If you want to know the truth . . . if you want to know the truth, I think at times it’s doomed. If you want to know the truth, I doubt that things will get better. And if you want to know the truth, I don’t believe he takes it seriously when I tell him that there’s something missing here.

What is it? What’s changed? Maybe nothing. Maybe there was nothing there to begin with, no spark or life to it or . . . desperate sort of affection. Maybe it’s all been so simple seeming because there was no great feeling, it was no great feat. Maybe it was a pattern that we both just fell into: this being with one another so much of this time, those kisses, those stated declarations of love, those gifts, those kindnesses. Maybe those moment were kind and joyful even in a way but were somehow scripted instead of spontaneous. Maybe my romances are always doomed.

It certainly seems that way at times. But I know of course that it’s just whining to say so.

I am mourning, and that is never a good thing to feel one must do while amidst a relationship. Mourning for what exactly? For all the things I thought I was being promised that I realize now I never was. For all the imaginings of a young and vibrant love story, one full of well-reasoned recklessness and wise passion. I wonder if there is such a thing. I mean, my last relationship was passionate,  but off the charts when it came to instability and, frankly, insanity. My current one is replete with security and no feeling at all. Is there not something in the middle? Or am I doomed to be unsatisfied?

I wonder what this is. I could almost swear it wasn’t always like this. Something has changed, and dramatically. Is he really just in pain? Or is there something he isn’t telling me? Where’s the disconnect coming from and does it really make sense to stay with someone just because you are with them if you’re not really with them after all? What was it that first brought us together? . . . I can’t seem to remember.

. . .

Sleep well, my Current Intention. Who knows what will be when you awake.

Here’s the thing about dudes: Without fail, they will drive you nuts.

I kind of had that figured out a while ago. I mean, when you’re with a guy like Mark for three years-ish, you get the idea. But Erik? Really thought that might be different. Turns out it’s just a hard and fast rule and apparently.

So, what’s all this about you ask? Well, it all started this very afternoon when Erik called to let me know he wouldn’t be able to come over until eight o’clock. I was, and perhaps stupidly, disappointed and it was obvious in my voice. I didn’t yell at him, didn’t deride him, call him names, or even object to what he was doing, which was working. I was just disappointed. And from this, the whole stupid thing devolved.

I told him I would go and hang out with my brother and sister since he was busy and that was the end of our conversation. He was frustrated with me for being disappointed. Over the course of the next couple of hours, he texted a couple of times to see what I was up to and somehow got irritated with me for going shopping for paint with my roommate. But the truth is that he’s often been upset with me for hanging out with my friends. Almost as if I’m just supposed to sit around and wait till he gets around to me.

But that isn’t the biggest problem, which is that he doesn’t talk to me when there’s a problem. If I text him, he doesn’t answer. Instant message? Same thing. If I call, I get voice mail, again and again and again. But this isn’t the first time this has happened. It happens every time we have an argument or an issue that’s tough to resolve. I want to fix it, he refuses to face it. It’s enough to drive me crazy.

Because how in the world are we ever supposed to get to the other side of a problem if he won’t even talk about it? How do you cross a mountain if one of you won’t admit it’s there? It seems obvious to me that maturity begs for unblinking realizations. It seems that putting it under a rug doesn’t get your house clean and only makes it more likely for you to trip.

. . .

I love Erik. I really do. And there are moments when I look forward at my life without him and I panic. He’s wonderful in so many ways. Thoughtful and generous and handy and kind. Talented and skilled and hard working and sinewy. He’s made of firm stuff and would try his best to try his best for almost anyone it seems. So what’s the problem then? What is the problem? It’s just that he . . . won’t budge.

There are so many things that I think we’ve gotten resolved and then ten seconds later, there they are again and we have to go through the whole rigamarole all over. We have to go through what we feel and why we feel it, what we think should be and what is, and what we want from the other person that we’re not getting. Again. And again. And again. Everytime I think we’ve come to a consensus I feel blindsided when it comes right back, the same problem, all around us again like a smog. I wish there was some way that I could make it work on my own, but the sticky thing about a relationship is that it takes two.

I want Erik. I love Erik. But I also want to have relationships with my friends. I also want to be able to express my emotions without being criticized for them, without them being stored up for ammunition. I want to be able to apologize and have apologies respected and returned, not just someone appreciating the fact that I’ve seen how wrong I was. I want to feel I only have to apologize for things that I do that are really and truly wrong.

Rain is a blessing in Price Hill. It’s the one thing that makes everyone head indoors instead of sitting stooped on porch steps, with a twist of burning weeds between their fingers with the volume turned up five hundred decibels. It makes the streets slick with perspiration on a summer night, shimmering slick with streetlights. And quiet, blessedly quiet, those few who venture out seem to breath a little deeper with some uncomprehensible reverence.

