I think I may have to break up with Joe. It scares me to say it.

I've been gaining weight. It's hard to see a difference but my pants are soo not fitting me. All the ones that were too big before are skin tight and all the ones that are skin tight sadly cannot be worn at all. :(

So I asked my mom and she didn't give me a direct answer but as we talked about it we discovered that it was linked with Joe's attachment to me. My mom used the word possessiveness, but it's not that Joe is controlling. It's that he's manipulating because of his attachment. I feel like I owe him something because he loves me so much.

He's great. He's very nearly perfect for me. Or, perhaps it's that all the superficial aspects of a relationship that I thought I always wanted I've now gotten and it's still not enough. Perhaps I need to transcend my illusions of what a relationship is supposed to give me and find something more.

I told my mom that he was like a lost puppy. The kind of puppy that whimpers and whines when you want it to sleep alone in the laundry room. It wants to be in your bed and it won't take no for an answer. Joe needs so much taking care of. And I did it so willingly, without considering that I might be uncomfortable about it. And maybe that's why the weight had to come in. In other words, I needed a symptom, to draw my attention to the fact that something was wrong.

All of this comes down to the fact that during the first week we were dating, when I finally said yes to Joe, he sensed that I didn't want to be dating him so he asked me why we were dating. I asked him why he wanted to date me or something of the sort and he said, because I love you. And I said, that's why we're dating.

I went out with him because he loved me. Not because I loved him. From day one, I let myself walk into a lie. And it is a lie. Because everything I do in our relationship I do for him. I've lost myself. Because he's such a needy person, I've sacrificed my needs for his. And now I feel guilty giving myself what I need since it most often requires that I take from what he needs.

He has an unbalanced, attached love for me. And I'm really not doing him any favors by egging it on.

It's not that the relationship is or has been a waste. But I always said to myself that Joe was just a step, that I wanted more. And I never felt that passion for him.

I asked myself what a healthy relationship felt like without the highs and lows. Perhaps it's unhealthy to ask for a euphoria or even a passion. But I know that it gives you a sense of contentment, of satisfaction.

It's not that I desire more from a relationship than Joe can give me, per se. His only problem is he's spiritually unaware and I want someone who I can communicate with my ideas and perceptions - though I do tell him sometimes, but it's all foreign to him. In any case, I feel like it's more that the life I wanted isn't the life I have now.

Joe is not to be blamed. I got a job at Starbucks, I moved into this apartment, I started dating Joe, I built a life for myself that did Not suit my needs or wants. But my life really consists of going to work and coming home to Joe. He's over here so often. And it's not a simple matter to get rid of him. Because he doesn't have a license, I've taken to bringing him home with me after work, so that I don't have to drive all the way to his house. And it's easier for him to sleepover and go to work with me the next day. So you see he's always with me. And I know that if I want him to leave, I have to take an hour out of my day by driving him all the way home.

Again, I'm pushing aside my needs because of his weaknesses. I have to take care of him. I can't just stay at my house while he leaves for work or his friends or his home. I fucking long for the day when I can have a boyfriend who can come to my house and leave my house independent of my car and me driving.

I almost took him to the five hour course this morning but even though we woke up at 8, we fell back asleep once we took off the alarm and we didn't wake up until 9:10, even though it starts at 9. I longed for it. For not only a step towards his independence but for a morning to myself, on my day off. A morning where I could get things done and work on my book.

I think that I've gotten into such a habit of becoming his slave that I can't do anything for myself. I feel so damn lazy when he's around. I can't do anything. And it's almost like I've stopped doing what I need so much so that when he's around, all I can do is sit and wait for him to need something or for the time to go by until I have to go to work.

Work necessity and Joe necessity. Living my life by someone else's clock and someone else's purpose.

But of course, whenever Joe asks me for something I cringe inside. I get so angry, most likely angry at the reminder that I'm little more than his slave.

Don't get me wrong. Joe has not treated me like I'm his slave. But he's allowed me to become his dependence. He's attached to me and he depends on me for things in his life.

And God, I've been so mean the past few days. I've treated him like such a child for the two months we've been dating. I've coaxed him, guided him, protected him, served him, supported him. I'm more open and honest with Isis. Because Joe is an adult, who is not acting like one, he can fully understand all that he uses to hurt himself. Everything that offends him that I can't say. I can say it all to Isis and she won't know. Isis is much stronger than him, even as a child. Plus, her cries guilt me less.

I should keep that in mind. When Joe gets hurt I suppose he uses much more manipulating techniques than Isis's simple cries.

So when I found out the issue, I had to go pick him up from work and I talked to him about the issue in the car. I wanted to say the truth and then hug him because I knew it would hurt him. But I knew I couldn't hug him. I knew that I had to, simply put, stop taking care of him. I always hug his head and pet his hair in this comforting way - but that has to stop.

