you are not who you say you are; I am not you either

I lied when I said that I do not love you. But it's also a lie that I do.
Is this the definition of love, to be torn between two worlds? No, I will not live in your's anymore than you would live in mine. I used to have a pretty firm grasp on my definitions. I think time changed that.

Steel said he thinks it takes a great trauma for people to change, and he thought that I had that. I do. I think trauma is what you make of it, and I've made mine out to be huge. I miss feeling like I was superior. I miss feeling like I was in control. I know it was all false, but it was so nice to feel smugly content.
But I don't want that anymore; I don't. It was wrong and cheap and cheating. I can do so much better than that. I can be real.

When I was in high school I used to have fights that I would narrate in my head. Is that drama? I would be outside of myself, and aware of it as I said cruel things. I still do that but it's not as pronounced. Sometimes I can even pull myself down and stop the pain. I am trying to make that more frequent.

Today I asked Steel, "what's it like being predictable?" It sounded pretty good. Much of my life I've cultivated some kind of unpredictability. I truly regret that now. But I also cultivated an adoration of small things; of soft coniferous buds, the sensation of paper-thin birch bark, blowing dandelion puffs. Each one that I see. I love that. I do not love my instability. I do not love being reckless.

I climbed across a rusted bridge on our first date. I loved that it scared him. Who am I if my actions are predictable? Who would I be if I wasn't different any more?
I kicked him out when I found out he'd smoked a cigarette. What if I could let go of everything? What if I could just accept it?

I miss the ocean, as though it were something I'd commonly been near.
I miss the ocean like we have some kind of bond.
I miss my sister, and her family, and the people that have left me.
I miss my brother, and my father, and my mother; and the last time all of us were in the same room. I can't imagine that ever happening again. Except maybe at my funeral.
I miss Christmas dinner.
I miss feeling whole.

I am broken and have been for years. I used to think I could be mended, or healed. What if broken is a personality trait? Is it hereditary? What if it never gets any better than this?

I said, "I am lonely." He said, "but you are not alone, right? You're just lonely?"
Oh Steel.
Don't you realize that sometimes I can't tell the difference?
Don't you realize that sometimes it doesn't matter?