by Anna Arroyo
I love that the new year always starts with me being a brand new shiny age. It feels like a clean slate, like things can go however I want them to–because the year is new, & I am new, & so everything else can be new, too.
While the universe doesn’t exactly work that way, it doesn’t stop me from believing it can–& I do.
Perhaps, as I sip on my drink & listen to Kings of Leon, whose lead singer has a voice I feel between my legs–I should write a typical new years blog post. I should maybe write about what I loved or hated about 2009, & what I look forward to in 2010.
However, at the end of a year, I hardly ever remember much about that year beyond the last three months, & if the last three months were particularly uneventful, I my recall the events of the last three weeks…or the last three days.
It might be a good time to wish for better long-term memory in 2010, but I tend towards the realistic & not the insanely optimistic, if you know what I mean.
By realistic, I mean wishes I can work towards & see tangible results. Like, a realistic 2010 wish would be to stop biting my nails, while an insanely optimistic goal would be to get a manicure every week. See where I’m going with this?
Though, if you must know, what I hope for every year without fail is to be happy. That’s it. That wish is so broad, it encompasses everything from a new dress to eradicating world hunger–both would make me happy, after all.
However, there is always a specific thing, or a few specific things that would make me most happy, & this year it has a lot to do with my self-development, triggered mostly by him. Yes, that is a him italicised to show that this male person, isn’t just any ordinary male person, but a male person that holds incredible significance to my life presently. The type of him I have to make myself not think about sometimes because otherwise he will be all I think about.
&, as a 20-year-old, that sort of behaviour is laughable, really–it’s time for me to mature & grow some balls, isn’t it? Don’t fret, I speak figuratively, I promise you.
The specific thing this year, involves my getting rid of my old self completely. Yes, there is an old Rush–the one that existed then, & there is me: the Rush that is better, or at least tries to be.
Getting rid of this alternate self would mean doing away with the anxiety that follows me into otherwise very comfortable situations & tries its hardest to make them less comfortable. A few recent examples are: my complete incapability of expressing to my best friend just how much he really means to me. I’ll be damned if I managed to get anything more than well….he’s really nice across–it really isn’t the impression I wanted to give. I wanted to let her know that I thought of him differently than she & I both know I tend to think of guys, & I wanted to seem optimistic about him. Yet, after listening to her gush about her new boyfriend from Trinidad land, I felt like anything I said after would fall flat; I felt inferior when I had no reason to, all because of ridiculous fears.
I’ve even allowed anxiety to plague completely joyous occasions with him. Only a ridiculously anxious person would ask someone who evidently liked many things about them if there was anything they didn’t like about them, on a perfectly non-awkward day, at a perfectly non-awkward time. To be fair however, that was probably triggered by the attention he brought to my scars. I always expect to have to talk about them, & I always tell myself that I’m ready–yet, I only am 9/10 times.
I don’t know what type of answer I wanted to hear to a question like that, & after I asked it, I immediately wanted to erase it from the history of time. However, again, the universe doesn’t work like that, and this time I don’t trick myself into believing it does. I’m fortunate enough though, to be crazy about a perfect gentleman who dealt with the blunder exceptionally well.
I seem to be blessed with close male friends who are perfect gentlemen, because earlier this year when I asked a close friend of mine if he thought I was un-datable, he also dealt with it in a way that didn’t make me feel like a complete idiot–& for friends like this, I am grateful.
The anxious Rush also rears her nail-biting head in ways that cause me to be more introverted & uninvolved than I really am. Yes, I am a deep thinker, but I am also someone who speaks up when they need to. So today, or rather, yesterday, when an issue surrounding my not speaking up when I should have, came up between him & myself, I realised that I hadn’t been completely open about all my feelings, all the time. Why not? because, as I told him–I don’t feel like I have that right.
I don’t feel like I have the right to make decisions that involve us; the type of right I often think comes with a certain type of status–a status I clearly judge myself as being beneath, & so I tend towards working around whatever he does or decides. While that initially appears to be a perfectly comfortable existence, I realise now that it isn’t; not really. If I let doubt & or anxiety get in the way of simple things like deciding when I want to see him, then what will happen when I have to express more complex emotions?
Exactly.
A part of me reigns in the passion I know is simmering beneath my surface, because most level-headed people are put off by someone who wears their heart on their sleeve, aren’t they? & I do believe I want to be more rational & level headed than impulsive & erratic–it just looks better on a résumé.
Furthermore, I’m so used to going at a fast pace, that it takes effort & consideration to work at a relationship that is actually taking time to develop properly; but there’s a first time for everything.
