Musings: Act III, scene 37.

Scene: Woodruff Place, 6:00 AM, date undetermined.

('Libby' marches to her auto, her hair woefully askew, and is muttering aloud to herself on a dead-silent street:)

Libby: (incredulously) Why would he want to put his finger in my butt?

fin.

The Lovers: Chapter 5

Like many unwanted children, I spent a great portion of my days living in a psychological fetal position, waiting for the moment that someone comes along to 'save' me. My favorite metaphor for this is feeling like a dog at the shelter, showing off, looking cute, facing either certain death or a real home--nothing in between. Neglected children that are also very emotionally sensitive, like me, develop an illness called Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD is NOT depression, it is caused because proper connections never form between the emotional and logical parts of the brain. It manifests itself in me in that I usually choose the most maddening narcissists, the ones who use, abuse, and de-legitimize my very existence. They acknowledge my innate belief that I will never really belong anywhere, and I will never do better.

BPD also causes me to try and force intimacy quickly, because I have never been able to trust anyone. Fathers are present but absent, Mothers leave, siblings are cruel, and most friends and lovers only like you because of what you do for them. And my ability to provide such loving, forgiving constancy is exactly why most people just use and walk all over me.
I have a light in my eyes that only users can see, even if they do not know themselves as users. Ask me, I will do it. Tell me, and I will always remember. Just listen sometimes, and you will have what you need before you knew you needed it. And love me, and I will never let you down. I love to give, and never quite seem to receive in kind. I just love my way right through all those disappointments.

As my relationship with John had become abusive, I was at first a totally stereotypical battered woman: I really was worthless, my very thoughts were all dubious, and I knew I was too weak to ever leave him. It was while dating John that I saw a psychologist for the first time. Perhaps it was the talk therapy, or maybe I just finally got angry, but eventually John's power over my self-opinion began to wane.

As I starting finding myself again, in the Fall before my 21st birthday, I went back to a true love: acting. I am not necessarily a good actress, but I am excellent at 'cold-reading' auditions, and my diction is crisp enough to be understood to the rafters. Acting on stage, with its months of preparation and bonding with castmates have been the happiest times I have had in my life. Every show I have ever done has been a lovely escape from the disappointments of real life.

So, toward the end of my relationship with John, I had mustered the courage to audition for a community theatre production. Doing that show resuscitated a self-confidence that John had been working so hard to crush. The upcoming show was the big Valentine's Day production, and I knew I was perfect for the lead.

As I was waiting for the auditions to begin, I was quite nervous, as I was a young-looking 20-year old trying for the role of a 30-year old. But when I saw that beautiful redheaded British businessman, I knew he WAS the male lead through and through, and I became fiercely determined I would get to star with him. My audition blew them all away, and despite our 20-year age difference, the Brit "Daniel" and I were cast as romantic leads.

I was intensely attracted to Daniel physically, but I developed a serious crush as I got know him. He was brilliant, articulate, and he was chock full of hilarious stories. Daniel was also married and had FOUR children, so I honestly never thought to try and flirt with him. To me, married always meant married. Daniel and my early interactions were hilarious but platonic.

After being a passenger in two car accidents when I was 15, I had since been too afraid to learn to drive. Early in our rehearsals, Daniel began giving me rides home. All was very benign and friendly, until our nightly rehearsals were approaching the scene in the play in which Daniel and I had to kiss. I was desperately nervous about it, and one night, as I shyly revealed my anxiety about the kiss to him, Daniel just leaned over and did it. The first second was mere relief and a release of anxiety, but Daniel was so passionate toward me, I began to realize that I was not the only one with a crush on a co-star.

I guess I knew it was wrong, but it was so organic: Daniel and I, in the course of rehearsals, had started falling in love. And I suppose I put the responsibility for the adultery square in his lap; I was not the one who was married. I was in a long-term relationship, but we had not been intimate for some time. Daniel and I connected first with our brains and our sense of humor. The physical consummation of those feelings was as natural as anything I have ever done. Guilt was the last thing on my mind.

