the words are missing…

I haven’t posted in a good long while.  I haven’t written in my “real” journal in almost as long.  My reason for my silence?  I don’t know what to say.  I don’t know what I feel.

I’m angry at Chuck.   This much I know only recently.  I have just begun to realize the why I am angry.  Today as my best friend asked me how I was doing about the who breakup because I hadn’t mentioned it (read checked in or vented about it lately) I suddenly started typing that I was angry at him.  That after long thought and my inability to keep my mouth shut about things I suddenly became aware that Chuck had essentially based our entire relationship on a lie.

The lie was this – I had explicitly expressed to him that I was best friends with a man I had also had an intimate relationship with in the past.  I would not change this nor would I accept a partner who had any kind of issue with it.  I actually said to him (as I’d said to dates before) my best guy friend is also a guy that I had a relationship with in the past.  We broke up amicably and we make much better friends than anything else.  I also work with him.  If you have a problem with this then we cannot continue. 

Period.

Chuck said he didn’t have a problem with it.

Until a few months ago when he said he did.   He said that I was still hung up on him and that I needed to deal with that or I would never have another successful relationship again.  Chuck said that I was still in love with him.

While I do love Cliff with all my heart I am not nor will I ever be in love with him in the way that Chuck thinks I am.  I am not physically attracted to Cliff.  I am not romantically involved with Cliff.  I am not in any way hoping that one day Cliff and I will realize that we have always been meant for each other, that we have always been made for each other.

No.

I know this because my heart doesn’t break when he meets a girl or expresses his interest in someone else.  My fantasies do not include him.  My hopes, dreams, make-believe instances do not have him cast as my partner.

My confidence that he was brought into my life as a person that will be a friend a close close friend that truly knows me cares about me and will protect me is true.

I can be my truest honest self with him.  The one that isn’t politically correct, the one that isn’t nice, the one that isn’t attractive (and I don’t mean physically).  The one that had cried to him about my lost love, about my failure, about my true and raw and honest and embarassing and nerdy and shallow and snobby and sensitive and scared and worried and insecure and angry and impatient and smart and thoughtful and considerate and funny and every single emotion insight thought impression that I have had since I’ve met him along with the recollection of those I’ve had prior to him. 

He has truly put his time in.  He has proven his alliance and dedication and commitment.  He will not abandon me.  If he got jealous he would immediately tell me.  If he felt I was in trouble or harms way he would tell me.  He will not let me get away with my bullshit.  He doesn’t hold unrealistic expectations of me nor does he ask of me what he knows I cannot give.

He gets his share of passes based on the moments he’s been there when no one else has.   He gets a certain amount of concessions because he is him. 

And that is love.  But it is not a romantic love. 

And I can completely understand Chuck’s envy.  His feeling of falling short.  Unfortunately Chuck couldn’t understand that comparing himself to Cliff was akin to him comparing himself to my own father.  An unrealistic hero, a super human that no mere mortal could ever measure up to.

So I am angry at Chuck.  For misleading me that he was strong enough, secure enough, stable enough to trust me when I expressed my love for him.  To believe me when I explained that Cliff wasn’t the one I wanted and he would never be the one I wanted. 

That emotion aside I feel nothing else for Chuck.  And that reminds me of the musical “A Chorus Line” and a song by the character “Moralis”.  When she sings her heart out of the acting school and the teacher that told her to be a table an ice cream cone to express what it felt to improve sledding and feel the cold, feel the snow.  And she sang “I feel nothing”.  And she left that class and six months later she heard that her old teacher had died.  And she sang softly “so I dug right down to the bottom of my soul and cried ’cause I felt nothing”.

 

And that’s where I’m at.  And I can’t stop the soundtrack of that in my head and I can’t get past the lack of existance of feeling for the man that less than one year ago I had fully given my heart and future to.  The man I had claimed as my permanent mate.  The man that I would forever be with mentally, physically, emotionally.  The man I had chosen and had chosen me.

I feel nothing.

honest…

I must give a nod to modern technology sine I’m writing this from my blackberry sitting at the pub.

