It all comes full circle

I can't tell if I just want the attention but that guy seems to officially be back in the picture. Unofficially.

He was chivalrous when he visited, and I wasn't quite sure if he was just being nice or if it meant something more. He kept holding doors open for me. Walked on the outside of the sidewalk, nearer the traffic. I suppose it doesn't matter the specifics, I think it matters more that I see how I should have been treated all along, in love or not.

I guess I'll see what happens. He invited me to visit him. He keeps bringing it up. That's something, isn't it?

Two years and three states later and here we are?

Birthday

Today is his birthday.

And I miss him. I do.

I want

I want to stop hating him.

I want peaceful acceptance.

I want to not care what he does.

I never want to feel jealous again.

I want to function like a normal human being, like someone who isn't still suffering two and a half months after she got dumped. I can't see a way out. I can't even latch on a to a credible, date-able guy. My latest options include someone I quickly grew to hate, you remember him, what with his wanting to know me. And then I'm fixated for another second on The Bartender, you may also remember him, the raging alcoholic. And the guy from back when, back when Chicago was new, back before The Ex, when the world was bright and shiny.

I still can't pull it together. I still can't fully re-focus my energy into not hating The Ex.

I just want to be normal again.

What's love got to do with it

Of course I miss him. But I am feeling a little too fucked over for it to matter.

So when I wake up to a text from him saying, "I miss you all of the time," what really am I supposed to do?

Christmas time again

It feels harder today.

Hindsight is twenty twenty?

I have decided that for now, in an effort to move on, to not get myself worked up over a man who chose not to love me anymore, I will not talk to him, I will not entertain his text messages, his g-chats.

I feel more anger than anything right now.

I can't figure out which stage I'm in, which stage I'm supposed to be in, what's coming next. I feel angry at him, I feel duped. I feel like a schmuck. I am angry at him and angry at myself now that I'm peering into what we were, now that I have some space, now that I see the life we had: I hate myself for allowing it all to go down the way it did.

All a dream

I dreamed about The Bartender.

Breaking bad habits

I woke up this morning.

Began my daily routine of brushing my teeth, checking my e-mail, getting coffee started, scanning Facebook for the latest in friend news.

This morning, the latest in friend news was a picture of The Ex with another girl I sort of know. His co-worker. Or something along those lines.

Maybe those lines are now along the dating lines.

It's been at least five hours and I am still trying to talk myself off the ledge, listing off all the reasons I really shouldn't care, how I'm doing so well, I'm squashing old patterns, I'm alright, I'm great, I don't want to be with him, I really don't.

I don't.

So why does this bother me so much?

Trite expressions

I found something I wrote about The Ex right after we fell in love all those years ago.

I said:

Most of what I think about you is trite.

A little bit of nothing

I've been so busy dealing with this whole crushing break up business that I haven't mentioned that a boy from years ago came back into my life.

Calm down, dear fictitious reader, don't worry.

He's a good one.

He is the guy I dated right when I moved to Chicago, the guy I decided to stop dating because I chose The Ex. Way to go, me. Good call.

This guy, I was calling him New Guy I believe there for a while, we vaguely stayed in touch. My staying in contact with him didn't sit well with The Ex, rightly so since I had been dating the two of them at the same time.

I did maintain some contact with him, though very little. Until July, when he showed up at my work one night. (I used to manage a restaurant in that bright big windy city.) I was working, and he walked in and declared that he was offered a job near Smalltown and was taking it. I thought he was joking.

He was not joking.

He moved just a couple hours south of my hometown in July. I got fixated for a minute wondering what would have happened had I chosen him. I didn't choose him though, and shortly thereafter, we all know the rest, I landed right back here in Smalltown for the indefinite future.

New Guy and I have been talking. Every day. About nothing important. But it's been a regular occurrence. And now he's coming to visit. Next week. Just a day trip. He's flying out of here and asked if I wanted to spend the day with him, show him Smalltown, before he flies to Chicago for a visit, that place I left my heart.

I don't think anything will happen in any sort of physical romantic way. We may be just friends. We may not be. I always did find him a bit boring. But it's something. Or it may be nothing.

Only time will tell

It always feels the same.

The reason I have trust issues is that I think most men want to sleep with me. Saying this in a semi-public forum is difficult as it sounds utterly narcissistic. It's not that. It's that I have a real mistrust of men, and I don't know if it's The Ex or if this is some deep seated stuff that's just now rearing it's head.

It probably has to do with The Ex.

I hope it has to do with The Ex.