The real reason I loved Daniel is that he never knew anything was wrong with me. He liked absolutely everything about me, and was genuinely baffled at why I would ever think any less of myself than he did. This opinion was in complete opposition to anything I had ever experienced, especially with John.

But I never entertained any question that Daniel would leave his wife for me. In fact, we never ever discussed her in any way. Sure, I was in love, and therefore a bit jealous of a woman living the life with children and the husband I would want for myself.
Daniel and I spent several evenings at the Columbus Motel on weekends, and when the play ended, our relationship did not.

Daniel became determined to make my life better, to make me believe that I was, in fact, a fine human being and capable of leaving jack-ass John. Daniel insisted on teaching me how to drive; I had bought a car with which to learn a few years earlier, but John had never gotten around to teaching me. Thanks to the wonderfully patient Daniel, when I turned 21 that April, I finally got my driver's license.

Just true benevolence of Daniel's feelings for me really did change my outlook. I began to think seriously of how I could pay the bills on my own, and get away from John. But when Daniel's wife finally realized our amour, he had to stop seeing me, and I was crushed anew. I was so close to believing in myself enough to get out, when my self-esteem's muse was compelled to leave forever. I spent three days on John's couch, near-catatonic with shock and grief. This was, of course, ridiculous, as I had always known that Daniel would never be totally mine. Alas, my BPD-addled brain takes rejection very badly, and Daniel's departure nearly killed all my hope.

But by this time, I finally knew how to drive. I had been working my five-dollar-an-hour retail job for a few years, which was fine as long as John was paying the bills. As I began to plot my departure, I answered an ad for a waitressing job at a landmark bar in downtown Columbus. As soon as the manager told me how much money the servers made, I knew I had found my way out.

Just after I turned 21, there were two important shifts in my thinking, thanks almost completely to Daniel: First, that maybe I was capable of escaping the abuse, and second, that maybe there was not all that much wrong with me. As John began to observe my new self-esteem, and that I was readying myself to leave, he did the last thing I expected this asshole to do: He became nice. I now know that this is typical of all abusers, but at the time, I was infuriated. John had had his chance with me for four and a half years; I had loved him, body and soul. It was he who had chosen to make me feel small, to control me, to make me helpless. Only when he was losing me did he change his tired old tune. When he finally really knew I was not coming back, John decided at the age of 38 to move back in with his parents, in another city. As he was packing his moving truck, I stopped by his apartment to get a few of my things that remained there.

That visit was far more emotional than I could have ever predicted. Seeing the apartment that had been the center of my universe for so long, seeing it nearly bare, struck me like a bolt of lightning: It was just an apartment. All the strife, the tears, and even the warmth, love, and most insane moments of my youth had been contained in 800 square feet of cheap drywall. This mere place, and the events it had contained, had been my entire life. Seeing the apartment that day made all the desperate sadness of the past several years such an obvious waste.

In a 'Hail Mary' douchebag tactic, as I hugged him goodbye, John finally told me he loved me. I wanted to vomit. I cried furious hot tears all the way to my new home.

Starting an exciting new job and finally beginning to feel self-sufficient, at 21 I saw my life as a wide-open world of opportunity. I truly believed I was going to become a real person, and I was going to be great at it. What I did not realize at the time is that my deep loneliness and BPD were more powerful than my fragile new-found hope.

I was free, an adult, and was finally becoming attractive. In opposition to my naive new optimism, my next years would be a bloody briar-patch of the stupid, reactionary choices of a lonely young woman.

What in THE Hell?!

Have you ever heard something so absurd, that when you think about the conversation later, you assume it must have been a dream?

I just ran into a video that proves this crap was not just a bad dream. It's worth the 10-second commercial beforehand.

I think I'm gonna throw up...

*Swoon*

This is the "Breakfast at Tiffany's" trailer.
Fantastic movie, and I've been feeling a lot like George Peppard in that taxicab scene lately. It's about a minute and a half in:



If you're worried, George P. DOES get Holly Golightly in the end. I love this movie; it makes me believe in these romantical things.

