Oh, what am I doing, going on and on as if things were only as confusing as switching job fields.

The fact is, I need to break up with Jeff. I've been thinking about this for so long now that I just want it to be done so I can move on with my life. I feel really withdrawn emotionally about the whole situation. I don't know if I've cried all the tears I can about this (for now) or if it's just a defense mechanism to not really allow myself to feel everything that I am.

A part of me feels like a failure, a drop out. Things get tough in my relationship and I'm just going to quit? Am I quitting or am I acting intelligently and ending something that has been done for awhile now, and I'm simply trying to push us both forward to our new future.

Okay, stay with me. In my head I was thinking...okay, I broke up with Tim--how did I do it? I figured I probably wrote about it and I did here in the aptly titled, "Liberation." Well, it didn't provide the details I was looking for (and I sure did reference god a lot didn't I!) and I thought, maybe I wrote more about him in the next entry.

So, I reviewed my "Friends With Benefits" (as if you can't figure out where that one is going) entry and as I keep reading I find...the missing link!

Haha, okay, this will only be entertaining for me, but in a recent entry I was having a really hard time with my memory. I met the super Christians at one of the weddings and I knew I had ate dinner with this family but for the life of me just could not figure out when/where or why. Well, I found it in the entry!

This relates directly back to my entry which I just wrote on December 20th. Ahh.

Well, it's only a teeny-tiny reference but it's pretty amazing to stumble upon a strange, foggy memory and then come across the answer in a random entry on September 22, 1999 (yes, I have been online journaling that long!!)

But back to my original story...

With Tim I was concerned with the hidden obligations and assumptions that came along with being in a Relationship.

Sorry. Lol. I just finished reading the rest of another entry where I'm trying to break up with tim. Ooh, strange, I just noticed I wrote it on 9/9 - Jeff's birthday. But anyway, my letter to Tim at the end was worth the read. Interesting, because I was thinking of writing a letter to Jeff in this entry (not exactly along the same lines that I "wrote" to Tim), but just something to put my thoughts together.

Referencing, that entry, I don't remember Tim not liking grapes. That's so strange, who doesn't like grapes? (Jeff doesn't like green grapes either, my favorite). Perhaps, my calling will be found when I'm finally with a guy that likes green grapes. They're tart and delicious, I simply don't understand these boy's aversion to them.

Sorry, I'm a little all over the place. Does anyone else do that? Have like five entries open, going back and reading different parts, trying to find something you wrote or thought earlier?

Do I let people abuse my friendship on a regular basis? I wrote on 9/5/99, "C'mon, I'm easy. I'll let you walk all over me forever. I'll live with excuses, I'll even make them for you. But I need to see some kind of change"--this, thinking about my relationship with Tim.

Or was I talking about my relationship with Jeff? I know I make excuses for him, but I do honestly feel they are legitimate excuses. He also has a good heart and he's an intelligent guy. He's in a rut. I'm sure it happens to everyone. It doesn't mean we (ahem, I) should abandon him. BUT, I don't feel like I'm in this position of wanting to end our relationship because I can't deal with his "rut." It's larger than that.

Again, talking about my relationship with Tim I wrote, "I want to feel like it's going somewhere. Or at least just going.... And that's the worst of it. It's not even going. And if it's not even going, then seriously what the hell is the point? I mean we like to think of things going somewhere. But when it isn't even going, if it's not moving at all, then it doesn't really exist. Except I've got this chain on me that says it does. It doesn't make me feel good. And it definitly makes me look bad. What the heck are we doing anyway?"

<..reading old entries..>Wow, I forgot about all that stuff going on with Tim. I'm so glad I journal, my memory would not exist without it. Yes, well, it appears it might have been a little easier to break up with Tim (I mean, other than that fact that the relationship I'm in *now* is on a completely different level, but..) simply because I did feel like I was being treated poorly. I'm still not sure what was going on with him. I think he was dealing with his own troubles and school (hmm, this sounds familiar; replace school with "work") and was pushing away with everyone to go out and get drunk with his friends.

Okay, I don't know if he was getting drunk (haha), but that wouldn't have surprised me. Anyway, I was definitly in a poor, Seventeen magazine drama, not knowing what to do with how our relationship was going. My current situation is just as clueless, but in different ways.

<..still reading..> Ahgad. Tim's behavior towards me probably sounds like my behavior towards Jeff (**ashamed face**).

Oh man. I do really feel bad about the avoidance but it's hard to really face your problems.

<..bleh, reading more...> It's pretty exhausting sometimes to read your own work. To dig back into your brain, both experiencing the things you wrote about in addition to everything you were feeling when you actually got around to writing it. And wow, I talked about god so much in those entries. Ah, those crazy youth group kids, see what they did to me?

But that's awesome. You know, I wasn't a Christian, but you could see how the idea of 'god' was this huge influence in my life. I do miss that.

Anyway, I really tried to pump myself up before going to Jeff's last night. I knew it would be my last opportunity to talk to him 'real' before he left for Chicago. I wasn't going to bring up the "bad stuff" with us over the phone or email so I would have to keep pretending about us for another week and longer until I could finally just sit down and talk with him.

As soon as I walked into his house and his mom and dad greeted me. Ha, I knew I wasn't going to have that talk. It's awful. I know that I need to do it. I know we need to have this talk, and I am absolutely terrified. I really feel like I have no feel for how this will go. I am looking for that nudge or that grasp on what I'm doing. I have no idea how Jeff will take it or what I need to say to do it best.

