On the long, dark silence

It's funny. I've always wondered what it would be like if I experienced heartbreak. In my classically asinine way, I thought it come in handy for my acting. You encounter the proverbial heartbreak all the time in fiction: you can read it in any number of books, see it in any number of movies and TV shows. People say that it feels like time is slowing down, and all you can do is just lie back on your bed, feeling the silence press down around you and the little shards working their way around the left side of your chest, watching the time crawl and wondering when or if you're going to start healing again. And all the while you're prodding the wound by thinking about him, because you can't help it. Which of course only makes it hurt more.

Yeah. It's like that.

It's helpful, in a way, that so much of my personality comes from my head, and that I'm so used to internalizing my emotions. A huge part of me is sort of standing to one side, looking at myself, and saying in a clinical, if vaguely fatherly, tone, "Yes, it hurts. You knew it would hurt, in fact. You accepted it as a part of life, because that's what you've learned from all your experiences thus far. But you're going to get through it, because you're far too genre-savvy not to. Heartbreak ends eventually, pain can only last so long, and one day you're going to smile and mean it again." I can distance myself from the hurt. I have experience at it. And I know what the cerebral part of me says is true.

Then there's the other part of me. The one that wants to huddle into a ball, scrape my fingers down my arms until the physical pain overwhelms the emotional one, and scream until it stops. The part that knows only how much it hurts right now, and knows that it's only going to get worse before it gets better, and is terrified because he's woefully unprepared to deal with it. That part is looking ahead and seeing this long march of endless months, in which he's trying to get used to this aching absence, and he kind of wants to bury himself in the back yard and never wake up again.

I'm vaguely disturbed that that part is referring to himself in the third person. I'm apparently either much better at distancing myself than I expected, or this is the beginning of some sort of funky sci-fi story where I get to play the tragic, damaged, yet horrendously powerful main villain. I kinda hope I get nifty psychic powers out of it. ULTRA DOUBLE MINORITY PSYCHIC CRUSH PEER PRESSURE ATTACK! Except I'm sort of lacking my partner for that. Which is the whole point of this post.

Well, I feel a little better. I think I'm going to try to adopt a stance where my self-esteem, sense of accomplishment as a human being, and general state of well-being doesn't depend upon whether or not I'm attached at the hip to another person. I'm aware that's easier said than done, and I think accomplishing that would probably require a certain insane megalomania on my part, but hey - all worthwhile endeavors require a little effort and sacrifice, right?

On things of an unreasonable nature

Kevin (my roommate) had his birthday party last night and I drank entirely too much wine. In between passing out in (fortunately) my own bed and waking up to accidentally ogle Jason having sex in our living room (oops), I had the most peculiar dream. I dreamt that I was, appropriately enough, in my apartment with a party going on - I was in Kevin's room for whatever reason, and Luis was with me. I kissed him, once, and without a word he got up and walked away, leaving behind a folded sheet of green paper. Upon reading the paper, I realized that it was a letter I'd written to him, asking whether or not he'd ever considered getting back together with me. He'd written a lot of things in reply, but most of it was scribbled out and unreadable. At the very bottom were just two words: "No. Never."

That sort of ruined my day.

The funny thing is...getting back together with Luis isn't something I'd very seriously considered - consciously, at least, which is apparently the point. (Damn you, endless sea of the subconscious!) Mind you, knowing Luis has been one of the best things in my life. It has enriched my existence considerably and expanded my horizons in a fashion that I probably would never have accomplished on my own. It's weird to think that we've only known each other barely a year, because he's one of my closest friends, both in New York and outside of it, and I feel like we've been that way forever. When we were dating, I don't think I was emotionally mature enough to handle a relationship, and therefore being friends was the right thing to shift into. (For that matter, I'm not sure that I'm emotionally mature enough to handle a long-term relationship now, but that's a slightly different set of cows than the one we're haggling over now.) At any rate, it would truly have sucked if we'd pressed on with being boyfriends, only to have the relationship go sour and have to end things on a bad note. That was one of the considerations we had in deciding to be just friends, actually.

