be my valentine?

I am a romantic. I wish you'd understand that. Sometimes I think you really should make the effort to figure out what makes me tick and sweep me off of my feet. God, I'm so practical and feet-on-the-ground all of the goddamned time and I just want you to realize that I need you to take of me sometimes. I want you to make me nervous because you've been so sweet and I want to get butterflies and . . .
Fuck.
I would really love for you to take me to dinner and then out to the flight line to let me watch the touch-and-gos. Maybe we'll talk about serious stuff, or maybe we'll laugh a little bit and have some fun. Maybe we'll mess around a little bit. Maybe then we'll come home, sans children and you'll carry me to bed and lay me down and strip me naked and kiss me til I can't breathe and then you'll listen to what I'm not fucking saying and you'll do all of it.

It's mostly because I do so much around this house and I don't really feel appreciated. I've told you this and I feel like still, you don't get it. Just like the tiff about dinner tonight. I don't feel like cooking dinner and I don't want to go out, but God forbid you step up. God forbid you say, "Hey, you've been doing a lot lately," or, "let me make dinner for you." Ugh. Why don't you see it?
Just . . . think about me, for once. All about me. Is that so much?

things I felt like saying

I remember how I felt after seeing you, how it felt to go home and lie in that empty bed and wish you were there. I remember your particular smell, and how we had to contort our bodies to have sex in the back seat. There were lunches with friends after school and a few jaunts to St Augustine. We went to the beach once and wrote our names in the sand and then slept curled in your bed like snakes.
There was the smile/smirk that you always got whenever you saw me, and how you'd use your whole body to back me into the wall, just so you could say that there was never any space between us. If there were any two people that were bound to have their first time on a school bus, it was us . . . But I can't tell you how many times since I've fallen in love with you that I wish I would have waited to have my first time with you.
Once, I saw you skateboard. It was one of the first days of Lackawanna, and I was waiting for Mimi back at Wolfson and you rode all the way home on the bus just to ride back on your board. I can't describe how sexy you were to me at that moment, hat on your head, shirt all the way open to show the white undershirt, Dickies riding low like that was how they were meant to be worn.
Too many late night phone calls just because we couldn't bear to be even that much apart. It's lucky we didn't have cell phones, or we would have been on those 24/7, too.
The night we graduated was a Tuesday. I remember that because I was watching JAG while waiting for you to come pick me up. You went to the Rib Shack with your family. I don't remember what we did. You came and got me and we drove around. I was hoping for something more, but I can't tell you what that was. I think we had sex in the usual spot.
We've been apart a lot, haven't we? I've left you at the MEPS, knowing that you were heading off to basic and that I couldn't talk to you for God only knows how long (It was nearly a week or so until a letter came from the other side of the training "compound"). We met again at Sheppard and picked right up where we left off . . . And then we split up once more. You, California-bound. Me for home (horrible without you, btw), and then for the Land of the Rising Sun.
If I could do Yokota all over again, I would. In a heartbeat. No Joey, no Mark, no giving up on you. I would hop a C-130 to come back to you if I could. I'd confront you and do myself some justice.
Had I known that early 2005 was going to change so much, I would have stayed until the crew bus came, and I would have kissed you like you should have been kissed and maybe spent more time talking about things that should have been said earlier. The summer of that same year was awesome, though. I got to fall in love with you all over again.
Except maybe that's the trouble. I don't know that I've really reconciled early you with current you, and sometimes it messes with my head.
I miss irresponsible you.
But I love current you more than early me would have dreamed possible, so I guess it all works out in the end.

things that happen and don't

have i mentioned yet that whenever i go to the mall, i expect to run into you? sometimes (ok, most times), i catch myself looking for you.
it's sad, because you're kinda like my bad idea. or drug. or just bad habit. i keep wanting to reach out to you somehow, maybe suggest that we get together at some point, but somethings keeps from making that final leap. i guess it's the thought that maybe you're talking shit about me behind my back . . . i remember very well the things you said about taylor, and now you guys are best friends again.
i'm sitting here thinking that i should suggest a get-together so that i can really tell you how i've been feeling lately, and to find out if we'll actually be friends (in a closer sense than we have been lately), or if it's a better idea that I make my stand and say, "no more."

the s-word

I think that you were more attracted to me when we weren't together.
Remember phone sex while I was pregnant? Granted, that was the most used I'd ever felt (you'd get yours and then log off), but I kept coming back for more, because that small amount of contact with you was better than nothing. Fucked up, I know.
When I lived in Japan, we'd have sex every time we saw one another. Now I get that maybe three times a week. I'm not asking for every night, but even foreplay or making out on nights that sex isn't on the menu would be nice. Fuck, just touch me! I feel like you don't want me at all until sex happens. Way to the pregnant wife feel attractive. I don't have a problem with scheduling a little bit of together time, but when you have to do it so that you know when you should get off of WoW, I think that's a little much.

