Underwater... over my head

"Back to life, back to sense, back to child, back to husband... you can't live in the woods."

~ "Moments in the Woods" from Into the Woods

It's been one of those weekends.

One of those weekends when the world around you suddenly turns on you. It's not the first of these weekends. And it's certainly not the last. These days... they're inevitable, inescapable. It's one of those weekends when suddenly the ice cracks in and you're underwater and drowning. You've finally done it, you've put too much weight on yourself, and the ground below has broken through...

And what's strange about these weekends, or at least this weekend, or at least for me... is that despite the loss of oxygen and the threat of suffocation due to drowning, you're not scared. I'm not. You know that eventually you'll regain composure and swim towards the surface. Or maybe, if you're lucky a good friend or lover will notice the crack in the ice, reach in, and pull you from your impending doom. 

There's a sense of hope. This hope keeps you from losing faith and allowing yourself to to become submerged. It's something I pride myself on. Maybe it's how I was raised, maybe its something that put inside me for a particular reason, maybe it's my religion, maybe it's just who I am: but I have the talent of optimistic hope, the kind of hope that carries you through anything, hope that in the darkest times, there's always a light at the end of it all. A boyfriend of mine told me that was something he really loved about me, that no matter what I believed everything was going to be okay. I have faith in love, life, people... and granted, there are times when I can become whiney, negative, and crabby, but deep down, through it all, I know that in the end everything is going to be just fine. If I believe in something or someone, they're going to pull through. No matter how deep underwater I get, no matter how far from the surface, I will emerge, I will survive and it'll be all right.

Anyway, back to my actual weekend and the occurrences... we opened the show Friday night... that was interesting. I don't know what it was, but I was off hardcore. I missed a line, people were missing cues, actors were yelling at each other... it just was OFF.

Following the show, our technical director and several of the cast and crew went out for pancakes at Uncle Bill's afterwards. I don't know why, but I was in a sensitive state and the normal fun teasing between friends actually hit a little harder than expected. I especially got upset when a certain company member silenced a sing-a-long of "No Scrubs." I think people who silence group sing-a-longs simply because they are Negative Nancy's and hate other people being happy are boring and lame and need to go home. Yes, I am feeling a little vindictive and probably acting a little immature. Yes, I understand that I probably sound like a 12 year old brat. It's been a long weekend... which is preceded probably an even longer week... I give myself official position to be ridiculous.

After Uncle Bill's, we went to a party, just started getting our drink, just to have the party broken up. Lame. Because the gang wasn't ready to go to bed, we decided to hang out on the balcony of my apartment building, drink so more, turn up the music, and dance around outside. It was a actually a lot of fun (except for a cameo appearance from the local party leeches who don't know quite how to take a hint, but even they can be fun sometimes. Or at least fun to watch). The night was saved. 

Well, kind of. There was an impending disaster that not even balcony fun could've helped. My phone decided become a tease. Yes, my phone was a tease. I have an iPhone and the screen decided to black out. When people called and texted me, the phone would still ring and vibrate, but because the screen had short circuited I couldn't answer... aka, my phone would lead me on and then blue ball me.... There was no way to get it to open up either. It was playing hard to get and I was on the losing side. 

I woke up earlier Saturday morning feeling terrible, I was nauseous and congested, and spent the morning teaching a dance my friend Elisabeth and I choreographed for the dance troupe we're involved with on campus, then headed to the Galleria to try and have my phone revived. It was a terrible morning. I felt completely and entirely disconnected from the world. I had to use facebook to get a hold of people who I had made plans with later in the day to let them know that I would be in phone surgery and could not make it. I felt like I was in the stone age. I don't know how people did it before cell phones. How in the heck did they stay in touch? Because my friends were all busy being connected with the world and having lives, I was forced to metro it to the mall, and of course, with my luck, I arrived just as my metro was taking off. I was stranded there for over 30 minutes waiting for the next train to come get me... and of course, I didn't have a phone to keep me entertained... thus, I was left with my bitter thoughts and people watching to keep me entertained (normally people watching would be a hoot, but today there was no one interesting... at all...) 

