A Goat Called Sheila

"What the hell are you talking about?"

I'm getting that a lot.

I can try to explain the catalyst, but I don't understand it completely. I know this: something snapped in my head (brain? soul? heart? person?). Like, "Snap! Bang! Karate CHOP!" and I saw the world differently, clearer. A little "mo' better".

I apologize, because I hate being self-indulgently honest and earnest and "talking about my feelings". It's not bullshit, but it's a little pretentious. On the other hand, this IS my blog. Skip it if it bores you. I promise I won't mind.

A large part of it, though certainly not all of it, is guy who shall not be named. Fuck. It's always GWSNBN. I've never met anyone before who can so effectively... I don't know. He gets to me. He gets under my skin like no one ever has. My mother looked at me last night, I think out of the blue (we were both tipsy at this point) and said "Well, you love him".

I was all over that like "Oh, no I don't!" My inner Shanaynay snapped her fingers.

She told me "Well, yes, you do. I can tell he's important to you."

Dammit.

She's right. And it's not an issue of whether or not he deservers it (He doesn't. That's been established). I just do. I won't in a while, but I did the first time when we were dating, which isn't so bad, except it ended with me getting hurt. Then six weeks went by, and I thought "Whatever. I'm ok".

If you gave me a million dollars to go back in time and change it, I wouldn't. I'm not sorry I got hurt. It was pain, but it was MY pain, and I learned from it.

Then I loved him again the second time, which WAS bad because we were supposed to be "just friends" because he had a girlfriend, except that we kept sleeping together anyway and then saying "ok that's the last time THAT happens" and then doing it again (the next night!) and the whole time I was mentally like "oh my god, if you knew how much I loved you right now it would freak you the hell out" but it was fine, because I thought he at least liked me because he gave me this whole spiel about how he's with his girlfriend now and he's leaving in a year and I'm trying to leave, too, but that if circumstances were different, like if we both knew for sure we wouldn't be apart in a year, we'd be together and he actually likes me but then that turned out to be bullshit, which I didn't want to believe except that three separate people (and more afterwards) told me it was, and then he basically told me it was himself, and I'm starting to believe he only wanted to have cake and eat it too, and the only reason I had a hard time wrapping my head around that was that, while vertical, we were actually really good friends. Except now we aren't. But that's a complicated story (like this isn't?)

It helps to get it out in one breath like that.

Actually, in the six weeks that went by, between the first time when we dated and the second time, when we were “friends” I wasn't like "whatever". I was more like...

Hang on. Are you sitting? Seriously. Sit down.

I was more like "Hey, I feel weird. Like, fat. Like, nauseous. I wonder... no fucking way."

Way. Biggest lesson of 2004: don't skip pills (it was, by the way, an accident).

I miscarried.

When I was little, I wrote a story that I’ve since lost. It was about a little goat named Sheila who was scared to go into the forest. She had to, though, every day, as part of her chores. So when she had to walk into the dark forest, she took steps as big as she could and made “loud, firm stepping noises with her feet”. As she stomped along like this, she would say to herself “Rah! I’m brave.”

Well, call me Sheila. I’m NOT going to be intimidated. Not by Manhattan doctors, not by success, not by the loftiness of my dreams, not by the desires of the people who only act like my friends, not by what anyone thinks of me. Not even by what my mom thinks of me (because I think that scares me more than anything. As much as I disapprove of some of the things she does, and as much as I’d like to pretend I don’t care what she thinks, I care more about her opinion of me than anyone else’s in the entire world. You heard it here first.) I’m just not going to be afraid of the truth anymore. This is me.

I’m terrified now. I’m scared to turn 23, because that sounds like I should be super responsible and I‘m not sure I‘m up to task. I’m terrified to move to New York. I’m terrified to be successful, I’m terrified to fail. I’m scared my life won’t work properly, and I won’t be able to return it to the store for another one. If you ask me, from a logical point of view, whether or not I think I have the ability to be successful, I’ll say yes. Emotionally, I’m working on it. But I’m going to rock. I promise. I will rock this world.

“Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.” - Omar Bradley

Rah! I’m brave.