As I was driving away from the house following the conversation that resulted in my divorce, crying that hysterical, panicked, painful kind of crying, the type of crying that can bruise your ribs if you don't control your breathing, the thought that kept going through my head was, "Who is going to love me?"
I was 29, fifteen pounds overweight, and I had been in love with the same man since I was 22. In my estimation, at that moment, I didn't know what I could offer anyone else.
Nearly two years later, as I stood in the courthouse, waiting for my case to be called in and listening to my ex-husband spout a string of nonsense about how he is going to become a civil engineer and design septic tanks for the Mars space colony, I looked at him and thought, "Who is going to love him?"
It was not a malicious thought. In fact, it made me feel absolutely helpless-like I had failed. I loved him the most in the whole world at one point. I loved him at an unhealthy level. I know I loved him more than I loved myself, and I can't picture myself being able to deal with him in his current state. Even I am not strong enough to sit and listen to him paint a delusional picture of 3-D printed houses and how the NSA might be investigating him. I could humor his grandiosity at one point, but this is too much even for me.
I have only gotten more healthy since he cut me loose, and I feel like he has gotten progressively sicker. Our relationship was parasitic, and now that he has half the blood supply to work with, he can't take care of himself. I know that I carried him, but I had no idea how much I was carrying him.Whatever mental issues he has have either just now presented, or they have accelerated since we separated. He looks thinner, and grayer, like he has aged ten years.
The person in front of me in court was not the man I fought with, the man who kissed me first, who brought me flat ginger ale when I was sick. He was barely a shadow of that person. The way he was talking to me felt detached, like there had never been anyone in there who loved me. He talked to me like an old friend, but there was a remove, like we were old work friends, not old best friends.
An overwhelming feeling of guilt came over me, that I was not anticipating. I thought I would feel relief when the judge pronounced that our divorce would become official in 120 days. I thought I would feel closure. I felt nothing approaching resolution-all I felt was guilt that I didn't fix him. I know that the guilt is irrational, and that I am not responsible for him, but knowing that doesn't make it go away. I keep thinking that if I had fought back, if I had not so quickly acquiesced to his need to get a divorce, he might still be mentally sound, and yeah, I might not be as happy, but maybe I was the thing that tied him to the ground, and my happiness was what needed to be sacrificed to keep him well. Or maybe this would have been bigger than both of us. There is a very specific God complex that arises as a result of a former partner losing touch with reality after a break-up.
I know that the guilt I am feeling is survivor's guilt-I got out of the wreckage, but I left some people behind. My ex's family are the ones who are taking care of him, and will continue to do so until he stabilizes and can actually take care of himself. I feel like I broke my promise to them as well, my promise to keep him safe. Of all the things I was expecting to feel leading up to my divorce, this came as the most surprising, and the one thing I can do the least about. It is not my job, or even my hobby, to fix him, and I have to tell myself that every time I feel the guilt try to fish hook me back to that place.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Nice
I was driving home from the grocery store the other day, thinking about the fact that after nearly two years of stasis, my divorce is actually filed with the Berkshire Probate and Family Court and I have an upcoming court date to look forward to. On April 11, just 4 days after I turn 31, I will be testifying before a judge to the fact that my marriage is irretrievably broken, and hopefully the whole process will be finalized by Bastille Day. The fact that a marriage can still be legal, can still exist at all, after this much time apart, and this much hurt, seems crazy, but it is a fact. It's something I have learned about divorce since I started working for a lawyer: sometimes they take forever simply because people are lazy and just don't feel like filing the necessary paperwork. Or, in my case, because they want it to be over but don't want to fork over the $215.00 for filing fees and sheriff's service. Divorce is expensive, and I waited Gino out because I'm stubborn and I thought the onus should be on him to pay the fees. It's juvenile, but I don't really care that much about doing the mature thing when at certain points in the past year, I had to live on 5 dollars a day for weeks at a time just so my bills were paid. I was not dragging my feet or stalling-I just didn't have the funds to cut these ties for good.
I was thinking about all of this, and flipping through songs on my iPod, not really paying attention more than I had to, and I thought about the fact that Gino only has one suit, and it is the same suit that he wore in our wedding, and that suit is currently hanging in my closet because it just kind of ended up there. I had the thought, "I should bring the suit to him so he has something nice to wear for court," and then I had to stop and wonder why I still care about him having something nice to wear at all, let alone something nice to wear to divorce me in.
