Oh Jeez:

  I am twenty years old. It is hot, the sort of humid that gets in your lungs and starts to drown you. We are making it worse by standing over a cast-iron skillet in my unairconditioned kitchen, making fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I lick my sticky fingers, you laugh.

-Sweets for the sweet.

    You are corny, I like it. You’re standing very close to me, close enough to brush your fingers over my belt loops by accident, at least pretending it’s an accident. We haven’t kissed yet, but I have wanted to for three years, ever since I first saw you step behind a microphone, battered and beaten guitar in hand, and howl like some long lost Delta bluesman.

  We eat standing up, faces smeared with jelly like a couple of toddlers. Rinsing off with the cool water from the tap feels heavenly. We retreat back upstairs. My mother is away, I have thehouse to myself. Thunder rumbles outside, a few flashes of lightning. There’s been a storm every day for a week. Tree limbs down, lost power, the sky looks ugly and painted with bruises during the day, before finally crashing down as soon as it gets dark.

- I want to play you a song.

You lie back with my guitar in your hands and begin to sing.Your voice is low, and smokey, and as you growl through the lyrics I feel lightheaded.

Rise and fall

Curtain call

Build around your heart a wall

  That is exactly what I have done over the years leading up to this moment. I have build a wall around myself, the ivory tower of fear and heartache. I feel it melting away, not permanently, I know, but perhaps only for this moment.

  You finish playing. We are lying on opposite ends of the bed, our heads meeting in the middle. I sit up, you sit up too, but in an instant we are lying down again, melting together, blending at the edges. We stay like that for a while, exercising three years of physical tension. Then we fall asleep, like children, with all our clothes and all the lights still on.

A few days later, you call.

-It was beautiful, but it won’t work.

I don’t mind.

(Source: Spotify)

Don’t blame me

  Bear and I invented a new way of talking. Exhausted (and probably dying of heat stroke, the east coast is murderous the past few days), we could only summon up three word phrases to summarize our frustrations while texting yesterday. Example:

Bear:  Boyfriend: has unsatisfying life

Bear: Boyfriend: blames on me

Bee: Boyfriend: ditto ditto ditto

so on and so forth.

We are both facing a problem: our boyfriends don’t like their lives, no matter how much they may love us. On my end, Scientist has an extremely unsatisfying job in a coffee shop. He has to be at work at 5am, he works long hours, and he is currently in the middle of a stretch of working every day for 12 days straight. I understand his frustration, totally.

But I don’t understand why he has to take it out on me. We’ve been fighting constantly, over the stupidest things imagineable. He’s consistently sleeping on the floor. I feel us starting to just hate and resent each other.

But it’s over a job. Jobs can be quit. New Jobs can be gotten. Why are we letting it destroy us?

I think part of it comes from the fact that I’ve never been one to sacrifice my life goals for financial stability, and that is Scientist’s background completely. His family is wealthy — but not because they followed their individual dreams, per se. Their attitude is more, “make the money, then use it to do what you really want”.

I was raised more to believe that life is short, money is fleeting, and what is ultimately most important is to have lived a life you feel was satisfying.

I feel a little bad, like I’m unable to get off my high horse on this issue and just let Scientist live the way he wants to. But I can’t stand to see it tearing us apart.

How can you reconcile two different ways of looking at finances? And is this what being a grown up is like??

Seriously,

am I finally an adult,

Bee.

A rant on sexuality.

I’m thinking a lot about sexuality lately. What does it mean to be sexy right now? Is it about the way you present yourself, how you look, how you dress, how you act? All I know is its a lot of pressure. I’ve read some really insightful blog entries about sexuality, I’ve read some really frustrating articles, and I’ve seen advertisements that just make me want to barf and go cover up my boobs for the rest of my life.

Now, I know I’m not the “ideal” attractive woman (maybe if I lost 35 pounds, got tan and started wearing lots of bandeau bras and eye makeup. Also maybe if I looked like Penelope Cruz..oh Penelope). But I hope that the men I choose to surround myself with can see me as a strong, supportive, and okay I’ll say it, a sexy person. My current boyfriend has the sexiest eyebrows. He also has really attractive legs. And probably my favorite nose in the world (sometimes I just wanna bite it). I don’t know why I find these things sexy, but I do. He’s not just a culmination of those things, though. They don’t make or break why I’m dating him, why I find him attractive, what I like about him. He’s a really smart guy, he’s got these endearing silly moments and yes, sometimes he can turn into a frustrating bro-type. But, there are momentary lapses when I forget he’s just a person reacting to me as a person, and I feel like I need to look sexy, stay sexy, turn myself into an object that can be desired. I somehow feel like if I can just eclipse all his previous sexual encounters, maybe I’ll be worth keeping around. 

