Uncertain as usual

For the first time since starting my blog I missed an entire month... Not that it actually matters, but it's kind of a little girl incantation with no ultimate goal. Like carefully avoiding cracks when you skip the sidewalk... (The H on my keyboard is cracked! I wonder if it's possible to replace a single key?) So what was it about tonight that got me to blog? I feel reminiscent tonight, sentimental? nostalgic? My hands smell like puppy. It's a clean smell, not like dog. Girly even.

My mother sometimes tells me I'm in love with love, and I know it's true, but I don't know what to do about it. I want to be in love. I wish I'd had that first love experience as a girl, pure and safe, reciprocal... But I didn't.

I feel regret, but over strange things, possibilities that were never explored, things that never began even... Things that I suspect weren't even right for me. I feel that these doors closed on things that weren't meant to be, but what I regret is I closed them for the wrong reasons, or I didn't explore them for the wrong reasons. Instead of wisdom or seeing what was good for me, I stayed away because of self-doubt or fear. I didn't believe in myself, I didn't want to embarrass myself. What a stupid thing now!

I struggle with feeling ugly when I haven't washed my hair and it's pulled back in a sloppy pony tail or when I have a lot of acne. I go around projecting ugly out no matter what other people might see. But I think I finally realized today that I'm not ugly to other people because of that. Guys still want to see me smile at them or talk to me, not avoid me... It's hard to feel beautiful and valuable when I'm flawed. I have this harsh internal voice that has demanded nothing short of perfection to be worth anything, to be loved... I've started walking away from that as an artist. God that voice is gone now, it's totally opposite has taken it's place. I paint and make mistakes and the voice I hear now just says over and over "it's okay, it doesn't have to be perfect, it looks good enough and it will get better." I almost feel guilty like I'm turning into a slacker and I'm not at all!

I've been using youtube a lot recently and it's wonderful. It has brought a new level of joy to my life. So I've been checking out the songs and videos of musicians I want to learn more about and I like to read the comments of the people that visit. Generally the comments are positive, effusive, and innocuous. But I discovered today that the band Beirut brings out some divisive feelings in people. The only thing that barred me from responding was that I'd have to create an account with them and I really don't want to. (mainly due to laziness.) But I wanted to react and confront some of the attitudes flying about that seemed irrational, small minded and extreme. But then I have to step back and remember that it doesn't really matter. It's petty of me to get worked up over these opinions and I'm making them important when they aren't.

Beirut as a band is glorious, the music evokes a sort of euphoria, a filling. Inside I soar, and for the most part the other people who listen and respond seem to soar too. They do things musically that I haven't seen before, and it's beautiful and expanding. what ever...

What I really wanted to say tonight was that Alex has been on my mind a lot and it kind of hurts. I can't seem to shake my own regret and sense of inadequacy. My brain says one thing and my heart another. I can't get them to understand each other and I want to change and still haven't. I'm going to be thirty in just over two years and I still feel and see myself as a child. In my mind I will always be in my twenties. Because that is when I gained a sense of myself, an identity. I'm scared to grow up. I don't feel ready at all. Despite my choices I don't want to be alone as I age, but I can't settle, that's even more unbearable. I know Alex isn't my soul mate, I know we have so little in common, and that I can't make him happy nor him me, but still I can't shake the pain and the memory. I want to meet a man like me, in all ways, a man that thinks like me, lives like me, looks like me. I don't mean my twin, but I guess someone I recognize. Slight, a little taller than me, middle class educated artist with a bohemian bent... (loves cats.) Drinks wine, likes coffee and tea, will smoke an occasional cigarette. Intelligent and kind, talks about life, beliefs, philosophy and meaning, reads fiction and classics, believes dreams are meaningful, has a soul... Is it true? The only way to get a Mr Darcy is to make him up? I hope not...

good bye