During this whole ordeal, the popular opinion has been, from a few people, that I am too nice. I accommodated my ex at every turn for no reason other than the fact that I wanted to have a big banner over my head that read LOOK AT HOW WELL I'M HANDLING THIS! I know that some of my need to handle it well was to take some of the responsibility away from him. If I was handling it this well, he didn't hurt me that much, and therefore, no one could hate him. I have tried to find ways to make him look good, to work out my feelings over this while trying to avoid placing the blame completely on him. I wanted to make the fact that he wanted this divorce not his fault, or as if he had no choice even though I know I was a good wife. I am still trying to figure out if trying to remain friends with him was due to actually wanting him in my life because I still needed him, or if I was just trying another way to make him look better. It doesn't matter now since we aren't friends any more.
This moment where I thought about how I can continue to make my ex-husband look good (sartorially, this time at least) came on the heels of feeling guilty all day over my shitty attitude just the night before. I went out to a party and even though I had been looking forward to it, and was enjoying myself at first, I gradually sank into a bad mood. I had a busy day without enough sleep the night before, my feet hurt, I didn't feel fuckable, the room was crowded, and I just started being kind of a bitch. A guy was there who I know, and he always catches me right at a moment when I'm not smiling and then tells me that I should smile. I get self-conscious when he is around me because I am just waiting for him to point out the fact that I'm not smiling. And then I overcompensate, and smile too much, and I feel like my smile is empty and doesn't quite reach my eyes. I don't smile all the time because the truth is, sometimes I don't feel like it. Especially if I'm concentrating or just trying not to trip over my feet or, as was the case the other night, just really tired.
I could not have even forced myself to smile that night because it just felt like everyone was more alert and having a better time than me, and when this guy asked me what was wrong, I was kind of snappy. "I'm tired," I said, refusing to engage because I just wanted to sit, and wait for the night to wind down so I could get a ride home. I felt guilty the next day because of the fact that sometimes, I'm grumpy. And then guilty over the fact that when I'm grumpy, I'm not always nice to people. And then guilty about the fact that I am still trying to do nice things for my ex when he really doesn't deserve them. And then guilty over the fact that I couldn't be nice and pretend I was having a great time the night before. There is a chance I am reading too far into being in a bad mood on one occasion, and my conflicting feelings about my ex are coming about naturally because after nearly two years of waiting, this could be coming to an end very quickly. The one probably has nothing to do with the other, and I should maybe be a little nicer to myself, at least as nice as I am trying to be to the man who is divorcing me.
I was thinking about all of this, and flipping through songs on my iPod, not really paying attention more than I had to, and I thought about the fact that Gino only has one suit, and it is the same suit that he wore in our wedding, and that suit is currently hanging in my closet because it just kind of ended up there. I had the thought, "I should bring the suit to him so he has something nice to wear for court," and then I had to stop and wonder why I still care about him having something nice to wear at all, let alone something nice to wear to divorce me in.
During this whole ordeal, the popular opinion has been, from a few people, that I am too nice. I accommodated my ex at every turn for no reason other than the fact that I wanted to have a big banner over my head that read LOOK AT HOW WELL I'M HANDLING THIS! I know that some of my need to handle it well was to take some of the responsibility away from him. If I was handling it this well, he didn't hurt me that much, and therefore, no one could hate him. I have tried to find ways to make him look good, to work out my feelings over this while trying to avoid placing the blame completely on him. I wanted to make the fact that he wanted this divorce not his fault, or as if he had no choice even though I know I was a good wife. I am still trying to figure out if trying to remain friends with him was due to actually wanting him in my life because I still needed him, or if I was just trying another way to make him look better. It doesn't matter now since we aren't friends any more.
This moment where I thought about how I can continue to make my ex-husband look good (sartorially, this time at least) came on the heels of feeling guilty all day over my shitty attitude just the night before. I went out to a party and even though I had been looking forward to it, and was enjoying myself at first, I gradually sank into a bad mood. I had a busy day without enough sleep the night before, my feet hurt, I didn't feel fuckable, the room was crowded, and I just started being kind of a bitch. A guy was there who I know, and he always catches me right at a moment when I'm not smiling and then tells me that I should smile. I get self-conscious when he is around me because I am just waiting for him to point out the fact that I'm not smiling. And then I overcompensate, and smile too much, and I feel like my smile is empty and doesn't quite reach my eyes. I don't smile all the time because the truth is, sometimes I don't feel like it. Especially if I'm concentrating or just trying not to trip over my feet or, as was the case the other night, just really tired.
