I Can Haz Feels?

I planned to go to bed early tonight to make up for getting only 3 hours of sleep last night. Now it's midnight (that's late, by the way), because I kept digging through my old accounts and finding more things to read. I let Aiden into the blog today and since he was home sick, he binge-read the whole thing like I did yesterday. We agreed it's addictive.

So I went chasing the high and read all the words I could find. That was unnecessary and depressing. I can't explain the way I acted toward him. One might argue that it doesn't matter now, but I always dig for the reasons behind my actions, thoughts, and feelings.

Feelings. I haven't had those in a while. Aiden makes me have feelings, and it's fucking disconcerting.

It's very different from how I had feelings for various exes. I used to measure devotion in how hard I thought I would panic if that person were removed from my life. But I've changed, and it's for the better; that model either resulted from or resulted in, or possibly both, a couple of unhealthy relationships into which I lost myself.

I don't know how to describe in words what Aiden does to my insides. All I can express is that he touches something with which I'm not entirely familiar. I alternately embrace it and fight it; I'm very proud of rebecoming the even-keeled rock who never flusters and never cries, and it's a big part of my identity that I don't want to change. But sometimes, I think, you have to allow a little slack downward to get a really great upward swing.

It's like the difference between taking anti-depressants and not taking them. Taking them pushed my existence into a tunnel - downward direction was limited, but upward was as well. I'm long off the drugs, and I can maintain myself in that sort of way; I have an iron grip on the downswings, with all sorts of control mechanisms in place to keep me turned away from the deep end. My standard daily variance exists between "chillin'" and "fuckin' awesome," with an occasional side dish of "mildly annoyed."

There's been a disturbance in the force lately. Not like "headed for a breakdown" level, by any means. No alarm bells, please. I'm just becoming more reactive to situations, specifically those that involve Aiden. We've actually had a couple of small fights over the last couple of months...and saying it that way, it sounds so normal that I almost feel stupid actually putting this much thought into it. But I don't really fight. Not anymore.

Or is the implied comparison in the "anymore" irrelevant? I might be comparing "Skylar in a relationship" to "Skylar single," and maybe they're just two totally different beasts that shouldn't be compared.

No, that's not reasonable. I'm me, no matter who's around. That doesn't change.

But it does. Apparently. The fuck.