The Lovers: Chapter 4

Lolita-lite

For as long as I can remember, I have been called ugly. Whether said directly to my face, whispered loudly enough for me to hear, or even yelped from passing cars - those words burned into my brain, with the doubt sucking the very core of my self-esteem. I have and will always believe that it is difficult to impartially judge the face you are born with and have to look at every day. When I heard so often how repulsive I am, I believed it completely.

Being an unwanted, ignored child, I was not imparted with the skill set or parental kindnesses that might have made me more able to dismiss such pointed insults. In my 6th Grade class, the opposite of me was a kid named Robert: He WAS ugly, but he had the most loving, encouraging parents. As a result, Robert lived his life completely happy and never knew shame. In 6th Grade, my new stepfather would use criticism of my appearance whenever he noticed I might be in a good mood. Being alternately ignored and then verbally abused became very normal for me. And I never forgot that I am irretrievably ugly.

My low self-esteem certainly had not helped my relationship with Rob. I was forever jealous, and especially after his near-infidelity, I was crazed with doubt. And since Rob and I had broken up just as he graduated High School, I became obsessed with finding a new boyfriend and crafting a new identity for myself.

The Summer Rob graduated, I had just turned 17, and took it upon myself to try and get a job. My first choice was the Noble Roman's Pizza, the same restaurant to which Rob had taken me on the last day of school. Noble Roman's was considered the coolest place to work in Columbus, and very popular and busy all the time. And it was a mere 20-minute walk from my house. I was beyond thrilled when I actually got the job.

The restaurant's General Manager was a diagnosed schizophrenic whose moods could never be predicted. Paula was the type of manager whose very presence can send a smooth-running kitchen into a tangled clusterfuck. As it turned out, the only manager who was stable and logical was "Assistant Manager John"---The very same John who was so deftly gentile that Rob and I thought he must be gay.

To my complete shock, John was not gay. He was just exceptionally good at dealing with the public. His intense gentleness confused most people as to his sexual preference, but from my first week working with him, there was an impossibly thick sexual tension between John and me. At 17, I was beginning to have my first adult sexual urges. But I was uptight about not being as slutty as my sisters, so I was determined to never have sex in an automobile, and I would be on the pill before my first time.

I was absolutely focused on finding an adult relationship, and John was my target. He was impossibly handsome, smart, and 34. Too old for me, yes, but he lived in his own apartment. Seducing John was at first a means to several ends. And in the beginning at least, I was in total control.

I so transparently began teasing him by showing up for work in ridiculously desperate "notice-me" outfits. I also did my best to be as cute and witty as possible with him. And he did notice: He could barely breathe when I came around. After about a month of this treatment, I contrived some excuse to "need" a ride home, but I waited until a night when he was the only one left in the restaurant who could drive me. I directed him to my house, but I brazenly let him pass it right by. When I smirked that we had already passed it, he chirped, "Okay. I need to go to the grocery. Wanna come with?"

After the store, there was no question I would be accompanying him to his apartment. But of course, John knew that our 17-year age difference was a serious problem, as was my status as technical jailbait. So my first trip to his apartment was spent just talking in his living room, sitting in separate chairs. Of course, I was a manipulative little vixen, and made sure my lovely young parts, while clothed, were always being shown off at my best angles. I don't think John even realized that as we spoke about the most innocent of subjects, his eyes drifted over and over my forbidden young body. As the sun came up, he offered to let me take a nap in his bed, alone, while he slept on the couch. This nap lasted approximately 20 seconds, as I called him back in the bedroom to make out with me.

My dad either trusted me or just never noticed that I had spent my first unexplained night away from home. These nights became more and more frequent as I shoehorned my way into John's life. I discarded my crappy khaki work pants for a tight pencil skirt, and flirted with him at work unmercifully. I eventually had to leave Noble Roman's, as our looming relationship was not only against the rules, but was on the verge of being sniffed out by our schizo-manager Paula. I walked out on that job one night when Paula came at me with a pair of scissors. My leaving was for the best, as even though we had not had sex yet, John and I were becoming too close for us to work together anymore.

