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It is like, on this trip, I went from old Xen (who, granted, was a swell fellow) to Xen, who is 20 and on the verge of a wonderful life. He is charming and caring. And his humor helps him through life. He is not a teenager, but he lovingly smiles upon those that he sees. It's quite nice, however subtle.
How charming you are in your optimism. I would love to say that the intervening two decades won't tamp that down, but there are more barriers to that wonderful life than you can believe right now. My life isn't, for the most part, bad. At the very least, I am lucky in love and devoted to my writing. But it won't be easy, and you will stay far too long on the wrong paths, martyring yourself.
Depending less on other people, you do start becoming yourself more so and more consistently, but it is a lifetime of practice for anyone.
Your humor is occasionally an unhealthy coping mechanism, but at least it is fun for those around you much of the time.
I don't know how often I awe people, but evidently it made Kate's mother rather love me. I just left their company not five hours ago, and Kate already informed my that her mother misses me.
I remember marking it as an accomplishment when Kate's mother finally warmed to me. You are coming out of your shell a little, not being so easily cowed by those whom you believe have some power over you, even if that power is simply that you sleep with their daughter.
Kate may not have appreciated as much that you got some approval from her mom. She wasn't in the business of wanting anything to do with her parents' approval.
Increasingly sex, and simply sexual situations, frightens her.
It will always be her issue and not yours; however, an irregular sex life makes you uneasy. But you cannot fix someone by badgering them.
Also, someone having sex with you doesn't resolve your abandonment issues; they can make your legs quake and, five minutes later, tell you that they are done with the relationship.
I do not know what is going on in her head, and she will not let me in.
She wants sex on her terms. Those terms may not involve you. If there is more going on--and I suppose there may be--it is not something you ever find out for sure.
After she leaves you, she is sexual with several others--as many college students are. I couldn't say for sure what this means. I could speculate that she simply did not want sex with the baggage of love or monogamy. I do not recall her having a serious partner again until after college, but I grant that I wasn't precisely compiling a census.
After a relationship of two years, she wanted some breathing room in other beds.
She has cropped her lovely hair very short. And to add to her seemingly self imposed sexlessness, she dressed like a boy. This is not to say that she simply wears men's clothing. Any lass can do this and the femininity glows through the masculine trappings, perhaps more so. She dresses as though she is a 12 year old boy. For the entire vacation, she wore the same pair of men's zipper pants. Not washed once. I truly, unconsciously began to regard her as an androgyne, leaning more toward the Y chromosome.
Women do that from time to time--decide to cut their hair and toss their skirt, especially women you find attractive. Kate was never wholly straight--though she married a charming man and bore him an adorable girl, she is presently in a relationship with a woman.
Femininity is a constant pressure for some. If it can be bucked from time to time for the sake of rediscovery and exploration, it is hardly the worst crime.
Also, maybe she isn't so interested in attracting you any longer. Perhaps, she did this because you wanting to have sex with her had become something that she wished to discourage. It isn't that you did anything wrong. On balance, I think you did most things as right as you could. These reappropriate letters were written from extremes; you didn't write to people because everything was peachy and bland in your life. The analysis was the exception, and it was overamplified.
I told her that she needs to give me that which I truly desire: a fiercely beautiful, gentle spirited, emotionally complex, sexually desirable, mature, playful, humorous, brilliant, heretically skeptical, amazing woman. In short, the person Kate is. Unfortunately, I am getting a scared girl who fears every loving gesture.
But she doesn't have to give you that. She is getting most things she wants in this relationship (aside from it being a relationship). You are the one who is not in a position to negotiate. Your nuclear option--leaving her--is increasingly her preferred outcome.
No one must give you someone they no longer are.