Excuse my language, but where the fuck did I come up with that idea? Where did I suddenly decide to throw my great personality, insightful emotions, and ridiculously smart brain out the window? I attended an alternative school, for fucks sake, and I most definitely went to a boarding high school. I was taught everyone is beautiful in their own right, and if someone doesn’t like you, or something about you, its usually their own fault and you should a) move on, or b) forget about it and be confident in yourself. 

So where is all of this crazy objectifying sexuality coming from? It doesn’t happen all the time. I am a wonderful woman, I am a great girlfriend, I have interests and I can talk to you about relevant intelligent things. I know how to spell and use proper grammar, I read all the time, and I know how to dress myself. Yet in the dark hours or brief seconds of doubt, objectification steps in. Facebook screams for us to put up the most attractive or trendy photo we can. My abs aren’t flat enough this season for a bikini, all the H&M models silently judge me in the dressing room. You know what? Who the hell cares? Who says I should constantly be tanned, toned and hairless all the fucking time? Deal with it. I get to, you should too. Boys are allowed to have a beer belly, weird playoff beards, what have you, and they still get laid all over the place. Where did this little insecure, neurotic consciousness come from? 

When my boyfriend tries to be fake-sexy (yes, guys do it too. I’ve heard “Yeah baby, you like that don’t you?” from one too many suitors), I think its too funny. Sometimes it ruins the moment. I like those passionate, playful moments that just naturally happen. So why do we tell ourselves we need to be everything for an audience? Stop with being so FAKE. Stop these implants, these labia surgeries, stop with this porn-centered worldview, stop with these “i’m not skinny enough” moments. If you look like a breakable doll, if you look like someone in a magazine, they are just going to want and expect next-month’s issue out of you. To me, thats too much work. Go for sensual. Go for sexual too! (I love sexuality) but please do it in your own way. I don’t mean to criticize if you are doing this for medical reasons. By all means, get a breast reduction to improve your health. Just…be okay with being you. People will love you just the way you are, and you shouldn’t have to conform to looking a certain way to do it. 

So here’s my reminder, my kick in the butt. I am funny, sweet, perky (yes, i’ll own that word), intelligent, caring and silly. Sometimes, usually when I don’t realize it, I’m being sexy. Guys like that. If they don’t, they’re not the right one. Lets hope the over-sexualization of our nation’s youngsters stops, or that more of them find the courage to stand up for their true personalities. For gods sake, if someone complains about your labia, they probably won’t make it happy anyway.  

With love,

Bear

Dear you (an open letter to the 2nd boy that broke my heart)

Dear you,

I can’t believe that after nearly a year of not speaking I still miss you. I think about you all the time, not in the romantic way that I once did (no more wistful afternoons spent looking into the bottom of coffee cups and whispering “what ifs”), but in the way that I did when we first met, as friends. I see things I want to show you constantly. I want to text you and say “did you see that hardcore song that an 8 year old made about her dog?” because I know you’d love it. I want to tell you the strange things people say to me at work. I want to know how all the weird things you love are doing, all your strange research: what’s the weather in New Mexico, what sort of dog breed is most hypo-allergenic?

A few weeks ago, I was standing on a corner in Chicago in a snow flurry. I was wrapped up head to toe against the cold but I was determined to get my one night of sight-seeing in. I looked up at the buildings around me, chanted the names of architects under my breath. Hands in pockets, I kept fingering at the edges of my phone, always one second away from whipping it out to send you a quick picture-text: “look, a Mies Van Der Rohe!”, “The waterworks, I am really here and I am seeing it!”. It was always your dream to go there. In some of our more optimistic moments together, we used to plan a trip where we would both go, and I would look at art and you would collect all the silly data you love from historical societies, and then we would eat all the deep-dish pizza we could. He stood next to me, smiling, happy to see me happy. He looked over at me and said, “You want to send him a picture, don’t you?”. He’s so understanding. He is everything you couldn’t be for me, and I think you know that.