See I’d told myself I wouldn’t drink at home and save for a few rocky first weeks there I’ve been pretty good at keeping that promise.

So instead I’m here bacause I can’t bare to be there.

Tonight I was supposed to go back to “the house” and collect some of my things I’d left there that go into storage (seasonal items) and I was fully prepared to go finally. I’ve had half ass iintentions for 3 wks now. I texted Chuck to give him the heads up expecting he was at work. He wasn’t.

Completely out of character for me, I started crying as I drove south towards him and the house we shared. Desperately I phoned my best friend, I phoned Sarah, and finally I phoned Cliff and got thankfully he answered. I quickly covered the original reason for my call – confirmation he’d come to dinner with me next week. Then I attempted to casually ask him. Hey so I don’t have to go to Chucks if I don’t want to because (and my voce cracked as I choked back more tears) I don’t think I can handle it. And he said the exactly what I needed to hear. He said of course not. I’ll go with you if you want me to. And suddenly I breathed like I’d been holding my breath for an eternity. Confirmation. He gave me the permission I couldn’t give myself. Thank God for Cliff.

I don’t want to talk about the shock of the tears in the first place. The crappy realization that now I’m at the crying sober stage and the holy shit I had no concious idea I was actually avoiding see him fucking smack in the face.

I laughed as I thought – OK so I’m in a transitional stage.

I swear to you I didn’t think he had made this great of an impression on me. I mean yeah, I loved him, yeah I thought he was the one, and yes I still think he was the one God put here for me. And yes I do believe that if it can’t work with him it won’t work with any. He was my chance.

But I swear I never thought he made this great of an impression on me.

what a mess…

I have been anxiously awaiting this.  I knew it was coming, I just didn’t know when.  Tonight, it came.  I am torn at the result.

Forgive me, I’m a bit tipsy (read drunk) annd it’s 2 am on Wednesday…you’d think I’d have planned more appropriately for my breakdown but emotions aren’t on a schedule.

I was hit on tonight at the pub.  Hard.  By 2 men and a woman.  Oh yes.  And the end result?  Me laying onb the floor in my apartment analyzing my relationship with Chuck to Cliff.

Yep.  Cliff.  The full blown tears streaming down my cheeks admitting for the first time out loud that I knew in the very beginning Chuck and I didn’t fit and yet i kept on.

Oh yeah I’m at that spot in the break up.  The spot where you finally come to realization that you were faking it for months.   For almost it’s entirerty.

And at this point there is little more you can do than face it and mourn for it’s failure.

And tonight I cried.

did I just get…? did he?

Chuck was always very aware of when I was chatted up at the bar.  Chuck was also very good at making me aware of when he was chatted up at the bar. 

For me I was in an exclusive relationship and it didn’t even occur to me that a man would be hitting on me.  Nor did I really care if he was.  I wasn’t interested.  Chuck, on the other hand was always very very quick to identify it, express his anxiety of it, and make it clear that “before me, he’d have knock that guy out for hittin on his girl”.  Oh how very testosteroney.  Yuck.

I’d get defensive and claim that I was clueless (which I was) and he’d say he agreed and that it wasn’t me it was the man.  I’d heard this so many times and even when there wasn’t a man to target he’d target the entire sex.  When a man talks to a girl it’s because they wanted to get her into bed.  In Chuck’s mind no man would talk to a woman unless he was attracted to her.  Ah ha, except when he talked to a woman of course.  Then it was because he was just being conversational, or and this is the kicker, because he was being hit on.  So I’d heard this again and again almost since the beginning of our relationship and all the way to the end of it.

And now I’m damaged…not permenantly thank you, but for a little while at least.  Now when a man talks to me I question if he’s doing so in hopes he’ll score a date or if he’s just a chatty person and we happened to strike up a good conversation.  I hate that.  I like talking to people – all people.  I like talking to strangers and having fun sometimes insightful conversations with someone that I may or may not see again. 

I’m not interested in being interested in men right now.  I’m not on the dating circuit.  I am not on the hunt, nor am I wanting to be hunted.  A nice compliment, great.  But beyond that I am very hesitant to even consider dating right now.

