I have rewatched Season Four of Mad Men for the twelfth time this week. This time, I saw something in one of the story lines that spoke to me in a new way. I love the show, but I usually look at it as an escape. I don't get emotional, very often, watching it, because it is so far-removed from my life, but now that I've been through the disappointment of losing something I didn't really have, with Mike, I found myself identifying with a character I had never looked at that way before. Dr. Faye Miller, the woman Don Draper is involved with after his divorce, is a character so unlike me, it is amazing I am even making this leap, but heartbreak is nothing if not universal. She is smart, and capable, and challenging, and she is exactly the woman, it seems, that Don should be with if he wants to be in a healthy relationship. She has her own life, her own career, she doesn't live exclusively for him, but he makes the curious choice to end things with her and marry his secretary. Parallels crop up in the most unexpected places, and the look on Faye's face when she calls Don and he tells her that he has to end things with her because he is marrying someone else was a little hard to watch this go-round. It's the look of someone who just felt the floor drop out, who just realized that everything is not what they thought it was. I know that look because I must have had a very similar one on my face when I received the text from Mike that informed me that he was "back on" with the girl he was seeing before me. I have no idea where, or how far, things would have even gone, or if he would have ended up being totally wrong for me, but all I can know is how much that hurt, and how my face must have looked when the floor dropped out for me.
I met up with Liam for a quick drink the other night, and I was not planning on boring him with all my jabbering on about boys. I was really just happy to see him, as I never hang out with him anymore since everything went pear-shaped with Mike. I told him I was happy he texted me, that I missed our Thursday nights. "Me too," he told me, "I haven't even seen Mike in weeks."
I let out a secret sigh of relief over that comment. I have been worried, without even really acknowledging it, that whoever Mike is seeing was going to get slotted right into my place, that she was going to be the girl they both hung out with every week, while I just faded away. I have an ugly side that gets jealous when I feel like I can be easily replaced, and to think of someone else bringing them pie and laughing along with stand-up comedy specials every Thursday, like I had, made my immaturity come up to the surface. Finding out that Mike is still seeing her, but that Liam apparently isn't keeping his weekly "dates" with Mike, with this girl as their new Funny-Girl Barbie, made me feel a little less bummed out. I told him that was too bad, started in on a little monologue about how Gino liked a girl who turned out to be a dick, and then Liam did something I wasn't expecting. He went off on a tangent explaining, or trying to explain, why Mike is the way he is. "Mike is a great dude, I love him, of course, but he will never change. He will be around for a while, and then he gets a girlfriend and he just seals himself off from everyone. It was that way with Liz. Liz was a pain in the ass, but Mike just didn't care was the problem. It was like when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. She just steamrolled him and he just didn't react, ever. And he didn't care- he didn't care about what she wanted, and he didn't care about letting her know. He's not always tactful and he's not always nice."
I wasn't asking for this information, and I don't know exactly why Liam felt the need to offer up this explanation, but it helped. He was breaking through the Chinese wall that is usually up between male friends, letting me know all of the things Mike may have never been honest about even if we had actually made a go of it, and definitely won't tell me now. Liam must have sensed that I needed this, that there were loose threads, for me, that would never be tied up, that I would be wondering forever if it was me that caused Mike to turn away. I've been torturing myself over what I may have done, when all I really did, if I'm honest, was show him how much I liked him. I convinced myself that I scared him off, that I came on too strong, but I don't really think I did. I was simply present, wholly myself, and he pussed out. It's not something I can get angry with him for, it's just what he felt he needed to do. I took Liam's words in, drank more of my beer, and tried to think of something to add that wouldn't make me sound like I was A) bitter or B) too forgiving. "I guess I just psyched myself out, you know? The first person you're with after you've been with only one person for seven years is kind of... a big deal no matter what you do," I said, "And I think he knew that, but he couldn't, you know, stop the train once it was moving."
Liam thumped the pencil he was holding off of the back of my hand, saying, "Hey, sex and cute girls go together, or, they should, at least. Can't blame a dude for that."
I laughed, because I had already arrived at that conclusion, on my own, weeks ago. Mike saw a pretty girl in front of him, he couldn't pass it up, and why the hell should he? He didn't promise me anything, after all, we just had fun together. It was shitty how he acted at the end of it, but I don't want to hold on to that anger towards him. I've forgiven worse things from worse people, and I actually think that it's better for me, even if that doesn't work for everyone. I once had a conversation with Donna, Gino's mom, about holding a grudge. We had opposing views, naturally. After telling her the story about how my father and my step mom eloped without telling anyone, then had a big wedding six months later and told everyone at the reception that they had already been married for months, Donna asked me, "And you're not still mad about it?"
"What's the point in holding a grudge?" I asked her.
"Holding the grudge IS the point," she answered.
This was not the first, or last, time that I realized my values were very different from those of the family I had married into. I let things go more readily than they do, and that is not to say my way is better. There is something worthy of respect in never letting go of anger, large or small. It breeds a certain kind of loyalty in a family as close as theirs is. My family is spread out, the connections between us as flimsy as cobwebs, because we aren't bound by that kind of unifying hate. We don't care enough, and in the process of forgetting about our resentment, we may be at risk of forgetting why we care about each other at all. My father is past the point of caring anymore, floating just four feet above the drama that erupts here and there in our family, simply because he has let go of the part of himself that cares about any of it. He loves his family, yes, but he also seems a hair's breadth away from telling them all to go fly a kite at any moment. At his age, with all he has dealt with, he has run out of fucks to give, and I respect that, even if it scares me a little. We assume our parents will always love us, not matter what we do, but I am worried that I will exhaust him to the point where he just decides not to care anymore. He reached that point with my half-brother, his only son, simply because it just wasn't worth the constant effort on his part to keep the lines of communication open. I somehow want to find a way to attain more of that zen-like indifference that he has.
I still cannot tell if any of this is healthy. That is the problem with blogging in lieu of therapy. No trained professional is telling me if the fact that I am starting to care less is a good sign, or the worst sign. No one with a psychology degree is weighing in on whether the fact that I still want to be friends with Gino, who shattered my world, and Mike, who just kind of dropped me on my ass a little too hard, makes me a masochist, or just ahead of the curve. The jury is out on whether the decisions I am making are good ones. I know I love seeing Gino now, as his best friend, with the freedom to tell him exactly what I think when he acts like a moron. I imagine I would also love seeing Mike again, just as a friend who will watch a Marx Brothers movie with me and cook me a pork chop. Not as someone I am trying to win an elaborate game of emotional chess with, not as someone I resent for being withholding, not as someone I miss getting naked with. Just as someone who makes me laugh, whose company I enjoy. I can get to that place, but I doubt he can. He's four years older than I, but I think he might be a little young for me.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
I Can't Go For That
I wasn't planning on seeing Gino socially this week, but he called me up while I was doing laundry at Gabriel and Najwa's last night to ask me if I wanted to come over. "Asylum is on," he said, and of course, I couldn't resist a new episode of American Horror Story.
While we were waiting for the show to start and I was taking advantage of the freely available WiFi at his house and checking Facebook, I started yammering away about Mike and what a dumb situation that was, and how sad and embarrassed I still feel over it. Heartbreak is easier for me to digest than embarrassment, and it is still sitting heavily in my stomach. "You're still hung up on him?" Gino asked, "Why? He sounds like a jerk."
I set my Kindle aside and said, "I'm not hung up. I'm trying to figure out what happened. I think maybe I attach a little too much significance to having sex with someone. If I choose them, there needs to be a reason behind it, I guess. I really liked him, and, yeah, he said the wrong thing, but I can forgive that. You've said plenty of wrong things to me, and I always forgave you."
He seemed satisfied by that, or maybe he just didn't want to rehash the past and have me bring up examples. Gino knows me well enough to know that I always have something filed away, ready to whip out at a moment's notice. "Okay, but, I still don't like it," he said.
He's been pretty vocal about all of the things he doesn't like about the person I chose to hook up with since our separation. He doesn't like that I let this person get rough with me in bed, that I had unprotected sex with him, that I still spent time with him after he started giving me the cold shoulder. He knows that he asked for it by asking for this divorce, and that he has to hear my stories about it since he decided he is open to being friends, but he doesn't like it. I shrugged off Gino's dislike the way I usually do, joking with him, "It doesn't matter, anyway. I'm too pretty for Mike."
Gino laughed to himself, and asked, "Is that so?"
"Yeah," I said, "I wasn't too pretty for you, but I'm too pretty for Mike."
A look of worry came across Gino's face. "You weren't too pretty for me? Why do you think that?"
I knew I had one chance to say this without sounding like a shrew. One of the main sticking points in our relationship, as I have said here before, is the fact that Gino was not free with praise. I had to really push him to give me a compliment, while I was overflowing with them for him. I pumped him up so much, he started to think he could go out and find someone better. "Well, you never told me I was beautiful. It doesn't come naturally to you. It felt like I had to push you to say something like that because you didn't believe it," I said.
He moved closer to me on the sofa and put his hand out for me to take. "I should have told you more, I know. I wish I had said it every day, I just, didn't think of it."
That was enough, I thought. That was worth the price of admission for me. So long as Gino grows even the tiniest bit because of this divorce, I'll feel like it was worth it. My biggest fear, since he has been asking me to hang out and talking about our separation with regret, has been that I would change, but he would not. I want the best for him, because I love him, and I worried that he would not see his own flaws. All I have done is pick apart my own emotional navel lint since we broke up, trying to divine something from my own failings and bad qualities and learn how I can improve upon what I have to work with. I wanted to believe that Gino was capable of some self-awareness, that he could learn from this too. Now, I see, he is getting there even if he is not there yet.
