People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
-- George Bernard

I feel nothing. It used to be that the other time this happened, I was just filled with intense longing and zigzagged all over the place in my emotions. I don't feel anything now, the majority of the time. There's still that sense of longing, once in a while, but it's more drowned out by just a solid ass wall of me barring out all my emotions related to the subject because I can't fucking deal with it. I can't. I don't know how I can, so since I can't, I don't need to.

These days, I feel like I once used to all the time, a tiny, awkward, ungainly child. But it's been years since I felt like that, and it was the worst time I can remember (oh, the joys of middle school) - because I was always trying to feel like I was loved and adored by people. Which I was, but I just didn't realize that at the time, but to be honest, it's the same feeling I get with my mother - that she loves me, but doesn't really give two shits what I think unless I'm sad, because she doesn't need to take the time to understand me. I'm her daughter, I'll be there. With him, I feel like he thinks that I'll always be emotionally dependent on him, and always want him around, and that I don't care about what he really thinks or needs, and so because of that, he loves me (possibly, doubtful, let's just hope that way) but then thinks he doesn't need to spare the time or attention on me because he knows I'll still be there, always waiting or following, and because he's a good enough boyfriend as is, and that I'm not a good enough girlfriend. But I feel like I'm taken for granted, and that he'd rather me be change from the person I am because it's just not good enough. Because I, in my current state, am apparently not good enough for him.

Because I'm supposed to be there, constant, and always supposed to be the one fixing things, the one solving things, the one apologizing, the one who can't get angry at things because otherwise I'm not considering his feelings. I can't get mad. Everytime I get angry the argument gets turned into it's my fault, I don't understand him, I don't know him, I don't ever do anything right, I'm always hurting him, I don't think about it, I'm not proactive enough about getting him to do things, I don't think about what he needs. I never apologize, I don't understand relationships, I'm passive-aggressive, I ..I..I can't. I can't give up my sense of self or the sense that I don't think its right to stay shut up when I get angry, because I'm always doing it.

I try. I stay silent, I say everything's okay, even though it's not, because otherwise I'm just some crazy girl who's trying to control him, or it's not a healthy relationship, and because those things I get cranky about are sometimes kind of silly. And you know what? I learned. I learned that most things didn't really matter, and that even if he didn't get me, he still cared, and that was the important part. But it still hurt to feel like even though I got mad over silly things, that after they were declared silly by both of us, and I apologized, he still didn't do anything because I didn't do a "real apology", and that he never really took the time to apologize also. But it didn't matter. That's all that mattered, that he wanted me around still and that I could make him smile. It's enough, to be wanted by someone you love. To think that you hopefully make them happy, and that they think of you, and that even if you fuck up, they'll still care about you and love you all the same. That's all, really, that you need to keep on going on - if you can believe in it. But what if you stop believing in it? What if you start believing that the other person does care, but thinks his issues are more important than yours, doesn't think about what you want, and just thinks of you as his girlfriend, rather than a person? What then?

It's not fair for him to say "oh, but you never told me anything was wrong," to when I say ..."I was trying to deal with it, and so I just stayed quiet" and then get blamed for being passive aggressive. I never complain that he doesn't understand until he whips out the you don't understand me card because it's stupid to say things like that. If you don't understand someone, just keep on trying. And fuck the 'oh, I've given up so much shit for you' line - people in relationships make sacrifices for each other. I've given up more than he realizes - I stayed this year because of him. For literally ever since I thought about college, I knew I wanted to study abroad and travel. For fucking years. For the past two years I was always looking up stuff, always trying to figure out what classes I wanted to take, where I wanted to go, and I gave it all up without a single complaint or really, even a thought about what was the right choice, because the right choice was obvious. It's not a decision I wanted to put on him to worry about, it was mine. I chose it, and didn't regret it then, and now - well, now I have neither. I don't say anything about that, I don't bring up what I've given up, because it's a null point. It's life. Economics in the scope of life. Marginal cost benefit analysis. Gain one, lose a lot of things, but who cares. It's a gain. Hurrah. And everything he gets angry at me about I can say straight back to him and I don't. Because it's silly to argue those points in relationships. The other person cares about you, and so of course they do try to, even if it doesn't come across all the time. They might not do it well, but the most fucking important thing is that they are trying to do.

But is all of this worth it? I hate hearing ..."oh, i'm not taking you back yet." "oh, i don't know, you always hurt me so much." I never ask about whether or not he's going to hurt me. I've cried more in this past year than I have in a decade, and I could give two shits less about that fact because I'd rather have him around for those brief moments of happiness. Because it's not terrifying to be in a world without him, I can survive on my own perfectly fine. I have been single for the majority of my life, and even now, I'm doing more than okay. I'd just rather have him here and happy. Because that's just really all that matters. And you know, up until the point that someone else falls into my life who promises to take care of me and make me smile and actually take the time to know me, I can pretend that he is that person, because I know he can be, and maybe because he is.

But what if that day comes? And when it comes, will I still be lying to myself or will it actually be true? Because if it's the first, I'm just postponing the inevitable, and if it's the second, then, I'm doing the right thing.

