Things are weird with me at the moment because I’m not really sure where I am or how I feel. Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing? How can you not know how you feel? Is it the bipolar? Is it that thing that I know is lurking in my brain but that I don’t want to face that I mentioned some time ago? I think I’m avoiding confronting myself with my life because I am afraid of what I’ll see/find and afraid I’ll have to uproot myself again. I sound very cryptic but that’s kind of what it is like in my head right now.
I don’t know how I feel about my relationship. I’ve been with the Bat for 9 months and I like him but I have that constant feeling that it’s going to be over any day now. When that feeling gets really intense I do stupid shit and lash out at him for no reason because, you know, good decision maker and it helps keep me from getting attached. I’m afraid to get too attached to him because he’s always made it clear that this isn’t forever. I guess you can say I’m constantly on guard looking for my expiration date.
I don’t want to date. I don’t want to go from relationship to relationship. I’ve only had a handful of boyfriends because I’m a long-term girl and I go into things with the hope and expectation that it will either be forever or for the foreseeable future. I am not naive and I know that people go off one another and that relationships end (I am, after all, divorced after having been with J for almost 7 years), but some people stay together for 40+ years and the idea of going into a relationship with the expectation that it isn’t going to last makes me think “what’s the point then?”
I’m attached to Monkey in some ways. I worry about her and I hope for her, if that makes sense. She and the Bat are going to Missouri this coming weekend and there is a chance that Monkey will see her mother. Monkey is mature and strong and 15 and all that, but I worry about how it will affect her if she does see her mom (long back story but suffice it to say that this is a terrible woman who actually told Monkey that she had another kid to replace her). The Bat will be there and he’d never let anything happen to her but still, I worry. I am concerned about her seeming lack of interest in school (although she ended the year with decent grades) and her 24/7 need to be connected to her phone because she has a lot of potential and I want her to go on and do great things with it.
So yeah, I guess I’m attached to the kiddo but it isn’t the same as being attached to your boyfriend. The Bat’s crazy sister in law (who slapped me across the face and hit me with her purse this last Thursday [I’ll write about that another day]) always drunkenly tells me that the Bat and I are going to get married and that we are totally in love and blah blah. Actually, the Bat’s friend Phoenix told me that we were in love. I like when people tell me how I feel or how my boyfriend feels. I don’t fucking know what the Bat feels because he isn’t verbally demonstrative (not all people are, obviously) and I don’t know what he says to other people but it certainly isn’t that he loves me (I was once in the room when he was on the phone and he had it on speaker. When he told his friend that he had a girlfriend and the guy asked how that was going or was the Bat happy or something, the Bat responded with “I’m very content. She’s sitting right here so…”) And no, I don’t love him either. Could I? No clue. I locked up my heart and have no intention of letting it feel strongly because I don’t want to get hurt. I think I’d be willing to try love again but not with someone who has told me straight out that he will never love me and not with someone who has always let me know that this is ephemeral and will not last.
Maybe that’s what I haven’t wanted to face because it’s really unpleasant to think about. What’s the point of being in a relationship if you don’t plan on staying together and building said relationship? What’s the point of being in a relationship where there is not going to be love because neither party wants to be hurt and the assumption is, one of them definitely will be in the end? To have fun and have a good time and have companionship, I suppose. I know one thing the Bat wants is to set a good example for Monkey. He wants a girlfriend who will be a positive, strong, female role model for his daughter and he always wants his daughter to understand what a healthy relationship is so that she’ll know if she’s in one and she’ll not settle for a wrong’un.
But I really need to sit with myself and think over the question “is this worth it to not be alone? Is that what I’m doing by being in this relationship?” I like the Bat and I would like to remain with him for the foreseeable future, but not knowing what he wants and thinks because he doesn’t like to talk about it makes it really hard to know what this relationship really is. For the most part, I feel like we are roommates who have agreed to have sex with one another with the understanding that we will not have sex with other people. For all I know, that is what he feels too and he's happy with that. And maybe that is part of why I don’t want to think about it, because what conclusions can I draw when I only know my side?
If there is one thing I’d like Monkey to learn from me, it is to stay a kid as long as possible and not rush into adulthood. Because not only do you have to pay bills and be responsible for yourself, you have to deal with harder emotional shit.
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