Such a night is tonight.

Poor Erik. And what a wonder. To deal with all my crazy and still here he sits, hunched over on the edge of my bed, dipping artichoke leaves into peppered butter, somehow content even after my earlier torrent of complaints and stresses and feelings of being overwhelmed. I told him last night when I was acting like a petulant brat and wanted to go to bed while he was still fixing the electric pro bono in the wee hours (I know-I’m a jerk.), that it was no fun dating someone who’s perfect. But I guess it isn’t so bad. He comes through in these moments and still loves with determination even when I know I must be driving him crazy. I can tell because I’m driving myself a little crazy too.

I’m not quite sure why everything seems to be so much right now. Certainly the battles I’m currently in training for are nothing in comparison to what God has brought me through already. But at that time I had armor. I was fortified through God’s great grace to bring me wisdom enough to seek Him, and in joy and humility. But as I am so apt to do, I’ve drifted off to sleep on the battlefeild with the cannons overhead as a lullaby. I’m disappointed in myself, but there it is.

But God is good and merciful and praise to Him that He is. It isn’t so much that the struggles are insurmountable, but I’ve lost my eagles wings. God will provide. And I call Him a liar when I refuse to believe that. And God’s will shall prevail, no matter what I think it should have been or how my perfect end translates. Sometimes it seems the most reckless thing of all to trust Him implicitly. But He is granting me the courage to do so.

Diet Coke is addictive. Also, apparently, it punctures little holes in your brain. And my dad is pretty adamant that aspartame will make you stupid and blind. Confession time? I’ve been drinking it by the gallon for years.

And that’s not the worst of it: I’m a dirty rotten smoker as well.

So I was talking to Trasy at work today while she was exposing the evils of diet soda, the medical model, and the flesh tearing consumption of meat and I decided . . . At least I’m almost certain I have? Yes, I’ve decided to take it to heart.

But I brought six cans with me to work to refresh myself throughout the day so I said I would give it up tomorrow when all this delicious fizzy wonderment had met it’s digestive fate.  I mentioned this to Trasy, yet she remained unmoved. And the question came up, Why would you want to continue doing something that you know is bad for you? Even for a little while?

This has a much broader scope, probably. And it seems all the more pertinent that this conversation took place at the DV shelter. These women here could recite pages of well founded accusations against they’re abusers by the time they arrive. They know what’s wrong; That’s why they come here. And yet, two months later, the guy wasn’t really so bad, or he’s sorry, or there’s a new someone who seems too good to be true and probably is who just wants to take care of them by treating them like his own personal property or punching bag.  Why do people  keep doing what they know is bad for them? Even for a little while?

It’s like that long term crazy spell I went through with Mark. It was obvious to everyone-it was obvious to me!-and yet I bent to his apologies, I made him up in my mind to be much more that he was, and I decided to believe that he was what he said and not what he did. Did I think it wouldn’t catch up to me? Did I think if I designed a pretty picture behind my squeezed eyelids, that it would remain when they opened?

Maybe so. Or maybe it’s just easier to go along, even if you don’t like what you get.

I want to make the brave choice, not the easy one. I want to make the brave choice, not the flashy one. I want to make the brave choice in all things, and maybe these are all pieces of the same puzzle of dissatisfaction.

I think of Erik, who is so disciplined, who stretches to exceed expectations all day after getting barely any sleep. Who works hard and gives of himself in such kind and generous ways, without exception. Who is made up entirely of lean muscle and sleeps easily and is selfless with his time and energy. And I think, That’s beautiful. I think, There but by the disappointment of God go I.

So I need to suck it up.

It turns out that things are not quite as they seem, or at least they weren’t. Of course, I say that a lot, but apparently it’s a good lesson because it keeps coming up.

Case in point, I was recently reacquainted with a boy I knew from high school. Well, to be honest, I didn’t know him but rather of him. At any rate, during the course of this late night online conversation, I began to think that maybe he wasn’t quite the person that I’d believed.  In part, that was because we weren’t actually friends so all I knew of him was what I gleaned from I think a shared math class maybe and numerous hallway passes during which I was pretty oblivious, which was typical of me and probably still is. It was nothing drastic, no deep dark buried secrets or anything like that. But in feeling, it seemed as though there was a different air and flavor to who he had been than I was aware of, and that almost made it seem more important somehow than if he’d revealed that he’d been a teenage arson or had had a scandalous affair with a teacher. But through this, I realized that I was guilty of the usual high school sin of lumping everyone into only two groups, the first of which was made up of a couple of people who took pity enough to hang out with me but weren’t quite as dorky as I was; The second was everybody else.

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