I took a lot of liberties with John about inviting myself to his apartment, and he was so patient about it. I was playing adult, and John was my bitch. The first day of my Senior year, John and I had sex for the first time. The inappropriateness of our age difference was defeated by my sheer force of will. I wanted John, I wanted adulthood, and I wanted to be out of my father's house. I was a horny yet calculating little minx.

As luck would have it, the apartment was just a block from school, so every weekday he was home, I would make John see me. I would just pop over, giving him no choice but to be my boyfriend.

Our relationship became the focus of my life, and although I had always desperately hated school, with a distraction like John, I was in no mood to be required to be anywhere. Of course, I was way too conscientious an old lady not to actually graduate High School, but I definitely phoned in my Senior year.

That first year together, John and I had to have a mostly secret relationship. I was still 17, and I even looked very young for my age. Eventually my father began to question the nights I spent away from home. Naturally, John (and his age) had been a secret from my father, but I still wish I could have reassured him that this was real love, and even how careful I was with my birth control. Sadly, John and I had to cut out the weekday overnights, but every weekend was spent in the first blush of what would become a desperately loving relationship.

After a year and a half together, John finally gave me a key to the apartment. I had turned 18, graduated High School, and was working a day job in retail. John was still a restaurant manager and worked odd hours, which made giving me a key more convenient for everyone. After work most evenings, I took the 25-cent ColumBus ride to John's, and waited for him to come home. During this time, John and I spent our best days.

By our third year, I lived at his house, although John's bachelor ego could not allow it to be my mailing address. We also openly held hands and were a public couple, age difference and small town be damned. All was not bliss though, as by this time we had become very accustomed to fighting. I was in love with him, I wanted him to marry me. That could never happen, because although John did love me very much, he could never say the actual words to me. It is very saddening and confusing to have such an intimate, long-term relationship with someone, and they are never able to just say the words "I love you." Unfortunately, my youth and bad self-image had me convinced that the problem was me; It took years of reflection for me to realize that the issue was John's alone.

And by this time, he had started the verbal abuse: I was the source of any and all problems John ever had, even the ones he had before I was born. Somehow, every disappointment was forensically traced to my shortcomings. But this sort of abuse is exactly what my image of love was about, so I stood still while he ran roughshod over me.

John also had the abuser's typical gregariousness. He knew how to charm every single person he met, and could turn on a dime to denigrate me. I was his lover and best friend, and he despised me for it. Even though my love was as steadfast and true as any heroine of literature, he could not stop punishing me for having just that small bit of emotional power over him.

For everyone other than me that crossed John's path, even strangers, he was the kindest, most upbeat "good guy" imaginable. Everyone got crushes on John, and when every beautiful girl and even gay men would flirt with him, John was just incapable of being so rude as to discourage anyone. Especially when I was standing right there. Perhaps because of all my sadness and stress at this time, my skin was always red with acne, and having to stand there while John was flirting with all comers was a feeling of hell. I never felt uglier or more worthless in my life.


I spent much of my youth and especially those years with John repeatedly praying to a God I can only hope exists, that someday I would be pretty. I would scream, hyperventilate, and beg the sky to just make me pretty. I believed that loving men only loved pretty girls, and my ugly self was doomed to be with jerks like John, and/or to psychotic loneliness and spinsterhood.

If God exists, he has a wicked sense of humor, because very soon he granted that shallow wish, and it would prove to be a terrific curse. Pretty girls get actively chased, complimented, and seduced. Pretty girls cause passionate infatuations. But pretty girls with no self-esteem get used. And even today at 37, my opinion of myself may be a little better, but being pretty makes them fall fast for me. Because of my broken brain and my fantasies of finally being truly loved, I have happily believed every promise made to me in the dark. And with every infatuation revoked, I can make the prettiest psychological corpse imaginable. If God exists, I think he teaches lessons by just giving you exactly what you asked for, instead of giving you the why you asked for it.