In some ways, I wish I had never kissed you. I wish I had just let myself believe you when you said we could never be together. But I’m stubborn, you know that. I thought I could convince you. Two years after that kiss, I am over you, and I can say that with absolution- I really am. I am in love, completely, and I honestly think this is the man I’ll end up marrying. In fact, I never even miss that kiss, I never relive it, I don’t dwell on it. What I miss is you. What I miss is our roundabout conversations, our secret language, our quiet understanding. How we could go for months without talking and then one night we’d find each other over the soft glow of computer screens and it would be like time had never passed from the last day we spoke. Jokes and memories and self-deprecative humor passed back and forth with ease. 

I think sometimes that the reason you can’t talk to me now is because you know you can’t ever fall in love. I think that you considered me so similar to you that I couldn’t be in love either. That I was stunted in the same way you are. That what we had was the closest thing either of us would ever have to love. But that’s where you’re wrong- I can love. And I do love. And I loved you. 

I hope someday we can talk again, when you are ready to forgive me for not being the person you thought I was; and when I can forgive you for attempting to stop me from trying to be. 

With love,

Bee.

Ch-ch-changes

After stops, starts and stutters, soaring hopes, romantic weekends stolen from our “real lives”, sweaty sexy romps and gentle kisses, I told the Spaniard I just couldn’t see him or talk to him anymore. I need a break, and I need it to be real. No more “I’ll just see you in Boston” when we fall into each others naked arms for the weekend and come up needy. No more “maybe I’ll visit” that end in tears and talks of moving closer. No. More.

I’ve felt emotionally manipulated by him for awhile. Yes, in a moment of frailty I called him last week when I had a freakout - and I shouldn’t have. He dealt with it beautifully, swallowing his pride and letting me scream and cry until I fell asleep. Since then, I’ve felt guilty. He’s milked it for all it was worth “well I supported you, why can’t you just support me when I need you? I’m having a mental breakdown here.” He’s baited me, ensnared me, entrapped me into feeling like I’m the only thing that can save him, and its just too much pressure. I can barely save myself. I need to start seeing someone on the regular (therapy wise) to be able to sort through the fact I can’t figure out how to handle transitions, authority, changes and the real world. And you know what? Thats okay. I’ll work on it.

Its okay that I’m not grown up yet. All of the Spaniard’s hints about marriage and babies and the fact I’m the only girl he’s ever felt this way about (his words) make me sick to my stomach with fear. My mother (the sassy, crazy hippy) was engaged three times before she met my father. Her first husband was apparently extremely similar to the Spaniard. He was funny and sweet and attractive, but ultimately couldn’t get his shit together ever, and she left him. I don’t want my life to be spent supporting a man who is falling apart all over the place, only to end in heartbreak. I’m not going to start dating him again and let him move to DC so that I can keep supporting him for the rest of his life. I’m not going to commit to a relationship, because I can feel he’s in it for the long haul. I’m not. doing. that. 

Upon telling him how I felt, it was like a giant weight was pulled out of my body, from my tiny cold toes to my wispy weird brain. The day after, I’m going to say I’m sad. Its okay. Sad is fine, melancholy is okay, but ultimately I don’t have to feel unhappy and unstable about committing to something I just cannot handle. I’m only 23, I’m only on my first job, I’m only dating and I’m totally okay with that. I don’t want to know who I’m going to end up with for the rest of my life. If I let him go and he doesn’t change, I’ve sidestepped an emotional freighter that was bound to wreck my own self-worth. Instead, I’ll let him travel where he needs to go to fix himself, and I will fix my own feelings and thoughts on my own.

There’s a different guy, Penguin, who isn’t too special. Actually, he might be, and I just haven’t let myself notice him yet. He’s intelligent, refers to himself as High-Bro (a bit high-brow but with a large foundation of bro that I can’t seem to squash out of him) he’s still growing, he’s interesting and he makes me giggle. He’s weird-looking, with a hawkish nose and an almost-Gosling demeanor, if only he was cuter. Lets just say he would have been my perfect highschool-boyfriend. A plus is he knows how to dress himself, and although sexually we’re not super compatible, I’m having a good time. He makes me feel worth it (whatever “it” is). I just need to make sure I’m not jumping into this so I feel supported by someone, during this time of being alone and being by myself. He’s said the typical “I like you.” and I’ve responded in a generally favorable and agreeable response, but I’m not going to commit just yet.

