Remember the Time

I didn't want to keep writing about him since he made it clear he didn't want me thinking about him anymore but Timehop reminded me that on this day, three years ago, Emmett came back into my life.

....

I hadn't heard from him in six months and a friend had invited me to stay with her Tokyo for a few weeks. Airfare was cheap and I hopped at the chance. I posted on Facebook that I was planning on being in Japan for 3 weeks; making plans with friends of mine teaching English there across the country. At this point, Emmett had left six months prior and I hadn't yet heard from him - and didn't know if I would.

And then suddenly, he was active on Facebook - which he hadn't been for the six months he'd been gone. He hadn't contacted me yet so I was upset. I updated my status to "Well, I guess that's settled." - a  slight at him, seeing as he was still alive and living his life and obviously couldn't care about me. He commented on my status that "Things tend to settle during flight." I ignored it. He was always kind of snarky and cheeky.

Then he sent me a message. A mutual friend had told him I was coming to Japan and, if I wasn't too busy, he was hoping I would come and stay with him; he'd love to see me again and show me where he lived. I was angry and apprehensive about it. How could you just turn up out of the blue and expect me to be ok? Expect this to be ok? I said, well, I supposed I did have some time unaccounted for that I could stay a few days. I reserved my final week in Japan to stay with him in a tiny mountain town called Yokote, four hours north of Tokyo.

......

I had spent the weekend drinking and laughing with friends in Osaka and Hiroshima. And on a dreary Sunday afternoon, I boarded a Shinkansen back to Osaka, then to Tokyo, and further on to a place I'd never heard of called Omagari, in Akita Prefecture, where Emmett said he would pick me up. It took 9 hours start to finish. Three trains and three climate changes and I was there. It was late and I'd taken my contact lens out on the train and put on my velour sweatpants, hair in a pony tail. I hadn't showered since we'd spent all night in a karaoke bar and I passed out on a friend's couch. But I was nervous and my keitai had died and now here I was with the train doors opening into this frigid climate.

Omagari.

My backpack on and giant rolling suitcase in one hand, I stepped out onto the platform. I looked up and I could see his silhouette looking down on me from the observation deck. I nervously got on one escalator and then another, heart beating out of my chest, fumbling with my rail pass for the gate agent as I saw him waiting patiently on the other side for me. He looked different, older; his face acne scarred by the climate change. Once I cleared the gate, we half hugged and he awkwardly sought out an elevator. We looked at each other stone faced, trying to hide our nervousness, and loaded my things into his Saab; an interesting choice of car for someone teaching English in Japan. Most of my friends drove tiny kei cars; cheap little aluminum boxes - but somehow, this suited him, suited his personality. He would have driven something like this in the States if he made enough, I suppose. Then again, he drove a Honda Civic when he was living in Ohio when I'd known him then. Maybe this was an upgrade.

He fumbled with the GPS on his phone, trying to figure out how to get back. He almost ran a red light and I yelled at him. We stopped at a diner for pancakes and coffee. (Well, I got pancakes. He just got soup.) And then, a short while later, we'd arrived at his apartment complex which was named Moulin Rouge - although far from the French landmark. I began to unpack my things: presents I'd brought for him like Burt's Bees lotion and Kraft Mac & Cheese powder. I told him I was going to take a shower. I washed all my parts and shaved from head to toe. I'd been waiting for this moment for months. I wanted everything to be perfect. To feel his kiss, his touch, his embrace again. I'd been waiting. And I emerged in my pajamas and we sat on his couch - on opposite sides of his couch - and talked about my journey.

And then, like two high schoolers, we were suddenly in a ferocious lip lock. Our glasses clinked together comically and we stopped and threw them off and continued to kiss, to ravage each other. I straddled him and let my wet hair envelope his pockmarked face. I kissed his soft lips as his mustache tickled underneath my nose and then he took me and threw me down onto the futon on the floor. He kissed my neck and took off my shirt and began to kiss my breasts, down my stomach, pulling down my pants which slid off my hips that were thin from being worn out waiting for him. I was naked and exposed and I just wanted what I'd been waiting so long for. He kissed my inner thighs.