"You can tell me now, you know. It won't fix it, but it will help, " I said, trying to move away from the snuggle that I knew he was leaning into.
It wasn't that I didn't want to snuggle, I just didn't want one of his family members walking in and getting all weirded out by it. "Okay, you're beautiful," he said.
We watched the show and talked a little more, and I rifled through the kitchen for any foodstuffs I left behind when I moved out. I then had to inform him that I wasn't going to have sex with him. "Why not?" he asked.
I have a hard time, sometimes, explaining something that I don't think really demands an explanation. He lives with his parents, we're getting divorced, I'm still nursing a minor heartache over someone else, what more of a reason do I need? "It's... it's inappropriate," I finally came out with, "It was one thing when we were married, but I can't have sex with you while you're parents are down the hall."
He made that face that he made when he knew he wasn't going to win, but he was going to keep trying anyway. "We could go in the car?"
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"No. Have you ever had sex in a car?"
"You know I haven't."
"Well, let's go, then."
I realized that I was going to have to explain to my ex why I wasn't going to have sex with him in my car. "I don't want to. If you want to have sex with me in the future, you can come to my apartment and have sex with me. In my bed. I am not going to fuck you in the car. And if you keep at it, I might not ever do it again at all."
I hugged him goodbye and drove home, seeing that I had actually just made a wise decision. It was kind of an easy one to make, but small victories are all I have right now. If I had actually gone through with it, I would have hated myself. I didn't hate myself after we had sex the other times, but I would have hated myself over this one. There was something just a little too desperate and a little too sad about it. I am finally trying to get to a place where I am not constantly doing things that make me hate myself, after all. That might be the most important takeaway from all of this: I don't need to go fuck my ex in a car. It might not seem like such a huge revelation to a lot of people, but it is to me, apparently.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Second Opinion
After the panic of last week, I was relieved to go to my doctor and discover that I am definitley not pregnant. The reason for my extremely late cycle is a side effect of my birth control, he explained, and one of the tests I took must have yielded a false positive. "How does this happen?" I asked my reliably over-explanatory doctor.
Every time I have an appointment with him, he explains to me what it means to have "moveable ovaries", and what it means when someone has a tilted uterus. "Sometimes, a test will show a positive result when it is defective, or sometimes a test can look positive when it actually isn't. You should always come in and see us when you think you have a positive result, and we'll give you a real test and tell you what's what."
So that's that. I panicked and roped Mike into my sphere of terror over nothing, and now, I think, he hates me. Or worse, he doesn't anything me, he just thinks I'm the kind of person who would fake a pregnancy scare just to get him to talk to me again. I didn't bother texting him about my visit with the doctor, because I knew he wasn't waiting on tenterhooks over it, and unsurprisingly, he didn't ask. Liam asked, Gino asked, and of course, Najwa and Gabriel asked (as well as pointed out that you can still get someone pregnant even if you don't "finish"), but not Mike. My actual friends care about what is going on with my uterus, and I appreciated that more than they even know.
I spent more time with Gino this week, watching American Horror Story at his house since I don't have cable or internet right now and taking him to Writer's Room and, of course, having sex that can only be described as therapeutic. After Mike's comments the other day about my failures as a sex partner, I did console myself with one man I knew wouldn't make me feel like I was defective. I have no idea if this is healthy or not, but I really kind of don't care for the moment. Sometimes, a girl just needs validation, and sleeping with your ex can be a good source of that. One thing I keep having to remind Gino of, however, are my hard rules. He asked if he could sleep over some night, to get a break from his living situation, and I told him no. I can't wake up next to him, feel him spooning me in that way that always felt right, and stay true to my convictions. He is starting to have second thoughts about our separation, I can tell, and it's becoming clearer that this arrangement we've made with each other, to stay best friends and fuck each other if we really need it might have to change. I've locked on to the decision to see what it is like to be by myself, and if I let him poison me with his doubts, I won't ever see if there is something better for me out there. I will slide back into being his wife, even if we are divorced, even if we don't live together anymore. I will inevitably end up taking care of him, just from a different location.
One thing that Gino said to me the other day, that really stung, was how annoyed he is at people posting baby and wedding pictures on Facebook, how seeing people happily paired off and starting families makes him depressed. I looked over at him and saw that the ultimate difference between Gino and myself is that I feel too much shame, and he must be missing the part of his brain that feels shame. There is no other explanation for how he could say something like that to me. The audacity of it just blows me away. He is jealous of other people's babies and marriages, but he doesn't even recognize the fact that he threw away his chance at having those very things he is jealous of. I didn't say what was on my mind, which was, "Are you fucking kidding me," because, I see now, Gino will never understand that anything is harder for anyone than it is for him.
In Gino's eyes, this divorce is harder for him than it is for me. He sees the fact that his marriage failed, that we never had children, as the fault of the world at large, not a failing within himself to just get his shit together and figure out a way to achieve the goals we had with each other. I could do nothing other than shake my head at him and reflect back on how obvious it really was, all along, that I was never going to get the things I wanted from my relationship with him. The onus was always on me to figure it out, to find a way to make ends meet and remember everything and keep us afloat. He didn't meet me halfway, and in fact, he didn't even give 25% effort. The few things that he did stay on top of were the things I was just not great with, like remembering to pay off the excise tax or getting the car inspected, and he used the fact that I was irresponsible with those things against me in just about every big argument we had. He used my embarrassment over my own failings as a way to keep me from pointing out any of his, and I fell for that trick every time.
Another problem I am having with spending more time with Gino is knowing how to react to him hinting around this self-doubt, awkwardly shoe-horned into every other conversation. I know he is only having doubts because he is lonely, and that loneliness can lead him to do crazy things. I have spent five months preparing myself for the day this marriage I have devoted so much energy to becomes a thing of the past, and I can't deal with his second-guessing it, nor can I understand it. He asked for me to leave, after all, and even though I didn't want to, I did as he asked. He can't expect me to just forget all of that and move him into the life I have scraped together for myself now that he has discovered that being single isn't easy. I don't know what, exactly, he imagined. He probably thought that all of the girls who flirted with him when he was married would jump right on his dick once he was free of me. I keep telling him, in that way that I tell him really obvious things, that girls flirt with married guys because there is no risk there. It's safe, like taunting a tiger in a cage- no one is going to get hurt, so a girl can bat her eyelashes all she wants. Now that he is actually available again, those same girls aren't bringing it the way they were. Gino is looking around for all of these girls who showed something resembling interest in him, and they are nowhere to be found.
He told me the other day, "I keep trying to put a good spin on being single, but, I really just don't like it."
I did everything I could to not smack him upside the head. "Whoopie. Flipping. Ding," I said, "No one likes being single. That's why we all spend so much time trying to find someone. Duh!"
No one enjoys being single. What are we all doing, when we go out and talk to people, see whose pheromones set off a chemical reaction with our own, if we are not trying to just find somebody who makes us feel safe and a little less empty? It's not such a strange thing to want. Even my friends who say that they like being single have only arrived at that place of acceptance after struggling with it and then finding something to do with all of their free time. Being single is only fun until you run out of ways to entertain yourself. The only people who like being single are people who have no feelings.
For the time being, I know I should stay away from my ex-husband because it is so abundantly clear that this will only end up confusing both of us. I know it will more than likely need to change, once one of us starts seeing someone, or once one of us can't handle it for some other reason. It would be better for Gino, in the long run, actually, if I just told him that we can't see each other at all, because then he could learn the consequences of letting go of someone who loves you more than you love yourself. I don't think I can do it, though, because I know I would miss him. I still love him as my dear friend, and I want to keep it that way, even if it's stupid and unrealistic. I expected that this, him realizing he misses me, would feel more gratifying, but in truth, I find it disappointing. If he actually does want me back, it will let me down a little because that will mean he has elected to take the easy way, to just fall back into something that didn't really work, rather than be brave and go find something new, or just deal with being alone. That would also mean that I win, that I've grown more during this separation, but I've gone from wanting to win to not wanting it to be a contest at all. I want for him what I wanted all along: I want him to grow up, and I want him to be as happy as he can be. If I can help him do that as his best friend, I am happy to, but I know I cannot help him get there as his wife, his absentee wife, or his former-wife, current girlfriend.
Every time I have an appointment with him, he explains to me what it means to have "moveable ovaries", and what it means when someone has a tilted uterus. "Sometimes, a test will show a positive result when it is defective, or sometimes a test can look positive when it actually isn't. You should always come in and see us when you think you have a positive result, and we'll give you a real test and tell you what's what."
So that's that. I panicked and roped Mike into my sphere of terror over nothing, and now, I think, he hates me. Or worse, he doesn't anything me, he just thinks I'm the kind of person who would fake a pregnancy scare just to get him to talk to me again. I didn't bother texting him about my visit with the doctor, because I knew he wasn't waiting on tenterhooks over it, and unsurprisingly, he didn't ask. Liam asked, Gino asked, and of course, Najwa and Gabriel asked (as well as pointed out that you can still get someone pregnant even if you don't "finish"), but not Mike. My actual friends care about what is going on with my uterus, and I appreciated that more than they even know.
I spent more time with Gino this week, watching American Horror Story at his house since I don't have cable or internet right now and taking him to Writer's Room and, of course, having sex that can only be described as therapeutic. After Mike's comments the other day about my failures as a sex partner, I did console myself with one man I knew wouldn't make me feel like I was defective. I have no idea if this is healthy or not, but I really kind of don't care for the moment. Sometimes, a girl just needs validation, and sleeping with your ex can be a good source of that. One thing I keep having to remind Gino of, however, are my hard rules. He asked if he could sleep over some night, to get a break from his living situation, and I told him no. I can't wake up next to him, feel him spooning me in that way that always felt right, and stay true to my convictions. He is starting to have second thoughts about our separation, I can tell, and it's becoming clearer that this arrangement we've made with each other, to stay best friends and fuck each other if we really need it might have to change. I've locked on to the decision to see what it is like to be by myself, and if I let him poison me with his doubts, I won't ever see if there is something better for me out there. I will slide back into being his wife, even if we are divorced, even if we don't live together anymore. I will inevitably end up taking care of him, just from a different location.
