Where you'll be, I'll go...

Tired again.

Up too late again.

Mulling over gut instincts, mulling over apathy where it should be and where it should not. Mulling over my desire to retreat from this social life I've made for myself, to take a week off, get a hotel somewhere up the coast, and stop living for other people.

Too many pressures.

Trying too hard to maintain social connections, emails piling up, phone calls, texting, schedules to mix, people to be nice to even when I feel like screaming. I set aside time to respond to these things, but it's never enough.

I'm getting snappy and irritable.

I'm looking at this thing with Ev, how we are supposed to be spending the 23rd together in his bed... and I don't want to.

He's an intelligent, attractive man. Not my usual type (blond), but he's desirable to me.

And, right now, I really don't want him in any way, shape, or form.

I have no interest in shacking up with someone else, even if on a monthly basis. Even with a man such as him, who is a genuine nice guy with alpha tendencies.

I just don't see the point.

Sex and some bruises? Bite marks on my shoulders and breasts? I can get that from a number of claimed sources. I don't need a new one.

I don't need another one with a man that will never line up with me. That I will never sync with, that I will never be able to relax and truly be myself with.

I'm done. I'm sick of hooking up with decent, attractive men that I feel nothing with, nothing for, other than the excitement of the experience of a new body. Of having that, again, total disconnect between us, one that is only hidden by my strivings to act as though it is not there.

Wonder if they ever know?

The act, the words, the laughter, the temporary genuine enjoyment of time spent. And then you separate, and they fade from mind because they're nothing in your head, nothing in your heart, and you knew that, knew it from the moment you set eyes on them, but you wanted them anyhow, enjoyed them anyhow, so you took and pleasured and eventually they'll meet someone (because you never will) and totter off while you wish them luck in love, without bitterness, without anger, just knowing that you'll have to find another next time you feel the need.

Yes.

That's it. That's all it's going to be.

Draw more and more into yourself.

Ring on your finger, nose buried in a book, filling your days with work, with research, with improving, so that maybe, one day, you'll reach your own goals and you won't feel so... incomplete? No. So you won't constantly look down on yourself for never achieving what you should have, never being what you could have. And maybe that'll enable you to meet someone who actually works for you.

Or maybe not.

With all the books you read, places you go, people you meet, degrees acquired, things learned, what are you going to do?

Watch that man go by you. Maybe a moment in grocery store, you look up and your body jolts, your eyes meet, and you know that he's like you. You see the expression of surprise on his face as he stares back.

And you keep walking.

Dive back into a world where other people equate to a lack of relaxation, where friends, no matter how close, mean behavioral control because you're always supposed to be that one on top of everything, that one who swishes her hips and walks down the line. Your male friends love you because you're one of them. Because they can say anything to you and you never even think about judging them. They think you're so bad ass, one of the guys as you sit with them, pointing out the hotties as they walk by.

And you wonder if this is who you are.

Until you get away again, until you center. You point due north until another force takes you for a spin, alters your directions temporarily.

You're happier alone, but sometimes people summon. The lights, the dancing, the observations and humor around you are tempting and you come out, get embroiled, and then you have to extracate yourself again.

How many times do you do this before socializing loses all appeal? Until the idea of spending time around other people causes your gag reflex to engage because you simply can't stomach the thought of putting on another socially acceptable show. Being desired starts to lose meaning, starts to lose worth, and now you engage in it simply to cause others issue.

It's not a burn out, but it's a definite need for space.

How much longer am I going to do this?