I just can't fully believe it anymore, because everything that's happened this past year has pointed to him really just wanting a girlfriend and never really taking the time to think about me except for stupid this is what a relationship should be like gestures. I hate how stupid the arguments were, I hate how me asking him to consider my side just escalated everything, and I hate how it was always my fucking fault for everything that week because I was stupid, bitchy, thoughtless, and how I had to be proven wrong and that he was right. I hated coming back two nights after I left and feeling so fucking empty the entire time because he was so angry and entirely uncaring about the fact that I came back. I hated the sex that night I went over to apologize because it felt so empty on his part, that he didn't feel the same wanting to just have and hold and be, but then again, the last two have more than made up for that so that's kind of a null point but it still hurts so much to be welcomed back just anger, rather than with open arms and then piles and piles of anger. I hate how he never apologizes, never really took the time to do anything apologetic unless it was something like leaving me to wait for an hour and a half and get ridiculously large blisters over all of my feet. I hate how even now, he doesn't think to consider how much I hurt still, and how much it hurts to have to go back and hear all of these things and feel like the worst person in the world and still try to fix things while he just sits there in his fucking miserable little pit of depression and bitterness and wallows in it, and rips at me even more while still wanting me to be there. I hate how much he doesn't think about the fact (and that it doesn't matter to him) that I don't give two fucks about how much I hurt as long as he stops hurting, because in the end, I'll forgive him for anything and everything because he's him. I hate how I can't let him sit there alone in his little pit of shit and how I'm trying to take him out of it, possibly failing amazingly in the process, just because I know that I put him there, and so it's my responsibility to fix it. I hate far too many things in the abstract, dead, sense of the term right now for it to be healthy, because I don't even feel hate or anger anymore, just an overwhelmingly large sense of miserable sadness. I hate what I did. I hate how much I miss him. I hate remembering all the good things and not being able to hold onto the bad things or my anger. I hate being in love, because love is supposed to make you someone bigger than yourself, someone patient, kind, hopeful, and always there for the other person, and I'm not, because somehow, I fail at doing that for him.

But maybe deep down, he does care. Maybe things like buying me a little Mr. Bear and Doraemon underwear in his hurt state still means that there's a chance, maybe finding me after CPR training means that he takes the time to think about me, maybe changing his cell's backgrounds to photos of me in the past two weeks by himself means something, and maybe that little flutter of hope that snaked in yesterday oh-so-briefly can stay and grow. Maybe we do stupid things to each other, but maybe we can let it go. Maybe he is thinking on it, and maybe someday, he'll actually apologize and say sorry like he wants me to do all the time, even though he never has. Maybe he'll realize I can't read his thoughts, and maybe I can put him first before me and he can put me before him. And maybe, maybe it'll work. Maybe it'll not just work, maybe it'll be perfect.

But I'm so dead and tired inside that I can't pretend to myself that I'm not mostly dead inside, and that really, nothing can make that feeling go away . So I throw myself into school, work, SGA, and wushu when I can make the practices (but the problem, is so much of wushu's attached to him), stress myself out more than I actually need to, eat too well for what I should be able to afford and then starve myself on other days because I can't think up a good reason to eat because there isn't anything mind-blowingly delicious around - because otherwise now, most food just tastes like cardboard and sawdust, even things I used to like, and I just want to be fucking happy and alive and with him and just not hurt to the point where I've turned off almost all of my emotions when I'm by myself because I can't deal with the thoughts in my head. It's okay when other people are there, and I can deal with it fine and be happy because I'm enjoying myself, but once everyone's gone, I can't.

And I guess the point of that quote was just ...even now, since I can't deal with the fact that I made him sad, and that him not being around makes me even sadder, I'm changing it. I sit and I mope, but I do things. I try. But if he wanted me to make him happy, then he would just let me, instead of forcing me to prove it over and over again through arbitrarily defined things and reasons that in retrospect, once again, can be applied to what he does.

I guess he is trying, but it would be nicer if he noticed. And to be honest, I can't say that I'm not going to Princeton with the hope that someone can prove me wrong about the fact that I think he's the one, which is wrong, but, frankly, "single, but not really" still is single, therefore I'm in the moral gray area of fun and really, that's kind of a whore-tastic, bitch move to pull. But I fucking hurt too much to give a shit over who's making me happy, because I'll pretty much accept anything that'll make me happy in a permanent sense instead of all the temporary band-aids I've been layering on to ignore how miserable I am. But deep down, I know that I don't think I'll find someone to prove me wrong, because I still can't give us up. I don't think that this fucking nightmare of a month will happen again, and so that's why I keep on trying. But if it does happen again, I'm going to probably stop believing in everything I ever used to believe in about love and relationships. It won't. I hope it won't, I really do. I just think I'm lying to myself about it not happening again, though, and that's the part that's stopped me from really trying that hard to fix things. Because he hasn't taken the time to think of what I want or what I need, or even just the basic time to talk to me. To chat. And to just enjoy talking to me and learning my mannerisms, to think about what I'm trying to say, to believe in me - and you know what, I just don't fucking know anymore. Because so much of my belief that he actually cares about me in the same way I care for him is gone that I can't truly believe anymore in the same way I used to. Maybe it can be fixed, and maybe he will take that time... but I don't want to turn into a caricature of stupid.