One thing that Gino said to me the other day, that really stung, was how annoyed he is at people posting baby and wedding pictures on Facebook, how seeing people happily paired off and starting families makes him depressed. I looked over at him and saw that the ultimate difference between Gino and myself is that I feel too much shame, and he must be missing the part of his brain that feels shame. There is no other explanation for how he could say something like that to me. The audacity of it just blows me away. He is jealous of other people's babies and marriages, but he doesn't even recognize the fact that he threw away his chance at having those very things he is jealous of. I didn't say what was on my mind, which was, "Are you fucking kidding me," because, I see now, Gino will never understand that anything is harder for anyone than it is for him.
In Gino's eyes, this divorce is harder for him than it is for me. He sees the fact that his marriage failed, that we never had children, as the fault of the world at large, not a failing within himself to just get his shit together and figure out a way to achieve the goals we had with each other. I could do nothing other than shake my head at him and reflect back on how obvious it really was, all along, that I was never going to get the things I wanted from my relationship with him. The onus was always on me to figure it out, to find a way to make ends meet and remember everything and keep us afloat. He didn't meet me halfway, and in fact, he didn't even give 25% effort. The few things that he did stay on top of were the things I was just not great with, like remembering to pay off the excise tax or getting the car inspected, and he used the fact that I was irresponsible with those things against me in just about every big argument we had. He used my embarrassment over my own failings as a way to keep me from pointing out any of his, and I fell for that trick every time.
Another problem I am having with spending more time with Gino is knowing how to react to him hinting around this self-doubt, awkwardly shoe-horned into every other conversation. I know he is only having doubts because he is lonely, and that loneliness can lead him to do crazy things. I have spent five months preparing myself for the day this marriage I have devoted so much energy to becomes a thing of the past, and I can't deal with his second-guessing it, nor can I understand it. He asked for me to leave, after all, and even though I didn't want to, I did as he asked. He can't expect me to just forget all of that and move him into the life I have scraped together for myself now that he has discovered that being single isn't easy. I don't know what, exactly, he imagined. He probably thought that all of the girls who flirted with him when he was married would jump right on his dick once he was free of me. I keep telling him, in that way that I tell him really obvious things, that girls flirt with married guys because there is no risk there. It's safe, like taunting a tiger in a cage- no one is going to get hurt, so a girl can bat her eyelashes all she wants. Now that he is actually available again, those same girls aren't bringing it the way they were. Gino is looking around for all of these girls who showed something resembling interest in him, and they are nowhere to be found.
He told me the other day, "I keep trying to put a good spin on being single, but, I really just don't like it."
I did everything I could to not smack him upside the head. "Whoopie. Flipping. Ding," I said, "No one likes being single. That's why we all spend so much time trying to find someone. Duh!"
No one enjoys being single. What are we all doing, when we go out and talk to people, see whose pheromones set off a chemical reaction with our own, if we are not trying to just find somebody who makes us feel safe and a little less empty? It's not such a strange thing to want. Even my friends who say that they like being single have only arrived at that place of acceptance after struggling with it and then finding something to do with all of their free time. Being single is only fun until you run out of ways to entertain yourself. The only people who like being single are people who have no feelings.
For the time being, I know I should stay away from my ex-husband because it is so abundantly clear that this will only end up confusing both of us. I know it will more than likely need to change, once one of us starts seeing someone, or once one of us can't handle it for some other reason. It would be better for Gino, in the long run, actually, if I just told him that we can't see each other at all, because then he could learn the consequences of letting go of someone who loves you more than you love yourself. I don't think I can do it, though, because I know I would miss him. I still love him as my dear friend, and I want to keep it that way, even if it's stupid and unrealistic. I expected that this, him realizing he misses me, would feel more gratifying, but in truth, I find it disappointing. If he actually does want me back, it will let me down a little because that will mean he has elected to take the easy way, to just fall back into something that didn't really work, rather than be brave and go find something new, or just deal with being alone. That would also mean that I win, that I've grown more during this separation, but I've gone from wanting to win to not wanting it to be a contest at all. I want for him what I wanted all along: I want him to grow up, and I want him to be as happy as he can be. If I can help him do that as his best friend, I am happy to, but I know I cannot help him get there as his wife, his absentee wife, or his former-wife, current girlfriend.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Fast As You Can
I texted Mike about my late period and 50/50 results on the home pregnancy tests, and he responded by saying the most humiliating thing possible. -There's just no way Jose. Over the many many years i have had a handful of major "whoops" and nothing ever happened. I slept with you twice. I'd say immaculate conception is more likely. Or your just pulling my main to get a reaction from me.
I was without words at this. I read it, read it again, closed my phone, drove home, sat on my couch, waited for the shock to wear off, and then I texted him back that I wasn't trying to get a response and that was a really mean thing to say. This is worse than everything else that has preceded it. Apparently, he only remembered a percentage of the times we kicked it, and I am really bad at sex. I didn't realize this was true because I am running for the title of World's Biggest Idiot and I think I am winning.
I did not even allude to how offended I was that he would suggest I was making it up just to get a reaction from him. I knew that if I did tell him how insulted I was, that I resented his implications, I would just look more guilty. I am offended, and I do resent it, but goddamn if those two responses don't sound like something a guilty person would say. I am relieved I have nothing to worry about, but now I am just freaked out by what my body is doing to me by making me think I have a situation to worry about. I still haven't gotten my period, I still have to figure out why I got a false reading on a pregnancy test, and I still have the nausea and constant headache to remind me that my body is just wrong right now. And I have the reminder of Mike's harsh-ass words resounding in my head. I should have known that I would end up getting hurt in some new, creative way, but I will never learn.
In the midst of the fistful of annoying errands I had to tackle the other day, I sat down for a minute with my friend Rebeca and caught up with her. Once I was finished with my latest monologue on the topic of "My Hurt Feelings", she asked me, jokingly, "Why don't you just do what I do- when you start to feel something, just run the other way in fear?"
I laughed and said that running the other way is just not my jam. I don't run away from something scary, I go to the other extreme and run head-first into it with my eyes closed. I can't help but think of Cedric the Entertainer's joke about how white people always get into trouble because they don't follow when a crowd starts running. White people, according to the bit, will run in the opposite direction, toward whatever everyone else is running away from, because they just have to see what's going on. If that is the main distinction, I am an extremely white person. If a whole crowd of people started running away from something, I probably would run toward the problem just out of curiosity, and I would probably get smacked in the mouth. When Mike told me how he felt, I was a little scared of what might happen, but instead of being smart and telling him that maybe now was not the best time to be telling me this, I went for it. I got smacked in the mouth by reality eventually, but life is just that way. I knew Mike was going through something, emotionally, that I probably wouldn't be able to help with. He all but told me he was scared and messed up about women in the same conversation where he told me he had a crush on me. Still, I went into it thinking that even if it didn't work out, it would serve me in some way. The day I found out that I had the wrong idea all along about what was between us, I thought to myself, "Use it, feel all of it, don't shut it out. This will teach you something."
This comes, of course, after Gino gave me such a shock by asking for a divorce and I had to slowly learn that the pain that comes from having your heart ripped out can be useful. I did not react to that news by immediately telling myself that I would learn from it. I cried and chain-smoked and completely shut down for weeks. It is only after the numbness wore off, which took several more weeks, that I felt anything. When I talked with Gino last night, I told him about this, and he hugged me up against his chest and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you like that."
"You didn't have a choice," I said, "You were looking out for you. But it hurt like hell and it still does."
I don't know where this hyper-awareness of how pain can be useful started, or if I am even doing it right. Neil Gaiman once made a comment in an interview about how being a writer makes you stop feeling things genuinely, how you are always mining your own reactions to things for source material. Because writing has become my therapy, I have just recently started to recognize how much I tend to do this. I start crying, and I am paying very close attention to what my body is doing, if my eyes are tingling or if they are burning, if my stomach hurts, if my nose is running. I get disappointing news and catalog every physical response, file it away for the future, when I can use it to describe a person who is in agony from getting sucker-punched by another person's actions. It's the only way I can get through it, take away its power, make the pain my bitch.
I will never be someone who is smart, who runs away from something scary, or genuine, or that looks like a terrible idea. I have been hurt, but I will keep getting hurt, and when I do get hurt, I will feel every bit of it and use it to create something else. I will keep getting smacked in the mouth by whatever the crowd is running away from, because that is just the way I am.
I was without words at this. I read it, read it again, closed my phone, drove home, sat on my couch, waited for the shock to wear off, and then I texted him back that I wasn't trying to get a response and that was a really mean thing to say. This is worse than everything else that has preceded it. Apparently, he only remembered a percentage of the times we kicked it, and I am really bad at sex. I didn't realize this was true because I am running for the title of World's Biggest Idiot and I think I am winning.
I did not even allude to how offended I was that he would suggest I was making it up just to get a reaction from him. I knew that if I did tell him how insulted I was, that I resented his implications, I would just look more guilty. I am offended, and I do resent it, but goddamn if those two responses don't sound like something a guilty person would say. I am relieved I have nothing to worry about, but now I am just freaked out by what my body is doing to me by making me think I have a situation to worry about. I still haven't gotten my period, I still have to figure out why I got a false reading on a pregnancy test, and I still have the nausea and constant headache to remind me that my body is just wrong right now. And I have the reminder of Mike's harsh-ass words resounding in my head. I should have known that I would end up getting hurt in some new, creative way, but I will never learn.
