coming back to bite me
Today at work I was reading over my March horoscope (from astrologyzone.com, which is pretty good) -- and I saw that Mercury in retrograde in my fifth house until the 25th means I'll probably get back in touch with an "old flame" and perhaps "rekindle things" -- or else get closure of some kind. Interesting.
So, of course, as I was riding the bus home this afternoon, my cell phone rang and it was CB. Fuck. I was scrambling to get the phone out of my pocket in case it was SK calling from Tasmania, and I almost threw the phone down when I saw CB's name on the screen instead of "Private Number." Fuck fuck fuck. (Sorry Rufus.) I silenced the ring and shoved it back in my pocket. Fuck.
I went home, made food, walked up to my favorite coffeeshop, worked on my paper for a few hours, had a nice conversation with SK who eventually *did* call, etc, etc, etc, came home, washed my dishes, started cooking some food then -- BAM -- before I knew it and w/o even really thinking about it, I called CB back. I hadn't been *thinking* about it, per se, but it had been weighing on me, somewhere in the back of my little mind. Somewhere on the top of my heart. Weighing like a dead body or wet blanket.
So I called and she answered. And we had the most heartbreaking, fucked up, painful, sad, infuriating, *long* conversation, which, not surprisingly, ended when she hung up on me. I thought we were finally having "the" conversation, the one where I really tell her, really explain everything about why I left, why I stayed gone, why I'm, ultimately, done. The one where I'm compassionate, yet completely truthful, and she really hears me, finally hears me, and we break through the weird crust of expectation and bitterness and really talk. Actually talk. And maybe heal something? Maybe take a step closer, to maybe make a friendship someday? Yeah... I'm nuts.
I had that conversation, I said all those things, I sobbed and told her everything about my leaving that I could think to tell. I countered her assertions that I hadn't been honest, I challenged her assumptions that I left her for Mog or that I'd been planning to leave all along, that I tricked her into "believing in forever," that leaving is my fucking, so-called "pattern," (only, tonight, she called it my "M.O.") I explained (again) that, contrary to her belief that my leaving was "easy" and "so sudden" -- my leaving was extremely difficult, painful, frustrating, lonely, heartbreaking, and STILL IS, and that it was *not* "so sudden," and if she'd only been paying attention for the last five months of our relationship she would've realized how *not* sudden it was. I told her that I love her and I miss her and that I'm heartbroken to have lost our relationship, our marriage, our home, our life -- that I'm still grieving all of it -- and that, despite all that, I'm still done. I explained all my reasons, all the hard stuff, the really personal stuff, the truest of the true stuff. I said it all, I said it through tears, I said it with heart and with truth. And when I was done, what did she say?
She said "I don't believe you."
I should've gotten off the phone right then, b/c the rest of the conversation was just spinning wheels and a lot more crying. Bottom line, she still has hope, she still wants to be with me, she's still waiting for me to come home. Bottom line, as long as I say I'm "done" she doesn't want to hear anything I have to say. I told her in a million different ways that I'm done. We went over and over and over it like riding a roller coaster with only one loop that you take a million times. It would die down and she'd bring it up again. So frustrating!!! We'd cry and cry, the subject would change, we'd keep talking (arguing, arguing, so frustrating, the most frustrating conversations ever) and then she'd come back in with something like this: "I can just tell by your voice that you're done, I just know it." And I'd say "CB, you don't have to 'tell by my voice' that I'm done. I'm telling you out loud in English that I'm done. You don't have to figure it out, it's not a secret." Then more crying, then more arguing, then all over again.
In the end, after more crying, more arguing, she finally had the fucking audacity to say this "This may seem strange... I know this is strange... but..." and a pause so long I swear I couldn't even imagine what she was going to say and I really, honestly wouldn't have guessed she would be so *daft* as to say this, but she finally said, "Do you think... you might want... to... you know... get together... and just see... about... working something out... with me... a relationship...?" NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO!!!
I said, w/o hesitation, "no." And she hung up on me.
I reread that, and I see how heartbreaking it is. She is heartbreaking. She's on the phone crying, saying she loves me, misses me so much, misses her best friend, misses her wife, thinks about me all day every day, wakes up in a daze, can't believe I really left, that I'm really gone -- and that gets me, it really gets me, it breaks my heart because I miss her too! And I do love her and I know exactly where she's at and I understand that pain and from her perspective I guess I seem like the cruelest torturer on the planet. But christ!! It's all about her! Her love for me is all about her! She didn't take care of me like I wanted and needed to be taken care of. She didn't take care of our relationship. She only took care of herself, and by "take care" I don't mean to imply that she was really caring for herself, she was only behaving selfishly and very self-destructively.
Fuck it's so frustrating.
Then, an hour after hanging up on me, she called back. A perfect illustration of why I can't be with her: when I saw her name on the phone I actually felt *scared* -- I got a pit in my stomach, lost my appetite and worried that if I didn't pick up, she might just drive over here -- show up on my doorstep (echoing all those nights, fighting instead of sleeping, when I'd retreat to the spare bedroom and she'd follow me, or she'd wake up in the middle of the night after a fight and realize I was gone and she'd come looking for me, demanding my attention, demanding I get back in bed, wake up, engage with her. Demanding, in short, that she have it her way, only her way, all the time.) Asshole.
In the middle of the phone call, in the hardest part, hurting and crying and shrinking and twisting inside, I sat at my desk and looked at all the pictures of SK everywhere. SK's big, golden eyes looking at me from five different angles, beaming out this incredible, abundant sweetness, this love that holds everything, that doesn't diminish, demand, take, destroy, disrespect, deny, etc, etc, etc. SK who is so new yet so kind and warm and who holds me in it all, who holds me. And I took comfort there. And that is exactly where I want to be.
