"All year long...I've wanted so badly to have this. All year I've wanted to have someone to curl up next to in bed and fall asleep."
"And now that you do?"
"Life is good."
Last night William took me out on our first "date" date. I'm still not 1,000% sure he's doing all of this stuff without ulterior motives, but let's recap:
April 17 - Its fling. He's drunk. I'm vulnerable. We meet at 2:30 AM, are making out by 2:40 AM and I'm back to his room by 4 AM. We play guitars for each other and then he turns out the lights. I realize what I'm doing and ask him to walk me home, and after a little pressure, he finally gives in and walks me home. He asks me for my number and I give it to him without asking for his back, assuming he's just asking for it to be polite. Regardless, I truly smile myself to sleep for the first time since months before Mike and I broke up.
April 18 - In spite of myself, I wait all day for him to call / text. At 5, I get a text from him and we meet up at the concert. He is immediately really physically affectionate, just like he was the night before. After the concert, we end up talking for HOURS outside, coming back to my room and talking more, and spending the rest of the night going to the events on College Green, to his friends apartment in The Radian, and then to some frat parties. Finally we go back to his apartment again, and this time, I sleep over. The next morning he takes me out for breakfast and I'm still smiley.
April 21 - We get lunch together.
April 22 - We're supposed to hang out before he leaves for California for a week, but instead I cancel on him and kick off the most awful chain of events in my recent life. Skip ahead to the next week after the actions of Mike and I have fucked with my mind in the most terrible ways possible.
May 1 - William comes back to Penn! We get dinner which turns into a studying session which turns into a movie / ice cream eating night at his place, which turns into another sleepover. This is also the night where, in a (possible?) attempt to get me to sleep with him, William told me 1. That he loves me. 2. He wants our relationship to be more than just a casual one and wants something serious. I told him that was ridiculous and I need to get to know him better but, shockingly enough, it made me think.
May 2 - Another sleepover, this one an adorable one where I passed out in his bed at 11:30 while reading a book and he curled up next to me for the rest of the night.
May 3 - I put an end to the mess that was the past 8 months of my life, hopefully for good. Mike is out of my life, and everything that reminds me of him is gone.
May 4 - William stays over my place because I didn't want to walk to his place in the rain. This is where things got a little messier, and he flat out asked me why I wasn't letting him sleep with me. He tried veryyyyy hard to convince me to have sex with him but eventually gave up and said he respected me. Of course, it was still weird.
May 5/6 - I kind of avoided him. I needed some time to be alone and sort out my thoughts.
May 7 - Last night. He seriously raised the bar. Early in the day he texts me and asks me if I want to go to dinner, so I'm thinking he means Cosi or somewhere else on campus, like usual. I say yes and he follows up with a text saying "nice, know any good byo's?" So then I know that its a real date and I'm not gonna lie, I was impressed. He picks me up at 6:15 dressed in a button down and dress shoes and basically looks amazingly handsome. We take a cab to the restuarant and it is this cute little byo with BIG windows. He basically went all out and it was such a good time. Then we go back to his place for a movie and sleep. Its all very sweet and then I wake up and leave.
So...basically that is just a documentation of my life so that I can remember it. It's all been very strange, possibly because the timing couldn't have been weirder. I didn't love Mike, I think I'm realizing that, or at least the kind of love we had for each other was not a healthy true kind of love. Nonetheless, it's been really hard to let go of things, but I am hopeful. With William, its funny. I smile to myself randomly after being with him, or when I talk about it. When we are together, sometimes I want to hug him or kiss him just because whatever he just did or said is so completley dear and adorable. The whole situation is really unlike anything that I've really experienced - some completely random hook up with a guy notorious for random hook ups turning into something new for the both of us. He's never had a girlfriend before; I've had too many boyfriends.
What he said to me last night, the quote at the top of the page, has made me think a lot today. All year William wanted someone to spend the nights with so badly. I spent all year having that. I'm not sure how that makes me feel, and I wonder if part of the value in feeling lonely is the payoff when you really do find someone who wants to be with you in that way. It is changing my perspective on this loneliness, and making me feel that it is ok to spend some time wanting to find someone. For the past few years I've been spending my time desperately seeking anyone who will give me that kind of fulfillment, but it has all been so short term in the scheme of things. Even Mike fell into my life in such an odd way. I was absolutely looking for a companion, and in some ways, I think I might have jumped at the first person who wanted that too. The things that eventually broke me and Mike up were things I think I knew from very early on; He is a liar, he projects his feelings onto other people but can't openly admit them himself, he wants control of the situation but then wants to abdicate all responsibility for it. He is fickle, he changes his mind frequently and doesn't follow through with small plans (that then became not following through with big plans), and he is genuinely nice to the people he likes and sarcastic & horrible to the people who he dislikes, even though he chooses who to dislike for very minute reasons. I can't believe I gave so much time and so much of my heart to someone like that when I honestly could have said this (and honestly wrote about this in journals and poems) after a few months of our relationship. All year long I had someone to spend the nights with, and now I am realizing that there is so much more to it than that. Its not just about a warm body to hold you and make you feel less lonely, no matter how familiar with or attached to that body you may be. I think that for me, for now, it might be better to spend those nights alone and learning to be ok with that, than to do something that is going to end up devestating me in the end.
Right now, I am putting off packing up and moving home from my sophomore year at Penn (expect a potential year recap entry to come, though I'm thinking it might be too Mike filled and would make me too emotional at this point). Even though it is making me a little sentimental, I will be happy to get out of here. Next year, I can start over at this school. I can start meeting new people and have more confidence in myself, and I don't have to stay trapped in this room that has so many painful memories. This building, and this room particularly, have seen so many emotions. It started out in September with me being all smiles all the time, and then slowly transitioned to January when the tears began. This room saw me at my angriest in February, then at the moment of my deepest anguish at the end of March. This is the room where Jonna held my hair as I threw up into the toilet because Mike just broke my heart, and he did it over the phone. Its the room where I had the most amazing kiss of my life that actually brought me to feel happy tears. Thinking about this past year actually brings a sick feeling to my stomach, and I can't wait to leave.
Here's to moving forward with my life, achieving some semblance of independence, and making the most out of my life. Life is good.
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