7.2.08

The Birthday Bribe, and other Stories.

I'm usually pretty even-keel, and if I'm not, can convince myself to be, but occasionally my stupid, emotional, stereotypically "female" side takes over. Today was one of those times. As I just told my friend Sarah (on Facebook, where I update my status every other minute in a sort of "mini" blog), this is an attempt to write what Nursing calls a Reflective Analysis. The purpose of the RA (which is loathed by everyone) is to help one better understand oneself through telling a story about something that happened, and then picking it apart and using literature to make it relevant. I don't have any literature written about myself, so I'm going to use examples from my LAST relationship to generalize my reaction to THIS one.
Get it?

Good.

I bought the Caveman (names have been changed, obviously. Duh.) a guitar for his birthday, and even though his birthday isn't for another three weeks, I took it over and ruined the surprise today. I wanted him to have an extra three weeks to play around with it before he leaves (the leaving factors into this story later).

He, of course, was super excited and we tuned it right away and fiddled around with it for about an hour before deciding to go get some eats at the Gladstone (risotto balls with brie and butternut squash, deep-fried crust, by the way, is FANTASTIC).

Let me preface this entire piece by saying that I fall a little more in love with this man every time we spend time together. Really. I'm not just saying it. I love the way he touches me, and looks at me, and makes me laugh so hard I cough up loogies, and how we find the same things funny and don't care if people watch while we make weird faces and having staring contests in restaurants.

Anyway. One of the things that drives me crazy is that he teases me a bit. I'm fairly easily turned on, and he knows it, and takes full advantage. Maybe 25-30% of the time this leads to sex. The rest of the time he's just goofing around (I can usually tell, and STILL get turned on, stupid, stupid) and when the commercial break is over, so is the funny business. I didn't mind so much when we were honeymooning and having sex every time we looked at each other, but a run of bad cough/cold and flu symptoms and some other complications have slowed that down somewhat and for the past two weeks, we've barely even been kissing (there IS a physical reason for it, or I would be freaking out).

Preface # 2: Just because the sex is less frequent, doesn't mean it's worse--it's actually gotten better and better!

Flashback: sex petering out was the death knell for my last relationship, so even though I understand it from a logistical standpoint, this still scares the shit out of me on a purely emotional level and makes me a little panicky sometimes.

So: we're in Starbucks on our way back home after having a good meal, lots of laughs, blah blah, and I say something about the guitar, and he laughs and says "it's a big present, isn't it? you're probably hoping I'll stick around for a while" or something to that effect, and it's pretty funny, because he's obviously not going anywhere, but on the way home I get to thinking: I'm really scared that when he leaves in May he won't come back. And then I think: "did I really try to buy him into staying? Subconsciously, of course, but still?" And then: "maybe that's why he doesn't seem as keen to have sex right now, maybe he's not planning on coming back!"

Needless to say, I'm behaving like a complete moron at this point. These thoughts have no basis in reality, and my logical brain knows this.

The piece of me that's still raw and open and terrified from the last go-round, though, is pretty tough. She likes the drama, and tries to make herself cry about things that aren't even happening on a regular basis. Right now she's telling me that we're probably not having sex because he doesn't find me attractive anymore and is watching the free porn site I told him about (fun on your own, or with a friend!) instead. All of this because the last guy I fell in love with pulled that exact stunt (minus the me telling him about the free porn, he knew way more about it than I did) and didn't bother telling me until he'd already made up his mind we were over.

I guess you only find out which spots are still sore if you press on them a bit. This particular spot smarts enough to bring tears to my eyes, and the frustrating part is that it's MY problem, not his. I can't bring myself to talk it over with him because I know he's going to tell me to stop being a blockhead, and I'm sick of arguing with myself about it.

May, however, is much too close for my liking, and a big piece of me won't believe that this can work until the Caveman returns.

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