SK. Come home from Australia. I need to bury my head in your neck and recouperate.
So, of course, as I was riding the bus home this afternoon, my cell phone rang and it was CB. Fuck. I was scrambling to get the phone out of my pocket in case it was SK calling from Tasmania, and I almost threw the phone down when I saw CB's name on the screen instead of "Private Number." Fuck fuck fuck. (Sorry Rufus.) I silenced the ring and shoved it back in my pocket. Fuck.
I went home, made food, walked up to my favorite coffeeshop, worked on my paper for a few hours, had a nice conversation with SK who eventually *did* call, etc, etc, etc, came home, washed my dishes, started cooking some food then -- BAM -- before I knew it and w/o even really thinking about it, I called CB back. I hadn't been *thinking* about it, per se, but it had been weighing on me, somewhere in the back of my little mind. Somewhere on the top of my heart. Weighing like a dead body or wet blanket.
So I called and she answered. And we had the most heartbreaking, fucked up, painful, sad, infuriating, *long* conversation, which, not surprisingly, ended when she hung up on me. I thought we were finally having "the" conversation, the one where I really tell her, really explain everything about why I left, why I stayed gone, why I'm, ultimately, done. The one where I'm compassionate, yet completely truthful, and she really hears me, finally hears me, and we break through the weird crust of expectation and bitterness and really talk. Actually talk. And maybe heal something? Maybe take a step closer, to maybe make a friendship someday? Yeah... I'm nuts.
I had that conversation, I said all those things, I sobbed and told her everything about my leaving that I could think to tell. I countered her assertions that I hadn't been honest, I challenged her assumptions that I left her for Mog or that I'd been planning to leave all along, that I tricked her into "believing in forever," that leaving is my fucking, so-called "pattern," (only, tonight, she called it my "M.O.") I explained (again) that, contrary to her belief that my leaving was "easy" and "so sudden" -- my leaving was extremely difficult, painful, frustrating, lonely, heartbreaking, and STILL IS, and that it was *not* "so sudden," and if she'd only been paying attention for the last five months of our relationship she would've realized how *not* sudden it was. I told her that I love her and I miss her and that I'm heartbroken to have lost our relationship, our marriage, our home, our life -- that I'm still grieving all of it -- and that, despite all that, I'm still done. I explained all my reasons, all the hard stuff, the really personal stuff, the truest of the true stuff. I said it all, I said it through tears, I said it with heart and with truth. And when I was done, what did she say?
She said "I don't believe you."
I should've gotten off the phone right then, b/c the rest of the conversation was just spinning wheels and a lot more crying. Bottom line, she still has hope, she still wants to be with me, she's still waiting for me to come home. Bottom line, as long as I say I'm "done" she doesn't want to hear anything I have to say. I told her in a million different ways that I'm done. We went over and over and over it like riding a roller coaster with only one loop that you take a million times. It would die down and she'd bring it up again. So frustrating!!! We'd cry and cry, the subject would change, we'd keep talking (arguing, arguing, so frustrating, the most frustrating conversations ever) and then she'd come back in with something like this: "I can just tell by your voice that you're done, I just know it." And I'd say "CB, you don't have to 'tell by my voice' that I'm done. I'm telling you out loud in English that I'm done. You don't have to figure it out, it's not a secret." Then more crying, then more arguing, then all over again.
In the end, after more crying, more arguing, she finally had the fucking audacity to say this "This may seem strange... I know this is strange... but..." and a pause so long I swear I couldn't even imagine what she was going to say and I really, honestly wouldn't have guessed she would be so *daft* as to say this, but she finally said, "Do you think... you might want... to... you know... get together... and just see... about... working something out... with me... a relationship...?" NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO!!!
I said, w/o hesitation, "no." And she hung up on me.
I reread that, and I see how heartbreaking it is. She is heartbreaking. She's on the phone crying, saying she loves me, misses me so much, misses her best friend, misses her wife, thinks about me all day every day, wakes up in a daze, can't believe I really left, that I'm really gone -- and that gets me, it really gets me, it breaks my heart because I miss her too! And I do love her and I know exactly where she's at and I understand that pain and from her perspective I guess I seem like the cruelest torturer on the planet. But christ!! It's all about her! Her love for me is all about her! She didn't take care of me like I wanted and needed to be taken care of. She didn't take care of our relationship. She only took care of herself, and by "take care" I don't mean to imply that she was really caring for herself, she was only behaving selfishly and very self-destructively.
Fuck it's so frustrating.
Then, an hour after hanging up on me, she called back. A perfect illustration of why I can't be with her: when I saw her name on the phone I actually felt *scared* -- I got a pit in my stomach, lost my appetite and worried that if I didn't pick up, she might just drive over here -- show up on my doorstep (echoing all those nights, fighting instead of sleeping, when I'd retreat to the spare bedroom and she'd follow me, or she'd wake up in the middle of the night after a fight and realize I was gone and she'd come looking for me, demanding my attention, demanding I get back in bed, wake up, engage with her. Demanding, in short, that she have it her way, only her way, all the time.) Asshole.
In the middle of the phone call, in the hardest part, hurting and crying and shrinking and twisting inside, I sat at my desk and looked at all the pictures of SK everywhere. SK's big, golden eyes looking at me from five different angles, beaming out this incredible, abundant sweetness, this love that holds everything, that doesn't diminish, demand, take, destroy, disrespect, deny, etc, etc, etc. SK who is so new yet so kind and warm and who holds me in it all, who holds me. And I took comfort there. And that is exactly where I want to be.
SK. Come home from Australia. I need to bury my head in your neck and recouperate.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 9:56 PM
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