Run like the wind

yesterday I spent a rather unfruitful, tired day at work, slowly checking tests I distributed, and the only good thing that came out of it work-wise was an appointment I made with someone I met at the party to discuss something related to my research. I didn't hear from P. all day, and I was embarassed, or reluctant, or somehow niether of these words fits, to call him. I also thought he was busy. I didn't know our plans for that night, but I had hoped for a quiet night at home. I left work debating between the gym, a jog, a nap or the supermarket, because I wanted to make dinner for us and I knew exactly what it was that I wanted to eat: tomato-based seafood pasta. I finally dragged my tired butt to the supermarket, telling myself I'd do yoga when I get home with the groceries, but somehow I didn't feel like going to my apartment, I wanted a short break from my life. When I passed by P.'s house, heavy bag in hand and my backpack filled with gym stuff on my droopy shoulders, I was so wiped out it didn't even cross my mind if he was there or not. When all of a sudden he opened the door and called after me. I went inside, and it turns out he was working at home and waiting for me to get back, and had totally forgotten about the waking-up thing. One thing led to another, and all my plans were dropped for sex. There are 2 kinds of sex that I know, and the only difference is inside my head, I mean, an observer watching me from outside wouldn't be able to know the difference: there's the dirty sex and the loving sex. In the first, I am just out there, being fucked, in the second, we make something together between us, I can't quite explain, but the thing is I differentiate. I won't go into anymore sexual details right now; this isn't a sex blog. But I have a point for mentioning my sex life. Anyway, after we had finished, he didn't hang around in the bed as ususal but took off to the supermarket to do his own shopping, and I felt down and abandoned for a while, ended up calling R. & C. from bed, caught C. and vented, which had cleared the air, although when he came back I was still hurt. But he is so loving and accepting and thoughtful, it isn't him at all but the places I go - and in any case I will not justify him now, because again, I didn't leave bed befoire 08.00 on a Sat. morning to write a "my boyfriend isn't/oh, actually is sensitive" post. After that there was dinner, and a crappy TV movie, and we fell asleep. Waking up this morning, all I wanted to do was put on my jogging shoes and run, and then I thought about the movie with R. tonight and afterwards a party with P.'s friends, and I thought "you must get back to sleep otherwise you'll be terribly fatigued and you're already beyond you capacity". I wanted to go to the gym, not just to take care of my body (dinner was great but I ate too much icecream and smoked a cigarette after 10 days' cessation, which tasted vile and empty, so I didn't even finish it - but again, this isn't a "will I go back to smoking? am I/no actually not addicted" post). I wanted to write here. I wanted to read one of several books I'm reading, recreational, educational, I wanted to do a bit of work. At the moment I am sexually satisfied, so I didn't actually want that. When I lay in bed this morning, I ended up realizing in a very deep way (finally last night I told P. of my dream from the night before which I had described here and was able to be really articulate, and not to be offended when he didn't completely undrestand or agree, and not to be scared that he would think me boring/wierd) the separation that I had read about during my stay at my parents', in Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child. A child, usually a firstborn like me, who feels for some reason that some feelings are just unacceptable and illegitimate. With the combination of a certain kind of intelligence, that child develops the capacity to sense what everyone around it wants and give them that, but is completely detached from his/her wants and needs. I won't write anymore about my childhood, now. A lot of other crap went on back in the day, loss, possible abuse, physical problems, relocations, social isolation, but I will focus on the base, the roots (the foundations in the abyss, in my dream, where I hide my writing), on tope of which all that other stuff came later. You end up deligitimazing so many parts of you, not accpeting that you can be childish and needy and irresponsible and undecisive and capricious and that you have many, many needs: excercise, food, sex, love, that you have raw "negative" emotions like anger, jealousy, that you are inherently irresponsible, that you are not "good" (even if you do good things), and not perfect at all. You lose touch with yourself, with your feelings, and you spend your life trying to please other people. It's more complicated that that of course and other factors come in, and I did spend about a 1/3 of my life completely self-destructing (un-HIV related), and then I snapped out of it, and the "good" took over the "bad", but that was pretty artificial, that was again pleasing other by being on the straight and narrow, and giving them what I thought they needed, and surprising the crap out of everybody by getting my life completely on the conventional track... no wonder I nearly collapsed when I was diagnosed, because I always try to set myself as something for other people, that other people can accept and understand, even in this blog. But you know in your heart that even when you're loved and accepted, it is conditional and transitory, hence my immense stress whenever I please people, whenever I feel P.'s caring and love, whenever I see my parents calm down (that I can't stand, that terrifies me even mroe), whenever my supers are satisfied. When there is no dispute with my bosses and I totally trust them, like now, when my BF is loving and accpeting, when my friends think I'm cool and my parents are relatively calm and assured that I am OK, I become teriffied of disappointing, of not being able to keep it all up (also thinking I have to maintain the perfect body and fat is something that will just spiral out of control if I eat poorly for a while; or that I must be 100% healthy but not in a demanding, obsessive way like my sister in law, not in an overbearing, nagging way. No, I have to take care of myself to maintain my perfection but not with any burden on others, because I should give them what they want and that is not what people want). It isn't an actual event or deed I am petrified of, but something larger. That I will not be able to continue giving them what they want (and how can you give everyone what they want), that I will end up fucking up somehow. In my case I internalized whole society, I mean, Israeli society, Dutch society. So yes, I have HIV, but, it's not what you think guys... let me explain (on the Ynet HIV forum) and be the model HIV patient. I didn't get it fucking hoards of people (that I had a perverse sex life in my teens is shut off, and is indeed irrelevant to my infection, but I know that truth, I am not clean, and was never clean, and you know what, nobody is ever clean when it comes to sex, and if they are, it's just their actions not their mind/heart/fantasies). I am a model HIV-patient. Well I am not. Not because I have a deep dark secret, but because there is no such thing. There is nothing to justify. I fucked up somewhere along the line and with a combination of (very) bad luck I was infected. I don't have to say and point out that a lot of people, normative people, have done a lot worse than me and were not infected, because that is irrelevant, because we are all just falliable. I have these thoughts when I go to the HIV clinic, I look at the people there and imagine how they got it, especially the older men, I imagine them being fucked in the ass on the down-low, pretending to be straight, well who cares... sex is just sex. I can have the dirtiest sex in my mind and the cleanest monogamy on the outside. Ditto for everything else. I can say the nicest things and be productive and helpful and be somewhere else completely in my head, in my own existence, interests, wants, needs, desires. Does it mean I am bad? (and I am not putting into the equation anyone fucking young boys in Asia, as K. the sexual advisor once told P. & me when we came over to get safe-sex instructions, referring to the over 60 HIV-crowd; I am talking about someone like E. who carries a shameful guilty secret... well it's just what he likes, getting anally ruptured by annonymous men, he should have used a condom and accepted it, and if he'd accepted it, maybe it would cease to be the dirty secret [because E. is the epitome of the model citizen] and he would need it less, or not, it doesn't matter). Nobody keeps count of how many people we fuck and how we do it and especially what we think about when doing it, and the only relevance is STDs and being responsible that way, and yeah let's leave cheating aside... and I will say, because it's true [so luckily I can make myself look good by actually saying something that is true] that I am completely monogamous, and a one-man kind of woman, and I just want to take care and be cared for in sex as in other things. But that is just what I need. As well as my other needs... and they are all legitimate.