... when the guy I've been seeing said to me last night when I asked if it was over that "No, I just don't really know what's going on with anything, and I don't see that getting any better or me having any more time for anything in the future" and "It really doesn't have anything to do with you. I mean, it effects you, I know, but it's not ABOUT you"...
He wasn't saying "We're good, I just have a lot going on", but that dreaded sentiment I run into oh so often and never notice until after the fact: "It's not you, it's me".
And then I made out with him for at least a solid 20 minutes. My God, I'm glad I'm so hot... because I'm realllllllly fucking stupid.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
This weekend...
I went on two dates with the same boy (we've been involved for some time, but this isn't how we roll generally) and didn't freak out about it in the slightest-- even when he kissed me in public for the first one, and pretended he didn't know me and we weren't together for the second one. I had a 6 member punk band on tour stay at my house (sorry boys-- hummus and pita and leaving behind toothpaste and imports: not very rock star), dyed a corset, dyed it again because the black wouldn't take, discussed horses having sex vs. sexual horseplay in a Starbucks, written and turned in two midterm papers that it seems are not due until next week, sat for 4 hours in front of a bonfire, smoked from a long cigarette holder, and ate an entire pumpkin pie to myself.
And my weekend felt wasted, faked and somehow misleading to anyone who saw me taking any part in it. I wasn't called 'mommy' once, and I can't help but think that I wasn't fooling anyone, especially myself... everything was effortless, everything came together perfectly, and everything was completely wrong.
I'll never quite adjust to this being old enough not to need to call me before bed thing.
And my weekend felt wasted, faked and somehow misleading to anyone who saw me taking any part in it. I wasn't called 'mommy' once, and I can't help but think that I wasn't fooling anyone, especially myself... everything was effortless, everything came together perfectly, and everything was completely wrong.
I'll never quite adjust to this being old enough not to need to call me before bed thing.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
3 Hours, 3 Exes
At 1:00 sharp, I have lunch with my ex boyfriend. We do not fight, we do not have to get together, we enjoy our Tuesday lunch. He was a major part of my daughters life, and when you live with someone for 7 years you get to be more than a couple. Indeed, in the end we really weren't a couple... we were still together because we are family. And so now, every Tuesday before he has a play day with my miniature self, we go to coffee. We talk about school (mine), how the family is (his), love for the aforementioned miniature (both parties inclusive). And it's good. And it's important. And honestly, it's my favorite part of the week.
As we part at 2:45, I feet compelled to offer to meet his new girlfriend. He's wanted me to for the 2 years they have been together, but I can't. It hurts that he is kind to her, never hits her, never yells at her. Never calls her stupid, never throws her things away because she shouldn't have left them laying around. Never tells her she doesn't deserve to be loved, that she's pathetic, that no one can stand her, that he hates waking up every day she's alive. "Isn't that sick" I think sometimes, "that I am angry with a woman because she doesn't go through something so terrible... Isn't that sick?". But, the last time he asked if I could meet her, I felt like he was asking me to give him permission to forgive himself. Which says more to the point that on his own, he simply can't. I escaped, I take care of me, we are friends, but he still can't forgive himself until he sees that I am OK with it if he does. He feels he has no right to on his own... and that earns my forgiveness. And getting out of the car today, I say "I'll meet her if you want". And he paused and responded very sincerely "Thank you. But you don't... just... whatever you're comfortable with". And he was a terrible boyfriend yes, but he's a wonderful person, he's essential to my life today.
And then I think to myself with 100% certainty... "I love my ex boyfriend."
**********************
Fast forward. 3:30. I call my often cuddle/sometimes kiss/totally gets me ex boyfriend. We are very good friends. We do not fight unless it is romantic in nature because we remain eternally unresolved. More accurately, we do not exactly fight. We get cold. We bicker. We get jealous with no right to. But, we do not exactly fight. Today we have coffee, we complain about school, we brush fingers for silly reasons because we are not physically affectionate in public. I look at him for a moment in that "we are not involved, but we are involved" way, where I am just noticing how much I like the color of his hair, how charming his freckles are, that I like the beard more as we get older, that his eyes shine more than most men. he always looks a little angry, and a little sad-- he always has. I have a moment where I don't think and reach out and brush my finger tips over his hair near his eyebrow, and catching myself. Because I don't like things like that in public any more than he does, I grab for his sunglasses after I do it. It blends seamlessly, no one notices, he does not notice, I barely do myself.