So last night when Al happened to overhear something I’d said to another person commented to me about my astrological sign (yes it was really THAT weak) I didn’t even consider that he was maybe hitting on me.  Then before I knew it he’d been standing next to me resting on the chair to my left and I’d been half turned in my seat to face him.  Finally I suggested he sit down and although he mentioned numerous times that he really ought to be getting to bed for his early day, he never got up to leave.  And then when our knees touched as we were both facing each other and the chairs happened to be placed closely together I had a fleeting zing that you get when that kind of thing happens, but I quickly pushed that out of my head. 

And then it was bar close.  Then it was post bar close and I finally glanced around and realized those chosen few that are excluded from the “if you don’t work here or sleep with someone that does, get the hell out” order that was given a good 15 or so minutes early…those people were gone except for Al and I.  And I said we’d better get going.  And then he got up from his chair.

I told him it was nice talking with him, I gave him a hug.  He reciprocated on both items.  I then announced I needed to use the restroom and as the bartender went to unlock the door for our (his) exit I went to the bathroom.  I came out fully expecting that he’d be gone, yet he was standing at the door.

Odd.  Was he waiting?  Did the bartender just decide she’d let us both out at the same time?  I don’t know.  Regardless, by the time I got to the door it was open and being held open for me by Al. 

After very brief small talk of vehicles and why I park so very far away (I gotta get my exercise somehow) I again quickly made my exit – nice meeting you, quick hug and me quickly turning and walking to my car.  Without glancing back.

And as I drove home I truly can’t know if he was hitting on me. 

As a rundown, on more than one occassion in our conversation I was very clear in saying “I think we would make really great FRIENDS”, and that purely based on his astrological sign (capricorn) I wouldn’t date him.  And our conversation included detailed items from our previous relationships (his ex-wife is also a leo, and Chuck is also a capricorn).  It was light and fun and funny and non-invasive.  He didn’t ask for my number.  I didn’t ask for his.  I didn’t even mention anything about seeing him again even though the pub is his local as well.

As I said before I’m not interested in being interested in anyone.  OK so then why do I care if he was hitting on me?  I don’t want to give him the wrong impression for one, and really…because if he was then that’s also pretty cool too.

and I really like her…

Just the other night I was getting ready to go to bed, just like normal.  I turned off the television, turned off the lights, grabbed my phone, put my water cup by the sink, just like normal.  I glanced around and took a cleansing releasing breath, just like normal.  Then I smiled and my stomach did a giddy excited somersault, and that wasn’t normal.

For no known reason I was suddenly optimistic, content, confident, and calm.  It was at that moment when it occurred to me that I’d made the right decision, I’d chosen correctly.  Finally I was sure that where I was was exactly where I was supposed to be. 

It was a welcome feeling and not a moment too soon.  From the moment after Chuck and I had decided to live apart I’d been on a virtual see-saw in my head.  One moment I knew I was doing the right thing, the next I was completely doubting the decision and hoping I wouldn’t lose him.  Then almost immediately something would happen and I would take a sigh of relief trusting in my decision.  And so it went almost daily for 5 weeks until the other night.

It dawned on me that I hadn’t felt this good in a very long time.   And then a brief wave of sadness washed over me for the realization that I’d been forcing myself to be happy and optimistic when I wasn’t and worse, I couldn’t remember how long I’d been pretending (or in denial).  And then the sadness passed.

Next came both surpise on curiosity.  Until that moment I’d only privately acknowledged I wasn’t entirely happy or satisfied with myself.  I hadn’t realized the extent of it.  And now that I was out of it I could examine it or not.  Either way I would learn from it.

The popular quote by George Santayana – “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

I’ve already said I’ve been in this spot before.  Obviously I didn’t learn from it.  I will this time. 

I just don’t get why I am so strong in my ways – my “things that make me happy”, my hobbies, interests, movie genres, music, style.  When I’m single I exude a confidence and a security in my own self.  Then I meet a man and I slowly start changing.  Along the way the little voice inside me gets shushed with the explanation of me compromising and coupling.  And then the little voice just stops all together.

