A Backwards Attraction

Ah, how I hate this keyboard!

        It's the holiday season, and for students without job obligations that usually is code for going back home (wherever home may be).  

        It's interesting, even at an older age I still feel the aggravated effects of being a divorced child.  Last night was spent here at my dad's house, and tonight will be at my mom's.  It is such a compromise that I never seemed to get over because I feel like I have failed an obligation of sorts--to appease both parents equally; it will never happen fully, and it is a reality I have been unable to face since the age of four. 

         My hometown has been treating me decently--it is not at all the same as where I typically live, in the city; here, everyone talks to me in Spanish.  I am often bewildered--it is not at all something I remembered to happen so frequently.  I feel so dumb, and at the same time a slight conceit comes over me; no, I do not want to talk to you in Spanish, no matter how close we may be to the border.  I will succumb to it eventually, but it's disheartening.  I feel so disconnected because I guess I forgot how things work at home. 

        I have yet to start on some of my art.  I was going to work out, but it's drizzling.  Instead, I read and write.  I talk with my family, and that's the best part.  My father and I were talking about how things used to be when he was a child, and since I'm a filmy we discussed the different cinemas that existed in this area--he spoke about one in particular that was a hub for Mexican movie stars. The glamor! 

        I remember a couple of cinemas growing up--one in particular was structured very eerily; it was partitioned to keep separate the whites from the Mexicans.  They're all gone now (not the whites or Mexicans; I meant to say the theaters).  It breaks my heart, the shift from an art-appreciative culture to one that is fueled by fast-food stores and Cinemarks.  Someone, pass me the ipecac!  

        My dad even mentioned how across from one of the theaters was a Greek restaurant owned by a Greek family for whites only.  That made my stomach hurt; I know and don't know.  

Now, I guess we can address the title of this post.  

        Yesterday I received a text from someone I have been talking to--in fact, we have been talking for a while now.  Since before Thanksgiving, I believe.  It has been a short while, I suppose.  Either way, I am perplexed by the entire situation and I hate that this is a cycle that is constant and always happening!     

       Whenever I am least interested in relationships is when someone will come my way and things just...click.  

        I am, to be honest, a workaholic.  I put my work in front of many personal obligations.  I suppose it is a defense mechanism of sorts and men are not, in my experience, very used to it.  Every man I have ever dated has feigned acceptance with the line, "I love an ambitious, hard-working girl."  Actually, no, no you don't.  I could backtrack all the men that have said that and the narrative is always the same--at the end, they complain that I never make time for them and things dissolve.  Men, don't lie to yourselves.  I don't know, maybe I'm more work-oriented than any girl you have ever met, but it always seems to be the problem.  Always.  Always.  Always.  I'm also not a romantic.

Anyway, so that's the exposition, the set-up. 

     I was minding my own business and then this guy comes along--he is, to be honest, older.  I'm not in ageism, so it was not a problem for me or him.  It did not start romantically IN THE LEAST, but here we are again.  In his words, "I was sucked into your vortex and I have no intent of coming out of it."

        Make me barf.  Well, honesty can be the best policy.  I just feel so dishonest.  

I have someone in my bed every night and deep down I think he does too.  Despite everything, I'm trying to break free from my quotidian trends.  I visited a good friend of mine who dabbles in tarot readings and I asked her to practice on me.  We did a love reading, and it basically read that I am resigned to stay the same.  Only once did it read that I would meet someone older who would, despite the romance that would develop, somehow give me betterment in my work achievements.  And it happened that way, so I don't know.  I did not want to abide by what the readings said, so I took a leap and accepted a date invitation from "M."  The worst part was that it was the best date of my life--it was incandescently and utterly perfect.  We met up once more before I had to come back home, and I am trying to distance myself from him.  Things have yet to get physical, but I know that it will surely come if I let it.  But the anticipation of seeing each other is annoying me.  I told him I put high priority on my work and he told me, "that's sexy and sexy doesn't faze me."  Once again, hand me the ipecac.  

        I did an animation for a class of mine, and sent him the link.  He called me and told me, "I have to let you know...I watch this video almost constantly.  Knowing that it's yours makes me smile."  I appreciated the comment, but at the same time that video is crazy and I don't know what that says about him.  

        I'm at a war with myself.  Maybe I should re-read The Art of War.

-Bey #8