Hey Shiny, Kiss Me Quick, Before the Shit Fairy Gets Here

I've been thinking a lot lately about two interesting concepts that my dear friend Steve has written about in the past: "Shiny" and the "Shit Fairy", or as I like to call them, S & S (not to be confused with S, S, & S - the good old trusty morning routine).

According to Steve, "Shiny is found on new things. New toys at Christmas are covered with Shiny. New skills that one learns, are also endowed with Shiny, and there is what is known as the “Shiny new lover” syndrome… But the one annoying thing about Shiny, is that it has a fairly short half-life; or, as some friends of mine say… “The Shiny wears off.""

The Shit Fairy, on the other hand, "is the nasty little being who, after you have made a wondrous and perfect piece of whatever it is you make, comes down and while you sleep, and works its special magic on your masterpiece, so that in the morning when you look at, read, or listen to your masterful creation which last night was so brilliant, you say “Geez… what a piece of shit, how’d I ever think that was good?”"

Lately, as many of you who have been around me have so kindly pointed out, I've become enamored with a new instance of Shiny that has made me re-think some things about my life. It's taken me nearly one whole month to finally admit to that, though over half a dozen people have told me they knew what was happening to me from the moment I mentioned having met someone interesting and very cool. I don't really understand how that works, exactly - only one of said friends was actually there when I encountered the Shiny in person, and even then, I'd like to think he didn't really see all that much (and if I'm wrong Steve, I'm really extra sorry. Maybe that'll teach you to set up your tent with the door facing mine). But I digress. My point is that I admit to having been overcome with Shiny, and I'm beginning to realize how much it has been drastically changing my mood.

I recently made the acquaintance of an amazing, intelligent, and incredibly sexy person who has reminded me of my lately-lost drive to do anything more than survive comfortably through the next month and endure the squalor and clutter of other people's shit in my apartment. I didn't realize just how much I'd let slip by the wayside in the process of helping Tom back on his feet and supporting him in a seemingly endless list of needs... but unwittingly I think I'd slipped into some form of depression in resigning myself to being an unwilling MILF at the age of 24. I've been at a loss for words to describe the way I've been feeling for some time now, which accounts for much of the lack of real-life updates beyond the drunken sleepwalking stories, and the crime reports about people farting in humidors. This is really the first time I've been able to touch on the subject in any real seriousness, perhaps because I've been unwilling up until now to acknowledge the real graveness of my current situation.

I am 24, and feel like I am already mothering a kid. In pretty much every sense of the word, I am taking care of Tom to the point where I sometimes question whether I am actually attracted to him anymore, or if everything I do is out of the love of a friend, and the desire to see him succeed. It's important to preface this with the fact I love my friends dearly, and will do anything to help them succeed, but in the end I am attracted to independence, first and foremost above just about all else. To me, the sexiest person alive is a person who doesn't need me, but simply wants me for me. To cross that line into neediness or presumption, is to doom a sexual relationship with me to failure.

In part, I believe that this is the reason that I am impressively strongly against living with a significant other. Unlike most people, I view the process of "moving in together" to be a thing that one does to be monetarily advantageous, and absolutely nothing more. As mercenary as it sounds, I feel that to think otherwise, would be to fool oneself into believing co-dependence and enduring other people's bullshit is somehow emotionally fulfilling, when in fact it only breeds resentment and eventual disgust for the person you were formerly desperately in love with. Think about it for a second; the more time you spend with each other, the more you are exposed to the seedy underbelly of a person's foibles and annoying habits. To a certain degree it can work, provided that said annoying habits are minor and few enough that compromises can be devised or they can be easily overlooked. But in most cases, you are asking for a shit-spree on your hands and in your face (some with more corn than others). And frankly, I would rather love my lovers than hate them. Perhaps my hardline stance is due to the fact that I have lived with some really shitty significant others, and all the relationships have ended in tears as soon as they insisted that we begin to share living space together (despite my resistance to the idea). By the time we began to realize the root cause of the problems, it was too late and for one reason or another, the resentment built to the point where "distaste" replaced any shred of decency and affection we had for one another when we were friends or dating.