I wouldn't have even hung out with him the next day but I promised Amelia that we'd come over to play cards since her boyfriend would be done from nyc. I took the opportunity because I love playing cards with a group, and it never happens. I've only played Shanghai Rummy twice since Mike and I broke up three years ago. Believe me, I had to take the opportunity to play it.

But I had just come from work and there are always issues there. Issues of conditions and backstabbing. With people at work, I always have to do everything right or they freak out. The entire environment is extremely controlling. I can't do the things I want to do on the days I want to do them because work tells me to jump and I ask how high. The work place dictates what clothes I should wear, what jewelry I shouldn't wear and how my hair is. None of which please me. So I'm wearing something I don't like for 40 hours.

I like to say that I'm not dressing up for a funeral, I'm just going to work. Ironically, because I've gained weight, my work clothes are more or less the only pants that fit me. That's why I didn't notice I was gaining weight because I never wear my other clothes anyway. I knew they were fitting more snugly but that was partly because I use a dryer at the laundromat and it shrinks my clothes a little.

Or maybe I'm imagining it all and it's all my weight.

The people there are always complaining about when and where I eat. What I say. When I use my cellphone. Essentially every little thing I do.

And I've found that when I'm not working, they complain. But when I am working, they complain that I'm taking too long and I should be doing something else. The people on register love to do nothing, but when you have to greet the customers, you're rooted to the spot. I like to always be active, doing stuff, working. I worked for like an hour and a half solidly. I didn't sit down. I didn't even have my cellphone there at work with me. I didn't go to the bathroom or eat. I didn't talk to anyone there at work cause Joe was at home and all the people I didn't like were working.

I was working solidly, and all they could bitch about was how long it took me. And hey, as far as I'm concerned, the work I was doing needed to be done if not today than tomorrow or the next day. It's not that it needed to be done immediately, but it was work. So why should I get bitched at? They only wanted me around so that I could take their place while they did nothing. And they really only complained about me because they refuse to say a positive thing about anybody. All they can ever do is suck the life out of a situation by bitching about everything wrong that they can possibly imagine.

It's not the managers though. If the manager doesn't like me, they take joy in rubbing it in my face. But if the manager does like me, they take pleasure in telling me that that manager is a complete bitch, so nothing they say about me has any relevance.

I really despise Ashley. She's really the core of all this. Everybody else has simmered, but she cant keep her nose out of other people's business. She's always trying to be your friend and then stab you in the back. I liked her at first, I honestly thought she was a good person. I didn't think Brittany was a good person and now I'm reevaluating my thoughts. Everything Ashley does just seems infected with evil intent.

I actually admire Brittany's qualities in comparison.

Ashley has just been making me sick. In every bad situation at work these days, she's involved. For instance, I think it's her fault that Bryan told on me. Someone told my manager that Joe and I have been making out in front of customers. Which is untrue. I did lick caramel off of Joe's ear in front of Ashley. It was out front, but not while any customers were around to see. I try not to even hug Joe in front of customers.

That makes me mad at Ashley because she gossips so maliciously. Bryan because I haven't worked with him for almost an entire month, never when Joe was at work, and even if Joe was, up until the past week, Joe wouldn't ever come visit me in Starbucks. Not sure why. I always come visit him at Famiglias. In any case, Bryan still thinks its his business to talk about what I do, when he's not even there. And he was probably the one to tell Pete about it, even though it is grossly exaggerated. How dare he get me into trouble for something HE HASN'T EVEN SEEN ME DO.

But also mad at Joe, because I always push him away when he's about to kiss me because I don't want to get in to trouble. But he hates people telling him he can't kiss me so he does it in front of them just to spite them, so he forces me to kiss him and I'm not saying I'm the weaker sex, only that I give in to what he wants because HE'S the weaker sex. And I'm tired of his begging nature. I'm tired of him violating my needs.

But my point in sharing this is that I'd had some trouble with Ashley right before I went to play cards. She got offended - because she always has an excuse to become offended. And then right before I left she said that we didn't need to have a beef, as long as I never said what I said to her again. I walked right out. I didn't say a word. How dare she put conditions one what I say. As if I care so much about her half-ass backstabbing not even a friendship friendship, as if I care about her opinion on me so much that I would suck up to her needs and wishes just to earn it. I'm going to say what I feel and do what I want regardless of the effect it has on her. I don't trust her and I'm not going to go out of my way to earn a trust that I don't trust.

It initially started because I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to her and she freaked out on me and called me a bitch like 17 times. Now I know that I can be kind and open with her and she'll still find an excuse to punish me.

