Love

I need to fall in love.

We had evaluations tonight. I don't know how well I evaluated myself, but the teachers said I'm doing okay. I've had some strong classes lately and I am definitely ready for the next class. Very good news for me, and I'm really excited to be able to take the next class and work on the next step. But in the three classes that remain, I need to work more (which I knew - I've been sitting there watching a lot and on Saturday, I pushed myself to work more and that was a good thing. I just need to continue on that path) and I need to fall in love. I need to explore the softer feelings.

Which, of course, I thought about the entire way home. It's true not only in class, but in my real life, too, which is why it's such a scary proposition. I thought about my dating/crush history and I'm not sure I know what me in love looks like. I loved a drug addict for many years (who told me ten years later that he is gay) who spent about five or six years playing with me, teasing me, not giving me what I wanted or needed but getting pissy when I tried to get it from someone else. I felt like I was in love, but that was not a healthy love, nor a reciprocated one. I currently have a ginormous crush on a man who lives a bajillion miles away and who is not romantically interested in me, but I compare every man I meet to this guy and get bored if they don't measure up. The most recent guy I dated who I thought I might fall in love with didn't even have the guts to dump me when he found another woman. He waited for me to dump him in a text message and I found out that the woman he left me for was someone I knew and it was a totally lateral move. She's a great woman, but so am I. I've dated men before who have told me that they loved me, and I think I've said it back a time or two, but I think those feelings were more "I care about you and what happens to you" kind of feelings as opposed to "I want to build a life with you" kind of feelings. I loved them like I love the rest of my friends or my family; not in a lose-control-can't-stand-to-be-without-them way. I don't know that I've ever felt that, especially not in any sort of healthy setting. I don't know if I've truly been in love, so I don't know what that would look like on stage. I don't know how to get there.

I think I know what classmate I could try to go there with, even though in the grand scheme of things it would be completely inappropriate. This classmate was actually a character in a rather inappropriate dream I had while napping this afternoon. I think I kept chocolate in my kitchen junk drawer in this particular dream, too. Anyway. I wonder if I hold myself back from going there in class because so many of my classmates are in relationships and I feel really weird foisting myself on someone in exercise in class who is in a relationship. That's a boundary I'm not comfortable with. But it might be necessary for my growth as an actor. And that statement makes me sound like a horrible person. Of course, there is always the possibility that I'll make a move and get rejected, which could also be beautiful.

In either case, I need to figure out a way to go there. I need to fall in love. Both in exercise and in real life. Hopefully with different people in each setting.