Just ask the Axis

Blue are the life-giving waters
Taken for granted
They quietly understand

I'm feeling way too close to those words at the moment. Yeah, I've asked the Axis and he knows jack sh*t, yo. He doesn't know everything. Of course, I never trust anything that supposedly knows so much, because it is just a big let-down in the end when you find out they don't.

Emmanuel chased me down last week. Emmanuel who claims that I am the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen. Last year, he approached me on the street, begging me to go out to dinner with him...something, ANYTHING. I politely declined, thanking him for the compliment, but pointing out that it would be a very bad idea to go out with me since I am not into dating at all and am in a very hateful place. I reiterated that status again last week. He seems like a nice guy, but I am simply not interested in him or anyone, really. That makes me really sad, but it is true. It would make me more sad to lie and go out with him (lie about being remotely interested) and then being simply cruel to either him or myself--I know I would be.

A lot of those things make me sad at the moment. I've been really good though about not getting preachy at one of the young'uns at practice today who oh so happily told me in that adorable optimistic 21 yr old way about how she may be moving halfway across the country to be with her 8 yrs older boyfriend. She has no other reason to go there and knows nobody there and has no job there. She hasn't lived in the same town as him and, well, I've known him and his ilk much longer. I don't respect him because this is his first relationship in which he is attempting to be monogamous and he went with such a young, naive woman who hasn't had time to figure out at all who she is and what she wants. In discussions with her months ago, I discovered that she is too afraid to tell him if she is uncomfortable with being kissed by his friends or with all the touchy-feeliness of his friends. It does not bode well. I am afraid for her.

A young woman who was dating the son of one of my close friends here moved halfway across the country from WA to IL to be with him. He was her only connection to the area. His friends were the only people she knew and the only people she associated with in her hope/belief that they would be together forever, again in that 21 yr. old way. He dumped her a couple weeks ago. She was the only intelligent choice I had ever seen him make...dating her, that is. He dumped her for a British tart who was making-out with his best friend 15 minutes before he decided he and she were MEANT to be. Of course, she was heading back to England in five weeks, so her trip to the States was just a vacation of sleeping around and drinking. He will be trying to figure out how to follow her. In the meantime, however, Jess is here in Chicago with only ties that remind her of him, a nowhere job, no education, and a blown self-esteem since she built her life and her choices around him so much.

I fear for the child at practice. I fear her going down this path or maybe, in five years, realizing that she missed out on learning about herself and her desires from life. She will either resign her own dreams or she will finally stand up for herself and possibly lose all faith in romance and her own choices and have a painful time trying to separate what she really is from the schoolgirl fantasy.

I had to go through similar things and look how happy I am. I guess we all have to live our own mistakes to learn from them and I should let her live her own. It irritates me because she was so happy to see me after so long and it was very clear that she looks up to me. Yet, I can't fulfill that role she has placed me in her life as an advisor because I know she will not appreciate my advice. I've known her boyfriend for much longer than she. And, I am interested in him because he reminds me of Glenn in many ways, but I willfully stay away because, well, that path brings madness and it is just not a good guy to get involved with.

I fear for her. I fear for myself. I've got to get rid of these fears, I know.

OK, enough spew for tonight. Time to dream.