Breaking up with Tim, that was like the best break-up in history. The timing was absolutely perfect. Sure, it was my only official break-up in the history of Aglaia life, ah, but I did it well and all was fine when it happened. And tim and I did remain friends. It slowly fazed out as relationships should, especially with him still in HS and me in my freshman year of school, but had we had the opportunity to interact more on a more frequent basis, I'm confident we would have remained friends (rather than acquaintances as I would consider us now).

Jeff was acting especially loving last night as well. Making it that much harder to bring up darker things. He was being real cute, singing aloud switching our nickname out for the real words (we both do this, it doesn't even make sense, we'll just slip our name in at random moments i.e. I love rock n roll, so put another "aglaia" in the jukebox baby"). He was also giving me the googly love eyes and I felt like a true imposter.

This beautiful woman sent me a very nice personal message. She pinpointed a specific area of problem that I have with Jeff: sex.

She made it oh, so clear, that it is not likely that I am sexually deficient, but more realistically, I simply wasn't attracted to Jeff anymore. I think...I did know that, but, it is different when someone else tells you. All along, I thought maybe there was something wrong with me. Perhaps the hormones from birth control, or my diet, or the stress from work (which, all could be playing their part), but....to leave it simply at attraction. I hadn't made that clear connection, or even asked myself it that's what it could be.

Once that discovery had surfaced in me, I feel like it's almost impossible to turn back. I'm not attracted to him? I'm attracted to my boyfriend? It was like, I didn't even want to be touched by him. I had crossed over from trying to imagine other people in my bed to simply play along to being to the point where I was in bed with someone, doing sexual things with someone I didn't want to be doing them with.

It's horrible and hard for me to even say these things aloud. I don't want to deny everything we've had. It's like, how do you get to this point? I loved him. I loved having sex with him! I loved being close and holding him. I loved kissing his neck, down his body, sweeping my lips across his sides, his back and feeling my hands up his legs and around his neck, feeling his smile with my tongue, and waiting...in sweet surrender for him to finally make love to me.

[crying now]Apparently I am human.

I miss him. Ohhh, Jeff. I am so sorry. I want to hold him and be with him and feel those feelings. I want to get excited about being with him, seeing his name on callerID, waiting in pleasure, for another opportunity to see him again. I want to kiss him and really kiss him. And really feel kissed back.

I don't feel...much anymore. Like I've said, I know living at home for this long, for both of us to be living at our parent's homes for this long...I know it has contributed to the downfall. That's why I think...well, I think just moving out (moving anywhere) would be so good for us. And I think moving to Chicago, really relying on each other it would be good for us. And we'd be growing so rapid, forced to adapt and experience in our new environment...it'd be a wonderful opportunity for us to be together and grow together.

But, god, it just doesn't feel good now. I feel, very disatisfied. And the sex, I don't want to do it. I don't want to reject him (I did last night) and it really sucked. If he did what I did to him last night...that has to be the most lonely and confused position to be in. When even your kisses and touches react in your significant other pulling away from you and rolling the other way. I didn't know what to do. I just wanted...him to stop. We could lay there and hold and spoon and that would be fine, but...

That's not enough for us. That's not enough for anyone. Sexual intimacy is important in a relationship. What am I supposed to do if I just don't have those feelings?

And here he is, all stressed and concerned about his new change, job searching in Chicago...he's so fragile and extra moody right now. How am I supposed to break his heart when he's already in the middle of a big transition. I can only imagine his confused and frustrated thoughts regarding his own self worth and attempts at finding a job and re-focusing his life. I'm not sure how I fit into all those concerns, but I have more time on my hands to worry about 'us' that he does.

And his parents! I feel terrible about 'breaking up' with them too (a la Sex in the City, style). I feel, as if I owe them an apology. Especially if I do it now. When he's got enough to worry about with his job woes. I really like his parents, I don't want them to think of me poorly for letting down their son, for letting them down.

Oh, I wish Jeff was here right now. I wish Jeff would talk to me, start this conversation. I'm sure he would have something to say. But it's probably going to have to be me that talks to him. I'm not so much frightened about losing 'us' ...I think I've had the time to really accept the idea of a break-up that it doesn't scare me or hurt me as much. I know, if/when it happens I may feel differently. I don't think breaking up with Jeff will be the 'liberation' it was with Tim.

I'm scared more of losing his friendship; our frienship. Jeff...his anger, his pride, i'm afraid he'll let that stand in the way of us still being friends. I don't expect to be a good friend of his after this is over. It would be too hard for both of us. (Great, crying again). Perhaps in a perfect world, it would work out. But I can't imagine seeing him...and not being with him. And the thought of him with other girls it makes my everything flip on my insides. He still means so much to me. He still is so much of my life.

Especially with him moving to Chicago...if we break up, that will probably speed the process to get away from me. I would love for this to go down, where we could really talk about our differences and he could agree that maybe we shouldn't be together. But I don't know if that's going to happen. I don't know if he's been having the doubts I've been having.

Eventually we will talk. I don't know how many attempts and pep talks it will take me but...it will happen. Oh...I wish I wouldn't have started crying. It's in tears, and emotion, that I can see how lonely, and scared I am. It's in tears that I feel my heart breaking, and it hurts. It hurts so much. It's such a deep, penetrating pain. True...sorrow and regret for things, that I don't think I can change.