And then I’m here.  Suddenly and slowly all at the same time I’m getting back to me again.  Finding myself again.  And again wondering why I stopped being her in the first place.

deja vu all over again…

It’s been about a month and a half since I moved out and Chuck and I decided to try living apart but still being exclusive and a couple.  What I’d thought would be a mature, smart decision.  Giving us each our space yet still acknowledging we wanted to be together.  Giving us the chance to work on ourselves.  Yeah yeah…blah blah blah. 

It’s been a little over a week now since that decision was proven to be a mistake.  I knew better too.  I really did.  I do.  I have had enough life experience to listen to my intuition.  I have good intuition, I trust my intuition.  I’ve also learned that when I get to the point in a relationship to fear and feel I’m over it and him, I’m right. 

Somehow this time I decided to try another approach.  I didn’t want him and I to end.  I had high hopes that this would be OK.  We’d somehow manage to succeed.  Crap.  That little voice inside me was right again.

Rather than drag out the gory details and relive the experience that in hindsight was probably embarassing since it ocurred in a bar.  A loud screaming fight.  In a bar.  Ugh.  He ended up walking out and walking home.  We then proceeded to continue the screaming match via cell phone for another 45 minutes.

A few nuggets from our conversation – “if you only knew how much I love you” and  “you rejected me and chose television” or “I’m sorry I can’t be a scrawny programmer like Cliff, I’m sorry I can’t be a geek like him”.   Yep, he said all that.  And he meant all of it. 

I told him I have never loved someone as much as I loved him.  I told him that I loved him to my capacity.  I told him that he didn’t believe me.  I told him I did know how much he loved me. 

He told me I couldn’t know, I didn’t know how much he loved me because if I did…and he trailed off.  How does a person even end that sentence?  I don’t even know.

I wasn’t hurt by what he said, I was angry that I’d thought he’d put this jealousy behind him.  I realized then he never would.  I realized that my high hopes were dashed.  I realized that I knew all along it wouldn’t work.  That I was just finalizing the end, tying up the loose ends so I couldn’t say I didn’t try.

Yet, ya know, he did.  He told me that I didn’t and couldn’t care about us because the first fight we had I took off.  I bailed.  I said (OK screamed) “the FIRST fight?!?!?!  We fought all the time!”  He claimed those were “arguments”.  Um, huh?

In the next day or so I received a text from him saying he shouldn’t have drank that much when he was so emotional.  He didn’t apologize.  A couple days later he emailed asking if I was seeing anyone and did I feel like he and I had a chance?  Did I want to try again, or should he just move on?

I thought for a long time on how I wanted to word my reply.  He deserved the real answer and I couldn’t sugar coat this.  I couldn’t let him down easy and hope he’d just go away.

I told him that he was a jealous person and that was OK.  I told him that I am never going to change my relationship with Cliff and he will never be comfortable with it and that’s just how it was.  I told him that regardless of my love for Chuck it would never be enough in his eyes.  The love he wanted was not the love I could offer. 

I’d said before to him and I said it again – we are two puzzle pieces that just about fit so perfectly, except for that teeny little gap in just one corner.  No matter how closely we fit it will always feel off.

And I said that no, I didn’t think so. 

Since then he has been distant.  Almost intentionally cold and stunted in our email and text message conversations.  So much so I feel like he’s trying to hurt my feelings by giving me just what I asked for.  Like he’s thinking – be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.  And he’s hoping I’ll regret it.

A month and a half ago if we’d ended it completely, if we hadn’t given this distant thing a try I might have had thoughts of regret and I may have been uncertain I made the right decision.

Today, I’m certain I’ve made the right decision.  It just took me a little longer to get there.

kickin…

I wanted to write a good post regarding the latest happenings in my life and as I got here and got sleepy I got less and less likely to write.

I’ll say this – my life isn’t poor, it isn’t amazing and wonderful and it isn’t as boring as my previous post seemed to make me out to be.

Chuck and I are dating, we had our first date last week. We talk, we give each other space. It’s different, it’s OK, it isn’t necessarily normal and I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable with it but for now it will suffice.

now what…

I’d written an “aftermath” post about what happened the very next day and I’d lost my connection somewhere during that.  Now as I get back on here to write I feel like the moment for that post is gone so I will have to move along.