When I finally got to the mall, the wonderful Mac Store man was extremely kind and performed surgery on my phone. Sadly, he didn't make it, through but thankfully I have a warranty, and he simply replaced it. Phew! And then my hope kicked in and a silver lining appeared: I finally was by a bookstore and could purchase the books I had been meaning to buy for weeks now. Because my phone broke and I suffered that night and morning of total separation from the world, I now had a new phone and could buy the books that I had been desperately wanting to get! As I waited for my phone, I fb messaged Andrew about my not-so-hot day and the silver lining. I figured he would appreciate my positivity and also he's becoming my go-to-guy when things aren't going to so hot. He's a pick me up, always knows the right things to say, always finds something positive. He puts even my eternal hope and faith to shame. I didn't think it was possible.

The man at the bookstore probably thought I was an emotionally-destroyed, moping mess of a gay man who just got broken up... Why? My book selection was a little ridiculous: Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell (The book that inspired the series!), He's Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo (I saw the movie on Valentine's Day with Peter, it caught my eye in the store and I just HAD to get it), and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (Diane has been recommending this book to me for ages and I finally got the chance to get it!) Now, if that book choice doesn't scream, "I'm a messed up, angsty, single gay man!!!" I don't know what does...

To treat myself after the phone ordeal, I went to the mall food court and grabbed a burger and cheese fries. As I ate, I pulled out Sex and the City and started reading. Right off the bat something struck me.  In the forward, Ms. Bushnell talks about what the book is really about, what it all comes down to: Why are we still single? And you know what Ms. Bushnell said?

"...why are we still single? Now, with a few years' perspective on the issue, I can safely conclude that we are single because we want to be."

Wait. What?

It's my choice to be single? It's my fault? And then my hope kicks in, I start coming with rational and reasons, anything to keep my afloat as her words sink in... that statement can't be about me, I'm only 20, I haven't experienced enough life or met enough men to have made the choice to be single... It's not my fault, it's the fault of stupid boys who can't commit that I don't have a long-term boyfriend... Circumstances that I can't control have kept me away from the person I really want to be with, that's not my fault or my choice... I can't control who I'm attracted to...

I continued reading.

Apparently for this edition, Ms. Bushnell added two new chapters into the book. One of the chapters finally gives the book a real ending... And then I read it... 

"...at last the book has a real ending, in which Carrie and Mr. Big break up. It's a  bittersweet ending- not just the end of Carrie's relationship with Mr. Big, but the end of her dream of finding the proverbial Mr. Big- a man who doesn't really exist."

Woah, woah, woah, Candace Bushnell.... Carrie and Big DON'T get together? And that's a good thing because Big, and any man we associate with the Big character, doesn't really exist? My world was shaken. After spending a majority of my time comparing myself to Carrie and hoping that my Big would come along... I'm supposed to believe that he's not real?

The rational and reasoning sets in again, my hope ... she wrote this ending for shock value... the Big and Carrie in book world are completely from the Big and Carrie of TV world... the ideal man, the significant other will appear... he will be ready to be with me years down the line, it can happen, my perfect ending can happen... Why does the world keep falling out from beneath me??

I set aside my confusion and distress, and continued reading until I got home and had to go to that night's Setzuan performance (it's actually great, funny read... besides from the aforementioned problem parts). 

That night's performance went a bit smoother than Friday's... and Sunday's matinee the cast outnumbered the people in the audience... And then I realized how much work I had put off this semester and how these final two weeks of the semester are going to kill me... and then reflected on how absurd the weekend was... and in an effort to forget all this, I pulled out He's Just Not That Into You and began reading.

