2003-04-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's the control he likes - that it should only be him reaching to me for skin and affection, and not me reaching for him. What is it that makes it so that when I want to run my palm across the skin of his belly, he sighs and turns away. When I want to kiss him, when I want him to wrap his arms around me, when I ask for something, he refuses to give it. He doesn't realize that I only ask when I really need it, when I am hungry for the smooth warmth of his skin that is supposed to be mine.

Yesterday, all I could think about was him, imagining the just slightly cooler skin of his thigh moving against the warmth of my own. Daydreaming about my husband like I would about a boyfriend, a lover. Excited, flirtatious, anticipating. Ready to proposition and eager to give and to get. When I got home, I was greeted with familiarity. My attempts and suggestions were brushed off, my playfulness greeted with a skowl. We have no time, he said, we have to be at our friend's house in forty minutes. That night, I couldn't keep my eyes off of him. Our eyes met across the room, gaze held, I would wink, smile a small smile, enough to let him know what I was thinking. Tonight would be good, I thought. Tonight would be whole. After we came home from our friends house, the mood was the same as before we left. No kissing. No hugging. No touching. No reaction to my satin glances and silky suggestions. We wrestled a bit and laughed, but after, whenI tried to take it further, again, he turned away. He just settled in the center of the queen sized bed, and got annoyed with me doing whatever I could to get him interested in me, and ignored me.

This, of course, made me upset. He didn't want me to touch him, to cuddle. The energy in our bed was so bad, so abrasive, that I got up and took my blanket to the other room to settle in and sleep. I needed to be alone - to focus on finding sleep and not on the angry man next to me who didn't want anything to do with me. I don't know how much time passed, when he came in to the room where I was finally asleep, and yelled at me "If this is the way you want to deal with things, then FINE!" Not able to handle it, I crept back to bed, where he was still irritated if I touched him, but he was at least willing to cuddle a little. But he sighed with annoyance when I kissed him. I can't win. At all. I wanted to go back to the other room to sleep, but didn't want to bring on a fight.

This has happened before. Many times. I can't remember a time when I was excited about him, about sex, and came on to him with a successful result. The more I want, the less he gives. Strangely, this is the way it has been between us for years. No, I don't know why. He says to me, sometimes, that I never want to have sex, that I never come on to him. Why would I? This is the response I get when I do. Having a sex drive only leads me to feeling rejected, unloved and alone. I am better off satisfying myself with my fantasies than I am thinking that I can rely on him for what I need. Because getting up the energy and courage to ask has only left me frustrated. Yesterday, he wouldn't kiss me. I would try, and he would turn his head. How does he think that is okay? How does he believe that does not hurt my feelings?

Maybe it's good that we didn't have sex. I don't know what is wrong with him, or what is wrong with me. I'm tired and I can't focus from getting no sleep, and I'm going to have a rotten day. I didn't say goodbye to him when I left, and I don't even want to go home tonight.

2002-10-03T16:22:00.000-07:00

I'm besot. With boredom, with uninspiration. With uncertainty, with questions. I'm not sure what I want my life to be right now, to be mellow and happy, yes, but how? And what else do I want it to be? I am tired of being who I am, tired of doing what I do. Maybe it's just today, the tightness of the air in my lungs and the itchy heat of my sweater imbuing me with a sense of constriction. I'm hoping this mood, if it is a mood, will pass soon. Is it unhappiness? Why could I be unhappy? Is it tiredness? What have I done that's made me so tired?

I've felt like this for a few days now. I tell myself that I need more exercise, that I need to eat better. Is that it? Maybe I need to talk this out, express this feeling, to get it away from me. Everything about me feels like a layer I don't need. Even my eyes feel like they are thick with snake-skin that needs to peel. I wish I could understand why I feel this. And how to make it stop. How to dig through the layer of wet, warm wool and get my skin back.

Since getting married in July, it's been a slow tumble down from the high of the matrimonial madness. After 10 months of responsibility, I suddenly want nothing of it. I want to shirk, to slack, and have someone else have to be the grown-up. I want someone else to have to wake up first to make the coffee, I don't want to do what I said I'd do (regardless of what it was) and my brain seems to be bent on resisting even a modicum of work. This isn't me. Or maybe it is. Maybe I just need to understand what and who I am enough to know which one is real and which one is the imposter.

2002-09-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

I am going to blog. It will be fun.

Cadence Calls