Dreams

I've been having especially vivid dreams lately.

The contents aren't really important, and most of them I don't entirely remember (though I do try to write down some of the most interesting ones), but I do have one overall impression: In my dreams I am always defending myself. I am always explaining my actions and my beliefs, as if they're not worth having unless everyone agrees with them. And in the same breath I'm apologizing.

In short, my dreams are remarkably like my real life.

I've realized the difference between the Gladys who walks through life now, and the one who was with JP so many years ago: The old Gladys was complicated and loved it, reveled in it, flaunted it. This Gladys sands down all the complications to present a smooth, unchallenging surface, so that people will love her.

Except in doing so, I find that I no longer can love myself.

LJ is going out of town, possibly for an extended stay; on "business", as usual. I can't wait. I want peace, quiet, a place to myself. When he gets back, I'm thinking about telling him what I've discovered to be the truth: I'm happier alone. There's no point in being with someone who doesn't know me, who doesn't want to know me; who says he loves me but won't touch me; who won't touch me but doesn't mind taking money from me. When I hear the pimps-and-ho's songs on the radio? I think of me.

"...but me i aint no pimp
i just love to borrow
paper from a fat bitch
a ugly bitch
a model..."

"...standin' on the porch drankin liquor
drunk, smokin weed ...
that's why i stay in a girl ear
to keep that p**** wet
so i can get paid
and relax in tha shade
and say fuck a 9 ta 5
cuz a n**** tired of slavin'..."

Man, that's not me, he tells me. That's just music, he says. And it IS just music, true; I'd be a hypocrite if I pursued that line of thought too far--but:

Okay. Look at it like this. Alice in Chains' "Would?" wasn't the reason I started taking heroin--but the fact that I liked the song quite as much as I did could be used as evidence that I wasn't against heroin as a concept. So what am I to think, exactly, when LJ turns up "Poppin' My Collar" every time it comes on the TV or the radio?

Nah, that's not me, he tells me. But somehow every morning I get up and go to work, and every night I come home from work, and somehow I pay all the bills and somehow when he needs money he has no problem coming to me. And somehow, even when things don't work out financially the way I expect, he takes for granted that I'll still live up to financial promises I made him even if it puts me in a bad spot, but somehow when I need money I know there's a good chance I'll be out of luck, and regardless, I'll come to him all apologetic over even $20.

Dr. J says I need to set better boundaries about money. But how can I set better boundaries when I'm convinced that's the only reason he even bothers with me at all?

He says he loves me. I long ago gave up hope for love on my terms, but this isn't love on anyone's terms--well, maybe Three-6 Mafia's. I don't know what this is, but I know it's killing me inside, and love isn't supposed to do that. I don't know how much of what I'm feeling is because it's actually TRUE, and how much of it is because I clearly don't love myself very much--but in the end, does it really matter? If I tell him to leave based on some fiction inside my own mind, does it matter why I feel better when he's gone?

I don't know how I'm going to do it, or when. I'm a coward, really, about these things. The last person I broke up with, I never actually broke up with him--I just stopped calling, and eventually he drew the right conclusion. I know I won't go home tonight and just make a decision and end it; that's not my style. But I do know that I'm looking forward to Friday, when he hopefully goes away for a while; and maybe by the time he gets back one of two things will happen: either I'll miss him, or I'll have the strength to tell him that I want to be alone. Maybe. In the meantime, though, I'll enjoy my peace and quiet.