I could not have even forced myself to smile that night because it just felt like everyone was more alert and having a better time than me, and when this guy asked me what was wrong, I was kind of snappy. "I'm tired," I said, refusing to engage because I just wanted to sit, and wait for the night to wind down so I could get a ride home. I felt guilty the next day because of the fact that sometimes, I'm grumpy. And then guilty over the fact that when I'm grumpy, I'm not always nice to people. And then guilty about the fact that I am still trying to do nice things for my ex when he really doesn't deserve them. And then guilty over the fact that I couldn't be nice and pretend I was having a great time the night before. There is a chance I am reading too far into being in a bad mood on one occasion, and my conflicting feelings about my ex are coming about naturally because after nearly two years of waiting, this could be coming to an end very quickly. The one probably has nothing to do with the other, and I should maybe be a little nicer to myself, at least as nice as I am trying to be to the man who is divorcing me.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
What It Looks Like
This week was the anniversary of my mother's death and unlike the rest of that side of my family, I did not post anything about it or acknowledge it until now because, after this amount of time, I didn't want to. I am allowed to miss my mother by myself, without involving anyone else. I didn't even remember on the day of, truthfully, until I was home, on my couch at the end of the day. It occurred to me almost as an afterthought, something in the back of my mind getting pushed up to the front. The fact that most of the day went by without incident and then the memory that I still miss her came back to me at a convenient hour, after I was done attending to my responsibilities, when I didn't have to put on a show for anyone, frankly, was kind of a relief. For years, I would be inconsolable for the entire day, and in reality the week leading up to and following it. I would be despondent in the morning, flinty and anxious all day, crying on and off like it had just happened yesterday because it felt as if it had just happened yesterday. This year, I got through most of the day, and when it bothered me it was a less sharp pain. It has been eighteen years, and this gives some weight to the adage that time heals all wounds.
I grieve privately, and I am allowed to grieve privately. I don't need to plaster the fact that the hurt of losing my mom still aches all over a social networking site and I know this might make me a horrible person, but when my family starts posting things about it in a way that feels as though they are doing so on my behalf, I don't appreciate it. My sister posts a status update outlining her own sadness over it and tags me, roping me in with it as if she can just assume she knows how I feel, that my emotions must mirror hers. My cousin posts pictures of my mother from when she was in the hospital, at her worst, no longer the healthy, alive person I want to remember, but looking shrunken, like a husk of who she was, and tags me in the photos so they show up in my timeline without warning, and without my permission. They mean no harm by doing so, and I have no right to be annoyed by this but the thing that gets me is no one asked me. To make their grief public is their prerogative, but they still haven't absorbed by now that it is just not how I do things. I might work things out this way, by writing about it, and while this is public, this is me speaking for myself. This is not a photo of my mother in a hospital bed smiling despite the fact that she is fighting a fight she can't win, or my sister broadcasting her needs to all of her friends and, by extension, my friends. The fact that this makes me so angry is ridiculous, and I can never confront them, and of course I never will because it will only create more problems. I will talk about it, but trying to get my family to change would be like showing black horses, to use one of my mother's famous malapropisms.
My mother's family does this often, not just around the time of year when she died. Every once in a while, one of my aunts posts a picture of my mother on Facebook, and of course tags me even though I'm not in the photo. I know they mean well, and of course they are trying to keep her memory alive, but all it does is remind me that my mother is gone. I don't need to be reminded that my mother is gone. I do remember it, all the time, to the point where it almost seems like she was never even alive at all, and I have trouble remembering a time when I wasn't missing her. I had twelve years with my mother before she died, but sometimes those years seem like they never even happened. This is what my grief looks like. It looks like me struggling to remember what it felt like to actually have a mom. It looks like feeling guilty over being unable to form a bond that is more than just a friendship with my stepmother because I don't know how to be a grown woman with a mother. It looks like that disconnect extending all the way to my relationship with my father, how I feel like I try to be more of a friend than a daughter to him. It looks like keeping my family at arm's length because I know they could be gone at any moment and maybe if we aren't so close, it won't hurt as much. It looks like something I don't want everyone to look at because I am not proud of it, so I keep it to myself. It does not look like a status update written by someone else.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Blog Therapy
I was texting back and forth with my friend Gabriel this past week, giving him some advice as he has started his own blogging project, and it wasn't until after I texted him that, "If I hadn't been blogging over that whole year and change after my breakup I wouldn't have known what to do," that I realized I had not posted anything new since the day after Christmas, and before that, the last new blog post was from three months before. In the thickest, murkiest part of my post-breakup depression, I was posting twice a week, and then three times a week when I faced my first romantic let-down. I blogged every single detail of my stupid broken heart and my disappointed vagina to such an extent that I got into trouble. I lost one friend, who I thought was my best friend, and I kind of pissed off another friend who eventually got over it. I shared too much, but I still regret nothing. I did make my ex not want to be friends any longer, and I can't say I wasn't expecting that to happen eventually. We were only going to be friends until I started saying no to him.