I read the chapter, "He's Just Not That Into You If He's Breaking Up With You"... and began applying everything the book was saying to my previous boyfriend. And it stung a little. I could relate too well to these stories of people who desperately have hope that their boyfriend still really cares about them, that somehow they'll turn a page and return to you... That they would be the exception, not the rule. The book talks about how thinking your the exception to the rule is what gets you into the mess. You have to except that you are the rule and he's not into you, don't believe the stories of how miraculously the man changes and returns to the woman, or some act of magic brought the two people together... This isn't normal, you aren't the exception, the likeliness of this happening is...

Here comes the rational and reasoning... I can't apply this book, it's about men and women, my situation is completely different because I'm gay... I can be the exception, I'll prove them wrong... this book is for pathetic people and I really don't relate to anything they- 

And then I stopped rationalizing... and realized that was the point. That was Ms. Bushnell's point. That was the point of He's Just Not That Into You. Stop rationalizing and except it for what it is. That's the only way to have a healthy, successful relationship. Sometimes we hope, we hope beyond our wildest dreams that we will be rescued from drowning, but that's unrealistic... clearly, how can you be rescued when you were walking the ice alone? You can't expect a guardian angel to swoop in and you can't expect a man who broke your heart to love you again.

It goes against my eternal hope, it goes against my faith that things will work out... But maybe sometimes 'hope' and 'faith' blind us from what's really going on. Maybe eventually hope turns on us, and instead of thinking realistically, we fall into a sort of dream world where life is a fairytale... or in my case a gay version of Sex and the City. 

We have the choice to be single or not. We have the choice be with someone who is worthy of us. We have the choice to be honest with ourselves. We have the choice to drown, whether it be in hope or the world around us. We have the choice to save ourselves. We have a choice not to take the chance and walk on the ice... no, I have the choice...

And now I feel very cynical.

Or maybe this is just what reality feels like.

As I ponder these revolutionary thoughts, I can't help put listen to a song from the Stephen Sondheim musical, Into the Woods: "Moments in the Woods." At this point in the play, The Baker's Wife, who is married and just recently became a mother, has just had a tryst with a certain Prince Charming as she tries to escape of a bloodthirsty giant. In the song, she sings about how she can't believe what just happened, that a lowly baker's wife like herself could have just been with a prince... and that it's all just a trick of the Woods. People get caught up in the Woods, in the adventure, they forget about the world and instead fall into the fantasy... They fall in love with the moments, instead of the life that is made up by the moments. 

It seems like the world is sending me a sign... It's time to leave the woods, it's time to get out of the water. 

I can't do it, though. I can't accept that hope cannot exist and that there's no chance that maybe, just maybe I can find my Mr. Big, I can find my exception to the rule. 

I think about Andrew, and how eternally optimistic and hopeful he is, and how every time I'm upset he knows the right words to say to make me happy. There's something in that. That act of hope that keeps me going, that makes me cheer up and want to get over whatever is ailing me. Even stupid, small things... he gives me hope. And makes me happy. And happiness isn't a bad thing.

So maybe, hope can cause us to become disillusioned. It blinds us into believing the lies, and not just coming to terms with the fact that he's just not that into you. But it keeps up going. It keeps us searching.

In "Moments In The Woods," the Wife sings,

"Just a moment, one peculiar passing moment

Must it all be either less or more, either plain or grand

Is it always or? Is it never and?...

Let the moment go, don't forget it for a moment though

Just remembering that you've had an 'and' when you're back to 'or'

Makes the 'or' mean more than it did before

 Now, I understand and it's time to leave the Woods"

Maybe we can't find the exception, we can't discover how to rescue ourselves until we've experienced what the rule is like... And that'll make the exception even more prominent and worth even more.

In my confusion, in my cynicism, in my weekend, in my rant

I have to conclude...

One has a choice, one can either drown, or learn to tread water as they wait for someone to come rescue them from drowning...  or they buy a scuba suit with an air tank.