Take tonight, for example. I went to a holiday party, and there was a guy there who I know, I've known for awhile, who is a friend of some friends. He came with a girl but I still wondered if he was paying too much attention to me, wondered why at the end of the evening he asked for my number 'so we could all hang out' and if I was being paranoid as I always am or if it was him doing what I think all men are doing: trying to sleep with me.

I don't want to be that girl. I am fighting tooth and nail to not fall in to the same patterns now that I'm back in Smalltown, to work, to have my friends, to not focus on being lonely. I have plenty going for me, I need to focus on that. I miss The Ex, it's true. But time will heal me, I will feel better. I spent that first day in bed after the break up and it wasn't even a full day because my girlfriends were there, they stepped up immediately, they got me out of bed and fed me and let me weep over the idiot.

But That Girl. I don't want to be her. I don't want relationshipped men to try to get my number, to casually ask me about my life.

I didn't give him my number, didn't act interested, didn't want to be in a position to regret.

It perpetuates the idea that all men want merely to sleep with me. What a problem to have, what an un-unique situation, a twenty-something woman being desirable to men. But it's gotten to me. It's getting to me. It's turning me. I'm turning into someone who doesn't trust, who can go along with the games until I fall in love, until I'm on the other end, and I don't know what to do, how to cope, I don't know if this is a natural thing or if it's just me, I think it's just me, I have the problem, I read too much into things, I create problems where none exist.

It's a vicious cycle and I suppose time will help, I hope time will help, I don't know what else to do, I'm still in love with The Ex, I'm just counting on time to see me through, to make me into a functional human being again.

Broke down

I'm really just focusing on this new job, this wonderful turn of career events, and not on dating or any of that. But I want it. But only in the superficial ways. I am very aware I am not a whole human being right now, I am far from a whole person, from anyone who is capable of love.

I am still in love with a man who can't be in a normal relationship, and I don't think it was just me. I think he is a broken person. In turn, I am a broken person.

I see the light. I know I will be okay. Hope is not lost.

My heart is merely broken.

I simply love a broken man.

Kissing maybe kills

I went from cool to kinda sloppy drunk in about ten minutes.

He was talking and all I could think was how much I wish I could will myself to want to kiss him without feeling like I am betraying The Ex. Apparently I am not moving on, I'm moving on but not that quickly, what I thought was progress is actually backsliding, what I think is reality perhaps is not.

I am happy. I am over-the-top happy about everything aside from what this blog thrives on: the kissing. I miss the kissing and these days only one person will do: The Ex.

I shouldn't have kissed him last night for more reasons than the fact that now I equate kissing someone else with betrayal. I know his dating other people has nothing to do with me, in time, I will not care, I will let it go, I am good at that once I get my distance, but maybe Pandora's box has been cracked.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I meant to not do this.

What I miss most

I don't love him the same way.

We are happier apart.

I miss falling asleep next to him.

But I don't miss his big, unexecuted ideas. I don't miss feeling scared and worried all of the time. I don't miss getting mad over petty stuff. I don't miss feeling jealous for no good reason. I don't miss being paranoid of being left. I don't miss feeling like we were just getting by. I don't miss feeling like I couldn't help him.

I saw him tonight. For the first time in eight weeks, for the first time since we went on a picnic that ended our relationship. Since I couldn't stop crying and telling him to get out of my car, he ruined my life, I hated him. Since I didn't know I could hurt like that. Hate someone like that. Love someone like that.

I saw him to give him clothes I ended up with from Chicago. I only purposely packed some of them. And wore others. So. Well. I finally did laundry yesterday and was folding his shirts and thought, I never want to do this again. So I texted him and asked if I could drop off his clothes, in lieu of my initial thought to just drop them off outside his house and run.

I went and saw him and felt like I would be sick from nerves, I didn't want to open a Pandora's box of him. I didn't want to see his clothes in my laundry anymore. I didn't want to see him. I know us.

And it turns out I love him in a different way. We held each other for a long time. I kissed his neck and felt like nothing had changed, he was just the same. Felt silly for entertaining other men. Put my hands on the small of his back and felt home. Thought If only we could just have this part, this and finding new sketchy restaurants and laughing about most things. We used to be that way. Until we loved each other.

Mixed signals

I'm sending mixed signals?

Ugh.

I'm so over it.

I hate non-dating.

I'm not sending mixed signals. Because we're not dating.

Ugh, are we? Maybe I am sending mixed signals.

Mostly, mostly I don't want to deal with it, I don't want to deal with this men business, these men who I lose myself in, these men who distract me from the business of my life.

I got the Job Of My Dreams recently. I did. I started this week. I have been so busy with this new Job Of My Dreams business that I haven't had time to think about signals or no signals or dealing with this man who I'm not dating.