I know the fact that I haven't been blogging my fingers down to the bone lately is a good sign. Blogging was what I did instead of therapy, and it paid dividends I can't imagine therapy ever would have. I can actually go back and read through how painful it was, and even though some of the really melodramatic things I said make me roll my eyes now, I got them out. I can visually chart my progress because I recorded everything, every high and low moment, and I am glad that I listened to the friend who told me that starting a blog might be a good idea. It was a useful outlet, albeit an outlet that has closed itself off a little recently.
The truth of why I haven't posted much lately is because of how mundane being single is once you are settled into it. There aren't a ton of big, crazy revelations about it: it's lonely, but not all the time, and every once in a while I get to spend time with someone I really like, and even though I miss him when I don't get to see him, it's fine. I have the typical problems most people have with being alone. Every good thing comes with something I don't particularly like stuck to the back of it like a security tag the store forgot to remove. I like not having to ask anyone's permission to do whatever the actual fuck I want, but I hate having to sleep alone at the end of the day. I still wake up at least once a night and the loneliness of that moment where I realize I am by myself still hurts, more than it should. I like that I can cook what I want, without having to check what anyone else feels like having, but I hate having to portion everything down to just make enough for one person. Being single feels wonderful when you go to a party and don't have to make sure someone else is enjoying it as much as you are every thirty minutes, or when you can take a day trip to New York without notifying anyone, but feels a little horrible when you get home and have no one to talk to.
These are not new things, so I haven't felt the need to catalog every single one of them. The point of therapy is to treat something that isn't working. By making writing my therapy, I treated what was disordered, and now that I don't feel disordered, I'm no longer treating. I know I can always turn to blog therapy again, but right now, I don't feel I have that much to say. It's almost, in its own way, a little bit sad. Realizing that I haven't blogged much of anything felt like realizing that I haven't called a friend I saw almost every day for over a year, and that I just don't need that much any longer. It's tantamount to realizing I haven't spoken to my ex face-to-face in almost a full year, and I used to think I could never go a day without seeing him. The difference between my ex and blogging is, I am certain I will never need him in my life again. Blogging, however, I am pretty sure I will end up coming around to again when I do need it, and when I feel like I do have something to say again.
But definitely check out Gabriel's blogging project because I think everyone should read it:
http://www.squidheadfiles.com/2014/01/no-dj-is-better-than-his-crowd.html
I know the fact that I haven't been blogging my fingers down to the bone lately is a good sign. Blogging was what I did instead of therapy, and it paid dividends I can't imagine therapy ever would have. I can actually go back and read through how painful it was, and even though some of the really melodramatic things I said make me roll my eyes now, I got them out. I can visually chart my progress because I recorded everything, every high and low moment, and I am glad that I listened to the friend who told me that starting a blog might be a good idea. It was a useful outlet, albeit an outlet that has closed itself off a little recently.
The truth of why I haven't posted much lately is because of how mundane being single is once you are settled into it. There aren't a ton of big, crazy revelations about it: it's lonely, but not all the time, and every once in a while I get to spend time with someone I really like, and even though I miss him when I don't get to see him, it's fine. I have the typical problems most people have with being alone. Every good thing comes with something I don't particularly like stuck to the back of it like a security tag the store forgot to remove. I like not having to ask anyone's permission to do whatever the actual fuck I want, but I hate having to sleep alone at the end of the day. I still wake up at least once a night and the loneliness of that moment where I realize I am by myself still hurts, more than it should. I like that I can cook what I want, without having to check what anyone else feels like having, but I hate having to portion everything down to just make enough for one person. Being single feels wonderful when you go to a party and don't have to make sure someone else is enjoying it as much as you are every thirty minutes, or when you can take a day trip to New York without notifying anyone, but feels a little horrible when you get home and have no one to talk to.
