The How We Met Syndrome

My boyfriend and I got into a massive fight about nothing tonight. Looking back, I should have just gone to a movie or something. Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda. It all comes back when you're sitting up late, crying and trying to figure out if the love of your life has just walked out of it. After sobbing myself dry (typical girl response) I wrote the "How We Met" and got-together story in my journal and waited for some kind of clarity. Because he was right when he said he was fed up with me, with the way I had been behaving lately. I couldn't tell him about how hard it has been to move up here, how much stress I'm under, how much I miss my animals and my friends from home. I even miss being in school, at least having something to distract me from what's happening in the real world.

Depression has controlled the last few months and suddenly it rears its ugly head again and I've screwed up the best thing that could have ever happened to me. When you go from thinking that you'll never find the right person, that you're someone to be avoided like the plague, to someone that is actually loveable, you think "Why would I want to go back to the old me?" Except tonight I took about ten steps back in that direction. I loathe myself for what I've done and just think, "what if what if what if". Leaving me alone on my bed wondering if this is how I'm going to spend the rest of my Friday nights, maybe crying and sobbing before covering it up with mascara and heading out to bars to let guys buy me drinks and try to get into my pants. It hurts because I know it's not good for me and not at all what I want, but then I think that my boyfriend didn't want me to suggest cheating on me then breaking up.

If that hasn't caught your attention,there's no point in continuing to read this post. I'm curious about the people who read these things, anyway. None of my friends know about my blog, so I know they're not reading it, so who are you? Anonymous readers wondering about a girl who can't even keep her man happy long enough to let him know how much she loves him.And certainly not long enough to tell him about how much she's struggling living up here even though it was her idea in the first place. There it is. All the fears that come with moving to a foreign place are coming out here.

I've loved New York since I landed in Kennedy for the first time and saw the skyline approaching me from 20,000 feet. I've loved everything about New York, down to the homeless guy that lives on the street behind my office. But for some reason I'm having a problem settling in here, feeling at home. When I lived overseas, it was the easiest transition I'd ever made. I was there a few days and never wanted to return to the U.S. Maybe now would be a good time to look into that option again, to disappear into Europe, become one of those ex-patriots that haunt Venice and Paris and Geneva. I was different there. My smile was different, my hair was different, everything was different. I was free and happy and didn't understand how you couldn't love being there, breathing that air and seeing that scenery. I want that feeling back, want to believe that I can make a place for myself as a grown-up, not as a kid living out some fantasy.

Everyone always thought I would go on to bigger and better things. Instead I'm the same person, just scared and cold and alone in a city where you really aren't a person so much as a statistic. Between the ages of 18-34, white, blond hair, blue eyes, shorter than average, constantly worried about weight. Living with forty other people, between the ages of 21 and 96 who are also statistics in this city. So many people crammed in here, how do we know where we belong in this world? TOnight when I was standing on the fire escape praying for something to change within my boyfriend's assertion he was leaving and going home, I saw a man cleaning his apartment naked, a woman checking her AIM, two people fucking on the floor underneath mine, a cat in the window of another. All these people going on with their lives while I feel like the air I breathe is being pulled out of my lungs. This is How We Met Syndrome at its worst. When you play over the relationship tape over and over in your head, pretending to be objectionable when all you really want are his arms back around you, his sleepy body in your bed.