In the past three months, I’ve noticed something. Its like a huge magnet is rolling around under us, realigning our thoughts, places and needs. There’s this huge upheaval in the universe. People are shifting, new places, new spaces, new boyfriends, new breakups. Something in the water, or the collective unconsciousness. We’re all looking for a change, and dammit we’re actually brave enough to throw caution to the wind and go for what we want. 

Is this what growing up means?

With love,
Bear

Mom, could you not?

Grass is Green, Breakups Greener

The transitory period after a breakup is always odd. Do you think about him too much? Not enough? (Even after his favorite movie plays on TV)? Can you call just to say “hey” and check in, or do you not bother? When do formalities (“happy birthday anyway, did you enjoy the headphones I sent you a week before you broke up with me?”) become just formal, and unemotional? 

The Spaniard and I are on weird terms. My request for SPACE was met with “I miss you” texts, “I still love you” warbles on my voicemail, and “when can I see you” captions on photos attached to late-night e-mails. “I made a mistake” was the first and oft repeated words out of his mouth. Promised grades, new jobs, therapy appointments, they all have seemed like (all too quick) steps in the right direction, but they HAPPENED, and damn does the boy move fast. Yet this closet romantic coupled with a “men can change for the right girl” adages have led me right back into a time warp. Helloooo last fall. Hello….mistakes?

The Spaniard showed up with all the right moves last weekend, after he pleaded for a chance to make it up to me. Two dozen (well, 25 to be precise) lavender roses showed up on my doorstep before work, and a weary and very nervous Spaniard greeted me with tears in his eyes when I picked him up from the Metro. A kiss on the forehead, a warm hand on the small of my back, and I remembered just why I loved him. He was comfort. He was flawed, but  most importantly, he was honest about it. Words tumbled from his lips, and I ended up kissing them. A night spent together instead of in the spirit of a one-night stand, felt like a thousand years back to the right place when we woke up holding hands. His laziness erased for a day, a fresh start, was coupled with a love note on my pillow, wine in his hand, and a plaid-themed picnic. He chose the spot, and we breathed in each others company. Tired from the emotional turmoil, naps preceded an expensive (and delicious) french dinner. The one, perfect day. 

He left the next morning, and his grumbles and grumps started up again. I got busy (and stressed) with my new job and early start time, but I miss the comfort. I miss just knowing he’s going to be on the other side of the phone if I need him. His love note re-read, his voicemails re-heard, my heart is extending tiny tendrils in his direction.

Then, therapy happened. I’m sure its smart, he’s not exactly dumb, just inconvenient. Friday I got the call, after a hermit-like few days. “I just don’t have the money, or the time, to give you what you deserve. I’m sorry we spent the most wonderful few days together, but its just not going to work”.

…ouch. When does a breakup hurt twice? When you give them another chance.
My heart feels numb, and my inner mantra “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” is sweeping my stable footing awry. 

We’ll see if timing is ever good to us, but for now, lets let life unfold.

Happy halloween, love, you little trickster.

Bear

Domestic Goddess

Okay,

So we’ve established at length that I am something of a commitmentphobe. But let’s look at my other, non-relationship-related life choices to solidify that fact. I have moved four times, to four different cities, in the past four years. I have quit jobs and schools, switched majors, and generally never been able to make up my mind about exactly what I want ever since I graduated high school (and took a whole year off) five years ago. The past five years have consisted of building up relationships with the people I meet, then disappearing on them.

In spite of having co-habitated with a significant other before (though it was more out of a need to escape my mother’s house than a desire to build a future), I have really only ever thought seriously about “settling down” with one other boyfriend before The Scientist. That was, of course, the Big One. We had big plans- moving to Paris or Seattle or New York City (which of course I later did solo), living hand to mouth in some studio apartment while we “worked on our art”. Decorating the place was never even a discussion, it was going to be pure punk rock glory and milk-carton tables all the way.

