Certainly the truth behind being happy with a partner is being happy with yourself first…and then enjoying that extra awesomeness that the partner brings you. It’s a build on top of an existing metaphorical self-structure. Supposedly. Not expecting a partner to solve it for you. Not expecting a partner to complete you, but finding a cohort and a complement and someone you learn from and are pretty deeply interested in and have fun with.

So how does one craft that correctly? Does one wait until they’ve convinced themselves they have it all figured out and their plans set and their finances settled and then select their complement after they’ve made their life ready? What if a person enjoys meeting people? What if a person craves connections? What if a person is lonely? What if a person is indulgent and likes to engage people and tests boundaries and see where things go – is this person confusing curiosity-drunkenness with love interest? What if a person seeks a partner to end the pain. That happens all the time. Is that person confusing relief and comfort with love? One would think there’s a “right” way and a “right” time and a “right” manner. How really do people do this?

I have problems seeing through the deep ether. I know logically that time is short, but I feel like promises and expectation are L O N G. I’ve never trusted a person to make me happy…and I guess that’s kind of sad. I’m not saying I’m against it; I’m saying that I’ve always done the opposite, that I’ve been highly skeptical that a person could. Does that mean I haven’t met the “right” person yet? No, it means I’m distrusting. And then that skepticism informs a view that grows into a position and then into a fatal personal belief: that it is not possible to be sated. So left with that personal belief, what is one left to do? Go with what you’ve got and what is good and hang on to what really matters.

I want to take comfort in a term like that, but instead… it really turns me off.

Char laughed at me recently. I said something like, “You know, I know they’re all fantasies, but I will be really disappointed if this is all we have. If there’s nothing after death. No grand imaginative space or time travel or universal consciousness or amazing museums of purgatory or something. I’ll really feel cheated.” Out bursts her tea from her mouth as she laughs, “Lauren, when you die, you won’t be “disappointed.” You won’t be ANYTHING. You’ll be over.” Then I had to laugh because what if that’s right? What am I saying??!! It IS right – that’s the hilarious thing. It’s so hilarious it’s the saddest most incomprehensibly terrifying thing. All you can do is cry into your Kirin Ichiban.

I haven’t realized how completely out of it I have been. I didn’t realize fully until a few weeks distance had passed that I really was not ok. I have actually never seen myself like this. Each day is new and each symptom is observed as a first. Melissa brought that up to me. In the car she said something to that effect, that no one really knew at the time, but in retrospect it’s clear now that I wasn’t dealing well.

I don’t want to admit this, but this is going to take me a really long time. I’ve got to force some uncomfortable corners and get up and get going or I’ll be down for the season.

Pride and fkking Prejudice. I watched that film tonight and realized that Jane Austin can do bad things to girls’ imaginations. I recognized emotive reactions I was having tonight as the same emotive reactions I had as a girl twelve years ago, reading her and doping on it. Certainly I know sapp happy-ending love stories with beautiful and young wealthy upperclass characters are fantasy, but they’re fairy tales that girls want to relate to. Of all unattainable, unreal things to relate to.

But I at least reserved the eye corner tears for the end, for the talk between the father and the incorrigible daughter character about marriage. Obviously a woman wrote that scene. It’s obvious. And I teared up in it because I remember having a conversation like that with my father and how at the time I was so convinced I understood what I was saying.

The boy is a GODDAMNED GENIUS.