Boys, and some lessons they've taught me.

I haven't even re-read my last post. It was an attempt to resolve or explain the resolutions I'd arrived at about the post before it. Of course I decide to write such an important, meaningful post when I'm literally falling asleep at the keyboard. Like, nodding off, sitting up, hands hitting random keys. Good timing, Chris.

Well, I wanna (briefly) restate the good progress I was trying to convey in case, you know, that post turned incoherent or misleading in any way.

From both posts, you can probably infer I was having some boy troubles. One crush in particular had caused me some serious heartache and frustration. It really sucked.

What really sucked about it was how much it resembles all my other troubles with boys, just made more poignant by how long and how badly I've liked & respected this guy. I get to fantasizing, and not just sexually mind you, and I get so attached to those fantasies and hopes. I start reading into any sign they might be true--that whatever feelings I have might be shared--regardless of whether I'm reading too much into them or not. But, chickenshit that I am, I can't bring myself to make a move. I'll let it get all but to that point then evade it.

I get myself so frustrated and angry and hurt; I sometimes project that anger on them as rejection, but really I'm probably doing most of the harm myself.

But I have such a hard time letting it go. I'm reluctant to admit it, but I get obsessed to some degree or another. Instead of taking some kind of 'first move', I fixate on what "could be". That leaves me feeling pretty worthless and pathetic, too.

The last week or so, though, I was as much frustrated with myself for feeling frustrated as I was frustrated by all this shitting around. It was getting pretty unpleasant to be inside my head.

Saturday I prayed about it. Right after writing that first post, I went upstairs and smoked a cigarette and prayed to let it go. Let the whole damn obsession go. The whole damn self-beating go. And then it occurred to me--"Do I really want to let it go...?"

I've held on to this crush and these fantasies for the same reasons I haven't acted on them: It feels nice to dream, to make believe. And reality scares me. If he actually turns me down, I won't have the fantasy anymore. I'm also just plain scared of the guy saying "No".

That was a bit of a revelation. It didn't hit me until later in the day but after that I started to let it go. I let myself enjoy the day--rain and all--and smile at cute guys who checked me out in Dupont and go to a meeting & share about all this. It felt really awesome.

By the time I went to the meeting--ironically, a step meeting that happened to be discussing the 6th step--I'd had a further realization, and shared about it. I realized that--for all the pain and hurt and frustration I attributed to others--I was the one feeding and nurturing the resentments & character defects that set me up to be hurt like this, over and over, deeper and deeper.

As I put it in my share: "If I don't feed my defects and resentments so much, they don't have to eat away at me as much."

Someone at the meeting pointed out that the steps don't actually promise to remove your defects of character and the resentments they bring you. Instead, by working the steps, you learn to be more aware of defects, to catch yourself sooner, to deal with them more maturely and healthily.

I'll hardly declare this some great feat of convalescence. But it is growth. I'm supposed to be starting a new 4th step inventory, and this seems like a fairly heartening way to go into it.

At the very least, I was able to let go of this cause for frustration, angst, anger, and pain, for now at least, and move on and let myself enjoy the rest of my life just that little bit more. It was, at the very very least, a good reminder that life doesn't have to suck if I don't want it to.