I have been making him a mix CD for a few days, and suddenly I think of how many women he will put these songs on mix CDs for. He's done so several times, in snoopier days I saw evidence of such things on his computer when looking through for my own mixes. They were personal songs. Tender songs. They were me telling him I was in love with him, and exactly how. It takes days, weeks, months to find enough songs to tell someone exactly how you love them, it isn't fair for them to steal your songs and pawn them off, it's like skinning one person to keep another one warm so you can keep your coat. Maybe not something that melodramatic at all, but it's wrong. And it hurts like hell regardless of what it's like... I don't know where the thought came from, but I feel tears welling up and I tell him his sunglasses are ugly and put mine back on, then stop looking at him entirely.
It's October, and in October it gets cold suddenly in the evening in the Midwest.: It suddenly gets cold this particular evening, and I decide to leave abruptly. I hug him at his car tersely, kiss him lightly-- half on his mouth and half on the cheek-- and say good bye. I barely peek back and I'm furious with myself. I hate that I feel the way I do, I know better and I don't trust him and I shouldn't trust him, but it is what it is: I'm just one of the girls he keeps on his shelf, and I hate that I love my ex boyfriend.
*******************************
45 minutes later: I am going to a group get-together. We meet every Tuesday, I am able to join in because my daughter is with our friend and his new girlfriend. I walk in to our regular table, sit down, and notice that people are looking at me cautiously. I turn around and out of the bathroom walks my ex boyfriend. My friends, previously our friends, are looking at me waiting to see how to respond. I do not have a real family, not the way most people do, my friends are my family and they know that I need them, so they love me dearly. They watch me ready to shut down or hug him happily based entirely on my response. He looks perfect, he always did and being in Columbia for almost a year has not changed that. His hair is perfect and I remember how he used to approve of my hair color but not be fond of it past a certain length. His nails shine and I recall him telling me when my nail polish chipped. His outfit is coordinated flawlessly and I can hear him telling me what I should and should not wear, what colors don't work for me, what style shoes make me walk what way, the critique on my body, my weight, my skin... it has all been laying silent for all of this time waiting for today, somewhere just behind my ears.
It's hard to come somewhere when you know that everyone probably knows who you really were after the fact. It doesn't hurt me to let this man be accepted. I don't forget, but I forgive-- I have to. Because when I lean in to decide if I should hug him I smell his skin and it's familiar, and I remind myself that he used to kiss me in his sleep so hard that my lips bled from his teeth pressing against him, that he used to hold me so tightly in that same sleeping state that I was afraid he would strangle me and I wouldn't be able to wake him. It wasn't about me, he was asleep those nights and I could have been anyone.
It was that this man, so perfect, was starving to death for love in his elitist isolation, but no one was good enough. And so I promised then that I would love him, simply because he needed it. And he is still flawless, he is still starving.
And so in the way I would a scared withdrawn child who needs to be loved, I love my ex boyfriend.
*****************
Tonight, washing it all away in the shower, scrubbing away at their fingerprints on who I am today, it all catches up and I feel without reasoning for the first time since the parade of ex boyfriends started. I cry and I cry and I cry until the water gets cold, and I cry a bit more until my my nipples ache and turn purple, goose bumps turn my skin to the flesh of a plucked bird. I slide down the shower wall and sit with the water running over me as I cry, over my flawed hair and my replaceable hips and my ears raw from listening to too much music for other people.
I'm furious and I'm sick with the smiles and well meaning and I don't feel like being such a good fucking person for another second-- I hate hate hate my ex boyfriends.
As we part at 2:45, I feet compelled to offer to meet his new girlfriend. He's wanted me to for the 2 years they have been together, but I can't. It hurts that he is kind to her, never hits her, never yells at her. Never calls her stupid, never throws her things away because she shouldn't have left them laying around. Never tells her she doesn't deserve to be loved, that she's pathetic, that no one can stand her, that he hates waking up every day she's alive. "Isn't that sick" I think sometimes, "that I am angry with a woman because she doesn't go through something so terrible... Isn't that sick?". But, the last time he asked if I could meet her, I felt like he was asking me to give him permission to forgive himself. Which says more to the point that on his own, he simply can't. I escaped, I take care of me, we are friends, but he still can't forgive himself until he sees that I am OK with it if he does. He feels he has no right to on his own... and that earns my forgiveness. And getting out of the car today, I say "I'll meet her if you want". And he paused and responded very sincerely "Thank you. But you don't... just... whatever you're comfortable with". And he was a terrible boyfriend yes, but he's a wonderful person, he's essential to my life today.
