Thursday, October 4, 2007

masochism

Tonight I am paying for my blatant disregard of doing things I know will hurt me, and part of this is indulging myself in this gratuitous post that will take me further down the spiral of emotional masochism. Let us pray:

My pagan new year's resolution this year was to love indiscriminately, without fear or expectation, which started the year out with me having a big crush on a boy with a girlfriend who I met on New Year's Eve, and that led to lots of wrenching pseudo-dates, threats of a roller derby chick clocking me, and me being The Other Woman and trying to be okay with it.

After that mess cleared up, this resolution also led me to an incredibly intense, anticipated, and much mourned love affair with my roommate, that began on a 3-day chautaqua to SoCal while I was crippled. On this spiritual journey, Sexy Roommate and I were trying to decide which graduate school to attend, and I told him that one of my last goals in San Francisco was to have an intense love affair, and we defined an affair as a relationship that (a) is finite, with a foreseeable end, (b) more or less exclusive, and (c) emotionally involved, despite its predetermined time span. Sexy Roommate asked me if I had anyone in mind, and though I had him in mind, we had a seven-hour drive ahead of us, and so I evaded the question cowardly and proceeded to think about it for the next four weeks.

While visiting grad schools later that month, I decided that I had to go for it, and when I returned, I put a plan into action and Sexy Roommate turned into Love Affair. It was one of the strangest times in my life. Our affair lasted two months before he left for the Middle East, and when he returned, I was living in The NY.

Tonight, while at happy hour with fellow urban planning students, I made the mistake of checking my voicemail and whaddyaknow, Love Affair had left me a message. It was the first time I'd heard his voice in three months. Yes, we've now been incommunicado longer than we were actually affair-engaged. I knew it was a mistake to call him back but I had a few drinks in me, so I kissed Beauty goodbye and said Ihavetogomyloveaffairjustcalledmeandihaventtalkedtohiminthreemonthsandihavetocallhimbackrightnow.

We talked for about 15 minutes as I made my way over the A train and we talked about how life back in school is going, how we miss each other, parties we need to throw in order to support our graduate student lifestyle, and the Queen of Sheba. In short, nothing. But, like our love affair, that short conversation is going to have massive emotional repercussions on me. I shouldn't have called him back. I should have kept drinking with my fellow classmates, talked about Millenium Park, asshole TA's and the I Hate Columbia club, but instead I left to torture myself with a tentative outreach to a boy I only allowed myself to half love.

I'm going to be paying for that move for days.

Of course I don't regret the affair, but FUCK...! Love hurts, man.

1 comment:

keetens said...

Congratulations on being brave enough to love even though you know it's going to hurt you. You're awesome for always putting yourself out there. Or maybe you *are* a masochist...