Further pressing the point is the fact that I actually have a tough time now associating Luis with romance. We click synchronously enough as friends that the notion of buying him flowers and writing him sappy cards just seems...kind of weird now.

So I don't know why that dream bothered me so much - it certainly cracked my reserve enough for Luis to notice this morning. Maybe it's because it's Valentine's Day, and we broke up around this time last year, so I'm naturally reminded of when we were "together". Maybe it's because to-date, the relationship I had with Luis still remains my longest-running and most successful, in a way making him the yardstick against which I automatically measure all my other dates. Maybe it's because of the existential crisis I've had recently, wherein I felt like I've lost my way professionally, and at this hallmark of Valentine's Day I'm feeling like my love life isn't faring any better. Maybe I'm just starved for affection.

Ugh. Sometimes I wish I weren't joking when I claim that Asian guys are heartless cyborgs.

On finding directions

Why hello blog. Did you miss me? I have to admit - I didn't particularly miss you. Does the fact make me terrible, or the admission of it? It hardly matters. I can always come back and settle my head onto your electronic bosom and say all the things I want to say, and you will listen. Then, when I tire of that, I'll go away again without a second thought and you'll remain here, waiting for me. Ready for me to return. Patient, willing, perhaps even hopeful. From time to time I might think of you, but I'll never let it show, nor let it influence my actions. Until I need you again. Oh, the indifferent cruelty of men!

Things have actually been quite interesting the past few months. My desktop's been dead for the majority of that time, undoubtedly due to the rigors of moving to Brooklyn. Oh, yeah, that happened. I moved in with Kevin, in Brooklyn. It's been working out decently so far, but he keeps forgetting to do his dishes. Kevin and I have a good relationship, as far as roomies and friends go, but we're just...really, really different.

Anyway, in the interim, I've managed to do a jot of stage management, decide to go back to grad school for physical therapy, visit my cousins in Texas, and take a short trip back to China in order to visit my extended family. That was a hoot and a half, let me tell you. My relationship with my father remains as fascinating and worthy of analysis as ever, but it was made okay partially by the fact that I hadn't seen him in four years, partially by the fact that I'm just tired of standing across the canyon from him. I...I miss my dad, I guess, despite the fact that we see eye to eye on almost nothing. Despite the fact that I'm still kind of angry at him for abandoning his responsibilities so many years ago. Not just to me - that I could forgive fairly easily - but to Mom.

Anyway, they all gave me money, which never fails to make me guilty and feel like I'm the useless midnight sheep of the family, and the only thing that at all keeps me in my grandparents' good graces is the fact that I'm sole heir of the family name. I won't deny it was fucking helpful, though, because not working for nearly a month absolutely KILLED my bank account and fattened up my credit card. Oh, and hemorraging money like a major national bank probably didn't help me either...I really need to learn some bloody self control when it comes to buying shit.

Wow - this blog is turning out rather negatively. Sunshine, rainbows, pixie dust and unicorn wings. Grind, mix, stir, upload onto jumpdrive, inject into computer. There! Much better!

Actually, I'm in a fairly good place and a fairly good mood. I kind of feel like...for the first time in a long time, I have a sense of direction again. A lot of it depends on me getting off my fat, lazy, but admittedly sexy and deliciously bubble-like ass and actually making sure I can assemble a decent grad school application, but at least I sort of feel like I know where my life is headed again. Now if only my love life weren't still as murky as a the depths of the Loch Ness. I've actually, in psychotic desperation only slightly tempered by tongue-in-cheek amusement, taken to asking online magic 8 balls whether or not I'll ever find someone to love, and who will love me back. (Note the necessity of presence, followed by reciprocity). That's right - not even standard magic 8 balls. ONLINE magic 8 balls. That's a degree of patheticness even I, in all my verbal magnificence, find difficult to express in words. On a tangent, I think I'm one of the few people I know who can be so unbelievably arrogant and utterly self-critical at the same time.

Wow. That kind of hopped off-topic for a bit.

Anyway, things are good. Generally. Sorta. Okay, at least they're not BAD, okay? Shut up. I'm going away now.