But I left with like four drinks, stealing, according to the company, though we all give out free drinks. And everybody saw me do it cause I put it in a bag. I'm afraid that they'll talk. You tell one person something there and they tell EVERYBODY. And I understand first hand because I do it to. We feel that everybody there should know everybody's business. Like it's a right we have from working there. And it just seems so natural to spread the news, without thinking of the consequences and the feelings. Some people don't want other people to know their business and sometimes it gets people into trouble, not to mention circulates false information to a degree.

Like Michelle told me that she used to cut herself and when Ron and David were making jokes it hurt her. I told Ron because I trusted him, I didn't tell David. I wanted them both to know so that they wouldn't say things around her again. But Ron seriously told everybody. Even Bryan now knows. You'd think they would keep these things from Bryan because he's just a horrible person and doesn't deserve to even have the gossip. But there are no bounds. I like Ron, but now every time someone mentions it, I feel bad. Michelle didn't want to be laughed at. And I didn't say it so that they could all know and laugh. Just so that they could keep from laughing about it to her face. Which I ended up getting, since now they probably don't mention it in front of her. But now instead of making "I cut myself" jokes in general, they make "I, Michelle, cut myself" jokes. So if they ever talk about cutting, they link it with Michelle.

Gossip is 30 times worse than in high school because it's such a closed network. There are much less people than in high school and most of the people know each other. Half of them are good friends with someone there and a few of them are dating someone there or related to someone there.

In any case, I just had all these pressures and emotions coursing through me and I didn't want any conditions put on me. I was tired of Joe's pressure, I was tired of work's pressure and frankly, I was tired of Amelia's pressure.

I've been so stressed lately in this imbalanced life. I've had problems with my car, being sick, I friend my external harddrive, my laptop broke down, etc etc. I get a chance to go to my parents house the two days after Thanksgiving. I know that this is my opportunity to set things in motion. I'm so stranded up here with no one but Joe and work, and I knew that this was my opening into the network of spiritual people who I can connect with the way I've finally realized I'm meant to.

And Amelia kept hasseling me to leave at like 5pm on Sat, a day and a half after we got there. It's not that she wanted to cut the trip half way short or anything. We meant to leave in about six more hours. But six hours is a lot. I knew that we would be sitting around talking, I still had important things to discuss with my mom, and I wanted to hear Erin's discussion. All Amelia could do was think about herself and her own needs. I told her we could get a full nights sleep and go in the morning but then Isis would be up and she didn't want that because it stresses her out.

For the past year Amelia has always had stress. Every fucking moment. First she was married to Anthony, then she was pregnant, then she had a newborn, then she was divorcing Anthony, then she had college, then she was trying to be a single mom. And she treated me horribly for so long and blamed it on all those stress factors she had. And every time I would try to stand up for myself and try to push her to work through her problems so that she wouldn't make me the scapegoat, my mom would tell me to back off because Amelia was too stressed out about her other important worries to worry about me. So she just continued to treat me like shit and I let her.

And now, for once in my life, I have a stress. And all I asked of Amelia was that she give me a few more hours at my parents house. She says, you can always come back. NO I CAN'T. I can't drive down there because my car is too old to make it. I can't fly down there, that's too expensive. I can't stay down there for more than two days because I have to rush back to come to Starbucks. She didn't understand how stressful and complicated it was to put this opportunity into place, and how much I needed to work through in the short amount of time that I had.

And I've simply come to realize that I'm tired of my sister justifying her bad behavior towards me. I'm tired of accepting that even a part of her motivation is my fault. I'm tired of trying to be pleasant, of giving myself her conditions so that I can please her. If she wants to hate me, she's going to find an excuse, just like everybody at work.

I don't remember any of the details between Amelia and I. I don't remember any of the things she said, but I know that I was being extremely blunt and course. I was not buttering anybody up or catering to their weaknesses. I was just being selfish and egotistical and cruel. It's not that I wanted to hurt anybody, it's that I wanted to be myself without any restraints. And I felt terrible about the way I did it. I need to obviously find a balance.

But it was liberating because as I rubbed people the wrong way, they started to react to it, and I didn't care. I just kept getting worse. Instead of their feelings scaring me into behaving, or making me feel bad about myself, I just kept acting brutish and terrible, thinking, well, I can't do everything you want even when I'm perfect, so why should I even try a little bit?

It's almost like, I was justifying the way they felt about me. They treat me like I act all the time the way I acted last night. Seriously. And they probably didn't learn their lesson. But I needed to experiment, find a medium, find a balance. I need to be myself unrestrained, but I need to not care that they hate me for it. It was like, I acted horrible and immediately they started guilting me into feeling bad about it and I just said, fuck you. And acted even worse.

I don't want to be a horrible person, but I need to have the strength and the love for myself in order to stand my ground no matter what they think. I can't give into their conditions and my fear of meeting their obligations.

This is what I've been doing since I moved in. Trying to fit into everyone's conditions. My landlords' conditions. My bosses' conditions. My coworkers' conditions. My friends' conditions. And my boyfriend's conditions.