That way you avoid the risk of drowning, your self sufficient, you've taken proper precautions, and you can still wait for someone to come pull you out of the water... or your collapsing world... or your bad weekend.

I think I'm going to put my air tank on... and message Andrew. He'll know what to say. 

In the absence of men...

“Did you ever think that maybe we’re the white knights? And we’re the ones who have to save ourselves?” 

~ Carrie, SATC Season 3, “Where There’s Smoke…”

Today K.T. and I were having a dinner date followed by some frozen yogurt. Of course the conversation was filled with ranting about The Good Person of Setzuan, decoding signals from a possible K.T. love interest, and dishing about our loves lives and the love lives of our friends. 

We began talking about love in the general sense, I began talking about my parents and how they have given me and unrealistic expectation when it comes to love. They are perfect. They are still in love with each other after 21 years. They have the kind of relationship where you still see the sparkle in their eyes when they look at each other. They go on dinner dates and don't invite my sister and I, they have Saturday morning shopping dates, they write love letters to each other via a video game called Animal Crossing, they put up with whatever crap the others throws out...

They are soulmates... simply put. 

And to think it almost didn't happen. My mom was engaged to another man before she met my father. I guess you just know when the person isn't right for you. At least my momma did. And if my momma can know... why can't I?

So, with this hope, I continue my search. Missing electron, where are you?

My mind has been so occupied lately with this search for my soulmate, the quest to find the right man to fulfill my life. I want to replicate what my parents have. I want to find that person that I will spend decades with, the rest of my life with. I told K.T. about how I spent my freshman year single, trying to discover who I was as a person. I was entering a new environment, I needed to discover myself and become secure with who I was. So no love interest freshman year... only a few hook-ups at the beginning of the year (it's freshman year, hook ups are a necessary part of the experience).  But they don't really count... Then summer came and Spring happened. 

Spring, as he will be known via this blog, was a boy I had majorly flirted with the summer prior to my freshman year, but he wasn't ready for a relationship. Finally, last summer we decided to give it a try and while the relationship was laced with fighting, we really connected and it turned out to be something really fantastic. We decided to break up at the end of summer citing the fact that Spring was starting his freshman year of college and that we were going to different schools in different states. While it was a bit of a tough split, it was the right choice. At the time a long distance relationship didn't seem to be appropriate. Especially for a freshman in college without a lot of previous dating experience. Spring was my first serious relationship in two years and was an awesome way to reacquaint my self with the serious dating game. 

After this comeback to the serious dating scene, I felt I had discovered and learned about enough of myself to put the search for a relationship with depth and substance into full throttle. I followed Spring with Seuss (his name was Seuss and he wanted to be a doctor... it was the only funny thing about him...), who was followed by Neck, who was followed by Peter (the holder of the title of Longest/Most Serious Relationship in the History of Me), then D, and now...

As this next summer closes in, I can't help but reflect back on the past year... and I've realized I dated quite a bit. And have learned quite a bit. I broke a lot of hearts, maybe even had my heart broken... You would think that maybe after all these different experiences in my dating life, I would emerge more secure and sure of myself...

As K.T. and I selected our different kinds of frozen yogurt and topped them with fruit, cookie pieces, and cheese cake, I mentioned how even after all this dating, I feel more unsure of myself than ever. At this point in my life, I am facing a lot of choices concerning my future and significant other, I've hit a road block and feel the need to make those decisions. You'd think I would follow my parents example (they didn't meet and get serious until late 20s/early 30s) and realize I have a little bit more time to make up my mind on things. The problem is these decisions keep pounding down my door, and love and all that comes with it seem to be wildly screaming at me to make up my mind and hurry up...

And as I waxed poetic my feelings of discovering what I want in my significant other and how each relationship has moved me closer to that Holy Grail, K.T. said something that really struck me... She said, "Maybe you shouldn't be figuring what you want in a boy, but spend sometime figuring out yourself."

