November 8, 2010

"Bitches Are Crazy"

“Bitches are crazy,” G says, her finger in the air, swirling an imaginary lock of curls. She has just chopped six inches of her straight black hair; enough to fill at least two heads easy. She’s smirking, rolling her eyes, on the verge of laughing at herself. “Last night I was rocking in a corner all alone. Rocking and rocking, when D came in and he just held me. Today, I feel fine.”

She tells me about moving to O`ahu and how different her life is there, how traffic makes her want to kill herself, how there are too many people and too much noise. It makes sense: for the past five years, she’s lived in Puna on the Big Island. “Where it’s quiet, where people pray in the forest and chant to the ocean.” She tells me about how she moved here to be with D—how she gave up her harmony and happiness to give this relationship a try, and it takes me a while to understand what she’s saying because harmony and happiness seem like a huge price to pay for anything.



That is, until I meet him. This guy is different. And maybe it’s because I went on Match.com to finally find someone who’s more aligned with what I think I need, rather than stabbing in the dark to find someone who is probably bad for me, or recycling old boyfriends who have proven track records that they actually are bad for me. Regardless of the reason, I’m starting to understand just how crazy I can be.

For instance, the clarity and calm that came after I decided I needed to get a divorce suddenly turned topsy-turvy in the past few months. I’ve been up, down, sideways, and backwards so many times, I almost forgot what going forward meant. I can’t even begin to count the nights I spent lying awake in bed, twisting and turning words and actions into understandable chunks of information. It’s mostly because boys are stupid. They don’t think of anything except how to get laid, and when it happens, they forget that there’s a person on the other side of their orgasm that needs to be attended to emotionally.

He tells me, “Bring on your crazy bitch. I can handle it.”

And though I’m doubtful, I trust him. “I didn’t think you were going to call,” I divulge. “My friend kept saying that you wouldn’t, so I made him channel the positive energy and tell me that you would. I stopped looking for signs, but there were bald men everywhere I looked; men who were dead ringers for you from the back. It tripped me out.”

He laughs. “Girls always talk about everything. It’s all good.”

Something inside me, though, still worries about being a giddy girl at this age. He knows I talk about him with my friends now, that I’m preoccupied with him. This can’t be good in terms of power dynamics. Plus, I get nervous when I’m on my way to his house. I get butterflies when he kisses me hello. My skin tingles when his hand warms my hip, my thigh, the small of my back, and I have to keep reminding myself not to mistake these physical manifestations for more than what they are.

You see, I’m not ready to fall in love. I just spent ten years in a relationship that hasn’t quite ended. My backpack of an ex-husband still lives on my couch, does my dishes, and coughs in the background of all my phone conversations, as if to make sure no one I talk with mistakes my singleness with actually being alone. I’ve told him he needs to move out, but the divorce decree I agreed to gives him two more months, and worse than that, I gave my word. We’ve had the ‘you’re taking advantage of me’ talk, the ‘you’re choosing money over our friendship’ talk, and the ‘you’re making me crazy’ talk. In fact, we’ve talked so much about the fact that I want him out, we don’t talk much anymore. Frankly, the best friend he once was, the one he continued to be through our divorce, has died. The longer he stays, the less I want him in my future.

No, I haven’t told the new Him yet, but I will. Tonight, in fact. I’m going to tell him that I’m moving in with my mother because I wouldn’t want to be seeing someone who was still living with his ex. I’m going to say that I believe in treating others the way I want to be treated. And I hope he gets it—that it’s complicated, but that it’s over.

But that’s all beside the point. What I want to know is, despite all my rationality and education, despite my renowned self-control (I recently finished a ten-day cleanse without any food whatsoever), how does the crazy bitch cut loose? I try to keep her in check, try not to think about him saying, “I’ll take you out next Halloween,” or “We’ll do that in December,” knowing that the best intentions are fraught with circumstance and complications. But these simple statements about the future infer exactly that: a future. And I’m trying to live in the present.

This man intrigues me. This man takes care of me (I haven’t had to drop a dime yet and we’ve been on five dates). This is in stark contrast to my ex, who has not worked for four years. He was a fire fighter: a hero, and I respect him. We have fascinating conversations about things that matter, and he makes me laugh.

So why can’t I just be casual about the whole thing? My friend who just moved to New York (a place she says could eat her alive) to be with her boyfriend, another D, says, “You can’t have casual sex with the same person.” And however much I want to be the kind of girl who gets out of a long-term commitment and sows her wild oats, it’s just not in me. Which simply means that I’m dating this fantastic man who I don’t need to provide for; who is interested in me sexually, who I really like, and I just need to sit back and enjoy the ride rather than stressing out about what comes next.

Because I’m kind of terrified about not having time to myself, and I don’t want to get married again any time soon. And yes, I do want to have babies. And no, I’m not getting any younger. I always ask god for what I need, and I try to understand what I receive in terms of lessons and blessings, but being heart-broken isn’t something I aspire to.

Then I remember how I believe that decisions made out of fear are always bad decisions, but what if I’m ill-equiped to handle another relationship? What if I really wasn’t cut out to be a girlfriend? A wife? See how the crazy bitch takes over? One minute I’m talking about enjoying the present and the next, I’m off getting married. It’s like I have no control over her. She just tells the sane me to fuck off, takes the steering wheel of my thoughts, and pitches me into overdrive.

So what to do about her? Do I punish myself every time she comes along with her fear of commitment? Beat myself up every time she takes over with her manic rationalizations? Batten down the hatches and head for the hills? Maybe for once, I could acknowledge that she’s part of me; that she’s part of every woman. I could try to love her for the insane bitch she truly is and delight in her hysterical antics. I could accept her quirky obsessions with finding signs and freakish fascinations with searching for minute details that actually have no bearing on anything. And I could try to trust him when he says he can handle it, and hope that he actually can.