These are not new things, so I haven't felt the need to catalog every single one of them. The point of therapy is to treat something that isn't working. By making writing my therapy, I treated what was disordered, and now that I don't feel disordered, I'm no longer treating. I know I can always turn to blog therapy again, but right now, I don't feel I have that much to say. It's almost, in its own way, a little bit sad. Realizing that I haven't blogged much of anything felt like realizing that I haven't called a friend I saw almost every day for over a year, and that I just don't need that much any longer. It's tantamount to realizing I haven't spoken to my ex face-to-face in almost a full year, and I used to think I could never go a day without seeing him. The difference between my ex and blogging is, I am certain I will never need him in my life again. Blogging, however, I am pretty sure I will end up coming around to again when I do need it, and when I feel like I do have something to say again.
But definitely check out Gabriel's blogging project because I think everyone should read it:
http://www.squidheadfiles.com/2014/01/no-dj-is-better-than-his-crowd.html
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Tabula Rasa
"Thanks. My ex never said anything nice about my (insert anything about me here)."
This is what keeps coming out of my mouth every single time the man I am dating/seeing/whatevering says anything about me. I told him the line I wrote about my ex, into my List Of Things I Still Want To Say To All Of You (In No Particular Order) poem, which reads, "You say that you're an ass man only because you don't like what being a tits man says about you."
"That's a good line," he says, "But, you know, you've got those things too."
Before I can tell myself to shut the fuck up and just lean into this championship-round snuggle that is already happening, I say, "Not enough of one. Too much of the other."
Self-deprecation is my knee-jerk, my fallback, and now I have to see it as my bad habit that I might just have to break myself of. I like myself, I just assume the rest of the world doesn't. This is the manner in which my self-confidence has grown in the past year and a half or so: I have come to own the way I feel about myself, all the while assuming the rest of the world, apart from maybe three or four people, does not actually agree with me. I brought it up with Gabriel when I was sharing with him my big problem: the fact that this young man even wants to spend any time with me. "I can't get over it, because he is just so... much, and I know I should stop talking shit about myself in front of him but I can't quite stop it."
"That's a dangerous thing," Gabriel said, "Sometimes guys hear a woman's self-deprecation and think, 'Well, maybe she knows something I don't'".
Giver of best advice as always, I slump down into my seat away from the truth he is holding up in front of me again. Of course, I think, and because I don't see things until they are really obvious, I can see now why my ex undervalued me, and why he thought he could do better: I put those thoughts in his head. I fed him a steady diet of flattery paired with constant undercutting of myself, and he was just believing the hype. And now I'm seeing someone who is even funnier, more clever, more attractive, better at sex and more fun to be around than my ex, and even though I am trying not to keep falling into the frozen mud puddle that is my self-deprecation, I am still struggling with how easy it is to bring up various shitty things my ex said when we were together. I have identified what it was that made my ex think he had permission to do this, but it hasn't entirely taken the sting out or made me stop thinking about it whenever this young man who I get to spend time with, occasionally at least, says something nice.
I can't just come from a place of appreciation, I immediately have to swallow the nice comment and regurgitate something awful my ex once said to me about the same thing. I'm starting to wonder if this is just what comes with the territory when you are dating someone our age, someone who has dated literally anyone else and has any experience to draw from. It's impossible to approach anyone with an entirely blank slate, especially when you are someone like me, who has mined most of my personal life for the sake of my writing already, polished it up, took out the parts where I acted like a total jackass, and published a lot of it on this blog. I am trying to be the kind of person I want to be, who does not cock up the mood with too much information about my past, who can just be in the moment without perpetually bringing up some other jerk I dated, but I don't even think that is possible to stop altogether. If you are in your late twenties or early thirties and are not brand new to dating, even if you haven't been involved with a lot of people, like me, the bones of all of your past involvements are buried underneath your feet wherever you are standing. Whatever you build is going to be over a foundation of bad dates, awkward kisses, uncomfortable sex, and painful breakups, as well it should be. If you haven't had your heart broken or even just had a really embarrassing moment with someone by the time you are over the age of 25, you are either lucky or haven't really gotten out enough.
The past doesn't just stop existing because it is in the past, but I know I don't need to bring it up constantly, especially when I don't get to see this person that much. When I am lucky enough to spend time with him, I need to remember that at this point, whatever this is kind of only exists inside of a bubble, a bubble that really is too small for the rest of the world to even get into. Looking at it this way, it gives me the freedom to not think about my ex, and not talk about him. It's a relief.
This is what keeps coming out of my mouth every single time the man I am dating/seeing/whatevering says anything about me. I told him the line I wrote about my ex, into my List Of Things I Still Want To Say To All Of You (In No Particular Order) poem, which reads, "You say that you're an ass man only because you don't like what being a tits man says about you."
"That's a good line," he says, "But, you know, you've got those things too."
