The Magic is Gone

in

The internet is boring. No one has anything new to say. My attention span is wasted. I spend all night multi-tasking on my phone. There’s no one to share it with. I have no one to tell about my day. I think even if he reached out, and he won’t, I couldn’t go back now. No one has ever picked me, and he couldn’t either. I pick people again and again only to then pick myself back up.

I don’t know how to fit in socially at work. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. Every morning I get dressed, and even though I’m probably eating less than before, most of my clothes are too tight to be be physically or visually comfortable. I feel habits I try to lock away slip through.

No one gives me the right type of space.

I always thought it would get better, but I’ve had the same problems all my life. Nothing changes and no one stays.

Charming/ Goodbye best friend.

in

My eyes were puffy in the morning, but it’s been 24 hours now and I’m a lot more intact than last time. At the end of negotiations, he asked if I was going to be okay. Of course. This is life, and I always hold myself close. I learned a long time ago I could only let myself choose to rely upon someone, not need to. I liked choosing to rely upon him. I felt safe with him. I had fun with him.

But I asked him if we could date again, and it was like a conversation preserved in amber. He needs to face himself and I need to grow. I told him, I try to be flexible—that I felt I was only asking for something small. It was bigger to him.

He wants to be friends, but I don’t want restrictions. I don’t want a demotion. I don’t want to not know him the same. I don’t want to eventually watch him move on with someone else. I don’t want to only talk sometimes. I want it to be the same.

So, as natural as we are, it doesn’t work. I tried and I tried, but I can’t cry like this four months from now.

He’s hopeful. The only agreement we could reach is he can reach out to me when he needs me or if he can meet me where I want to be. I promised I would respond, but I told him he needed to take me for my word, that we won’t be friends. I think I think this is the end. I just know that, inevitably, we move forward, and time always brings change. We will be growing, apart.

I am going to miss him a lot.

All the conversations always ended the same: us prolonging the call as long as possible, not wanting to say goodbye.

I love you like a lot

in

If I counted correctly, we had at least nine conversations in the last 15 months, including tonight, about our relationship status.

I started thinking about it too much again. So, I brought it up again. I kind of thought it’d be a quick conversation, that he’d agree, but it took him too long to think about.

Tonight was a follow-up. We negotiated back and forth. I’m going to miss him a lot. So much. But that’s life.

The sad truth is I know at least for the moment, it’s for the better for both of us. I would be with him still if it could work, but I do know that the hours I spend with him I need to grow.

I don’t know.

Locked up inside my heart. / I just want you to love me.

I'm Pretty When I Cry

in

Last night, I dreamed that he was shot and died. Then I woke up and cried. I woke up again in the afternoon from a dream where I crushed glass-coated finger limes into pie filling.

We talk every day on the phone for an hour at minimum.

Tonight we went to the movies together. He offered to teach me how to skateboard on Friday. I said no and I wish I could say yes.

I cried during the movie. I cried after the movie. He hugged me and I cried. He said, “Can’t we have a normal conversation.” I said, “I’m trying.” / “I want you to be okay.” / “I’m okay. This doesn’t get fixed so quickly.”

A man asked me if he could take my parking spot as I wiped away tears.

I called him about the trade deadline once we both were home.

then I'll cancel my ticket

in

It was worse, and I knew it was going to be worse.

New Year’s Boy slept over at my apartment a week ago, and I stayed at his the other night. He didn’t ask to stay after my birthday party—he said he couldn’t, and I wanted him to.

A week ago, our coworkers had birthday drinks at a bar a five minute walk from my apartment. He and another friend came over beforehand.

I think we both drank more than expected, but I think we would’ve ended up the same regardless. I remember vaguely talking about our circumstances. I forget what I said, but I remember him saying sometimes he feels like he missed his chance and that makes him sad. I said something else first, but circling back, I said it’s not that he’s missed his chance—it’s more complicated than that. I think other important things were said, but they didn’t stay with me.

There’s been times when I’m in bed ready to go to sleep and I miss him. When he’s here I think about how he’s in the bed I missed him from, but how many more times. Our relationship is tenuous and results are undependable.

I mentioned I hadn’t watched Coco (2017) at work. He was in the room. I asked if he wanted to watch it together and he said yes. I followed up. We watched it at his the day after my birthday.