In the midst of the fistful of annoying errands I had to tackle the other day, I sat down for a minute with my friend Rebeca and caught up with her. Once I was finished with my latest monologue on the topic of "My Hurt Feelings", she asked me, jokingly, "Why don't you just do what I do- when you start to feel something, just run the other way in fear?"
I laughed and said that running the other way is just not my jam. I don't run away from something scary, I go to the other extreme and run head-first into it with my eyes closed. I can't help but think of Cedric the Entertainer's joke about how white people always get into trouble because they don't follow when a crowd starts running. White people, according to the bit, will run in the opposite direction, toward whatever everyone else is running away from, because they just have to see what's going on. If that is the main distinction, I am an extremely white person. If a whole crowd of people started running away from something, I probably would run toward the problem just out of curiosity, and I would probably get smacked in the mouth. When Mike told me how he felt, I was a little scared of what might happen, but instead of being smart and telling him that maybe now was not the best time to be telling me this, I went for it. I got smacked in the mouth by reality eventually, but life is just that way. I knew Mike was going through something, emotionally, that I probably wouldn't be able to help with. He all but told me he was scared and messed up about women in the same conversation where he told me he had a crush on me. Still, I went into it thinking that even if it didn't work out, it would serve me in some way. The day I found out that I had the wrong idea all along about what was between us, I thought to myself, "Use it, feel all of it, don't shut it out. This will teach you something."
This comes, of course, after Gino gave me such a shock by asking for a divorce and I had to slowly learn that the pain that comes from having your heart ripped out can be useful. I did not react to that news by immediately telling myself that I would learn from it. I cried and chain-smoked and completely shut down for weeks. It is only after the numbness wore off, which took several more weeks, that I felt anything. When I talked with Gino last night, I told him about this, and he hugged me up against his chest and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you like that."
"You didn't have a choice," I said, "You were looking out for you. But it hurt like hell and it still does."
I don't know where this hyper-awareness of how pain can be useful started, or if I am even doing it right. Neil Gaiman once made a comment in an interview about how being a writer makes you stop feeling things genuinely, how you are always mining your own reactions to things for source material. Because writing has become my therapy, I have just recently started to recognize how much I tend to do this. I start crying, and I am paying very close attention to what my body is doing, if my eyes are tingling or if they are burning, if my stomach hurts, if my nose is running. I get disappointing news and catalog every physical response, file it away for the future, when I can use it to describe a person who is in agony from getting sucker-punched by another person's actions. It's the only way I can get through it, take away its power, make the pain my bitch.
I will never be someone who is smart, who runs away from something scary, or genuine, or that looks like a terrible idea. I have been hurt, but I will keep getting hurt, and when I do get hurt, I will feel every bit of it and use it to create something else. I will keep getting smacked in the mouth by whatever the crowd is running away from, because that is just the way I am.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Completely Unbelievable
I think it may be time for me to just accept that I am living inside of a ridiculous situation comedy that is being filmed by cameras I never see and has no commercial breaks. The universe keeps creating the most uncomfortable scenarios that I end up stuck in the middle of, and I just have to bullshit my way through them. The other thing that makes them seem so sitcom-like is that if they happened on a TV show, I wouldn't believe that they could happen to anyone. This week was interesting, and by interesting, I mean it was awkward and stressful and I am amazed I am not completely falling apart, but I am already laughing about it.
In the usual way that I discover things, I looked at the calendar this past Monday and realized I haven't gotten my period in two months. This might seem like an enormous oversight on my part, but the truth is, the only predictable thing about my menstrual cycle is its unpredictability. I figured I was late because of the fact that I just started on a different birth control pill. I have skipped whole three-month spans just due to stress, so going this long without it has never been something that I really panic over. Every time I think I might be pregnant and bother to actually take a test, the results are always negative. Something started to feel odd this week, though. I felt like I might get sick a few times, and food just didn't feel right in my stomach. I didn't start to get worried for real until I had a dizzy spell while running on the treadmill. I don't get worried until I feel it is really warranted, but when I do get worried, I go whole-hog with it. I thought about texting Mike and telling him to call me, but I knew he would just continue to ignore me and that waiting for him to reply would stress me out more. I told myself that I didn't need to call him yet, anyway, because I didn't really have any information to give him. If I told him anything right now, it would just be my attempt to pass off half of my anxiety to him, to make him take some of it on so that I didn't have to feel all of it by myself.
This need to share my fear is what lead me to tell my sister about it when she texted me that she was having a pregnancy scare of her own. I could not keep my thumbs from typing out the words "Me too."
That, of course, forced me to tell her that everything I had revealed about my level of involvement with Mike was false, that I had gone against her wishes and hooked up with a guy she had wasted a whole bunch of time pining over in the past. I told her I was sorry, and she actually backed down pretty quickly, considering, when I told her that the reason I hid this from her was to protect her. She was going through a major emotional upheaval at that time, and I couldn't imagine a world where she would be able to handle the information while in such a state. I also told her that anything she wanted throw at me would just be more of the same, that she would just be kicking me while I was down and did she really want to do that? It was stupid of me to think that my sister would have anything to offer me but venom after learning just how much I have told her half-truths recently, but she did tell me to take care of myself and to keep her posted. By telling her, I was also trying to relieve myself of some of the other guilt, the guilt that came from withholding all of that information. I didn't get to share how giddy I was over Mike, then how confused, then how saddened. I only get to share with her how upset I am that it has come to this, that having sex with him a handful of times has turned into weeks of constant panic.
I ended up taking two pregnancy tests- one was negative, and one was positive. I will get a definitive answer when I see my doctor in a few days, but until then, I am stuck in limbo. What really makes me feel disappointed with myself is the fact that I am dealing with this at all, at an age where I really should know better. I spent so much time being responsible, always making sure I was protected, never risking it, and now I am the type of girl who will just throw caution to the wind because... see, I don't even have a reason. I told Mike to wear a condom once, but I didn't pay close enough attention to notice when he took it off, and I didn't bring it up again because I knew he wouldn't do what I asked him to. In hindsight, of course, I am astounded that I let him get away with that, and that I ignored a few other things that should have given me more pause. His moral compass is kind of scattered, and he takes some things lightly that should, according to me at least, be taken more seriously. I remember him making a joke, while we were having sex, that the girl he was seeing before me might be pregnant, and that he might as well just get me pregnant while he was at it. I put it out of my mind and tried not to think about what it meant that he would say that at all, let alone while he was, well, inside me. Sometimes, a red flag is so obvious, it doesn't even read as a red flag. It is natural for me to gloss over a comment like that, to make it into something unimportant because otherwise, I would have to admit to myself that I just had sex with someone who has that little respect for my body. It's also hard to admit to myself that disrespect is sometimes just a mirror that is only reflecting back what I think I deserve. I disrespected myself in this, and he was just following suit.
The most unbelievably ridiculous moment of my week came on Friday, when I went out for the Zombie Pub Crawl. I dressed up not just as any zombie, but as a zombie who had been wearing a Little Red Riding Hood costume when she got infected. I chose this because I am, as I have said before, an enormous nerd, and I always have to be more clever than everyone in my immediate area or I start to feel irrelevant. Because the universe loves to mess with me lately, and because I have such stupendous luck, I ran into Mike, of course, while I had a pound of grey makeup and fake blood on my face and I was wearing a red cape and a fucking dirndl. Seeing him made all of my convictions about keeping my potential situation to myself dissolve. I leaned over and told him, "We need to talk soon. We may have a problem."
The look on his face should be framed in a museum under the title of Man Who Has No Idea What You Are Getting At. "We may have a problem?"
I nodded and leaned in again, trying to keep his friends who sat nearby from hearing anything, "I really need to talk to you about something. It's really important."
He still just looked at me, not really getting it, asking in a voice that thoroughly mocked the gravity of the situation, "What, are you pregnant?"
I took a few seconds to fully absorb how difficult it is to get someone to take you seriously when you are wearing a Halloween costume. It was hard enough to get Mike to take me seriously when I was wearing normal clothes, and now I was trying it while wearing this stupid thing. I might save this approach for later, actually. If I ever need to give someone terrible news, I'll throw on a Little Red Riding Hood costume just to distract them from the seriousness of it and see how that works. Anyway, I reiterated to Mike that he needed to call me, or at least answer when I called him. I didn't say no to his question, but I didn't say yes, either, because I don't know yet. Until I see my doctor on Thursday, I won't know anything and I'll still just have Mike's inability to answer a text keeping me company. I know that sharing the worry doesn't solve anything, but the fact that it would make me feel better is inescapable. That is almost as good as a solution.
In the usual way that I discover things, I looked at the calendar this past Monday and realized I haven't gotten my period in two months. This might seem like an enormous oversight on my part, but the truth is, the only predictable thing about my menstrual cycle is its unpredictability. I figured I was late because of the fact that I just started on a different birth control pill. I have skipped whole three-month spans just due to stress, so going this long without it has never been something that I really panic over. Every time I think I might be pregnant and bother to actually take a test, the results are always negative. Something started to feel odd this week, though. I felt like I might get sick a few times, and food just didn't feel right in my stomach. I didn't start to get worried for real until I had a dizzy spell while running on the treadmill. I don't get worried until I feel it is really warranted, but when I do get worried, I go whole-hog with it. I thought about texting Mike and telling him to call me, but I knew he would just continue to ignore me and that waiting for him to reply would stress me out more. I told myself that I didn't need to call him yet, anyway, because I didn't really have any information to give him. If I told him anything right now, it would just be my attempt to pass off half of my anxiety to him, to make him take some of it on so that I didn't have to feel all of it by myself.