Everyone's conditions but my own.

It's interesting. Because prior to moving out, I had none of these. I dropped out of high school, I stopped being friends with most of my friends, I didn't have a boyfriend for two years, I didn't have a job, and I lived with my parents and my sister but they already thought me selfish and egotistical and never expected me to be otherwise, so I could mostly do what I wanted.

I lived my solitary, semi-independent life in peace. Not that everything was perfect. I fought with my mom over my independence. I couldn't make as many choices as I wanted to or express myself in as many ways because of the financial independence to my parents and living in their house. And I was having issues with picking guys who didn't acknowledge my worth like Dan, John and James.

I needed to move out, work on my social issues, work on my independence, face my fears. But I guess I've been too recessive. I've let them control me too much. I always had so much spunk and resistance to control, but it seems like that makes me and enemy and when I try to be a friend, when I try to cohabit or cooperate, I put too many conditions on my self-expression, so I become a mat that gets trampled on.

I'm a controversial person. I need to accept that. But I was always so guilty for being a controversial person because people - especially my parents - told me that I was a BAD person for being controversial. I was never a bad person. I used bad tools to express myself because I was unhealthy and I didn't know how to stabilize my emotions and my sense of being. I know how to do that know to a larger extent, but this doesn't meant that I'm going to get along with any more people than I did before.

I need to accept that I'm going to have to be and express myself regardless of controversy. I can't create it and expect it, because this is focusing on the negative. I want to hope for the connections I'll make by being open and honest with people. I want to focus on the people who I will be able to love and care for.

Rob and David were telling me how I was so extremely prickly when I first started working at Starbucks. (no wonder, with the way they treat me) - which is something to add. People always feel that I give them such uncalled for behavior, that I give them such an attitude and they're so undeserving. They don't realize how each one of them has at one point or another done the very same thing to me. Each one has treated me with an uncalled for attitude. And whether it matters or not, it's a which came first the chicken or the egg situation - was I being prickly because they gave me an attitude or did they give me an attitude because I was being prickly....

In any case, I've worked on my pricklyness so much that it almost amuses me how little they would have gotten along with me back in the day. It would have been a disaster! And I tried so hard to be pleasant and smiley and warm and friendly, to a large degree I think I succeeded. I don't think that I was being especially prickly to them, I think that they are all very sensitive and very quick to be offended or angry. David told me that he's just a big teddy bear - unless you make him mad. And I said that it was very easy TO make him mad, thus, it was a difficult job for anyone to get along with him, since so much stimulates his bad side, so unexpectedly.

But I said frankly to Ron and David that I don't remember treating them the way they said I acted and that they had to realize it was not like that on the inside. It did not feel that I was being prickly to them. Part of it is that I couldn't self-reflect to that degree, part of it is that they projected a lot of my behavior. But this is something all people should realize, it does NOT always feel on the inside the way it sounds or looks on the outside. If I were to experience things the way another does, I may not act that way. If I could perceive myself the way another would, I would probably not condone my own behavior.

People are so quick to blame, as am I to everyone else because we assume that people are consciously doing everything that they're doing. But they're not always consciously aware of what they're doing and how it seems. They're so focused on their own issues and what resolutions they find within their behavior - in other words, what they feel acting the way they do gains them - that they don't fully realize the consequences of their actions for other people.

And in a healthy community, people would be able to simply express and explain these things to each other. Someone would have been able to tell me that I sounded really prickly. But we have such a disunity, such an enemy mindset, that we feel if anybody says anything critical about us it's for the sole purpose of destroying us and thus we have to have a resistance to it. And that's because many people do criticize not to aid another's growth but to simply put them down and make them believe that they're wrong for being who they are and acting the way they do.

People don't like their flaws, they ridicule their flaws. Thus, they ridicule others' flaws. Thus, when others point out their flaws, they automatically assume that the other people are trying to ridicule their own flaws. And since the other people ridicule THEIR own flaws, its likely that they are indeed trying to ridicule yours, and its a never-ending cycle of disharmony and disunity. We're not on the same side.

I always use that expression because it fits the way I've felt in the past so much. There's this sense of war - my side against your side. I can't trust anything you do or say because you're trying to destroy me to the benefit of your side. That's war. And we can pretend that we're friends and we trust each other but for me, whenever someone would spark that fear that I was in a war, everything would be set off, my soldier mentality and my wall of protection, my "us" against "them" objection.

It's exactly like when people get flashbacks of war and their innocent wife taps them on the shoulder and they turn around and start strangling their wife because they feel that they're in war again and it's a kill or be killed reality. We get so blinded by our fear of being the one killed that we'll do anything to protect ourselves - first and foremost, by attacking the other side.

Anyway, I have to get back to my work before my day off is over and I have to go back to work and go back to Joe. Meh.