It was so easy. It is so easy to be together. I knew the whole night that I was only buying time. He ordered pizza close to midnight. We slept in later than we have before. We had sex five times. I stayed at his until noon, far later than I should have. I only cried at the end, knowing I was buying time.

Last night was my birthday party. I barely saw him the whole night—more my fault than his. I spent too much money. I was present, but I feel like I missed out on most of it. Everyone was gone by 12:30.

As the last people walked out, I asked if he was staying and he said he couldn’t. I told him that I always stay and he always goes. It’s not entirely true, but it’s more true than untrue. We talked in my room. We sat on my bed, my legs tucked between his. I was drunk again, so I don’t remember everything. I do remember saying I think his mom would hate me and him being caught off guard. I told him I would never deny his search to know and understand himself, but if we were to get back together, I couldn’t go on pause like this again. I remember him nodding. He asked me if I felt I was ready for a long-term relationship and I said, “Yes, with you.” I remember him saying it’s his fault. I remember saying sometimes when he tells me I’m beautiful it feels like a death sentence, and I knew as I said it, I shouldn’t have. I also told him I love him, and without hesitation he said “I love you too.” We agreed to talk more tomorrow, and we talked more today. I always know we’re not getting back together, but I like to talk it over. All you can do is play your hand.

Anyway, we called today for three and half hours. I immediately apologized for saying the death sentence comment. Not because of the comment but because of where we always land, he’ll probably never tell me I’m beautiful again. That makes me sad.

We talked about other things (catcalls, living or not living with someone prior to marriage—he only maybe would, and I wouldn’t marry someone without), but we circled back (before again talking about other things). I explained that I made the comment about his mom because, while as always, I don’t really think we’re getting back together—

I said it would depend on us having the right conversation. He said let’s have it now. Yes and no. We had the conversation we needed to, but it wasn’t the right conversation.

—I would never want us to get back together with a greater sense that we would inevitably break up again. Not to say we can guarantee what will happen, but I know he cares about his mom’s opinion. He said he didn’t think that would be a reason we’d break up.

We talked more. I had criticized him (from his point of view, in my world, it was a matter of fact) the night before for never crying when I always cry. I told him I know he cries, and he explained he’s been criticized for that before. I told him I think it’s his training as an actor, he has control over his emotions. I told him I’ve never been good at controlling my emotions. I once had a job list it as my one critique in an evaluation.

He asked how I felt a year ago this time, what I imagined for our relationship. I told him a year ago this time, I still just wanted to kiss him. He laughed. I explained something I had mentioned when we broke up. How I don’t have exact expectations. Would I have wanted to eventually be more official and boyfriend and girlfriend, yes, but that if he had come to me and said “I still want to keep dating, but this is how I’m feeling.” I would have said “Okay, bet.” I asked if he knew that we dated for exactly six months to the day. I said, “I thought that was funny.”

I said that I hadn’t planned to start this conversation last night. I knew it was going to need to happen, but I didn’t want to do it prior to or at my birthday, and I was sorry for that. To him, not myself.

I told him again it wasn’t his fault. It’s just life. I do believe that. He said he cares about me a lot.

I had started by saying I felt our current state was untenable, and it came to a conversation where I explained it felt like there had been a decision about us, even if it essentially went unsaid. It, more so, was a question of, “How do we proceed?” He thinks we work through it, and I don’t know. “I like talking to you. / “I like talking to you too.” I don’t want to stop talking to him, and he said he doesn’t think we could—socially at least. I don’t want to stop talking to him, he’s my best friend, but I also don’t want to be friends. We could work through it, and maybe someday I won’t be attracted to him the same way and I won’t want him the same ways, but I don’t want that. There’s no solution. I said it’s something I’m going to figure out as we go.

He had talked about how and why he needs to go back to therapy. He talked about how he doesn’t want to head into a relationship, and then have each other hate each other in two years. That it does or doesn’t scare him. I don’t want us to hate each other in two years, but I think I feel that we either hopefully wouldn’t hate each other in two years, or (where the scales are falling) we probably don’t talk in two years.

At the end I told him “I do love you.” He said “I love you too.” We sat in silence (me crying) as we do. I asked if we were just going to stay on the phone like this. He said he had nothing else to do. I changed the topic to Fantasy Football.

Bye and bye. I cried and went to sleep. Awake again, and I’m still crying (into a towel I washed last night because I also ran out of tissues last night).

