I'm only just beginning...

You will inevitably fail. Not at everything, or even most things. But yes, even you will fail at something.
It's science.

Failure is a natural part of life. The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be. Or that's what I keep telling myself.

I've spent most of my life since leaving my hometown failing in one amusing way or another. I failed at graduating college while working two jobs. I am damn near legendary for failing at saving people who just don't want to be saved. I'm failing rull hard right now at getting my room cleaned 'cause I feel more like writing. And I continually fail at dating. A lot.

Yet every single time, I pick my ass back up. Always miraculously free of the kind of callouses that would make the kind of life I lead a hell of a lot easier to handle in a constantly happy state.

But I think about it a lot. I mean, some of us just make, well, choices and that leads to failure. Some of us have choices thrust upon us, and that leads to a worse kind of failure because you get frustrated at what little input you were allowed to have.

In case you didn't get it from the tone, it didn't work out with the guy in the previous blog. I guess he just didn't like me enough, which is fine, really; it's no more than every actual boyfriend I've ever had has done. *shrug*

It's how it does when it's me, ya'll. Oh well. We were kind of on the same page. I'm not saying it doesn't suck. But I'm also not saying it was anyone's fault.

I sang myself through these feelings today. Because I'm not heartbroken, I'm just not. Excited as I was, I didn't know where it was going. I wasn't throwing myself into it like 130bajillion% because contrary to popular belief, I DO have a brain that I occasionally use in a self-preserving fashion.

But I was a little sad. It's disappointing to be so excited about something, to envision this potential and want to know how it's going to turn out and then, nope. Apparently not. It's disappointing as hell.

But the thing about failure is that it shows you what doesn't work.
That's so valuable.

I obsess over my own flaws. I want to know, exactly and in excruciating detail, what's wrong with me, according to other people. Partially because I want to know everything everyone's ever thought, ever, but mostly because I want to know how much of what they think matches up. Like it holds me accountable. Not because it changes how I feel about myself.

I keep hoping that at some point, the things I will fail at are going to be things like "remembering why I was once rather insecure." Because being this way DEFINITELY doesn't work.

I've been trying so hard to change my life in the past two months. I even cut some people out of my life, which is unheard of for me. I never give up on anyone. Ever. Even when it's beyond obvious that I should. And it sucks, because part of being in transition means that people who don't have context for you see the ghosting of parts of your past along with the detritus you're casting around while trying to figure out what is necessary for you to salvage. And some of them don't like what they see. And some of them you fail. And some fail you, in terrible ways that still make you angry even weeks later.

And while I may jokingly describe success as being able to write as well as this scrumptious beauty, I don't really think that. 'Cause I think success has a lot more to do with who you love and why than anything else. And I just fail, every single time, at not making that my priority.

That's something that'll never change, no matter how far I run or how many other things do. It's nice to know, I guess that some things do work out okay. Even if it's not things you were sorta hoping would.

is new york city really like a graveyard they all ask me
and i say well it was last week but man that was in the past
see i stopped going to the places where the people act so nasty
and pretentious 'cause i'm happy sitting with my friends in sidewalk singing songs

and some people are still standing in the way of where i'm going
so i say please excuse me, step aside, or keep on moving
and i guess they sensed that my momentum meant that i was winning
but i'm only just beginning and i'd rather go with friends than go alone

and some people grab my hands and some people grab my shirt
some people race ahead to see if they can get there first
some people stay behind 'cause they've got something else in mind
whatever you decide if you are true to you you're gonna be alright

like akida he's a father now he is in love with amber
their baby's name is skyler he's a baby of the summer
i wonder as i wander if i'll ever settle down
or if every day i'll take my roots uprooted en route to another town

i was sitting on a couch somewhere watching vh-1
when i found out that bruce springsteen is his mother's only son
i'm my mother's only daughter and we were both born to run
even he says it's amazing raising babies in the place where you come from

but i am a rock tumbler i've got rocks inside my head
and just because they come out shining doesn't mean that they are diamonds
and i guess that my worst nightmare is your very favorite bar
when i'm worth my weight in shale and slate i'll know that i'm a super duper star

i'll be a great big ball of burning gas and i'll be sitting on my big fat ass
sipping cristal light beside a plastic wading pool
and the next day i'll be somewhere else part of me will hate myself
part of me will know deep down that i am pretty cool
the part of me that knows i never cared for being cool
the part of me that knows i'm really scared of being cool
the part of me that knows i never cared for being cool

A Dolly For Sue.

"It's a girl! And she's gonna be a piano player!"

That's all it took. Mere seconds after my birth, I was defined. I was a girl and I was going to play piano. My long fingers (my father's passion for tickling the ivories was unknown to the doctor) created an identity for me; the first of many, I assure you.

Through all the years, that's always been my thing. I know who I AM. I can identify myself in dozens, nay, hundreds of ways! I can use analogy, metaphor, cute pop culture references, science, song lyrics, medical terms, foreign language (to an extent), my friends' words, quotes, puns, lists, and the occasional knock knock joke to define myself in a way that you are guaranteed to appreciate. And to boot, I can probably make you laugh! See? There's another one, one my best friend's dad pointed out... I am The Funny One.

But guess what, guys.
I am not a piano player. Sure, I can smash out a few Christmas carols and one or two classical pieces that I picked out by ear. And I can play the SHIT out of the Simpson's theme song. But I am not a piano player. Nor am I a teacher. Or an actress.  Or Daria. Or a lawyer. Or a Red Cross volunteer. Or a college graduate.

