June 23, 2001
Epiphany #2
So I had a nervous breakdown. And I recovered.
I have been away from him for two weeks. I've had a surplus of Jill-time wherein I did not suffer from withdrawal (despite what Katie or Bill may say) and I actually survived semi-cheerily.
My mother and father lost complete faith in me. They bitched and moaned. I typically ignored them.
But then I realized that instead of listening to the people who have always been honest with me, who I truly and completely trust (A.K.A my folks and Kelsi), I listened instead to Jenny and Ryan and what I read in books. Not that I don't adore Jenny and Ryan and value their opinions. But it was time to listen to me. And a maybe a little of Mom, too.
I'm young. We're all young. Our innocense pollutes our perceptions; it misguides. Anything I have done with Ryan has been in innocense. On both parts, I believe, though Dad swears otherwise.
Kelsi told me that as long as I was happy with what I was doing then it was fine. But am I happy? I'm stressed and I'm paranoid, I worry constantly about what my parents think about me, about what I think about me.
I don't need all this unnecessary bullshit. I don't need to make-out with Ryan only to feel guilty about it later. Sure, it's nice and I know he won't take advantage of me, that everything he does I have let him do, but that does not mean I don't question it. I question everything. But before, I never questioned my own behavior. I knew me.
Everyone says today that all the preliminary crap involved in making-out (you know what I'm talking about) is just that: making-out. That it doesn't go anywhere you don't want it to. And I believe that. But in the end, don't you end up wanting it to go where it has always led? And if I am feeling guilty about my behavior, I have reason. To my parents, I have been shamed. While I don't see it like that, I don't want them to see it like that, either. I haven't become who I set out to be. I set boundaries for myself and crossed them at a whim. And I've been okay with it. But I'm not anymore. I don't know myself... I almost don't want to.
I have to fix this. I don't know how to tell Ryan that I can't do some of the things we've been doing anymore without him thinking that it's just my parents talking. Because I realize now that I've started to see things differently because of the way we've been, and I'll wager that I seem different because of it.
I love Ryan. I don't know how to tell him this. I don't want to break-up with him, not at all. I don't see why all that bullshit is necessary in a relationship. It wasn't fifty years ago. Girls weren't "supposed" to do anything. I'm not a normal girl. I'm not going to be goaded by society or anyone to control my behavior.
Things aren't sweet between us anymore. They are, but they aren't. It really is like things are going somewhere and I don't like it. I don't like parking somewhere in his car. I don't like worrying that my parents are going to notice that dinner and a movie don't take five hours.
I don't like worrying that in ten years I'll think that I was fooling around without really knowing why. I don't want to look back and think that Ryan was a jack ass with no respect for me. He says he respects me. He says he loves me.
It's time for him to prove it.
astera at afternoon