I know we weren’t actually dating this time, but it feels like we broke up again. I said to him, “We’ve been broken up for almost five months and I’m still crying.”

I hope we talk again soon, in our normal way, but I don’t know.

The Answer:

I called him after writing this. I said I just wanted to get it out of the way. I joked about my puffy eyes, and I meant it as a joke. I forget what we talked about for half an hour. I think mainly about him going to the movies tomorrow.

from 24

in

Tonight, I spent $225.41 at Costco (using my friend’s membership) on party supplies, Thanksgiving supplies, fruit, and bone broth. I wanted to have a big party. I want to host Thanksgiving. I don’t think they were the decisions of an immature brain.

Tonight, I am trying to recall factoids about my workplace. Initially, my job is that of a tour guide. I haven’t given a tour since April, but I was assigned to give them on my birthday. I am trying to both absorb an antiquated manual and trust muscle memory.

Eventually, I will sleep, and it’ll play as it lays.

I think I’ve talked about my birthday too much with my coworkers, but I think I deserve it.

I’ll probably cry, but right now I don’t feel sad about aging. My time is my own, even at a quarter-century.

Sentimental, At Home

in

More interactions, but I have less to say.

I think this phase of my life is so overdue they’ve stopped sending late fees.

New Year’s Boy slept over at mine the week after. Both intimate and nothing. I made him whisper as to not wake my roommates. I showed him my new world. He worried about his car. We called when I drove to work in the morning. I flew home a few days later and he left me alone. I thought maybe he decided enough was enough. I called him when I was tired of thinking about it. We spoke then and the day after. I started to feel like I was talking at him.

I keep thinking about if, and maybe wrongly assuming, he will try to stay over after my birthday party. I don’t think he should. I think my birthday needs to be my own.

Because I’ve written it, he won’t offer or ask, or I will cave.

I think about a party from two years ago now, when I cried because a girl who doesn’t like me made everyone retake a group photo so that I could be included.

I think about making him explain himself, and how we will never find that moment. I think about him calling me sweet.

It’s just the more emotional.

It’s just the more emotional, but I think about purging my life and my idleness just as equally. I am tired of walking around my work’s campus. I am tired of my coworkers knowing so much about my personal life. I am tired of managers who are incapable of communicating. I am tired of being so aware and concerned about money, but also knowing I won’t escape that feeling anytime soon. I am tired and tired and tired.

I am still holding onto grief about my roommates, perpetuated by their continual lack of empathy.

I would scream right now if my parents weren’t asleep down the hall.

I don’t want to know where I will be and what I will feel by my birthday after this, but I want to feel like I have sure footing. I want to work harder.

I am having fun, but I don’t know if that’s happy.

I’m Your Baby

I asked him if he wanted to leave with me, wearing the same costume I was wearing when we last left a party together, and he said yes. It was a different conversation when I said I was going to leave soon.

With me already crying, he said he thought about how he missed me last night, and it’s not that he doesn’t want to—that’ll he probably cry on his car ride home. I told him not to—that it’s not worth it. I said I missed him too, and that it’s okay. I left the party.

And I know I always cry, but I think I always intend to be more casual than him. I did not expect him to stay and I do not expect to get back together. I don’t expect forever even though I love him. I just wanted him to come over.

I said that was my last offer. Third time’s a charm. One yes and two no’s. I kissed his hand and he kissed mine.

His court now and he knows. I’m his baby—he won’t say it to me.

Wasteland

in

My senior year of college, when I was so horribly depressed, a professor told me I needed to work harder. I don’t want to give her any credit because the way she approached me was so cruel I cried for days, opted to change the class to a pass/fail, and almost contacted the dean, but I do think about the sentiment a lot.

I cry a lot about how life is cyclical, why do the same casualties happen to me over and over again? I ask if I make the same mistakes. I try to mend what I want with what I can get. What I want and how that manifests.

I lay around in bed. I think about running. I think about writing. I think and I cry and I call my mom and I justify myself and she picks from one of three options in response: 1. What if you’re wrong? 2. I’m sorry (and a pep talk I cut off and get angry about) 3. I’m too busy. Pity and disappointment in others are essentially the second option, and my mom has never been generous with those emotions. She will afford anyone else the benefit of the doubt, but the last two years, I have received a lot of pity–more than I can remember at any other time in my life.