I flipped him and mounted him and removed his shirt, undid his belt, unzipped his pants. I just couldn't wait and I took him into my mouth and he teased, moving his cock away from my lips. I flicked my tongue and he'd jerk himself back just out of reach, then I'd take him deep again until he just couldn't take it anymore. He cut to the chase, pulling me by my arms up to face him, kissing me passionately before he flipped me on to my back, and then entered me. And we fucked and fucked and made up for those past six months with every thrust and scratch and scrape and pulse and grip. We came together, just like we always had. And we fell asleep in each other's arms.

I woke up the next morning to his alarm going off for work and the first thing he did was spoon me from behind and kiss my shoulder. Then he got up and showered and I watched him get dressed for work, wishing that day could be my every day. He kissed me goodbye, told me there was soda in the fridge and a key for the locker for the bicycle if I wanted to go out, but he'd be back at noon. I woke up and made some eggs and uploaded pictures and watching some TV and then took a nap.

He woke me up by whispering in my ear that I probably shouldn't leave the door unlocked. I gasped.

.....

By the end of the week, I'd gotten so used to him that I wished I hadn't had to leave. But Emmett got dressed for work and we drove back to the train in minimal silence and I got my ticket and he hugged and kissed me swiftly even though I could hear him starting to choke up and I boarded my train back to Tokyo in tears behind my sunglasses.

And I cried all the way to the airport and in the airport and on the plane until I fell asleep because I knew that this was the man that I was supposed to love and spend the rest of my life with and I knew deep down somewhere that something was going to prevent it from happening.

.....

And it turns out that something was me.

The Final Countdown

Soon I won't be a "twenty-something" anymore; I am on the verge of 30. And then what happens?

My life is going to be perfect. Everything is going to magically fall into place and fix itself and I'll be happy and I won't need this blog anymore. Because that's what happens when you're in your thirties, right?

People are getting engaged and married and having babies and here I still am, still trying to sort out the mess of the last decade and can't seem to see the light at the end of that tunnel. I was told that it does get better once you turn thirty, but I feel like it's in such an ambiguous way, like when they do those "It Gets Better" videos for the bullied kids. I'm still living alone, waking up hungover, eating junk for dinner, pretending to give a shit, letting others believe this charade I'm putting on.

"Oh, I don't even know if I ever want to get married. I can't even fathom what love really is because every time I thought I had it, it was all just bullshit. Maybe love doesn't even really exist - not in my universe, anyway. I just can't see myself living with someone and settling down and doing boring stuff and merging our things and our personalities and our lives and our groceries."

That's all my bullshit. My wall. My defense mechanisms.

I watched this week's episode of GIRLS and I realized more and more how much I can relate to Hannah, when she says, "Please don't tell anyone this, but I want to be happy. I realized I'm not different. I want what everyone wants. I want what they want. I want all the things. I just want to be happy", because these are the same things that I say to myself; these are the same things that I feel.

I self-deprecate and I engage in behaviors that aren't good for me. I keep people at distances even when I want to draw them so close and so near to me. I try not to let people in and let them get under my skin and then when they do, when I feel things, when I hurt like normal people are supposed to, I'm afraid and offended and scared and brush them off, shut back down, shut them out. Because I want to feel things and I want to let people in and I'm not sure I remember how. I've had people playfully call me a cold-hearted bitch before, and maybe they've been right all along. Maybe everyone else can see it but me.

........

My friend and I had a conversation about how we let the wrong people fill certain voids in our lives because we hope the right people will come along and take their place. Sometimes I feel like I'm just cramming all these people into this void to stop an open, gaping wound; staunch the hemorrhaging of all my emotions. I spring a leak and then just use someone else to plug the hole. It becomes a never-ending cycle and I'm never happy.