This need to share my fear is what lead me to tell my sister about it when she texted me that she was having a pregnancy scare of her own. I could not keep my thumbs from typing out the words "Me too."
That, of course, forced me to tell her that everything I had revealed about my level of involvement with Mike was false, that I had gone against her wishes and hooked up with a guy she had wasted a whole bunch of time pining over in the past. I told her I was sorry, and she actually backed down pretty quickly, considering, when I told her that the reason I hid this from her was to protect her. She was going through a major emotional upheaval at that time, and I couldn't imagine a world where she would be able to handle the information while in such a state. I also told her that anything she wanted throw at me would just be more of the same, that she would just be kicking me while I was down and did she really want to do that? It was stupid of me to think that my sister would have anything to offer me but venom after learning just how much I have told her half-truths recently, but she did tell me to take care of myself and to keep her posted. By telling her, I was also trying to relieve myself of some of the other guilt, the guilt that came from withholding all of that information. I didn't get to share how giddy I was over Mike, then how confused, then how saddened. I only get to share with her how upset I am that it has come to this, that having sex with him a handful of times has turned into weeks of constant panic.
I ended up taking two pregnancy tests- one was negative, and one was positive. I will get a definitive answer when I see my doctor in a few days, but until then, I am stuck in limbo. What really makes me feel disappointed with myself is the fact that I am dealing with this at all, at an age where I really should know better. I spent so much time being responsible, always making sure I was protected, never risking it, and now I am the type of girl who will just throw caution to the wind because... see, I don't even have a reason. I told Mike to wear a condom once, but I didn't pay close enough attention to notice when he took it off, and I didn't bring it up again because I knew he wouldn't do what I asked him to. In hindsight, of course, I am astounded that I let him get away with that, and that I ignored a few other things that should have given me more pause. His moral compass is kind of scattered, and he takes some things lightly that should, according to me at least, be taken more seriously. I remember him making a joke, while we were having sex, that the girl he was seeing before me might be pregnant, and that he might as well just get me pregnant while he was at it. I put it out of my mind and tried not to think about what it meant that he would say that at all, let alone while he was, well, inside me. Sometimes, a red flag is so obvious, it doesn't even read as a red flag. It is natural for me to gloss over a comment like that, to make it into something unimportant because otherwise, I would have to admit to myself that I just had sex with someone who has that little respect for my body. It's also hard to admit to myself that disrespect is sometimes just a mirror that is only reflecting back what I think I deserve. I disrespected myself in this, and he was just following suit.
The most unbelievably ridiculous moment of my week came on Friday, when I went out for the Zombie Pub Crawl. I dressed up not just as any zombie, but as a zombie who had been wearing a Little Red Riding Hood costume when she got infected. I chose this because I am, as I have said before, an enormous nerd, and I always have to be more clever than everyone in my immediate area or I start to feel irrelevant. Because the universe loves to mess with me lately, and because I have such stupendous luck, I ran into Mike, of course, while I had a pound of grey makeup and fake blood on my face and I was wearing a red cape and a fucking dirndl. Seeing him made all of my convictions about keeping my potential situation to myself dissolve. I leaned over and told him, "We need to talk soon. We may have a problem."
The look on his face should be framed in a museum under the title of Man Who Has No Idea What You Are Getting At. "We may have a problem?"
I nodded and leaned in again, trying to keep his friends who sat nearby from hearing anything, "I really need to talk to you about something. It's really important."
He still just looked at me, not really getting it, asking in a voice that thoroughly mocked the gravity of the situation, "What, are you pregnant?"
I took a few seconds to fully absorb how difficult it is to get someone to take you seriously when you are wearing a Halloween costume. It was hard enough to get Mike to take me seriously when I was wearing normal clothes, and now I was trying it while wearing this stupid thing. I might save this approach for later, actually. If I ever need to give someone terrible news, I'll throw on a Little Red Riding Hood costume just to distract them from the seriousness of it and see how that works. Anyway, I reiterated to Mike that he needed to call me, or at least answer when I called him. I didn't say no to his question, but I didn't say yes, either, because I don't know yet. Until I see my doctor on Thursday, I won't know anything and I'll still just have Mike's inability to answer a text keeping me company. I know that sharing the worry doesn't solve anything, but the fact that it would make me feel better is inescapable. That is almost as good as a solution.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Chase Me
A pretty cute guy came by my office today from ProShred to take away all of our shreddable documents, and on his way by he asked myself and my coworkers, Rachael and Peg, how to get to the other locations he was supposed to visit on property. We drew him a little map and waved him off, but the whole time, Rachael was kicking my chair and giving me her crazy-eye look. "Okay, what the fuck?" I asked, once I knew he was in the elevator and away from hearing range.
"You should have gone with him!" she and Peg screamed.
"Why?"
"You could have gotten his number," Rachael said, "He probably has cute little freckles on his chest."
Yeah, I know, I should have, and I could have gotten his number and seen if there were any cute little freckles, but at this juncture, I'm not risking it. I'm not sticking my neck out again because last time I did, it got slashed open. I hate to think that I am hiding inside of my turtle shell right now just because of one dickhead, but it's true. I don't want to pursue anything right now, and it is completely natural, in my own opinion, for me to want to be the one who is being pursued. The irony is that Mike was, initially, the one who pursued me. He was the one who was heartsick over me because he thought I didn't like him that way, and it was he who stuck his neck out and made the first move. I think that may actually be the reason why I was so hopeful, why I gave my idealism the rein and let myself get pulled away with it. I had not been approached that way since I met Gino and he told me he had a crush on me. The whole time I was sending texts to Mike that went unanswered, and trying to figure out why he would start something he ended up not wanting to finish, I was reassuring myself with the knowledge that he said something first. It doesn't do me any good now, but it is the truth. I wouldn't have put all of my eggs into that basket if he had never said anything. It sounds, even to myself, like I am trying to shirk responsibility for the part I played in the retarded soap opera, but I can't say it enough that I had no fucking idea what was actually going on. When someone tells me something, I believe them. I don't naturally assume that, "I'm not ready to date you because I'm too butt-hurt over my breakup last year, " actually means, "I'm fucking someone else."
I still have a lot of anger over this, but I keep telling myself to be cool, to not embarrass myself because it's not that big a deal. Even when Najwa or Peg or Rachael tell me yes, you are allowed to be angry, and it is a big deal, I downplay it because I don't want to look ridiculous, and being heartbroken over a two-week-long dalliance is pretty ridiculous. It's the same, though, for me, as when you meet a really unique, talented, young person with so much potential, and then seeing them start doing meth or cutting themselves or throwing up after every meal. They had the potential to be truly great, and now all of that greatness is just gone forever, and they are just as fucked-up as everyone else. To me, anything I could have had with Mike, even the great friendship we could have had that is just gone now, is that unique and talented person, and that potential has been obliterated. It saddens me the same way it would sadden me to see someone I have a vested interest in destroying his-or-herself, because this too is out of my control. the most frustrating thing in the world is being told that I cannot do anything to fix a situation, that I just have to accept, and that I could not have prevented it. That feels like being sent into a punch-fight with both hands tied being my back. I can never win, and I had no chance of ever winning.
One good thing that has come out of this is that I was invited, through my self-indulgent rambling and chasing my tail with words, is that I was invited to join Wizpert, and online advice website. This speaks, once again, to my philosophy of why I am so much better at teaching acting to teenagers than i ever was at actual acting: Those who can't do, teach. I can't do love very well right now, but I sure as hell am going to try to teach it.
"You should have gone with him!" she and Peg screamed.
"Why?"
"You could have gotten his number," Rachael said, "He probably has cute little freckles on his chest."
Yeah, I know, I should have, and I could have gotten his number and seen if there were any cute little freckles, but at this juncture, I'm not risking it. I'm not sticking my neck out again because last time I did, it got slashed open. I hate to think that I am hiding inside of my turtle shell right now just because of one dickhead, but it's true. I don't want to pursue anything right now, and it is completely natural, in my own opinion, for me to want to be the one who is being pursued. The irony is that Mike was, initially, the one who pursued me. He was the one who was heartsick over me because he thought I didn't like him that way, and it was he who stuck his neck out and made the first move. I think that may actually be the reason why I was so hopeful, why I gave my idealism the rein and let myself get pulled away with it. I had not been approached that way since I met Gino and he told me he had a crush on me. The whole time I was sending texts to Mike that went unanswered, and trying to figure out why he would start something he ended up not wanting to finish, I was reassuring myself with the knowledge that he said something first. It doesn't do me any good now, but it is the truth. I wouldn't have put all of my eggs into that basket if he had never said anything. It sounds, even to myself, like I am trying to shirk responsibility for the part I played in the retarded soap opera, but I can't say it enough that I had no fucking idea what was actually going on. When someone tells me something, I believe them. I don't naturally assume that, "I'm not ready to date you because I'm too butt-hurt over my breakup last year, " actually means, "I'm fucking someone else."
