I feel like one day I’m going to laugh about what I’m about to write but that day is not today. I’ve been thinking about what Hope said to me when I was in Thailand. She said I have to be clear on what it is I’m looking for in a man. I personally don’t like when Ivan comments on other girls, calls them “hot babes” or whatever. I never do that with him because I treat people the way I would want to be treated. I don’t know, maybe it’s just triggering how things used to be with Noah.
Basically, I don’t even want to watch movies or TV shows with Ivan because he comments on the girls and it bothers me because it makes me feel as if I’m not good enough for him. For instance, we’ve been watching the Office and I knew the hot girl episode was coming up, so I purposely watched one episode with him and pretended to start falling asleep because I knew that episode would be next.
I said, “You can watch the next one, I’m going to head to bed.”
I want to be okay with myself. Sometimes I really do want to give up on this relationship, but that would be taking the easy way out. Ivan even told me that lately he’s been feeling as though I’ve been crying a lot because of stuff he’s been saying. Sometimes I do wonder if there’s a better guy out there.
Yesterday in general was not so good. Elan wore a bikini apron and Ivan said “nice tits” and then Shai showed Ivan a cartoon of a sexy, animated nurse.
Ivan said, “They know what’s up.”
I was on the verge of tears because in my mind I thought, It’s true, that is all men want.
I tried keeping myself together. I really tried. I walked away to eat alone, kept reminding myself to look at the big picture, but I felt like my mind was bleeding jealousy. I told myself to suck it up because I needed to start making tortillas for taco Tuesday so I stood at the table, ready to start, but in my head, I knew if anyone spoke to me or touched me I was going to cry.
Chad happened to make eye contact with me then jokingly grabbed my nose and I tried so hard to hold back my tears. He asked if I was okay to which I burst out crying and ran away to the back of Middle Earth.
I heard Chad yell, “All I did was touch her nose!”
Then Shai and Karen said, “Oh no!” and quickly came by to hug me. I couldn’t catch my breath from how hard I was crying. I felt Ivan’s presence near me and he took a seat by me and I cried some more.
Shai and Karen left.
I looked at Ivan and said, “My mind is so FUCKED. I am so sick of getting jealous. How do people do it? How do they not get jealous?”
I told him what triggered my feelings, and I started making connections from where I was getting these thoughts. I remember when Ivan told me he loved redheads. I felt worthless when he told me. Yesterday I made the connection and remembered when Pat told me that he wanted to photoshop me some if he could. He said he would make me a red head and make my waist thinner. So when Ivan made a casual comment, I took it the wrong direction and told myself I wasn’t good enough because I wasn’t a redhead and I didn’t have bigger boobs. Silliness.
Then, as I was crying, I said, “I’m such a pussy for crying.”
And as soon as I said that out loud, I wondered where that thought came from and I flash-backed to when Joey said “stop crying like a little baby” and I just kept making all these connections. I felt like the child inside me needed deep healing.
I looked at Ivan and said, “This is why I only date guys for a month… because I start to get caught up in all these emotions and feelings when it’s easier to just run away.”
I feel as if I need to actually learn how to be in a relationship. We talked about how it’s all conditioning. Ivan opened up and said how hard he’s been on himself and that he doesn’t feel good enough at times. He told me he feels so sad a lot of the time. He began to cry, then I began to cry because he was crying and then I gave him comfort.
I said, “Isn’t it funny how we got conditioned for so many years?”
With tears running down his face he says, “We have to undo everything we learned and were told was true.”
It was such an authentic fucking moment.
I felt human.
It felt intimate.
That was true intimacy–vulnerability.