I've been constantly preaching the 'love thyself' mantra over the past month, but suddenly, I realized it: You can't limit self-discovery to one year and then think you're completely figured out. Through this year's dating escapades, I've discovered what I'm like within a relationship, what I'm like with a boy and how to handle being with another person, the discovery of companionship... and forgot how to discover things about my greatest companion: myself. 

And so I'm going to do something drastic. Something dramatic and a bit ridiculous... but possibly necessary. During Setzuan rehearsals, several members of the cast and I crafted this idea:

 I'm going to give up boys for a month (or at least to the end of the year).

I will take a temporary vow of celibacy. Instead of diving deep into the dating game which has this past year become the focus point of my life, I am going to retreat to last year when I spent the time figuring out myself. Instead of a whole year, I will spend a month remembering what it was like to be me, without boys, without The Game, without the desperate search to find a soulmate. I will be with my friends, with my theatre, and with myself. 

I think its a good choice. A chance to refresh, to cleanse the palate in order to fully enjoy the next course in this meal of life.

My goal is to the end of the school year. That's three weeks. And should I need more time I will expand the vow to a month. For a month, boys will not be the object of affection, but instead be platonic friends... no sexual interest, no flirting, no potential boyfriends, no nothing. 

Why am I giving up boys again? ...It feels like the right thing to do. It's to do some soul searching. Some single soul searching. 

Everyone in the show doubts that I'll be successful. And I admit, I'm a little insecure with my will power to avoid boys as sexual beings. In order to help the process become a success, several of my friends and cast members (shout outs to Lindsey, Healy, K.T., Alex, Amy, and Kyle), decided to put together a list of rules to keep me in check.

The rules are as follows:

1) No phone sex or internet sex

2) No touching... If it's sexual in nature at all, inappropriate. Any body parts above the knee and below the shoulders are completely off limits. 

3) No face touching.

4) No winking. 

5) No hair touching, no petting, no caressing

6) No spooning, no cuddling

7) No overtly sexual flirting, or any innuendo that has the potential of moving from innuendo into reality.

8) No sexy text messages... or romantic text messages... 

9) Statuses on facebook cannot contain the words: love, sex, boy, resist, heart, body, destiny, missing you, want (in a sexual/romantic sense), touch, kiss, crush, bump 'n' grind, do me

10) No eye sex... or eye gasms... or eye jobs... 

11) No sleep overs... because sleep overs lead the breakage of rules 2-9

12) No asking boys on dates, or saying yes to any boys who ask.

13) No saying the phrase 'possible love of my life' concerning a potential boyfriend (This is a rule that should be established in my everyday life)

14) No sex. No fooling around (anything concerning blowing, fingers, and things that cannot be mentioned in public places without making people blush)

15) NO KISSING. This will be the make or break of this experiment. I love kissing. 

And so my boy-less three weeks begins. And maybe with the subtraction of this distraction, my quest for the best will calm itself down. I'll be able to see clearly once my world and single-self have been restored to their proper state. 

Or maybe this is a ploy. My friend Chris mentioned that he thinks I'm simply trying to trick fate... I'm knocking on the door of some romantic/teen movie cliche where I give up boys and suddenly the man of my dreams enters my life... I would be totally okay with that.

Whatever happens, whatever my subconscious thought process is... I'm going to give it a good try. Sure, I'm probably going to fail, but at least for a few moments, I'll be able to set boys aside and remember what it was like to be strong, independent, and single... and proud of it. To not need a boy, and instead depend entirely and completely on myself... for a second forget my unrealistic expectations, and my parents story, and my current boy drama... and remember what it's like to be me. 

And so, Day One of my Abstinence of Boys... begins...

Wish me luck!

On matters of the heart and the head...

"It seems that when it comes to affairs of the heart there is a battle between what we know and what we feel... When it comes to relationships is it smarter to follow your heart or your head?" 