And then I think to myself with 100% certainty... "I love my ex boyfriend."
**********************
Fast forward. 3:30. I call my often cuddle/sometimes kiss/totally gets me ex boyfriend. We are very good friends. We do not fight unless it is romantic in nature because we remain eternally unresolved. More accurately, we do not exactly fight. We get cold. We bicker. We get jealous with no right to. But, we do not exactly fight. Today we have coffee, we complain about school, we brush fingers for silly reasons because we are not physically affectionate in public. I look at him for a moment in that "we are not involved, but we are involved" way, where I am just noticing how much I like the color of his hair, how charming his freckles are, that I like the beard more as we get older, that his eyes shine more than most men. he always looks a little angry, and a little sad-- he always has. I have a moment where I don't think and reach out and brush my finger tips over his hair near his eyebrow, and catching myself. Because I don't like things like that in public any more than he does, I grab for his sunglasses after I do it. It blends seamlessly, no one notices, he does not notice, I barely do myself.
I have been making him a mix CD for a few days, and suddenly I think of how many women he will put these songs on mix CDs for. He's done so several times, in snoopier days I saw evidence of such things on his computer when looking through for my own mixes. They were personal songs. Tender songs. They were me telling him I was in love with him, and exactly how. It takes days, weeks, months to find enough songs to tell someone exactly how you love them, it isn't fair for them to steal your songs and pawn them off, it's like skinning one person to keep another one warm so you can keep your coat. Maybe not something that melodramatic at all, but it's wrong. And it hurts like hell regardless of what it's like... I don't know where the thought came from, but I feel tears welling up and I tell him his sunglasses are ugly and put mine back on, then stop looking at him entirely.
It's October, and in October it gets cold suddenly in the evening in the Midwest.: It suddenly gets cold this particular evening, and I decide to leave abruptly. I hug him at his car tersely, kiss him lightly-- half on his mouth and half on the cheek-- and say good bye. I barely peek back and I'm furious with myself. I hate that I feel the way I do, I know better and I don't trust him and I shouldn't trust him, but it is what it is: I'm just one of the girls he keeps on his shelf, and I hate that I love my ex boyfriend.
*******************************
45 minutes later: I am going to a group get-together. We meet every Tuesday, I am able to join in because my daughter is with our friend and his new girlfriend. I walk in to our regular table, sit down, and notice that people are looking at me cautiously. I turn around and out of the bathroom walks my ex boyfriend. My friends, previously our friends, are looking at me waiting to see how to respond. I do not have a real family, not the way most people do, my friends are my family and they know that I need them, so they love me dearly. They watch me ready to shut down or hug him happily based entirely on my response. He looks perfect, he always did and being in Columbia for almost a year has not changed that. His hair is perfect and I remember how he used to approve of my hair color but not be fond of it past a certain length. His nails shine and I recall him telling me when my nail polish chipped. His outfit is coordinated flawlessly and I can hear him telling me what I should and should not wear, what colors don't work for me, what style shoes make me walk what way, the critique on my body, my weight, my skin... it has all been laying silent for all of this time waiting for today, somewhere just behind my ears.
It's hard to come somewhere when you know that everyone probably knows who you really were after the fact. It doesn't hurt me to let this man be accepted. I don't forget, but I forgive-- I have to. Because when I lean in to decide if I should hug him I smell his skin and it's familiar, and I remind myself that he used to kiss me in his sleep so hard that my lips bled from his teeth pressing against him, that he used to hold me so tightly in that same sleeping state that I was afraid he would strangle me and I wouldn't be able to wake him. It wasn't about me, he was asleep those nights and I could have been anyone.
It was that this man, so perfect, was starving to death for love in his elitist isolation, but no one was good enough. And so I promised then that I would love him, simply because he needed it. And he is still flawless, he is still starving.
And so in the way I would a scared withdrawn child who needs to be loved, I love my ex boyfriend.
*****************
Tonight, washing it all away in the shower, scrubbing away at their fingerprints on who I am today, it all catches up and I feel without reasoning for the first time since the parade of ex boyfriends started. I cry and I cry and I cry until the water gets cold, and I cry a bit more until my my nipples ache and turn purple, goose bumps turn my skin to the flesh of a plucked bird. I slide down the shower wall and sit with the water running over me as I cry, over my flawed hair and my replaceable hips and my ears raw from listening to too much music for other people.
I'm furious and I'm sick with the smiles and well meaning and I don't feel like being such a good fucking person for another second-- I hate hate hate my ex boyfriends.
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