I still have a lot of anger over this, but I keep telling myself to be cool, to not embarrass myself because it's not that big a deal. Even when Najwa or Peg or Rachael tell me yes, you are allowed to be angry, and it is a big deal, I downplay it because I don't want to look ridiculous, and being heartbroken over a two-week-long dalliance is pretty ridiculous. It's the same, though, for me, as when you meet a really unique, talented, young person with so much potential, and then seeing them start doing meth or cutting themselves or throwing up after every meal. They had the potential to be truly great, and now all of that greatness is just gone forever, and they are just as fucked-up as everyone else. To me, anything I could have had with Mike, even the great friendship we could have had that is just gone now, is that unique and talented person, and that potential has been obliterated. It saddens me the same way it would sadden me to see someone I have a vested interest in destroying his-or-herself, because this too is out of my control. the most frustrating thing in the world is being told that I cannot do anything to fix a situation, that I just have to accept, and that I could not have prevented it. That feels like being sent into a punch-fight with both hands tied being my back. I can never win, and I had no chance of ever winning.
One good thing that has come out of this is that I was invited, through my self-indulgent rambling and chasing my tail with words, is that I was invited to join Wizpert, and online advice website. This speaks, once again, to my philosophy of why I am so much better at teaching acting to teenagers than i ever was at actual acting: Those who can't do, teach. I can't do love very well right now, but I sure as hell am going to try to teach it.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Skin Deep
I must have been throwing it out there in a major way the other night, or maybe I just took a little extra care with my makeup, because I was getting flattery hurled at me from every angle. This does not happen to me that often, so when it does I don't quite know what to do other than to just aw, shucks my way out of it. It's hard to take a compliment. It is hard to say anything other than, "No, I'm not," to someone telling you that you're beautiful. We're trained to do this because pride is a sin, and none of us want to be sinful. Still, any physical beauty I have wasn't always there, and it's not permanent, and I feel that to some degree, I have earned it. My awkward phase lasted a long time, to the point where my family was looking at me and probably thinking to themselves that they would just have to accept that this was how I would be forever. When my father learned of my divorce, his way of cheering me up was to say, "You're a good-looking girl, you know, you'll find someone else no problem."
Thanks, Daddy, but these good genes you passed down to me are not going to solve everything for me. If being pretty was really the only deciding factor, I would not be a sad bitch right now. Men don't always opt for who is prettiest, nor should they. If I'm honest, I wouldn't want to date someone who only valued looks. I hate myself whenever I hold my looks side-by-side against the girls who were chosen over me and my first thought is, "I am so much prettier than her!". Thoughts like that are ugly, and I shouldn't even allow them to enter my mind. All I can do is try to ignore them.
I didn't feel pretty at all by the end of last week. I had a headache that was annoying enough to wake me up three times during the night, I was a little nauseous, and on top of all of that, my heart was heavy. It actually felt painful to smile. Still, whatever I was throwing off earlier this week must have still been coming off of me, because I ran into Gino in the employee dining room and we sat and talked for an hour over lunch. "It's nice to talk to you," he said, "My parents never want to talk and my brother never wants to talk. All my friends have their own lives, you know. Is it okay if we hang out and talk sometime?"
I knew I should say no, go fuck yourself, you're an asshole, or any of the other things my friends have been coaching me to say to him since he donkey-punched me in the heart, but I couldn't resist. We were best friends once, people who knew each other too well and could say anything to each other. I missed it so much, I told him yes, we could hang out that night if he wanted to come over.
Spending time with someone you know so well, but don't really know anymore, is weird. It's like visiting the country you were born in after being away for several years. The landmarks are familiar, but you have different eyes. We talked for a while, and had some beers, and after a while I realized something weird: Gino was flirting with me. He rejects me, tells me he doesn't love me anymore, and the last time we had sex it seemed like he was trying to keep himself from vomiting, and now he comes to my house and flirts with me?He kept trying to show me how his body had changed since he had started working out more and telling me my ass looked different and could he see it with no pants on? I was more than just a little confused by the whole thing. In my mind, this man doesn't even like me anymore and hated having sex with me and now he wants to show me his lats and inspect my ass for new musculature? It all became clear when he just came out and said, "Let's have sex."
You can only say that when you have known someone for as long as we've known each other, and you are totally unintimidated by them. Once you have seen someone on the toilet, puking and having diarrhea at the same time (as I have with Gino) or had to carry them because they were blackout drunk (as Gino had to do for me on our wedding night), you cannot be intimidated by them. As soon as he suggested, oh so subtly, that we have a zipless fuck, I had to walk to the bedroom half-naked because my pants were already off. It was the kind of sex that can only happen between two people who have been through something as horrible as a divorce. It wasn't the routine married sex we had for years- it was just like the sex we had when we first met, when everything was new and we weren't scared of what would happen if one of us did something weird. There was hair-pulling and ass-slapping and biting and scratching and all the good stuff we used to do before we got bored with each other. It felt new because it was new- we have different bodies than we did just a few months ago, and different minds. We have been away from each other long enough to have new experiences that are not shared ones. When he left my house, we kissed goodbye like friends, like two people who are fond of each other and can have sex without having to have a huge discussion about what it means. I don't want to fall back into a relationship with this man, go back to the person I was while we were married and attach that weight to my neck all over again. I like who I am becoming, and I don't want to backslide, and I know he wasn't after that anyway. I did tell him that he can't call me every time he feels like it or every time he feels lonely, though, and I won't let him sleep over. That would be too confusing.
I did feel a tad morose after Gino left, only because I missed Mike a little. While Gino and I were having sex, Mike was on my mind just the same way that while I was having sex with Mike, Gino was on my mind. All I can think is, dude, is this what people do? Just go from one person to the next with the ghost of the last person you fucked standing right next to you like a perverted specter? I actually wished I could talk to Mike about it, just as a male friend, but he is still not talking to me. At this point, I don't know if it is because of the girl he is seeing or because he just doesn't need me in his life. I don't like being ignored- it drives me crazy. I would rather have someone scream in my face than ignore me. The other part of it that is driving me crazy is that he is ignoring me as a friend, not just as a woman he had sex with a few times. It is one thing for him to not be into me anymore that way, but for him to just throw the baby out with the bathwater and dispose of our friendship makes me a little annoyed. I suppose we are just different people. He no longer even talks to his ex, and does not speak of her fondly, and seems to have learned nothing from that relationship other than how mean she was to him. I am going the other way with Gino, because I would rather preserve our friendship, even if it means we have to kill our marriage.
I was talking to my father the other day about whether my sister and I are both doomed to repeat history, and make all of the terrible decisions that our mother made when it comes to men. My mother divorced my father because she was bored, and she wanted to see what else was out there. She ended up getting involved with a man she went to high school with, who never looked at her twice when she was a slightly overweight teenager (with her original nose), but who was suddenly taken with her as a grown woman. Because of this man, there ended up being violence in our home when he showed up one night, drunk, and put his fist through a window. She stopped seeing him for a while, but then took him back for who knows what reason, maybe because she was lonely. I was 10, maybe 11, and it's no wonder why I was a nervous wreck around men until I was 21 years old. Because of my mother's terrible choices, I thought that all men eventually showed up screaming and dripping blood from their fists in the middle of the night. I hate to judge someone who is no longer with us, but she should have considered how terrifying it was for my sister and I to have to see this man after something like that. He apologized, but his apologies meant fuck-all to me after I saw his other side: a drunk, bleeding man who dragged my mother down the stairs from my bedroom in the middle of the night. My mother, though, could give a shit how anything affected us, and I'm just now starting to see just how far-reaching her poor judgement and narcissism continue to be.
I hope I'm not cursed. I know I'm not as insecure as my mom was because I was raised better. All it took, seemingly, was one look from this guy who wouldn't fuck her in high school, and she chucked out my dad like garbage. My sister has similar issues in that she has compromised relationships over something trivial like that, and then regretted it. My aunt told me the other night that she thinks my mother may have been a sex addict, but I think she was actually a love addict. She was also a terrible over-sharer when it came to her sex life, and I remember being all too aware of how much sex my mother was having, post-divorce. I can safely say I am nothing like my mother, but I do have the inclination toward some of her bad behaviours, even if I don't follow them. I had trouble always being true, in my heart, to Gino while we were married, because I would get lonely or want validation and it was easier to get it from a dependable source, like one of my guy friends, than to ask him for it, but I never cheated and I never took any of these flirtations seriously. They never compromised what I had with Gino, because that was a real, tangible thing, and I knew the difference. This is how my friendship with Liam developed actually, because he could give me advice while keeping his opinion out of it, and he was always quick with the flattery that I sometimes really needed.
I keep thinking about the movie Celeste and Jesse Forever, and how when I saw it by myself in the theater, I was saddened because their story wasn't my story. I thought there was no hope of retaining that deep bond with Gino because he didn't want to be my friend anymore. The married couple in that movie decides to get divorced, but keeps seeing each other nearly every day as friends. They end up not being able to keep everything the way it was, but in the end, they are still friends, and still love each other, and they both grow up a little. I still love Gino, but that love is different now. I love him as a close, dear friend who I care so much about, and I know he still loves me in a similar way. When he told me he didn't love me anymore, I believe he meant to say that he didn't love our marriage. If I'm really honest, I didn't, either. I kept telling myself I wanted to stay married, but I think I was just scared of what would happen if it ended. All of this, that I am going through now, is what I was afraid of, and I am dealing with it. There is hope for me yet.
Thanks, Daddy, but these good genes you passed down to me are not going to solve everything for me. If being pretty was really the only deciding factor, I would not be a sad bitch right now. Men don't always opt for who is prettiest, nor should they. If I'm honest, I wouldn't want to date someone who only valued looks. I hate myself whenever I hold my looks side-by-side against the girls who were chosen over me and my first thought is, "I am so much prettier than her!". Thoughts like that are ugly, and I shouldn't even allow them to enter my mind. All I can do is try to ignore them.