Tonight I wrote in physical copy, I’m really sad my birthday is in a month and that because I don’t want to be alone, I have to spend it with these people. Tonight, I made a guest list and I bolded the names of the people I feel genuinely invested in and happy to see. It was half the list.

I recognize the problem.

Unfortunately, that is the truth. I would rather spend my birthday with people I don’t like than feel the void of not having people there. I don’t think I can stand another year to pass where I feel like I don’t get to celebrate because I am stuck with my uptight parents or sick or don’t have access to the right space. I always just want to have a party, and if that means for appearance's sake there are people I don’t trust, then that is the pill I swallow this time.

Prescient both because of far more important things happening in the world that are beyond my silly emotions, and because life is cyclical. I think of a quote that it technically political, that I first referenced a lot after an earlier breakup.

“It says that I can only advocate for what I can get, not what I want.”

I criticize people a lot for caring about frivolous judgments and displays, but I don’t think I’m any better. I watched movies and browsed the internet and also decided I wanted a certain slice of life. It’s either hard to explain articulately or tacky, I couldn’t tell you which. What I can say is I don’t think my wants and experiences align. I think that whenever I pursue what I think I want, I find people I don’t like, and when I find people I like, it’s a life I don’t want. The kismet success of attaining both has only ever been temporary, but maybe that’s how it is for most people. I can’t tell from the movies.

Sentimental

in

How many times can I talk about crying? A few times more.

I miss him still, a lot. I wish I could shake it.

He wants to be friends, and I still want him. There’s an impasse and I’m passive-aggressive about it. I keep being passive-aggressive about a lot of things. I don’t like the things I say as I say them.

I would skip all the parties and game nights to be with him in his gray studio apartment. I wouldn’t feel like I was missing out. He would try to get me to watch Suits, and I would say no because it feels too intimate now. It feels too intimate to imitate the ease of being together. All I want is access to that, but we said goodbye to that in July. It is so easy to pick up where we left off, but we are never picking up where we left off.

So, sometimes still, talking to him makes me sad. I vie for his attention, all too much (and more than he tries for mine), and then when he recognizes me, when we slip, I shock into mourning the moment. I can’t prolong this much longer.

And he sees me, and he keeps going as normal. I don’t resent that.

And he saw me yesterday, and he left as normal, and I felt the grief I do. He walked out on the phone, stopped for a second to say goodbye, saw me, and circled back. He pointed to the box of tissues on the desk, and I kept ushering him to leave. He said sorry. He called me when I left work. He asked if I was okay because suddenly, it felt intense. I told him I didn’t want to talk about it.

I can’t prolong this much longer.

Not Catherine

in

Today, I cried three times at work. The second or third time, it was because I thought of a year ago from now, and I feel the same with my friends as I did then. They will all always pick each other. I learn to be more and more casual, less and less committed, and yet I always feel the same.

I thought about how in a month and a half, it’s my birthday. I want to have a party at my apartment, something I have never been able to do, and I already told people a tentative date. I thought about my apartment being filled with people I won’t know a year from now, fake celebrating a quarter century of me, kind of with me. Maybe it won’t be like that, but now that I’ve imagined it, I’ll feel that emptiness. A false tear on a wedding day. A single tear at a Mitski concert.

I talk to him on the phone all the time now. He calls me and I call him. We spoke for nearly three hours today. I only actually hung up on my third attempt.

I miss him a lot.

And I don’t know if we’ve ever been friends. At least not in my world.

He’ll probably be at my birthday too. I’d cry if he isn’t and I’ll cry if he is.

"Our Position"

in

I don’t think we can be friends anymore.

I don’t think I can be friends with my roommates. I don’t think I can be friends with him. I don’t know how long I’ll know my friends from work.

No one stays forever. What am I supposed to do?

I keep trying to communicate, and they essentially tell me that from their position, “our position is,” the burden is mine to lift. They don’t knock on each other’s doors every night and never on mine. They don’t stop talking when I enter the room or try to join them. They don’t need to make an effort.

They do knock on each other’s doors every night, and never mine. They close their doors and I am left to listen to them giggle for hours. They often leave the room after I join the conversation. Tonight, I sat in the living room where I was told I was always welcome, and they went to one of their rooms and never returned.