Emmett told me that I was never going to love anyone until I learned to love myself. He said even if I got my dream job and found the perfect guy and moved back to NY, I'd still be miserable and he's probably right. Everyone makes it sound so easy, "loving yourself". I don't even know if I know what it means to love. When was the last time I felt it? I thought it was with Emmett, but he told me that he didn't love me, was never going to love me. And I look back and try to think who else might have loved me once before? Did I know? Did I remember how that felt? How I could try and close my eyes and go deep inside myself to search for that feeling's warmth and bring it to the surface, smell it, drink it in, use it to satiate this hunger. Use it to help me remember and revive the love that is supposed to be inside me, inside all of us.

..........

So here's to the home stretch, the final year before I turn 30. The quest for me to see if all the rumors are true. That life can get better. That I can learn to love myself and others again. That I can be that emotion that has evaded me for so long: Here's to the pursuit of Happiness.

The One

Everyone around you is coupled up and you feel like you’re the only one left standing. They are cohabitating and getting engaged and getting married and you’re buying frozen dinners for one at the grocery store. You contemplate if you’ll ever find “the one”, that person who makes everything in the world make sense. Who gets your obscure jokes and likes that worn out grey band t-shirt you wear to bed sometimes. Who doesn’t mind sitting in the aisle seat all the time and who lets you eat the last donut. You wonder if maybe that person has been in your life all along and you’ve just accidentally passed them over, so you run through your mental catalog of all the people from your past who could possibly be “the one”. 

The boy who you had a torrid and short-lived love affair with; who came to visit at your dorm while surviving a 9 hour trip on the Chinatown bus during a snowstorm. Who stayed on the phone with you late at night while you read poetry to him and he told you how much your prose turned him on. How you took his virginity late one night in his room at his mother’s house on Staten Island. How he held you in the living room after watching Menace to Society, and said I love you in the lights of the Christmas tree. And then how he broke your heart and said it was all a lie; that you didn’t really love him, that he was a tortured soul. And yet, you still held this connection, this bond, on and off again for so many years, finally reuniting recently during Thanksgiving. Older, wiser, a little worn for haul – but he had sent you a text reminding you that you’d promised to marry him when you turned 30. You lol’d and wrote back saying, hold on, I’m not quite there yet.

A boy you met through an Internet dating site that you went on a few mediocre dates with and when he kissed you, it felt like kissing your brother. It was underwhelming and there was never any chemistry, but you still hung out and you still slept in his bed, but you never let him see you naked. And both of you would text each other to hang out every few months; you’d wonder if things would change next time you saw him, but it was always a well-worn friendship and never anything more. 

And then there’s the one that you thought was “the one”. Who was quick witted with even more obscure jokes and who never let you wear that grey band t-shirt to bed because you were too busy making love and falling asleep naked spooning each other. Who showed you the best and worst of yourself back to you like a mirror and kept urging you to grow into the person you are one day going to be. Who started making everything make sense in your life until the day you realized that you were never doing the same things in return for him. The one who told you that he couldn’t love you because love needs to be nourished and fed, even though he was the one nourishing and feeding your love of him for three years. 

None of these guys are “the one”. 

Maybe you’ve met “the one” already and maybe you haven’t. Maybe “the one” doesn’t exist at all. And so what? Who cares? For now, just be the only one you need.

The Fear

If you've been following me for a while, you know I am ridiculously terrified of marriage , attempting to date in a city that really doesn't cater to women who enjoy the romantic companionship of straight men, and have lifelong trust and commitment issues thanks to the three & 1/2 years of my life I wasted dating and co-habiting with the World's Biggest Asshole. To be quite honest, as much as I hope to one day find someone who's presence doesn't repulse me and that I can have meaningful conversations and amazing sex with, I am staunchly terrified of having an actual relationship. But between all the fights and breakups and cheating and failed marriages that you see amongst your friends, colleagues and stars of the Silver Screen, is it any wonder that I'm having trouble finding faith in the success and stability of human relationships?

