I hate to go to this place at all in my separation, because I have been trying to preserve the good and learn from the bad, but this week I came to a point of realizing that this is only possible when you can see what the good really was. I was unwilling to see the bad parts for so long, I believe, because I kept telling myself that he loved me, and I was so reassured by that fact that it eclipsed everything else. That love was my Linus blanket. I doubted I would be able to find anyone else who would love me because no one else ever had. Gino was my first love, and your first love is the one that really makes an impression. I am ashamed, though, of how long I believed that Gino and I were grown-up humans in a relationship. We weren't. We were kids, just skipping along like fucking idiots, not caring at all that we seemed to be the only married friends we knew who were not planning for anything- no plans for a family, no plans on getting our own place, even. I am finally letting go of the illusion that we had anything worth saving in our marriage, so it's better that it is over. Knowing that doesn't make it any easier to swallow, however. The fight went out of me so quickly because the writing had been on the wall for some time, I just refused to acknowledge it. I may be a smart girl, but I am really dumb when it comes to reading the signs.
I had to go back to our shared storage unit this week and take away all of his stuff, the things he was unable or unwilling to pick up, just because I felt uneasy about leaving all of them there. It shouldn't matter- objects, especially his objects, shouldn't matter, but the thought of all of those things getting tossed, or sold, made me uneasy. I piled them into my car, all of his outmoded technology and t-shirts and hockey cards, and put them in my apartment, where space is very limited. Now I have a bunch of men's clothes and old joy sticks and computer games taking up my meager amount of free space. The only bonus to this was that I got the original Return of the Jedi lunchbox I bought for Gino at a tag sale years ago back, with the Ewok Thermos still inside it. That is my broken-hearted nerd trophy. I also had to ask Gino that he please give me money to pay back for half of the payments I made to the storage company for the summer. He agreed, but I have no idea when and if I will even get any of that money from him.
I always knew that Gino was a dumbass, but he was my dumbass. He had a cute face and a good heart, and he was hilarious, and he was good at sex. All of those dumbass things he did when I still loved him as my husband were adorable, and more material for me to use when I went into storytime mode. Now, all of his dumbassedness just makes me want to break stuff. Still, him being an idiot is none of my concern anymore, it's for some other dumb girl who falls for him to worry about. Some other dumb girl will be hurrying home from work to make him dinner while he plays Diablo 3 for five fucking hours. Some other dumb girl will have to find a way to buy groceries for the week with thirty dollars because the car payment, the insurance payment, and the phone bill all came out of the joint account at the same time and he spent the rest on weed. Some other dumb girl will also be given a nickname by him that she loves, that no one else will ever call her, and it will be her favorite nickname. Some other dumb girl will see his wiry, skinny self walking by and think, "He's mine. He belongs to me."
Another strange thing that happened recently between Gino and myself was that for 24 hours, I was convinced he might be dying. He had a physical for school and his TB scratch test came up positive, which lead to him needing a chest x-ray and, him being a natural hypochondriac, researching every possible outcome on WebMD. He sent me a message on Facebook because no matter how many times I give him my number, he always loses it, so I called him and he told me about it. My first reaction to the idea that he might be ill was one of concern only for him. I lost my shit and started crying, asking who was going to take care of him if he did get sick. I hate it that even after he has hurt me so much, my only thought was of his well-being. He pointed out to me that I should be more worried for myself, that I should have my doctor give me a TB test as well, but all I could think about was who was taking care of him. After I got off the phone with him and calmed down a little, the relief of not being the one who would have to take care of him came selfishly creeping in. Gino's health was always the third party in our relationship, the thing I always had to look out for and maintain. He has a number of chronic conditions that are real, that he needs to think about all the time and see doctors for, and then there are all of his imagined conditions, that he also sees doctors for but aren't real. I spent more time with him in waiting rooms, in exam rooms, in offices, waiting to be handed the missing puzzle piece that would put him together for once and for all, only to be told that there was nothing that could be done to fix his problems and that he needed to simply learn to live with them. It is hard to be told that your body is just fucked up, and that there is nothing you can do about it, which is probably the reason that he felt so many other imagined pains and went searching for the answers to those. One time, his doctor found what he referred to as a "calcified mass" near Gino's throat on an x-ray of his neck, and for an entire day, Gino was convinced that he couldn't swallow properly. He gave himself a panic attack just from thinking that if he swallowed too hard, this object would get stuck in his throat somehow and choke him. I was the one who had to calm him down, remind him to breathe, tell him that he wasn't going to die. When the doctor finally told him that it was nothing to worry about, he went right back to normal, but he seemed disappointed that he still hadn't found the thing that could be removed and fix him for good.
In the end, he turned out to be fine. The chest x-ray was negative. I told him to take care of himself and put it behind me. In its own way, knowing that I still cared about his health was reassuring. Even so, I am torn between wanting him to be happy and wanting him to be miserable, between wanting him to be well and wanting to beat the snot out of him. I think of him or see him and this hurricane of conflicting feelings comes up. I am looking forward to the day when I see him and just feel one thing, or even nothing. Right now, I feel everything, and everything feels awful.
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