~ Carrie, SATC Season 3, "Easy Come, Easy Go"

Last night I started rehearsals for The Good Person of Setzuan by Bertolt Brecht. My college and a professional company are performing a joint production of it. I was cast as The Nephew, it's a small, but fun role.

In the play, three gods come to visit Setzuan in search of one good person. They come across Shen Te, a prostitute in the city, who is the only person that will house the gods for the night. They give Shen Te a gift of 1,000 silver coins in which she uses to buy a tobacco shop. Due to her kindness, the tobacco shop becomes overrun with free loaders and people who abuse Shen Te's generosity. In desperate attempt to keep herself afloat, she disguises herself as her male cousin, Shui Ta. Unlike Shen Te, as Shui Ta is cold and harsh. Shui Ta turns the small tobacco shop and the free loaders into a major factory and mistreated workers. 

During the show, Shen Te falls in love with a man, Sun. She is deeply and truly in love with this man and they become engaged. As Shui Ta, she discovers Sun is a terrible man, who plans to abuse Shen Te and isn't really in love with her. Shui Ta turns Sun away, but the moment Shen Te returns to her female self, she takes him back in a moment... because she loves him and cannot resist.

Besides dealing with an intense split personality problem, Shen Te's plight brings up something that hits close to home. It's the ultimate battle. Do we follow our heart or our head? Are we cheating ourselves by ignoring the whims of our hearts? Or are we idiots for giving in to instinctive, powerful impulses and not thinking twice about the situation? 

Why do we love someone with all our heart when we know in our head it will hurt us in the end?

Before rehearsal today, I asked several of my girlfriends who are in the show with me this question. My friend Lindsey responded with something along the lines of, "I could spend hours talking with you about this... Why do we love the bad boy?" ...why do we?

Here's a personal story about a previous boyfriend... We had broken up. And it took until three weeks after the break-up before I stopped making myself believe this boy was 'The One'. I honestly believed this boy, this boy who broke up with me  was the man that I was meant to be with for the rest of my life. I believed it through the entire relationship. When I first laid eyes on him, I thought to myself: "I'm going to be with this boy no matter what." And maybe a little tiny piece of my heart still thinks there maybe a chance that he's 'The One'. I'm not one to ever give up on anything. Anything is possible. But I'm going to store that little piece far away and hide it and move on. 

We had been broken up for almost three weeks, yet I still clung desperately onto the idea that we were going to get back together and this was only a break.  My heart was screaming, "BE WITH THIS BOY." I felt stupid and ridiculous, for not being with him. I thought the break-up was a dumb idea. Why shouldn't two people be together who care about each other and love each other?

Peter, as he will be called via this blog, didn't feel ready to be in a relationship. We had gotten very serious, very quickly. We said 'I love you' only a couple weeks into the relationship, had already talked about wedding plans and our lives after college. Now, I meant it when I told him I loved him. I honestly believe I was truly in love with this boy. And I believe he loved me back. 

So, Peter was everything I wanted. He just wasn't ready for a relationship. Which is completely understandable. It wasn't fair to me, someone who is ready to be in a completely serious, long-term relationship to expect that of someone who is clearly not ready. 

I understood this in my head. Yet, my heart... damn that stupid thing... just kept wailing like it had been. "GET BACK WITH HIM!!! FLIRT WITH HIM! BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH" And why shouldn't I be with him? We made each other laugh, we cared about each other deeply and wanted to stay in each others' lives post-break-up, our chemistry is off the charts...

It just wasn't the right time. We were at two different places in our lives. And on the grand, powerful relationship scale, timing can sometimes outweigh everyone of those fabulous, good things.

I'm sure it would be hilarious to watch the self-battle occur. To see me jump back and forth between what I know is right and what my heart is feeling. I probably look really cracked out, schizo, and craazzzzzyyyy. 

