great green monster grumbling inside me

i've also thought about a lot of the things you said about me last night, and a lot of the things that i said in response to you. i don't think i have a need to know that i've impacted people's lives. i don't know if that stems from the realization that i explained to you that i had when tess approached the jewelry counter at kmart and didn't have a clue who i was. i don't know if it's something that's fed by the fact that the last time i saw chris i screamed in his face about all the horrible stuff he had done that had profoundly impacted my life and lexx's and he shrugged because a)he didn't care that he had impacted us and b)we had not similarly impacted him. i don't know if realizing that i had to stop caring about whether we had impacted chris' world in order to make it through my days and be a reasonable mom for lexx has influenced my investment in the impact i have on others. and i don't know if it's just that the relationships i've had are not the kind of relationships that leave one wondering if the other person ever thinks of him. i don't know if it would be different with you, someone with whom i've shared a lot of loving time. honestly, i'm not keen to find out.
i'm also not really that interested in what people are doing. and it's not just that i'm not fascinated by the potential happenings in the lives of the men with whom i've been romantically involved. i'm not particularly curious about the lives of other people who have floated through my life. my connections to other people, even people who are, or were, some of my closest friends, are extremely loose. i'm probably unhealthy for that. or completely self-absorbed. my bonds don't endure terribly well because i'm such a passive agent, because i don't stay fascinated in the directions people go...because i deal with people like waves. they wash in furiously and fade slowly out only to come rushing back in at unanticipated moments.

written and deleted. i told him i envy the power of her words. i want to intrigue him the way she does. i want to compel him to seek my thoughts every single day. but we have such different relationships. would he create a window into my world if i pushed him from it? would he be compelled to find my thoughts if i weren't busy cramming them down his throat? would he be fascinated with me if we weren't constantly in contact?
bertrand russell i quoted before and i look to again: gradually i learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiencies; i came to center my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world, various branches of knowledges, individuals for whom i felt affection. he said he thinks i think i'm not the kind of person who deserves to be loved. but i am the kind of person who craves it more than anything in the world. i am also the kind of person who becomes mired in transience. anything can disappear. with almost everyone, i embrace the ebb and flow, their trickling in and out of my consciousness and i in and out of theirs. with him, i cling. his tide is one i don't want to let wash back out. more than that, my tide is one i don't want him to let wash back out. the reality of the dynamics of relationships penetrates me. i know all too well the natural cycle of demise and renewal. i cringe at the thought of observing our demise. either prospectively or retrospectively. i don't want to have to look at the delapidated remains of what was once incredible, which makes me scramble to protect it from the future, from inevitability, from the boredom and stressors that accompany time. he told me he lives every day as if it were his last, that he would want to be able to die happy if he died the next day. i don't know how much i believe this about him because in many ways he's more of a clinger than i am. in many ways, he's so not day-to-day. regarding him, regarding her i am not day-to-day. loving like crazy destroys my brain, my balance.
i would erect walls in a second if he broke my trust. he's right about me shutting people carefully out of my life. he's right. it's deliberate but not. it's an instinctive response, my natural defense. i readily wash my hands, ever since he walked away, because i don't want to ever hurt like that or flail like that again.
if he walked away, i might not manage such a quick and dirty, painless cleansing. which is probably the root of every inch of my panic.
maybe it's time i learned again that it's ok for disappearances to hurt.
but that education might require relaxing the walls i've built around his ten-pound body. and if the dam breaks i have no way of knowing what's on the other side. or how fast and furious it will come. and no one's provided me with a bright orange pfd to strap around myself, no one's in the front promising to help me steer to safety, no one's calling directions back to me, helping me realize that we're a terribly good team. as much as he likes to say that i'm strong, i am such an amazing coward. somewhere, he's got to know that. inside the facade of his trashtalking, big, bold, completely unfragile woman lurks a cowering, glaring, tallying wimp who can't even begin force herself to face the monsters who live inside her own mind.