So, in 2010, I’ll work on keeping anxious Rush at bay. By keeping her away from my existence, I’ll be able to do things like talk about him to the people that matter without downplaying his importance, because I’m anxious about revealing vulnerability, or saying something I actually mean. By keeping her away I can grow up & present myself more for what I am, i.e. less of a worry wart & more of a free spirit.
Most importantly, I’ll be able to just be.
& there is nothing that feels better than just being, except maybe good sex.
You probably think I’m kidding.
I’m not.
P.S. During my (short) hiatus, I pondered how I would continue writing honestly here, knowing that close friends read this blog. But I figured it out, & it should be all right–I will simply not post any thoughts or feelings regarding those people, before they are even somewhat familiar with said thoughts & feelings already–that way, there won’t be any awkward surprises; I hope.
Songs that made writing this easier:
I Want You by Kings of Leon
I Am Not A Robot by Marina & the Diamonds
Stop Falling by Pink
Back to What You Know by Ne-Yo
Revelry by Kings of Leon
My Boys (Animal Collective Cover) by Taken By Trees
I’ll be taking a brief hiatus from Loop, to work on it.
I’ll still be blogging less formally here, where it’ll be less like this blog, & more like a stream of my own consciousness, my ideas, & things that I find generally inspiring.
I’ll be back,
The last time I moved from one home to the next I was too young to be too involved in the moving around & packing up of anything. The only thing I remember about moving from my childhood home to the one I’m moving from now, is that I rode in the back of the car beside the computer monitor, & my parents bought KFC for the movers–that is the extent to which my memory serves that occasion.
Now that I’m old enough to live on my own, I play a much more active role in the moving process this time, & in the meantime I’m having a ball finding things I didn’t know I had lost–because I was unaware of ever having them to begin with.
One such thing, is a card my father sent me while he lived in England, & my mother & I lived in Jamaica. It was probably for my fourth birthday or so–it isn’t dated.
After reading it, more than remembering that he was not there, & how I desperately wanted him to be, I remember talking to him on the phone on Tuesday & having him tell me he was coming next month, & then two weeks later, he’d be coming the next year, & then that year he’d only be coming soon.
I’ve always had an unstable sort of relationship with my father; one characterised by the presence of all the material things he provides me with, & the absence of any sort of healthy emotional bond. It’s hard to talk about it with anyone who will listen, because on the face of it, he seems to be there in every way that matters: he sends me to school, he feeds me, he puts clothes on my back & he never tells me I can’t get something, even if I don’t get it immediately.
Yet, I have never been able to feel as close to him as I want to–& while I am more than grateful for a father who is alive & well meaning, I can’t help but wish things were better between us.
For a very long time been afraid of him, & at some points, & in loath of how insensitive he can be at others. In 14 years, the only time my father has said he loved me, was when he discovered–through my mother–that I had been self harming.
All I’ve ever really wanted was to believe & trust my father. For a very long time I had–he was the most amazing person to me, & I vowed not to get married to anyone that wasn’t just like my dad, & since I was sure no one else like him existed, I was content with telling everyone I was never, ever, going to get married.
Then at 18, like all good plots, mine received its own twist. He expressed to my brother & I a month before my birthday, that he had fathered another daughter–who was also 18. We had never heard about her till then.
My image of him… it’s hard to pin down with words what happened to me image of him, But I will say that I immediately felt like I hated all men on the face of the earth–because if the one I held to be perfection had lied to me for 18 years, then what was the point of trusting anyone at all?
That incident, & worse ones since, haven’t really helped our relationship at all. When he’s not in malice with me for things I either have not done, or did not know I did–we have an okay relationship. Sometimes even a really fantastic one–but it’s transitory.
I love my father, but seeing this card only makes me wish he would say these things to me now, or that he’d say things like that to me at all.
I won’t be ungrateful–he provides for me & my family, & even beyond that he’s passed on certain invaluable attitudes to me; because of the way my dad treats me, I never feel even a little inclined to ask anyone for anything at all. He taught me never to ask anyone but him for for the things I needed, & if he couldn’t get it for me, then I was to work hard & try to get it for myself. If I couldn’t get it on those term, then I should simply do without it.
I do wonder occasionally, if the relationship I have with my father affects the way I deal with romance & commitment–but it’s only something I wonder about occasionally, & not something I afford myself the time & energy to focus on.
Seeing this card, reinforces my wish to really know my father before it’s too late & desire turns into regret. Because beyond the bad relationship, there is a man that is only human, whom I’m sure recognises that his daughter is only human too. If we could both find it within us, to just get over ourselves, then that might be a well needed step in the right direction.
Until then, I’ll guard this card with my life–& read it each time I wish he would apologise…or tell me that he loves me.
