10:10 PM - Wednesday, Dec. 07, 2005
Chickity China.. the Chinese Chicken.
I'm sitting here because I'm unable to sleep. Thoughts flow through my mind as if they are bouncing off one another. I can't seem to stop them.
A funny thing happened to me today. I was sitting in the lounge area at school waiting for my class to start. Suddenly, my daydream is interrupted by a familiar voice. "Hello, Jessica," he says. And I look up into the warm brown eyes of my friend David. No. Not that David. A David I met at the beginning of the semester. We often speak to each other for a few minutes as he heads into class and I wait for my classroom door to be unlocked.
David smiles at me so I smile back. He asks me, completely out of the blue, "are you married?" I wanted to laugh. I'm often asked this question. Do I look like I'm the kind of girl who would be, let alone could be, married? I just shook my head and said, "No. No, I'm not married." So then he asked, "Do you have a boyfriend?" Again, I wanted to laugh. Do I look like the kind of girl who would, let alone could, have a boyfriend? I just smiled and said, "No." And then I asked him, which was completely out of character, "why do you ask?" I wanted to see what he'd say even though I already had a feeling where this conversation was headed.
David smiled and said, "I'd like to take you out sometime." I said, and I'm not quite sure why this popped out of my mouth.. but I said, "Do you know how old I am?" "No. No, I don't. Why? Does it matter?" And I said, "Sometimes. How old are you?" He said he was 24. I told him I was 28.
And then he said something that made me want to laugh. I had to literally bite my tongue to keep myself from laughing. He wouldn't understand what I was laughing at anyway. He said this, "Age is just a number. But if I had been 18 or 19, then that would have been too young. 18 and 19 year olds are still children in my opinion." I smiled, nodded and told him I agreed. He went on. "They're old enough to vote and be considered adults but they don't really have a clue what's going on." I smiled and nodded. Eventually I gave him my cell phone number. After all, he really is a nice guy. I'd like to keep being his friend.
Some of you may be wondering why I wanted to laugh at him saying such a thing about 18-19 year olds. Some of you already know why. It was just ironic of him to say such a thing when I'm currently fighting with my emotions over Cory and his dating a 19 year old. Cory is 32. There's a 13 year difference between the two of them. When he was 26, she was 13. When he was 13, she was just being born. When he was her age (19), she was 6. Am I the only one who finds that sick?
I look at men like Hugh Heffner and I understand why he dates women younger than his daughter. What I don't understand is women like his 3 girlfriends, women like Anna Nicole Smith, women who choose to be with a man their grandfather's or father's age.
I tried to support Cory in the beginning. I really did. But here is why I can't:
1. When I was 19, I thought I was an adult. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the world. I dated men my age and men about 5 years older than me. Looking back on it now, I thought I was invincible. I wasn't an adult. I made poor decisions. I drank too much, had sex with random guys a lot, and all for what? Because I thought I was acting the way an adult acts? It wasn't until I reached 21 that I figured out I didn't know what in the world I wanted out of life, and that I wasn't ready to be forced into this adult world. And it wasn't until I was 25 that I actually began to become the adult I am today.
2. He hurt me. Look back in my diary. There's numerous times written all throughout the pages. Let's list those off.
A. How many times did he threaten to end the friendship because I stated an opinion that didn't agree with his own? Or I didn't support his decisions... or I wrote about how I felt in this journal and he flew off the handle at me for expressing my emotions?
B. He was unreliable. He would say he would do things and never do them. And when I told him he was unreliable, he grew mad at me and.. guess what. Threatened to end the relationship.
C. I felt led on. There was always this underlying promise that what we shared would eventually become more than what it was. Or maybe he's good at making people feel as if there's some sort of promise when there really isn't one. I haven't figured this one out at all.
I could go on. I'd be able to make it through the entire alphabet if I wanted too. But I think you get the idea.
3. He compared the two of us to each other. He compared ME to a 19 year old. And the more I thought about that, the more I felt as if he never really knew me. And because of this, I also wonder.. had we developed the relationship into something more substantial, would he have left me for a younger woman once I began to look my age? He likes them young. Whose to say he wouldn't ditch me twenty years from now when I'm in my 40s?
4. This is the last one I'll list. And it's the most important one by far. I am angry. I feel this rage inside of me towards him. I want to scream at him. I want to ask him, "how could you do this to me?" I want to beat him up. I want him to hurt. I want to yell at the top of my lungs that I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. I want to look him straight in the eye and say, "FUCK YOU!"
So why haven't I? Am I afraid of letting go? Am I scared that once I do he'll be out of my life forever? Do I even want him in my life forever anymore? Deep down I know it's an immature way to react to a bad situation, and I tell myself that's why I haven't pushed the buttons. That's why I haven't told him exactly how I feel deep inside. Believe me I've tried. I've tried to tell him exactly how I feel about the entire thing in as mature a way as possible, but he won't listen. He gets mad. He doesn't want to deal with the fact that he's hurt me.
I want him to wake up one day and realize what he's lost. Of course, my friends tell me it's definitely his loss. But that's what friends are supposed to tell you. They're supposed to make you feel better about the whole thing. Then again, my friends have always told me throughout our entire relationship that he treats me like shit. And of course I defended him, saying things like, "You don't know him. He's not like that all the time." Key words people. "all the time." Meaning, he's ALWAYS like that some of the time.
There's a little voice inside my head. It's saying "it's time to move on. It's time to let go. Maybe in five years you'll be able to be friends with him, but right now you can't."
I deserve better than this.. and so I can't.
