gut shot with a spork

holy shit do i feel small. you've seen me before, it's that time again, i'm gonna tear into myself. i've never had such a swing of emotions and confusion in my LIFE as i have in the past two weeks. and i think the swing is over, leaving me at rock bottom. and i know i said i wasn't going to talk about tam, and i'm going to try to as little as possible here, trying to focus on how i'm a fuck up. and a little warning, i really just need to talk. this won't be quick.

I just got off the "phone" with tam after an email of mine she responded to telling me i make her sick. i say "phone" because it was a 2 hour text messaging conversation. i was too much of a pussy to call her and see if she'd even answer.

what i tried to say in my email was that i'd finally realized that she was right about me, and i was wrong (about me). what she read was that she was right, and i'd been lying to her for a year. which may as well have been true for many reasons:

remember when i used to call this blog "my self-inflicted panopticon"? if not, go look up panopticon. i claimed to be completely open and forthcoming with information. said i'd answer any question straight up and honestly, no matter what the consequences whether it be my humiliation or "your" disgust. back then it might've been true...i was pretty disconnected from people. my "friends" were people i drank with and had good times with. i rarely had more than a few close friends and half the time those close friends were friends i talked to on instant fuckin' messenger. disconnected.

it's easy to be open when the only feelings you have to worry about are your own. i felt like by putting myself out there, the people who were comfortable with that would come closer to me, the people who weren't would stay away from me. simple. but ultimately weak as hell. you know what i was open about? everything that didn't fuckin' matter. well, that and things that should've been private (regarding others). i created this delusion of me being an open book...when all i did was...make it worse. false advertisement.

and that's what i did to tam. i told her i'm an open, honest, fearless, shameless, and truthful person. that she could trust me. that i was confident. that i knew what i wanted. that i would never hurt her and never allow her to be hurt if there was anything i could do about it. and the only times it mattered, i even deluded myself. for the first time in my life, my heart agreed with my head. i felt it in my heart that i wanted to be with her. i didn't have a care in the world MOST of the time i was with her. it made sense why i wanted to be with her. i could see a future with her. and i wanted a future with her.

but we had our problems...i won't get into details but we couldn't have a safe argument. i always degraded her when i disagreed. my default reaction to a disagreement is to challenge...fists raised, mouthguard on and protected. i say i do it because i feel like it's efficient...but mostly it's a pride thing. a power thing. if i'm right, i fought off all opposing ideas. i rule. if i'm wrong...i fought a valient fight, and i'm no less powerful for losing because i've learned something from it and now i'm MORE POWERFUL. *evil laugh*.

and i treated her like someone i had no investment in. i treated her like she had to earn my trust and respect. god forbid i consider i might be wrong. what did all that accomplish? the one person i wanted to learn everything about didn't want to tell me anything because i made her feel like an amusing toy to be played with.

my reaction to it was that she just wanted me to trust her every thought without discussion. but she asked for so much less. she just wanted me to be nice. she's seen me be nice to so many other people...but when it comes to her i put on my boxing gloves. i tried for so long not to do that...and i was getting better. but i still did it. it was still what felt natural. and it was still too much. Through all the ways i felt in my heart and knew in my head that i loved her, something would come up where i'd feel like she just didn't know what she was talking about. often.

and i'd approach it in that way...that i knew what i was talking about and i was going to enlighten her...and in my mind i felt horrible about feeling that. but when you put together 1)those feelings of superiority, 2)my approach to a disagreement, and 3)her reaction to my disrespect, she refused to tell me anything because i disrespected her, and i felt like that was even more ridiculous, and #1 got even stronger.

and as i felt more and more horrible about feeling superior (but enjoying feeling superior, and being more disgusted by THAT) to the person i claimed to love...i did the dumbest thing and picked more useless fights...never giving an inch. every fight begging her to disprove these feelings, but never telling her that. instead of working WITH her...and admitting that i was conflicted...i worked against her. Everytime she asked i couldn't tell her that i felt that way because it's ludicris...that i disrespect her. that i disrespect her but i love her.

and i didn't believe it. i refused to believe that that was how i really felt because...i loved her. i felt my love for her. i could grasp my love for her. i knew why i loved her...but i couldn't figure out why i disrespected her...so i didn't believe it. and set out to disprove it...without telling her any of it. the whole time telling myself that i could figure it out on my own and it would be okay.

i was gonna get past it. i was going to open her up and she was going to be the girl of my dreams. we'd learn how to talk to each other and i'd learn that it was just my mind fucking with me all that time. because i loved her. and we could make it. and there's no way we could make it if i told her i had little respect for her intuition. and if we were going to make it...this would all be in the past...i'd look back at that time in our relationship where we were just learning about each other.

but looking back NOW. shit. now that it's too late to make a difference, i realize that this is something i should've told her when it happened. i should've told her the way i always ask her to tell me. i should've told her the way i always said i'd tell her. i should've told her WHEN IT HAPPENED. and i don't even know when it happened. because i thought it was something that would pass. something that i'd figure out. i mean..every relationship has to have that...where two people feel each other out and...well...decide.