I didn't feel pretty at all by the end of last week. I had a headache that was annoying enough to wake me up three times during the night, I was a little nauseous, and on top of all of that, my heart was heavy. It actually felt painful to smile. Still, whatever I was throwing off earlier this week must have still been coming off of me, because I ran into Gino in the employee dining room and we sat and talked for an hour over lunch. "It's nice to talk to you," he said, "My parents never want to talk and my brother never wants to talk. All my friends have their own lives, you know. Is it okay if we hang out and talk sometime?"
I knew I should say no, go fuck yourself, you're an asshole, or any of the other things my friends have been coaching me to say to him since he donkey-punched me in the heart, but I couldn't resist. We were best friends once, people who knew each other too well and could say anything to each other. I missed it so much, I told him yes, we could hang out that night if he wanted to come over.
Spending time with someone you know so well, but don't really know anymore, is weird. It's like visiting the country you were born in after being away for several years. The landmarks are familiar, but you have different eyes. We talked for a while, and had some beers, and after a while I realized something weird: Gino was flirting with me. He rejects me, tells me he doesn't love me anymore, and the last time we had sex it seemed like he was trying to keep himself from vomiting, and now he comes to my house and flirts with me?He kept trying to show me how his body had changed since he had started working out more and telling me my ass looked different and could he see it with no pants on? I was more than just a little confused by the whole thing. In my mind, this man doesn't even like me anymore and hated having sex with me and now he wants to show me his lats and inspect my ass for new musculature? It all became clear when he just came out and said, "Let's have sex."
You can only say that when you have known someone for as long as we've known each other, and you are totally unintimidated by them. Once you have seen someone on the toilet, puking and having diarrhea at the same time (as I have with Gino) or had to carry them because they were blackout drunk (as Gino had to do for me on our wedding night), you cannot be intimidated by them. As soon as he suggested, oh so subtly, that we have a zipless fuck, I had to walk to the bedroom half-naked because my pants were already off. It was the kind of sex that can only happen between two people who have been through something as horrible as a divorce. It wasn't the routine married sex we had for years- it was just like the sex we had when we first met, when everything was new and we weren't scared of what would happen if one of us did something weird. There was hair-pulling and ass-slapping and biting and scratching and all the good stuff we used to do before we got bored with each other. It felt new because it was new- we have different bodies than we did just a few months ago, and different minds. We have been away from each other long enough to have new experiences that are not shared ones. When he left my house, we kissed goodbye like friends, like two people who are fond of each other and can have sex without having to have a huge discussion about what it means. I don't want to fall back into a relationship with this man, go back to the person I was while we were married and attach that weight to my neck all over again. I like who I am becoming, and I don't want to backslide, and I know he wasn't after that anyway. I did tell him that he can't call me every time he feels like it or every time he feels lonely, though, and I won't let him sleep over. That would be too confusing.
I did feel a tad morose after Gino left, only because I missed Mike a little. While Gino and I were having sex, Mike was on my mind just the same way that while I was having sex with Mike, Gino was on my mind. All I can think is, dude, is this what people do? Just go from one person to the next with the ghost of the last person you fucked standing right next to you like a perverted specter? I actually wished I could talk to Mike about it, just as a male friend, but he is still not talking to me. At this point, I don't know if it is because of the girl he is seeing or because he just doesn't need me in his life. I don't like being ignored- it drives me crazy. I would rather have someone scream in my face than ignore me. The other part of it that is driving me crazy is that he is ignoring me as a friend, not just as a woman he had sex with a few times. It is one thing for him to not be into me anymore that way, but for him to just throw the baby out with the bathwater and dispose of our friendship makes me a little annoyed. I suppose we are just different people. He no longer even talks to his ex, and does not speak of her fondly, and seems to have learned nothing from that relationship other than how mean she was to him. I am going the other way with Gino, because I would rather preserve our friendship, even if it means we have to kill our marriage.
I was talking to my father the other day about whether my sister and I are both doomed to repeat history, and make all of the terrible decisions that our mother made when it comes to men. My mother divorced my father because she was bored, and she wanted to see what else was out there. She ended up getting involved with a man she went to high school with, who never looked at her twice when she was a slightly overweight teenager (with her original nose), but who was suddenly taken with her as a grown woman. Because of this man, there ended up being violence in our home when he showed up one night, drunk, and put his fist through a window. She stopped seeing him for a while, but then took him back for who knows what reason, maybe because she was lonely. I was 10, maybe 11, and it's no wonder why I was a nervous wreck around men until I was 21 years old. Because of my mother's terrible choices, I thought that all men eventually showed up screaming and dripping blood from their fists in the middle of the night. I hate to judge someone who is no longer with us, but she should have considered how terrifying it was for my sister and I to have to see this man after something like that. He apologized, but his apologies meant fuck-all to me after I saw his other side: a drunk, bleeding man who dragged my mother down the stairs from my bedroom in the middle of the night. My mother, though, could give a shit how anything affected us, and I'm just now starting to see just how far-reaching her poor judgement and narcissism continue to be.
I hope I'm not cursed. I know I'm not as insecure as my mom was because I was raised better. All it took, seemingly, was one look from this guy who wouldn't fuck her in high school, and she chucked out my dad like garbage. My sister has similar issues in that she has compromised relationships over something trivial like that, and then regretted it. My aunt told me the other night that she thinks my mother may have been a sex addict, but I think she was actually a love addict. She was also a terrible over-sharer when it came to her sex life, and I remember being all too aware of how much sex my mother was having, post-divorce. I can safely say I am nothing like my mother, but I do have the inclination toward some of her bad behaviours, even if I don't follow them. I had trouble always being true, in my heart, to Gino while we were married, because I would get lonely or want validation and it was easier to get it from a dependable source, like one of my guy friends, than to ask him for it, but I never cheated and I never took any of these flirtations seriously. They never compromised what I had with Gino, because that was a real, tangible thing, and I knew the difference. This is how my friendship with Liam developed actually, because he could give me advice while keeping his opinion out of it, and he was always quick with the flattery that I sometimes really needed.
I keep thinking about the movie Celeste and Jesse Forever, and how when I saw it by myself in the theater, I was saddened because their story wasn't my story. I thought there was no hope of retaining that deep bond with Gino because he didn't want to be my friend anymore. The married couple in that movie decides to get divorced, but keeps seeing each other nearly every day as friends. They end up not being able to keep everything the way it was, but in the end, they are still friends, and still love each other, and they both grow up a little. I still love Gino, but that love is different now. I love him as a close, dear friend who I care so much about, and I know he still loves me in a similar way. When he told me he didn't love me anymore, I believe he meant to say that he didn't love our marriage. If I'm really honest, I didn't, either. I kept telling myself I wanted to stay married, but I think I was just scared of what would happen if it ended. All of this, that I am going through now, is what I was afraid of, and I am dealing with it. There is hope for me yet.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Drive-By Healing
I was talking to Joann, one of the nurses I work with, who is also a healing energy practitioner, the other day, and after hearing my story about how I spent the night before crying while listening to Aretha Franklin in my bedroom, she walked over, placed one hand behind my head, at the base of my neck, and the other on my forehead. "Breathe," she said.
I breathed, and though she didn't tell me to, I closed my eyes. I could feel the faintest vibration coming out of her fingertips, so faint I wasn't sure if I was imagining it or if it was real. She brushed her hands down my back, across my shoulders, as if she was sweeping something off of me. It took all of about five minutes. I wasn't sure if it would have any effect, really, and was prepared to just shrug and thank her for trying. I didn't feel anything immediately, but as I was walking out to my car to go get lunch, it felt like my shoulders and upper back were actually getting warmer. I also felt more energetic than I have in weeks, as if she had swept the cobwebs away and I could actually see some light. I finished my Sunday as I always do, with my two-hour knitting class, teaching ten women how to knit scarves and pulling up my Etsy site on my Kindle to show them what I have created from yarn and polyfil. They were a lovely group, so eager to learn and complimentary of my weird little hobby of knitting animals. I left feeling elated, the kind of elation that comes from doing what you love and having your talents recognized, silly as they may be.
This was such an incredible turnaround from the day before, when, yes, I was listening to the same song by Aretha Franklin on repeat ("Ain't No Way"), and crying to the point where I was worried I might crack a rib. I felt like I had an actual hole in my abdomen, and I lay there on my bed, curled up like a salad-bar shrimp trying to suppress that ache. I wanted to message Gino and tell him that he is a special kind of asshole for doing this to me, but I was worried, as always, that he would tattle on me to his lawyer and make this divorce even harder. I texted Mike because that's easier, told him I'm sad we're not friends because he likes another girl more than me. I referred to a joke I made about how certain people are grown wrong, like square watermelons, and how there is no hope for them in the world, by texting him, "I guess I'm a square watermelon too."
I felt so much better yesterday. I met up with Sara, one of my best friends from high school, because she is in town from San Francisco this week, and while we were looking through old pictures and reminiscing about how stupid we all were back then, I found a picture of my chubby, frizzy-haired self with Evan, the only guy I dated in high school. He was this tall, gangly motherfucker, all elbows and knees and bad skin. I chased him for months, and when he finally agreed to date me, I was on top of the world. It took a few months of dating him to realize how obnoxious he was, and how he never gave me compliments and how I really didn't find him attractive at all. Sara pointed at the photo and asked, "Seriously, why did you think he was such a prize?"
I pointed at myself in the same photo and answered, "Dude, did I really deserve anyone better back then?"
Hindsight is 20/20, and when I look back at men I spent far too much time agonizing over, they all seem to have one thing in common: none of them were exceptionally good to me or treated me like I was special. Evan only dated me after the girl he really liked started dating someone else, and he broke up with me when they broke up so he could try to angle his way in with her. I took him back after she rejected him, dated him a little while longer, and then I had to break up with him twice to get rid of him after I started to recognize all of his flaws. The was also the fact that I really only started dating him so I could spend more time with our friend Chris, who was always with him.
