"let me be frank." "all right frank, let me be bullwinkle."

not that it has anything to do with the complicated feelings coursing through me, making it difficult to breathe.

ever feel like a weight is sitting on you, pressing you down, making it so every single microscopic moment you live and every single millisecond you spend is now being judged and scrutinized by one of the most important people? that's how i feel. i'm this huge box of inexplicable emotions, this pandora's cage of the beating of my heart and i can't find a way out.

i love her. i do. i love her whole-heartedly. and feeling like i'm the hugest disappointment since atheists in her eyes makes my heart sink to my stomach. i'm not good enough. i'm not good enough for her. i'm not good enough for her adoration, for her full respect.

that's what it feels like. it feels like i'm suddenly the worst child in the world again. and that's saying something, considering up until recently, she and i had been on a very flat and level plain. and then diana pointed out the most blaring-obvious truth that i must have been blinded to all this time: i really can't tell her everything.

i've viewed her as my best friend; professed that i can trust her, that she's one of my shoulders to cry on, and now all of sudden she just... she isn't. i love her so much, and i want that strong, trusting relationship, and i know that it's built slowly over time and with care and love but... but i thought so much more of this, and all of a sudden she's just...

stopped.

it's all just stopped. all of a sudden i'm no longer good enough. and some of it stems from the fact that i have trouble grasping the solidity she finds in christianity. it just isn't for me, at least not now, not with all of these questions, and if i had the clarity and the profound faith that she did, it'd be different. but i don't, and i haven't, for awhile.

and they always say that doing things just for others is wrong. i can't keep pretending to be christian for her. i can't. i could hide it all i wanted to, go to church, keep up the facade, and do what i really wanted behind her back, but what's worse? hiding? or feeling accepted.

accepted.

i'm not doing drugs, i'm not having promiscuous sex, jesus - the guy i'm "seeing" lives in chicago for god sake. i don't get to do anything more than just talk to him.

side-note: it's definitely saying something when "just talking" to someone is enough to make me happy. end side-note.

i can't even cry over this. i can't. part of me just wants to run the fuck away and hope that someday she'll want to love and accept me regardless of what and who i do and don't believe in. maybe just maybe having decent morals, a good disposition and a healthy work attitude will be enough.

i hate feeling this way. i absolutely, positively hate it. i just... i wish i could fix it, i wish i could mend those fences. it's like that time i was in ireland, when i came back and she was... broken.

being me seems to be the root of the problem. but why do i have to hide who i am to the people who i thought would accept me no matter what? why do i feel like pretending to be what and who they want and need me to be is the only way i'll be able to see her smile?

i can't. i can't do that. i refuse to. i've grown the backbone she always told me to grow.

too bad it had to be in response to... well, to her.

...this fucking sucks.

-aleey.

ps: she's going into surgery on the eleventh. keep her in your prayers or thoughts or... or whatever it is you do. she'll be out of work for about a month. perhaps longer.