I went about my day after the break up conversation as well as I could.  That day after work I went to the apartment complex I’d left less than a year before and got all of the information I needed to move back there. 

I spent the next days packing and not seeing Chuck.  He’d decided to spend the weekend with his friend and the kids went to their mom’s.  I packed, I moved.

Chuck and I have spent hours on text and through phone conversations trying to get to a point where we can go on.  I want to see him.  I am still attracted to him, we don’t work well together while living together.  He’s interested in still seeing me even though he’d expressed no option for this months ago.  I found out out that he’d tried to give me an ultimatum before.  Stay together, living together or nothing at all.  When I called that bluff and chose to move out he rescinded that statement and expressed that he’d said that to hopefully make me realize what the weight of the options were. 

It’s gotten so hard.  I want to be with him just not as with him as I was.   We’ve talked and decided (as of this minute) that we will still see each other, we will not see anyone else.

Then the other night he text messages me exclaiming how he misses me, he misses seeing me, being with me, holding me.  And then comes the I need to make a decision it’s either him or not. 

I thought I had made that decision, I thought that was where we were.  At this point it’s been less than a week, I haven’t even had time to miss him yet.   He hasn’t let me, I haven’t let me, I have been too busy setting up house, trying to just survive and get through each day.  And then he got upset because I wasn’t where he was.  It was rough.  Somehow (I can’t recall now) it was brought about that can he please just leave me alone for a couple of days.

And he did.  Until the morning appointment/meeting he and I had arranged for the prior week to return the cable equipment.  I got to the house, it was clean, it was normal.  It wasn’t a mess, Chuck wasn’t a mess.  He was getting along just fine without me.  And a little air went out of my sails.

I’d been sore and tired and drained the last few days, from doing more walking, from not sleeping well, from all that was going on.  He seemed energetic and upbeat.  Optimistic.  I was drained.

We talked, we joked and we were both comfortable around each other. We returned the equipment and grabbed something to eat.  His life I found was going well, lots of good things.  He’d lost 16 lbs in the past month.  He’d gotten a call back on a job he was trying for.  He had a lot of good going for him.  And I had nothing to talk about.

We left our meeting and I was the one texting to say I had a nice time.  I again was the one to text that evening before bed.  His messages were shorter and without the feeling that I was wanting.  It was like now that he saw that he was doing so well he felt that he didn’t need the validation or support or communication from me.  Now he was good.  Now that I was initiating he didn’t feel the requirement to respond in kind.

I’d even asked him when we were at brunch where was this person 3 months ago? 

Because the man in front of me was the man I’d fallen in love with, not the man I’d been living with for the past 6 months.  He said he was lost, depressed.  Too far into himself to even know or care.

And I thought, so where does that leave me?  I end it and your life gets dramatically better, you get a fire under you, you are making changes, making things happen and I’m still reeling from whats transpired?

I know the decision that was made was right.  If it wasn’t made then he wouldn’t have changed.  It takes big change to make big change.  And he’s made big change.  I know I change a bit slower than him.  I know that I’m still trying to digest all that has transpired.  I know all of that.  It doesn’t change that I feel like I’m again the one that suffered for him and his success.

the end…

I put on some underware and sat on the bed.  I took my pillow and covered myself thinking I’m naked yet this is too important a moment for me to stop and put clothing on yet holy shit I can’t believe I’m naked and he didn’t even let me get dressed before dropping that bomb on me.

We talked about it.  I said “I can’t be the person you want me to be and you can’t be the person I want you to be”.  Thinking this is a really good, safe explanation for us not working out.  He wasn’t buying it.  He exclaimed that I was the person he wanted and then began to tell me how apparently he had determined he wasn’t the person I’d wanted.

He wasn’t smart enough.  That was big.  I didn’t listen to him.  Another biggie.  And apparently when I tried to fight back with I have been here for this house, this family and doing everything and what have you been doing!!!???  He screamed at me that he’d been going out and filling out applications.  Eight, in the past three days.  As he said this his voice cracked and I saw the tear in his left eye.  And that is when my heart broke.

