I was about to publish this post when I learned that Kay, a dear family friend, was hit by a car the night before and killed. She ended up being my biggest supporter in my blogging efforts, leaving helpful comments and telling me that what I was doing, this side-project that I usually think of as silly, was worth someone's time. I came to value her insight immensely in the process of going through my divorce. She will be dearly missed, and it breaks my heart to think of what her family is enduring. There is nothing anyone can say that really helps during the grieving process, especially when it is in the wake of something so unthinkable. There are no words of comfort when the loss is this immense. Still, this latest post is one that I think would amuse her. Kay, wherever you are, I hope you can still read this, and I am going to knit something really awesome in your memory.
I sent my best friend a message about how worried I am about entering some kind of second adolescence. I'm starting to get boy-crazy again, which would maybe be cute if I was 12, but it's not such a good color on a 30-year-old. It's hard to not get swept away by how intense everything is when you are through the most painful part of a breakup, and past the usual rebounding that leads you to make questionable decisions, when your brain is just running a constant scroll of "sexsexsexsexsex" and suddenly, every other guy you meet looks like the hottest motherfucker you have ever seen. It's rough trying to just be a normal person when your hormones take control of your actions and you realize you're just an animal, and a really gross, awkward one at that. I told about how trouble I was having just trying to talk to a guy I met the other night because he is so good-looking and I am like a newly-molted cicada right now, emerging with wet wings and no idea how to do anything other than swarm. She replies by saying that she thinks the guy in question is single, and immediately I kind of deflate. Great, I think, he's single. It doesn't make a difference, because he is too attractive for me.
All of what little swagger I had has gone out of me during the past few weeks and I feel like I am already starting to decay, melodramatic as that sounds. In creating the Greek yogurt of my single self, I feel like I have already consumed the good part and now all I am left with is acid whey. What it keeps coming down to is what I think I deserve, or rather, what I don't deserve. I see this ridiculously attractive man and think dangerously hopeful thoughts until I realize that he is up here, and I am down here. I am always waiting for someone to point out that I'm not pretty enough, and not only that but that I'm not cool enough or smart enough or any other thing enough. I look at myself and just think, "Don't even try. You deserve nothing."
I don't know what I deserve. I keep wondering how in the world anyone could ever even like me. Despite what a lot of people say to my face, and I try to tell myself, about my ex and how much "better" I can do, I'm hung up on how disproportionate our levels of attractiveness were. He was too good-looking for me, and he knew it because I told him. I never got over that. I can lie to myself and think that he was my floor, but really, he was my ceiling, and I think everyone else knows it, too. For how much I bitch about his remarks about this same topic when we were together, at least he didn't lie to me. He told me that I was pretty, but not as pretty as other girls, and maybe that should just be enough. I know I flip-flop on this subject a lot, but there is such a fine line between having confidence and being blind, just as there is a fine line between being realistic and having body dysmorphia. It is hard to accurately assess yourself.
Maybe in that whole time with my ex, I was getting what I deserved, because he told me the truth. When I got fat, he told me I got fat. When I didn't look good in something, he told me I didn't look good in it. On the other hand, once I lost the weight after we split up, he noticed, and he told me, and if I looked really awesome in something, he noticed that, too. It wasn't all just harsh truths with him. He was a lot of things, but he was not a liar. Say what you will about how you should treat someone you love, but at least he prepared me to just be realistic about myself. I know I'm not going to spark the interest of the ridiculously handsome man, that the best I can ask is that I get to make small talk with him for a few minutes and just know he exists.
