Run-On Sentences

I’ve been thinking more about my relationship now vs. past relationships. Not so much each one as an individual experience, but rather the good (now), and the chaotic/unpleasant (past). I’ll find myself at home, with my girlfriend and my animals, my apartment is furnished, I have a car, I have a couple nice things, my family is great, I have a few good friends, a lot of people I work alongside in the Boston club scene that have helped me tons, I mean I could keep going but you get the point, anyway, I’ll be home, with all of these things going for me, nothing life or death wrong other the looming thoughts of animal cruelty, the world ending, and the fucking Honda Dealership calling me more then a drunk boyfriend at homecoming weekend making sure his (for the night ex)-girlfriend knows how much of a fucking bitch she is for making out with a senior, but like I said, I’ll be home and I’ll start swimming in that murky ass swamp of bad thoughts in my brain, wondering if something is wrong with my relationship. 

God I fucking love run-on sentences. 

And I’ve noticed that I think something is wrong not because there actual is, but because of the incoherence of my past relationships. For one reason or another, the good, bad, happy, and sad all melted together in one big muddled mess. Good and happy didn’t always match up. Sometimes shitty felt fucking awesome. Almost always, making the right choice was confusing and painful. It was a rollercoaster of tumultuous excitement and parasitic need. Sometimes two people don’t always bring the best out of people, and that’s OK. But because of all this, it’s made being in a calm, loving, and kind environment, uncomfortable at times. And not because being made to feel safe and loved and apart of something special feels bad -- it’s awesome -- but because you’ve been conditioned to only feel love from the rollercoaster ride. Real life roller coasters are fun because as scary as the drops and the loops can be, they give you that weird feeling in your stomach that is uncomfortable but part of the rush. Unfortunately relationships don’t offer a break. You don’t get to sit on a bench after when you feel like you’re going to throw up. You can’t leave the park, because that person is on your lease. You don’t get to go on another ride if the roller coaster is getting too scary because for whatever reason, you’re stuck in line for the roller coaster and can’t seem to get to the exit. 

When my girlfriend and I met, there was an instant attraction and we quickly spent all of our time together. It was a dream come true to be honest. All I ever wanted was the happiness and love and safety of another person, and to provide them with the same. And I really only had ever received the opposite. It really destroys you as a person, both emotionally and morally. I was in a really dark place for a bit right before we met. I had a lot of friends who told me to just relax and not focus on it. That’s fine. I’m not a serial dater. I don’t crave being in a relationship. I just crave one-on-one, genuine relationships with people who won’t disappear. It motivates me to better myself, and to plan for the future, whether that’s a fun concert in two weeks, a vacation in a year, or a lifetime of memories together. Yeah sure, you could dig into that and find some psychoanalyst bullshit saying I’m unhealthy for feeling that way, but dude, I’m 29 years old, I know myself, and I’m aware of how I am, and I’m making it work. 

So we spent the first few days seeing each other, and it wasn’t anything she did or I did, it was the voices, creeping on up in my happiness (after several months of *very* dark thoughts). 

And when I say voices, I don’t mean the devil channeling his demons while humming “Tip Toe Through the Tulips”. I really think voices are subjective to the person. I’m sure many people hear some crazy shit. But for me, the voices I “hear” aren’t like real spoken voices. It’s like I start thinking certain things and feeling a particular way, but it’s new, and out of the blue. It slowly flows all the way through me until I’m stuck on it, and then I can’t go back. The concept is planted like some Russian mind control out of an ‘80’s movie, and then once its really evident to me, the voices become my own and keep digging into that thought. It sounds much crazier than it actually is lol, I’m just trying to describe how it feels. Kind of like how drug highs in movies or shows are never accurate whatsoever, I don’t think the way “hearing voices” is perceived in really accurate; it’s just to make it easier to understand. In this case, I just started feeling skeptical about the whole situation. After 4-5 days of having a great time, out of the blue, I was just like “you need to end this”. OK but why? That’s absolutely ridiculous. You’re having a great time with this person, and then one day, you start finding reasons to end this, after years and months of beginning and wishing to find happiness with another person. What the actual fuck Kerry? Fuck you. 

And then I realized, I’ve been conditioned to expect something manic to happen by now, whether it’s some insanely long and crazy sexual escapade, a spontaneous adventure somewhere, a bender, a no-fucks-given spending spree, or a combination of all of these. As fun as those things are, they’ve always set me up for the worst kind of relationship, someone who feeds off me as much as I feed off them. When Rhi and I first started spending time together that first week, week and a half, yeah we went out a lot and were in that honeymoon phase, but we really tried to take things slow and not get caught up in past mistakes. WHICH IS REALLY FUCKING GOOD AND HEALTHY. But those voices man, as much as they’re taking from past negative situations and causing me to second guess my current happiness, they made sure to really plant that thought in my mind, so by the time I actually got to process how I was feeling, I had already decided I was ending it, without actually allowing myself to think logically whatsoever. So I called her and told her. 

And thank God, I went to bed, and woke up and realized what a fucking idiot I was and tried to explain what was going on, and some of my crazy (but not too much that she’d be scared and never talk to me again). I’m so glad I woke up and was able to fix the mistake I made because I don’t know where I’d be now, or if I’d ever be able to forgive myself. 

I think sometimes we get too focused on entertainment-based examples of what love is. We get so hung up on how the two characters in the movie have this tumultuous relationship and fall madly in love and live happily ever after, or the seemingly-perfect couple on Instagram with their baller house and vacations and faces void of concern over what overdue bills are taking precedent this week over others. Love comes in lots of forms for lots of people. What you need is different than what someone else might, and that’s OK. To someone looking in, you might look at my life as relatively boring - I don’t have any money to travel, my girlfriend and I fell asleep before midnight on New Year’s Eve this past year, and I look forward to taking a stroll with my pups, but it’s calm, supportive, and loving, and kind, and communicative, and honest. It’s not easy - we struggle with each other’s mental health issues, we find fun in different things, we have contrasting views about everything from home decor to how to dress, and sometimes we cry and fight and are self-conscious or distant or needy, but I love my girlfriend, and I love feeling like a person for once. I may not write as much as I used to, but it’s because I’m living. I don’t have as much pain to cope with, because meeting her has allowed me to fill up so many holes, what I, for a long time thought, were unfixable black holes. And much like myself, though black holes seem empty, they’re so full of the negative, void of light, and nobody should be consumed by that much sadness and emptiness. People definitely should not be that void. 

I just want to remind you guys that if you meet someone, or a few people, or a coffee table, or a vibrator that wants to stick it out with you, see it through. Being calm and content is OK, even if you’re not used to feeling it.