so I try to laugh about it
2004-10-24 - 3:14 am
I'm neglecting you, poor diary. Well, I have to be up in another three hours to go to the airport and fly back to school...but I keep wanting to call it home. Funny. I am home, but Grinnell is home too.
I visited my genius writer friend Ali at Pitt this week, and got a taste of what Pitt life is like, and I'm more certain than ever that I'm in the right place. She had a hard time choosing between Pitt and Oberlin; she went with Pitt for financial reasons. I'm so glad I didn't have to make a choice like that. I wouldn't be nearly as happy in a big school, or a city school, or a less academically challenging school.
I have to admit, going somewhere a little closer to a big city might have been nicer in some ways - at least a place with more clothing stores than Walmart and Goodwill. Not that it matters, I don't even need the clothes I have bought. But...I now have a cloak! A giant plaid thing with arm holes in the front instead of sleeves. It's crazy and I love it.
Ahem. Just about anything I do need I can get online.
So, what did I do this week besides visit my high school and my safety school? Spent time with braveheart, mostly. In a twist of irony that I maintain isn't irony because we both expected it, he got a job and started working this week. But he worked mornings, and I slept through the mornings. The trip downtown to Pitt involved an attempt to see the Carnegie International and pretend we had culture, but for various logistical reasons we were only there for about half an hour. We had time to propery appreciate a few exhibits of the bleeding edge of the art world, and it was better than nothing. But the admission guy didn't even care about seeing braveheart's membership card, or charging us the extra $2. It was sad. Well, perhaps we will be able to go again in December. I hadn't realized until I looked up that website that it runs until March.
Braveheart and I have been exchanging some rather serious emails. Whether I am entirely asexual or not, and despite my romantic attraction to and love for braveheart, I am not sexually attracted to him. We need to figure out how to deal with this, but a week is not enough time, especially when we're both just trying to enjoy each other's company for the little time we have.
I'm afraid we're not going to be able to resolve anything until next summer. If my grandmother, who is now in a full-out nursing home, survives through December, my Christmas break will be cut in half by a trip to Indiana.
Another matter I feel needs to be addressed is the issue of balance. Braveheart is content to do whatever I suggest, on my time and my terms. He tells me he thinks of me as more important than he is in the relationship. I tell him this will not work. I don't think of myself as more important; I don't think of him as more important either. I think of us as equals. I need him to be my equal.
Nothing big has come up, but this dynamic shows up in little ways. If, say, we're lying on a couch together, and I'm uncomfortable, I'll move, or tell him to move. But he just sits there until it becomes unbearable. So, I worry that he's uncomfortable and refuses to tell me. And he thinks he needs to worry about me, so he asks all the time if I'm comfortable, and I tell him that if I weren't comfortable, he'd already know.
It's just a little thing, and he wouldn't be the person I love if he didn't think so much about my happiness, but I want to work on it before it becomes aggravating.
On a larger scale, I think of relationships as at least a little selfish, and I'm not afraid to be a little selfish sometimes. But I can't be the only selfish one all the time. Right now, and in the past, the balance has worked reasonably well, because I think of paying for him as helping to restore it. As much as he protests, I don't consider him to be "mooching." It's one area where I can be certain of giving rather than taking. However, now that he has a job, we'll need to find some other balance I'm comfortable with.
Maybe this is just another of those issues that's all in my head. I'm sure some couples get along with unbalanced relationships. But if so, it's because that's what they want. I don't want that. I want a relationship between equals. I need a relationship between equals. I just can't imagine myself with someone any other way. I guess it doesn't matter if it's "all in my head" or not, because what's in my head is what matters.
Oh that's right, my bunny! Poor Blackberry has some kind of infection on his underside and around his tail, so now twice a day we have to give him oral antibiotics and rub ointment on the sore spots. I'm just glad I'm only not around longer to subject him to it. Never underestimate the power of a rabbit's hind legs.