"I miss the idea of the agony."

I know, well, that this blog sucks lately. It's photos and blah blah PR and honestly, I'm so busy trying to just get up in the morning, go to work, cupcake blog, get my books out the door, stave off my student loans, have a relationship, etc., that blogging for free seems, well, kindof pointless. Not to mention when you have family, maybe exes, maybe who the hell knows reading, it's hard. Or harder. Maybe it always was and I didn't notice, I don't know.

Anyway, last night at How I Learned, there were some amazing performances. David Heatley breakdanced and sang "Suburban White Girls" and relived some tough junior high moments. Claudia Cogan cracked us up about strap-ons on Viagra.

But there was a line Cynthia Kaplan read from her memoir Why I'm Like This that really resonated. It was about all these not right guys before she met her husband. And right at the end, she said, "I miss the idea of the agony."

And I got it, completely. Prior to that, I was half-listening, crouching on the floor in the packed room, worrying about this or that, my usual stress mess. And I sat there and just wondered how much of "the agony" of dating is what I've gotten used to.

I hooked up with my boyfriend at that same reading series, three months ago. I'm in that room every month for mine and have confessed so many fantasies and realities. I wouldn't say I miss "the agony," but I will say that the other night, while I was on vacation, before I went to bed, a twin bed in my aunt's house with my 3-year-old cousin breathing loudly in the bed near me, I texted three boys. Men, really, but I think of the as boys. At one time or another, I've thought of all of them as potential mates, baby daddies, boyfriends. Maybe, possibly, definitely.

It's hard to juggle all that in my head and my heart sometimes, the might have beens, the maybes, the possibilities. It's confusing because the minute I start to wonder, I feel like I'm betraying someone else. I got sortof taken to task because I only spend 2 nights a week, if that, at my boyfriend's. Maybe "taken to task" is too strong, but my uncle was like, "You don't do more than tip your toe in the water, huh?"

It's funny because to me, 2 nights are a lot. We are both very busy and frankly, after a long day at work and going out, getting together after all that is sometimes just too much for me. It's too late, I'd rather get together on the weekends when we can sleep in. But it's also that I have no idea what's going to happen. I don't know what I want to happen. Is it "serious?" Yes, in that it's definitely not casual. But when I was sending those texts, thinking about those other boys, I couldn't help but be a little sad, a little wistful, because how do you ever know if you're making the right choice, if what seems right, feels right, really is? Maybe the person who doesn't "seem right" is actually a better fit.

I am actually really happy with how my relationship's been going, save for too much travel has meant we've hardly seen each other, and the summer seems to promise more of the same. And it's not that I want to see other people or just go on in some aimless dating direction. I had to answer a bunch of questions for a potential gig and I put it off and off and off because I honestly have no idea. I am not exactly Miss Experience when it comes to dating. Sex, perhaps, but dating, love, all that, no. And being sick this week has kindof compounded things, making me even more...whatever that feeling was, something like wanting everything and everyone at once, or rather, the good parts of all of them and none of the bad.

I know life doesn't work that way; people don't come with mix and match disassembling instructions, and I wouldn't want them to. I have lots of stuff I'm trying to deal with and sometimes I think it'd be better just to do that on my own. I don't like to open up about those things because they are not my proudest moments, they are concrete evidence of my fuckups, my (perhaps) fatal flaws. They are things that would not look good on a future domestic partner (or whatever) checklist.

So I have no conclusion, I barely know if any of this makes sense, but I wanted to put it out there, as nonsensical as it may be. And just to be clear, I don't think of this as "agony." I've been there, probably will again. It's not "agony" to the level that Cynthia Kaplan was talking about, but it's close, closer to agony than contentment. Maybe that is a myth, that you meet "the one" and forget about everyone else who might ever have possibly brushed up gently against that mythical state. But that line stuck with me. I don't want to be someone who's so caught up in the "drama" that I can't enjoy being with someone, as well as, of course, grapple with, the work, the unfun parts of a relationship. It's not like there's some major issue, it's just that there are moments when I Don't Know. And I hate that. I like knowing, or not knowing but not caring and throwing myself 100% into something. I did that last year and yes, maybe it was doomed from the start, but I believed. I wanted it to work. I want this to work, though I'm so afraid of jinxing things I fear writing even that. At the same time, I have crushes, moments, fantasies and I wish there were something simple to do about them, wish there were a recycling bin I could purge them in, get rid of them. But instead, they live in my head, and lurk there, when I'm sending texts before going to bed.