how do I look?

The signal is subtle
We pass just close enough to touch
No questions, no answers
We know by now to say enough
With only simple words
With only subtle turns
The things we feel alone for one another
    When—or if—you ask yourself "who am I?", do you have a ready answer? I used to know. Maybe I thought I did. Anyway, I had some confidence in who, or what, I was. I'm not so certain anymore.

There is a secret that we keep
I won't sleep if you won't sleep
Because tonight may be the last chance we'll be given
We are compelled to do what we must do
We are compelled to do what we have been forbidden
    I liked being a student. Knowing that my role was to do nothing so much as to learn and soak up whatever lay before me. I was born to that, though definitely not nurtured to it; my family is not oriented toward that life and doesn't really trust it, and the friends I grew up with are more practically than theoretically grounded. But I loved the long hours of reading and writing papers, answering questions and working my way through problems. I loved curling up on the couch, stretching out on the floor, propping up in bed, laying out in the sun—always with a book in my hand, a notebook by my side, a pen behind my ear or stuck in my hair, taking notes and plotting to finish the assignment, always just in time.

So I won't sleep if you won't sleep tonight
    No one can be a student forever. At least, no one without an infinite source of money to pay for that education, and for the incidentals that incur along the way. So I'm not a student anymore, and my life is very different from the way it used to be. I used to think that my job would be about the accumulation of something: knowledge, information, maybe even money. It hasn't turned out quite like that. I'm a sort of bean-counter/rearranger/cop. It's not terribly creative or inspiring. Maybe I gravitated to it so that the rest of my world, my real life, could be where I'm really living.

Our act of defiance
We keep this secret in our blood
No paper or letters
We pass just close enough to touch
We love in secret names
We hide within our veins
The things that keep us bound to one another
    I can hear the questions: "What brought this on?" "Why all the introspection?" For once, the answer is surprisingly easy to give. I'm tired of my clothes, tired of the black/white/gray/blue uniform that I've cultivated. Tired of something that I know isn't working (although what I mean by "working" is up for debate).
    Shopping, though—whether in person or online—was not entirely fruitful. When I found something that I liked, I knew right away that it wouldn't look good on me. When I found something that would look good on me, it was either not age-appropriate, crazy-expensive, or not at all my style (think hippie-chick flowing tops and ankle-length dresses). Eventually, though, I realized that the fashion police voice in my head was not my own, nor was it one of my best friends who knows me well, knows what I like, knows what looks good on me and what I'm willing to spend to look good.

There is a secret that we keep
I won't sleep if you won't sleep
Because tonight may be the last chance we'll be given
We are compelled to do what we must do
We are compelled to do what we have been forbidden
    That voice was Nick. The guy that I dated over a three-year period beginning around the time I was divorced. Why him?
    Well, first a little background (for the two people on the planet who might have missed this as it happened): we did not date for three years; we were together for maybe 6 months out of that time, because we broke up so often (and so badly) but couldn't manage to stay apart, either. We were a terrific example of all sorts of terrible things. We probably loved each other. It may have even been mutual for a few days here and there. Mostly he was desperate to escape me and I was clutching harder and harder to keep him.
    He adapted innumerable ways to get away. One of the most effective was to start a fight—the sort of fight that has no purpose, no resolution, no point, and no end. His favorite, or at least the one that he used the most often, was to attack my wardrobe. Everything that I owned was wrong in some way, most things for many reasons. My "work clothes" were too uptight/stuffy/boring/conservative. My casual clothes were too preppy (he made some variation on the lesbian-lady-golfer joke a thousand times). My dress clothes were too "grand" and made him feel unsophisticated. My lingerie was too slutty.

Until the last resilient hope
Is frozen deep inside my bones
And this broken fate has claimed me
And my memories for its own
Your name is pounding through my veins
Can't you hear how it is sung?
And I can taste you in my mouth
Before the words escape my lungs
And I'll whisper only once...
    It is very simple to say "that was abuse" and to say "forget about the ravings of an immature, neurotic idiot" and to say "what the fuck does his opinion matter, anyway?!" It is much harder to get that voice, which I loved, after all, somehow, for a long time, during a period where everything else seemed to be so upside-down and wrong, out of my head. Especially when I'm feeling under-confidant anyway. When I'm wondering not if my ass looks big in those pants—I know that my ass never looks big—but whether I can't dress myself right at all. What impression I give, to someone that I've just met. Do I look as wrong as I feel? Do I look, on the outside, anywhere close to the way I feel on the inside?

There is a secret that we keep
I won't sleep if you won't sleep
Because tonight may be the last chance we'll be given
We are compelled to do what we have to
We are compelled to do what we have been forbidden
    It's not all as bleak as this sounds. I'm just getting it down, finally, after thinking about it for a while. I've been sorting it out in my head, oddly with the (unintended and completely unknowing) help of the Mumbler, through our meandering conversations about independence and relationships, friendship and "love", Tasers and cowboy boots and grilled cheese. I suppose I'm also getting a handle on it thanks to my most consistent phone correspondent, now keeping in touch for no better reason than because we're "friends".
    Writing helps, too. Always.

'Cause you will be somebody's girl
And you will keep each other warm
But tonight I am feeling cold
It was just little throwaway wretchedness, almost meaningless at the time, by comparison. What a legacy, eh?

[The Secret's in the Telling - Dashboard Confessional]