She never responds to my texts, even though I have explained so many times that I need her to communicate with me. When I do try to communicate–because someone has to try–they either don’t care to comprehend or they don’t listen. I told them about my hours being cut at work, and their solution was to ask me to spend money three separate times within 48 hours. In general, they either don’t care or don’t want to.

When I last tried to speak to them, and all the times before, they fell into a good cop bad cop routine. Much like my former roommates. Much like my former and current friends. Bad cop was so clearly, visibly annoyed that I had anything to say at all. Within the week, when I was trying to include myself, she asked “Why do get to be the one to choose?”

She clearly feels one way, good cop will always choose her, and I can’t try forever. Even if they don’t realize it or even if they blame me, I don’t think they will ever understand how hard they are to be friends with. I don’t think they really are my friends anymore.

Maybe it’s not enough, but maybe I am doing my best.

Toothaches

in

Accidentally, purposefully, I’m throwing myself at him. I know what I’m doing. I’m cool–I dig in the knife. It’s okay if he rejects me. I know we’re not getting back together.

I asked to come over last Thursday. Two months, and I’ve slept at his twice. Last time, the first time, he said I was welcome anytime. I wanted to have sex. I took him up on it. I didn’t plan on staying the night. My allergies have been acting up since. My jaw cracks daily from not wearing my retainers. I’m a day or two off on my antibiotics.

I explained to a friend afterward that I didn’t know how I felt, and I don’t. I also explained that it’s hard because even though I don’t want the rest of my life to be decided now, even though I don’t care about where we are if it’s easy, it doesn’t mean I don’t want more. It doesn’t mean I didn’t think about it.

He didn’t know where it was going. He couldn’t even think of anything to not like about me (at New Year’s).

Tonight, after dinner (where I tried to touch my right leg against his left) and after parting, I asked if he wanted to come back to mine.

I went over to his for a lot of reasons. Because he never came to mine in our last month together. Because he hasn’t tried to since. Because I moved–and it feels significant that he’s never seen my new apartment, even though he’s asked about it. Because he felt like I set a boundary, and I knew he would never ask me over because of it. Because I was leaving work and he was already home.

I had already asked if he was just going home. Yes. He got into his car. I knocked on the passenger window. He said something about having to do something. The car behind him honked. He tried to say sorry or excuse his response, but I stepped away and waved him on. He asked me to text him when I got home. I thought about ignoring him, but I didn’t. It’s the decent thing to do.

We texted. I received a voicemail. He broke the boundary that I set and that I hate and I didn’t even receive the call because my new apartment has weird cell service. I called him back. We spoke for seven minutes. He’s home making a list of actors and directors he admires.

Parking is hard at my apartment anyway. The worst thing he could have done is rejected me, and he did. And he has.

In one of our phone calls, I told him I feel so rejected by him all the time. He asked if I meant when we were together or after we broke up. I told him both. He asked how. I didn’t give him the answers. Most of it’s in my head.

He maintains the boundary and I break it. He’s the one who decided to reject me to begin with.

I know that just because I want something, doesn’t mean I should expect it. Even if I wasn’t asking him to stay the night. I wasn’t asking him to kiss my face and tell me “You’re so beautiful.” like an act of making up for lost time. I just wanted to sleep with him again.

But I told him I don’t want to be friends. I told him too many times. I stick the knife in us both.

I called him crying. I suggested we leave a party together, crying. I called him crying. I called him crying. I asked to come over intending to have sex then leave but instead, I also cried and I also stayed the night. I invited him back into my world, and the motion failed. I should be more fair to myself.

The More and Less Emotional Part Two

in

When I first started dating him, he was so eager. I told a friend, not that he would, but that I wouldn’t have been shocked if he asked to meet my parents when they visited a month later.

Now, I’ve told him I don’t want to be friends, but in the same conversation, I told him I’m not as dedicated as him—that I wouldn’t be diligent about it. I haven’t been. A moth to a flame, I find him at work. I joke. I let myself be seen by him. I consider him when I look at myself.

Our friend had a game night last weekend. Game nights are usually emotional for me, and this one was no different. For the same reasons. For more.

Because I like him too much, I secured myself next to him in the beginning of the night. At one point, he turned to me and told me about what he ate for dinner with cadence like we were still together. It hurt so much. When he turned back to the game I did everything I could not to cry. I don’t think anyone noticed.