Well, I was seventeen then. Now that I am an old maid in my twenties (one foot in the grave, so to speak), I have…matured a little. I’ve realized that maybe I like having a well furnished home to walk in to at the end of the day. I like my matching robin’s egg blue plates. I like my tasteful-yet-inexpensive Ikea bedframe. I like my stable, kind, generous, grown-up boyfriend.

And I like googling wedding dresses. This, to me, is the nail in the coffin. Since being invited to the website Pinterest by dear Bear, I now spend hours a night just oggling other people’s weddings. In a botanical garden? So elegant. Cookies and milk at the reception? adorable! Anthropologie’s new BHLDN collection? Can I wear more than one dress?

Add to that recipes, interior decor, BABY CLOTHES, and any other number of glossy images Pinterest has to give me, and I’m a goner. I may as well buy a minivan and start scrapbooking.

But in a way, I think this is healthy. I think it indicates me moving towards a new kind of fantasy- not, for once, one where I get to gaze at other men and think about how I could win them (except Ryan Gosling, of course, but the Scientist and I have an arrangement); but instead one where I look for happiness in beauty and living an aesthetically pleasing life with the man I have.

So bring on the puppy photos, Pinterest. Do your worst.

With love and a strange sense of assurance,

Bee

I want a man, who

I want to find a man, who, if Ryan Gosling magically showed up and asked me to marry him, would make me think twice about it, and decline.

C’mon true love,

Bear

New People and the Problems They Present

    The Scientist and I recently relocated from the east to the west, in what was a sort of half-thought-out declaration of twenty-something independence. I decided that I wanted to try the west coast scene for my career of choice, and he, experiencing the general post-college malaise of our generation, decided to accompany me- what else did he have to do with an essentially useless degree and no job but to throw it all away for love? At first, all was well. We were playing house, going to movies, feeling invincible. 

   It is my opinion that the early stages- up the first year, even - of relationships exist inside a bubble. You are just so enamored with each other that the thought of other human beings existing never even crosses your mind. You’re all the company you’ll ever need. However, over time, you start to realize that not only are you going stir-crazy cooped up together, but that the outside prospects are starting to sneak into your happy little compound. And that is when the jealousy starts.

  The Scientist, unable to find any jobs using his actual degree, recently took up work in a coffee shop. A coffee shop, that as far as I can tell, is staffed entirely by attractive, perfect, blond, hipstery women. The Scientist is an affable, clumsy-in-a-cute-way, scruffy beard having, plaid shirt wearing, hipster girl fantasy. He’s that charmingly shy barista you ogle over your morning latte. He’s the co-worker/friend that you value platonically but secretly want to bone. I know this, why do you think I’m dating the kid? He’s great! But apparently now his new lady-friend coworkers are starting to catch on. The other night, he comes home and asks if I mind if he goes for a drink with a few friends from his work. I say “No, who?” and he lists some names, all female. I ask him why all girls, he says that’s just who he works with. I must have pulled a face without realizing it, because he’s suddenly all “why are you being weird?” and then I’m all “because I don’t really dig that idea of you going out with strange women but it’s okay I know I’m being irrational” and that is when the little argument starts. Then a few days later, it’s an invitation from his friend to go to a show - “it’s like, her BOYFRIEND’S band!”- and that’s when the big fight starts.

I, however, am not without guilt in this situation. I made a friend on my first day at the new school, scruffy, tattoos, charmingly scene-ish in a 2008 sort of way, whom we shall refer to henceforth as the Transfer. Transfer is, thus far, literally the only person I know by name in my entire new school. Transfer is very, very obviously interested in yours truly, and for some reason I can’t bring myself to talk about my boyfriend in front of him. Is it fear of being alone and friendless in a new environment? the affirmation of an attractive boy pursuing me? The need to hear things like “I looked at your website and your art is so great”?  

The Scientist clearly has mixed feelings about my friendship with the Transfer, much the way I do about his relationship with the Coffee Shop Vixens. But, because we both know we’re probably vaguely guilty of a little innocent flirtation, we can’t talk about it without blowing up at each other and falling asleep so far apart on the bed we’re almost falling off.

Thing is, I know I love the Scientist and would never ruin that by any physical dalliance with the Transfer- or any other boy. And I trust that he feels and would act the same. It will surely blow over as time passes and the new people become old people. But that doesn’t stop it from being icky.

With green eyes and jealousy,

Bee