And of all the dichotomous lines I walk, I think the one between my projections/the things I get people to think by the clever labels I promote and who I really am is the thinnest. Because to be good at sleight of hand, you have to use the truth to distract people, about 70% of the time. The rest is all buzzwords and being clever and smiling in just the right way.

Lately I've lost some friends. And it hurts. And I really hate it. Because some of their critiques were valid. But some weren't. And when it comes to what people say to me, I get lost in that gap so easily.

I always have been able to get waist deep in other people's problems like most people breathe. But I don't do it for power. I don't do it so I can feel better about myself. I do it because it hurts me not to. It's why I don't believe in altruism. I do not get involved in trying to help people because it's the right thing to do. I get my hands dirty because it makes their pain stop. And when they hurt, I hurt. I want MY pain to stop. And so...

But that way lots of freakin' drama lies. And though I prided myself on never, ever giving up on anyone or anything, ever.... my life is a lot easier without those people in it. Sorry. It just is. But I still find myself exhausted all the time, thinking of those people, lost and needing someone who can love them. I look at my Usual Bar sometimes and I see all these people who are somehow not quite right. They're birds who don't fly, they swim. They're trains with square wheels. Elephants with polka dots. And I love them. I love them for their broken pieces, like I want them to love me for mine, because I am still convinced that I am so fucked up. I look around and I see the same patterns, the same, well, choices that I myself have made and seen made before. I used to sit and feel at home in this place, like it was what I really wanted. Like it was so great. Like, DAMN, this is who I AM!

But much like the acting. Like the law career that never was. Like that fucking piano prodigy I never morphed into... this place, with its dying hopes and cliques is just not who I am. Because so much of what's wrong with me is all up in my head--shocking! And so now the work begins. Which fucking sucks. Because being a better version of yourself is awesome. But the adaptation and pain of the changes that lead to that are just horrible. Because I know it's all in my head. And I know I can do this.

So, here I am, a little Dolly for Sue, on this Island of Misfit Toys.
But don't worry, darlings. I have so many dreams left to dream.

I'd even have Wayne Newton dedicate a song to you.

I'm trying not to be mushy right now.

I'm trying REALLY hard not to overthink things and end up giving a Kids, let me tell you a story HIMYM style thing. Because I am not really that optimistic.

But I want to be.

The guy who kissed me at midnight on New Year's Eve? The guy who I had a giant crush on in college 'cause he stole a lobster from Wal-Mart one time? The guy who took me on one of the only dates I've ever gone on--to a carnival midway and out for sushi? The guy who likes my friends, does trivia with me twice a week and went to a national competitive trivia tournament with me this past weekend, dressed up in suspenders and glasses, danced like an asshole, did shots of jaeger with our Quizmaster, wandered 6th street in our nerd costumes? That guy who pissed me off so bad that I called him a fist-pumping Jersey Shore douchebag.... who managed to bring it back around and then took me to see The Ataris?


I am dating him.
And I am scared out of my ever-loving mind.

The last two people I was involved with... well, one of them was the guy I dated on and off for like a year and change who is currently in one of his Not Talking To That Bitch cycles. And the other guy is one that I boned for like three months 'cause we were both sad fuckers with nothing better to do.

I am not prepared for someone awesome, especially not THIS kind of awesome.

This isn't a clever or cute or funny blog or a terrible tragic story about how "Hey, this one time, I made a series of choices!"

This is my elation... that maybe, maybe I was right to believe. That maybe, maybe one of those fucking pies I took in the face was worth it. That maybe, oh god, maybe something good is going to happen with this. I hope so.

He laughed when I ran face first into a glass wall in a mirror maze. We shared a funnel cake and got sloppy stupid drunk in a bar combination bowling alley. We sang 90s songs on the drive home when I thought everything was over and I was never going to speak to him again. Then we kissed each other after jumping up and down and screaming the lyrics to San Dimas High School Football Rules, with Kris Roe just a few feet away selling his photographs.

And this is my terror that I am wrong and it's going to end up one of the stories on this blog, the kind I like to tell to people I don't know very well so I can keep them at an arm's distance to disguise the fact that I'm a really a big, giggly cheerleader wrapped in some Daria icing. That the Jersey Shore comment that he swears he will never forget was the more accurate of the summations, that I should ignore the butterflies and the desire to sing and do the Snoopy dance.

I want this to be something real.
I hope I don't look back at this entry and hate myself, because oh god, I never put this much of myself out there. Stories I shouldn't tell prospective employers, future ex-husbands and perfect strangers? I got that shit on lockdown.

This is my heart, guys.
That fragmented mess that I carry around in my chest, hoping against hope that someday someone will want it and give me theirs in return.

I haven't been this excited about a guy in so long and thusly am terrified. It is too soon to predict anything but the fact that I am FUCKING EXCITED.
I don't know how to react when every single part of me is screaming, This Could Be So Great.

But the other part is the part of my mind that hears all those horrible things that have been said to me by people who aren't even in my life anymore, that sees that I am the big crazy mess that would write this kind of entry after only a little while of kind of seeing someone and not very long at all after it's officially stated that we are dating.

Yeah, I'm that kind of crazy.
Who the hell would want to be with someone like that?

........maybe someone who's kind of slipping on a banana peel, double fisting drinks, dancing like a maniac, doesn't always know exactly what they're doing but gorram it if they can't quote firefly while it's happening? Maybe someone like that.... and maybe this guy's that kind of absurd, wrapped up in a genuinely nice guy wrapper.

Oh god, darlings. One can only hope, after all.