I run into a similar set of circumstances with the guy I not so much dated as hooked up with repeatedly right before I got together with Gino. He was kind of a doofus, but he thought he was really cool, and he carried himself like he was King Shit everywhere he went. I had to have been just reacting to his confidence, because I really made a fool of myself with him. At one point, I actually remember watching him Vogue behind the bar at the club he worked at, and a friend pulling me aside, asking, "Okay, when are you going to get it?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, utterly delighted by his super-white dance moves.
"Girl," he said, leaning in, "You are way too pretty to be hung up on him."
I didn't see it. I had just come out of my shell, shed the thirty pounds I had carried around since I was 15 and figured out what makeup and a flatiron were. My self-esteem still had not quite caught up with my appearance, so to me, I was actually seeing someone who was above my station. Again, I was the one doing the chasing, always waiting for him to try to fuck someone out of his league, get rejected, and accept me as a door prize at the end of the night. This went on until he was thoroughly bored with me and I stopped trying. It took some time for me to see that I never really liked him all that much, and didn't even think he was that cute, but he was the first catch I got into the boat, so I wasn't going to keep throwing my line into the water.
Gino didn't treat me badly, necessarily, he just didn't seem to think I was all that special after a while. He would do little things that got on my nerves, like never holding the door open for me even when I had my hands full. One time, carrying two bags of groceries, he let the door slam right in my face and I just fucking lost it on him. "Why the fuck don't you ever hold the door for me? Didn't your mother teach you better manners?"
"Oh, so I'm supposed to hold doors for you and pull your chair out like you're some kind of princess?" he asked.
"I'M SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR PRINCESS, YOU JACKASS!" I responded, rubbing my forehead where the door bumped into it.
This was a flaw in our relationship that was never going to be corrected, and would have kept coming up again and again. I thought of myself as the lucky one in my marriage, and Gino also thought of me as the lucky one in our marriage. He thought I was lucky to have found him and didn't really think of me as somone who was that remarkable. The best couples I know have one thing in common with each other: both halves think of themselves as the one who lucked out by finding the other person. There is a love and respect flowing equally in both directions because they are both glad to have found the person they are with.
This tendency I have to pursue guys who don't give me compliments or treat me like the unique individual I am may have dead-ended with Mike. He did butter me up with a lot of flattery, and I will carry some of the truly sweet things he said with me for a long time, maybe just when I need something to get me through my day. I will try not to always remember that his adulations came with a strange flavor to them occasionally, such as the time he looked at me while we were making out in his kitchen and said, "Those eyes... Evil", or the time he told me he needed to leave my apartment because he needed to get away from my "tiny, delicious body". Or the time he told me not to put on more lip butter because he couldn't resist kissing me when my mouth tasted like a grasshopper cookie. I have to believe he had to make me the villain, the devil on his shoulder to give himself an out, so that when he went back to the girl he was seeing before, he could spin it so he had no choice, that I was some kind of pussy assassin who seduced him against his will. Anything to make him look saintly, anything to make it seem like he had no other option but to fuck me until I left him alone. If that's what he needs, I can't control that, and it doesn't take away the fact that he told me I was yummy and awesome. I can be yummy and awesome for someone else, and now that Joann has nudged me into a more positive place, I don't need to hear it from him. I am not a square watermelon. I finally feel like I can be my own Abilene from The Help, look myself in the mirror and tell myself, "You is kiiiind. You is smaaaart. You is important."
I breathed, and though she didn't tell me to, I closed my eyes. I could feel the faintest vibration coming out of her fingertips, so faint I wasn't sure if I was imagining it or if it was real. She brushed her hands down my back, across my shoulders, as if she was sweeping something off of me. It took all of about five minutes. I wasn't sure if it would have any effect, really, and was prepared to just shrug and thank her for trying. I didn't feel anything immediately, but as I was walking out to my car to go get lunch, it felt like my shoulders and upper back were actually getting warmer. I also felt more energetic than I have in weeks, as if she had swept the cobwebs away and I could actually see some light. I finished my Sunday as I always do, with my two-hour knitting class, teaching ten women how to knit scarves and pulling up my Etsy site on my Kindle to show them what I have created from yarn and polyfil. They were a lovely group, so eager to learn and complimentary of my weird little hobby of knitting animals. I left feeling elated, the kind of elation that comes from doing what you love and having your talents recognized, silly as they may be.
This was such an incredible turnaround from the day before, when, yes, I was listening to the same song by Aretha Franklin on repeat ("Ain't No Way"), and crying to the point where I was worried I might crack a rib. I felt like I had an actual hole in my abdomen, and I lay there on my bed, curled up like a salad-bar shrimp trying to suppress that ache. I wanted to message Gino and tell him that he is a special kind of asshole for doing this to me, but I was worried, as always, that he would tattle on me to his lawyer and make this divorce even harder. I texted Mike because that's easier, told him I'm sad we're not friends because he likes another girl more than me. I referred to a joke I made about how certain people are grown wrong, like square watermelons, and how there is no hope for them in the world, by texting him, "I guess I'm a square watermelon too."
I felt so much better yesterday. I met up with Sara, one of my best friends from high school, because she is in town from San Francisco this week, and while we were looking through old pictures and reminiscing about how stupid we all were back then, I found a picture of my chubby, frizzy-haired self with Evan, the only guy I dated in high school. He was this tall, gangly motherfucker, all elbows and knees and bad skin. I chased him for months, and when he finally agreed to date me, I was on top of the world. It took a few months of dating him to realize how obnoxious he was, and how he never gave me compliments and how I really didn't find him attractive at all. Sara pointed at the photo and asked, "Seriously, why did you think he was such a prize?"
I pointed at myself in the same photo and answered, "Dude, did I really deserve anyone better back then?"
Hindsight is 20/20, and when I look back at men I spent far too much time agonizing over, they all seem to have one thing in common: none of them were exceptionally good to me or treated me like I was special. Evan only dated me after the girl he really liked started dating someone else, and he broke up with me when they broke up so he could try to angle his way in with her. I took him back after she rejected him, dated him a little while longer, and then I had to break up with him twice to get rid of him after I started to recognize all of his flaws. The was also the fact that I really only started dating him so I could spend more time with our friend Chris, who was always with him.
I run into a similar set of circumstances with the guy I not so much dated as hooked up with repeatedly right before I got together with Gino. He was kind of a doofus, but he thought he was really cool, and he carried himself like he was King Shit everywhere he went. I had to have been just reacting to his confidence, because I really made a fool of myself with him. At one point, I actually remember watching him Vogue behind the bar at the club he worked at, and a friend pulling me aside, asking, "Okay, when are you going to get it?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, utterly delighted by his super-white dance moves.
"Girl," he said, leaning in, "You are way too pretty to be hung up on him."
I didn't see it. I had just come out of my shell, shed the thirty pounds I had carried around since I was 15 and figured out what makeup and a flatiron were. My self-esteem still had not quite caught up with my appearance, so to me, I was actually seeing someone who was above my station. Again, I was the one doing the chasing, always waiting for him to try to fuck someone out of his league, get rejected, and accept me as a door prize at the end of the night. This went on until he was thoroughly bored with me and I stopped trying. It took some time for me to see that I never really liked him all that much, and didn't even think he was that cute, but he was the first catch I got into the boat, so I wasn't going to keep throwing my line into the water.
Gino didn't treat me badly, necessarily, he just didn't seem to think I was all that special after a while. He would do little things that got on my nerves, like never holding the door open for me even when I had my hands full. One time, carrying two bags of groceries, he let the door slam right in my face and I just fucking lost it on him. "Why the fuck don't you ever hold the door for me? Didn't your mother teach you better manners?"
"Oh, so I'm supposed to hold doors for you and pull your chair out like you're some kind of princess?" he asked.
"I'M SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR PRINCESS, YOU JACKASS!" I responded, rubbing my forehead where the door bumped into it.
This was a flaw in our relationship that was never going to be corrected, and would have kept coming up again and again. I thought of myself as the lucky one in my marriage, and Gino also thought of me as the lucky one in our marriage. He thought I was lucky to have found him and didn't really think of me as somone who was that remarkable. The best couples I know have one thing in common with each other: both halves think of themselves as the one who lucked out by finding the other person. There is a love and respect flowing equally in both directions because they are both glad to have found the person they are with.
This tendency I have to pursue guys who don't give me compliments or treat me like the unique individual I am may have dead-ended with Mike. He did butter me up with a lot of flattery, and I will carry some of the truly sweet things he said with me for a long time, maybe just when I need something to get me through my day. I will try not to always remember that his adulations came with a strange flavor to them occasionally, such as the time he looked at me while we were making out in his kitchen and said, "Those eyes... Evil", or the time he told me he needed to leave my apartment because he needed to get away from my "tiny, delicious body". Or the time he told me not to put on more lip butter because he couldn't resist kissing me when my mouth tasted like a grasshopper cookie. I have to believe he had to make me the villain, the devil on his shoulder to give himself an out, so that when he went back to the girl he was seeing before, he could spin it so he had no choice, that I was some kind of pussy assassin who seduced him against his will. Anything to make him look saintly, anything to make it seem like he had no other option but to fuck me until I left him alone. If that's what he needs, I can't control that, and it doesn't take away the fact that he told me I was yummy and awesome. I can be yummy and awesome for someone else, and now that Joann has nudged me into a more positive place, I don't need to hear it from him. I am not a square watermelon. I finally feel like I can be my own Abilene from The Help, look myself in the mirror and tell myself, "You is kiiiind. You is smaaaart. You is important."
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