I'm having to talk myself into it. I don't want it. It's just that simple.

Unbelievable

I guess this is what love is all about.

I've never felt so betrayed.

So absolutely certain that I will not be the same.

But I'm still sitting in his sweatshirt that I loved, that I love. The sweatshirt is him, I loved/love him, I can't love him, I can't believe how deeply betrayed I feel, I can't get over this feeling. I can't get over the knowledge that I willingly loved someone like him. I can't believe it went as far as it did. I can't believe I gave so much to someone who I knew was capable of this. Deep down. I always knew.

But I'm still wandering around the house wearing his clothes. I'm still hoping he will initiate a g-chat conversation, even though I have nothing to say to him. I love him. I loved him. I hate him. I hate him.

My mind says hate. Something else, not so sure it's my trivial heart, but something else, it says do what you need to do. 

I don't want to be with him. I don't really want to talk to him. I hate him for the ways he has complicated my life, the ways I cannot trust, all the time ahead of me where I will have "baggage." I can't imagine being with someone else, loving someone else the same way. I'm wearing his sweatshirt. I feel like I'm defecting but I'm decidedly not. I'm decidedly unsure the next step to my recovery.

Love is a battlefield

I haven't told anyone but I am wearing his shirt. I am wearing this plaid shirt I used to constantly steal from him. Now he isn't here to fight me for it and I'm wearing it and I feel closer to him in our apartment in Chicago even though he isn't here and I'm mostly sure I should hate him. Hate him for ruining this good thing. Hate him for this very moment, this strange new life, this version of myself willingly packing my things and moving away because I am too scared to try anymore here.

Chi town

I am sitting in our apartment in Chicago thinking, This was our life.

Love stories and other ominous beginnings

I told him, "I mostly love/hate you."

Over it again

I have not seen him.

I have thought often of seeing him. But then I wise up.

I am going to Chicago tomorrow, I am going to pack up the remnants of our life.

And I gotta tell you, I am scared. It all feels so final. I do not want it to be over.

I nothing you

This new guy wants to spend time with me and get to know me and it scares me. I don't want him to know me. I don't want him to know me.

I do not want him to know me.

He invited me to hang out tonight last minute and I chose instead to obsessively text message a girl friend about anything else and watch girl television. I don't want to go on adventures with this new guy because I'm still in love with the old guy and most of me feels like it's wrong to be with someone else, and suddenly my apathy has turned into waking up with puffy eyes because I can't stop crying while this man who I loved for so long tells me he was wrong but he just couldn't love me the way I should be loved.

I can't say this to this new man who wants to know me. I can't tell him I can't stop feeling like I'm betraying the man I still love, who can't love me. Who loves me but can't love me. Something along those lines.

I don't want to get back with him. I don't want to be with that kind of person.

But I can't stop being in love with him. I can't stop feeling like having dinner with this new man is the ultimate betrayal, letting this new man kiss me is crossing the line, and I just want to stay home and feel this, accept this, allow myself to wallow in it. It's the only way to heal. To eventually be a normal person again.

I am so far from apathy and instead of wanting to say I nothing you, I texted him I love you.

Crazy little thing

This talking.

It sets me back.

I'm twenty four hours in and many drinks in and set back.

That guy who I'm not dating but dating but not dating texted me and I didn't care one way or another. Not that I really cared yesterday before the talking.

After the talking with The Ex I'm weighing everything a little too closely, worried I'm still making the wrong decisions, finally aware now that my unwillingness to love him at the outset was the reason he could never love me when I finally decided to love him. It's complicated.

But aside from me already feeling unable to accept anyone into my life, aside from that, I now worry that not accepting someone is going to lead into another cyclical situation where I find myself in a few years in this same position simply because I couldn't get my act together initially and then the man I loved couldn't love me after the irresponsible way I treated him at the outset.

I don't even make sense. Well. Maybe to the crazies.

Take it back

I would do anything to take it all back.

I would do anything to go back to four years ago.

Four years ago, when we first met, when he loved me, and I was indecisive.

I would go back.

I would love him.

And now, now it would be okay.

Instead of typing right this second, I would be pressed against him, asleep in our bed, breathing him in, sleeping until the next day, when our lives would begin.

White teeth

He was at my house. He was in my living room. I walked upstairs to freshen up before leaving.

I walked to a different floor.

I started brushing my teeth.

And he just popped in.

To my bathroom.

On another floor.

And now he acts like I'm acting weird.

And all I can think is, Give me five fucking seconds to brush my damn teeth.