Before I can tell myself to shut the fuck up and just lean into this championship-round snuggle that is already happening, I say, "Not enough of one. Too much of the other."
Self-deprecation is my knee-jerk, my fallback, and now I have to see it as my bad habit that I might just have to break myself of. I like myself, I just assume the rest of the world doesn't. This is the manner in which my self-confidence has grown in the past year and a half or so: I have come to own the way I feel about myself, all the while assuming the rest of the world, apart from maybe three or four people, does not actually agree with me. I brought it up with Gabriel when I was sharing with him my big problem: the fact that this young man even wants to spend any time with me. "I can't get over it, because he is just so... much, and I know I should stop talking shit about myself in front of him but I can't quite stop it."
"That's a dangerous thing," Gabriel said, "Sometimes guys hear a woman's self-deprecation and think, 'Well, maybe she knows something I don't'".
Giver of best advice as always, I slump down into my seat away from the truth he is holding up in front of me again. Of course, I think, and because I don't see things until they are really obvious, I can see now why my ex undervalued me, and why he thought he could do better: I put those thoughts in his head. I fed him a steady diet of flattery paired with constant undercutting of myself, and he was just believing the hype. And now I'm seeing someone who is even funnier, more clever, more attractive, better at sex and more fun to be around than my ex, and even though I am trying not to keep falling into the frozen mud puddle that is my self-deprecation, I am still struggling with how easy it is to bring up various shitty things my ex said when we were together. I have identified what it was that made my ex think he had permission to do this, but it hasn't entirely taken the sting out or made me stop thinking about it whenever this young man who I get to spend time with, occasionally at least, says something nice.
I can't just come from a place of appreciation, I immediately have to swallow the nice comment and regurgitate something awful my ex once said to me about the same thing. I'm starting to wonder if this is just what comes with the territory when you are dating someone our age, someone who has dated literally anyone else and has any experience to draw from. It's impossible to approach anyone with an entirely blank slate, especially when you are someone like me, who has mined most of my personal life for the sake of my writing already, polished it up, took out the parts where I acted like a total jackass, and published a lot of it on this blog. I am trying to be the kind of person I want to be, who does not cock up the mood with too much information about my past, who can just be in the moment without perpetually bringing up some other jerk I dated, but I don't even think that is possible to stop altogether. If you are in your late twenties or early thirties and are not brand new to dating, even if you haven't been involved with a lot of people, like me, the bones of all of your past involvements are buried underneath your feet wherever you are standing. Whatever you build is going to be over a foundation of bad dates, awkward kisses, uncomfortable sex, and painful breakups, as well it should be. If you haven't had your heart broken or even just had a really embarrassing moment with someone by the time you are over the age of 25, you are either lucky or haven't really gotten out enough.
The past doesn't just stop existing because it is in the past, but I know I don't need to bring it up constantly, especially when I don't get to see this person that much. When I am lucky enough to spend time with him, I need to remember that at this point, whatever this is kind of only exists inside of a bubble, a bubble that really is too small for the rest of the world to even get into. Looking at it this way, it gives me the freedom to not think about my ex, and not talk about him. It's a relief.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
First Responder
I work for a civil litigator. She emails me, on average, fifty times per day, and expects an immediate response to each one, even if it is just the word, "confirmed" to which she usually replies, "tnx". If I don't respond quickly enough to let her know I have read and understood one of her emails, she yells out from her office, "Did you understand that?!" because as someone who is operating under 100+ deadlines at any given time, she needs to know that I am paying attention to everything as much as she is. I have become conditioned by working for her into thinking that this is normal, that when someone texts me, they want a response as quickly, no quicker than that, as my fingers can type it out on a virtual screen. It's hard to switch it on and off all the time. I have to be hyper-vigilant for eight-ten hours of the day and then go back to acting like I give zero fucks the rest of the time. It's transferred over into how I react when someone takes too long to reply to me. I was talking to my dear friend Gabriel about this. We are similar in terms of how quickly we respond to people. Turnaround time for me on a message is usually within 1-5 minutes. Gabriel is just as prompt, usually. Any longer than that feels rude. It's partially due to my job, but I have always been pretty prompt. I asked him why his wife, my best friend, who I love more than anything (no lesbo) hadn't yet answered a text I sent her days before. "It's been two days!" I said
"She is in New York," he offered, "Working."
I knew that she was in New York on a buying trip, but I was still indignant about it. "No excuse," I said, because I don't see why she can't Swype me a quick LOL while checking out accessories.