But I wanted him. With all my heart. Even though I knew if I kept pushing, the heart that wanted him so badly would only be broken in the end.

 

Sometimes it takes something big, straight forward and powerful event to make you come to your senses. Peter telling me that we shouldn't talk for awhile and the argument that followed was that event. Finally my head and heart were able to sync up. Why continue to hurt myself, and this boy that I care very much about by making our already complicated break-up/relationship even more complicated? So, my heart gave in, it disconnected itself from the situation... I had to move on. 

I was Shen Te clinging to Sun. I was clinging to something that was only going to stress me out and cause more damage and eliminate any sort of further relationship. I ignored reason, I ignored my Shui Ta... 

Why??

It's hard when the world perceives choosing your mind over your heart as a terrible, horrible thing...

A girlfriend of mine  has a boyfriend who is a complete tool. Yet, although the rest of the world can see what badly he treats her, she still loves him. I have had several friends who's significant others have cheated on them, yet they still remain with them. I even know a group of lesbians who are all going through this same sort of drama.

Are we addicted to the drama? Is it because of good sex? Or are we scared of being alone? Why lose the love we have now? So what if its not the best, at least you have something.

As terrible as these things sound... they're true. I have a actually told myself before, "It'll be okay. It's bad now, but it's better than being alone." 

And maybe it's not about the fear of being alone. Maybe there is something exciting about the possibility of having your heart broken. Mandy Moore recently released a song called, "I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week" in which she lets her love know... she could smash his heart anytime she wanted to. The chance is enthralling. There's danger, there's passion. And people love that stuff. I know I do. I love fighting with my boyfriends. I couldn't be with a boy who doesn't call me out on my shit. And when we fight (at least with my previous two relationships), the fighting made me want them even more.

Am I messed up? I don't think I'm alone. I think there's a lot of people out there who are dealing with the same thing. It's not wrong. I don't think so (I hope not... ehhh... haha). 

 

There's a point when the game becomes to much. The excitement of the chase becomes more important than the safety and love between two people.

And a point when you are too worried about being alone that you stop loving yourself. 

Is that what it comes down to? Loving yourself? That's too easy. Isn't it??

For such complicated questions concerning matters of the heart and head, that answer seems like a cop out...

Love myself... there's something in this... At least, for me with Peter, it was losing stability, the idea of being in a relationship that kept me pining for him. After the break-up, I felt helpless. I forgot how to be single, how to stand on my own, how to feel okay with myself and, thus, the static cling began. But, I wasn't helpless. I was the same strong, independent individual I was before. I had lost a bit of myself. And I needed a good slap in the face to remind me that I'm a good person who doesn't need to depend on any boyfriend to help him through hard times. And so the process to learn to love myself again started... it's an epic journey... 

Being in a relationship is not about losing yourself. It's about two fully formed selves coming together and forming a even greater self, while never sacrificing any part of the two original selves.  Never should we sacrifice who we are for another person, instead that person should love you for everything that you are, and you should love yourself for everything you are too... 

When your heart is healthy and full of love, then its ready to make reasonable judgement on the love of another. A little cliche... I know... but I have a firm belief that cliche's are the most honest things in the entire world and there's a reason they are cliche....

Cliche or not... Loving myself? Easier said then done...

The distressing thing about Shen Te's tale and The Good Person of Setzuan is that in the end, nothing is solved. The gods come back, but don't set things right and clean up the mess that has been made. They simply tell Shen Te to have faith in humanity and her goodness and continue to live her life. She'll figure it out. And then they book it out of Setzuan on a cotton candy cloud.

I wish I had a cotton candy cloud. Stupid ancient gods...

And maybe the point of this cop out ending (similar to my 'cop out' answer of having to love thyself... ), is that it's up to us to figure it out. Or at least try...

And maybe... there isn't an answer...

There's just a heart

And a head

And a Setzuan prostitute with a split personality...

And a billion people who can relate