I pushed that out of my forethought and yelled back, why didn’t you communicate that with me?  Why couldn’t you tell me that?!!  And he started in on me not being interested in his life lately.  Me not even giving him a chance to tell me.  Me not letting him talk or tell me about his day or life.  To which for a moment I thought – well that’s about right, I go to bed about 20 min after you get home and I usually monopolize that time by telling you about the children (w/o prompting) and my life/day/world (again w/o prompting).  He has not offered anything up in the way of application submission, even when the night before I mentioned that if he completed the monster.com job stuff I could take that information and build him a rocking resume when he was at work.  That I didn’t need him to be there if he did that and I could do it at night while he wasn’t even home.  No mention of him filling out apps the past 3 days.

OK so that’s when he dropped his bomb.  That he has finally realized it and for the past week he’s known or suspected (again I’m paraphrasing) that I am still hung up on my ex boyfriend.  That I am still in love with him and I (essentially) have never stopped.  That the reason I drink so much is because I look at Chuck and wish he was my ex.  And I need to either get a handle on that or get back with my ex cause I will never be happy otherwise.

And by this time he was up and at the bedroom door, leaving.  Slamming it so hard the wooden African mask I had hanging next to the door fell into the clothes basket below.  He then slammed the front door as hard and I heard his car drive away.

And I took the pillow I’d been clutching to my chest and set it on the bed beside me, stood up, and proceeded to get dressed.  I still had a doctor’s appointment to get to.

the middle…

I had a doctor’s appointment set for 10am.  It was a work/school day and I was a bit excited to be sleeping in, to be sleeping next to Chuck, to have the bonus of waking up naturally (sans alarm) and fully expecting a little romp in the hay because of the luxury of the late start and the fact that we’d both still be in bed when the kids had gone to school – the house to ourselves.

Around 7 ish Chuck started cuddling up to me and I said to him, wait until 7:30 – when the house would be empty.  He claims I then rolled over and started snoring (which I do not deny, I’m an Olympic snorer).  Around 8 ish I woke to use the bathroom and upon exiting I’d stripped off my clothing and got back into the bed in the buff.

Chuck reached over to me a few minutes later and realized…he said “You’re naked.”  I said “I am.”  He said “Why?” I said “I can be naked in my own bed if I want.” (in what I thought was a coy cutesy flirty tone).  To which he said “I don’t know why you’re getting in the boys’ bed naked (OR I don’t know why you’re in the boys’ room naked, but I really think it was the first one)”.  To which I replied “That’s just dumb, that stupid, that’s (was interupted right here) just sick!”

To which he flipped in bed and said “You have been bad mouthing me for a week now and I’m not going to take it any longer!!”  At this point I was a bit shocked and a bit deadened…um, hello you just made a semi-pedophile joke about your children and me, during our pre-foreplay.  WHAT?  I’m the one that made a mistake??

I turned and looked at him.  He said something to the effect that I have been bad mouthing, being nothing but mean, discounting (the man has never said this word in his life, but you get the point) everything he’s said in the last week and that he will not tolerate it any longer.  And as his nostrils flared and he stared at me I just stared right back.

I had no argument.  I thought, should I ask for specifics, should I deny it, should I agree with it, should I apologize for it.  What should I do?  And before I could make a decision he abruptly got out of bed, put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and left the bedroom (slamming the door).

I got up, almost robotically, made the bed, and got into the shower.  I showered, did my normal routine, not rushing.  I heard him return to the bedroom. expecting him to have gotten back under the covers and attempted to sleep.

I exited the bathroom (again naked and to me this is relevant) and he looked me dead in the eye and said “Are you done with me?” with his bottom lip quivering a bit that made me sad just as it had every single time we’d had a conversation about our relationship since June.  About how I was the one that needed to make the decision if I wanted to stay and BE in this or if I was the one that wanted to quit and walk away.  If I was done, over it, if I’d given up and stopped trying.  Never was it ever suggested that he’d stopped making an effort.

And that’s when I looked at him and said, “Yes, I think I am.”