Perfection

I fell in love with a narcissist. Or.

I fell in love with a ‘nice guy.’ Or.

When I fell in love with him, I was crazy.

When I fell in love with him, I was broken.

I have been trying to get perfect. I have been trying to approach perfection but the goalposts are always moving. Once it was enough to bleach my hair blonde and buy platform shoes and sparkle makeup. Now I need a six-figure job, but instead, I have ten years of illness behind me. Not the crazy-girl kind. The unglamorous puking my guts out kind.

The I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to carry a baby but I am trying my hardest to get strong enough, kind. That kind.

I wouldn’t blame him if that disqualified me. If any of it disqualified me. I was expecting him to say I was not good enough, I kept waiting and waiting and. He was expecting to say he was not fuckable enough and I kept saying, every way I could, fuck you, why aren’t you holding me, why aren’t you kissing me, why are you turning desire into a bad thing, yes you are, right now.

I know the rules. At least, I know them enough. No one really knows them. But I know I am not supposed to write about wanting some guy when he is dating someone else and probably well on his way to married by now, but. I never fantasized about that, before I met him. Never fantasized about someone else’ pleasure. My friend in high school said giving her boyfriend a blowjob was a huge high, that it gave her power, and power was a turn on. I don’t give a shit about power.

I want him to feel good more than I want me to feel good, and that’s the whole entire problem, isn’t it?

I wanted him to feel good so I didn’t interfere by, you know, loving him too much. Loving him out loud. I left him alone so I wouldn’t bother him. I left him alone and I stared at the back of his head but I didn’t talk to him. I tried to speak words in order but really what I was thinking was, you have hands and I have a body, please..

I’m not supposed to need him. I know that much.

Perfect girl wouldn’t need him. Perfect girl is blonde and blue eyed and California girl pretty. Perfect girl is girl next door cute and buxom but not as much as me, not so other guys leer. Perfect girl has somehow perfected the trick of attracting only the guy she really wants and making every other guy feel like shit for even being in her vicinity, and I wish I had her talent. I always felt like if I opened up to him other guys would elbow him aside and pick my petals and he would let them and tell me I wanted them to. But I didn’t want them to. I just didn’t know how to stop them.

His were the only hands I ever wanted on me. Were. Are. Past tense is a convenient place to hide. Him and me, we are so clever. Such good hiders.

Somewhere there is a me who is crying and then there is me right here, writing about things I should not be writing about, violence and suicide, blow jobs and this man who I guess loves someone else or wants to or thinks he should. I think he should. I think she’s better than me.

But does she fantasize about giving him blow jobs, just because she wants him to feel good? Probably not.

Or maybe she does. Maybe he belongs to her, and not to me, and my stupid heart needs to stupid get over it already. Even though my heart is many things but not stupid. And even though I really am always right.

I am not a perfect girl. I do not have blonde hair. I am way too fat to be perfect. I am not cute and I am not particularly bubbly. I write inappropriate things and I say silly things and I am sick and my body has issues but I love my body anyway. I love my heart anyway, even though I can’t let go. Because honestly? I wanted to feel this way my whole life. And even if he does not love me back, at least I know what it feels like now.

Nobody is perfect. Perfection is built on being completely numb, or else never having been hurt or abused in the first place. No one is perfect.

Camelot was right. The way to handle a woman is to love her, and convince her your love is for real. I convinced him my love was not for real and I thought he wouldn’t want my real love, imperfect as it was.

He taught me not to care. Not to look for the best I could get and not to give a shit what someone’s like on paper because he taught me love is deeper than any of those things. I love him beyond however he shows up day to day. I love him beneath all that. I just never thought there was any way he could love me.

I know this is more diary entry than essay. I don’t care. Maybe he’ll read it one day. Maybe one day I’ll trust him enough to let him.

Perfection is worth nothing, but trust is worth more than I ever thought. My trust in him was perfect, when I met him. And then, it broke.

And now it doesn’t matter what I feel any more.