It was all fine until he wanted to know me. He wants to know me and I can't run away fast enough.

Left my heart in Chicago

I may or may not have curled up with his scarf last night, breathing in every bit of him in.

I'm somewhere in the middle of all of this. I don't want him here, I don't want him to know me, I want to be alone, I want to prove to every damn person I'm fine, I'm fine, I don't want anyone in my space, I don't want a man to think I need him.

I don't want him in my bed. I have a point to prove.

I can do it.

I can do it.

I am fine.

All those nights pressed against him in our bed, in our bedroom, in our brownstone, on our tree-lined street that always had such a lovely slightly menacing air about it, they don't mean anything now. And maybe it is my ego, maybe I'm fighting my ego more than I'm fighting heartbreak, maybe I can't get over Chicago because Chicago is my real love, the place I tried so hard to make my own, the place I can't bear to stay. He is everywhere. Chicago is ours.

I feel like I'm quitting. He broke up with me and now I have to break up with Chicago. My heart is breaking over a city. It's breaking over a damn city. It's breaking over all my dreams coming to a sudden halt, all my plans, all that I had been doing, it's all done.

My heart is broken, and I can't quite pinpoint why.

You don't know me

I don't really want him to know me.

I don't want a man to know me.

Not that way.

This probably has to do with my recent crushing heartbreak and/or inability to trust.

Likely.

I don't need any help, I don't need a shoulder to cry on, I don't want your damn opinion. 

Brave face

I think all this apathy has me turned around. I can't even place my feelings right now. I thought I was fine. I feel fine. I feel okay.

I haven't been actively seeking Someone New. I ran into this guy I sort of know, we started hanging out, and now, suddenly, he's trying to let me off the hook easy. He's trying to be a good guy, and be aware of my feelings, and how this might be too fast for me.

What the fuck does he know?

All I want, all I want, is to not be told what to feel by a man. I don't need anyone to sleep next to, to kiss goodnight, to call when I'm worried. I don't want it. I know what I am capable of: being dependent, needing someone, wanting love.

And right now, I don't need love. I moved to Chicago to go it alone, and now that I'm relegated back to Smalltown, I need to go it alone for a change. I lost myself in The Ex, in making it work, and now all I want is to put on my weird bleaching cream at night and fall asleep with the pillows just how I like them and wake up and not worry about talking to someone first thing in the morning.

I'm not making this up, I'm not putting on a brave face, and maybe my apathy is truly hiding what I really feel, but right now, right this second, all I want is to go it alone. All I feel is the overwhelming desire to be left the fuck alone.

Dreamworld

I sent The Ex a message telling him when I would be back in Chicago. When I would be back to pack and then get the hell out of there.

And suddenly he wanted to talk about packing our apartment up together, he wanted to see me, he wanted to have a pretty ending to our ugly relationship.

How fucking selfish.

The truth is, I'm apathetic. I'm apathetic because I'm living in a new life and that old life, all that time in Chicago, all those nights pressed against him, it feels like a dream. I don't know that life. How can I miss what doesn't even feel real?

Sleeping Sickness

I slept next to someone else last night.

I slept next to someone else and it wasn't because I had too many glasses of wine or felt scared to be alone. I didn't justify my actions by thinking about The Ex, as he is now known. I didn't think of him at all. I didn't think.

Well, I thought. I thought, I am comfortable. I am not sad.

I'm not a proponent of that old expression the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. That's never my objective. It never appeals to me. Last night wasn't this. It's been over a month, it doesn't feel that long but in my mind, it feels like another life.

This new life in this new place involves waking up next to someone else and not cringing, not regretting, not thinking about The Ex.

I'm not cured and I'm not delusional that I'm cured. But I'm accepting and this is something new for me. Acceptance. Acceptance.

Wasted

It's been a month.

We went to have a picnic and he said, "We love each other but we're not helping each other." We had the entire picnic. He even brought bubbles. This was after the bubbles. After the picnic. We went down that road again, that same fight that we couldn't shake, that was like a bad cold, and the screaming started, the yelling and trading things we couldn't let go, and he said: We love each other but we're not helping each other.

All I could think was: I wasted so much of my damn time.

All this time, all this effort, and he does this.

That's all I could think. All I can still think, really. All the time I wasted.

Curveball

You saw this coming, didn't you?

I did.

Didn't.

Of course I saw it coming.

No, I didn't.

I can't make up my mind. I can't make up my apathetic mind.

He sent me a message late last night. It said: I hope ur well, I miss you. The only thing I could think to say was: I nothing you. So I did what your mother always tells you to do if you have nothing nice to say: I said nothing at all.