway, he ended up saying something like, “Isn’t it unfair to ask you to get used to it?”

There was a half-second pause while I tried to work out if he was trying to make a joke… And then an emphatic, “No!  I can get used to anything, except not being yours!”

I was reminded of that while writing this entry.  I realized, in that moment, when he asked that question as if it were legitimate, that he doesn’t get it.  He doesn’t get the mentality I have when it comes to him, to belonging to him. He seems to… I don’t even KNOW.

I am not playing at this.  I am not confused about what it takes, or what sacrifices I make now or will continue to make in the future. I wish he didn’t  have those moments when he says things like, ‘Isn’t it unfair to you…” No.  No no no no nononono.  I swear to God, I panic when he says that.  If things are FAIR, then I get a say.  If things are FAIR, then he isn’t looking at me as something he wants to keep for good.  If things are FAIR, my opinion on that matter actually counts because maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t think I can cut it as his.  Because right now, I’m not FULLY his.  He’s said so, and I feel it.

Even today, in a text, he said “Tomorrow you’ll be mine…” meaning he, like I, feels we are not TRULY together as a couple when we’re long distance.  I’m not his today  It’s just not real.  All this apart time, with him drawing back and me stagnating?  It’s poison.  I want to be done with it so we can progress.  But does HE? I don’t know!  And it’s what he wants that matters to me, of course.  Only what he wants. 

*fear, panic, fear fear fear*

He can be too mean and too nice, all at the same time.  He makes in-the-moment demands when we’re visiting that I am wary to comply with,  because he hasn’t given me the the I-want-you-with-me plan.  It’s hard as fuck for me to say (and act like) “I’m all yours!” when I don’t FEEL it, when he doesn’t make it seem like he wants that, when I don’t know why I’m still waiting, not his, far away.  SULK SULK SULK.

I feel like I’m a bowl of cookie dough.  These visits are like him taking little bites.  I want to scream at him – “Hey, dude– I’m RAW, here.”  I’m not wholly comfortable with being eaten now.  Bake me!  I’ll set up wonderfully, I’ll taste way better, I’ll be awesome if you just bake me already! 

ARGH! Must. Live. Together. 

The fact that he’s been silent on this… Well, it makes me wonder what he doubts about me.  What his reservations are.  What he thinks I am so incapable of that I won’t make a good slave, piece of property, companion, friend – whatever he wants…  What does he think I won’t be able to do? I think I’ll be able to do anything.  It’s only with the time, the distance, and the pulling back and the “you’re not a slave” edict that I have been unable to perform.  THAT’S the shit that prevents me from doing things.  Ownership?  Empowers me.  He knows that.  He KNOWS that.  He’s told it to me over and over.  And the less ownership – both harsh and benevolent – I have, the less I’m capable of. So WHY does he pull back on it?  I DON’T KNOW.  *dead*

Trust me, all these fears and thoughts, which are there simply because he seems to have this “well, we’ll see how it GOES” attitude about everything…  They aren’t exactly making things easier for me..

I can’t make a confident move forward. I can’t commit myself to anything.  I just… Wait. Static, stagnant, stuck. Long-distance is  a pale an pathetic imitation of a relationship.  And I just want to have a real plan to be done with it, so I can actually start moving forward.

I rambled because I’m flighty and jittery in my head.  Sorry. Forgive typos.

In short:  Limbo sucks ass. 

I’m heading out tomorrow, for six days.  I’ll talk to you all later.  Think good, possessive, plan-like thoughts for me, will ya?