Most people are not this way. I asked my co-worker why it occasionally takes boys a full 24 hours to respond to a text, and he said, "Guys don't do it to hurt anyone- we just start watching Games of Thrones or playing Angry Birds or something and we forget that literally anything else exists."
I think I'm just too used to multi-tasking. I'm not actually just sitting by my phone, staring at it and waiting for a reply, I'm knitting something, watching an episode of Community, making dinner, possibly reading an article on Jezebel, AND checking my phone every few minutes. When I finally get a reply, I respond too quickly, and I know I probably come off like this:
And then the other person is probably all, "BITCHES BE CRAZY!!!!!".
I try to lock down my neuroses- if I can. When I was seeing Mike, I would leave my phone in my car when I was at work because if it was near my desk, I would text him just out of habit or if I was bored or if I thought of something funny, and nobody needs all that noise. Once it was clear that I had changed from a cute girl to a buzzing irritation to him, I didn't want to give him the motherfucking satisfaction of getting annoyed with me. I still sometimes just turn my phone off because I will keep checking it and not even realize how many times I have. It's the modern-day nervous tic, checking your screen to see if anything new has happened, if you have a reason to keep smiling today.
It's especially hard to not look like an overeager puppy when it comes to someone I think I like but can't see in person because they don't live near me. It's trying to build something on the fragile foundation of Facebook messages and Instagram likes, even if it's a friendship. I keep trying to be a really cool girl and pretend I have better things to do than respond to every message they send me as quickly as I can, but I'm not, not if I like someone and I don't care if they know it. I'm not subtle, and I'm not good at hiding how I feel. I know I come off as overenthusiastic because I am overenthusiastic. I do have more important things to do than send someone a video of baby sloths while I am also typing up a cover letter to the court and responding to one of my boss's emails, but I will send it while I am in the middle of this and probably fifteen other things, because I just want them to see it. And because everyone needs baby sloths.
"She is in New York," he offered, "Working."
I knew that she was in New York on a buying trip, but I was still indignant about it. "No excuse," I said, because I don't see why she can't Swype me a quick LOL while checking out accessories.
Most people are not this way. I asked my co-worker why it occasionally takes boys a full 24 hours to respond to a text, and he said, "Guys don't do it to hurt anyone- we just start watching Games of Thrones or playing Angry Birds or something and we forget that literally anything else exists."
I think I'm just too used to multi-tasking. I'm not actually just sitting by my phone, staring at it and waiting for a reply, I'm knitting something, watching an episode of Community, making dinner, possibly reading an article on Jezebel, AND checking my phone every few minutes. When I finally get a reply, I respond too quickly, and I know I probably come off like this:
And then the other person is probably all, "BITCHES BE CRAZY!!!!!".
I try to lock down my neuroses- if I can. When I was seeing Mike, I would leave my phone in my car when I was at work because if it was near my desk, I would text him just out of habit or if I was bored or if I thought of something funny, and nobody needs all that noise. Once it was clear that I had changed from a cute girl to a buzzing irritation to him, I didn't want to give him the motherfucking satisfaction of getting annoyed with me. I still sometimes just turn my phone off because I will keep checking it and not even realize how many times I have. It's the modern-day nervous tic, checking your screen to see if anything new has happened, if you have a reason to keep smiling today.
It's especially hard to not look like an overeager puppy when it comes to someone I think I like but can't see in person because they don't live near me. It's trying to build something on the fragile foundation of Facebook messages and Instagram likes, even if it's a friendship. I keep trying to be a really cool girl and pretend I have better things to do than respond to every message they send me as quickly as I can, but I'm not, not if I like someone and I don't care if they know it. I'm not subtle, and I'm not good at hiding how I feel. I know I come off as overenthusiastic because I am overenthusiastic. I do have more important things to do than send someone a video of baby sloths while I am also typing up a cover letter to the court and responding to one of my boss's emails, but I will send it while I am in the middle of this and probably fifteen other things, because I just want them to see it. And because everyone needs baby sloths.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
When You Decide To Love Your Curves
Before:
1. Your journey will start when you are eleven years old. The 34-C's that you will appreciate eventually will sprout up on your chest in sixth grade like unwelcome guests. You will spend most of the year trying to force a grown woman's breasts into a little girl's training bra, watching them spill over the tops and sides like marshmallows expanding in the microwave. Your flat-chested friends will hate you a little. Boys will always be trying to put their hands under and over and inside of your shirt just to say that they got there first, and this will never be about you. It will be about tits you still don't even think of as being yours. And when you tell on the ringleader, like you have been trained to, you will be called a liar. And a troublemaker. And, somehow, worst of all, a tease. You will not own your body yet. You have barely even been introduced to it.