I read an article in a recent issue of Philadelphia Magazine which attributed having kids early on in your marriage as one of the major causes of divorce. Now, I don't want children to begin with, but could they honestly be serious about this?? Almost everyone that I knew and grew up with, their parents either got married because they got pregnant or waited a few years before they had kids. And there really wasn't any difference in the amount of couples who got divorced in my eyes. From the "getting married to make an honest woman out of her" to the "college sweethearts who got married and then had their first kid a few years after getting their Masters degrees" - both of these types of couplings led to divorce. So why would anyone use their children as a scapegoat for their own relationship problems? Clearly there are people out there in all kinds of situations who have married and had children at all stages of life and not divorced. Is this type of behavior somehow becoming more prevalent due to the decade and the state of economy that we're in? Perhaps.

I wrote my Senior thesis in college about the societal constraints that are put on women in order to get married, have kids and be successful - all in one shot; The whole "Superwoman" persona - saving your company's largest accounts by day and still having dinner on the table by 6 and tucking the kids into bed at night. But surely, more men are also playing the "mom" role these days too? Is this perhaps emasculating men who were raised to believe that the husband should be the breadwinner? Maybe it is that men can't swallow their pride in these situations that is creating a rift between husbands and wives. But what about stay-at home mothers who still find themselves on the outs with their supposedly doting 'heads of the household'? Ok, yes, things change dramatically when you incorporate kids into your marriage. It is no longer "You and Me" but "and Baby makes 3"; Maybe sometimes people are having children and aren't completely ready to accept this as a fact of life yet. But again, that in no way dictates that children are causing divorces - it just means that people are having kids before they are emotionally ready, because they think that is what society expects of them. That once you are married and settled into your new home, the next thing to come should be the pitter-patter of tiny feet. (and not of the four-legged variety)

Obviously, there is no dictating how relationships will turn out. There is no road map to life that can be purchased and help you learn the lay of the land. Unexpected things can happen around every turn; cheating, unemployment, death. No one truly gets that Fairy Tale ending. And I guess that's what scares me so much - that there is no way to tell how things will turn out. No one expects to be in a relationship for 10 years that never goes anywhere, or to live with someone who lies, cheats and steals (or even, to be that person who lies, cheats and steals). No one gets married with the anticipation of one day getting divorced. No one expects to have to figure out what they will do with their lives when their partner dies and because, since the State does not recognize their Union, they are not entitled to the benefits their partner has left behind.

And so, as much as I would love to be in a relationship, this fear still haunts me. We all have expectations and hopes for future romantic couplings. We want our mates to be these perfect matches, these puzzle pieces that fit perfectly into our lives. We hope for unending sophisticated conversation and superb sexual compatibility. You hate to think that you will ever get mad at one another, fight with the other, break that person's trust. You do not want to be betrayed by someone that you let into your life, your heart, your soul - that you give all your  love to. And also, you do not want to commit the same atrocities to that other person who becomes your other half. What if I just can't do it? What if I just can't learn how to compromise my own stubborn sensibilities and I drive this person out of my life because I am too thick-headed to learn that a relationship is a two way street? What if I am too clingy or jealous or cumbersome? The thought of failure consumes me.

This is why my pseudo-relationship with Emmett has worked so well so far. We have never lived within close proximity of each other for anything to be considered remotely serious. Every encounter between us has always been light, fun and breezy, almost as if we are just test driving it before we commit to signing the lease. There are no strings or promises to each other - as much as I wish at the end of the day that there were - and maybe in a way, that is also scary as well. Here I am, pining over this man like a pair of expensive pants in a store window that I keep going in to try on, but don't know that I can ever bring myself to purchase. Even though they fit like a glove and make my ass look amazing and would go with everything in my wardrobe, they are always just out of reach. Maybe I will see them again one day on clearance and consider them a little bit longer.

But what happens when I finally buy them and bring them home? Will they have the same allure in my bedroom as they did in the dressing room? Was it all just lights and trickery in those store mirrors, as I try to replicate the same tantalizing appearance in my cheap $10.99 IKEA wall mirror at home? And after trying those pants on with an insurmountable number of tank tops, button downs and cardigans, will they just wind up in the back of my closet with the tags still on, never to be seen again? If this relationship ever really becomes real, will I be as ready and emotionally available as I make myself out to be in my head? Or will I struggle to find the receipt in my bag to take it back to the store?