and while we progressed in every EASY way to progress in a relationship, this stewed. we'd fight about it from time to time, and i'd always blame her.

and i still can't understand how i did that. convinced myself that we could get through it when i wasn't fucking doing anything to help. i know i was afraid of losing her at some point. when i'd felt like it had stewed too long. and i was too afraid of confronting that because i still thought it could work. i wanted it to work.

i remember her bringing her problems with me up and talking about them like she was gonna dump me. and i often DID feel like she was dumping me when she was just being open. and i was too dumb to see that. i actually got mad at her that she did that...that she didn't make me feel like her boyfriend, like someone she loved. i was too...immature to see how brave she was being. that she was putting herself out there for me to see. that she trusted me to be honest like she was being to me.

instead of seeing all the wonderful things she was being in those moments, instead of seeing how trustworthy she was and how open she was to me and how much she loved me...i was so closed minded and selfish and caught up in some self proclaimed secret war that I GOT MAD AT HER. because i couldn't believe that in all our time together that she'd question my love for her. i thought she was questioning my love for her when she was SHOWING ME HERS.

why couldn't i see that? why, when she opened up to me and told me how she felt, did i refuse to give her the respect she OVERWHELMINGLY deserved. as if i could get worse than THAT....why, oh why, when she gave ME the respect i starved her of in every FUCKING discussion we had, did i guard myself more??? what was i so proud of that i couldn't open up. what in the fuck was i even guarding?!

i was guarding that win win situiation where if i was right about her idealistic thinking process, then "haha i told you so," and if i was wrong, then i was proud to have stood my ground and the lesson is taken to heart. and what does all that mean? it means i was too goddamn afraid to consider being wrong. too afraid to consider that SHE might know more than ME. because i was a strong person and i was going to remain standing, king atop my little anthill, come hell or highwater. proud. afraid to feel weak.

because to me, letting my guard down was something for her to earn. because she didn't deserve my respect until she'd earned it. because in the hypothetical situation that i let my guard down and she failed me...and she wasn't who i hoped she was...would make me go back and think..."d'oh, i was right. i shouldn't have let my guard down." and considering that hypothetical situation, i was convinced that i had to keep my guard up because i couldn't stand thinking one day that i could've saved myself the trouble. that couldn't stand putting myself in a situation where i'd regret a decision i'd made. and what was that decision i might've regretted?

considering that SHE might know more than ME. because in my pride and my blindness, that consideration made me weak. in my pride and my blindness, she had to earn that consideration. and in my pride and blindness, i thought we could figure it out without ever having to sacrafice any of our strength. that we could be strong and be strong together.

but she was stronger than me, and braver then me. she had the courage to put her guard down and TRUST me. she was strong and confident enough to come to me, arms open and vulnerable. and i don't know how to do that. i'm too scared to open myself to change. i don't have the confidence to trust someone with my heart...looking back i never did. but my heart reached out to tammy, tried to pull her in....and my mind held it back. my pride held it back.

i couldn't stand to consider that she could show me how small i am. nor could i consider ever telling her flat out that i thought i was better than her...and i think that deep down i couldn't tell her that because i knew, at least my heart knew, that it wasn't true. and you know, i think those last two lines might be it. my heart knew how strong she was, and knew that the only answer to my confusion was that i was so-fucking-small. so weak. so clueless.

i'm the worst kind of immature. i think i AM mature. i think i AM strong. or at least i thought i did. i am a liar. i just didn't know it. and i only know it now after tammy opened up to me AGAIN tonight...because before tonight i was resolved to think i just wasn't ready for the love of my life. i wasn't ready for what tam wanted of me. and that's what i said in my email to tam. the truth is i wasn't capable of it. i was too proud of my little fortress.

but it's so much more than that. and every discussion i have with her...every discussion i've HAD with her in the past two weeks...has taught me so much more about myself, about her, hell about the world. all when it's too late.

and you know what the bitch of it is? the pure and unadulterated SHINING fucking example of what a pompous tool i am? my lack of respect for her in all these months is dissolved two weeks after she dumps my worthless ass. when i'd already lost her and was FINALLY bold enough to open up and speak my mind. and everything i worried about and kept inside and lied to her about...that i didn't trust her intuition and ideas and everything...was all in her as i'd hoped all along. she is deep and open and mature and brave...everything i wanted her to be and everything i lacked.

and i only see that now that i make her sick. had i actually been a man of my word and been honest from the beginning, i probably would have realized all of this many, many months ago. i still don't know EXACTLY why i didn't see what i was doing. but it has something to do with me being cowardly, vain, pompous, delusional, feigning maturity...and of course one thing i always accused tammy of being, idealistic.

and my heart must've known. must've known it was all there. and all that time it was telling me what i was asking. i didn't even GIVE her a chance to show me, but she showed me anyway. i held her away and she still loved me. i loved her, but i pushed her away...because i thought i was better than her. the same way i think i'm better than a lot of people.

i don't know how i got like that...but i'm going to work hard to change it.


so small.