Of course, as I say this, I am also tripping over useless piles of Tom's shit cluttering my apartment, cleaning up trash and dishes every day, and making every executive planning decision that needs to be made because leaving it to him would mean that nothing would ever get done in a timely, logical, or convenient manner. If I left him to pay the electric bill, I wouldn't be typing this right now. I am in essence, his mom. Go ahead and laugh - it's true that I only have myself to blame for letting it come to this. People will do anything that you will let them get away with - it is only human nature. The only thing I can really do now is push back and hope that it isn't too late to change the dynamic between us before irreparable damage is done to the relationship... if I get any more motherly, I am never going to be able to see him as an attractive man ever again. "Sexy" and "mother-son" are simply mutually exclusive, and the psychological barrier is nearly impossible to overcome one it has been made.

I never wanted him to move in with me. I begrudgingly agreed when he fell on some really hard times, and I thought it was going to be a temporary thing. I thought he moved in out of necessity, but as we have fought, I have discovered that this is not the case - he moved in so that he "could be with me." I have no idea how I could have been unclear on my stance on this matter in any way. It was not because I did not care; quite the opposite in fact, I was adamantly against him moving in because I knew he had a host of horrible habits that I would no longer be able to overlook because I would have to deal with them on a daily basis, and it would mean that I might begin to resent and or even hate him. I didn't want to hate someone I loved over petty things like that, but it became really difficult when it was forced into my life. When we were first dating, I would evict his things from my home weekly if they began to pile up in my apartment. I would send them home with his friends who lived nearby. After our first major fight, during which he told me he couldn't trust me to respect his things, I simply lost the will to continue to fight, and let the tidal wave of shit overwhelm me. I grew acquiescent to living engulfed in crap - especially after the urgent move when his mother lost their home, and his mountains of shit came to my one-bedroom apartment in cardboard boxes and trash bags, with no storage furniture to contain them. I put up with it so I didn't have to fight, but every now and then, I would just lose it. My friends used to point out to me what a shitbox my apartment had become, and I grew even more depressed because it really was all my fault. It might have been his stuff, but if someone doesn't recognize when something looks like a sack of ass, it's my responsibility to remind them to respect my apartment.

People can change... at least that's what we say. Though the truth is, real change happens over a long period of time, and usually out of forced necessity. If I hadn't figured out how to pay all my bills on time, I'd be parking my Ducati outside of a Maytag box. I know Tom has the ability to change, because he is an amazingly smart and adaptable person. The problem is, I am giving him no impetus to change... and really, why would he? I am paying all the bills that keep the apartment going, I do all the maintenance shopping and cook all his meals when he comes home, I give him rides to and from wherever he needs to go, I buy and own all the furniture in the house, I remind him when there are major plans of interest... all he has to do is go to work and come home, do things that I occasionally nag him to do, and remember to pay his motorcycle and insurance bills once a month. I wouldn't change either if I had such a sweet setup. In fact, it's pretty much what my mother and father did for me when I was growing up. I didn't know how to make ramen until I went to college.

Since then, I think I've changed a lot - in no part thanks to my parents' coddling ways. I've been working hard since the day after I turned over my brass rat in the hopes that I would amount to something more than just another drooling asshole who can't contribute to society; and because I've been busting my ass, I have a job I love, a relatively nice roof over my head, a car, a motorcycle, a healthy happy farting cat, money to travel (though sadly not the vacation time), and for the most part, time in the evenings to explore the millions of interests that I seem to have. It wasn't until lately, after my brush with all that Shiny, that I was reminded of how much of an accomplishment this actually is... and how much of a shame it is to settle for "just getting by" when you can continue your accomplishments and really do something you can be proud of by the time you are 30.

I guess that's really what it is, at the moment - I feel like I'm stuck in a rut of "just getting by." I've begun to absorb the contentment that Tom gets from not struggling. I feel like I've forgotten that everyone should dream big. But I am not happy with the fact that I am a "mom," and I don't have it in me to force things to change.

I am tired and depressed, and I can't manage the strength anymore to force someone else to change through reminders (whether gentle or irate), and managing the emotional stresses of "tough love" and emotional psychology. Even though these things are the only way to ever make a person change, it's something friendships rarely survive, and something relationships almost never do. It is something that I feel I cannot and will not end up putting up with, and yet the only other solution is something I do not think that Tom will understand. You can never understand when you are on the inside of a situation looking out... and I think the only thing he will see is rejection, rather than a tired lover looking for a way to save a relationship from turning into something forever platonic.

