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.