Our last year together, John and I were like an old married couple, in that we no longer had sex and neither of us cared enough to fight anymore. I was nearly 21, I did not even know how to drive, and I was stuck with an abusive narcissist. In a white-knuckle desperation, I somehow got myself together enough to act on stage in community theatre. The first play was fantastic, and I was just about to audition for my second show when a glamorous redheaded businessman-type whisked toward the audition room. As he passed me, he turned, and his expensive black trench coat whirled around him. "Excuse me," he said in a posh British accent, "is this the right room for the auditions?" I gulped out a yes, and turned to a friend who was with me:

"I would fuck the hell out of that guy right there." It was the first time I ever had such instant, intensely physical attraction toward any man.

While I still needed John for a place to live, my eyes were wide open to who my next conquest would be. At this time, I was a mousy, beat-down 20-year old, hardly sure of her own voice, but a determination to be better would soon be ignited by this dashing, married, British redhead.

DICK!

INTRUDER ALERT!

I can see it, I know it's coming, and I don't really care. And/or care emphatically.

I want it, and I want it real. If it's not, then shove off.

Sex sure is good though.

You suck!
Kindest Regards,
L.

The Lovers: Chapter 3

20 years too late

I recently attended a High School reunion. The chit-chat at such events is naturally centered around specific memories of one another. At one point, I had a short exchange with a formerly popular, athletic guy who I barely knew at all even 20 years ago. My 'crowd' in High School were transparently, desperately unpopular; fuck society. My memories of this particular guy at the reunion were therefore limited, but I was excited to tell him the one I did have: That I was there when he was the hero of our Middle School's first football game of the season. His response was wistful and within minutes, this man I barely knew 20 years ago and haven't seen since, told me one of his greatest sadnesses: "You know, that was the best moment of my life. It takes a long time to come to terms with the fact that you peaked in first weeks of 7th Grade, and it's all been downhill from there."


My first Summer with Rob, I was 15, and about to be a Sophomore. I had spent an awkward and overwhelming Freshman year as the dateless wonder I had always been. My friends, the gang of misfits, had been interesting, and my favorite subject became German, as it was very easy for me, and the teacher had a fantastic personality. But until Rob, High School was a frightening chore.

But having a boyfriend would start my Sophomore year off considerably better. Not only was I now part of a couple, it was with the lovingly genuine, unapologetically hip Rob. Our relationship was so very real, but I did look forward to a change in status from goon to real person.

Rob's pure, affectionate 'love' really made me more comfortable socially. We had a lot of fun just being together and talking, but his true friendship and simple benevolent admiration really changed my outlook, and gave me confidence. That kind of purity of affection, in life, is unfortunately fleeting. I was not yet quite aware of this fact, and Rob bore the brunt of all my innate neediness and insecurity with a steadfast love. Rob really was the best of young men.

Very conveniently, in the Summer I was 15, I had moved permanently from my mother's, back to my father's house, my childhood home. I grew up in an extremely humble ranch house, which, since the divorce, had crumbling furniture and a palpable depression. But my father's house was a 20-minute walk to Rob's, and it had a pool. So my first Summer with Rob was spent swimming to a soundtrack of The Velvet Underground.

Starting school in the Fall for my Sophomore year was transcendent. Rob was a Junior, he was beloved by all, he was gorgeous and clever. And he was MY boyfriend. MINE. He liked me, he talked to me, I was always number one, always at his side, never apart from his friends or activities. Rob was raised in a family of strong women, and he was unencumbered by machismo or posturing. He wasn't just proudly my boyfriend, he was my best friend, at a time in one's life when that really meant something.

Rob was a great friend and absolute partner, but better than that, we got to participate in all those enthusiastic teenage sexual fumblings. That first Summer, I tried to talk him into actually having sex with me, as this was the type of relationship in which couples lose their virginities. But thankfully, he was much wiser than my girlish sentimentalities. This healthy, randy, sexy teenage boy was too level-headed to have intercourse before he was ready. We openly discussed and decided that we just were not ready for that much responsibility. And I believe absolutely that our choice of abstinence was not remotely rooted in morals or guilt, but in the liberal sexual-education curriculum of our Columbus youth. Rob and I had both gotten the pre-Reagan, pre-AIDS, "Let's talk about sexual responsibility in a groovy way," leftover hairy hippie birth films. And they worked.