In the last round, he commanded a question about women’s thoughts during sex. What was I supposed to say? The first thought that popped into my head? Pain? Or “When will this be over?” or one of a million other anxieties my brain considers? Or the sheer overthought concentration I try to throw myself into so that I don’t think about anything beyond the moment? It was the best of it with him, and still I can’t shed it all.

So, I wrote “boredom.” I had to approach him afterward to say I didn’t mean it. He shook my hand for too long—as he always has.

Afterward, as I was locking the door to my apartment, he called me. He was asking to confirm gossip I had gone out of my way to tell him the week before, that I had wanted and was excited to tell him a week before, that he had just shared with an ex-coworker. I said, “Please don’t do this to me.” In different shares, because he broke his promise that he wouldn’t tell anyone, because the person he told has said to me in the past “Don’t share anything with me that you don’t want other people to know,” and also because I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone to begin with. Now, I’m caught for my betrayal as are you.

Mostly, I was sad he broke his promise. It was like midnight crowning in Cinderella. The ball was just a sham all along. I know it’s too harsh, but it’s how crushed I felt.

He didn’t like hearing I was disappointed. I should let it go, but we’ve kicked it back and forth at work over two days in three conversations.

My roommates knock on each other’s doors and never mine. They text each other and never me. They make decisions and only tell me when I ask. I feel abandoned, still, and distant.

I have tried to tell them twice and now it’s just there. And even if I didn’t say it, part of me feels like they should know me well enough after all these years, after hearing all my annoyances with other roommates, after hearing all the ways I’ve been hurt by other friends, that they should know me better. So, further, the chasm exists because they don’t.

I told them I need communication and I want to be involved, and nothing has changed. I think they think I hid in my room because I want to be alone. Meanwhile, as they laughed with each other tonight I cried.

At game night, the reason it is always emotional is because two girls who I have written about before, always use me as a scapegoat. It is a tired playbook. More so, it is less because they always enact the same plan, but because everyone always believes them. What is so wrong with me? What do you dislike so much?

The night before we had been out to a club, where my roommates were supposed to join us. They did, but they broke the rules (brought a boy) and didn’t dance with us.

Before Zebulon, the two girls and I had pre-gamed at another friend’s apartment. They asked me for advice in regard to another coworker. They laughed about how when they do something they know bothers another person, if the other person won’t confront them about it, they move on as if it didn’t happen. They laughed like they hadn’t done that to me. I didn’t say anything because it wouldn’t have helped the coworker they were asking me about. I didn’t say anything before because they would have laughed it off even if I had said something.

I tried to explain what I interpreted would be her reactions depending on the scenario, the conflicts and the contexts that claim the obstacle course. The one I have more issues with would sit and consider, and then respond one way or another by saying she doesn’t see it that way. At game night, as part of a game, she confessed she “Would rather die than:” “have a real adult conversation about feelings.”

A lot of nights I feel like there’s nothing I can do but hide in my room and hope I start to feel better.

Also, I think I’ve had strep the last two days. Either that, or some other viral infection. My dad has me on penicillin and I’m working through it.

The More and Less Emotional

in

I am re-reading How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti for the fifth time (in print). I both accidentally and purposefully return to this book annually, approximately. A year was rounding up and then everything collapsed, so I bought my dozenth copy (approximately).

Mainly, I was searching for an early two pages. They struck me in college, and they’ve been haunting me since July.

“Then one day, without warning, the air pressure dropped. The feeling was just gone. I had done nothing to make it go. I looked about me, relieved. But it was only a pause, for then began a building-up, a feeling worse than what had come before, like I was about to hurtle through space and time, like I was a rock that had been placed into a slingshot, drawn back to that August and held there. Then the hand let me go.

I felt the blood inside me gathering fast, the pulse drum up in my ears, my skin grow tense and cold, like I was pushing through the atmosphere too fast. My body was filled to bursting with dread, the anticipation of something I did not know, and an equal resistance overtook me—I wanted nothing more than to stave off this terrifying end to which I was hurtling, which I saw in my head as some kind of pain, and which was accompanied by a phrase that went through my head, over and over again: Punch yourself through a brick wall, punch yourself through a brick wall.