Such foolish desires. Damn these wild young hearts.

The Politics of Dating

There are all kinds of dating pressures in your 20s. Many people think back to their parents’ and grandparents’ day and kind of use that as a barometer against where they should be in life. One might go, "Oh, well my parents were married by the time they were my age, so my clock is ticking." Others think, "Fuck that shit - Your 20s are for partying and screwing around. You've got the rest of your life to settle down." So what should you do? Do whatever feels right. Don't feel pressured to have to be married and settled down with a house and kids by the time you're 30. Don't feel pressured to have to go out and sleep with any and everyone you meet. Remember that what might be right for someone else might not be the right choice for you. It's just like anything in life really. There is always going to be pressure to fit in with your peers, societal constraints telling you to do XYZ and not ABC.

A lot of women think that they're going to get too old to have kids and feel this indescribable need to sit around and complain that "OMG I'm almost 26 years old and I'm single and I'm never going to get married! And I wanna be a Mommy!" That mentality is almost certain to make sure that that "SINGLE" label stands on a little bit longer. Guys don't want you coming right off the bat saying "Oh, well, my goal is to be married and have kids by the time I'm 30." Because clearly, if he knows you're 26 - he factors in the fact that you're trying to accomplish all this in the next 4 years and instantly evaluates whether he wants to be part of that greater plan or calculates where the nearest exit is.

That's not to say that all Guys are commitment-phobic. Obviously, some men would like to get married one day, but if they think they're being put on the countdown meter based on your "clock", that's a lot of pressure. It gets worse as a Guy sees all his friends around him settling down and he's still the only single one. There go all the weekend binges and strip club outings. No one wants be the last Bachelor standing, right? How could someone take me seriously if all my friends are married and I'm not, right? Well, don't go rushing into something and married a Girl just because that's what she wants and that's what you see everyone else doing. Odds are you'll either wind up resenting her for "trapping" you in a marriage before you were ready or eventually wind up getting divorced.

And not every Girl feels like she wants to get married either. The thing about being a girl is - growing up, you're expected to be prim and proper and not skanky and slutty. Then you hit your 20s and realize how amazing sex is and your libido kicks in and you just wanna hump everything in sight and now you can be a kinky bitch all you want without the worry of rumors running the halls of your high school or doing the walk of shame home from the Kappa Sig house every weekend.

You're 20-something and single. You don't have to be in a relationship if you don't want to. You can date and screw whoever you want and be however serious about the situation you want. The world is your oyster. Who cares if you only wanna go out with a guy just to get a free meal and a fuck? That's your prerogative! All these years you've been dating like a chick - and getting fucked over because of it. Think about all those guys you cried over, all those pints of Ben & Jerry's you ate. It's about time you dated like a man - liberate yourself. It's 2010 after all. But of course, most importantly - carry condoms! Don't think just because you're a Girl you should depend on the guy. Because if you get horny and he doesn't have one, how disappointed will you be then? (And don't even think of letting him "pull out" - You should both be able to have mind-blowing orgasms together without worrying about getting pregnant.) Same thing goes for you, Guys. Always carry condoms. Just because a chick is totally hot and says she's the pill doesn't mean that she is - and it doesn't mean she doesn't have herpes either. Because if you don't, guess what? Not only did you not want get married in the first place, but now, congratulations! You're a daddy!

..........

This week, I'm focusing my blog on some of the more interesting, possibly embarrassing and excruciatingly awful dating experiences I've had as of late. I was a serial monogamist for a very long time. I was constantly in back-to-back long term relationships. Only slept with guys that I was seriously dating. All that changed when my asshole of an ex ruined my life and basically made me swear off getting close to anyone every again. So I started dating like a Guy so I didn't get played like a little bitch. I had some good times, some bad, some amazing and some things I experienced that can never be undone or unseen. Those encounters are as follows...