Because why the fuck not? I hadn't listened to this song in a minute. It reminds me of shitty things. Which is a shame. I love this song.
The wedding is 47 days away. I tell people I'm not stressed out, but I am. Marriage is scary, and it's both foreign and natural for me to be getting married. Despite the fact that I'm angry at Derek right now (because I'm stubborn and he's stubborn and the both of us are too stubborn to be anything else but that), I don't think I've met anybody as well suited to me as he is. I love him fiercely and without reservation or shame, or fear. It's nice. I'm genuinely excited to call him my husband, and to be his wife (despite the archaic undertones of ownership implied by those terms). But at the same time, I'm desperately afraid of who I'll become. I catch myself using the word "we", and it bothers me. Like I don't have a thought in my head that doesn't also belong to Derek. Which isn't true, and I know this is just my extreme fear of commitment finding things to freak the fuck out about it. and I find a lot of things.
I remember Dan saying to me once that staying faithful to me had been extremely hard. I remember feeling sickly smug about getting away with not having that problem. Fucking other people while we were together was juvenile of me, and I recognize that. I had my reasons, and they seemed logical at the time. It made sense to me that, if he wouldn't validate my existence to anybody outside of, say, ME, that I really didn't have anybody to be faithful to. It took Dan over a year to call me his girlfriend. A very long time. I want to say it was closer to the two year mark, actually. I felt unworthy, and ugly, and terrible, and like I wasn't good enough. So I looked for that shit outside of Dan. And I found it, in extremely high numbers. I think I slept with...somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty five dudes while Dan and I were together. Fucked up, right? But I mean, it's gratifying to know I can catch a dick whenever I want. The point here is this: I told myself that I did all of that to make myself feel better, and that Dan somehow deserved it. Which isn't true, on either count. Dan didn't deserve that. Nobody deserves that. Cheating is cruel. And I didn't do it to make myself to feel better, I did it because I enjoy the thrill of fucking someone new. There's something delicious about someone new. The pretense, and the figurative dance, and the moments right before things happen are fucking magical and sexy and thrilling. The plain truth of the matter is, I probably would have fucked those dudes even if Dan had been a god damn saint. Thank god he wasn't, because at least I have a somewhat understandable scapegoat.
I have since been haunted by hearing Dan in my head when I think about getting married. Perhaps that's my karmic retribution for being a fucking shit girlfriend, and I suppose I'll have to live with that. But I truly do hear Dan echoing in my brain when I think about enduring years and years of monogamy. I hear him saying staying with me would keep him from chasing skirts (it's been literally years since he said that to me, and it still evokes such a visceral reaction. My skin crawls, and I want to punch something. Mostly Dan's dick, because fuck him, that's why), and I hear him saying with such forced care that staying faithful to me had been exceptionally hard...sitting in his car at Balanced Rock in the parking lot. The day he left for his whatever it was in Ann Arbor. Like you deserve some kind of fucking medal for keeping it in your pants. I mean, comparatively, he does, let's be honest, but, you know...that is neither here nor there.
I hear Dan saying these things, and then that grating inner monologue turns into Derek. What if it's hard for him, too? Is it hard for him already? Surprisingly, it hasn't been hard for me. Derek and I had, up until a few months ago, an open relationship. The deal was, as long as we didn't let the other one find out (which negates the "open" part of the agreement, but that's ok. This is my shit), and all external activities were done with every precaution (that's a nice way to say "any bodily transaction that involved a dick would make sure that dick was properly sealed") that no diseases would be transferred, and no emotions came into play, we could fuck whomever we wanted. I told Derek that I needed my freedom, because I'd feel stifled otherwise. He knew about my sexual behaviors, and he accepted that shit. The thing is, I never took advantage of it. Not once. And I don't regret that or anything, I'm actually very proud of myself. It's the first time I've wanted to not fuck anybody else (aside from Gabriel Macht, because god damn, that man is everything good and right in this world. I would push Derek off a cliff if Gabriel Macht said he'd fuck me afterwards. And I wouldn't regret a thing). I've flirted wildly with people, in ways that probably seemed more than harmless. And misleading. I have nothing more than cursory interest in other penises and the men that are attached to them.
But what if Derek feels differently? What if, like Dan, there's a nagging that I'm holding him back from fucking other women? And this might be too hard?
I'm simultaneously ecstatic to get married, and fucking jaded as balls. Interestingly, I wish I could talk to Dan about all of this. As much as Dan sucked at being my friend, I do miss having his perspective on things. I feel like I have to disclaimer that and say that I don't miss him in a romantic way. I don't know why. I thought I had made myself plainly clear to Dan that I wanted nothing to do with him romantically a long, long time ago. I tell my friends I love them and I miss them, and it's strange to me that those took on a different tone with Dan that resulted in us no longer speaking. But that's not important, I suppose. I do hope he's happy with his girlfriend and whatever else it is that's going on in h is life. I'm sure he is. But I also hope that he has to walk on Legos for a solid mile in barefeet, because he's haunting my psyche and making me paranoid, on top of my already complicated and deep self-image and self-worth issues. Thanks a lot.
I've done so much homework tonight, and I am exhausted. I have to wake up early and drive to Broomfield for my second make up and hair run through. I don't want to, really. I have too much homework to do. Fuck. Me.