One evening, I saw what the brick wall was: my marriage. A tension came over me, an unbearable feeling of just wanting to get it over with. The wall was there: the pressure could only be released one way. I sat on my hands the entire day, but inside I was hurtling through space and time like a rock, and I told myself not to see anyone—not to speak to anyone—but when my husband lay down beside me that night, I turned over and said, as though I had thought it all through, considered his side, and was making a thoughtful decision: ‘I cannot be with you anymore.’

He’d had no sense of the storm clouds that had been building within me, and when he slammed out of the room, the storm clouds burst into rain, and all over my face and body was the cool wet of relief.” (p.44-45)

But there’s an earlier quote I substituted in conversation:

“This was the central preoccupation of her life when I arrived because it was the more emotional.” (p.6)

I called New Year’s boy twice last week, crying. The first call—two hours long—when he asked how life was and I refused to answer, I met in the middle. I am going through a lot at the moment. It’s not the worst time of my life. I’m just stressed about a lot.

In the second call—one hour long—I tried to explain, uncharismatically, that he is the more emotional.

I think about how I said I think things work out when they’re meant to, I think decisions like this are final, I don’t think we’re getting back together, and I would get back with you now but I don’t think you want to. Nothing untrue, nothing in full. The preoccupation of the moment.

I haven’t really cried since. A wash of balm applied. I stuck out my arms, and I understand why they’re empty. I expected them to be empty.

Delayed, we’re both going to be okay.

The less emotional rises to the foreground, except I tell myself it’s less emotional because the emotions are impossible to sort.

I moved, and as experience warned, the foundation is unsound. I have a coworker who upon every opportunity, warns about living with friends (as if that helps), and I am living with friends. I was going to live with friends well before she started taking toll. The emotional problem is the same: abandonment. The two of them are closer. I knew it. They know it. One said it.

I knew it, but I thought they knew me. I thought they cared more. I thought there’d be more welcome. There’s tolerance, but not to this bandwidth. I tried to tell them, but I think there’s misinterpretation. I don’t know how to say it again. So, I live with it. Like everything else, I try to swallow it. It’s just the more emotional, not the practical.

My mother would say I don’t have my priorities in order.

I’m sorry I only meet you midway too.

PMS, blunt end

in

I don’t feel emotionally charitable right now. I feel like in the depths, I am crystallizing, hard amber long to be unearthed.

I feel a lot of resentment and a lot of unrest. I am unable to control any sector, and I am exhausted.

Everything stings, especially him. I walk into it again and again. I know when he’s at work. I stand when he walks into the room. It hurts when he walks away so easily. Dedicated thru and thru. He could disagree, but it feels like I am often just a shadow passing by. I linger and he doesn’t. I grasp at what beauty I have. If I can still be pretty, then I have at least one appeal.

I know it’s more complicated than that, but I still reduce myself so. It doesn’t charm him back.

I know I can’t charm him back, and even if I could, it’s over when it’s over. And it’s over. I think that’s why I’m more sensitive to it now.

I’m sensitive to him–most when he’s right there. It’s still difficult to talk to him, or talk right after he leaves. He tried to comfort me the other day and I rejected it. He asked what was going to happen when he left. I would cry for two minutes more, and then I’d be okay. I didn’t say that. I shrugged and I shrugged. It hurts that he’s within proximity and it’s not the same. I miss talking to him, and even when we do, it’s not the same. We’re not in each other’s lives anymore.

I know I believe that when things end like this, they’re final. I don’t know if I had faced that reality in full. I think the rom-com in me hoped he’d turn back, and even still it probably wouldn’t work. He’d at least have turned back though. He told me he thought about it, which makes it worse.

It’s been over a month now, and the longer we’re apart the more I have to face the mirror. And the reasons grow, and my rejection grows. I don’t know how much more rejection from him I can face, or if I could ever face it again given the choice. I don’t think there’ll be a choice. I don’t think he tries to reject me as often as I feel it. We’re just moving on, and he’s better at it.

I think of the mouse that runs the maze again and again without reward. Why am I always the mouse?

I think about how he encouraged me to say what I was thinking just to say it, and I told him I don’t believe in that practice–not when there are stakes. I think about how among the many reasons, one is that if that was the path, there would never be an end. Given enough time, I can always feel more and say more. When does the conversation end if you don’t choose to leave it?

Without blame, he practices that philosophy too. And that’s what hurts me.

But sometimes we joke. I think we’re trying to be normal.

I just don’t think I can do it much longer. I think I was wading, and now that I don’t have the option to swim farther out, I am out. Beached and rotting, unable to give a performance.

