i miss jonno, for all the usual reasons: the curl of an arm through the night, spontaneous hilarity, dependable kisses.

more than that, though, i’m just not very good on my own. anyone who knows me knows how antsy i can get in my skin, how boring i find my own company. given my druthers, i’d almost always rather be around people than alone, left to the humdrum predictability of my solitude. some people need personal space and time – i’ve never been one of them. but more than boredom or loneliness, i fall into bad habits given too much solitude. i get morose and obsessive, prone to behaving in ways i would never consider doing in front of other people. i find myself sliding into gloom and hypercriticism, and everything gets all distorted and just plain unhealthy. it doesn’t help that every time i’ve been on my own for prolonged periods of time, i’ve been depressed – is that coincidence or causality? does it matter if the end result is that i equate being alone with being neurotic? i recognise it, but seem helpless to stop it. it’s as if, given nothing but myself to focus my attentions on, i put myself under a microscope and then berate myself for all my imperfections. spending too much time looking inward, i lose sight of the big picture. and somehow having someone else around that loves me in spite of my flaws, or even because of them, keeps everything in perspective. i need the lens of another person’s eyes to correct my own vision.

i realise all of this makes me sound pretty off kilter – and it occurs to me that perhaps this is just an example of me being hypercritical of my hypercriticism. after all, around other people, i do pass for (quasi)normal most of the time, so i can’t be that warped. ( < -- once again, i need to think about how others see me in order to determine how i see myself :roll:)

i've often called j my anchor, but more accurately, he's my rudder that keeps me from veering wildly off course. i am a kinder, gentler version of me around him, and seeing who i really am as reflected through his love is probably what i love most about myself. without that, it feels like looking in a funhouse mirror - which is really no fun at all.

one week down, only two to go.

ben folds five – best imitation of myself

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