Rob was my identity in High School. And when cracks began to form in our second year together, I worked frantically to hide them from everyone. I would never even admit to my best girlfriend that Rob and I had ever had an argument. They all felt like failures on my part, and admitting any strife would really be revealing he did not completely love me all the time. The picture of our unflagging bliss, that I unrepentantly exaggerated, would soon become a public joke, as there was a semi-betrayal on the horizon.

The Summer before his Senior year, Rob took a trip to Spain with a group from our High School. While he was there, I remember working for hours on a drawing, a card, and a goofy poem. We may have had our issues here and there, but it was the first time we had been out of contact for more than a day. I was so thrilled to see him when he got back, yet his manner was strange. I read him the poem aloud, and he began to cry. He then admitted to me that while in Spain, he had had a crush on a classmate, a girl I had known since Elementary School, who had always been a bit of a nemesis. My first question, my biggest concern: "Did you kiss her?"
"No."

He swore at that moment that he hadn't a clue what he was thinking, and he had not considered the consequences of emotional infidelity to me. Through streaming tears, he apologized over and over, and promised he would never have anything to do with her. But it was like he had dropped a cinderblock on my head, my heart, my whole being. Rob was my only pure, true joy, the only person who when he smiled at me, I believed it. His partial, whimsical consideration of a dalliance was enough to tip me into practical insanity. Like most high-school girls, I had always been insecure and possessive. And now the whole school would know how he had nearly cheated on me. And it was with this long-time enemy of mine: A girl who spent her entire youth reminding everyone, with every breath, how clever she was. She also affected ridiculously crisp diction. I had always hated her.

After Rob's 'affair,' we were still a couple, as always, but the warmth in my heart was replaced by paranoia and doubt, passive-aggressiveness, and second-guessing. I was destroyed, because it only took his thinking about another girl to explode the one real trustful intimacy I had yet experienced. Today, of course, I understand he was a teenager, and teen boys are wont to do thoughtless things. But his Senior year, I was 16, and I became a nubile young Harridan. I could never handle him even speaking to another girl again, and that jealousy and my controlling destroyed us, irretrievably staining the purest thing I had ever felt. My heart had been ripped out, and I couldn't stop reminding him.

As our relationship was limping along, at the end of his Senior year, I was in complete denial that he would soon be leaving for college. I could not even listen to him talk about the S.A.T.'s , and I honestly have repressed the memory of when he was accepted to Indiana University. All I knew is that he would be moving to Bloomington, and I was stuck an hour away--Not knowing who he might be talking to, the girls he would meet. I would no longer be able to frantically control his every friendly exchange. I was dreading to spend my Senior year without my daily companion, my very identity. The sound I was ignoring was a boulder of loneliness and left-behind humiliation, rolling straight for my young sanity. As his last weeks of High School drew to a close, I did the only thing that was completely within my control: I found an excuse to drift away, just as he graduated.

In our hometown, the last week of school for Seniors is a three day week. On the last day of my Junior year, I was 17, and since Rob had the day off and his mom's car, he took me out for a special weekday lunch at Noble Roman's pizza. The line was incredibly long, and a handsome 30-something manager with shiny black hair and devastating blue eyes approached us for our order. His name tag said "Assistant Manager John." His manner was disconcertingly gentle, almost feminine, his voice soft and lilting. Rob and I were stunned by his manners and his quiet enthusiasm about our choice of a pepperoni pizza.

When the shock wore off, Rob quipped, "Well, he was friendly." We laughed. Rob meant that "John" seemed a little gay for being nice. I agreed.

Rob taught me so much about integrity and the purity of true Like. When he had finally given my self-esteem an excuse not to trust him, I was free to impose my insecurities on him daily. But, as I now enter my late 30's, what the 7th-grade football star told me has reminded me of what a kind and bright influence Rob really was. Had I only known then that life would just keep rolling, that his most simple, proud appreciation of me, and my complete reciprocation for him, is not something that so significantly happened for me again. I just may have peaked in High School.

I took Rob for granted, and I even ended it badly.
It was a sin I will always pay for, yet worse to come.