He apologized for making things harder the other day when he didn’t need to. I know he’s not trying to. Intentions and received sentiments don’t always overlap.

He knew my lunch schedule, and I want to believe that means he follows my habits too. I still felt rejected in the moment, like he was kicking me out.

More than crystallized, I feel infected. I think a lot of my life was out of control before him, and with him–now after too. It’s not his fault, but he became unhappy and now I feel that too. I was happy with him, willfully ignorant. I’ve let the mud swallow my footsteps.

Because reality is, it was bad timing. When it rains it pours, and I have felt an avalanche of abandonment this last month and a half–from all sectors. I know it’s not the intention, but still, I feel wounded.

It’s an ongoing pity party.

An Unbearable Feeling of Just Wanting to Get it Over With

in

I meant to say all this before. I meant to never say it at all.

I meant to give up before now.

Three weeks and I’m still sad, but narrower than before. Three weeks of silent bouts of dramatics and reconfiguration. When it rains it pours, and like California, I don’t always know what to do with all this rain.

I have been angry. I have been quiet. I have been guarded.

I found a rent-controlled apartment. My co-worker asked, why do good things always happen to other people? Meanwhile, I’ve been asking, why do things always get harder? Why am I never enough? Why am I doing this to myself?

I don’t think he and I know each other at the moment. I think we both know, or at least I believe, decisions like this are final. My friend asked me if I thought we’d get back together. I don’t. I think even if that was on the table, while I would want to, in our current states, we’re no longer viable. I couldn’t give you an easy answer as to why.

All I ever really wanted was to be with him. Not in one way or another, but to be in each other’s lives. I wanted commitment in the form of consistency, not in labels. I guess that’s on the table now, but not really.

Yesterday, we had our final date. I’m going to call it a date. That’s what it was supposed to be before all this. We went to the movies. He tried to pay for dinner and I wouldn’t let him. He stood next to me, bodies too close for platonics. I tried to build over my emotions.

He offered to help me move, but he should know me better by now. I wanted to see his play, but his friends attended instead.

He was there for me, but he won’t let me do the same.

Cemented, cocooned, and calloused. I can intellectualize it all I want, but it doesn’t shed my anxieties. I haven’t felt anxiety about him, in speaking to him, in a long time. I don’t think I ever did like this.

And still, I watch him. I watch him more than he looks at me. He’s beautiful, and he’s gone.

Stagnancy, complacency, wanting, lingering. Overlapping.

Rage and devastation.

Crybaby.

He let it linger.

He followed thru on his promise.

I’m not going to be mad at him.

He said something, without realizing, about me being the fun girl. I am so tired of being the fun girl, but I also only want to be the fun girl. It depends on the context.

I hold myself. I build over.

I told him I would text him an ETA tonight.

Because talking to you is making me sad.

in

Last year, we were standing in our work parking lot, talking for over an hour after our shifts had ended. “I like talking to you.” / “I like talking to you too.” Now he never parks in that parking lot. He hasn’t for months. Today, we had lunch at the same time, and when he tried to talk to me, I couldn’t hide behind my wall. He asked me what was wrong, why I was starting to cry. I waved my hands. “Talking to you is making me sad.”

On our first date, we sat in his car and he asked me how I felt about PDA. At lunch, as has always been the case and I’ve told him so, I looked at him more than he looked at me. He tried to ask me about my life. I tried not to answer. He announced he’s going to our bi-annual-ish work party. Last time, I had to beg him to come, and he told me he was not going to the next one.

I try not to think about how suddenly he’s doing all the things I like to do, all the things I wanted us to do together, without me. He said he wants to know himself better. He said he liked how because of me, he left his apartment more. I guess I can’t fault him for acting on the reason for our breakup.

I am trying not to internalize the fact that no one ever wants me enough.

He told me it was “refreshing” that we didn’t fight, even at the end. What else was I supposed to do?

I said I wouldn’t immortalize us. I promise I linger minimally and only in short gusts. I wanted to use the word breeze, but today when I climbed into my car I choked out tears for a minute.

I did linger for a moment after work to see him, even though it made me sad and even though I had asked him “What’s the point?” at lunch.

I wish I could talk to him or about him without crying—always a big crybaby and especially compared to him.

I’m mostly sad he now makes me sad.