Capacity for Placid Romance

There has indeed been a long hiatus. And I aint sayin' the drought is over, but all the same there is plenty to be said.

First, the bad news: Life is domestic and I'm fidel in a committed relationship.

..Coincidentally that also sums up the good news.

I'm back in France and, after two months apart while I pined in the Hawaiian islands, my French significant other and I have resettled into a normal sized apartment. (-At last casting away our tiny studio.) It is both very French and typically eccentric. Marble fireplace, high ceilings,  wrought iron watch-ma-callit on the terrace, window over the tub that looks into the kitchen, etc.

The first of December will be our 1 year and 6 month anniversary. We seem to be very in love and yet drama still befalls me. Night before last, we sat in a bar having drinks with a feared red head who, I know on good authority,  pursued and made out with my mate mere months before we met. She doesn't know that I know, but dang, I know. And I also know what it's like to be in her situation. It's sort of a sexy, dangerous situation and I don't like it. So let's get even more irrational: She's like, 4'11'', weird shaped, and way smarter than I am. I'm some times a model but mostly a retard. So I got drunk and ate French fries and convinced myself that she was hotter and more spectacular in every way so that when we got home later in the night I locked myself in the bathroom and cried over my piteous self doubt. Damn! I was reading yesterday about eremites and penitents who would go into the desert for 40 years to have a change of heart. If those guys started hating themselves or suffering self doubt, it was demonic possession. No question about it.

My apartment is nice but my capacity for placid romance is next to nothing. 

That Jerk Mr. J

I waited up for him till 4 am then gave up. I succumbed to sleep while feeling I had left him to the wolves. In my mind I was hearing him laughing and chattering while I huddled alone in the dark. Of course he came home, and of course everything was all right, and yet the weekend left me feeling like a new person. I feel weird. The wine tasting plus the night left alone with my imagination totaled my brain in a crash of jealousy.

I keep thinking of the girl I had the misfortune of watching all of Saturday, the one who had him momentarily before he had me; had his virginity in fact, and I see his hands that I love moving over her skin, I hear his passionate breathing while he moves over her body, kissing her mouth, being inside of her.

And suddenly I feel like I don't know the guy. Of course every one has a past. Mine is much more populated and involved than his certainly has been and there's no reason I should be letting it affect our present. Except there she was: a physical, tangible, real person in front of me and no longer something I could pretend was imaginary or safely in forgettable history.

I have loved, but I've always managed to keep a rational distance from that jerk Jealously. And now, somehow, I've let him get so close to me that he could slip his hands around my neck and cut of the oxygen to my brain. I no longer feel love, I just feel possessive and skittish. How do I get out of this and back into the air?

More Than Love

"I wish you had a favorite beauty spot that you loved secretly because it was on a hidden bit that nobody else could see"

-The Nicest Thing

I am deeply in love. But things are chemically and mentally difficult for me. Last night I went out and attempted to be social with TMI and his friends; we danced and laughed and drank and I desperately sublimated the fact that two of the girls we were passing the night ever so amicably with were previous persons of interest in TMI's physical life. Not. So. Easy.

We were up most of the night, slept for some 3 hours, then awoke in the morning to catch a train to a wine tasting with the same gang. I managed to stay for 6 hours before my feet, exhaustion, and the sight of the rear end of a previous squeeze of TMI drove me away. I tagged along with a couple leaving early and left him with his friends at the event, where they remain still.

I'm so exhausted and just want to go to sleep- but they plan to have a party at one of the girls' apartments tonight starting at 11:30 and going till who knows when. I seriously don't have the physical stamina for this kind of thing. I hate retreating and leaving my boyfriend to those I am jealous of for the whole night while I cower at home, but I also hate to feel like I need to make myself uncomfortable just to prove something / be fabulous when I'm not feeling fabulous to keep my partner.

Sometimes I worry I love his love more than I love him; maybe even more than I love myself.

The Driving Force

Late last night I went out dancing with TMI and his friends. As is the norm of my life abroad, I had to overcome my shyness and discomfort of being in a group of someone else's French speaking friends, but I somehow managed to be at least part-way to comfortable. I was wearing a big sweater and not feeling particularly attractive, but I convinced myself to dance away my inhibitions and relax. I kept it up for 30 or 45 minutes and I was under the impression we were having fun. TMI is a wonderful dancer: fun and creative, and I was feeling overcome with pride and love. Finally, to avoid sweater + dance floor induced heat stroke, I stepped off to the side to take a break. He came after me.

...To tell me that I was dancing too provocatively and "sending a message" to all the other men in the club that I was "easy" and "wanted sex."

There I was: standing in a sweater amongst scantly clad French girls, admiring TMI for his dance moves when suddenly I learn that he is, in fact, aggravated and "embarrassed" by me. I told him I wanted to leave and I didn't want him to come with me.

I was furious, but also tired and feeling hurt, so I didn't have it in me to fight or yell when he insisted he leave with me. At home, I was fixing to go to sleep without talking about it, but he said: "I feel like if we don't talk about this now we'll just continue our relationship always feeling like there was a problem we didn't solve." I conceded, but naturally, the talking just made things worse.

Here are the straight up facts: I love him more than I've ever loved anyone. He's gorgeous and talented: I'm courageous and beautiful; but we are both detrimentally jealous and insecure. In the end I almost suspect the fear of loosing one another is what will drive us apart.