2002-02-15 - 4:38 p.m.

A long rambling entry about why I'm a bastard.

Final dress rehearsal last night. Opening night tonight. I'm a big bundle of nerves. Last night went pretty well, though we were all talking at like three hundred miles an hour, and the Fool knocked over a lantern on stage so there was broken glass for an act, and my helmet broke just as I was trying to put it on, and I got a nasty scratch across my belly from the sword fight, and the curtain at the back of the stage fell down during the last scene. So it was a technical nightmare, but hopefully we got all that out of the way, and we'll have a great opening night. I was a huge mess of nerves last night getting there, because it snowed, and I was running late, and I had to go pick up RockGirl (because whenever we go anywhere, it's in my car). I'm feeling guilt about yesterday's entry and then again, I'm not. Because we've spent most of the last two days together, and I had to almost fight with her to get an hour by myself at home to chill out before going up to the play. And all this time we've spent together, I really haven't wanted to spend it all together. I need some time during the day for me. Or maybe it's just that I don't want to spend all my time with her. But she wants to spend all her time with me. Which in a way brings us back to the whole feelings thing. Because I'm not really feeling strong feelings for her. And in fact, I sometimes get annoyed. I get tired. We run out of things to say. And the conversation we had over lunch yesterday was kind of scary. She's so much more cynical than me, which is saying a lot, and I got the impression that she thinks the only reason I'm still "honorable" and optimistic, and believe in the goodness of people, is that life hasn't beaten that out of me yet. I find myself disagreeing with her on some pretty big issues, and sometimes I think she's just...I don't know. I like her and I don't want to hurt her, and she's important to me, but I can't carry on like this. She refuses to tell me things sometimes. Just refuses, which is okay. She doesn't have to tell me everything. Though typically she's refusing to talk about fairly important issues. And she won't let anyone see her when she's upset. She can't ask for help when she feels bad. She literally can't. But at the same time, she won't let me not say something. She won't allow me to hold on to a secret, no matter how small. She's merciless about it. She always wants to know what's going on in my head, and I can't explain it, usually. Sometimes I don't want her to know. I'm a bastard. Goddamn I'm a bastard. I want to find some way for this to work. I don't want to give up on us, and I don't intend to. I don't know how to broach the subject without it being one of those same old stereotypical "I need space" bullshit conversations. But I do. She assumes that we should spend every waking hour together. Which I guess is what you do when you're in love (though I don't want to think that she's in love with me, I don't want to believe that). But I don't want to spend every waking hour with her. I want to spend some time alone. I want to be by myself. It's been so long since I've had a girlfriend that I don't know how to deal with my time not being mine. Again, I think it might be different if I was in love (I mean, just look at jo3 and Ng, they spend all their time together and they're sickeningly happy) but I'm not. And I don't think I will be. Really I don't. What am I going to do? I hate that after all this time I finally find a great woman who wants to be with me and somehow I can't seem to deal with that. Maybe I really have intimacy issues. But you know, I want to be in a relationship where I have that Ka-thwump feeling in my chest when I see her. I want to feel infatuated and twitter-pated and all afire around her. And I don't. And she really did short-circuit all my normal getting to know you time. All my going slow so that I don't freak out stuff. She jumped right past that in a serious hurry, and I haven't been able to keep up. I can't keep up. And now I'm wondering if I *want* to catch up. And again with I'm a bastard. Oh and we have so many mutual friends that this is going to be ugly when it ends. And I realize that I expect it to end. I not only don't think about Forever, I can't imagine Forever. She's not my Forever kind of girl. She's not my DreamGirl, nor a reasonable facsimile thereof. And I'm a bastard. Because she gives and she gives and I try to give back, and I think I do okay, but we're just not on the same level emotionally. Same planet. Different worlds. And she's going to figure it out sooner or later, and she deserves the truth and up front dealing and all that. And I need to talk to her about this. Sooner rather than later. And I still don't want to and I'm beyond rambling now. I hate Valentine's Day. Because somehow it continues to remind me that it's just not happening for me. Not in the right way. Not in a real way. And maybe I'm just a bastard and won't ever be capable of the big L. I'll probably reconsider most if not all of this in a couple of days when I'm more relaxed and not stressed out. But then again, maybe I won't.