Are you okay?

Am I okay?

Well, certainly. I must be. I am okay -- but I am tired! I am tired, and old, very very old, in my head, sometimes.

The lack of chaos frustrates me. I have made choices to create situations ripe with the potential disaster, but they are simmering frustrated uncertain messes, and I am so very tired of them, they have grown so fucking old so fast.

I thought he would follow me outside. Was I wrong for thinking it? Did I hope it? If I did hope it, was I wrong for hoping it? Fuck. I just feel hurt.

I feel hurt that she told me last night that she was glad I didn't stay over. She prefaced with "sorry if this is shitty" so of course I said, no, it isn't shitty. Because it isn't; it's honest. Honest can hurt but it isn't shitty. She hides too much. She told me today that she never used to feel jealous FOMO but she does all the time now. I said "do you think it has something to do with our relationships" and she said "I don't know, maybe."

And I said "if this isn't what you want, and isn't serving you, and isn't bringing value to your life, then that's ok because you have as much a right to happiness as anyone and you should pursue what makes you happy instead of deferring to the rest of us, but still, in any case, you need to figure that out."

And the important thing is that she didn't say "no, no, I want this!" She nodded and looked thoughtful. And that's okay -- actually it is more than okay because it is honest! Which is important and wonderful! -- but god it hurts like fucking hell when the thing that is important and wonderful is the thing that makes me feel small and wounded and impossibly undesirable.

Either I am dishonestly turning a blind eye to a clear "do not enter" sign, selfishly, cruelly, because it's not my responsibility to call it off if she wants to but it also still would be shitty of me to not call it off if I was convinced she wanted to and wasn't capable of it; either that, or, or maybe I am making so much of this up in my head, maybe it is my own insecurities which are disproportionate and detrimental to our relationships? Honestly, I don't know. I think it's the latter but I don't know.

And maybe this is too black-and-white, maybe it's more nuanced. I don't know. I don't know. I'm tired. I'm remembering what it means to fall in love, but with too many hesitancies and complications, and I am tired and I am so old in my mind tonight.

And I don't know if I like the feeling of giving up, that satisfying disappointment of self-matryrdom, or if I resist it so hard that I pretend the maze is worth the cheese even when I am self-aware enough to see both the maze and cheese and know, in my gut, that it won't be worth it at the end of the day, unless, unless I am obscenely lucky.

But I could be. I could be! And by god, I'm falling in love. What the hell am I supposed to do about that? Fuck it: let me sprint headlong into this twisted labyrinth of relational identity!