2. Men like you-for a little while. Up until they realize that this is the way you always look, that this isn't just your going-out body, that you cannot just get rid of these hips, these thighs, this everything that was made to be held onto for dear life. You are an adventure. You are a bouncy castle at a kid's birthday party. He knows he will have a really fun time with you but he isn't sure if he wants anyone to see him do it. You are vacation sex. Men will come at you hard just because they have to see what it is like, especially if their last girlfriend was skinny and not very nice. They will think they can hide inside of your curves, use them as a flotation device to keep themselves from drowning, and then realize they don't need you when they sink their fingers into dry sand and know they are safe now. You're not for wearing out in public. You're a secret garment- the silk kimono he wears when he is alone in his house.
After:
3. The world still might not love your curves even if you do. Your husband will show you Amazonian plus-size models in an attempt to make you feel better about your 5 foot one frame that can still hold all of this body. You will try not to point out that this is not the same thing at all. He will be able to deal only with very specific parts of you, and he will barely touch you while you are trying to enjoy the sex that only happens once a week now, and he won't look at you, and he won't forgive you for gaining more weight and giving him even more of you to ignore. You will need to wait until after he separates from you and your problem areas to realize that he was wrong. You will believe it because you will tell yourself that it's true.
4. You will be so amazed at how good you look in that one pencil skirt, you will want to cry. You will be asked the question, "How do you fit all that ass inside your jeans?" You will be told that the song, "Ms. Fat Booty" is about you. You will be told you have the perfect waist-to-hip ratio. You will see a picture of your mother from 1977, her silhouette outlined against the sky, and for a split second think it is a picture of you. You will pretend to double-dutch jump-rope in front of a room full of people while wearing shorts and give zero fucks about it. You will realize that you are a silk kimono, and a bouncy castle, and an adventure. And you will understand what it means to be all of those things.
1. Your journey will start when you are eleven years old. The 34-C's that you will appreciate eventually will sprout up on your chest in sixth grade like unwelcome guests. You will spend most of the year trying to force a grown woman's breasts into a little girl's training bra, watching them spill over the tops and sides like marshmallows expanding in the microwave. Your flat-chested friends will hate you a little. Boys will always be trying to put their hands under and over and inside of your shirt just to say that they got there first, and this will never be about you. It will be about tits you still don't even think of as being yours. And when you tell on the ringleader, like you have been trained to, you will be called a liar. And a troublemaker. And, somehow, worst of all, a tease. You will not own your body yet. You have barely even been introduced to it.
2. Men like you-for a little while. Up until they realize that this is the way you always look, that this isn't just your going-out body, that you cannot just get rid of these hips, these thighs, this everything that was made to be held onto for dear life. You are an adventure. You are a bouncy castle at a kid's birthday party. He knows he will have a really fun time with you but he isn't sure if he wants anyone to see him do it. You are vacation sex. Men will come at you hard just because they have to see what it is like, especially if their last girlfriend was skinny and not very nice. They will think they can hide inside of your curves, use them as a flotation device to keep themselves from drowning, and then realize they don't need you when they sink their fingers into dry sand and know they are safe now. You're not for wearing out in public. You're a secret garment- the silk kimono he wears when he is alone in his house.
After:
3. The world still might not love your curves even if you do. Your husband will show you Amazonian plus-size models in an attempt to make you feel better about your 5 foot one frame that can still hold all of this body. You will try not to point out that this is not the same thing at all. He will be able to deal only with very specific parts of you, and he will barely touch you while you are trying to enjoy the sex that only happens once a week now, and he won't look at you, and he won't forgive you for gaining more weight and giving him even more of you to ignore. You will need to wait until after he separates from you and your problem areas to realize that he was wrong. You will believe it because you will tell yourself that it's true.
4. You will be so amazed at how good you look in that one pencil skirt, you will want to cry. You will be asked the question, "How do you fit all that ass inside your jeans?" You will be told that the song, "Ms. Fat Booty" is about you. You will be told you have the perfect waist-to-hip ratio. You will see a picture of your mother from 1977, her silhouette outlined against the sky, and for a split second think it is a picture of you. You will pretend to double-dutch jump-rope in front of a room full of people while wearing shorts and give zero fucks about it. You will realize that you are a silk kimono, and a bouncy castle, and an adventure. And you will understand what it means to be all of those things.
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