Thrsday morning at my mom’s house
9:30
So Dr Chou FaceTimed and says I have to start - BLAH! - writing. AGAIN.
Like again again OK FFINE. Journaling is boring. And dumb. And I alredy told her last time it doesnt help me think, it just makes my hand tired. But she did that thing where she smiles like she alredy decided, so here we are.
She said Jay is journaling too.
Which I tried not to ask about. Becuz I dont care.
(Thats not true. I do care. A lot. Like is it helping him? And what is he riting about? ME???)
She said its “for clarity” and “for space” and that we’re “both processing a lot.” Whatever. She’s supposed to help us with his Regressin Training but now I guess we’re doing this. I know what happened yesterday. I dont need to rite it down to remember it. But she said it would be “good practice” for me to do this without checking on him, and she looked right at me when she said it, so yeah. Fine.
I’m riting. She says rite like I’m talking to someone. Like the Journal is a person. So I’m riting.
Happy now, Journal?
Am I even doing this right?
She wanted pen and paper said typing is “too filtered” for me. So I’m sitting at the kitchen counter at moms house with one of moms stupid little floral notebooks and a pen that keeps smudging becuz my hands are warm and I press too hard.
The pages are really thin. I alredy tore the corner on the first one.
Its morning. Too quiet. I decided to sleep last night just to kill time without him and woke up before my alarm and for like three seconds I thought Jay was there but becuz the bed was cold on his side I remembered. And the bed is getting too small for me but it felt too big. Too wide.
This is what we agreed to.
Space.
Healthy space. Thats what he said. And I said ok. I even meant it.
Still I slept bad. I mean I barely really need to sleep but still I don’t like that. I don’t like needing him there to sleep right. That feels like backwards. I’m not suppose to be the one who needs. I’m suppose to be the one who gives. Who provides. Who handles things.
I keep telling myself this is fine that I did the right thing that letting him go with Lakshmi last night and eat with her family was mature. Ethical. Whatever word Dr Chou would use.
But my boobs didn’t get the memo. They ache! And the rest of my body needs him too. I keep catching my super ears listening for him like I’m waiting to hear his breathing from the other room. Which is stupid because he’s not here. And I know where he is. He’s safe. Everyone keeps telling me that. Lakshmi told me twice last nite and once this morning, like I was the one who needed reasurence.
I don’t feel guilty. Not exactly. I feel itchy. Like something is missing that shouldn’t be missing yet
I’m not at the office today. That’s on purpuse.
I told Randi to tell people I had calls and a thing later this afternoon that I cant miss. Which is true. There is a thing. Some photo “visibility moment” session or whatever theyre calling it at Channel 5. But I could’ve gone in this morning if I wanted to.
I didnt want to.Well, I wanted to but I didnt.
Because if I went in, I wouldve seen him. Or felt him. Or both. And then this whole “space” thing wouldve lasted, like, fifteen minutes. I know myself.
So I stayed home. I’ll have to put on real clothes later. A dress maybe.
Yesterday keeps replaying in my head, even though I dont want it to.
I didnt lie to him. Maybe i didnt tell him EVERYTHING everything but I didnt lie to him.
That’s important.
I told him the truth, not in a scary way. I explained it how it makes sense to me. That my body does stuff before I think about it. That it’s not me deciding, like, “oh I’m going to shrink my boyfriend today.” That would be insane. It’s just adaptayshon. Something in my body knows he’s fragile, so my bodys changing lots of things to keep him safe. Stronger me. Stronger girls. Softer and smaller everything else.
That includes him.
I said it like that because it’s true. I was already pushing it. I could see him trying to hold two ideas at once: that I love him, and that I’m changing him. He kept flipping back and forth like he wanted one of them to cancel the other out.
They don’t.
I don’t think I did anything wrong. I just dont always do everything right. That’s different.
When he asked for space, I didnt understand it at first. I still dont, really. I get wanting quiet. I get wanting rest. But the whole “I need my own head” thing…I don’t know. I don’t know how you can love someone and not want to be in them. To know what they’re feeling. To help.
When he said it, it felt like he was asking me to step back from something thats already happening. Like asking your heart to beat somewhere else.
But I said okay anyway. Becuz he was scared. And I dont want him scared of me. I can handle a lot of things but not that.
So this is me doing what he asked. Staying away. Writing instead of fixing. Letting the feeling sit there without touching it.
It feels bad which I guess is the point.
I keep thinking about how he said it - “Are you the one shrinking me?” like it was something I decided.
So I’ll write it here, because this is supposed to be honest: I didn’t do it. My body did.
Thats not me dodging responsibility. Thats just how it works. The same way you don’t tell your heart to beat faster when youre excited. It just does. My body reacts to what I need. It always has. And I guess when something feels unstable or fragile it changes things so i can take care of it.
That’s protection. That’s not cruelty. I didn’t wake up one day and think, “I want Jay smaller.” I wanted him safe. I wanted him close. I wanted him not hurting himself or running off. My bodys figuring out how to make that happen.
If that makes me sound like a science project or a freak or something out of one of his comic books, fine. But its still not the same as choosing to hurt someone.
I didnt tell him before like when we first started seeing one another because I was scared.
Not scared he’d leave - though yeah that too - but scared he’d look at me and only see what I can do, not why. Scared he’d stop seeing me as a person and start seeing me as a thing that happens to him.
A monster.
I dont feel like one. I feel like someone whose body loves louder than her brain knows how to explain.
And I don’t know how to make people understand the difference.
And now ugh my chest hurts again.
And not just my boobs this time, but its like a heavy warm ache right behind my boobs like something is pushing forward that doesn’t have anywhere to go. Its stupid. My body is acting like I’m missing a limb.
I keep telling myself it’s just chemistry. Hormoons. Feedback loops. Whatever. It’ll settle if I ignore it.
It doesn’t.
When I picked up my phone a couple minutes ago I didnt even unlock it I just held it. I wanted to text him something normal. Like did you eat or are you okay or this is dumb and I hate it. I want to feel him answer. I want to feel that little click in my chest when I know where he is.
I didnt do it and it made me mad because I’m the one doing the “right thing” and it feels bad and nobody warned me about that part. Everyone acts like restraint is supposed to feel noble or calm or grown up. It doesnt. It feels itchy and wrong and lonely.
Journaling is stupid
I’m stopping now.
Maybe I’ll do more later
-M
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