the dilemma

I date because I feel like I don't really exist. 

Like huge chunks are missing.  Temporally, they are.  I was nowhere for six years, and before that I was in a private hell for just as long.  

I've been picking up pieces and filling in gaps but I have to go back to age ten to find what feels like a true semblance, and that's no way for an adult to be. Honestly I barely even remember anything from back then anyway, and I suspect that most of what I think I remember is actually just from looking at photographs or from eyewitness accounts.  Which doesn't leave me with much.

So when I date, I can almost acquire a self, complete with likes and dislikes, habits, favorite places, tastes, viewpoints, beliefs.

In a way it's all about certainty.  

28 seems too late to be building a person, a life.  I'm embarrassed when people begin asking questions, not just about where I've been since age 18, but even basic things, like What are your favorite movies, or who do you hang out with.  None of my answers reach back past the last two and a half years.  And most of that time has been spent cautiously, in fear of the world and its people and navigating on my own.  It's been a slow process, unfurling myself, bit by bit, trying things out.  There's always the fear; understandable considering how hard and far I fell before.  

So I date, and I grasp onto someone else's life and hope that by being part of it, I could have a life.  Like I could absorb some of their vibrant, full personhood through osmosis.  

But it never really works.  I'm left with just me, still feeling empty, still wandering.

Relationships

Those who know me well would unanimously agree that relationships aren't exactly my strong point.  In fact, they have proved to be my downfall on more than one occasion.  I usually feel like everyone else was born with some sort of innate instruction manual that I somehow missed out on.  Like if you're color blind, and everyone else just gets it, while you're stumbling around trying to figure out when the light is red and when it's green and you get hit by a car while you're trying to figure it out.  You mean well, and you just wanted to cross the damn street like everyone else, but it all goes wrong.  And people are standing around staring at the wreckage, wondering why you couldn't have just been more careful.  I just wanted to cross the street people.  Is that too much to ask?!

I've had a lot of boyfriends, and even a husband once (that's a whole 'nother story).  I've worn several boys' rings on my finger.  I've thought I was going to marry almost every boy I've dated, from the very first boyfriend.  I don't really know why I perpetually have a boyfriend.  It's not like I set out to acquire them; they just sort of happen to me, like chicken pox.  (Except usually it's both more pleasant, and much more unpleasant, than chickenpox.)  

The last boyfriend lasted for six months, until it was painfully obvious to both of us that it just wasn't working.  It took me a while to understand that it wasn't because there was anything "wrong" with me; we just weren't right for each other.  I vowed to remain single for "a while", to try to get some practice being single and just enjoying life.  Which I've done.  It's pretty great, actually.  I go out, I do things, I hang out with people, I remember that I have a fair amount of friends.  I realize how much fun it can be to be a grown-up.

But now, after just 3 and a half months, I seem to be in some sort of relationship.  I say "some sort" because I can't figure out what kind, exactly.  And what's worse, I can't figure out what I want it to be.  We see each other 2 or 3 times a week, we're sleeping together, and we say "I love you".  We've met some of each other's friends.  So it would appear like he is my boyfriend.  But I still feel fiercely determined to hang on a little longer to my singlehood, if just to prove that I can.  I guess it just seems all backwards.  Like, the "I love you" stuff and for me maybe even the sex stuff are things that come after you've made some sort of commitment, or defined what you are to each other.  But here's the confusing part; there aren't any basic rules or guidelines!  How do people know?  

So what do I do?  My usual approach is to just wait it out, see what happens, until either he mans up and breaks up with me (doing for me what I can't do for myself), or some sort of disaster occurs that leaves no possibility of the relationship continuing.  Thus avoiding the need for me to make up my damn mind, be brave, and make a decision.

Welcome to the Dinosaur Institute

I showed up for my first day at my new job, at the back staff entrance to the museum. I attempted to hide my enthusiasm because I really felt like wiggling like a puppy, and I didn't think that would seem cool or professional. A guy named Doyle, from the lab, came down to meet me and we chatted as we got on the elevator. "I love science!" I accidentally blurted out when he asked me about my interests and what I'm studying. We took the elevator up to the 4th floor--Staff Members Only. It looked exactly like what the secret inner workings of a natural history museum should. Tall, long hallways lined with fossils mounted on the walls; old and dusty and too hot; offices, labs, doors opening to rooms full of rows of drawers containing specimens and fossils. As we got to the headquarters of the Dinosaur Institute--the Vertebrate Paleontology department--the double doors were blocked by a large, flat cart with a gigantic whale vertebrae on it, 8 people struggling to turn it and push it out the door. I smiled and thought to myself, "I'm going to like it here." In fact, my friend called me later in the day and I told him "I want to work here for the rest of my life." Which may be premature, considering I had been on the job for a total of 3 hours, but I tend to get very excited about things. I mean, there are dinosaur paintings and fossils and books everywhere! Besides, everyone I've met so far seems really nice and kind of nerdy, so I think I'll fit right in.
It's great to be working again; I tend to go into existential-crisis mode if I go too long without a job. My brain requires constant stimulation or it turns on itself.