How exactly does one go about telling a person "I love you, but there are too many problems in real life going right now and I know they will defeat us because I do not have the strength to endure as we address them, even if we try to overcome them together. I want to remain in love with you, but in order to do that, I need to spend time away from you so that we can each grow up (preferably using other people that we care less about to learn about things like "sharing" and "paying back money" and "being better about addressing problems gently as they happen," in hopes that we will both be able to equally bring something to the table before we decide we are both capable of living together." I don't even think there's any way to put that without making it sound like "I am rejecting you."

The last time we fought about this, and I said "I cannot live with other people, but it isn't a personal thing against you - I am just a very anal/particular housemate, and I need time to learn how to lighten up" things didn't go well. The topic of his moving out came up, mostly out of anger, and his feeling that it was so he "wouldn't ruin my life." I asked him whether he had options, of which he listed three: moving to Utter Chaos, moving in with workmates nearby, or quitting his job and moving back to Hingham with his mother. The last one made me ripshit to the point where I just cried. It has been a long time since a man made me cry. The fact that he was so willing to flippantly throw away everything that I have worked so hard to give him: a career with upward mobility at a place where he was treated with respect by his peers, and a chance to get back on his feet; that affirmed many of the fears that I have had in the back of my mind. I have sometimes feared that by helping him, he has not learned a single thing about prioritizing anything in his life, and I don't think that I could bear to be proven right. By being stricter about things like rent and chores, though, I still see no viable solution as I'm just not emotionally robust enough to last in a mother role and be able to switch back to just a girlfriend.

I don't want to work through those problems right now. Am I a bitch to be saying that? I want to be a normal girlfriend, not a mom. These are typical "growing up" and life management problems that people normally learn to deal with by having a few rough experiences and gaining wisdom through negative reinforcement. Nobody ever learns from a pat on the back and an "atta boy!" Everyone deals with a bad landlord, or a bill collector, or a credit card agency some time in their life. They have a bad experience, call the agent an asshole, but then they learn, and have good relationships with different agencies in the future. But the relationship is always ruined with that first asshole landlord, or that first card company. I don't want to be that first experience! It will make me lose my respect for an otherwise very good person - and that's no way to maintain a relationship.

That is the Shit Fairy, folks. I've seen the seedy underbelly of a person that I once admired for being a rebellious and seemingly self-sufficient individual. The Shit Fairy has pooped all over what was once Shiny... and the saddest thing about it is the fact that it took something new and Shiny to give me a point of comparison and make me realize just how bad I've let things slide, both with myself, and the things I can affect around me. I realize that Shiny wears off of everything, and then the Shit Fairy comes along. They go together hand in hand, really. There is no question that the exaggerated qualities I am fooling myself into believing in now are just that - Shiny. At the moment, I'm finding a renewed interest in clever investing, professionalism, and building the foundations of something meaningful for myself in the long term (in this case, I am becoming far more serious about the business of counterculture and niche fashion design). The real problem, I guess, is that even once the Shiny wears off of the person who inspired me to do all of this, the things I have done will still feel rewarding... but they won't balance the lopsidedness in my life if after doing all of it, I still come home to find a person I need to take care of instead of a partner I never have to worry about. The problem lies, not in the fact that I have met someone inspiring (the Shiny found on new people can wear out fast), but the fact that I have been inspired. It's starting me down that path towards a quarter-life crisis.

I place no blame on anyone but myself at this point... especially because I have been finding temporary escape in filling my life with projects, instead of addressing the real problem. In fact - my latest escapes have been doing semi-professional clothing design for bridal parties, and dabbling in minor design work for the fire toy company run by a talented friend of mine (in fact, here's a shameless plug: I've added a link in the right sidebar you can click on to go to his site. You can guess which one it is). In truth I find the projects temporarily very fulfilling. That is the Shiny at work, folks. I'll be fulfilled with the novelty of my projects until until the Shit Fairy makes a return visit with a trash can and a pack of wet wipes for Round 2.

Further bulletins as events warrant.