Change

You learn something new every day:

In the past few days I've learned that people can change. That I can change. Not from good to bad or vise versa, but just change from who I was to who I am today, quick enough to make me wonder what the hell happened. A deep seeded fear can suddenly just fade away one night and I can wake up the next day with only a lingering sensation that it should be there, that it once was there, and that it's gone. And I start doing things I've never done before and talking in ways I've never spoken before, shocking even myself at how unlike myself I am.

And I think maybe one single person could have shifted me like this, popped out that awkward fear and made me someone different. Not someone I've known forever or even someone I'm in love with. Just a person I began spending too much time with, who rubbed off on me and became my best friend in three months and who I see every day and who I experience new things with, with whom I'm not afraid to experience new things. And isn't that strange? That things could be so different so quickly with seemingly so little effort?

Now onto the physical rant:

I got drunk for the first time in my life last week at a party hosted by my good friend, Michelle. Her boyfriend's friend, Victor, -- who she attests is my perfect match romantically -- was there and was pining for my attention as much I was for his. It was immensely flattering, enough so that I had no problem slamming down shots, especially when, toward the end of the night, he began pouring them for me and taking them with me as we toasted to Dennis Kucinich. By 3 a.m. the party had broken up and most people had gone home (including my catalyst mentioned above) and just before I left, the object of my affection kissed me once, then again and again and I raced out the door smiling to crash on my bed, fully dressed, when I arrived home moments later.

It was a fantastic night. And ever since then, all I've wanted to do is see him again, to talk to him and to connect with him the way we did at the party. Of course, there is the anxious tug that perhaps our getting along so well had more to do with the vodka than actually liking one another, but it was worth finding out, right?

But my catalyst. Oh, I'm pushed and pulled from either end in such a confusing game of attention that no one really seems to be playing but me! My catalyst pines also for my attention, though not in a romantic way. He and I have our own dreams of a future together, living in a large house in France and drinking wine every night after working at our shared book store in downtown Paris. This, of course, after we attend college together (graduate school for me) at MSU as flower children and experience as much of life in the states as we can handle before leaving it all behind. Only a month ago, he and I would openly disdain romantic relationships as a waste of time, energy, and most of all imagination. We already understood each other perfectly, we could read one another at a glance, we shared the same hopes and saw life the same way and every piece of evidence around us attested to the futility of being attached to someone "romantically".

It was just this extra, annoying and unnecessary thing. Why bother?

And then I met Victor and I had a great time and after that kiss, after spending most of the next day feeling like shit and lounging around the house trying to be comfortable, all I wanted to do was talk to my catalyst about what it could mean. And, stupid and slow as I am, it took me two days more to figure out that Victor ruined all of our plans.

"I just can't see either of us in a relationship," my catalyst proclaimed. I agreed quickly. I'd never been in a long term relationship, though I often excused that with the fact that all the men I've dated have been hillbilly assholes. And today I had told my catalyst of my desire for something more.

We had just downed a bottle of wine between us and we were sprawled out in his front yard bantering at each other about nothing and everything, and I stumbled through describing to him my need for my exact relationship to him to be mirrored in the one with Victor -- or some man -- with the added bonus of "making out" (as I had put it). In other words, I wanted a best friend plus. I wanted to be in love with someone who was in love with me. And that just didn't work with what my catalyst and I shared.

I know he hadn't meant to, but when he opened me up and took away that poking, prodding fear, he also made it possible for me to open up to other people. And perhaps if he hadn't changed me so drastically, our future-dreams would still be pulling us through the summer, instead of being squashed and stomped on by my basic need for more. More and more and more. Selfish and selfish and justified.

That's what I learned today. I hate change.