I've been thinking lately about the first time I came to California. I told myself that I was going to play it cool and allow you to make any moves (if there were going to be any). After Samantha and everything else, I figured that was the only way that I was going to know how you felt. We had sex that first afternoon. It was awkward and unfinished, but you made those moves. You touched me first, you took the time to take my clothes off. Hell, you even got on top, and that's saying something.
Do you remember that shower we took together? The one that lasted several hours and it felt like you were taking your time to get to know every little part of me again? And then, once you were done there, you carried me out of the shower, dried me off, and laid me out on the bed and spent even more time finishing what we started.
I'm not asking for that every time, but I would like the same sorts of feeling again. Like you aren't just doing it to get yours, or that you're doing it to shut me up.
Like you care, I guess.

Friends

I think that even though it might be a good thing to have one person that you can tell everything to, I think it is probably a good idea that some things remain unsaid. Or, if that can't be the case, have several people that you can tell certain things to. I say this because it seems as though I have made the mistake of telling one person nearly every important thing about me, expecting somewhere deep down inside that we would always be friends - and now, I guess we aren't. Maybe you could still call us friends, but friends at least reach out and touch one another, and while I have made the effort to do so, that person has not reciprocated, and it leaves me feeling rather empty. I want to force a confession from this person - why would do you do this to me? are we not friends? is this it?
I won't.
I'm trying to see it for what it is, and realize that maybe this is the best thing to do.
But it's hard.
And I miss her.

what child is this . . .

being a mother is one of the most exhausting things on this planet. it is very rewarding - extremely, but there are days (more often than not) when i wish that i wasn't a parent. i love that little girl to pieces. she constantly surprises me with her level of intelligence and her wit. she's absolutely gorgeous, and i am not looking forward to her older years, because she's only going to get prettier.
but she frustrates the shit out of me. sometimes, when i hear her cry, i just think "shut the hell up! christ!"
and other times, my heart aches. i hate when chris doesn't move fast enough to get to her or treats her in a way that i think is wrong.
is that normal? i feel like i'm more often angry at her than not. i know that part of it is because of j. i feel like she loves j more, and if i were to leave lola there, she'd never notice that i wasn't around. i truly believe that. she doesn't want to come home, whines about being here, calls me grandma for a week or more.
i'm sure that i love her unconditionally, and that i would murder anyone that hurt her, but sometimes i'm afraid it's a case of "i like her, but i don't love her", and i don't want that to be the case. that isn't right. i'm her mother!
i'm also afraid that i'm treating her this way because i'm finally pregnant with christopher's baby, and that i'm going to like that one more than lola. i hope that isn't the case, because that isn't fair to anyone, and i don't want to favor one child over the other.
maybe i just need to learn patience . . .

she and i

i admitted to him that i miss you. that, i thought i would never do. even though our relationship was out in the open - all of it - it was something that i didn't talk about. why make him mad, or upset him when it didn't really benefit me in the end. after all, it was him that i had to share space with.
but we worked together, and that was something as a victory, even though i didn't get you the job there in order to circumvent him. but then you left. you left me, i guess. i've never really admitted that out loud, either, but that's kind of how i saw it. i think that helped me resent you for a little while.
it didn't take me long to get over that, honestly. i put on a face because i didn't want anyone else to know that i really did miss you.
now you've moved and you're engaged and we don't ever talk. i've reached out to you a coupla times, but you haven't gotten back to the email that i was most hoping you'd respond to. and you've resurrected friendships with two people that you swore you wouldn't (and i have to admit that i was happy about that, because that meant that there'd only be me).
so now, what?
we've both moved on and we have our own lives . . .
but i miss you. i miss your sense of humor and how you were always around to go to joe's or just to hang out. we had a fucking gimmick, for Christ's sake.
we shared a lot. i came very close to ruining my marriage for you, and now there's nothing. i could accept that if i knew that you were meant to be my closest friend just to help me heal wounds that were still festering. maybe that's all we were supposed to be to one another, i guess.
honestly, though, i'm still feeling that urge to reach out to her (and again to you) so that we can all hang out. why? because you both were a part of something that i wasn't there for and something that i still regret even happened. i know that i won't say anything to either one of you, but i give it some thought. my fingers dial your phone number every once in a while, but i never hit the talk button. what would i say?

i miss you and i wish i knew you missed me.

these things are transitory

i have a myspace and a livejournal, but i feel stifled in both places. even though those are "my spaces", i feel like i have to write for my audience. there are things that i want to write about but don't, because i know who will be reading. it sucks for me, because in the end, those things never get out. they just sit and stagnate, and i am tired of that.
there is too much history on livejournal. i've been so many different people there (proof, i suppose that i have changed), that it seems . . . useless, maybe, to "start fresh". i changed my username once, but nothing really changed. i don't really even blog there anymore, just keep up with people. as for myspace, it is mostly my audience that troubles me. chris reads, samantha reads. kristine reads, kristina reads. i want to write about things that i have already written about, but feel like going over once more, and i hate the thought that someone is reading that and rolling their eyes, thinking that i should move on, already.
so here i am. i haven't decided if i will keep this totally private, or if there are certain people i'll share the link with. only time will tell.

i have been writing a lot more on paper lately, and i guess that is because of the lack of free space. the good thing about it is that i'm getting out those thoughts exactly as i think them, without embellishment or editing. i like that. i would continue to do that and scorn the internet, but i'm so leery of paper journals and i often get tired of how long it takes to write one thing when i could have written 10 by computer in that same amount of time.

i honestly hope that this will turn out better.